Middle East–take two

I’m currently sitting at our gate, waiting for them to call for our flight to board. Sounds peaceful, right? Well, in the hour or so that we’ve been at the airport:

The baby screamed all the way through security (but we got to go in the family line so no naked pictures and a shorter wait.

Josh swore that he heard Calvin’s name being paged over the loudspeaker so he went off to go solve that mystery about 10 minutes ago. I don’t know how anyone can distinguish anything anyone says over those paging systems. I hear things like, “Your mom freesia – please come to the carnival house yesterday” or “will passenger Gi Yu Romania, please go to the dog latch.” But Josh is convinced that they called Calvin’s name and he’s usually right about these sort of things so who knows what that’s about.

Meanwhile I am sitting with baby girl who managed to dump an entire container of puffs in her lap – I think I rescued most of them but there are crumbs and puff dust everywhere. I thought she would just play with the jar, but I guess she’s smarter than I am.

I tried to get on SFO’s free wifi, but it either wasn’t working, or I just didn’t connect properly. I’m betting on the latter. Then a loud, shrill BEEP BEEP BEEP (pause) BEEP BEEP BEEP started and I was sure it was some sort of fire alarm and was just waiting for them to announce we had to evacuate when it stopped.`

Josh just came back and said that one of our bags is locked and he has to go all the way back through security to figure out which bag has the problem. It’s probably the guitar.

Baby is yelling and teething so I gotta go pull out the Motrin. Happy travels to us!

less than 24 hours . . .

until we're in the air, again. Josh is checking us in online as I write this and all the bags are packed. It seems like we have more stuff than last time, which shouldn't be possible, but we were able to buy shoes and other extra clothes to replace those that were left behind in Egypt so I guess that's part of it. The Monterey Hillbillies are hitting the road, this time with knives and an electric fly zapper.

Speaking of Egypt, the word from there is that embassy employees should all be headed back in the next 2 weeks or so, but no families yet. And those who are there haven't been allowed to travel freely around the city so it is to our benefit to be headed to Oman instead. Of course today the Omani army moved in, shut down a protest and arrested a bunch of people in Sohar, about 200 km (125 miles) from Muscat. Maybe I shouldn't unpack when we get there . . .

I think baby girl reads my blog because ever since I posted about how we compete to get her to sleep she has been all, "oh yeah? I'll show you!" and has been sleeping like a normal human all week long. 2 hour naps, more than one nap a day, no screaming for almost an hour as we futilely try and sooth her to sleep. Instead she's been snuggling into her sheets, whimpering a little, yawning a lot and drifting off to sleep easily. She's even been sleeping for a 6 hour stretch each night. Someone snuck in and swapped babies with me and I came out the winner in that trade.

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning 3 nights ago and Camille hadn't woken up yet and I my first thought was, "I'm sure she's OK, but I need to check to see if she's still alive or I'm just going to lie awake all night wondering if she is actually breathing." She was, but I think my poking woke her up -- I tried the hand on the back, but I couldn't feel anything through the blanket and I put my hand in front of her nose and mouth, but I couldn't feel any breathing, so I just poked her until she moved, but then she was awake and yelling for me and I was thinking, "no wonder your kids don't sleep through the night."

So anyway, happy days are here again. At least temporarily, until we do a time-warp/shape-shifting move on our little girl again. And just in case she is reading . . . I totally bet that she won't sleep at all on the plane.

Go ahead and prove me wrong little girl. I dare you.

Miss Manners

We went out to lunch today to meet a friend from church one last time before we leave the country. Eating out is fun, but it’s also an exercise in juggling my own food, feeding bits to the baby, glaring at those who take huge bites of food and then proceed to chew those bites with their mouths wide open, directing others who can’t seem to sit and eat at the same time . . . you get the picture.

