Sherwood Family Nonsense

Will it fit?

2012-02-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

When I was pregnant with Edwin who was my first boy, I constantly heard the refrain, "oh boys are so different..." I always asked why, and nobody could get very definite.

For those of you who are expecting boys, here's a boy thing (or maybe just and Edwin thing): putting thin items into small spaces.

In Cairo, I noticed my credit cards slowly disappearing. I looked everywhere for them, and not a one turned up. Then one day I pulled the mattress off my bed. The credit cards were all stuffed in between the mattress and the frame. Later on they took up residence under the edge of the carpet.

One day I caught Edwin stuffing a pen under the belt on the treadmill. I got the pen out, but the cap is still in there somewhere and the treadmill has never quite sounded the same.

A few weeks ago, the girls caught Edwin cramming kopecks into the transformer. Brandon shook them out. And then he shook out about twenty puzzle pieces.

While I was sitting on the couch, I noticed a few keys slightly depressed on our new digital piano. I went over to investigate, and found another kopeck wedged into the crack in the front of the keys. A few days later, Brandon found two more in the same place.

While I've been typing this, Edwin found out that business cards slide nicely into the DVD drive.

However.

I just remembered an incident from my childhood. Way, way back in the day before iPods and even DVDs, our wood-paneled Chrystler minivan had a tape player. After awhile the player stopped working, so my mother took it to a repair shop to have it worked on.

She came back a few hours later, and the tape player worked again. She asked the technician if they had had to replace the part. No, he replied, it was a simple fix. And then he showed her a handful of coins. 'We just had to take these out and it worked just fine.'

So maybe he comes by it honestly.

And no, not even on Facebook

2012-02-10T06:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Winter,

This has gotten ridiculous. When it snowed a few weeks ago, I was slightly bemused. I could appreciate the novelty of snow for the children's sake. But then you didn't let up - it just kept snowing and snowing and snowing. And snowing and snowing and snowing and snowing and snowing. I lived in Utah for nine years, and never had such a snowy three weeks. You may claim that you gave me a three- or four-day break, but that doesn't count - the snow didn't even come close to melting.

And then you sent the cold in addition to the snow. At the same time that my heat started going out. Every few days, and then every day, and yesterday twice. I'm getting really tired of waking up to a very cold house. Thank heaven I bought the children those slippers for Christmas.

And then you had to send bad weather and ruin our outing to Swan Lake with the girls - a ballet they've only watched the DVD of at least fifty times. Couldn't have you just let up a little for sake of my girls who haven't been out of our compound at all (except for the grocery store once) in the last month?

I suppose that maybe we could still be friends after all of that trouble. After all, you were pretty amazing in Cairo. I can't argue with eighty degrees, sunshine, and bougainvillea in February. And it wasn't your fault that I was gone for part of the winter both years. People have told me that you're usually not so bad here, so I guess I might forgive you on promise of future good behavior.

But no, not any more. We're never going to be friends now.

Our friendship was forever broken when this arrived in my inbox yesterday:

Hello Mr. Sherwood,

I hope this email finds you well.

Please be advised that the vessel carrying your POV shipment has been delayed into port due to poor weather conditions. I have requested a new ETA and will advise as soon as I am notified.

Please advise if you have any questions or concerns.

Why did you have to delay the shipment of my car? Why?? You knew how much I'm counting the days until I can go to the grocery store without calling a taxi or asking a friend for a ride. You knew how much I was dying to try my hand at Baku driving. And I know you overheard me telling everyone how much I love having a car again. How I daydream constantly of climbing into the rich corinthian leather seats of my big, black, V-6 Pilot and having the seat warm my backside as I go wherever I want. Whenever. I. Want. That's just not fair.

Winter, you've got some 'splainin to do.

And that date with my pretty cousin? Definitely not going to happen.

Yes, we have that

2012-02-06T06:00:00.000-05:00

This past week I unpacked my last box. Which I consider to be pretty good - only five weeks after arriving in a completely new country, all of my things are unpacked. Our final household shipment arrived on Tuesday, and on Wednesday the furniture warehouse brought over some more furniture for our third floor.

I know, I know life is really rough when you have to go through the trouble of having people bring extra furniture that you don't have to buy up to the third floor of your house. I'm trying to deal with it.

Part of the furniture delivered was slated for our special closet I like to call Little America and the girls like to refer to as 'the store.' We've had our consumables for three weeks now but with no shelves to unpack things onto, I didn't want to open all of the boxes. On Wednesday, however, we finally got the shelves and so that was the day for unpacking.

If you were wondering what I decided was crucial for two years in Azerbaijan, I'll give you a tour.

I wouldn't be Mormon without my sacks of wheat, sugar, beans, and popcorn

The Great Wall of Charmin. Because you need to take good care of your bum.

Chicken stock, anyone?

To go with the masa and tortilla press.

If you've ever lived overseas, you'd understand.

And this, too.

This is what two hundred pounds of brown sugar looks like.

Don't forget the Cheerio-hugging toddler. Very essential.

Snow Day, part 2... and 3

2012-02-03T07:41:00.000-05:00

Baku is not known for its snow, in fact it hardly ever snows. But on Thursday, we woke up to more snow on top of the last snow that fell. Not only was it snowing, but the wind was blowing, so Brandon was happy to stay home from work. And when work was cancelled again today, we were happy to have him home again. However, I'm done with snow days for this year.

January 29

2012-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Today is an anniversary day - we've been here for one month. And one year ago we were in the middle of the Arab Spring. When I think that our crazy year is now over, I can't quite believe that it's already been a year. A friend of mine posted pictures of her baby's first birthday and I was shocked to realize that it was a year ago that we were hanging out in Oakwood with her baby that was Joseph's age at the time. It's been a funny year; it feels like it has lasted forever, but then it feels like it began a month or two ago.

I also can't believe that we've been in Baku for a month. It feels like we've been here much longer than a month. Our house is already starting to feel like home in that way that's hard to explain. When I was reading blogs a few days ago, I finished and looked around me. "Oh," I thought with confusion, "I'm in Baku. That's right. I'm not in America, I'm living in Azerbaijan."

That's when I know I'm settling in overseas - I forget that I live overseas, and when I do remember, I can't quite recall what's so weird about my situation. When I was searching through my consumables heap the other day, Sophia and I had a conversation about how the movers were still living in America and wouldn't be moving overseas. Most people in America, I had to explain to her, live in America their whole lives and never live anywhere else. That's part of what makes them American. I'm not sure she quite understood the concept.

So, after a month in my Baku, here is my assessment. We love the housing. Our house is beautiful, spacious, and comfortable. Of course it has its maintenance quirks - our downstairs heating being the most frequent - but that's to be expected. The mission members are wonderful; we've had dinners and breakfasts and rides and offers of help and a very warm welcome. The city itself looks to be fairly reasonable, but I haven't been out much since our car hasn't gotten here yet. Brandon's job is... interesting to him, but so far much much busier than his job in Egypt ever was. But I suppose there has to be a pill in all of that jam. Otherwise we wouldn't want to leave at the end of two years.

So for now, so far so good. I'm crossing my fingers that no revolutions come our way. But if they do, I suppose that I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing. How's that for optimism?

Snow Day

2012-01-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

When we were posted to Azerbaijan, often friends would ask us about the weather. Was it pleasant? Did it snow much there? I had read the post reports and watched the weather for awhile, so I felt pretty confident in telling everyone that we would be fine, not much if any snow to worry about. Maybe the wind, but not snow.

And if I had lived here last year, I would have been right. According to friends, the weather stayed in the fifties or high forties all winter. This winter, however, is evidently unusual, and in November, work was cancelled due to snow. Evidently the bad driving is made completely disastrous when four of five inches of snow are added to the mix.

This past week or so, it has snowed every other day or so. When I looked at the forecast a few days ago - low thirties and snowing or raining the whole time, I remembered exactly why I hate karma. The snow, however, hasn't been much, just the frozen equivalent of drizzle.

Yesterday it finally worked itself up to half an inch of accumulation, and so the girls went outside and tried to ride their bikes on snow-covered tile while Edwin slipped and fell every five steps or so. It wasn't much, but the girls were thrilled. "Mom, we played in the snow!!" they told me the rest of the day, after which Sophia would add, "but it's not good for riding bikes in."

So this morning when I woke up and opened the curtains to this,

I was shocked. When I went to get the children from their room, Edwin was excitedly shouting "no! no! no!' and gesturing to the window. I suppose if they're happy it's okay. But right now Brandon is outside playing with the children and I'm nice and warm inside, which is how it should be.

You can take the Georgian out of the Soviet Union, but you can't take the Soviet Union out of the Georgian

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

For my birthday on Saturday, Brandon took me out to eat. Since we're in a new city, we have new restaurants to explore, which is one of my favorite things about new places. Brandon jokes (and he's only half kidding) that he joined the Foreign Service for the food. And I'm okay with that.

He had always heard that Georgian food was quite tasty, so he decided to take me out for Georgian. Our car hasn't arrived and the deep distrust of taxis that we gained in Egypt hasn't faded yet, so we decided to take the Metro and then walk to the restaurant.

After giving instructions to the babysitter and wishing her good luck, we headed out the door. Brandon checked his map and we plotted our route and closest Metro station. It looked simple, which of course should have been our first warning sign. Nothing that looks simple on a map in a foreign country ever is.

Forgetting that cardinal rule, we set off and boarded the metro for 28 May stop. After getting off, we checked the map, and marched off into the darkening evening. We marched for awhile past little hovels, store after store of dried fruits and nuts, and through a few traffic lights. We checked the map. We kept marching. We found some street signs, and checked the map again. Oops, a few streets further up than we had thought. More marching, more checking. March. Check. March. Check. I'm glad that my cell phone comes with a flashlight.

After marching through dark muddy streets, past newly-facaded government buildings, in crowds of people in busy thoroughfares, in front of buses, and in between cars, I saw a sign that looked like it might be the place. We marched closer. It was. Hungry and ready for a tasty birthday meal, we went through a low door, down some steps, down some more steps and finally, into the restaurant.

The proprietor came up, gabbled something in Russian, and then walked off. Brandon and I waited awkwardly in front of two empty booths wondering which one we were supposed to sit in. The man walked past us and started moving things in a third booth while another man pulled his things from the booth. Then the proprietor came back and started talking to Brandon in Russian again. While talking he walked us back to the door and pointed down the road.

When we were outside and walking away, I asked Brandon what had just happened. The man had told Brandon, 'Oh well, those two tables are occupied for someone, so we can't help you right now. But there's a nice Georgian restaurant just down the road.'

I started laughing. I suppose I should have believed Brandon earlier when he warned me about 'customer service' in the former Soviet Union.

So we went to the other restaurant. And since I've never had Georgian food before, I thought it was quite tasty.

Bring it on, thirty

2012-01-22T11:01:00.003-05:00

I am now officially thirty years old. Three decades. My twenties, the time of youth, the age that everyone always wants to look like are gone. From here on out, there's nothing but declining beauty, multiplying wrinkles, and sagging body parts left. I have a dismal march down the hill into decrepitude.

Oh, well. I guess it had to happen sometime.

On Saturday when I woke up, I mentally pinched myself, as I sometimes do to my love handles when I'm trying to gauge if they've gone down since the last time I attempted to squeeze back into my jeans after having Joseph. Any change? Anything different?

I thought about this in the weeks preceding my birthday, in preparation for the actual day, the day when I had to kiss twenty-something goodbye forever. It was a busy decade, those twenties. I started out a sophomore at BYU, living with five girls, and I ended it in Baku, living with five immediate family members. A lot of things have changed in the last ten years. How would I feel about leaving the decade behind?

Saturday morning when I pinched myself for real, I didn't feel regret for the ending of Youth and the beginning of Responsibility.

Heck, I think that I bid farewell to Youth about two children ago and Responsibility definitely decided to permanently move in when Joseph came too. When I look in the mirror, I see these things around my eyes that look suspiciously like the beginning of crow's feet. When I look at my family, I see four children. And when I look at my husband, I see someone with a responsible job and a decent-sized household to support.

When I look at these things, I wonder how thirty took so long to get here. At least now I'll get some credibility.

So just in case you're wondering, I'm not bothered in the least by turning thirty. I've known this was coming for awhile now. But get back to me in ten years. I'm not sure about forty yet.

Driving in Baku (from a passenger's standpoint)

2012-01-20T08:03:00.000-05:00

While researching Baku, I kept stumbling on the same comment: "The traffic here is horrible." Every time I read it, I laughed. I lived in Cairo. Twenty-two million people, and lots and lots of cars with drivers that follow the third-world driving principle - if it is physically possible, it is legally possible.

Then my sponsor took me to her house, the embassy, and the grocery store one day. She picked me up at two, and we got home at five. The embassy is only three and a half miles from our house, she lives about halfway in between, and we didn't spend much time at the grocery store, which was also close to her house.

This past week we had a Relief Society activity, which started at 7:30. When the president told me about the time, she said that with traffic, everyone usually got there in time to start around eight. I rode with my neighbor, and we left at 6:45 to pick up another sister who lived three miles away. By the time we picked her up, got scraped by another car in a turning circle, and made it to the same neighborhood my sponsor lives in, it was actually past eight.

I have been at a light and watched as two lanes turn into four, or five and leave the opposite flow of traffic barely enough room to squeeze by. Random holes are dug without much warning. Roads are closed, causing snarls that take half an hour to get through. We drove down the wrong side of a divided road because the other side was closed, and witnessed a real live game of chicken. When the snarls in intersections get bad enough, the drivers get out of their cars and start directing traffic and telling people where to go in order to unsnarl everything.

Our car gets here in a little over a month. I'm already excited to join the fun.

Version 3.0

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

On Christmas Eve, I was trying to rock Joseph to sleep. While rocking him, I decided to use my time efficiently and load a CD to update the OS on our five year-old Mac. The CD went in, made some spinning noises, and then came out. I tried it again, and the same thing happened. Then I remembered the same thing happening with a few other CDs, and realized that the CD drive is broken.

My first thought was that we would be fine without the drive working, and I announced to Brandon that it was broken. And then logic caught up to me, and I remembered what we use our computer for when we're not renting a townhouse with an enormously large TV: watching movies.

When Brandon and I married, I brought a laptop to the deal. We had decided beforehand to not buy a TV, so we used the laptop for watching movies. On movie nights, we'd put the laptop and speakers on a chair and settle down for a fine night of fun courtesy of the The Sherwood Family Home Entertainment System.

One night the laptop manifested Dying Stripes Across the Screen, and so the next night we marched down to the Apple Store and bought a beautiful white 21-inch iMac. Now we could watch movies in even greater splendor on the Sherwood Family Entertainment System 2.0.

It moved with us from my grandparents' basement to our little duplex to Arlington for A-100 to Cairo and back to Arlington. We bought it when Kathleen was only two months old and now she's old enough to go to Kindergarten. It has been a great computer, with the added bonus of being really easy to move. Open box, insert computer, put styrofoam on top, close box. Done.

And so keeping with family tradition, Brandon was at the Apple Store at 9 am Monday morning (after driving to Sterling to drop off a bassinet) to purchase Sherwood Family Home Entertainment System 3.0. Seeing as our family has increased since the last one was purchased, we splurged on the big one.

I can't wait to watch more movies on it. When we finally clean up the third floor.

I love [name hidden for security reasons]

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

When I was preparing to move here, I did a lot of research on housing. Probably much more than was actually necessary, as we had no choice in where we would live. Most embassy housing here (as in most non-first world countries) consists of large houses surrounded by tall, concrete walls. In order to leave, you have to open a gate or go through a locked door. Great for keeping the children in, but not much in the way of a neighborhood.

However, we don't live in one of those houses. We actually live in [...], one of two actual neighborhoods in Azerbaijan. It has the necessary tall concrete wall around the neighborhood, but the actual houses look out on quaint little brick-paved and neatly manicured streets. It's not very big, but it is very quiet, and we've already taken the children on bike rides through it.

My favorite part about this neighborhood, however, is the neighbors. We're one of five embassy families that live in the compound, and two families with girls around Kathleen's age live right next to us. So when the doorbell rang one evening, and one friend asked if the girls would like to go on a walk, I was more than happy to shove them out the door while I finished dinner.

The family that lives across the street from is us LDS, and on Tuesday there was no school (power out in the neighborhood of the school), so all of the children from the branch gathered at our neighbors' house for a no-school party. We were having our HHE and consumables delivered that morning, so I couldn't take the children. My neighbor, however, offered to take the girls over to play with everyone else.

They left at eleven in the morning and Edwin and I had a great time unpacking (and napping, on Edwin and Joseph's part) all by ourselves. By the time the girls finally dragged home after five, exhausted from so much fun, I had the entire kitchen unpacked.

I love living in [...]. I like my house, I like the neighborhood, I like the convenient location. But most of all, I love my neighbors.

How to bake cornmeal muffins, Baku style

2012-01-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

1. Realize that baking supplies are running low, and your car is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, so you'll have to work with what is in the house.
2. Look for brown sugar in the pile of boxes on the third floor that have your consumables shipment.
3. Give up on finding the brown sugar boxes, and realize that a few are in the plastic buckets.
4. Look through the boxes for the bucket opener.
5. Give up and go find a screwdriver on the second floor.
6. Nearly break your fingertips to pry off the bucket lid. Explain to second child why the embassy can't be called to open the bucket for you, and it would take too long to wait for Daddy to come home and do it.
7. Find the wheat grinder. In another pile of boxes.
8. Move the transformer from the living room to the kitchen counter.
9. Grind popcorn.
10. Realize that milk is running low, and find can of powdered milk.
11. Open can while heating distiller water in the microwave. Mix milk.
12. Let cornmeal soak in milk for five minutes.
13. Weigh out four tablespoons of butter from 500-gram block of butter, melt and add egg.
14. Mix together dry ingredients.
15. Realize that baking spray is in the same pile of boxes on the third floor, and grease tins with sunflower oil.
16. Combine wet and dry ingredients, bake at about 400 degrees, as estimated from celsius dial on the oven.
17. Wonder why you didn't just pack Jiffy mixes in the consumables instead.

Christmas, again

2012-01-17T06:00:00.001-05:00

When we were preparing to move to Baku, I asked around about shipment times. Our UAB would take about 30 days I was told, our HHE could take several months, and I didn't ask about the consumables. When I added these timelines to our unknown length of stay in temporary housing, I made sure to pack a bag of black beans in my suitcase.

So when we arrived and found out that we would be skipping temporary, I considered myself lucky. And then when Brandon called last Monday to tell me that our HHE and consumables were ready to be dropped off, I told him to have it delivered as soon as possible. On Thursday morning he called to ask if I wanted our UAB and HHE by air that night, I figured that as I had just finished off the unpacking on first and second stories, I had room to put more boxes in.

So Brandon and I spent our Saturday wielding hex wrenches and wrestling with Ikea furniture and our MLK holiday Monday unpacking boxes after I had spent almost all week unpacking boxes. There's nothing like unpacking three or four tons of stuff to make you wonder why exactly you have so much stuff in the first place.

But it's almost done, and I'm mostly waiting on shelves to put my boxes and boxes of consumables in. I'm happy to have most of the unpacking behind me, and I'm even more happy that we've been here less than three weeks and I have almost all of my things. All I have left is to hang pictures and I will really feel home. Which is something that I'm happy to have again.

... So Where to Begin?

2012-01-15T11:07:00.003-05:00

I suppose that when I said that we would have internet by the end of the week, I really meant by the end of the next week. I'm starting to see that around here customer service is given good lip service, but with no follow-up. Thankfully then embassy here is fantastically supportive and Brandon was loaned a router until things are sorted out with the internet company. We only have internet on the first floor, but that's what happens when you live in a three-story concrete house.

We are starting to settle in after waves one two and three of stuff washed over us in a three-day period. My goal this week is to finish up all of the unpacking and then maybe start to organize my life.

In a short review, the trip here was amazingly easy (thank-you Benadryl and Lunesta), and all of the people who have helped out have been wonderful. I have a new standard to live up to when I get to be a social sponsor. Our house is wonderful, and even the weather hasn't been as unpleasant as I feared.

So, life is good.

Stay tuned for updates (and maybe even pictures one day).

