Story Time

Right now Brandon is reading to the children.  Last month he finished the last of the Harry Potter books, and since he's already read all five of the Fablehaven books and also the Wrinkle in Time series, he's started reading The Lord of the Rings.  Old Man Willow just trapped Pippin and Merry in its tree trunk but luckily faithful Sam will rescue them as he does every time.

I remember being Sophia's age and rushing to get ready for bed on the nights when my dad was home so that I could listen to my own father read The Lord of the Rings.  He had an infuriating habit of reaching a point of extreme suspense and then, while stretching his arms and yawning, announce that it was time for us to all go to bed.  We would groan in disappointment and then beg for just one - only one! - more chapter and then we would go to bed like good little children.  Sometimes he would relent and sometimes we just had to go to bed.

The memory of being tucked into my parents' warm waterbed, bobbing up and down as one of my siblings wiggled, is one of those ones enshrined in childhood remembrance as the Best Times, the times where everything was right and good and perfect in my own little world.  I was safe and warm and listening to a good story read by my perfect, good, loving father.

Some evenings in our house are good evenings.  Brandon comes home from work to a tasty dinner and children bathed and ready for bed.  We've had a good day at school and everyone has finished their work and we've had a nice afternoon together.  All is right in the world and we spend dinner discussing the evolution of germ theory or the fall of Constantinople before the children cheerfully (or at least willingly) help with the dishes and then brush their teeth quickly without any fighting.

Some evenings in our house are not good evening.  Brandon has to work long and the bureaucracy has not given him a break and the traffic has been possibly worse.  The children and I have had a day of wrangling, where nobody wants to get their work done and everybody wants to fight with each other.  The house is a mess, dinner is late, the dinner conversation is largely centered around telling various children to stop fighting, spilling things, burping, making noises, reprimanding each other, or complaining.  Getting ready for bed takes half an hour and a lot of shouting.

But every evening, whether it is a bad evening, a good evening, or an in-between evening, ends the same way.  After everyone is ready for bed (whether quickly or slowly) and we've prayed together, Brandon settles down for story time.  Sometimes it's long because they've gotten to one of the good parts of the story and sometimes it's short because Brandon has read himself to sleep.  But it is always there.

Once I asked Brandon why he read to the children every night.  By the time story time comes around, I am completely done being a parent.  I have spent twelve hours with all six of my children and we have seen enough of each other.  All I want in the world is to get their little bodies in to bed as quickly as possible so that I can finally be off the clock.  My job is not done until all of the monkeys are contained.

"I like it," he told me, "It's one of the best parts of my day.  I don't have to make anyone do anything and we can just enjoy being together.  I always look forward to coming home and reading to the children.  My evening isn't complete without reading to them."

I was floored.  My husband spends all day at work.  He leaves for work right after breakfast and comes home sometimes right as dinner starts, sometimes later.  While we have been going to the pool or playing at the park, while I have been napping and the children playing, he has been working.  No naps or parks or pool for him.  Just work all day, doing whatever everyone else wants of him.  Then he comes home and it is more work, shepherding everyone through dinner and then helping with the dishes and getting children ready for bed.  And then finally, when all of his responsibilities are over and he can do something of his own choosing, he spends his precious free time reading to his children.  And not only does he do it because he knows it is good and right, he does it because he likes it.  He likes spending time with them, sharing his favorite stories and inviting them in.  He would rather be telling the story of Frodo and Sam than surfing the internet or watching TV.  It's enjoyable.  

When I think about Brandon and my father and nightly story time, I am struck every time by the unselfishness of fathers.  They go to work all day (and for my father, sometimes all night) at jobs that most of them don't particularly enjoy.  Some of them work in jobs that are downright dangerous.  And while they are digging ditches and writing cables and delivering babies and fighting wars, everyone else is at home, in the house they pay for, enjoying the fruits of their labor.  I remember waking up around nine on one lazy summer morning and realizing that everyone in my family was going to spend the day at the pool while my father spent the day at the office.  His labor was supporting the six of us in our laziness (well, my mother wasn't all lazy).  

Fathers don't complain.  They don't come home and tell everyone how great they are because they made it possible for everyone to eat dinner that night.  They don't ask us to tell them how wonderful they are.  They don't whine when somebody else has taken the last drumstick and left them with only a wing.  They don't require homage.  