So we were actually having a pretty relaxing, enjoyable lunch. Baby was in lemon heaven, the boys were eating and coloring, and Josh and I were enjoying grown-up talk. Then Caleb accidently knocked his (plastic) cup of ice off the table, spilling it all over the floor. Without prompting, he got down on the floor and picked up every single piece of ice and put it back in the cup and wiped up the water off the floor with his napkin. I was so proud. I gave myself a silent pat on the back, “My boys are going to grow up to be well mannered men who know how to eat in public. Whew!”

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see Caleb eating the ice he had just picked up off the floor. Our friend was in the middle of a story and not wanting to interrupt (and really, I didn’t want anyone else to know that I had a kid who would actually eat off the floor), I started shooting crazy eyed glares and willing him to look up at me so he could catch my “whatareyoudoingyoucrazykid” look. No luck. My baby boy continued to happily suck away on floor ice. *sigh*

Let’s just hope the folks at Islands pride themselves on really clean floors.

olympic games

there is a new sport that has developed at our house -- everyone has a different way to play it, but the objective is the same: getting Camille to sleep.

We've all experienced the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat." (Remember the old intro to ABC's Wide World of Sports where the skier crashes and flips down the mountain?) You don't?
Maybe this will refresh your memory:



 I loved watching that dude crash every week . . . have I mentioned how much I love the internet? I found that video in less than 10 seconds and then spent the next 10 minutes watching all the intros from the different years, all featuring the same crashing skier. I'm actually supposed to be packing, but I'm having my own 80s flashback party instead. Good times.

Anyway, back to my own crashing and burning. I am unable to get my baby to sleep. And every other member of the family has a trick that sometimes works. I got nothing.

My approach: Nurse baby. She falls asleep. Move her to her bed. She wakes up. I pat her for 20 seconds, arm starts to fall asleep (from hanging over the side of the bed) and I think, "I just nursed you for 20 minutes. This blows. I'm outta here."

Thankfully, I have scores of teammates waiting to sub in. Calvin's secret weapon is his ipod touch. He has a special playlist that he put together and labeled Camille's nap music. He climbs in her bed, puts the ipod next to her head and pats her back. The other day he came out saying, "2 songs. A new record."

Carter employs music too, but he sings to Camille. As long as he can pat and sing at the same time, he's successful about 70% of the time.

Caleb lies down next to her and gets right up in her face. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he just talks to her and tells her to go to sleep. When she turns away from him he climbs to the other side so he can look right in her eyes. I only usually sub him in if it's a hail-Mary type of situation since the odds of it working aren't very high, but every now and then he gets the win.

I say that Josh has the best baby sleeper skillz since he is successful 95% of the time, but really I think that he just has more patience than I do. And he can't nurse the baby. I think one of the unwritten rules of our game is possession of food is an automatic DQ.

Thankfully, in the last week Camille has gone from formidable adversary to a reluctant member of our team. Or at least she has moved to sitting on our sidelline. She is going to sleep easier and sleeping for "longer" stretches. I know it's sad that I'm celebrating stretches of 3 -5 hours at night, but I'm enjoying thrill of victory anyway.

someone's in the kitchen with Nana . . .

banging with the old spoon-o . . . yeah, that doesn't really work, does it.



(It's late. I'm out of clever things to say. I just wanted to post this video.)

on the move

Only one week until our family moves again, but Camille decided she didn’t want to wait that long.
   
Our little girl is now mobile. Thankfully she’s not fast yet, but it’s coming. My sweet spot that occurs when baby can sit independently and play, but can’t move is rapidly disappearing.

tick tock, tick tock . . .

making lemonade

It turns out that our girly LOVES lemons. We discovered this one day at a restaurant when she was being particularly screechy and grabbing at everything, including the lemon in my water. I gave up and said, "Fine. You want a lemon? Have at it."

You would think she would do what normal babies do and make a face and spit it out, but no, she chowed down and came back for more. 

Since then, if you'd let her, she'd eat lemons all day, every day. She'll keep going until her mouth has a red ring around it from the acid and then I feel like a bad mom and try to give her something else instead.

