Tidbits

Life is rolling on here in M-ville these fall days.  The weather is beautiful and crisp.  We have had a few days of chilly weather and have been convinced that winter is coming…only for the next day to be warmer and simply gorgeous.  One day was overcast and rainy and we lamented about how cold it was…only to look at the thermometer and discover it was all of 60 degrees.  Those days where it was 115 must have taken a toll on us!

I don’t have anything huge to write about today…or maybe I do and would rather just go take a nap…so I thought I would bullet point some tidbits of really useful information/random things happening in our life.

First things first: Little t. The kid is a riot. Like I said last time, he is a singing, dancing, marching, yelling, laughing, crying, filthy dirty dusty ball of fun.  He grows up so much each day and we are loving him.

-       He just got a haircut in anticipation of our trip next week.  He sits well if we turn on his current fave movie (Bug’s Life as of two days ago) and he can hold his Daddy’s hand while I trim.  The bribe of a shower as a reward at the end also reaps big benefits. 

-       A made Little t a new scooter type thing that he is still deciding if he likes or not.  Everyone else thinks it is the coolest thing ever. He is really interested in pushing it around and gets frustrated when the rabbit won’t sit on it so he can push him.

-       Speaking of the rabbit. That is one amazing animal.  I will write a post on him soon, but let’s just say he is the coolest.  He is SO patient…like scary patient.   He has been spotted riding Little t’s bike, Little t’s firetruck, in the stroller, and in the wheelbarrow. He takes it all in stride…going along for a little bit and then hopping off when he is done.  I have yet to let Little t give Romeo (the rabbit) a ride in the swing…I just think that might be a little too far…although part of me secretly wants to witness it. 

-       We were very impressed to see that Little t was carrying Romeo the other day.  Upon further inspection, we saw that he had not picked him up by his body as normal people do.  He had grabbed two generous fistfuls of his beautiful soft fur and was carrying him by that.  As always, Romeo took it all in stride.  I had to stifle laughter as I talked to Little t about how to be nice to friends and not pulling hair.

-       Little t asked yesterday if Romeo could do with us to Dubai next week. Again, I was chuckling as I told him that Romeo needs to stay here and keep kAkA company while we are gone.

-       Speaking of kAkA, they spend a few hours outside every morning.  They love spending time together and I don’t mind the extra time to write or get things done around the house.

-       As far as the night guards go, Little t has them wrapped around his finger as well. He discovered a while ago that each time they come, they bring naan (bread) for their evening meal.  The second he hears the gate open around five o’clock, he runs to it saying, “Salaam naan! Salaam Naan!” (greeting them and asking for bread)  They tear off a big piece and give it to them.  If he doesn’t find them first, they seek him out.  A few nights ago when he was getting ready for bed, we were all reading books in his room.  The guard knocked on the door to tell A something about the electricity. Little t heard his voice and started yelling across the house, “salaam, naan, thank you! Okay, naan, thank you!”  It was very funny.

-       Little t seems to be having a vocabulary/speaking explosion lately.  He is ALWAYS talking. Each night he comes in from playing with A before supper to tell me a big long  (and very animated) story about what they did.  New words include: noodles, march, see, watch, Romeo, Dubai, Swimming, Ice Cream, Bumpa, Baby, oatmeal, potatoes, fly. Phrases are also coming along nicely; bye dad, okay mamma, here you go, there it is, got it, go potty, etc. Got it sounds like die, so every time he sees a fly he yells, ‘fly!’ through the house.  Then when we kill it he yells, “DIE!” and claps his hands.  It makes us laugh every time.

-       Potty…he has becoming interested in the toilet a little more and will now announce when he has gone in his diaper, but there is no consistency (I am not consistent on having him sit on the toilet throughout the day either, so the blame does not all fall on him.) He has cool big boy undies  and he loves wearing them…and seems to think they even cooler after he has peed in them?!?  Needless to say, we have a ways to go.

-       Our mornings have fallen into a routine lately where A gets up with Little t and I get a few extra minutes in bed while they get ready, make oatmeal, coffee, etc.  This morning I heard Little t yelling “Bumble! Bumble!” through the house. Bumble is a very scientific term in our house used for someone who is being lazy in bed/has been in bed for a long time.  We say it to Little t when he has taken a long nap or slept in.  A used it in reference to me this morning and it stuck.  Little t thought it was hilarious. 

In non-Little t news: 

-       We are headed to Dubai in a few days for a break.  After a busy/eventful summer and a fall spent helping pack and prepare for our friends leaving (along with the new responsibilities A has picked up in their absence) we are ready for a few days away.  We are looking forward to good food and parks and swimming and shopping and generally not doing much.  If you were to ask Little t he would tell you we are going to “Bye!” (with his hands in the air) and we are going to go swimming and eat ice cream.  Smart boy.

-       This trip has become somewhat of a packing nightmare. Because we all know that an extra bag of chocolate chips or block of cheese is more important than Little t staying warm right? We are in the capital (where it is chilly) for a while and then in Dubai where the temps are around 100. We want to pack as lightly as possible so we have plenty of room to bring a fair amount of goodies back, but the two temperature extremes are proving to make that difficult.  It is a challenge that we have been working on conquering for a few weeks. I will let you know how it goes.

-       We are asking God big time for rest on this trip. We get drained pretty quickly here and need times of rest…and that means sleeping at night. Sleeping at night is something that my very cute and sweet little fart of a son is not known for doing while traveling.  We are really pra.ying for a small miracle that comes in the form of sleep for all of us.  We would not at all mind if you would like to pr.ay for us in that way as well. 

-       In more important news, we are stoked about eating in Dubai. Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Thai, Chinese schwarma, falafel, hummus, ice cream, hamburgers.  We like to eat (that is more obvious for some of us than others) and our list of favorites is not small.  The thought of being able to eat at a restaurant – I am giddy.

-       After Dubai we will roll ourselves back to come back to the capital for a gathering of all of the people in our organization.  We are looking forward to seeing friends who are scattered across the country and catching up with people. 

-       We had an AWFUL dust storm here last week. It was during the night and I woke up to what I thought were bombs. I realized it as wind and thunder. The rest of the night was so loud and dusty. Doors and windows were closed, but it was hard to breathe because the dust was blowing in so bad. The next day, A being the smart aleck smarty he is came up with a joke. He asked all of his local coworkers what causes a dust storm. They had no idea and then he told them that it was me leaving clothes out on the line!  Sure enough, I left diapers out and they were covered with grime.  Because it rained after I couldn’t just shake the dust off like before, so I had to wash them again.  This morning as I got clothes off the line kAkA teased me that he was sure another ‘typhoon’ was going to come last night since he saw I had left them all out.  I am surrounded by smart alecks!

-       It looks like we have another week of no power. This morning angel khAla offered to take all of the laundry home and iron it and bring it back in a few days. She firmly believes in ironing everything…you live in our house and your underwear get ironed, thanks to angel khAla. I tried not to act too surprised, but the thought of how many fleas would get brought back with the clothes just about sent me into a panic.  So I told her that it isn’t that big of a deal if they aren’t ironed for our trip. If I wouldn’t have known better, I would have sworn I had suggested walking around naked…the look of shock on her face was priceless. The woman dearly dearly loves ironed clothes.  I love a flea free house even more!

Okay, my nap is calling my name and this is plenty long, so I will finish for now. I will be sure to check in and let you know how the ice cream in Dubai is!