Hello From Baku

2012-01-03T09:54:00.001-05:00

So we've arrived, and everyone even made here in one piece with a full flight's worth of sleep (except for Brandon). The best part of the trip, however, was when Brandon's sponsor announced that instead of going to our temporary apartment we would be going straight to our permanent house.

Everyone here has been wonderfully kind and helpful, and we've settled in nicely which has been helped by the five days Brandon has been off work. We're at friends this evening for dinner, so I'm using their internet for now to check news and bank account balances.

Brandon has his first day of work tomorrow, so we're hoping to have internet by the end of the week. Stay tuned for updates!

Over and Out

2011-12-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

We're sitting in the Dulles Airport right now, with Joseph in tow, waiting for our flight to Frankfurt. Joseph's ticketing issues thankfully worked out easily, and we didn't continue melting our credit card with a last-minute flight purchase.

The movers came yesterday, and we were underweight. Today was a crazy day and Brandon was right and I was wrong about how long it would take to get everything done. When our shuttle arrived, all of the bags were packed and exactly fifty pounds, but it was a close-run thing. I'm getting tired of packing for international flights.

We got to the airport early enough to stuff everyone full of dinner so they can avoid any food except fruit snacks for the next eighteen hours, and now it's just a matter of waiting until we show up in Baku.

Since we'll be in temporary housing, I can't speak for our internet connection, but I will update when I can. I have a few posts about Christmas, but ran out of time to put pictures in. So you'll just have to go somewhere else for your daily dose of interesting. Or maybe just keep going there.

Off to Baku we go!

Third Time's the Charm?

2011-12-22T11:26:00.000-05:00

For those of you who aren't counting, we are leaving in six days. We have our shipments arranged, I'm cooking dinners with what we have in the cupboard, I've made packing lists, and scheduled an airport shuttle. Everything is ready. Except for Joseph's ticket - it isn't bought yet.

To get to post, everyone has to have two things - an airplane ticket and a passport with the appropriate visa. When Edwin was born, we had a lot of trouble with the passport and eventually travelled with a tourist passport instead of the diplomatic one we were aiming for. When Joseph was born, we worked our hardest to make sure that wouldn't happen, and he had his passport by three weeks old and his visa a week and a half later.

So, of course this time it's the medical clearance that is causing the trouble. Edwin's medical clearance took about twenty-four hours to approve, so I didn't worry about Joseph's. He had his appointment at four weeks, and I sent in the forms a few days later.

A few more days went by, and I hadn't heard anything about his clearance being granted, so I emailed the office. Oh, they said, I had to wait 48 hours before the paperwork was updated in the system.

Life got busy, and a week or so later (Tuesday), I emailed again asking about the clearance. 'Oh that clearance?' I was told, 'yeah that will take five to six weeks.' My stomach dropped as I thought of waiting here and then flying by myself with all four children. I sent a panicked email back, and was told that if I wanted it reviewed sooner, Brandon was going to have his HR tech (who is so notoriously unreliable that Brandon overheard someone at FSI comment that their CDO had given warning about them) send an expedite request. Then if the request was granted, the clearance might be done by the end of the week.

So I called Brandon and sent him on the trail of his HR tech while I looked up flights on Kayak and appealed to livelines for help about getting paid back after purchasing our own ticket. Brandon had no luck contacting anyone, but I was able to find out that we can get paid back, with approval prior to purchasing the ticket. I was also advised to contact MED/foreign programs, the same people who held my hand through Edwin's birth.

So I contacted them, and was given the numbers of the director and deputy director of clearances. When I threw myself at the feet of the deputy director, he kindly offered to review Joseph's case by the end of the day. I said a silent prayer of thanks for everyone's help and did a little dance. Whew. Crisis averted.

Brandon called his HR tech Tuesday, with still no answer. I emailed her and received the dreaded out of office reply. Not wanting to wait until Thursday to have Joseph added to our orders, Brandon called a supervisor and was told 'well, I don't know anything about it [so don't bother me and can't you just wait until Thursday?]'

So this morning Brandon emailed, and then called his HR tech. Joseph was added. Done? Not done. Now it gets to go to budget so that they can approve the four figures being spent on Joseph's ticket. Which has to be bought tomorrow or the airline will cancel his reservation. Back to square one.

Being resourceful, I called Carlson, and tried to have the purchase date changed so we have another day of time to wait for budget to get things done. The latest day it can be changed to is December 26. Which is a holiday, so everyone is closed.

When I asked the Carlson lady what I should do, she looked at the flights and advised just to wait and see; if the reservation did get cancelled, there should be enough seats to simply just make another reservation for Joseph. After all, how many people are trying to go to Baku three days after Christmas?

So here we are in limbo again, awaiting the whim of bureaucratic processes. I'm sending in that request for reimbursement, just in case we do have to put another $3000 on our credit card that State will eventually pay off.

So now I know about passports and medical clearances. I'm going to have to have another baby just so I can use all of my hard-earned knowledge and finally do things right. Hopefully.

Christmas Crafts

2011-12-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

I am not a crafty person. Sure, I'll spend three days making a delicious dinner, but crafts? You can't eat them, and they are just one more thing to haul around the world.

The one exception to this rule, however, is Christmas. Last Christmas we made snowflakes, gingerbread houses, and wrapping paper. Everything worked so well that we decided to have a new tradition.

Last Saturday we made wrapping paper. Edwin started off the festivities early when he discovered the red acrylic paint during my shower and displayed his new-found skill at opening things. I came out to find paint all over Edwin, the bathroom door, and carpet.

Luckily it was acrylic and several buckets of water and piles of towels later, you can't tell the difference. I swear.

In the evening (after putting Edwin to bed as he'd already had his fun with paint), we cut potato stamps and made the wrapping paper.

And when the girls were in bed too, Brandon and I made our own paper.

Of course it's all going to be ripped up and thrown away in about a week. But we had fun. And we don't have to haul it anywhere with us.

Edwin's Second Birthday

2011-12-18T10:57:00.001-05:00

Thursday was Edwin's birthday. I have always pitied people whose birthdays come on or around Christmas. Everyone gets so wrapped up in Christmas preparations that those birthdays often get overlooked. My birthday is almost a month after Christmas and I find that much proximity obnoxious.

Edwin has had the triple distractions of Christmas, Joseph's birth, and moving to contend with his birthday celebrations. Luckily for him and us, he has no concept of birthday, presents, or celebrations. When Sophia turned two, we had spent the previous two weeks singing Happy Birthday to anything we could think of. Thursday morning the girls and I sang to Edwin. He just looked at us and ran off to play with his cars.

Although he is oblivious of celebrations, Edwin can certainly appreciate food. So when we made cupcakes (going with the theme this year of making things easy on ourselves),
he was happy to lick everything given to him.

And fish out of the sugar canister, for good measure.

That evening we sang to him again, lit the candles, and had cupcakes.

Edwin broke tradition by actually eating some of his birthday (cup)cake. But only because he didn't know that present was coming.

And he was thrilled with that only present - a big dump truck. Happy Birthday, Edwin!

Would you like some cheese with that?

2011-12-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

Warning: This post contains unnecessary, self-centered, and gratuitous whining. For those of you who don't like that sort of thing, or those that actually have lives who deserve whining, please tune in next time for something more humorous. And that includes the comments, too. [you know who you are, anonymous]

So, this year has been a... crazy... year. I reserve 'bad' for things that include trips to the hospital and or consultations with the insurance company. So it hasn't been bad, just crazy.

And I think that I've done a relatively good job dealing with it. Perhaps if you talked with my children or husband they might disagree, but as they don't write this blog, they can't tell you otherwise.

I like to pretend at least that I'm an optimist person who just deals with situations while at least attempting to stay cheerful and looking at the bright side of things. Evacuation? It might mean being away from home for awhile, but it's a good excuse to read a lot of books and order out a lot. See? Less cooking. A good thing. And I love libraries in the US. Having a baby seven weeks before moving overseas? Sure, it's a little fast, but see the above about cooking and books. Plus, I don't have time to be worried about baby not sleeping well. Good attitude. Go me.

But with twelve days to go before departure, I'm starting to feel this year catch up to me. I can deal with moving. Again. I'm okay with living in temporary housing when we get to post for an unspecified time. Again. While I'm not looking forward to paying a driver $180 a week to get things done, I can deal with not having a car for several months. Again. I can even deal with a five week-old baby and all of its vagaries. For the fourth time.

But when that five week-old baby decides to fight me every single time I nurse and tries to scream and cry every single time I put him down to sleep when I know he's tired and just wants to sleep already, and repeat every 2 1/2 to 3 hours, I get a little tired of the show. And then I have to decide what makes the cut for stuffing into our eight suitcases because we don't know when we'll be in our real (hopefully, fingers crossed) house and so we have to fit everything we might need for ~~three~~ four children crammed into a three-bedroom apartment in January in downtown Baku with just Drexel Heritage to keep us company for an undetermined amount of time, I might feel a little more stress. And then of course there are still those three children to keep occupied in the three-bedroom teeny-tiny townhouse we're in already in December with no parks in walking distance and no desire to leave because it takes 45 minutes to get everyone out the door and in the car, I might admit to hiding out from them. But only sometimes. Oh, and add in the wonderful feeling of bleeding cash out of every pore as Sophia breaks the GPS and we buy a new one and the car requires $700 of repairs and we have to pay to have the house cleaned and carpets cleaned and oh! Brandon has only two suits with him which won't work for an undetermined amount of time before we're in our (hopefully) house and can get the rest of our things so let's go take all four of the children suit shopping. And don't forget about the tailoring. And don't forget Christmas. And that lovely red-eye international flight with said fighting, crying baby.

I think I could handle all of that except the baby, but when the baby is thrown in, I'm done in. I can hardly handle the baby under normal circumstances. Newborns are not my favorite.

So, I'm going to do the reasonable thing and leave the children and go to Ikea and Potomac Mills tomorrow. All. By. Myself. Because what we need right now is to spend more money and acquire more things to ship overseas.

End of rant.

Time Distortions

2011-12-11T19:28:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, I was thinking about the things to be done before we leave, and my mental calendar reminded me that we have two and a half weeks left before we leave. 'Two and a half weeks!' I thought, 'is it still that long? How am I going to be able to live two and a half more weeks before we get out of here!?'

This year has been chopped up into lots of pieces, none of them longer than three months, and I've spent all of those pieces (except the first one, because I had no idea what was going to hit me) counting down until they were done. Three months on evacuation. Three months in Cairo. Six weeks on home leave. Two months until Joseph came. And seven weeks until Baku.

Moving around and waiting around have warped my sense of time. A year ago, six months felt like something just around the corner. Now six months is an absolute eternity, three enough to really settle down and call somewhere home, and two and a half weeks a really good long stretch, long enough to not even think about packing. Or pack out.

I'm not sure what I'll do with myself when we move to Baku and I have two whole years stretching out endlessly before me with nothing but a couple of R&Rs to break up the monotony. I'll have to take up some sort of hobby. Maybe base jumping?

... and why was this conversation necessary?

2011-12-08T12:20:00.001-05:00

While in the shower this morning
Sophia: hmmememm warrrrinnngnsnn
(pause)
rrrrrrwwwweee serrrrsisss!
(pause)
gnnnennnnnwbbwerbbbb lllfasfsf!!
(pause)
blllllenensnesnn wmmemmemms!!!

Me: (finally giving up on pretending I can't hear her) Sophia, I'm in the shower and can't hear you; open the door and tell me what you're saying.

Sophia: (opening the door) Mom, are you in the shower?

Me: (stating the obvious) Yes.

Sophia: I need to use the bathroom.

Me: Can you use your bathroom?

Sophia: Oh, okay! (happily runs off to use her bathroom)

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

When I was growing up, every year I begged my mother for a real Christmas tree. And every year, her answer was the same. No, they're too expensive, and we have a perfectly good one up in the attic so why buy something we would just throw away in a month? Plus, those needles get everywhere.

So every year I swore to myself that I would buy a real tree when I got to make the decision. Thus far, whenever possible I've bought a fresh tree. This year I decided to have some fun - which is code for me thinking up a complicated scheme that inevitably ends up driving Brandon crazy when some part of it inevitably goes wrong (because with ~~three~~ four small children something always does) - and go to a tree farm and cut down our own tree.

So this past Saturday morning that's what we did.

Everyone had a fun time choosing which one would be ours.

Edwin was very interested in the mechanics of how exactly one cut down a tree.

Sophia and Kathleen decided to be reindeer with the branches.

And after hauling the tree in from the fields and having it shaken and baled, Brandon tied the tree to the top of the car to take it to it's new (for the next three weeks) home.

On the way home, our GPS decided to lose it's logic chip and point us in all sorts of bizarre directions that resulted in the obligatory complication and extra time in the car.

That evening, after meeting friends for ice cream, we decorated the tree. Or rather, Edwin and Joseph slept, Brandon kept us company, I strung the lights and the girls decorated the tree. It didn't necessarily result in even ornament distribution, but they had fun.

And then the girls went to bed and Brandon and I finally got to rest.

In the last three weeks

2011-12-04T17:43:00.001-05:00

So, things have been busy. With a new baby, life always gains the odd quality of being busy with no definable gain by the end of the day. There seems to be a lot of sitting around, changing diapers, and feeding children with a lot of stress about the whole thing. And when you throw in trying to get not only your child but your household ready to move to another country, life gets even busier.

My sister was kind enough to come and help out for the first week, for which I was tremendously grateful as Joseph thought he would try our patience by not sleeping at night for the first week he was home. After Brandon spent two straight nights without any sleep, I took extreme measures and things quieted down during Brandon's mother's visit for the week before Thanksgiving.

Which was good as Brandon and I drove down to Richmond to fetch Joseph's birth certificate the day before my sister-in-law came with her six children for Joseph's baby blessing. The children had a wonderful time with their cousins making havoc of our small townhouse, which I'm sure was never intended to house fourteen people.

The same day everyone left, Brandon and I went downtown where Joseph applied for his first passports and we booked plane tickets to Baku. When I commented out that we could buy a Civic for the price of the tickets, Brandon pointed out that we would have a hard time driving a Civic to Baku.

Brandon's mother left the day before Thanksgiving, so we went to Maryland to join my Aunt and Uncle for Thanksgiving. The next week I sent off another shipment, this one containing a swing set, dome jungle gym, digital piano, set of tires, and 150 pounds of sugar. Our three final shipments, UAB, HHE by air, and the car have been set up for the week we leave.

Brandon picked up Joseph's diplomatic passport and finally turned in the visas applications after two failed attempts, and Joseph has a medical appointment scheduled this week so that he can be cleared and allowed to travel.

We've scheduled out the last three weeks we have in country and have plans for several dinners, a Christmas party, Christmas tree shopping, Christmas shopping, medical appointments, a visit from my brother, work consultations, Christmas itself, those aforementioned pack outs, and of course, flying halfway across the world with four small children.

One day I'll get some rest (and maybe even more than three hours of sleep in a row), but it won't be for awhile. And until then, I'll have chocolate to help me out. Thank heaven for chocolate.

And now there are six

2011-11-13T11:07:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday, Brandon declared that it was time to decide on a name for the baby. I turned to the girls who were coloring at the table and asked them whether they would like to name the baby William or Joseph. "Joseph," Kathleen declared. I turned to Sophia. "Jospeh," she confirmed. Brandon turned to me. "Joseph," I agreed.

"Fine," he returned, "you win, but I don't have to like it."

And so without further ado, introducing Joseph, the newest member of our family.

He arrived without any trouble and is happy and healthy. The girls are delighted with their new brother, constantly begging me to be able to feed him with a bottle, bathe him, change his diapers, and feed him. Edwin loves to hold him, for about thirty seconds, before he dumps Joseph off his lap to go do something else.

I am doing well, and enjoying the wonderful help of my dear sister who has taken a week to come and help out. The children have enjoyed more walks and parks this past week than in the past month.

We're all happy to have another addition to our family!

It's time

2011-11-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

This last week has been busy. On Wednesday I sent off two tons of food to be shipped to Baku. Then in the next few days I baked six loaves of bread, made a gallon of granola, switched all of the maternity clothes out of my closet and drawers, pulled out the baby clothes and things, took sent the children off for a sleepover, went out for one last evening with Brandon, took him to the doctor (bronchitis), cleaned out all of the random boxes from my stairwells, and set a new record for loads of laundry washed, folded and put away in one day (ten loads). Today we went to the grocery store, and I picked up my sister from the airport this evening after taking the children to the park.

I think that I'm ready to crawl into my hospital bed and let them poke me with an IV of pitocin just so I can get some rest. Wish me luck!

Bringing Baby 'Home'

2011-11-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

This morning as I was scrolling through Facebook, I looked through some pictures that my cousin has posted of her new baby. As I looked through the pictures, I noticed the background - nice couches, a fire burning in a fireplace, attractive built-in bookcases, and a general sense of somewhere happy and lovely, filled with a happy family.

And then I thought of pictures when I bring my baby home. Someone else's couch, someone else's artwork on the wall, paint I didn't choose, and a borrowed bassinet. I thought about bringing home my other babies - same story with every one except Sophia. And of course, six weeks after that baby comes 'home,' we'll leave for another 'home,' one filled with Embassy-issued furniture and Embassy standard white walls.

There are many many things I love about being in the Foreign Service. So many, in fact, that we plan on staying with this gig for the next twenty years. But, just as with any situation, there are downsides. That's life; nothing is perfect.

And one thing that I realized when I looked through those lovely pictures of a lovely baby in a lovely home is that I'm not going to have that home for decades. I'm turning thirty in a few months. Since I left home at eighteen and went to college, I have lived in exactly one location where I owned everything inside. And that was a little hole that turned from a place for a few months into a place for almost two years. Every other place I've ever lived in I have had someone else furnish just about everything.

And that's not about to change because I'm too cheap to 1. buy nice furniture 2. pay to have it shipped around and 3. pay to have it fixed after it's shipped. And I'm okay with that - it comes with the territory that includes household help, employer-provided housing, and weekend trips to Turkey. So don't feel too sorry for me.

But I do look forward to that long, long-off day when I can ruin my own couches, choose (and pay for) the exact appliances I want, and choose my own dang light fixtures. One day.

Consumables Saturday

2011-11-03T12:22:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday, it snowed in northern Virginia. Well, first it rained, then it turned to freezing rain, and finally snow mixed in with the rain. It was a nasty, cold, day - the coldest day we've had since coming here. It was the sort of day where you put on a movie for the children, get out a book for yourself, and everyone drinks hot chocolate.

However, it was also the last Saturday before our consumables shipment is scheduled for pick-up. And so that is how I found myself driving to Woodbridge in the rain with my entire car empty and ready to receive the bounty of my credit-card melting day.

My first stop was Sams Club, the only locally available source for McCormick chicken base (fifty cans), bulk Ghirardelli double chocolate chips (twenty-four pounds), and popcorn (one hundred fifty pounds). Some very kind men took pity and helped load the car with my chocolate chips and various and sundry other items, including the obligatory and very necessary Charmin.

After a short stop at Aldi for milk chocolate chips (I had made sure to stock up on butterscotch earlier in the week) and sliced almonds, I continued in the drizzling rain to the Bishops Storehouse for 250 pounds of wheat and fifty pounds of black beans. Once again a kind soul took pity on me and loaded my now quite-full car with the twenty-five pound bags. I should shop more while thirty-eight weeks pregnant.

My last stop was Costco, this time in the rain mixed with freezing rain. I rounded up my flat-bed cart amid the thronging Saturday crowds and started piling. Paper towels, laundry detergent, dish detergent, whole grain penne and rotini, macaroni and cheese, napkins, contact solution, toilet wet wipes, goumet chocolates (I can't go two years without my tasty chocolate), and the all-important two hundred pounds of brown sugar piled my car higher and higher.

By the time I reached the register, I could barely push my trolley piled to the height of my shoulders, and I was nervous. My car was already full when I came to Costco, and I had just as much, if not more things than were already in the car. After fifteen or twenty minutes of checking out, I handed my cart over to a very nice man and fetched my car for loading.

Thankfully, he couldn't speak much English, so we just made wry faces at each other through the snow and started rearranging and packing the endless pile of stuff into my already-overloaded car. By the time we were through twenty minutes later, I literally had boxes of penne crammed to the roof and my front seat was full of freshly-scented boxes of Bounce dryer sheets. As I backed out of my space, I prayed that nobody would foolishly decide to walk behind me as there was no possible way for me to see them.