If one lemon is great, two are even better!

Now we have a foolproof way to keep her quiet when we eat out. As long as the lemons last, we can eat in peace.



Well, as peaceful as dinner can be with 3 other boys at the table . . .

rainy days and Mondays

Today qualifies as both so we're saying inside and keeping warm and dry in front of the fire.

I started packing (again) last night. After looking at the weather for this week (rain, rain and more rain) I realized I'd have no need for short sleeved shirts and lightweight skirts until we get to Oman, so I might as well get them out of my drawers.
9 days. I better start working on my lists . . .

Abu Tarek revisited

Josh and I wanted to learn to make koshari (Egypt's national dish) before we left Cairo, but obviously with our abrupt return to the states, that didn't happen. We didn't let that stop us though. I found a few recipes online and based on what we knew it should taste like, we put together our own recipe tonight.

 

Cooked short grain rice, lentils, macaroni, and chickpeas tossed with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. (The oil keeps the rice from sticking together.)

 

The tomato sauce starts with crushed minced garlic, red pepper flakes and cumin sauteed in a few tablespoons of oil. Then add tomato paste and incorporate the seasoned oil. Add water and salt and simmer until flavors have developed and the sauce is the consistency of pasta sauce.

Serve up a bowl of the pasta/rice/lentil mixture and top with a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce. Top with fried onions. The ones in the can are OK, but Josh was experimenting with frying our own onions and those were even better.

 

For a vegetable component Josh made a tomato cucumber salad. He added chopped parsley and mint to quartered cucumber and halved baby heirloom tomatoes. To finish, he tossed them with a little white balsamic vinegar and oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

We can't go to Egypt, but we brought Egypt to us!

miracle

Josh is out with Calvin at youth group . . .
the two boys are upstairs, IN BED, listening to an audio book (another great use for the Kindle) . . .

and the baby?

 

Shhhh . . . I'm witnessing a miraculous moment. I'm marking the date and time: 9:21 pm, March 18th. I'm WINNING. Take that, Charlie Sheen.

***this is not a picture of her sleeping at this moment, but I figured it was a close enough representation of the actual event.

(And yes, it was such a momentous occasion, I actually did take a picture of her napping yesterday, just to prove to myself that it happened.)

just one of the crazy things that happens at my house

The boys turned putting away laundry into an amusement park ride for Camille. They lined the basket with a blanket, put a pillow behind her head and put the folded laundry in her lap. I was not a fan of the climbing up and down stairs with my baby in a basket, but I got the "dad said it was OK!" and she was really loving it, so I just held my breath.

 

She's not only Queen for a Day, she's a Queen every day.

photo booth fun

Josh and I went to a fundraiser dinner and entertained ourselves with the photo booth. I want one of these for my house. . . so funny.







Camille and I are quite the fashionistas. She's rockin the cowgirl hat and the feather boa.

scholarly research on Oman

So as I was writing the last post about our house, I realized that I really don't know much about Oman at all. I can find it on a map, and I know it's on the water, but I really should do some more research before we arrive. So I turned to my friends Google and Reality TV and found this episode of The Amazing Race that was filmed in Oman last year. I remember when we watched it last year were excited to see the Race in a place where our friends lived, never imagining that we would be living there too.


Season 17, headed to Oman. Muscat footage starts at the 6:45 mark. Then there's a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with Oman, a marriage proposal, etc. Skip ahead to 10:45.


part 2  The next task starts at 5:30. Lots of driving around, asking locals for directions, and getting lost. I wish someone had chosen the other task so we could have seen where they had to go to buy food. At the 13:45 mark they head to the sook (marketplace) for the Frankincense task.


part 3 At 2:50 you see the interior of the sook. 4:45 they head from the market to the pit stop. At 7:50 there's some Egypt style traffic, but I don't know if it's normal traffic or just because she's driving the wrong way down the street.

The Race also visited Oman in Season 9, but all I could find were the route markers/roadblock/detour segments that someone edited together.