Instead, they play with their children.  They make sure that if there are seven people and six cookies, everyone else gets a cookie.  They listen to tales of everyone else's day without once interrupting with tales of their own.  They are happy we have gone to the pool.  And they read their children stories.  Because they like to.

Because they are fathers.  And that's what fathers do.

Slowly, Slowly Learning Russian

The girls and I have now been taking Russian lessons for almost two years.  If I were a diligent, active Russian student who did things like homework and flash cards, I would be doing pretty well.

But I'm not a diligent student.  My Russian practice consists of 1. attending our 45-minute lessons three times a week and 2. (somewhat) daily Duolingo practice.  I could claim that I don't have time to do all that other stuff, but I could make time if I wanted to.  I just don't want to.  My daily need for Russian language skills is often nonexistent and when I do use it, it's more of a bonus than anything else.  It's pretty easy to live in a foreign country without knowing the language when you have other people to do everything for you.

But nonetheless the girls and I persevere.  Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Albina shows up at our house (and when she can't make it we all silently rejoice) and we go through another forty-five minute session of language learning.  We are reasonably proficient in the tenses, being able to conjugate according to several different patterns (but nothing too complicated) and have discussed the idea of aspecutal pairs.  There is a conception of the fact that there are cases floating around in our lessons and recently we have done some work on understanding them, but I'm pretty sure none of us have a handle on all of them.  Sometimes we work on prepositions and their case, but I don't think we know all of them.  I do know that there are a lot of words we don't know but we can do some basics.

I surprised myself a little while ago by translating one of Brandon's phone conversations for my parents.  To my own (and everyone else's) shock, I understood about 75% of what he said.  It wasn't a terribly complicated conversation, but I didn't know that I was that capable.  It was a nice feeling.

But I'm not in a very big rush.  We have almost a year left here in Dushanbe, followed by at least two and probably three years in Tashkent.  By then I should have more Russian than I do now.  And that will be just fine.

Earning That Thirty Percent

All posts in the Foreign Service are not created equal.  Some places, like Paris or London are in nice, first-world countries.  Other places like Lagos or Luanda are not.  Since this is not the military where people sign over the ability to choose where they will live, there has to be something that evens up the playing field at little.  Money.  This comes in the form of various incentives - airplane tickets, large housing, SND, and differential.  So if you live in London you get paid the basic salary (plus a cost of living adjustment). However, if you are willing to give up things like lines, street signs, rationality, and not sticking out like a store thumb, the State Department will compensate you with a bonus on top of your salary.  This is how we have ended up in places like Cairo, Baku, Dushanbe and Tashkent.  I like nice places but evidently I like money more.  Even when it means putting up with an inherent inability to understand basic traffic rules.

Dushanbe, as I have mentioned before, is a 30% differential post.  This means that you take Brandon's basic salary and then put 30% more on top.  It's pretty great, I won't lie.  I like looking at our retirement accounts every few months and seeing more money every time.  Magic!

When we first moved here I felt like that extra money was a little like taking candy from a baby.  Dushanbe has things like power, running water, grocery stores, traffic lights (that people follow!), and housekeepers.  When I go out, nobody bothers me and the traffic is pretty nonexistent.  There are much worse places in the world to live (I'm looking at you, Luanda).

Then Eleanor got sick.  It was nothing life threatening, just diarrhea and vomiting that left Eleanor reasonably dehydrated.  If we had been in the States (or even in Europe), Eleanor would have been hooked up to an IV, rehydrated, and sent on her way.  Instead we stayed up all night feeding her fluid by sips every half an hour or so.  That night I felt the lack of local medical services that are part of the reasons for our 30% differential.  I won't lie, I don't mind getting non-emergency situations resolved in London, but it's those emergency ones that make you wish you didn't care for money so much.

But for everyday life, Dushanbe still really wasn't that hard.  After all, I spend most days living in my enormous house that I don't clean.  Then we started having problems with travel.  But at least, when we had to cancel and re-book tickets, we weren't paying for them right?  But then we did.

It's summer travel season again, and this year I learned my lesson and made sure to not fly a single leg of our flights on Turkish.  I had all of my flights lined up and was bugging Brandon about getting his leave request signed when our new airline - Somon - started having troubles.  Fuel here in Tajikistan has gotten very expensive (about $500 a ton more than anywhere else in the region), and Somon has been getting around the problem (and their unpaid fuel bill) by making unannounced stops in Ashgabat to fuel up before heading on to Germany.  Sometimes people make their connections and sometimes they don't, so it's back to Turkish again despite my promises that it would never happen.