As I drove home, I called Brandon to warn him of his long, hard slog up the stairs to our townhouse carrying the fruits of my labor. In the snow. After an hour and a half of unloading, everything had made it into the living room, piled neatly and waiting for the movers and Brandon was soaked with snow and rain.

And now I can go into labor with one less thing to worry about.

Celebrating Halloween in the US

2011-11-01T12:44:00.000-04:00

I've never been much of a Halloween celebrant. I blame my mother. We were banned from trick-or-treating after fifth grade, and the older I've gotten the less festive I've become. I was quite happy to live overseas and miss out on all of the excitement.

Brandon recalls trick-or-treating once when he was five, and for every Halloween after, his father would cover the windows with blankets and pretend they weren't home while the family watched movies and ate candy.

So I blame Brandon for this Halloween. We started the season early with a visit to a pumpkin patch. And then for Family Home Evening we actually carved the things. The last time we carved pumpkins was when Kathleen was two and I ended up scraping it off the porch in February right before we moved to DC for the Foreign Service.

Then on Saturday we went to the ward Halloween party where the girls dressed up as princesses. Of course it was pure coincidence that I gave them princess dresses for Christmas last year and they dressed up as princesses for Halloween.

And tonight we lit up our pumpkins and dressed the girls up again. Edwin and I stayed home (he went to bed) while Brandon led the girls around our little complex. They came home after ten or so houses thrilled with the candy they had picked up and made a grand evening of stuffing themselves with more candy they had ever eaten in their short lives and making candy trails across the floor.

So that will be their only memory of Halloween, at least for the next few years. And when they ask why we don't celebrate Halloween, I'll point out that yes, we did once, and I'll show them pictures for proof.

Midnight thoughts

2011-10-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last night, in between multiple bathroom trips, I was woken up by a strange pain in my abdomen. After a few seconds, I realized that I was having a contraction. As I've never had a contraction without pitocin before, I panicked.

My first thought was 'Ow! This hurts! A lot!' My second thought was, 'I can't go into labor, I have that consumables shipment to get together!' Then I started thinking through how much time I'd have to send Brandon to various stores after we'd gone to the hospital, gotten the baby out, and come home again. I supposed that he could do it, but it would be a lot of trouble.

My third thought was, 'I can't go into labor, I don't have any good books to take with me to the hospital!' I considered that the hospital probably has WiFi and I could take my laptop, but really, there's no substitute for a good book.

Thankfully, the pain went away and I went back to sleep, at least until the next bathroom break. But now I've been put on notice and I have some things to do. Like go to the library.

Why I can't hack it in the US

2011-10-28T06:00:00.000-04:00

We've now been actually living (not traveling or visiting) in the US for seven weeks. There are a number of things that I love about being in the motherland. Public libraries are amazing. Same with public parks. Although sometimes illogically bizarre, having a GPS makes getting around much easier. And of course, Target, as always.

I looked forward to being back to the land of Wonderful Things, but one thing I didn't think about when looking forward to all of the amazing things I could do was that in order to do those things, I'd have to leave my house.

In Cairo, we had a lovely, large apartment. So on days when I didn't feel like leaving, the children had lots of space to ride bikes, push strollers, build houses, make cushion mountains, and scatter their toys.

I think that the townhouse we're renting (at a price that I'm not going to name, but let's just say that it's a good thing State pays housing) could probably fit into the front room of our apartment. And that includes the staircases and three bedrooms and bathrooms. We have a deck, but it opens onto a communal hill, and even Edwin can easily unlatch the gate, so I have to be downstairs in my room to supervise if they want to go outside. So the children have the kitchen, the living room, and their room to play in. And any time they bring out a toy or two (of the three we brought with us) the entire house immediately looks like a hurricane went through.

So yes, the parks are amazing. I love the library, and maybe we'll make it to the zoo. But when doing any of those things involves loading three children (soon to be four) into the car, unloading them, keeping them from running away or being run over, putting them back in, driving home, and unloading them again, I think I'll actually take my apartment in Cairo some days. I guess I've been spoiled.

Why I love language training

2011-10-25T10:45:00.000-04:00

When we first realized that Brandon was going to need language training, I was apprehensive about it. I had heard unpleasant things; that he would be in class all day and doing homework all night, I would never see him again, or he would go crazy with all of the language he had to learn in such a short time.

Now that he's been in training for over six weeks, I can officially say that I Love Language Training. It's fantastic. It's wonderful. I haven't bathed my children in weeks. If we didn't have to live crammed into a tiny townhouse without much of our things and living on base pay, I'd be happy to have Brandon in language training perpetually. And so would he.

Some days he has to stay really late, like until four o'clock. Then he doesn't get home until almost four thirty, after leaving at seven in the morning. Those are the rough days. At least once a week, he'll get off early enough to meet me and the children at the park and we'll walk home together, often after spending some quality rock-throwing time at the creek next to the park.

The other day I had an OB appointment at one in the afternoon. Brandon told his teacher that he had to leave a few minutes early, and he was home in time for me to go to the doctor all by myself and read a book while waiting.

And to make life even better, Brandon really enjoys learning Azerbaijani. He is in a class with three other men, all Russian speakers, so they spend half of the time speaking in Russian so he gets to work on that also. According to Brandon, Azerbaijani is a very logical language, and even has the added bonus of the odd Arabic word thrown in, and so he is happily doing quite well. I asked him a few weeks ago how long it took him to get to this point in Arabic (after majoring in Arabic in college), and he looked at me and replied, "never."

In a few months, we'll move on to post where Brandon will have to work a real job again with real hours and I'll have to bathe the children again. But until then, I'm really enjoying the break. And so is he.

What's in a name?

2011-10-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

In three and a half weeks, if nobody decides to make a surprise entrance, we will have a new member in our family, a little boy. In three and a half weeks, I'll have to fill out the information for a birth certificate, which I will then use to procure all of the documents necessary to transport our little boy to Baku. I have all of the necessary information - after all I've done this three times already - except for one thing. A name.

Back, back a long time ago before I was even pregnant with Kathleen, Brandon and I talked about baby names. He asked how I liked the name Edwin, and I said that I liked it just fine. Edwin is the middle name of his maternal grandfather, who Brandon got his first name from. And so we decided to name our first son Edwin.

Then we talked about my Aunt Kathleen, who I've always been close with. As a child, I used to drive my parents crazy be claiming that I'd really been meant to go to her and not the crummy family that I'd been stuck with. Then we decided to name our first daughter Kathleen.

We both liked Sophia, and its meaning, wisdom.

So when Kathleen was announced to be a girl, it didn't take any time to decide on her name. Sophia was named just as easily, and Edwin didn't have a chance to be anything but Edwin.

This baby, however... I suppose that's what happens when you have a larger family. All of the good names get used up early, and then you have to stretch for the next ones [sorry baby, when you're old enough to read this. We love you just as much]. Brandon knew a family whose fifth son was named Quentin. Sometimes creativity fails after awhile.

I've had a name that I've like for quite some time now, but Brandon just isn't sold on it. And every time we try to discuss names, nobody can quite get serious and choices like 'Thor' and 'Ignatius' are thrown around. So baby boy is still referred to as baby boy.

I know we'll have to make some sort of decision soon - as in three and a half weeks soon - but I have no idea what that will turn out to be. I do know, however, that it won't be Ignatius.

Consumed by Consumables

2011-10-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

In the LDS church, members are encouraged to have a one-year food supply. My parents have always had cans of wheat lurking underneath the stairs, buckets of sugar in random closets, and tins of salt in cupboards. I have never been that organized.

When we lived in Cairo, I tried to have three months' worth of non-perishable food stocked in my cupboards in case of emergencies, which is about as adherent I'd ever been to the one-year food storage guidance. Previous to moving to Cairo, we had lived in various places, all small and all thought to be temporary, so I never invested in a supply figuring that I would be moving soon, so what would be the point?

I now have the opportunity to make up for that laxity.

Over the past few weeks, I have been filling in a several-page spreadsheet. I've driven my children crazy at the store, slowly perusing all of the aisles while jotting down prices in a notebook. I've just about driven myself crazy trying to find the absolute cheapest price for coconut. Despite owning a Costco membership, I'm buying one at Sam's for just one visit, because they stock Ghirardelli chocolate chips, McCormack chicken stock, and fifty-pound bags of popcorn.

In the next few weeks I get to put together not a one-year supply, but at two-year supply of everything I can think of that can't be found in Baku. When we were in Cairo, we had a lovely commissary, but in Baku no such luck. So instead, Brandon is entitled to a consumables shipment, 2,500 pounds of whatever we can use up and think that we can't live without.

Think of whatever you go to Target to buy. Ziploc bags, diapers, shampoo, laundry detergent, plastic wrap, toilet cleaner, deodorant. And then think of buying it for the next two years. Then think of all of those American foods that you enjoy so much. Chocolate chips, black beans, whole-wheat pasta, cold cereal, goldfish crackers, peanut butter. Two years of those also. I've made sure to put two years of root beer on our list. And brown sugar.

Which is why I've been driving myself insane filling out my spreadsheet, figuring out the price per ounce of vanilla, or oxy-clean, or coconut, or butter-flavored Crisco. Because when you're buying two years' worth of brown sugar (approximately two hundred pounds), an extra twenty cents a pound starts to add up.

So when you come to visit in a few weeks, don't be surprised to see toilet paper and dishwasher detergent as our new accent pieces in the living room, with wheat decorating the upstairs hallway. I'm hoping that our new home in Baku will have a little more space than our townhouse.

The Magic Fairies Return

2011-10-04T20:03:00.000-04:00

When we left Cairo, we left a lot of things behind. Mango season, good friends, a large apartment, Maadi House, and of course, Rere. Brandon asked me how I was going to cope without Rere when we were gone. I replied that I would muddle through somehow, and kept making lists and preparing for packing. I knew that the day would come when I was without my own personal fairy, but I didn't want to think about it.

When we moved into our temporary home, I looked around and had virtuous thoughts about cleaning it myself. I could get the girls involved and teach them how to clean. We could put on music and make a fun day of it. They would be able to gain valuable skills, and continue to learn how to be helpful.

A week went by. The house got unpacked. I spent almost a thousand dollars in a week. I thought about how much more I would spend on housecleaning. I looked at the cleaning products under the sink and tried to remember how to use them. I told myself that lots and lots of women clean their own houses, and I could do it too.

Then I listened to the voice of reality in my head. I am almost eight months pregnant. I am homeschooling Kathleen. I have three children under the age of six at home all day every. single. day. Our townhouse is small and we have almost no toys and a back deck that doesn't come close to passing as a 'yard.'

But really, I knew that all of those reasons were trying to make me feel better about the one reason that would win in the end: I have grown lazy over the last two years. And really, I don't actually care.

So today, I took the children bike riding. Before we left, I placed a check on the table and my key under the doormat (and no, I'm not telling you my address). When we came back after riding bikes and playing in the park, the check was gone and the house was clean. And it was worth every single penny.

Rain, rain, go the heck away, would you?

2011-10-01T20:15:00.001-04:00

We have now been in Arlington for almost an entire month. Our boxes are all unpacked, almost everything has found a home, and we've even gone a road trip so that it really felt like home when we got back. Cairo is quickly retreating into a distant, dream-like memory. We've been here for awhile. At least for a family who moves around so much.

There have been quite a few things that I've already grown quite fond of. Every time I take the children out riding bikes, I miss the wonderful trails already. Each time we go to the library and the children start grabbing books off the shelves and stuffing them into my arms as fast as they can, I think about how many books we'll have the weight for over the years. And of course, Target. No explanation needed.

One thing I have not grown fond of: the rain. The first few days when the weather was oh-so deliciously cool and rainy was refreshing after hot, hot sunny Cairo. After five straight days of rain, I almost shouted for joy when a ray of sunshine peeped through my window one afternoon. But then the clouds came back, and the rain returned. I constantly checked the forecast, looking forward to the days that called for sunshine, only a few days in the future. But those round yellow things kept retreating away from me, tantalizingly close but never actually on the day I was actually living.

This morning we told the girls (and Edwin, but I'm not so sure about the comprehension) that we would take them bike riding. Everyone happily finished their breakfast, quickly put on their pants and shirts and socks and shoes and jackets, and I went online to find a local bike trail to explore. I checked the forecast, and the daily dose of rain wasn't scheduled until noon. We were ready. And then we opened the door.

Rain, happily pattering down on the trees outside our door. Rain flooding the steps outside our townhouse. Rain, again.

I looked at Brandon, he looked at me, and we looked at the children dressed to go. And he got out the umbrella. We've finally been parents long enough to recognize when rebellion is imminent, and went out anyway. He suggested we go to the bike path and see how things stood there, and so we piled into the car.

Thankfully when we arrived, the rain was nonexistent to sprinkling, and so we unloaded everyone and went on our merry way. We may have gotten a little wet, but I don't think anyone cared.

I just checked the weather forecast for this week, and watched as the round, happy sun on Monday's forecast turned into more drippy blue things. And my hope for sun has retreated another day. I know that I didn't have more than three hours of rain while in Cairo, but does the weather really feel like it needs to make up for that lack all at once?

No Longer a Little Girl

2011-09-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

Sophia has always been my cuddling girl. Whenever she's sad, tired, lonely, or just bored, she will go get her blanket, climb into my lap, and cuddle up while sucking her thumb. She started sucking her thumb at six weeks old, and has been an addict ever since.

Until this week. We've successfully flown across a third of the world and driven through eleven states with the aid of Sophia's thumb and blanket to keep her quiet. But now there is a break before the next adventure, and so it has become time to stop the thumb-sucking.

And so this week, with Sophia's full and eager participation, we made out a star chart, found the band-aids and a red marker, and filled her with promises of a mysterious and amazing surprise after a full chart of thirty stars.

The first morning she marched triumphantly down the stairs with a dry band-aid and un-smudged red circle. "I didn't suck my thumb!" she proudly announced as she carefully placed her first star. The next morning brought another star, and every morning since.

A few days ago, she came to me with her blanket for a cuddle. She curled into my lap while wrapped in her yellow cocoon, and looked up at me, "I can still cuddle, right Mom? I just can't suck my thumb. Because I'm a big girl now, not a little girl."

I know all little girls grow up into big girls, but I didn't realize how much I'd miss those little girls sometimes.

Confession

2011-09-20T06:00:00.001-04:00

The day after Labor Day, Brandon started school. I packed his lunch for him, got up early to fix him a good breakfast, and kissed him goodbye as he walked to his first day.

The day after Labor Day, children in Arlington started school. Kathleen ate lunch at home, took a nap, and helped me begin to unpack our UAB. The next day she had lunch at home again. And the next day. She's had lunch at home every day since school started, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

Because she's not going to school. Instead she's staying home for school.

I like to consider myself a fairly mainstream person - conservative mainstream, but still mainstream. All of my children have been born at hospitals, and with epidurals. I stay at home with my children, and they take naps and go to bed early. My children have all been vaccinated, and I don't buy organic produce because it's too expensive. My husband is a bureaucrat. I've never even dyed my hair, and don't own a single pair of skinny jeans.

So I am somewhat unnerved by knowing that while almost all of the other children Kathleen's age are learning the classroom rules and where the bathroom is, she's at home with me. I think that Kathleen is much less uneasy than I am with the arrangement.

Brandon and I made this decision some time ago, and have reasons we consider sound, as do most people for most decisions they make. But now that my child is officially not attending public school, I almost feel like I am getting away with something against the rules.

I know that when I home school Kathleen, she will miss out on experiences she would have in traditional school. But I also know that if she were in traditional school, she would have experiences she wouldn't have at home. No choice is without consequences.

But at least when she visits with her therapist in about twenty years, she'll have something solid to start with when she's blaming her parents for her problems.

Did I tell you about how much I love parks?

2011-09-18T21:23:00.001-04:00

Now that I'm going to have a car at my next post, I think that parks are the number one thing I love about being in the States. And the parks around here are wonderful. I love that not only is there a trail within walking distance of my house, but there's a park within walking distance on that trail. The townhouse we are renting is nice, but it's a little... cramped... compared with our apartment in Cairo. So I really enjoy having parks to frequent when there's no room to ride bikes in the house.

After having nothing to do every Saturday except go to Maadi House for two years, I'm really enjoying have the ability and weather to do any of number of things on a Saturday. So this past Saturday, we had an outing to the park.

For Kathleen's birthday this year, we got her a bike. And as Kathleen got a bike, we made sure to include Cannonball the red tricycle in our UAB shipment for Sophia to use.

So after spending Saturday morning shopping for supplies and making treats, we loaded up Cannonball the Elder (our Honda Pilot, which was my number one favorite thing about being in the US during evacuation) with Cannonball (the Younger), Lucy, and Edwin's stroller.

Our first activity was bike riding. Kathleen has had a rocky start to riding a two-wheel bike, but on Saturday she thoroughly enjoyed wheeling along beside Four Mile Run while passing Sophia on Cannonball. Edwin pointed out every squirrel he saw from the comfort of his stroller.

After bike riding, everyone parked their conveyances and played at the park. Edwin especially enjoyed hanging out of high openings and giving Brandon heart attacks.

And then to finish out the afternoon, we had a picnic on the grass for dinner. Everyone had an immensely enjoyable time, and not one single person asked to take our picture.

Why I Prefer to Live Overseas

2011-09-15T20:03:00.000-04:00

One of my very favorite parts of living in Egypt was Rere. Not only did she clean my house, iron Brandon's shirts, shop for food, and wash the food, but she also watched the children when I needed to get things done. My visiting teaching appointments were always on Sundays or Wednesdays. I shopped alone, occasionally taking the girls for a treat. When Edwin was a little baby, the girls' swim lessons were always on the days when Rere came.

That has all ended. At least for the next four months. So when I had my first OB appointment Tuesday, everyone got to tag along. The girls at least were excited.

My OB has her office in the local hospital complex, and so I made sure to look up online to see what part of the complex the office was located in. It didn't tell. And instead of calling them as I should have, I piled everyone in the car and set off for our grand adventure.

The website for the office helpfully provided a parking map of the hospital, but neglected to mention which parking deck (green, gold or blue) I should pay four dollars for the privledge of parking in. After circling around aimlessly and getting caught in traffic-light lines, I randomly chose the green deck. With 5 minutes to go for my appointment, I hustled the children into the green building and scanned the list of offices. Nothing that looked like OBs (I had forgotten the name and still don't have a cell phone because the charger got lost somewhere in the Virginia-Cairo-US travels-Virginia loop), and no suite 474 was on the list.

Down the stairs we went, out the parking deck, and across the street, past the oncology clinic, up some stairs, down a few sidewalks with Sophia trailing behind crying because we were walking too fast, and we were in the next building. Still no luck.

At this point, I had no idea where to look next, no phone, no phone number, and no name. Just suite 474. And so I asked the nice man at information. Oh, he told me, that office is actually inside the hospital, so I had to keep going, turn a few corners, go in the elevator and up to the fourth floor, trailing my three ducklings behind me. Who knew that doctors had their offices inside hospitals?

When I checked in, we were only 10 minutes late for my 2:30 appointment. The receptionist asked my name and looked up my appointment. Oh, that was for 9:30 this morning, not 2:30 this afternoon, she told me. By this point looking desperate, I asked her when I could reschedule. She took pity on me, and had me sit down while asking my doctor what would work best.

Thankfully and mercifully, she came back and told me to sit down; they would work me into the schedule then. All four of us sat and I pulled out a car for Edwin and books for the girls. Kathleen read her book, Sophia looked through hers, and Edwin drove his car on the table. Sophia looked through her second book, Kathleen read Sophia's first book, and Edwin drove his car on the floor. Kathleen read her second book, Sophia looked at Kathleen's first book, and Edwin drove his car on the seat.

My name was called and I packed up all four books, the car, and Edwin's blanket. The nurse weighed me (and I'm not telling), took my blood pressure, and sent us back to the waiting room. Kathleen read Sophia's second book, Sophia looked through a magazine, and Edwin attempted to drive his car on the wall. Kathleen put the books away, Sophia was done with the magazine, and Edwin started throwing his car. Kathleen loudly asked when they would call my name, Sophia showed everyone in the waiting room her underwear while lolling on the chair, and Edwin lolled on the floor.