The first 2 1/2 minutes is the part about Oman. It looks like they didn't spend much time in Muscat, but were mostly out in the desert.

From the Race videos, it appears that I will have plenty to blog about. Good times.

We have a house-ish

Josh got an email saying they have arranged housing for us. Yea for not being homeless! I wasn't worried, but it is nice to know that people are actually expecting us to arrive, since I don't know that I'm actually expecting us to arrive yet.

According to intel via the spy network (really, just regular old email from friends, but I know how some of you persist in thinking we are on a covert mission) our house is a duplex with wonderful neighbors. Lucky for us, maybe not so lucky for them depending on how thick the walls are. They have boys the ages of Carter and Caleb and a younger little girl. Supposedly the kitchen is ginormous -- wait, "ginormous" didn't get flagged by my spell-checker -- has it become a real word now? Hmm, I'm going to have to come up with a new fake word . . . hugantic? largantic? hunormous?

Anyway, hugantic kitchen. They must know that Josh and I are all about kitchens. Learning from past mistakes, we are bringing two great knives with us in our luggage. Everything else is negotiable or unnecessary, but without good knives, it's no fun to cook. Thus, the many nights of Arzak or Otlob in Egypt.

The rest of the house? A "ridiculously large" master bedroom (I'm quoting what I remember Josh reading from the email) and I think there was something about maid's quarters too. More significant is that it is within walking distance of stuff, since we expect to be car-less for quite a while. "Stuff" is the technical term for Starbucks, a grocery store, restaurants, etc. I think he said Starbucks was close by, I could be wrong about that part. He's not home right now or I'd ask him. He's out buying another suitcase to transport all our knives. (Really, we're not spies.)

selection Sunday

Some enthusiastic UCLA fans at our house . . .

Are you filling out a bracket this year?

a sunny day in SF

a princess and her castle

   

My mom bought this castle for her girly grandbabies right before we came home from Egypt. She didn’t imagine that Camille would get to play with it for another year, but lucky for us, this princess came home to her castle.



The boys are big fans of it too – the pink doesn’t keep them from playing GI Joe storms the castle when they play with their little green Army guys.

reset

as of today we have

2 weekends
1 payday
17 days
too many hours to count before we leave.

It feels just like the last time. Sitting in church this morning I was thinking, "only 2 more Sundays before we'll be going to church in Oman." The most frequently asked question when people see us now is, "when are you leaving?" rather than, "how does it feel to be back?"

I've started wondering if we have enough luggage (we only have 1 suitcase each now) and how I'm going to fit everything we need in those bags and wondering if I need to buy more clothes before we leave which would mean buying more suitcases, but then do we really want to have to haul more stuff through an airport than we already have? The exact conversations I was having with myself back in November, only the destination has changed.

There are last appointments to make, more goodbyes to be said, many more "this is the last time we'll _______ before going to Oman" over the next 2 1/2 weeks. More consoling to do as the kids say things like, "I'm going to miss _____" or "I'm nervous about moving." The same goodbyes, the same worries and fears, the same unknown stretched out ahead of us, but a different spot on the map as our landing place.

And then, the same first walks around new neighborhoods, first drives down unknown roads, new friends to make, restaurants to become fast favorites, first impressions to form again. I'm experiencing Groundhog Day, 2011 style.

One reason I will never run out of material . . .

The boys were helping out in the yard and found some big sticks -- cue the marshal arts demonstration.



***No one was hurt in the making of this movie. (shocking, isn't it?)

Big (Egypt) Love

Now that we have our tickets to Oman (March 30th) I was thinking about my blog and wondering if I'll even have anything to write about once we get to there. The great thing about Egypt was there was a wealth of material everywhere I looked. There are still blog posts kicking around in my head about the Egypt way of doing things that I never got around to writing. Like how in an emergency we were told not to call an ambulance. Since no one yields for one (you see them sitting in traffic along with everyone else) you're much better off calling a cab and having them take you to a hospital. There might also have been something about how the ambulance crews weren't known for having the greatest emergency skills either, but I might have made that part up. But a country that has an emergency system that you're not supposed to utilize? That's comedy gold -- unless you're the one actually having the emergency. Then you better hope you have an awesome cab driver.