And also with summer comes electricity problems.  Our house has had a bad connection with the city power since the day we moved in two and a half years ago.  Whenever there's too much of a power draw (like drying clothes and running the air conditioning), the generator turns on, turns off all the power when it switches on, and then turns off.  Endlessly.  So when it's 105 degree outside our play/school room gets hot enough on laundry days to melt crayons.  Literally. I found half-melted ones in their box last summer.

But still, thirty percent is a lot of money.  I'm willing to put up with quite a few things for money, especially as the SND (15% on top of the 30 if we stay three years) has kicked in.  We all have our price, and it turns out that I'm pretty easy to buy.  Dushanbe may have major airline issues, poor (very poor) house construction, and hot endless summers, but it is still not Africa.  And also money.  I like that part.

Then.  But then.

Tajikistan is a very poor country and hasn't been getting any richer.  One of the solutions that the government has pursued is getting money out of those that have it, including foreign businesses.  This hasn't affected me - I live in a bubble created with US tax dollars - and so I haven't paid attention.

But last week, those depredations hit home when the government revoked the licenses of foreign courier services, including DHL.  It turns out that our mail - the magical thing that brings Oreos, J. Crew, Target, Amazon, and Synthroid to my house - is delivered by DHL.  The same DHL that is no longer licensed to operate in Dushanbe.

We got an email from the management section at the embassy informing us that no more mail would be coming.  The pouch facility in Virginia would hold everything already sent, but anything else ordered would be sent back if it showed up.  So, make sure and hoard the Oreos because no more are coming until further notice.

It was then that I decided that Dushanbe and I can no longer be friends.  I can put up with its spotty medical services as long as everyone stays healthy.  I will forgive the insane driving because everyone in these countries drives like that.  As long as the pool is open we can survive two months of one-hundred degree heat.  I will just not cook any recipes that use avocados, asparagus, bacon, blueberries, boneless skinless chicken thighs, or plain yogurt.  When I'm in America I can binge on Mexican food, Krispy Kreme, and Wendy's.  I know by now to not even bother streaming my favorite TV shows.  Constantly rearranging airline travel is frustrating, but doesn't happen that often.  I can even learn to turn on the just the right number of split packs that will keep the house just cool enough without turning on the generator.  And we've even learned to deal with GI issues - the carpet cleaner is an essential tool in that fight.

But pouch.  That is just too far.  Mail days are like Christmas, the kind of Christmas that brings you things you really need, like medicine and clothes for the children, and things you really want, like a new purse or Instant Pot.  It also brings things like toilet paper, school books, and sanity.  Could I get some of those things here?  Maybe (Okay, probably not the sanity).  But I don't have the time, inclination, or language skills to borrow the car from Brandon, find a babysitter for the children, drive down to the market that has no signs or anyone who knows enough to tell you where to find the safety pins or pair of shoes you desperately need are.  That's what Amazon is for.  But not now.  I feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder buckling down for that long, endless winter in North Dakota where they started eating the seed corn so they wouldn't starve.  Don't eat all the Triscuits, kids.  We don't know when we'll get more.

While I was breathing into a paper bag, Brandon did point out that there are plenty of people in this country that are suffering a lot more from the bad conditions than I am.  It's not Target they're missing, but things like food and jobs, and that made me feel not quite better, but at least contrite.  Then I went to another room so he wouldn't see me keep breathing into that bag.

This issue affects more than my new running shoes (official pouch is also affected), and so I know it's not going to last forever.  But until then I'm going to be really careful with those Triscuits.  Two crackers apiece and not a cracker more.

Willam Update

Last Saturday we were getting ready for the pool.  The kitchen was cleaned up from breakfast (on the menu that morning: cake.  Because cake and muffins are pretty much the exact same thing), I had on my swimsuit, the snacks were packed, the children were re-installing car seats, the pool bag had goggles, sunscreen, diapers, wipes, and William's swimsuit.  All eight towels were piled up next to the door and I made sure I had my badge and sunglasses.

Mid-sentence in my conversation with Brandon, I remembered something.

"The baby! I forgot about William! Let me go get him!"

And that is life in a nutshell for the sixth child.