Finally, they called my name and we were left in an exam room. Thankful that at least the noise and incessant motion was contained in a room away from other people who might have been thinking of having another child before they got to watch my children, I let them do whatever they wanted. Kathleen and Sophia pushed each other around on the stool, asked what the stirrups were for, rattled the stirrups in and out, and tried to understand the diagrams on the wall. Edwin drove his car on the loudest surface he could find.

While Kathleen was asking why I had my head hid in my arms, the doctor walked in. We talked for five minutes, measured my stomach, and listened to the baby's heartbeat. We scheduled a date for the induction, and said goodbye. Edwin drove his car.

And then everyone hiked back to the car and piled in to go home. Where we had pancakes for dinner.

So... Where are We?

2011-09-11T20:01:00.001-04:00

Life has finally settled down again. For a few months... until that baby is born. And then we leave. Again. But for now, it's settled. Or as settled as I can ask for this year. I am now without excuse, and will resume the semi-regular updates of your favorite traveling Sherwoods.

But first, a summary of the last six weeks.

At the end of July, we all got on our last ridiculously early Lufthansa flight from Cairo. One-thirty in the morning is entirely too early for me to be loading suitcases into a car. And as we were loading suitcases into the waiting car, Brandon got bothered one last time for money. Goodbye, Cairo.

Our trip went uneventfully, and I reveled in the luxury of having another parent to help wrestle children a very, very long day of travel. We arrived at my parents' house in Raleigh in the late afternoon, ate pancakes, put the children to bed, and went to my father's office where he used his soon-to-be defunct OB skills to pronounce baby number four a boy.

Saturday we packed up for a week at the beach with my family, where the children had a wonderful time with cousins and aunts and uncles and crabs and sand. We stayed another week at my parents' house before heading to Brandon's parents' house in Missouri.

We arrived after midnight following an eighteen-hour day of driving, setting a personal record for everyone but Brandon. The girls enjoyed playing with more cousins and aunts and uncles (but no crabs, just cows) in Missouri before we headed down to Texas to see Brandon's sister and their four children. After Texas, we spent a few days in Tennessee at a water park resort on our own, and then finished our summer progress with two days in West Virginia to see Brandon's older brother and their six children.

By then end of our travels we had visited six places, packed eight times, seen nine siblings, fifteen cousins, and traveled for over ninety hours. I'm glad that home leave only happens every few years.

We've settled in Arlington in a townhouse a little over a mile away from FSI while Brandon spends the next four months studying Azerbaijani before we leave for Baku at the very, very end of December following the birth of our baby boy.

And maybe then I can catch my breath.

A Farewell to Cairo, Part II

2011-07-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

Following Brandon’s graduation, a job prospect came up that had the strong possibility of going overseas. We talked about returning with excitement, and impatiently waited through the months that stretched into a year and half of process before we were abruptly told that Brandon was no longer being considered for the job. And so we made other plans, and stopped thinking of Cairo. But then, the week after Sophia was born, Brandon found out that he might have a chance at joining the Foreign Service. And the dreams of Cairo began again.

After his third day of work, Brandon showed me the bid list, the list of possibilities, each one a different two years. Cairo was on the list not once, but twice, and with a perfect timeframe for us. On Flag Day, Brandon walked back to me, Kathleen, and Sophia with the Egyptian flag triumphantly clutched in his hand.

A few months later, we got off the plane in hot, crowded, busy, but no longer so bewildering Cairo. Almost three year-old Kathleen clutched Brandon’s hand while we waited for the vans that would take us to our new home. I held fourteen month-old Sophia on top of the bulge that was 20 week-old Edwin.

And when we walked back into the villa on road 17, we knew we were home again. The carpet was green, and the walls were yellow, but it was the same spirit of the Cairo branch, waiting for us. And indeed, it was some of the same branch, with the entire branch presidency known to us from our time four years earlier.

This time in Cairo has been different that last time. We have come with a job, and an organization to take care of us, provide our housing, arrange our travel, and even give us access to Breyer’s ice cream. We’re no longer stepping over puddles of water cascading over the bathroom floor each time a load of laundry is washed. I have an apartment that is my home with all of my things, and as much feeling of permanence as one can have in two years.

But our time in Cairo has also been a real beginning of our time as a family. When we came, we had one child who could talk and one who was still a baby. I felt like we were a married couple with some appendages that made life difficult most of the time and perhaps occasionally funny, but not usually pleasurable. They both went to bed early, and parenting consisted of maintaining basic needs.

Now we are a family of five, with an almost five year-old, a three year-old, an 18 month-old, and a baby on the way. We have all grown up. I now have children who are old enough to do chores and play elaborate games of make-believe. My baby is old enough to go into nursery in a few weeks, and enjoys swimming at Maadi House as much as his sisters do. I actually mostly enjoy my time as a mother and now truly find pleasure in my children.

I feel that this time in Cairo, just as the last time, has been a time of transformation from one state to another, from harried mother of small children to not-so harried mother with a real family going. I’ve grown very much over these two years and feel like I finally have things under control. We’ve gone through two evacuations – one for Edwin’s birth, and the recent one for unrest – and I’ve reluctantly grown as a result of those also. I’ve realized that I can indeed handle whatever has been thrown at me, four solo transatlantic flights included, and even handle it with a small bit of grace. Brandon and I have grown closer and more appreciative of each other because of the separation, and I know we’ve grown even better suited for each other than when we came. It’s been a good two years.

And now we leave, and in a way, leave a phase of our life, one that last lasted since our marriage. Always we have come back to Cairo, but now we’re done. When I was talking with the girls about Baku, they asked if then after that we’d come back to Cairo. I shook my head, and told them that no, Cairo wasn’t going to be our home anymore; we would have a new one then. It is strange to know that we are leaving Cairo and leaving the beginnings in our life; the beginning of marriage, the beginning of family. It’s now time to move on to the next part – the middle – with all of its excitement, difficulty, new challenges, and new pleasures. But never again will we have Cairo, and it will stay with us always.

A Farewell to Cairo

2011-07-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

Adapted from a recent church talk.

Cairo has been the touchstone of Brandon’s and my life together since before we were married. When we were discussing marriage, Brandon brought up his need to go to Cairo the next summer for a study program. After not hearing any conclusion to his dilemma, I summed up the situation for him by announcing, “well you have two options. You can take me with you, or you can leave me, and then I’ll kill you.”

And that’s how, six days after our marriage, two weeks after my graduation from college, I found myself dropped in the middle of hot, crowded, busy, bewildering Cairo with a halfhearted semester’s worth of Arabic under my belt. I had lived overseas before during a study abroad to Vienna, but I quickly learned that Cairo is not Vienna.

When we walked into the villa on road 17 our first Friday Sabbath, I don’t know if I had ever been happier to see the inside of an LDS church. We were greeted warmly by the members, invited to dinner, and quickly given plenty of advice on where to buy everything from sheets to poppyseeds.

Our summer study extended into the fall semester, and we were given callings as the nursery leaders, which confirmed semi-permanent status as Cairo branch members. The Cairo branch was our extended family, taking care of us, watching over us, and giving me somewhere to go for sanity and friendship in our crazy new home.

When we left Cairo after seven months, we left with not only ourselves, but with the beginning of our family, baby Kathleen hitching a ride. I will always see Cairo as the start of our time together as husband as wife. We came, newly married and completely inexperienced with only six months’ of dating and courtship before we came. We left seven months later with a lot more experience together.

When we were married only a few weeks and the inevitable bowel troubles came, Brandon told me he was hoping to have waited another thirty or forty years before we were regularly checking up on each other’s bowel health. I remember nursing Brandon through a particularly nasty fever equipped with only semi-cool washcloths and The Joy of Cooking to distract him. We gallivanted through Cairo with metro as our main form of transportation to see the opera, hike to the Khan, and somehow get to Manial Palace instead of the Citadel.

While washing dishes, cooking food, shopping, and riding the Metro to visit Brandon’s friend in Helwan, we grew to know each other and start to understand what it was to be married. That time was one of the harder periods of my life up to that point, but it was what began to form us together, as husband and wife.

At the time, I was more than happy to leave the insanity and stress of Cairo and return to the US. But before long, the reminiscing began. Remember the mangoes? The bread? The branch? As the time passed, the glow enshrining Cairo grew brighter.

What I will miss most (and least) about Cairo

2011-07-25T06:00:00.003-04:00

In two days, we'll be leaving (and yes, on a jet plane), and our time in Cairo will be done. Everything we've been doing lately has been imbued with the emotional significance of 'the last time we....'

Some of those things I've thought of with regret, and others with a sense of relief. Just like any place we have lived and will live, there are things I love and things I can live without. One of the things I love about the Foreign Service is being able to have so many opportunities to find new things to love that I didn't even know existed. One of the things that drive me crazy is finding new and inventive ways to be tortured by living conditions in foreign countries.

So without further ado:

Ashley's Cairo top (and bottom) 10

10. The greenery (I'm really not kidding). Despite Cairo being surrounded by desert, or perhaps because of this, Egyptians love plants. And plants love Egypt. Flowers bloom all year round, with some sort of tree blooming at all times. Trees line some of my favorite streets in Maadi with glimpses into beautiful tropical gardens.

Tipping. The last time I flew and a flight attendant took my trash, I had the irresistible urge to hand them some change. Almost everyone here wants a tip, but there is the problem - almost everybody. If only somebody could compile a comprehensive list of everyone in Cairo, whether or not they should be tipped, and how much the tip should be.

9. Getting around. Cairo is a city, and a very dense city at that. Although we live in a 'suburb' of Cairo, 95% of the people live in apartments. And so everything in our neighborhood is walkable. But if we don't feel like walking, there is always a taxi waiting to take us where we want to go.

However, part of the reason there's always that taxi waiting, and honking, and asking if I want a ride is because, with my blonde hair and scandalously naked calves, I stick out like a sore thumb wherever I go. I love being in the US where nobody gives me a second look. Who knew anonymity was so precious?

8. Egyptian food. I've never heard much praise of Egyptian food, but I think that it's a seriously under-appreciated cuisine. Especially the aeesh - local pita bread. I'll probably spend the rest of my life trying to replicate its chewy, soft texture and never get it right.

The maintenance. Or rather, lack of it. Everything here has chipped corners, water leaks, eighty-six degree right angles, sagging facades, and corroded bases. I've watched, over my two years here, brand-new buildings decay into patched-over, dirty replicas of their neighbors. The whole country gives one the impression of constantly sliding into one enormous midden heap.

7. The produce. Oh, the produce. When I read in Exodus about the children of Israel complaining about the leeks and the cucumbers and melons, I truly feel for them now. Rere and I were talking about jam the other day, and I realized that nobody here makes jam because there is always fresh fruit available any day of the year. And it's cheap. And it's local. And it's absolutely delicious.

Summer weather. Of course, some of that deliciousness is because of the weather, and I have to pay for my incredibly sweet cherries with incredibly hot weather. Between the months of April and October, the children and I spend most of our time inside or at the pool. And that's it.

6. Winter weather. The flip-side of summer weather is winter weather - the time of year when I look at all of that snow-fall in the US and feel smug while I drink my freshly squeezed orange juice while the children play in flip-flops at the park. I just wish I hadn't missed six months of it.

The dust. And the trash. The dust is nobody's fault - Cairo is in the middle of the Sahara, and so winds constantly bring in fine, fine dust that coats everything in sight - the trees, the cars, the railings, my children whenever they go outside. And since we're in a desert, no rain ever comes to wash it off. The trash, however, is somebody's fault and nobody does anything about it.

5. Maadi House. It's our own little slice of heaven, with a pool, a restaurant, and a playground for the children. I can almost always count on meeting someone I know there, and I don't stick out like any kind of thumb. It's been our second home while we've been here.

Which is good, as we live in an apartment with no yard. If it weren't for Maadi house, we'd have gone crazy, especially as there is no other green space to take the children to play in. Luckily the apartment is large so the children can ride bikes inside instead of out, but in the end, an apartment is still an apartment.

4. The branch. It has been our family while we've been here, watching over us and helping us more than we've returned over the past two years. We'll always remember the wonderful times at church.

Being dependent. This is really something that comes with living in any foreign culture - you just can't go out and get something done yourself. There is no phone book, no Home Depot, no library with do-it-yourself books. Any time I want to get something done, I have to have somebody else do it for me. Which, as nice as it may sound, gets wearing sometimes.

3. Rere. Need I say more?

My children's celebrity. If I stick out like a sore thumb, my children are movie stars. We tried a few times to take them out in public to the park or zoo, but quickly gave up when we were stopped every ten feet for pictures. Everyone was nice, everyone was polite, but when everyone is fifty people, I get a little cranky by the end.

2. Mangoes. I think that mangoes are the supreme act of creation. They could also be called ambrosia.

No car. My favorite part of being back in the US was having my own car. It was our choice not to bring a car, but I am never doing that again. I am too American; I can't stand not being able to go somewhere without the aid of someone else. I can't wait for home leave when I will have that beloved car back again.

1. Friends. Of course this had to be the number one thing I will miss about Cairo. And it will be the number one thing I'll miss about every single place we live.

So that's our two years, in a nutshell. We will miss Cairo, but we're also looking forward to the next adventure!

Seven Days to Go

2011-07-20T09:44:00.000-04:00

In one week, we'll be in the Frankfurt airport, waiting for our nine-hour flight across the Atlantic. The last of our odds-and-ends will have been packed up into four suitcases and our apartment left bare and waiting for the next family who will call it home.

And I can't wait for next week to come.

I'm not ready to leave for any dislike of Cairo; I wouldn't mind spending another few years here. We've had a great time, and it's the height of mango season. Rere is wonderful, and I'm incredibly sad to have to leave Maadi House. Everyone in the branch I can count as good friends, especially as almost every sister present has helped us out this past week in some way or another.

But it's time to go, and I'm itching with impatience to get the leaving over with. Our things are gone. The apartment is empty (although, Edwin can still strew with vigor despite the decreased amount of material available to him), and we're going crazy with boredom. Plane tickets are purchased, the suitcases have already been packed and weighed once, our ride to the airport is arranged.

And so now all I have to do is wait on my hands and try to shift with the six forks, knives, spoons, plates, glasses, and bowls to feed my family for the next few days. Sophia asks every day when we're going to get on the airplane and every day we count the days together, she being almost as eager as I.

I know that when the actual day comes, I'll be sad for all of the people that I will miss, friendships that may be picked up somewhere else, but most likely not. We will reminisce together and remember all of the great times we have.

First, however, we have to leave. And it's time to go.

Packout, Day Two

2011-07-18T15:17:00.000-04:00

This afternoon we watched the last of our things drive off in a rickety Egyptian pick-up truck, off to an unknown destination to be sent via obscure and unknown ways to Belgium and Virginia. And then I started remembering the things that I hadn't pulled out, and were accidentally packed.

The packing today went quite quickly, as the movers had packed almost everything and filled two of our three lift vans last night. Our grand total for weight was 4,901 pounds, which included food, consumable items we bought for the next post, and six or seven boxes of water.

We kept the children with us today, and Edwin was fascinated watching the men move things in and out. I watched the children while Brandon watched the movers play Tetris with our things in the lift van. By early afternoon, everything was finished in time for us to ~~go to the pool~~ do many more important things that Brandon definitely need admin time for.

Now it's just finishing up some paperwork, a few more swim lessons, one trip to church, and an unexpected holiday before our time here in Cairo is done. But until then, I'll be playing a lot of hide-and-seek, race up and down the hallway, and pull-all-the-couch-cushions-off-to-jump with the children to keep everyone occupied.

Packout, Day One

2011-07-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

In my dining room is a pile of boxes. Packed in those boxes is everything I have in Egypt except for four suitcases and their contents. When we first moved into our apartment and had nothing but suitcases, it was bare and sterile, waiting for our things to come and make it home. Now, with nothing but suitcases again, it just seems wonderfully clean and empty.

Our morning started well; after going to bed at one in the morning, Brandon and I woke up five hours later in time to get the children dressed and fed, the last load of towels dried, and a last few things hidden in the bathroom. When we returned from taking the children over to a wonderful friend's house for the day, the movers were in front of our building and unloading rolls of cardboard, plastic, bubble wrap, and newsprint.

The first order of the day was our UAB shipment - eight hundred pounds of our things to see us through for at least the next six months. Growing up, I always enjoyed watching The Price is Right. When it was time for the showcase showdown, I guessed right along with the contestants, trying to get my bid as close as possible without going over.

This morning I played my own Price is Right, but with weight instead of money. And so when I was able to get everything I wanted except my easel squeezed in right at eight hundred pounds, I may not have won a showcase, but I felt pretty darn clever for estimating my UAB weight so nicely.

After the UAB was weighed and safely crated, the morning progressed into the afternoon with box after box after box filled, taped repeatedly, and labeled. While the packing was in a flurry, Brandon and I floated from room to room, labeling as boxes were filled.

A lot of our things didn't fit in boxes, so we got to witness the amazing overseas phenomenon of 'make your own box,' as the movers fit bed frames, plastic bins, and my favorite brown chair into their own custom plastic wrapped-boxes. The most impressive sight of the day was our treadmill, boxed in layer after layer of cardboard and plastic before it was bodily carried down five flights of stairs.

By the time Brandon and I picked up the children and brought them home around 'sundown,' as Kathleen termed it, all of the house had been boxed except our storage room. Rere, who is now officially worth her weight in gold, had been cleaning rooms after the movers, unpacking our suitcases into the newly-wiped dressers she had prepared, and washing the dishes of our welcome kit.

After finishing a delicious dinner, brought us by another kind branch member, Edwin hopped down from Brandon's lap (as the high chair had been packed) and bolted for his favorite toy - the kitchen drawers. Brandon and I laughed and laughed as we watched him, with increasing consternation, open all of the drawers to find none of his toys in their usual places. Later, when we told Kathleen that all of her books had been packed up, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed for quite a while before we could cheer her up.

And so now, time for bed in our green-velour-covered bed (thank you, welcome kit). The movers return at ten tomorrow morning for a last lift-van full of boxes. And then we'll be done, at least until the next move.

A Farewell to the Khan

2011-07-16T06:00:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday we paid our last (hopefully) visit to the famed Khan-al-Khalili. I find it silly that, after two years of lusting after various housewares and handicrafts, we've waited until the last few months to buy them - just in time to be packed up for six months.

Saturday was the day of finishing up those odds and ends of major purchases. We had a fabric kilim that we had ordered before the revolution (a week or two before) and not picked up yet. My aunt requested some jewelry to be made up. And Brandon and I set out to buy that elusive mashrabiya screen - for the last time.

Brandon requested to start in the morning, so after breakfast and showers we headed out into the already-burning heat. Kathleen and Sophia frog-marched alongside Brandon and I as we headed for Road 9 (the local shopping street) while Edwin relaxed and sweated while being strapped to Brandon's back.

We got to Road 9, only to find the furniture shop we went visit closed, it being the early hour of 10:45. Not wanting to leave, we kept on going to McDonald's to get something cold. We were told that of course they didn't have ice cream at this hour as it was still breakfast time. So instead we had orange juice. Kathleen didn't want any, Sophia didn't like the taste, and Edwin spilled a full cup on the floor. After Brandon mopped up the spill, the children played in the playground for a few minutes before we headed back to the furniture shop.

We surveyed the goods, took note of the prices, and then hopped in a taxi for the long, hot, crowded ride to the Khan. Our stop was another furniture shop which had a promising screen and mirror. The screen wasn't finished, but the keeper claimed he could have it finished in a week - the day before pack-out. We told him we'd think about it and headed to the bead shop.

At the bead shop, we gave a solemn warning to the girls that if they touched a single thing we would cut off their fingers. While I was picking out stones for earrings and a pendant, Kathleen told me that she would like to be an adult. Distractedly, I asked her why. "Because," she told me, "if I was an adult, I would get to touch whatever I wanted." Thankfully, everyone obeyed, however, and everyone retained their fingers.