But from everything I've read about Oman and from all the pictures I've seen, it looks so normal. I'm a little afraid it might be boring in comparison. Since it's an absolute monarchy and the Omanis actually like their king (yea for them), there are laws that everyone follows, the streets are clean, and except for the fact that lots of dudes wear dresses (just kidding, they're actually called dishdashas and they are awesome and we've already promised Carter that we'll buy him one when we get there) everything looks so orderly in comparison to Cairo.

I got a taste of it when trying to create posts about our trip to SF. Without the trash eating cats and the thrill of a successful street crossing, my stories all felt mundane and ordinary. What once was, "I saw a lady almost get hit by a car as the donkey she was riding stepped out into the road in front of a car driving the wrong way down the street" turned into: "We found ourselves standing at a street corner, waiting for a green light and Carter asked, "why are we standing here? There aren't any cars coming!" Yawn.

But I'm sure the Chartier boys arrival in Oman will shake things up. There's got to be an elevator waiting to break down. Just for us.

Fat Tuesday

there’s a whole lot of chub going on . . .

SF sillies

At a park over the weekend we found a see-saw. Josh thought he could improve the ride for us . . .



It may not look like much, but it felt like I was going to go flying off. Caleb was catching air every time it changed directions and I think Calvin ended up with a bruised tailbone. Tons of fun.

 

 

Fun in Chinatown. Fortune cookies, steamed and baked pork buns, bubble tea, fireworks, and weed. Yes, lots of weed all over SF. Since it's "legal" in CA (with a medical marijuana card) every other yahoo on the street was smoking it. My favorite cover was the dude who had a cigarette in one hand, a joint hidden in the other and then he'd take a puff from joint and exhale while waving the cigarette around in case anyone was watching. But the nose knows . . .

hear no evil, speak no evil . . .

my "see no evil" was being a monkey himself . . .

tax day

It's not April 15th, but it was my tax day today. I usually have them done by January 15th (really!), but with being in Egypt and then being evacuated, it hadn't happened yet. I finally got tired of thinking about it and dreading it and decided to get it over with.

A relatively painless few hours later, I have a refund on the way. Money that will be put aside to help pay for any traveling we might do once we're in Oman. Although, with all the traveling we've been doing since December, I think once we finally get to Oman, I'm going to want to stay put.

So that's why no blog post today. I have some fun SF pictures to share, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

For now I'll just leave you with pictures of my most valuable deductions:

 

 

 

 

grand. very grand(parents)

Once Nana and Poppa arrived, then the fun began. The first day we walked, and walked, and walked, all over the Union Square area of the city. Thankfully there was no shortage of Starbucks to meet all of our hydration needs. (There really is one on every block!)
    

They were having a 49er foundation fundraiser in Union Square. Lots of food, music, and even a mascot.

Carter was being squirrely. Or shy. There’s always one of them who doesn’t want to be photographed.

 

If this one is anything like her mother or her brothers, she’ll have plenty of opportunities to foul up a family picture – thankfully for now she just sits there and looks pretty. . .

Hiking up and over Nob Hill – Caleb is whimpering about having to climb another hill.

      

Up and up and up . . . .


We made it to the top! Then it was just a short trek downhill to the Cable Car museum. All these years I thought the cable cars ran on tracks kind of like a train – I didn’t realize that there is actually an underground cable that the car grabs onto that pulls it around the town. (Yes, I realize that is why it is called a cable car . . .)

So these big old wheels that you see in the picture with Calvin go around and around and pull the cable along and that makes the cable cars move . . . I think. I still don’t really get how it works. But it looks cool.

          

We had a grand time.