Or at least it is if you are an agreeably easy-natured baby like William.  Most of the time William watches the circus go by with a bemused expression on his face.  'How did I get stuck here with these crazies?' he seems to say.  'But at least they're pretty nice.'  And when he gets fussy, he takes a nap for a couple of hours.

He started smiling a few months ago and hasn't stopped since, smiling at anyone who pays attention to him, waving his little fist and wriggling his whole with joy.  Kathleen likes to say that William is the best anti-grouch medication in the world - if you're in a bad mood it won't last more than a minute when you're with William.  I think she's right.  Every night when we put William to bed Brandon and I stand over his crib, smiling at him and telling each other how cute that baby is.  You'd think it would have gotten old by now - after all, we've had five before him - but it seems that it never does.

William hasn't exhibited any precocial behavior - no teething, rolling over, crawling, sitting up, or playing with toys - and is pretty much a chubby agreeable lump that is perfectly happy being held the whole time he is awake (which still isn't much longer than forty-five minutes at a time).  Which is good because he gets held by a lot of people.  A few weekends ago we were at the pool following an embassy event.  William, who had been sleeping through it all in his crib, started fussing.  I was in the pool so a friend picked him up.  The next time I looked over someone else had him until he had been passed around to pretty much anyone who wasn't swimming at the time.  He attended Ladies' Night last month and was past from lady to lady until he had made his way around the entire table.  

His siblings all love him, fighting over whose turn it is to bathe him or feed him or dress him or play with him.  A few days ago I caught Joseph trying his hardest to figure out how he could rig up some sort of seat arrangement so that Joseph could push William around in their little red play car.  The children reported to me that Eleanor has now been kicked out of the kingdom and William crowned the new monarch.

I've always been anxious for my babies to grow up past the stage where they need special treatment - extra naps, early bedtimes, special meals, strollers, cribs - and they can join the rest of the crowd.  But William, he can take as much time as he likes growing up.  I'll keep the squishy baby around a little longer if I can.

T minus one year

It is now June.  Our departure date for Tajikistan is May 2018, so that means we now have less than one year left in Dushanbe.  For most people at hardship posts, one year left means that you have halfway finished your tour.  But when your tour is three and a half years long, one year left means that it's practically time to start packing the boxes.

I'm a planner at heart - the kind of person that loves to research hotel options for a trip that might happen and secretly looks up flight schedules while they're supposed to be doing useful things like reading their children bedtime stories.  This means that, with only a year left until we pack up every single thing on the earth that we own (except for that crate in Haagerstown, Maryland full of things that I no longer remember) and move it aaaaaaall the way to Tashkent, a 260-mile drive away, it's time to start planning.

Last week I rearranged one of our storage rooms.  This happens periodically as we get more consumables (we got a supplementary shipment last summer and a layette shipment last month) and I have to rearrange everything to store it neatly.  While I was rearranging, I weighed my canning jars.  We packed out of Baku with 1,000 pounds left in our weight allowance (7,200 pounds, which sounds like a lot until you weigh everything you own and then suddenly it's peanuts), and the Amazon boxes haven't stopped coming for the past two and a half years.  Our plan this time around is to try and weigh all our posessions and then enter it into a spreadsheet so that we can know the exact weight of everything we own on this earth except the unknown items in Maryland (okay, I could find the manifest and find that out too, but I'm too lazy).  I'll let you know how that goes.

After I weighed a few representative jars and counted the rest, I took stock of my jam supplies.  I still have mango jam from Cairo, a few jars of blackberry jam, three or four of mulberry, and a lot of jars of persimmon jam.  I added 'no more jam making' to my mental list of things to remember.  Then I looked over the rest of my food and wondered how we were going to eat it all in the next eleven months.

After that, I added sundried tomatoes and cranberry sauce to my consumables list.  Because even though we have to get rid of all the food we own before we leave, we will be buying two years' worth of consumables during the one-month home leave we will have next spring.  Every time I open up something from our consumables store, like shampoo or wheat or toilet paper or pad thai sauce, I write the date on a list (of which there are several), with a note of the size.  I've never judged our consumption rate very well in the past, which has led to buying way too much food for our first post (who needs 100 pounds of popcorn?!?) and too little for this last post (I'm not sure how I feel about using six gallons of canola oil in nine months).  So this time I'm determined to get it just right.  I'll let you know how that goes, too.