The helpful man at the shop then took us to his friend the jeweler who kept his workshop up three or four steep and bizarrely twisted staircases (you have never known the meaning of warren until you've been up into the backways of the Khan). The friend was very happy to set the stones in whatever setting we liked and handed us a jewelry catalog to pick one out. While the jeweler handed dates around to the children, I picked out a setting, agreed on a price, and set up a time to pick it up this week.

Back down the staircases we went, and down the street to the furniture shop with Sophia walking more and more slowly while Edwin melted to Brandon's back in the 100+ heat. At the furniture shop we decided on the mirror, not wanting to chance having the screen not finished in time. After the requisite talk we agreed on a price, and then had to head out again for an ATM for a deposit, having already handed the cash on hand to the jeweler for his deposit.

And then, to the relief of the girls, we finally went home. On the way to finding a taxi, Sophia tiredly proclaimed, "Next time we go to the Khan, I'm riding on Daddy's back and Edwin can walk." Don't worry Sophia, there won't be a next time.

Last Gasp of Domesticity

2011-07-15T15:01:00.001-04:00

In thirty-six hours, men will be arriving at my house. When they get here, they will spend the rest of the day packing up everything I own except what I have placed in to my -- (number to be determined) suitcases and hidden in the bathroom. And then I won't see those things for at least six weeks, most of it for six months.

When I really realized this, I also realized that I had a limited amount of time to finish off all of the odds and ends of things that I've been procrastinating... like making Edwin's stocking. Unfortunately for Edwin and his new sibling, they're going to have to wait another Christmas for their stockings.

However, this past week I was able to finish a few things. On Tuesday I made a church dress for Kathleen, completing everything in one day except for cutting out half of the fabric (which I had done earlier). On Wednesday I made seventeen pints of mango jam, and then shocked Brandon by providing a warm, halfway decent dinner on the same day. And today I pulled from the freezer puff pastry I made last summer to make a mango jaloussie for dessert.

Tomorrow is the last great push, when the laundry (oh the laundry) gets washed, suitcases packed, UAB separated, and all of those pesky tupperware containers harboring who-knows-what get rooted out of their hiding places in the refrigerator.

And after that, I'm hanging up my domestic goddess crown for a few months. Or rather, packing it in a suitcase.

Packing preparations

2011-07-12T06:00:00.002-04:00

The movers come in five days. In five days, all we will have left to us in Cairo better fit into the three suitcases we've held out of our shipments. Perhaps Lufthansa will check garbage bags?

For the last week, I've been working through the house, looking at every item in it and assigning it to a category: Baku, Virginia, home leave, or trash. After about two hours of this activity, making the crucial decision as Kathleen and Sophia twitter about me, firing self-evident and repetitive questions, more and more items end up in the last category. The more tired I am, the more items end up in the trash.

This is the part of the Foreign Service that I care for least, like the six weeks after a baby is born, the part that you do your best to forget, and cant' quite remember how difficult it is until you're in the middle of it. And I don't even have to pack the boxes myself.

The last time we moved I was about this pregnant, too, and I have to ask myself when I'm tired and crabby and just wish the children would leave me alone why I'm doing this again. But it only lasts so long, and then it will be done with until the next round, which I won't think about just like I don't think about having another baby while I'm pregnant with one.

Friends have asked me how I feel about leaving Cairo, and I honestly just feel tired. I'm too tired to care, which is probably good because otherwise I might feel sad for leaving my home for the last two years. But for right now, until those movers come Sunday morning, it's one step at a time, one drawer before the next, and one more yell swallowed in favor of a smile.

Istanbul, Day Five (the end)

2011-07-10T06:00:00.000-04:00

By Monday, Brandon and I had been touristed-out, so we made our way to the Grand Bazaar for the obligatory souvenir shopping. We had a limited amount of time before we had to leave for the airport, so a list had been made the night previous, and a schedule worked out.

Brandon was in the good graces of somebody, as we started out ahead of schedule, arriving in the Grand Bazaar (with reportedly four thousand shops) half an hour before time. Our first purchase was a pashmina for my mother, which I bought at the first shop we entered, and fairly easily bargained the price down almost half. We dispatched with trivets next, using the time-honored tradition of walking away, and left the storekeeper not quite happy with how things had gone on his side. After the trivets came Christmas ornaments. When the storekeeper asked where we were from and I replied 'Cairo,' he immediately dropped his price almost to my initial offer. We finished off our shopping with a nice bowl, and another good bargain.

To Brandon's amazement, we were leaving the Grand Bazaar within forty-five minutes of our entrance with our treasures in tow. We had enough time left to withdraw money for our hotel bill (which took some time, as Brandon's card was blocked; thankfully mine worked), eat an ice cream cone on the grounds of Topkapi palace, and watch the top-sellers outside the Blue Mosque.

As we rode in a taxi to the airport, we both agreed that the trip was a wonderful success with nary a disaster the entire time. And when our flight was even on time, we wondered what we had done to have the fates smile down on us so kindly. We had an absolutely wonderful time, the weather was beautiful, we were hardly harassed at all, and we never got lost for more than ten minutes. I can't remember a more pleasant string of five days I've had in a very long time.

Which is good, as it's now time to get ready to leave - in less than three weeks.

Daddy's Tender Heart (or how I was conned into buying a purple bike)

2011-07-08T09:54:00.001-04:00

For Kathleen's fifth birthday, we're giving her a bike. She has asked for various and sundry things (including a horse and carriage), but she's getting a bike. Whenever the children start asking about various things they want for birthdays, I always remind them that although they are free to ask for whatever they want, Brandon and I are the ones giving the gifts, and so we will choose what we're giving them. I'll be interested to see how long that explanation can hold up.

When Kathleen got a tricycle for Christmas several years ago, I found the most solid, gender neutral one possible because in this family almost everything gets passed down. And in fairly quick order. Just the other day, the girls were talking about passing down their blankets. I assured them that blankets are personal possessions and so are kept.

So when I started looking for a bicycle, I looked for a nice, solid, gender-neutral one. And I found that toddler bikes don't come gender-neutral. They either have streamers and unicorns or man-eating trucks on them. Eventually, after searching and searching I found these ones:

Of course, they were the most expensive bikes I could find, but they were nice, solid, gender-neutral bikes, acceptable to both girls and boys. They blue one even looked a little girly, and I worried that Brandon wouldn't approve. When I showed him the blue bike, he took one glance and snorted 'That's a boys' bike.' So I showed him the next one, 'Boys' bike too,' he announced.

I explained to him all of my reasoning, my desire to be economical with our money (which always plays well with him), how I didn't think our boy(hopefully -s) would want to ride a pink bike with streamers. To which he only replied, 'I rode a girls' bike and that didn't hurt me a bit. And they have lower bars which help in a fall.'

After some wrangling, he threw up his hands and announced that I could do what I like. So I got to work scouring the internet for a good deal on the bike. After a few websites, I stumbled on this bike:

I showed it to Brandon. He approved, and then thanked me for deferring to his preference.

And that's how I found myself calling a bike shop in Raleigh, asking about having them hold that purple bike until we come in August. I guess the boy (-s) will have to deal.

Istanbul, Day Four (the Sabbath)

2011-07-03T15:19:00.000-04:00

When Brandon and I booked our trip for Istanbul in April, we made sure to schedule our trip so as to avoid Friday, the sabbath in the Middle East. When the revolution took us away and kept us away long enough to miss the trip, we had less flexibility to reschedule, and so had to schedule over a Friday.

After contacting the Branch President in Istanbul, however, we found out that the weekend here is Western, and so church was on Sunday anyway, so our previous scheduling would have not made a bit of difference.

When traveling on the Sabbath, Brandon and I (and the children by default) try to avoid activities we don't engage in at home and keep it a day of rest as much as possible. So this morning, after having a leisurely breakfast (sorry, Metin), we got ready for church and made our way to a park near the church building.

On our way, we saw a (literal) cat house.

And just before the park we found an enormous, floral cat sculpture.

In the park, we discovered the subtle sport of vying-for-shady-park-benches-with-old-Turkish-men. After circling, looking for a likely candidate, and lying in wait, we scored a shady bench and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves eating fresh cherries, Turkish delight, and baklava for 'lunch.'

We were able to find church easily enough, and rode up to the seventh floor crammed in with the mission president and his wife, visiting from Sofia. We also were able to meet the Area President who was visiting, and talk to him about church in Baku. The LDS world is always small, but it gets even smaller in this part of the world. We were disappointed to find out that our fellow FSLDS colleagues were out for the summer.

We enjoyed a wonderful meeting with Turks, Filipinos, Nigerians, Ethiopians, and fellow Americans. It was my first meeting with simultaneous Turkish-English and English-Turkish translations. I was very impressed with the efforts of the Branch President.

After church, we strolled back to our hotel and saw more slumbering cats.

It's our last evening in Istanbul, so we enjoyed a pleasant stroll among the crowds at the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque as the sun set. One more day, and then home to Cairo.

Istanbul, Day Three (or, going further afield)

2011-07-02T14:50:00.000-04:00

So far, Brandon and I have contained our wanderings to places less than half a mile from our hotel. Which is, of course, why we booked a hotel in this location - because it's close to a lot of things. But, by the third day we'd covered most of what there is to cover around, and so we had to leave.

So we started our day with a Bosphorous cruise. We intended to take a full cruise, but after some confusion combined with a late breakfast, we missed the 10:30 start time and took a short cruise instead. And yes, Tammy and Alvin, I went on the cruise, too. Here's the picture to prove it:

This picture is for my Uncle Mark and cousin Scott:

Having a lot more time than we anticipated, we started wandering. First we went to the Spice Bazaar, which was completely underwhelming. So then we visited the pet market. Brandon and I debated whether the following were for pets or food.

We knew these weren't for either. Evidently, according to what Turkish we could figure out from the signs above the jugs, they are for healing a variety of maladies, including migraine and eczema. And they were everywhere.

Having exhausted the possibilities of the pet market (there were quite beautiful exotic birds that would have been confiscated faster than we could think if we tried to take them to the US), we decided to try the calligraphy museum. It was closed. So instead we went to the Sulimanyet mosque, which wasn't. On the way back, we thought we could hear the strains of 'tuppence a bag.' In Turkish, of course.

We had a nice dinner and afterwards watched Brazilian capoeira dancers, had Turkish ice cream, and listened to "When the Saints Go Marching In" on one of the busy pedestrian streets. We came home just in time for the call to prayer, and this lovely view out of our room window.

And now time for bed.

Istanbul, Day Two (or, Topkapi Palace and its Environs)

2011-07-01T15:11:00.000-04:00

Across the street from our hotel is a restaurant with live music every night. This being Turkey, we usually hear Turkish music sung to the accompaniment of a hammer dulcimer. A few minutes ago, however, we were treated to 'Happy Birthday.' I suppose you just can't get away from some aspects of American culture.

Today was another fantastic day of touring, eating, and a lot of walking. We started off the morning by visiting Topkapi (imagine the last 'i' without a dot on it) Palace.

We continued the morning, and well into the afternoon visiting Topkapi palace. My favorite part of the palace was the treasury; I have never seen such a collection of large gemstones in one place. Almost everything in the entire display was encrusted with emeralds, diamonds, rubies, and turquoises. It's too bad nobody gets to use it anymore.

After palace-ing ourselves out, Brandon and I had lunch at a delicious seafood restaurant. Having enjoyed an excellent meal, we strolled to a park on the grounds of the palace and I took a nap on the grass. After resting, we saw the Archeological museum and might have managed to at least walk by almost all of their one million pieces.

While in the museum, Brandon's phone rang. He picked it up and Kathleen told him how they were painting their fingernails and toenails and eating Scooby-Doo fruit snacks and running up and down the hall. I looked around at the marble sarcophagi and was so glad, for the twentieth time, that we had left the children at home to enjoy fruit snacks.

After viewing all of the archeological treasures, Brandon and I strolled home by the way of a local sweet shop to pick up our dinner - turkish delight and baklava.

We worked off the diabetic coma by watching YouTube videos and movie trailers. I felt a little guilty for not being out, enjoying the culture and sights of Istanbul while we were watching transformers blow up New York (or some other major US city). But then it started raining and now I just feel clever.

Istanbul, Day One

2011-06-30T10:55:00.000-04:00

Brandon and I are sitting in our hotel room, resting our weary feet after a long day of touring. We almost didn't make it.

Tuesday night protesters decided to gather in Tahrir Square, and the police/military didn't like it. Wednesday morning Tahrir was closed, and the TV was showing scenes from the previous night's protest. We talked about leaving or staying, and decided to go ahead on our trip. So far, nothing has happened, but we've only been here a day.

The flight out was uneventful, although an hour and a half (for a two-hour flight) late. But, I didn't expect anything different from flying Turkish Airlines. This time, thankfully, we didn't have any connections. We checked into our hotel to find that the water was out because of an explosion in the neighborhood. I just laughed when the kind hotelier apologized, and told him that at home our phone and internet had been out since Tuesday night. Sometime it's a toss-up between the two.

So this morning, after sleeping in past eight, we stepped to the hotel next door to take a shower (their cistern had been filled that day) before enjoying a personally prepared breakfast with a stunning view of the Blue Mosque.

After breakfast, we saw the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Islamic arts museum, and Brandon bought me chalcedony earrings for a late anniversary present. We're now taking a rest before heading out to dinner.

The weather has been lovely, the people oh-so-much less pushy than Cairenes, and strolling around, hand in hand, has been a pleasure. We called the girls a while ago, and Kathleen reported that they had eaten Scooby-Doo fruit snacks and were watching a movie so she had to go. So everyone is enjoying themselves very much.

Istanbul was Constantinople

2011-06-29T06:00:00.000-04:00

By the time you read this, Brandon and I won't be on an airplane (if you read it early). But we will be today, and it will be without any children (except for one in utero). I haven't flown without children since December 2005, and I'm looking forward to eating my own meal, talking with Brandon and even perhaps taking a nap.

About eighteen months ago when our bank account was unexpectedly enhanced by Edwin's medevac, Brandon and I talked about what to do with the extra money. We could save it or we could spend it. I voted to spend it, and surprisingly Brandon agreed. We decided to take a trip at the end of our tour, and Istanbul seemed like as good a choice as any, based on airfare prices. Who knew that flying out of Cairo would be so expensive?

We decided to go for our sixth anniversary, and to leave the children in Cairo with Rere. I know the limitations of my children, and I knew that a vacation with children is no vacation at all. When Kathleen asked what was in Istanbul and found out that it was just a lot of old buildings and no pool at the hotel, she immediately declared 'boring!'

Brandon was able to get the time off, and I bought plane tickets. On January 26th. On the 31st we evacuated. I wasn't worried about our trip, however, because we would definitely be back by the end of April. That was a long way away, right?

By mid-April it was clear that I wasn't going to be back in time. Brandon could have taken the trip, but he said it wouldn't be much fun without me. We had purchased trip insurance, but when I called about making a claim, I was flatly told by several people that as evacuations were not specifically listed in the documentation, I had paid them fifty dollars to yell at them in frustration.

So with only a few days left before our plane tickets were to be used, Brandon talked to his supervisor, who let him have this coming weekend off. I rescheduled the plane tickets, rescheduled the hotel reservations, and was relieved to see that Istanbul is much cooler than Cairo at the end of June.

And so we're off today, looking forward to the first vacation of more than 24 hours since before Sophia was born. I'm not sure if I'm more looking forward to the sights (which I saw in 2002), not cooking dinner for five days, or sleeping in and staying up as much as I want. The girls are looking forward to lots and lots of movies with Rere and all the Egyptian food they can take. Hooray for vacations!

On why it is sometimes better to not own your couches

2011-06-27T06:00:00.001-04:00

One common, endless complaint of every State employee at some point in their career is the furniture. The furniture is very traditional, ours being Drexel-Heritage cherry throughout the house. The furniture is very much the same; I've seen my dining room set in Brussels, Amman, and India. And the couches are... well... I assume they are someone's style, but I haven't found anyone who will admit that red-and-gold brocade is their first choice for living room decor.

Nevertheless, the couches are State's couches, not mine, and there are certain advantages. In our current apartment we have two couches, three love seats, and four upholstered chairs. Before we joined State, Brandon and I 'owned' one couch, given to us by my aunt and uncle, and taken back when we left Utah. So I've never bought a couch in my life, and I'm happy not to buy two couches, three love seats, and four upholstered chairs.

Within a week of moving here, Sophia had attacked one couch with a black dry erase marker. Had it been my couch, she could possibly still be in her room. As it's not mine, I flipped the cushion over and hoped that our couches are up for re-upholstery after we leave.

And recently, the children have discovered a new game. It's been hot here so we stay inside a lot, and we have no yard so the girls often get creative (that's what I call it - Brandon calls it 'looks like a hurricane came through here'). The other day I walked into my front room to find all two couches, two love seats (the one in the study was spared), and four upholstered chairs stripped of their cushions. As all have loose-backed cushions, it was a lot of cushions.

When I looked to see where the cushions had gone, I discovered an enormous pile of red-and-gold and tan-and-gold brocade. Climbing over the pile, under the pile, and through the pile were Kathleen, Sophia and Edwin.

If my couch cushions had been trampled, squashed, and jumped on, I think I might have demanded the children put them back right now. But, as they're not my couch cushions, I laughed and asked them if they were having a good time. They replied that this was the best thing they'd done all week. And everyone was happy. Except maybe the property management people in about five weeks.

The Pyramids (Finally)

2011-06-24T06:00:00.001-04:00

The other day, the subject of Disneyland came up. When Kathleen asked why we were never going to take her to Disneyland, I explained that Disneyland wasn't much more than somewhere that had a lot of pretend places from around the world. And why would we want to see the pretend pyramids, when we've seen the real ones?

"But I haven't!!" she protested, "why haven't you taken me to see the real pyramids?" I blame Bill and Pete Go Down the Nile for her knowing what the pyramids actually are.

So, this past Saturday, we bowed to popular dissent and finally took our children to see the pyramids. We still have the use of our friends' car, and so I navigated through Cairo traffic with nary a mishap (and that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

We arrived early on purpose to avoid the crowds, which worked somewhat nicely. Not one person asked to take our children's pictures, but we were followed by every carriage, camel, and horse-man that saw us from a half-mile off.

After seeing the Great Pyramid and the other one, we made it up to the Menakaufre pyramid, where we had tickets to go inside. They wouldn't let us take the backpack with our camera inside, and I wasn't about to leave the backpack with them, so I took Sophia and Brandon took Kathleen.

Sophia, although a little nervous with the steep descent, decided that the inside of a pyramid was pretty interesting and not a bit scary. Kathleen took her turn with Brandon, determined to be just like Jack and Annie and see the inside. She saw about three feet inside before breaking down into screaming fits and Brandon saw the inside all by himself. Edwin will have to wait until he can come back on his own dime to see the inside of any pyramid.

By this point, we had walked quite a bit over sand and stone, and I didn't have much faith in the ability of Kathleen and Sophia to stick it out all of the way back down to the Sphinx, and was eyeing the camels waiting outside the pyramid. Brandon flatly refused, not wanting to give in to the man, but after promising him that I would take all responsibility and do all of the bargaining, he consented.

The children all loved being so high above everyone, and Brandon declared at the end that it was a good idea. I'm sure they'll remember the ride most of all.

We finished with a very quick visit to the Sphinx and made our way back to the car, relieved to have finally done our duty by our children.

The Death of a Potato Masher

2011-06-22T07:55:00.000-04:00

Edwin has a strange fascination with my kitchen equipment. Every time I'm cooking dinner and several other times throughout the day, he heads for the drawers where my measuring cups, spatulas, pastry brushes, egg slicer, candy thermometer, and other various and sundry items reside.

I let him, as I let his sisters before him, because it keeps his mind on something other than screaming and wanting to be picked up. The downside of this arrangement, however, is when things get carried off. I still haven't found one pastry brush after months of looking, and the other is usually in the bathtub more than in the drawer. Currently my small sieve is missing, and so I had to use cheesecloth to strain my lemon juice while I was making jam on Monday. When we lived in a two-bedroom duplex in Springville, Kathleen absconded with my rolling pin, and I had to use a leg from our utility shelves filled with beans as a substitute. I assumed we would find it when we packed out, but it never did turn up.

Another favorite of Edwin's is the potato masher. Why? Nobody's quite sure, but it likes to make peregrinations throughout the house, where I found it last week in the toy room. It had gotten a little bent, but the cheap metal was quickly bent back before the potato masher returned to its residence in the kitchen.

On Sunday, I started making apricot jam. Jam requires mashing, so I fetched the potato masher for mashing. Near the end of the mashing, the unthinkable happened: it broke. I don't remember exactly where I had picked it up, but I think it may have been when I first went to college. It had survived through countless moves, quite a few roommates, and a lot use to expire in a pot of apricot jam.

Which now leaves me with a problem - no potato masher. Usually I fix such problems with a visit to my local online retailer, but I've run into another problem - three and a half weeks before the movers come. And so, I'm just stuck without a potato masher until I'm back in the US to buy one. I wonder what will break next.

Six Weeks

2011-06-17T09:12:00.001-04:00

Or rather, five-half-weeks if you like to be specific. In six weeks all of our worldly goods will have been packed up in boxes, bins, moving containers, and suitcases and sent or carried off to various places. We will have completed the eighth trans-atlantic journey in the last two years, and be at the beach. Five weeks into the future will be a completely different story.

A few days ago, when a friend asked if we had everything ready for packout (supposedly in a month), Brandon laughed and said that if it were up to him we'd have our suitcases packed, but since his wife was in charge of those things, not a thing had been done yet.

Here is a list of things we've done to get ready to leave:
  1. buy a rug
Here is a list of things we haven't done:
  1. purchase (or even schedule) plane tickets
  2. schedule our packout
  3. find somewhere to live
  4. sort through our belongings
  5. organize everything for those three separate destinations
  6. decide how to get from North Carolina to Missouri
  7. finally take the children to the Pyramids

However, in preparation for our departure, Rere is bringing ten kilos of delicious fresh apricots on Sunday so I can take apricot jam to Baku with us. And in two weeks Brandon and I are going to Turkey for five days.

Genetically, I am a planner. My mother was a planner, my grandmother was a planner, my sisters are planners. There is a deeply-rooted desire to take the world and organize it according to the way it should be. After moving several (to be honest not that many yet) times, I've realized that, if taken to its fullest extent, planning too much too early will end up hamstringing my efforts.

So this time, I'm trying something different: cram the pain into a small space. After we come back from Istanbul, I will organize, sort, shuttle, pack, and throw away as much a I can in two weeks. Then the movers will come and pack up whatever is left. Then I will go on vacation for six weeks.

After all, everything will get moved, regardless of how organized it is when it's thrown into boxes. Right?

Dinner Conversations

2011-06-15T12:52:00.000-04:00

Kathleen asked Brandon to sing the "Trogdor" song. After he sang it for her, she declared that she was going to pretend that her food was the peasants in their thatch-roofed cottages, and destroy them.

When Brandon was telling the story of Alexander the Great, he mentioned Athens. Sophia, when she heard Athens, exclaimed excitedly, "We visited Athens! It has a Sofitel!"

Kathleen, after exhausting Brandon's childhood stories, asked for other stories. So Brandon told her the story of Vlad the Impaler.

I cook the food, but I take no personal responsibility for the conversation.

Wadi Digla

2011-06-14T07:17:00.001-04:00

Some friends of ours recently left town for a month and (not having heard of my high school driving record) left us the keys of their car. Unfortunately, since the evacuation, nobody is allowed to drive without another adult, and so we've only just used it for the first time this past Saturday.

So, for our inaugural outing in Egyptian traffic, we went to Wadi Digla, a local 'nature' preserve. After driving for awhile though the canyon, we parked the car, and Sophia and Kathleen immediately headed to the nearest rock pile and started climbing.

Sophia enjoyed climbing, but Kathleen decided that climbing, rocks, and skinned knees weren't her favorite and had to be coaxed down by Brandon after getting to the top.

Edwin and I stayed on the valley floor where he found trash to dig in the dirt with.

We ended our trip into nature (we had to explain to the girls what 'nature' means) with a walk down the dry creek bed, and stopped by the commissary on the way home for Fudgsicles.

All Dressed Up and (Finally) Something to Buy

2011-06-10T13:50:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I planned a series of surprises for Brandon's birthday. The surprises culminated in me showing up at his office just as he was leaving for a long, very hot ride on the metro with all of his required 'buddies' from work. Brandon was at first confused, and then happy to see me, and even happier to take an air-conditioned taxi down to Maadi with me, his preferred buddy.

I had left the children with Rere, so we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. I knew that dinner would only take so long, so I suggested visiting the rug shop that was never open when we went out for my birthday in January. It was open this time, and a hand-made silk rug caught our eye as we walked in the door. We looked at quite a few other rugs, but the first was our favorite. When it came time to ask the price, it was no surprise that our favorite was also the most expensive.

Neither of us have any reasonable experience bargaining, never having haggled for anything worth over eighty dollars, and this rug was a great deal more than eighty dollars. We looked at each other, realized that we were in over our heads and thanked the kind man and went to dinner.

Over coconut juice, spring rolls, and pad thai, we discussed our options. I was surprised to find out that Brandon, as his attachment to material goods is almost nonexistent, quite seriously wanted that rug, and only that rug, regardless of the cost. So we discussed prices, the theory of bargaining, and our bargaining strategy, eventually deciding on a price that we could live with but wouldn't go above.

When we walked back into the shop, the owner pulled out the rugs we had previously narrowed down our choices to. I became insistent that I wanted the rug, and Brandon stubbornly refused, reminding me repeatedly that it was much more than we could afford to spend. He asked to see other, less expensive rugs, and I pointed out that my rug was obviously the most beautiful of all of them while Brandon claimed that they were all rugs to him. By this time, the men had gathered around, and were telling Brandon that he had better listen to his wife because she knew what she was talking about and she was the one who would have it in her house. The ante only went up when Brandon slipped that it was my birthday.

After enough acting, the shopkeeper agreed to lower the price, and left us to argue about getting another, cheaper rug while I insisted that I only wanted that rug. When we stood up to leave, the man was back again, asking us why we were leaving. When Brandon told him that we just didn't have the budget, he asked what our budget was and came down again. After some more pleading, we counter-offered, and then he counter-offered the price Brandon and I had agreed on over dinner. Not one to give up a game so easily, Brandon grumbled for another five minutes before finally giving in for 'my birthday.'

The owner happily wrapped up our rug, pleased to have sold the rug for such a good price, and I happily handed over the credit card, pleased to have gotten it for such a good price. Brandon and I both left happily, pleased to have worked out our play-acting exactly how we had planned, the warm glow of our first successful bargain in our hearts.

When the girls saw it this morning, they oohed and ahhed over how beautiful it was, and Sophia announced that it was just like a magic carpet. And we all got on and went for a ride.

2011-06-09T08:19:00.000-04:00

After making four dozen sugar cookies (with frosting), three dozen chocolate chocolate chip cookies, lemon poppy seed muffins, scrambled eggs with bacon, and a four-layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting in the last 36 hours, I think I've found the sixth language of love.

Food.

Out out, darn spot!

2011-06-08T06:00:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, Kathleen dropped a basket on her toe and scraped some skin off. The wound wasn't deep and so I gave her a kiss and saved the Band-Aids for a bloodier occasion.

Last night while I was cleaning the kitchen, I heard a wail from Kathleen. She came limping down the hall to show me her bloody toe. The girls had been spinning in our room (Sophia was the princess and Kathleen the prince), and the scab from a few days ago had popped open and was bleeding. This time a kiss wasn't going to stop the blood, so I cleaned her toe while she wailed in pain and anxiety and fixed a Band-Aid on the bleeding wound.

Right after cleaning her up, Brandon came in from an errand, and we went back to our room to read scriptures and pray. When I knelt down to pray, I noticed a spot of blood on the carpet. And six inches away, another spot. A foot away from the second was a third. When I looked around, I discovered that we were surrounded by little red bloody spots all over our State-issued carpet.

As Brandon looked around to see what I had pointed out to him, I could see dollar signs flashing in his widening eyes while he tried to keep from shouting at Kathleen.

Only after I googled "get blood out of carpet" did I realize how suspect it looked, but luckily the blood came off easily enough with cold water, and the girls were happy to help wipe up the blood trail down our hall. As I cleaned I was amazed at the places Kathleen had trod with her bleeding foot - my favorite was a spot almost behind the curtain. Was she spinning for some time before the noticed the blood? Or did she dance around our entire carpet in distress?

But, everything came out, at least until SPM comes around with the luminol. And while cleaning, Brandon taught the girls a new phrase to use while cleaning up spots. "Out out, darn spot!"

The Beginning of a New Era

2011-06-06T06:00:00.001-04:00

This evening after dinner, a seminal event occurred: after finishing their dinner, the girls ran off to play. Edwin, hearing their merriment, indicated he'd like to get down too, and then ran off after his sisters. Brandon and I stayed in the kitchen and washed the dishes in peace.

Every dinner we've had previously has ended with somebody being forced to finish, the others hanging around the kitchen while playing, fighting, asking endless questions, making endless requests, and getting under the feet of anyone trying to do anything useful.

But we've reached a new stage in parenting, the new stage where our children enjoy playing by themselves. Kathleen and Sophia have become, on occasion, more interesting to each other than their parents are.

It's strange, to reach the end of constant leech stage and move on to something different, and even more strange to realize that that stage will never come again. I will have individual children who will find me so irresistible they can't leave me, but never again will all of them swirl around me constantly, satellites to my planet. I won't be surrounded by a constant of little voices, moving wherever I move, and providing constant company.

And I'm thrilled.

No Roller Coasters for Her

2011-06-03T13:05:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, we celebrated Memorial Day. Because the workweek here is Sunday through Thursday, we didn't have Monday off, we had Sunday off. However, because our guests were from Wales, England, France, and Canada, none of them had Sunday off. So instead we celebrated on Saturday. Got that?

When I was a child, we always spent Memorial Day at the pool. Our pool opened on Memorial Day and closed on Labor Day, and both days were celebrated with a pot luck pig pickin'. So I always associate Memorial Day with barbecue, fried chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, and my personal favorite, hushpuppies.

We couldn't find anyone to sell us a whole pig, and don't have anywhere to set up an oil-drum pig smoker, so we only had fried chicken for protein. But of course we had the cole slaw, potato salad, hushpuppies, and for dessert, peach ice cream.

Our Saturday morning was spent in various food preparations, and the girls started the morning in our company. They peacefully painted in watercolors (practicing the color-mixing principles they had learned at a friend's house that week) while Edwin wandered around the house, Roomba-fashion, picking up whatever was in his path. After awhile, the girls got bored, so Brandon turned on an Abba CD for them in the study.

Our study had two spinning office chairs, and there are two girls, so two girls heartily amused themselves while spinning to the solid-gold seventies Abba tunes. Who doesn't like Dancing Queen? They were happy, and we were left in peace, and our work progressed well as Brandon chopped potatoes and I peeled and mashed peaches.

After twenty or thirty minutes of peace, Sophia started coughing. I wasn't worried (I never am until the bones snap and the screaming starts in earnest), but Brandon was and went to check. "I keep coughing things up," she told him, so he brought her into the kitchen. And then the burps came, and we looked at each other and rushed her to the trash can just in time for breakfast to come around again, several times.

After she was calmed down and cleaned up, we catalogued all of the food she had eaten for the last twenty-four hours. Nothing seemed suspicious, and nobody else was sick. We felt her forehead, and it was normal. She didn't complain of a headache or feeling badly.

And then I remembered: the spinning. So now we know who in the family gets motion sickness.

So How's that Baby Coming Along?

2011-05-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

I'm now four months through my fourth pregnancy. I think I can now consider myself a fairly seasoned pregnant woman, having spent two and a half years (of my six years of marriage) pregnant.

So when friends ask me how the pregnancy is going, sometimes I have to stop and think for a minute and remember that yes, I am pregnant again, and it's going fine if I forget that there's a baby the size of my fist currently residing in my abdomen.

With my first pregnancy, Kathleen, I couldn't wait to fit into maternity clothes and felt like I had to wait forever until those parachute-sized shirts fit, and some of them never quite did. Sophia landed me in maternity jeans before the end of two months, but with Edwin I managed to hold onto my normal pants, with some modifications until over halfway through. I waited until the absolute last necessary minute before I started wearing those maternity clothes. This time I'm hoping the extend my record even further.

During Kathleen's gestation, I checked the pregnancy book at least twice a week to see how my baby was developing. This go around the only time I've ever checked it was to settle a dispute Brandon and I had about the size of the baby - apricot or small cantaloupe? He won, and I haven't opened it since.

I got blood work done in the US before we left so that I wouldn't have to bother with it here, but I've yet to go to the Embassy clinic and confess to the doctor there that I'm pregnant - again. Maybe I'll get around to it the week after next.

We haven't decided on a name for either gender, and haven't even talked much about it. I could get an ultrasound whenever I feel like going down the Nile Diagnostics clinic and paying for it, but I'm considering not even bothering until I return to the US just to avoid the hassle.

I'm very thankful that I've been blessed with very easy pregnancies, and this one has been no exception. Which is good because by the time this baby arrives I will have packed and moved out of three apartments, moved into three apartments/houses, flown on two transatlantic journeys, visited or lived in five countries, been evacuated for three months, on home leave for six weeks, and taken care of three children under five the entire time.

So, the pregnancy is going well. Having three children already helps the time pass quickly, and moving in the middle keeps my mind off the constant mantra of how many months, weeks, and days until I stop increasing daily. I'm looking forward to the baby coming, especially since it will mean that we're almost done with the Year of Craziness.

Swim Baby, Swim

2011-05-27T12:56:00.000-04:00

Swimming season has officially begun (it was one hundred degrees today), and so the girls have started swim lessons during the week. Last year I left Edwin with Rere at home and participated in the lessons with the girls since Sophia was only two.

This year, however, both are old enough to have lessons without my presence, so Edwin gets to come to the pool with us and have swim time with me. Last year when we started taking Edwin swimming, I'd dunk him a few times every time we went swimming so he wouldn't be scared by going under the water. He was young enough to not know the difference, and so the strongest reaction he ever had was surprise.

So this year when I plunged him under the water, he looked around, wiped his face, and then broke out in a wide grin. And he hasn't looked back. Now, at the ripe old age of seventeen months, he practically belly-flops off the side of the pool into the vicinity of my arms, often regardless of my nearness. The last time we went to the pool, he thought it was great fun to flop himself into the baby pool face-first and then wait, quietly floating, until I came over to give him my hand so he could stand up.

I'm happy that he's so comfortable with the water, but he has no natural caution to keep him safe and I have to watch him like a hawk. And I think he makes the lifeguards incredibly nervous too. But when it comes to his turn for swim lessons I think we can skip the part about putting his head under the water.

So Much for Being Proactive

2011-05-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

I've never owned a refrigerator. Or a furnace, or air conditioner. I have owned a washer and dryer, but those for less than two years. My responsibility when it comes to appliances (and cars, for that matter) usually amounts to crossing my fingers, screwing my eyes shut, and hoping that nothing goes wrong with them until my turn with them is over. Not very adult, but so far it's worked.

So when the refrigerator started collecting water in the bottom a few days ago, I didn't worry about it. Refrigerators do that sometimes, and then they usually stop. No problem. Brandon mentioned it, and I theorized that the freezer was going through a self-defrosting cycle, so he stopped worrying too.

But this morning, when Rere showed up, she worried. Because that's what she's paid to do. If it weren't for Rere, half of the things in this apartment (other than the AC) wouldn't be working. And so when she suggested giving her friend in maintenance a call, I shrugged my shoulders and said why not, not wanting to be bothered about it for the next three weeks.

Twenty minutes later facilities was here, and ten minutes later they had taken my refrigerator apart. They couldn't find anything wrong, put everything back together, and told Rere to give them a call that afternoon if the water showed back up. It did, so by three o'clock a new refrigerator was brought by, and by three forty-five Rere had cleaned it and replaced my food.

I came home from swim lessons with the girls to a new refrigerator - narrower, shallower, shorter, and with one less row of shelves than my old one. We had just finished cleaning out the leftovers and our refrigerator had been in that blessedly empty state, cleansed of its old odds and ends and waiting to receive new leftover deliciousness. The new one, despite this lack of food, was full, almost overflowing. I cursed facilities for their old, crappy appliances that they always pawn off on me, and schemed how I could at least get some more shelves.

This evening at dinner, I noticed water on the table. I picked up a plastic half-gallon water container, one of several we keep filled in the refrigerator for ready cold water. I wiped off the water that was pooling around its base. And then I noticed the crack, so small I had overlooked several times. But not small enough to keep the water from leaking out... for at least a week now.

Sophia turns three

2011-05-20T13:52:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was Sophia's third birthday. We celebrated the day by eating breakfast in our pajamas, going to the Commissary for a treat, and starting out the swimming season at Maadi House.

We had her favorite dinner, eggs benedict, and then had cake and presents. I had worked the night before and that afternoon to make the cake she had specifically requested. But even before the presents were opened, she and Kathleen both declared that they were not interested in cake. By this point I shouldn't be surprised, as most times nobody wants cake after the presents are opened. But still I make cake every time.

I find it strange to have Sophia turn three already - she was my Foreign Service baby, born right before we realized that Brandon might have a shot at a job other than lasagna making, and she really hasn't known anything but this crazy life. One of the more common conversations is how old somebody will turn in what country.

I'm grateful to have Sophia in our family, brightening our days and so adorably lisping out her verse when it's her turn in scripture study. I just can't believe she's three already!

Evacuation: In Review

2011-05-07T06:00:00.001-04:00

Now that we're safe, sound, and back home, I feel that I can look back on the evacuation with some objectivity. Being evacuated is something that I never would have ever chosen to do. But with that said, it was manageable. I think that if I had been separated from Brandon for the entire three months, I would have been saying something else entirely. But, I wasn't, and I'm grateful.

Although we've only been back for a handful of days, our time in Virginia is starting to fade in the fuzzy unreality of events completed. This is my reality, and living in the US was just some strange, long dream I woke up from in the Cairo airport.

But, despite the overall unpleasant situation - away from home, living in a random apartment, unstable situation, maxed-out credit card, husband gone - I can't say that the entire three months were complete misery.

I enjoyed being back in the US with a car, a GPS, somewhere to go, and somewhere to park when I got there. We've been going to the same park every Saturday since we've been here, and the girls were absolutely thrilled about the change. Every time I'd announce we were going to a whole new park the girls were happy for the rest of the day.

On the surface when I didn't think too much about our situation, life really wasn't too bad. I didn't have any housework, any appointments, and pretty much every day was filled with whatever I liked (as long as it included three children). We went to the zoo, the aquarium, lots and lots of parks, friends' houses, relatives' houses, and to grandma and grandpa's. Spending the first three months of my pregnancy on evacuation wasn't the worst thing because I already had excuses not to cook, and once Brandon left, I could sleep in as long as I liked. Once it got warm, a friend and I decided to have as many picnic meals at the park as we could.

But, of course, when I thought about the reality of the situation, it wasn't quite so rosy. I didn't bring anything to do with me, and after awhile the feeling of sitting and twiddling my thumbs began to drive me crazy. Not knowing exactly when all of this was going to end, was frustrating (although I had a pretty good guess which turned out to be true). The endless, expensive trips to Target for things I already owned grew a little old. And when my husband got sent back, things definitely took a turn for the worse.

But, the evacuation, like most things in life, ended. Which is something to remember in any unpleasant situation - all things end eventually. And when you're done, you're that much more grateful for the pleasant situation that comes in its place.

Home. Safe, Sound, and Incredibly Happy

2011-05-05T12:01:00.000-04:00

Right now, I can hear Brandon's voice echoing down the hallway. Interspersed with his mellow tones and Kathleen and Sophia's excited voices chirping at him. "Okay! We'll be mustangs! And we'll pull you across the prairie!" It is so wonderfully nice to hear that again, after three months of bedtime without Daddy, and a month entire with no Daddy at all.

Tuesday while I read blogs and relaxed from our flight, he bathed the children. While I fell asleep on the couch, he got them ready for bed and put them down. And then we spent the evening catching up and eating chocolate. Forget globetrotting, exotic vacations, amazing locales. I just want to be home, and with my family. It doesn't get any better than this.