Following the reorganization of our storage room, I cleaned up the kitchen a little.  Over the years and various moves and temporary stays, I've collected a lot of different storage containers.  Some are the cheap throwaway kind that I've never gotten to throwing away, some my sister gave me over a decade ago before I got married, and some have just drifted in on the wind like those cheap plastic toys that accumulate in the corners of your toy bins.  I have daydreams of replacing them, but it's not happening until we move.  Because I can ditch the storage containers here and mail the new one to our next post.  Save weight and get them there faster.  Brilliant!

When I was done with the kitchen I headed out to the yard.  When we moved in our yard consisted of 1. two bare dirt areas by the windows and 2. a dirt patch with some struggling grass.  Now we have two fruit trees that are almost fifteen feet tall, pots with mint, sage, chives, thyme, lemon balm, rosemary, four o'clocks, snapdragons, portulaca, and vincas.  The dirt patches have become a thriving wildflower bed and a very happy snapdragon bed.  I bought most of the pots in Baku, making my friend's poor driver scour half the city to get the things, and the current internal debate is whether to leave them and buy new ones (money!) or dump all of the plants and dirt out and pack them again (weight!).  I'm still not sure about that one.  Also, my grass could probably do with some reseeding, but heck, we're leaving next year so why bother?

By then it was lunch time, so I went to our third floor and called the children down.  All of the children's toys live up there and every time I look at their extensive collection, I imagine the Tajik children who will love playing with the toys that will get abandoned as we leave.  My fingers itch to pull out the garbage bags now and start the ruthless purging that brings the sweetest feelings of moral purity, but I leave them for now.  After all, we do have almost a year left.

One day I won't walk through my house seeing things that need to be gotten rid of, or put off purchases until the next move because of weight, or simply give up on improving my house, or have to track my usage rate of brown sugar.  I'll just move in somewhere, unpack, and buy what I need from Target when I run out.  I'm not sure what that will be like, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Happy Birthday, Sophia!

This month, Sophia turned nine.  Since my parents were in town (and the weather forecast called for rain), we decided to play tourist for her birthday.

We started out at the national tea house, a large beautiful building that, incidentally, doesn't serve tea.  It does have multiple lavishly (the picture we're standing from is made entirely from stone) decorated meeting rooms, a gift shop, a pool hall, a bowling alley, a movie theater, and a supermarket.  But no tea.

After that we went to that national antiquities museum.  Where they did not have any tea, but they did have a very large reclining Buddha statue.  Along with a lot of other old stuff, like bones and spears and pottery.

That evening we had cake and presents for Sophia, following the now-traditional birthday dinner of Eggs Benedict.  

Brandon's grandparents gave her a Barbie doll, Kathleen gave her a coupon book, Joseph gave her some money, Edwin gave her a drawing of a dinosaur, my parents gave her a dress, and we gave her a book and a bike.  It was a pretty good birthday.

The next morning, my father put the bike together.  Which was is good thing he is an avid bike rider because it was much more complicated than anything I could have handled.

For Sophia's birthday Saturday, we went swimming and then had dinner at a local Arabic restaurant, Al Sham.  Nobody spilled anything, nobody cried (not even William), and everyone ate their food, so it was a fantastic meal.

After dinner we went to the amusement park and the children rode all the rides until they had had all of the fun they could stand.  This year Kathleen and Sophia were tall enough to ride a bigger ride, the swings, and I went with them.  Edwin and Joseph, who were too short, were much disappointed.

Sophia had a great birthday, most of all because her grandparents were in town to celebrate with her.  Kathleen always has family around for her birthday (it's always during R&R), and Sophia was happy to finally have family for her birthday, too.  It's strange to think that next year she will be hitting double digits - and that will make my second child in double digits.  She really has come to be a (mostly) pleasant child to be around and is a cheerful and happy addition to our family.  Happy Birthday, Sophia!

Another Visit

Tajikistan is not a country that is on very many people's bucket lists.  Maybe not on anybody's bucket list, or at least not the lists of anybody I know.  We knew this when we moved here and so haven't expected any visitors.  And we haven't had many in the two and a half years we've been here.  When anybody asks if they should come visit, I tell them that they should probably save the money and hassle and go somewhere nice, like Paris.  Or Venice.  Or even Moscow.  But probably not Dushanbe.