In twenty-four hours...

2011-05-01T21:38:00.000-04:00

I'll be flying over the Atlantic, hopefully asleep (maybe with the aid of medication). But right now, my apartment is a mess, with dinner still sitting on the counter. The girls' clothes are strewn over the floor, I have a load of laundry yet unfolded, and I can't find my iPod to charge it.

And what have I done about it for the last few hours? Nothing. What have I been doing instead? Reading a really good book. Because by tomorrow evening, my things will be packed, we will be on the plane, and dinner won't matter any more. Whether or not I kill myself to do it tonight.

And so, I'm taking the last few precious hours of alone time to relax and read a book. Tomorrow will take care of itself, right?

Time to go home

2011-04-28T20:22:00.000-04:00

It is official - the evacuation is being lifted tomorrow. Now begins the insanity of preparation to get gone yesterday. Before I head off to the airport, we have to arrange pickup of a UAB shipment, arrange tickets on a flight that isn't full, I have to drop off things at my aunt's house for fall training, things at my cousin's house for my father to pick up, and find somewhere for my car to live for the next four months.

All hopefully before Sunday. That would be Brandon's plan - leaving on Sunday. But as with everything in the Foreign Service, this all depends on lining up the ducks just right. So we'll have to see.

I am incredibly relieved that a rumored last-minute push to extend the evacuation did not go through. I am looking forward to being with my husband and leaving single parenting to those who have stronger constitutions than mine. These last few weeks alone have been exhausting, physically and emotionally, and I feel like I'm stumbling towards a far-distant finish line. Can't rest until I'm on that plane.

Of course, flying with three children under five is no picnic either, but at that point, it's just a matter of waiting out the pain for a fixed amount of time.

So, we're going home. I'm happy. I'm relieved. And boy am I tired.

The Needs of the Service

2011-04-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Recently, Brandon received an email from his CDO. He forwarded it on to me, and I read it while preparing breakfast for the children. Something had come up in Baku, and they needed us a little earlier - August 2011 instead of July 2012.

My thoughts were 1. hooray! Now I can skip trying to find a house, living temporarily in DC, and move to our next post; 2. shoot, what about those things we were going to purchase and ship on while in training; 3. I suppose I'll make all of those visits I was planning on next go around; 4. boy, that National Aquarium membership was a waste of money; 5. and the GPS, too; 6. well, maybe the GPS was still worth it; 7. oh, what about that baby?

And then I remembered the baby. And how we had specially planned things to take advantage of living in the US to have a trouble-free birth. One that didn't involve trans-atlantic plane flights alone with three children followed by three months of living out of suitcases (again, for the second time in an eleven-month period), separation from Brandon, separation from my things, and separation from my life. Again.

I think that if this news had come while I was happily living out my life in Cairo, it would have been less distressing. I've done one medevac. It's no picnic, but like most things in life, it's bearable. But the thought of another evacuation, another separation, a whole new set of logistics to work out after working out the logistics of this evacuation, moving back to Cairo for three months, home leave, shipping our car, our things, and 2,500 pounds of consumables to Azerbaijan was a little much for me to handle.

But, this is what I signed up for. After all, that's what happens in the Foreign Service - unexpected things. I just didn't know that I was signing up for a year of turmoil, multiple separations, three-month stretches of stability, and six (yes six) trans-atlantic flights with three children under the age of five.

And then I counted weeks and realized that I would only have to deal with four flights - because I wasn't going to Baku (while Brandon was) until after baby number four is born because of dates. And then I finally cried. And maybe threw something against the wall.

But thankfully, there is mercy in this world, and she currently works at State. Brandon emailed his CDO, explained the situation, and asked if perhaps we could delay our arrival in Baku until December, with all six of us together. She said she'd talk to the appropriate people and see what could be done.

In a mercifully short time, the answer came, and that part of my troubles were solved: we were allowed to take language training and stay until everything is settled with the baby. After such a crazy year (and it's only April!), I'm grateful for a such a happy ending to a potentially horrid situation. My thanks go out to all of those involved.

A Note of Explanation

2011-04-20T07:52:00.001-04:00

This morning, when I talked to Brandon, I learned that perhaps I had jumped the gun a little on announcing our return. I certainly haven't been packing suitcases (in fact, I finally vacuumed up that oatmeal last night), and I hope nobody else has either.

When I said we’re all going home that was speculation and the EAC vote seemed to indicate this was the direction things were heading. However, the Department has to make the decision and even with EAC recommendation the Department may not be ready to let us return. It all depends on their discussion of things with post. Sorry, to have fanned the flames of rumor and gotten everyones’ hopes up.

But, hopefully, the speculation will turn into reality.

More packing... but for the last time

2011-04-19T07:00:00.001-04:00

Today when Brandon and I talked, he had good news. The EAC at post voted, and we're all going home. We just don't know when exactly. Since there are so many dependents who are still here in the US, they're trying to have a staggered return (anyone want to co-ordinate the return of 800+ people in three days?). So we'll have to see how soon we'll return, but we do know that we will be going back.

When I told the girls, they gave me blank looks, and then I think Kathleen said something along the lines of hooray. Sophia just kept looking at me. We heard that we might return while at my aunt's house for the weekend (another round of packing, but just for overnight), and so they asked when we packed up to leave yesterday if we were going to Cairo. Not yet, darlings, but soon.

I confess that I'm a little relieved that we're not going in three days. After driving up from NC on Wednesday, moving solo Friday, and going up to Maryland Saturday and coming home Sunday, I'm beat. While we were unpacking Friday, oats got spilled on the carpet, and they're still by the coffee table, slowly making their way around the house. Thankfully I unpacked everything on Friday, but the suitcase from this weekend sits in the front room, slowly disgorging its contents.

Instead of cleaning up, however, I laid on the couch this morning reading, and took the children to the park this afternoon (where we met a fellow FS blogger). I will miss all of the lovely parks.

So we're all excited to go back. We all miss Brandon and home and space and Egyptian food and normal life. We're happy. And tired. But most of all, happy.

Dear Oakwood,

2011-04-15T18:35:00.001-04:00

Thank you for giving me a new apartment. I have already used the washer and dryer. I have enjoyed rearranging the furniture and kitchen to my liking again. I think that by the third apartment I should have everything just about perfect.

I have a few complaints. That key you gave me? It didn't work. And my internet code was changed this morning, and nobody told me the new one until I called and asked. I had to call myself on my cell phone to find out what my new phone number is.

But what has really been the most annoying is when I called Sarah Indian and tried to find out where my food is, an hour after I ordered it. When I found out that the delivery driver had waited fifteen minutes while calling repeatedly, I called with my cell phone and the number was busy, repeatedly.

It is now 6:30, 30 minutes after my 16 month-old's bedtime, and I have no dinner. The delivery driver should be here in about 15 minutes to make the delivery, again. I gave them my cell phone number this time. Hopefully my children haven't destroyed your brand-new apartment while waiting for their dinner.

Sincerely,
Ashley Sherwood

P.S. I am sure that white suede chair bottoms look very nice in your promotional photos, but they are on a collision course for disaster with my children. Perhaps for the studios?

On why I am never living in an apartment without a washer and dryer again

2011-04-14T09:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday everyone was tired. We (I) had packed up our things and driven from NC to DC with little or no naps. Edwin went to bed at 5:30. The girls went to bed at 6:30, and were asleep by seven.

After everyone was asleep, I settled down with a book and fell asleep myself, finally rolling off the couch around nine. I got ready for bed, sent my nightly email to Brandon, wasted a few minutes online, and then climed into bed myself, ready to get my pregnant eight plus hours of necessary sleep.

And then Edwin started crying. I initially ignored him, hoping he'd go back to sleep, but after a few minutes maternal guilt kicked in and I got up to check on him. When I opened the door to the room, the smell hit me. Vomit. I don't like vomit; I don't think anyone does. And I've never actually dealt with anyone's but my own, and that itself has only occurred twice since elementary school. Thankfully each previous incident with the children had been taken care of someone other than myself, which was good because I was also pregnant each time.

No such luck this time. I was alone. My husband was four thousand miles away, my mother two hundred and fifty, my mother in law nine hundred. And it was ten o'clock at night. So, holding my breath, I stripped the sheets, changed Edwin's clothes, washed out his ear and hair, and said a silent prayer of gratitude that Edwin's other blanket was not in the crib when he vomited.

After calming him down, I dressed him in new pajamas, got out the only other crib sheet we have, and grabbed his blanket from the couch. I put him down, and got myself ready for bed again.

And then he started crying, again. More clothes went into the bathtub, awaiting morning light to be washed in the community laundry room. Edwin went to bed on an extra twin sheet from the girls, Sophia's piggy pajamas, and Sophia's little blanket (thankfully, he will sleep with his sister's blanket).

This time I didn't bother turning off the light, and got out a book. Half an hour later, he started crying, and I rushed to his room, and managed to get him to the sink before most of the vomit hit, saving the blanket, but not the pajamas. This time we settled down to watch the last forty-five minutes of Ocean's 11 with a bowl on hand. I had to save that last blanket, or all would be lost.

Edwin waited until George Clooney had tricked the mean casino owner to toddle around for three minutes before the now-familiar sound started. I had the bowl ready, despite his objections, and caught only a small amount, what looked to be the last contents of his stomach. So, off to bed in more of Sophia's pajamas.

Thinking of that one last blanket, I read until 12:30, and then went to sleep myself, praying that I could sleep until morning. Which I did. And then I took a filthy heap downstairs, to do the laundry.

Unpacking, and then packing, and then... unpacking

2011-04-14T07:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, we got back from my parents' house in North Carolina. While driving down Leesburg Pike, Kathleen exclaimed, "Mom, I think this looks just like Virginia!" They are having problems understanding where we are going next. This morning Sophia asked if we were going on the airplane to Cairo. She was disappointed to only be taking a car to Virginia. I was disappointed too.

Usually when I get to a destination, I unpack. I don't like my clothes vomiting out of suitcases, although sometimes that doesn't necessarily translate to unpacking immediately. This morning all of my clothes are still in the suitcases, without the least effort to unpack them. In fact, I'm trying to keep as much in them as possible.

Because we're moving today. I got a call a few days before Brandon left with the chipper Oakwood man generously offering us a newly renovated apartment. I didn't call back because I didn't want to bother moving with three small children while pregnant without my husband. He tracked me down at my parents' and repeated the offer. No thanks, I told him, I'll hopefully only be staying two more weeks anyway.

Well, it turned down that the offer was less of a nice gift and more like an eviction notice. Oakwood is renovating, and all apartments in a column are renovated at once. And it's all of the -03s in C building.

One day when I am old and tired I'm going to move into a house. And then I will unpack all of my things. And then I will never leave they pull my cold, dead body out in a coffin.

And Baby Makes Six

2011-04-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

When I married Brandon, I realized that I was marrying into various conditions; I would be living around the world, I would have to put up with Homestar Runner on a regular basis, I would have to develop some interest in politics, and I was going to have a large family. None of these conditions were imposed by Brandon, they were simply unalterable truths that were simply there, take them or leave them.

And so, nobody who knows us should be surprised that we're adding another child to our family. We, of course, are excited. The children aren't sure what to think, but last time I checked they don't have much say in those matters anyway.

Timing of children is always a personal matter, and before I was married, I thought it was a subject for deep personal reflection and divine inspiration. Then I got married, and I realized that the romance wasn't quite what the movies portrayed it to be - it was mostly a matter of looking at each other, counting how long it had been since the last one, and deciding that it was time again.

And then we joined the Foreign Service. Now there is absolutely no romance, replaced instead by pure, calculating logistics. Since most of the countries we'll live in have abysmal medical care, any planning for a child has to take into account the three months of necessary medevac to the US. And I don't like being separated from Brandon.

The planning for this one commenced at least nine months ago, with various schemes and plans for when the baby would be born vis-a-vis home leave, my family's annual beach trip, and our departure for the next post.

So when we were assigned to Baku with eleven months of language training, a lot of the logistics cleared themselves up. It would have been pure foolishness not to take advantage of living in the US to have a child. So call it what you will - use of a good opportunity, taking advantage of the needs of the service, or welcoming a new child into our family, we're excited.

Stolen from my parents' blog

2011-04-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

Photographs courtesy of my father

As most of you know by now, Brandon flew out late on Thursday night, and arrived in Cairo to find the apartment in good shape, in fact amazingly clean. This would be explained by the fact that Rere had been kept on retainer, but has had no one to mess the place up.

Left behind with the kids, Ashley decided to take advantage of our invitation and come to Raleigh for a little while. She packed up the Pilot and headed south, stopping only for french fries at Wendy's along the way.

As always, it's been a delight to have her and the Sherwoodian gang around.

There has been lots of swinging,

and some intrepid climbing,

and some not-so-intrepid climbing.

Of course, a guy has to have a stick in his hand at all times.

Put a stick and some water together, and you're in 15-month Nirvana.

The girls also liked disturbing the long-suffering fish, who had just survived the long winter and the marauding blue heron.

The kids, including the Nedwinator, were amazingly well-behaved watching General Conference with their Mom and grandparents.

So, we're glad to have them for a little while. We hope that they get to be reunited soon with their Dad and finish their Cairo time peacefully. Meanwhile, there's fun to be had, pancakes to eat, toys to be rediscovered, books to be read, and bubbly baths to be enjoyed.

Mistress of the House

2011-03-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

Brandon is gone now. He is sitting at the Dulles Airport waiting to see if his name comes up for a wait-listed business class seat, and I'm home with the children, who are in bed. I've done this a lot lately - been home alone with the children in bed - but this time I'm not waiting for anybody to come home.

We've had a fun week together, after Brandon went in to work for the last time on Monday. Tuesday morning we took the metro down to the Mall and the girls rode the carousel. After watching Mary Poppins twenty times, they've been obsessed with carousels. And so we indulged them. After the carousel we popped into the Natural Science Museum, and then visited the National Aquarium before riding the metro back home.

Yesterday we tried to brave the cold at the park, but stayed inside for fort-building instead. That evening, my kind cousin came and babysat the kids so Brandon and I could go on a date. We called it our anniversary date, one month early, as the likelihood of being together in a month isn't high.

Today, after packing in the morning, we took the children to a movie and then ate dinner at IHOP. Kathleen was adamant about wanting to eat at 'the pancake restaurant,' and then had grilled cheese. We finished the evening with dropping Brandon off at the airport. I haven't gotten the energy up yet to clean up the house and pack.

Tomorrow I'm going to my parents' house to stay until they kick me out or I want to come back to Oakwood. I thought about moving back to my parents' or wandering around staying at various relatives' houses, but eventually decided to stay in our apartment here. I've gotten too old and too independent to be a long-term guest. I enjoy having my own space to let go to rack and ruin if I so choose.

We still don't know when the rest of us will go back; the evacuation was officially extended until April 30 (our anniversary). So until they send us back, I'll be running the show alone. So if I don't answer calls or emails promptly (or at all), you'll know why.

The time has come

2011-03-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

Brandon sent me an email on Friday with the inevitable news that he is being sent back to post. As I read the message, I was surprised by my reaction. Instead of immediately breaking down in tears, I almost felt... relieved. We've been waiting for this news for a month now and part of me is happy to finally just get it done with.

In a week, the part of me that will be the only parent 24/7 to three young children will probably be asking the relieved part what it was thinking.

But, there's nothing that I can do about Post's decision except to wash Brandon's clothes, cut his hair, and buy him a book (that thousand-page one) for the long plane ride back. My housekeeper will be ecstatic, and Brandon admitted that the separation will almost be worth getting out of his temporary job in DC.

There are rumors that Post is recalling all employees within the next three weeks, and this is in preparation for the return of families. I hope it is true, as single parenting out of a suitcase was never in my plans as a mother. But, until that day when we're back together for good, we'll get along. Even if it does involve unusual amounts of macaroni and cheese or chicken pot pies.

#3

2011-03-23T19:48:00.000-04:00

I've always enjoyed reading. I remember many, many nights where my parents would walk past my room, open the door, and tell me to "put away the book." Most nights I would feign sleep, and then pull out again to read until all hours of the night. Family beach trips each summer were a perfect combination of swimming and reading with very little responsibility in between. Even now, my perfect vacation centers on a beach and a book.

Obviously being a mother of three has cut down on my reading time. My days are usually busy, and the book supply isn't very steady. I have a secret and deeply abiding love for fantasy, young adult and regular kind. As our earthly possessions are judged by weight, however, I can't usually justify purchasing pounds and pounds of books that I'll only ever read once. And I don't have the time anyway.

But now that we're on evacuation, circumstances have changed. I left Kathleen's school materials in Cairo and the easel didn't fit into my suitcase very well, so my days are much more open than usual. So I marched everyone down to the library within the first week of our arrival, and I've been in heaven ever since.

I just finished the latest thousand-page behemoth, and my life is returning to order again. I folded two day-old laundry this afternoon, and have returned to reading (and writing) blogs again. My children had craft time (a first!) and stories today. And I even vacuumed the carpet underneath our table.

But it's only a breath of air until I plunge into another book. A lot of things about this evacuation aren't my favorite. But I'm not complaining about the books.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other

2011-03-14T15:48:00.001-04:00

Today is Monday, and Monday is laundry day. Most of the apartments in Oakwood have been renovated with laundry facilities. Our apartment hasn't, and so I get to haul the clothes down to the fourth floor to wash our five loads each week.

This morning, I picked up the same bottle of laundry detergent that I've been using my entire stay. I haven't been too happy with the laundry facilities here for many reasons, one of them being how dirty our whites have gotten. Brandon's been sporting a lovely ring-around-the collar that I haven't gotten rid of, and our underclothes are downright dingy. But, that's what you get with cheaply-made, expensive-to-run laundry machines, I thought.

Until this morning, when I happened to get a closer look at my detergent bottle.

That's right, I've been using fabric softener this whole month. Brandon laughed when I told him, and reminded me of one of his favorite SNL skits. I'm hoping that the clothes will look better this time around with good old Tide.

Living in the Foreign Service: Evacuations

2011-03-11T19:36:00.000-05:00

I have never been evacuated before. I've lived through a few hurricanes, watched some bad thunderstorms, and once when I was in high school, we had a kitchen fire. The kitchen fire happened right before the hurricane, and so we all got tired of eating out after awhile. Until we joined the Foreign Service, my life has been wholly unremarkable.

When we joined the Foreign Service, I expected my life to continue being unremarkable, just in strange foreign locales. When we were posted to Egypt, I knew that we would have a quiet, hot, dusty two years and then we'd leave. I'm a little on the obsessive side about mentally preparing for things, and so I might blog-stalk you if you happen to live in Baku. I have the FAM bookmarked on my computer, and just the other day I sat down and calculated the monthly amount of rent we would have available for training based on per-diem rates in the DC metro area.

But never in my time-wasting mental preparations, did I ever look up any information regarding evacuations. Because that wasn't something I was worried about. But, now that I have the information, I'll share it with you. What good is information if it is not shared?

I think the first thing that I thought about when I realized that I was going to be evacuated was leaving without my husband. I did know this about evacuations - everybody but essential personnel have to leave when there is an evacuation. Actually I was wrong, because I didn't know that there are two types of evacuation - authorized and ordered. And they don't call it evacuation - they call it 'departure,' so it sounds less threatening, I guess.

In authorized, people can choose to leave or stay. I knew a lot of people who chose to stay, including our next-door neighbors. An evacuation may never move past authorized. But when an authorized is called, it has to last at least 30 days. We left on authorized. I worried that we were just getting unneccesarily scared, and everything would blow over in a week and we'd be stuck for 30 days. The next day, however, the 'departure' moved to ordered. And then nobody had a choice. Being a consular officer, Brandon is considered essential, and so he was left after all of the non-essential were gone. Technically, he should still be there, but he was given a choice to stay or leave. And so he left, knowing that I would be very disappointed if he had stayed.

After we left Cairo on the chartered flights with our slips-of-paper boarding passes, we were then routed from Athens like any other government traveler, which of course was covered by the government. I even was able to get United mileage credit for my flights.

When we were in the US, we went to Raleigh, where my parents are, as our safehaven. All evacuees have to have an official safehaven address, even if they decide to take a five-month road trip. The safehaven address is where your per diem payments are based on. I received 100% of the M&IE and 10% of the lodging (because I was at my parents') and the children each received 50%. After the first month, mine goes down to 80% and the children's to 40%. The lodging never goes down.

After Brandon was evacuated, we came up to DC, and so I had to change my safehaven location with the financial people in Charleston. We are in Oakwood, a corporate stay apartment complex that direct-contracts with State for language training TDYers. We're not TDY, however, we're evacuees, so I got to put our first months' rent on my credit card - all $5,430 of it.

As a result of this rent payment, and several thousand dollars of plane tickets I had purchased just a few days before the evacuation, I got to experience my first credit card refusal the night I moved into Oakwood while buying groceries at Safeway. Thankfully, Charleston has been wonderfully swift, and the credit card company has appeased.

Although Oakwood is a furnished apartment, the kitchen has had to have some additions from Target to make it somewhat cook-able, but that's what all of that money is for. Unfortunately, when I was packing my four suitcases (one per evacuee), I didn't know that I would be in an apartment, and didn't even pack a garlic press. Brandon did, however, bring my knives with him when he left Cairo.

And so now we're in Oakwood, sitting tight. Most of the questions I get are about how much longer we'll be here. Evacuations are evaluated ever thirty days, and we've already had our first. Obviously, we weren't sent home. The evacuation is lifted based on certain defined parameters, called tripwires. The evacuation is called on those same tripwires, and so cannot be recalled until they are satisfactorily re-established.

According to my understanding, the major tripwire that has not been re-established is residential security. Cairo mission is one of the largest in the world, and so we rely on local Egyptian police to provide almost all residential security. The police force has not been very popular because of the events in Tahrir Square, and so as yet has not been reconstituted.

When the evacuation is recalled, we have seventy-two hours to begin our return to post before the financial support ends. All evacuees are technically allowed UAB both from post and returning to post, but there wasn't (and generally isn't) any time to arrange the from-post shipment. We will, however, be able to have a to-post shipment if we like.

What I had heard earlier about the time limits returning to post evidently was incorrect, and I learned that we can return to post any time up to 30 days before our scheduled departure, which is at the very end of July. So we'll have to see how things go. A month ago, I would have been quite sure we would be returning in a few weeks, but now I'm not as sure. It is an evacuation, after all, and nobody possesses a crystal ball.

And so that's my experience with evacuations. It certainly is some trouble, but I feel that State has done everything possible to lighten that trouble as much as they can. I've come to find out that living without most of one's worldly possessions for an undefined amount of time is certainly annoying, but definitely not the end of the world. As long as I have my family, I have everything I actually need.

How the Other Half Lives

2011-03-09T10:54:00.001-05:00

I am a mother. I have three children, all under five, and my children are my constant companions. When I go to the store, they go too. If I read a book, they keep me company. Sometimes we go to a friend's house, but they are our friends because their children are the same age as my children, and so of course the children come too.

I love my children. I would never, ever trade what I do for anything anybody could ever offer me. I stay home by choice, and I've never regretted my choice. But as with any job or situation (even endless vacation), I enjoy a break occasionally.

We have some very close friends who are leaving (left) for their next post. We've been able to see them a few times since we've been in DC, and they invited us out to dinner for their last hurrah. Never one to turn down food, we accepted.

And so last night, on a weeknight, a very kind FS friend showed up at my door. We had had a rough day, and I was happy to see her. I was wearing makeup, dry-clean only clothes, and heels. And so with a smile on my face, I left my children, and picked up our friends.

We dropped by Main State to pick up Brandon, and worked our way over to one of those trendy restaurants that have red velvet couches instead of seats and strange artwork that looks like somebody paid too much money for it. As we were walking from the fifteen-dollar parking garage amid the other crowds of evening diners, I felt like an adult.

I am always an adult - nobody but adults should have any business having three children - but I'm usually an adult existing in the world of people under three feet tall who can't wipe their own bottoms.

But as we sat at dinner, sipping chipotle hot chocolate, sharing around plates and plates of tapas with lamb sliders and artichoke tarts and chocolate-sauced crab cakes followed by a five-course dessert, I returned to a world that I don't visit very often. Instead of talking about bunk beds, we talked about the security of Libyan oil fields. Nobody made mention of their friends from the playground, and instead juicy gossip about State was passed around. No plans were made about the park. But we did talk about traveling through Europe and eating ourselves silly.

This morning, I've already mediated at least five disagreements. Edwin is sitting my lap, trying to call China on my cell phone. And that's okay - it's the life I've willingly chosen. I do, however, enjoy a quick vacation to the other side every now and then.

Baltimore Aquarium

2011-03-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

When we were here in 2009 for language training, Kathleen was two and a half and Sophia was a year old. The first warm day in March, we decided to go have some fun and take the girls to the National Zoo. After taking the Metro and walking up to the Zoo (never. again.), we walked around for perhaps forty-five minutes before the girls gave up and we hiked back.

We realized after the Zoo that small children have no appreciation for anything beyond swings, french fries, and swimming. And so we haven't bothered going anywhere more interesting than a felucca ride since.

Kathleen is now four and half, fully verbal, literate, and interested in things beyond her own special world. Sophia is happy to be interested in whatever her sister is interested in. And Edwin, well, he is the third child and so gets hauled around against his will. So when my Aunt Kathleen (whom Kathleen is named after) called so see if we would like to come with her and Uncle Bruce to the Baltimore Aquarium, Brandon and I looked at each other, took a deep breath, and agreed.

We started our morning at 6:30 and loaded the children up with french toast, whipped cream, and strawberries, then drove up to Maryland to pick up my aunt and uncle where we made use of seven of the eight seats in our Pilot to drive together to Baltimore.

We got there just in time for the 11:30 dolphin show, where the girls were enthralled and even Edwin got in the spirit and clapped with everyone else. Sophia was disappointed, however, to learn that no, she could not ride the dolphins. After that, the day continued on quite enjoyably. We even got to say hello to Nemo and his father, and finished our day with the aquarium's amazing, three-floor 360-degree tank.

The girls had their very tall great-uncle to pick them up whenever they liked, their Aunt to talk to them, and I have a few times when I got to hold Brandon's hand and nobody else's. Afterwards, we went back to my aunt and uncle's house for takeout Chinese for dinner. On the way home, everyone was asleep within five minutes.

Now that we've met and enjoyed our first all-day outing, I'm excited for more explorations with my children. Just maybe not for a few weeks.

2011-03-03T20:03:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to Target. While wheeling my children through the aisles I picked up a can opener and a bread knife. Last Saturday I purchased a mixer and cookie sheets. On my previous trip I bought small cups and bowls, an immersion blender, washcloths, a pizza wheel, mixing bowls, a pizza pan, and clippers.

I already own all of these things. Due to our present circumstances, however, they're halfway across the world, and I won't be seeing them anytime soon. In the meantime, I still have three children and a husband to feed and take care of. And so every time I go to Target, I pick up a few more things that I already own.

We have now been evacuated for over a month, and living in Oakwood for just over three weeks. The initial trauma of the evacuation is over; we're in no danger, we have a safe place of our own, and we've even established routines. The immediate dislocation of evacuation is finished.

But now comes, in some way, the harder part. This is the part where we wait, and while we wait we set up a semi-permanent, but ready to go with three days' notice, lifestyle. Every time I think about buying another piece of household equipment, I wonder if I really need it. Could I get along for the next few weeks without a garlic press? Probably. How about the next few months? It would be more annoying. But which do I have in store - weeks or months? Which is more important - money or sanity?

After traveling between Egypt and the US several times, I feel like I've developed a split reality - third world and first world - that I can switch between in the blink of an eye. Sitting in the Cairo airport, waiting to board a plane, I'm in a third world country. But when I step onto that Lufthansa plane with its pleasant German flight attendants, I'm back in the first. No problem, no dislocation.

I find the same developing now - evacuee and typical American mother. I take my children to the library and they agonize over which books to take home. We go to Costco and eat samples of crab dip. But then I think of what we were doing just over a month ago - riding a felucca on the Nile. I look at the emerging flowers and anticipate spring and warmer temperatures. But will I be here for spring? Or just skip it entirely and head back to Egyptian summer?

Who knows? At this point, nobody. And so life continues - the first world American one. For now, anyway.

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

2011-03-02T09:48:00.002-05:00

When I was pregnant with Edwin, and a fellow mother found out that he was a boy, I almost always heard some comment to the effect that 'boys are just different.' I wasn't sure what that mean, as nobody was every able to explain themselves to any satisfaction.

Now, after I have a boy, I understand. A few days ago, the girls came to me, giggling. They had gotten the window crayons, and used them for 'lip polish.' "Now we're beautiful, because we're princesses," Kathleen told me.

Edwin has a stick. He eats lunch with it.

It's the first thing he finds in the morning.

And even when he's cooking with Sophia, it's with the stick by his side.

Teddy Roosevelt would be proud.

Every Day Counts

2011-02-28T11:24:00.000-05:00

This morning, I woke up next to Brandon. Instead of sitting on a plane crossing the Atlantic, he was next to me.

Approval from M has not come yet, and we were told not to look for it until mid-week, which means that we have another week with Brandon before he has to return to Cairo. The situation there is still unstable, and so my secret hope and prayer is that we will have longer than just one week.

Every day, however, is borrowed time and so we pretend that every day is a normal one. We get up, get ready for the day, and send Brandon off to work so he can return after everyone is in bed. It's not the life I prefer, but I'll take any time with him here that I can get. And I thank my Heavenly Father for every day I have.

Lunchtime conversation

2011-02-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

Kathleen, praying: "And please bless everyone in the world that they can evacuate well, and get visas."

Sophia: "You didn't bless us!! Kathleen, you didn't bless us!!!"

Kathleen: "But we already have visas."

Sophia: silence

Time to pack... again

2011-02-22T20:17:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, when Brandon called to tell me he was coming to the US, he cautioned me that he might be sent back to Cairo before the evacuation was lifted. Which meant that I would be left here with the children. I waved it off, delighted to be seeing him, if only for a month.

I didn't even get that month. He received a call from his boss today, telling him that they needed him back in the Consular section. If all is approved by M, then he'll be boarding a plane for Cairo on Sunday, three weeks to the day since he came to the US. And I'll be alone, again, for who knows how long.

I understand that we signed up for this possibility when Brandon joined the Foreign Service. I don't like it. But I know that sometimes these things do happen. But he didn't necessarily need to leave yet - two people from his section are returning. Four people are in DC. Two people from his section are married with small children. Two people are single.

Guess who they are sending back? And to add insult to injury, the two management who decided to send the two married people are... you guessed it - two single people.

I was going to write a post yesterday commemorating three weeks of being evacuated. I was going to write how life has settled down to something really approaching normal; we have a daily schedule, we have parks we like to visit, I have a library card, I've even started running in the morning again.

But now, my life has been blown apart again. I'm getting tired of this.

#2

2011-02-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

Being back in the US has given me the opportunity to enjoy some of the things I have missed. Of my top five favorite things in the US, parks are number two.

Update

2011-02-11T20:01:00.000-05:00

Today, I took a walk with the children. We left our apartment complex and walked down the street, and after a few blocks we found a park. It was situated next to a creek and in the middle of trees. Kathleen found a friend to play with, and Edwin and Sophia enjoyed the swings. We all came home, happy and ready for the pot pies I had put in the oven before our outing.

After such a nice, unexpected afternoon, I can catch everyone up on the last week.

Kathleen, Sophia, Edwin and I landed at my parent's house on Wednesday evening. Thursday I unpacked, and that night my sister came with her three children to spend the weekend with my parents and attend the temple.

Friday morning, I got a call from Brandon. He had been asked by his boss if he would like to leave, and he told him yes. There would be a flight on Saturday, and he would most likely be in DC Sunday night.

Friday afternoon, I called corporate-stay apartments, and found an apartment in Chevy Chase to rent. I also called a car-finding service, and had the owner start looking for a car that we could take to DC. I called my aunt, and asked if she could shelter us all on Sunday night before we moved into our apartment on Monday.

Saturday I received and email from the car service about a Honda Pilot he had found for another client, but the client had backed out. I talked with my parents for a few minutes, and then called Mr. Berger to tell him that we would take the car. We wouldn't be able to complete the transaction until Monday as I didn't have a North Carolina driver's license to register the car in state. So I called my aunt and cancelled our Sunday evening stay.

While thinking about our apartment, I considered the location, and contacted a few more companies about housing in Arlington.

Sunday we went to church, and Sunday night I transferred money to my checking account while purchasing car insurance. I also read the driver's handbook to prepare for my license exam. Brandon made it to DC Sunday night, and checked into a hotel until we could come up Tuesday morning.

Monday morning I stood outside the DMV, waiting in line to take my exam, which I passed. I came home to arrange a new apartment, at Oakwood Falls Church, and kiss my security deposit goodbye for the previous apartment. Then I went shopping at Target for a car seat for Kathleen and Costco for a GPS. After visiting my dad's office to say hello and goodbye, I packed, again. That evening, I drove with my father to pick up my 2007 black Honda Pilot and hand over the largest check I've ever made out in my life.

Brandon trolled the halls of Main State, looking for a job. He was told of a position as staff aide in the front office of NEA/SCA, and accepted it. Baaaaaaaaaad idea.

Tuesday morning I finished packing and stuffed everything into my new car, and left for Virginia. We checked into our apartment, exploded our suitcases, and ordered pizza with a gift card sent by an amazingly kind FS/LDS friend. Brandon came 'home' around five-thirty, the earliest he's made it all week.

Wednesday, instead of unpacking, I read a book while the suitcases continued vomiting and the girls played. We attended a session about SEA payments, and I turned the house into more of a disaster looking for one missing boarding pass (out of a total fourteen). I still haven't found it. That evening we went to my cousin's house for dinner.

Thursday I pulled enough together to rearrange the furniture, the first step to making this tiny shoebox with a tinier kitchen into 'home' for an unspecified amount of time. When Edwin was asleep, I cleaned up. Brandon got home at eight thirty.

Today, almost all of the suitcases are packed up and the apartment mostly clean. Mubarak stepped down this morning, and Kathleen told me should would dream about it during her nap. Brandon still isn't home, and won't be for another half hour. But the children are in bed, the house is quiet, and at least Brandon is coming home to an apartment in America and not Cairo. At least for now.

What next?

2011-02-10T19:33:00.000-05:00

Dirty dishes are in my sink, waiting. My clothes sit in my suitcase, in the same hastily-packed mess that they have been in since Tuesday morning. A bag of trash sits by my door, and scraps of receipts, papers, credit cards, crayons, and passports are strewn across the desk that is mine for the next... two months? four? Who knows?

And I can't tear myself away from my computer, checking every few minutes to see what the BBC has updated on their website.

I watched Mubarak's speech this afternoon, after reading predictions that he would be stepping down. As the children played with their toys, I saw the crowd's angry reaction to Mubarak's reaffirmation that he wasn't leaving. Sophia asked me to turn the TV off, and I tried to explain to her that this was about Egypt, where we live. Or lived. She shrugged her shoulders, and went back to Just So Stories.

I turn to the computer, and see Egypt, and worry about what will happen next. I look out my window, and see Oakwood's sparkling blue pool. I read the news, and wonder if I'll ever go back. I get in my car, and drive to Target, just like any other resident of Falls Church, carrying my secret of Egypt inside, somewhere that only I can see and feel.

The girls view this move as just one more in a long line of moves, and Edwin has become my personal leech. Only once has anyone asked to go back to Cairo, and only when Sophia was particularly upset about eating her lunch. I have started to return to the rhythm of being an American in America again, but for how long?

My heart goes out to those who are in Cairo tonight. Be safe.

February 1

2011-02-06T13:57:00.000-05:00

12:30 AM

We’re in Athens, and safely installed in the very nice, very close Sofitel. Whoever made the hotel arrangements, may they be blessed into perpetuity. This is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, with a down bed, down comforter, and down pillows. We’ve only got one bed, so I’m going to make a pallet on the floor for the girls. They’re happy to have a ‘sleeping bag,’ and I’m happy to not be kicked. Edwin has a baby crib, the most awkward, enormous one I’ve ever seen. Europeans need to look into Pack’n Plays. But I am happy that he has a bed, too, that isn’t mine.

After the bus came at the airport, everyone had to show the one (!!!!!!) man their exit stamps and give him their ‘boarding passes,’ before getting on the bus. We waited for half an hour for everyone to board before then being shuffled onto an entirely different bus. We drove around for awhile, and then finally found our plane – a very tired looking Lotus Air plane, but one with wings, and engine, and the capability to get us out of Cairo.

We were able to get seats behind the R, and although we were four people, we crammed into three seats as nobody wanted to leave me. We waited for another half hour for a busload to complete the plane and then waited another hour to have a spot to take off. When we finally were in the air, the passengers broke into spontaneous applause, and again when dinner was announced.

The ride was pretty calm, and I was able to get Edwin to sleep. Unfortunately, dinner came and he woke up and screamed for at least half an hour before I could get him to calm down. Nobody ate their dinner, and I never had the opportunity to touch it, so we would have been better to have not bothered with it.

We had a pair of college students behind us when another baby had been screaming disconsolately earlier, and I overheard their conversation to the effect that somebody should do something about that screaming baby. Feeling for the mother, I turned around and asked them to stop talking like that.

“We’ve all had a very long day that started early this morning, we have just been evacuated from our homes, and we don’t know when, if ever we will be coming back. That mother is trying to do everything she can to help her baby calm down, but sometimes there’s nothing mothers can do. Trust me, it’s much more annoying to her than it is to you.”

Stunned silence followed, and I went back to calming the children down. I’m not one to dress down strangers, but it had been a long day and I’ve been in that situation and known that people were heartily annoyed. But I felt that I should defend her because it could have just as well been me.

And, it was me not much longer, and I’m sure those girls felt the karma coming right around again.

We landed in Athens around 9, and were greeted by the ambassador on our way inside. I saw a photographer, and so tried my best to look under control and oh so happy to be hauling three children alone to another country. When we were ushered inside (I think we were the first people), and very, very nice lady showed me to a room equipped with toys, cookies, games, and a movie for the children. She gave me a bottle for Edwin and showed me where to change his diaper. I could have kissed her. The girls happily sat down to play, and I took Ewin out, strapped on again, to find out what to do next.

I was directed, by another incredibly helpful mission member, to a visa table for our dip passports, and he found me a pen and some forms to fill out so we could enter Greece officially. After thirty minutes of visas, I got in line for travel arrangements. I made friends with the ladies around me, both from NAMRU with four and five children apiece. We chatted and I rocked Edwin while we waited in line. Edwin fell asleep and we continued chatting.

After an hour and a half, I made my way to the front. There were no flights out tomorrow, but there was a direct to JKF on Tuesday, February first. I was happy to wait another day at the hotel to let everyone get some sleep and a few good meals before continuing on.

After travel arrangements were finished, we had another bus to ride before one last line– passport control. I thought that perhaps my shoulders wouldn’t last on more line, but thankfully there were up to the challenge, and blessedly, more wonderful, helpful, amazingly cheerful mission members were there to meet us at baggage. May they also be blessed into perpetuity.

They asked if we needed anything for Edwin, and I thought that perhaps formula would be nice, and Mr. Williams got on his phone with the CLO, and said that he would bring it up to our room later. They helpfully wheeled our bags through customs, skipped past the waiting television crews, and trotted across the street to the Sofitel.

We were led into a room with more wonderful, blessed Athens mission members who gave me a card to show that my hotel would be paid for, and sent me out into another line. By this time, Edwin was screaming and crying non-stop and somebody took pity on me (or on everyone else’s ears) and took me on. We were given room keys, times for breakfast, somebody to help with the bags, and shown personally shown upstairs.

And so we’re here. When Brandon told me that we would be helped by the mission in Athens and put up in a hotel, I had no idea of the amazing lengths everyone had gone to in order to help us out. Everyone was cheerful, helpful, and kind. I know that the last place they wanted to be that night (and all day) was at the Athens airport, and we were the first plane to land for the night. I know that I’ve grumbled when Brandon has had to work later than normal, but he’s never had to do anything like the mission members did for us tonight. They made our entry into Athens so very, very much better than our exit from Cairo was. We left the world in chaos to find kind, helpful people and a feather bed at the end.