And most people have taken my advice.  We did have some friends come visit that we met almost twelve years ago during our first stint in Cairo.  They came from their current post, Moscow, with their three boys for a long weekend and were rewarded with horrible sickness almost as soon as they got here.  Every single one, all five of them, came down with GI issues during the four days they were here.  Like I said, you really don't actually want to visit Dushanbe.

My parents, however, did not heed my advice, and came to visit anyway.  They got back from a three-year mission in the mountains of Peru last summer, so that must have helped them out because nobody got sick the entire visit.  And they flew on Turkish without a single delay.  It was a miracle.

While they were here, we:

Went to the local Olympic training park,

took a walk in our neighborhood,

had a picnic at the botanical garden (and had to walk home in the rain),

visited Hisor and had Hisor chicken (and didn't get sick!),

watched the children play in the yard,

went hiking,

braved their lives on a rickety platform (held in place with a few boulders) overlooking a 115-ft waterfall,

had a picnic at Iskanderkul,

took a tour of the national tea house,

and the national antiquities museum,

celebrated Sophia's birthday,

helped out around the house and yard (including fixing two ottomans and Eleanor's tricycle),

went out to eat several times (and still didn't get sick!),

went to the amusement park,

went swimming multiple times,

and had dinner at my housekeeper's house (and still no sickness.  These people are amazing).

After two weeks they went home claiming to have had a fun time with all the delights that Tajikistan had to offer.  The children enjoyed spending more time with their grandparents, and I had a great time with my parents.  The children declared this year 'grandparent year' as they will get to see their grandparents three different times.  

I'm grateful for my parent's visit and now we can put away the nice new guest linens that I bought for their visit because I'm pretty sure they are the last guests that will come visit us in Dushanbe.  But, it was fun while it lasted!

The Perks of Living in a Small Community

Last week I got an email from Brandon.  "Looks like we're going to get the time off this summer.  Make sure to say your thanks in your prayers tonight."  I did a little happy dance and then told the children who shouted for joy.  "Daddy's coming! Daddy's coming to the beach!!"

Later that night when Brandon came home I asked him what had happened.  He told me that he had an opportunity to explain to his management why we really needed to have that one specific week in July - if it was any other year we would be happy to take a few weeks in the fall instead.  In the afternoon, he got an email telling him that leadership had found someone else to fill in for the vacancy that Brandon's section chief would have had to do.  This left the chief in the section, which would let Brandon leave.  He was welcome to take as much time as he needed, they told him, as long as the section chief was okay with it.

And that is why it's great to live in a small embassy community.

Our first post was in Cairo which had, at the time, about seven hundred direct-hire Americans.  Add in the family members and that makes for a very large community.  Housing was scattered throughout the city and the embassy itself was made up of several multi-story towers.  I never knew anyone outside of Brandon's section that wasn't Mormon, and I never remember going to any Christmas parties, Easter parties, or Halloween parties.  The community was just too big.

When we moved to Baku, a family moved in shortly after we did.  While discussing previous posts, Brandon discovered that that we had been in Cairo together almost the whole two years and never once had we seen them the entire tour.  I've had lots of people ask if we knew someone that was in Cairo at the same time as us and I have almost never heard of the person they are asking about.

Here we have less than seventy direct-hire Americans and I know just about everyone in the entire community.  When just about any child in the embassy community has a birthday party, we're invited.  If somebody new moves in, we all know about it months before they move in.  Doughnut nights are an open invitation to any lady that wants to come.  We celebrate holidays together.  We go on trips together.  We camp together.  We party together.  The embassy community is our family.

In Cairo I saw the ambassador once, at the newcomer's orientation where we had finger food in her garden and then all herded into an auditorium to watch a presentation about life in Cairo.  I don't know how many times I've seen the ambassador here, talked with her, been to her house and had her come to my house.  Just last week while I was hanging out at the pool, she came down from the front office (which looks over the pool) just to hold William, who she hadn't met before.

And so I shouldn't have been surprised at all when Brandon was given his leave.  Leadership was willing to listen to his plight and do some shuffling and then suddenly I wasn't flying alone and Brandon was spending a wonderful week with his family on the North Carolina coast.

Management here didn't have to care if I flew alone or Brandon missed siblings he hadn't seen for years.  It wasn't their problem, especially for the ones leaving this summer.  Leave is always conditional and dependent on staffing availability.  That is the reality of this job.

But here in Dushanbe they do care if I fly alone.  They want Brandon to be able to see his family.  Our happiness matters to them.  Because the embassy community is our family.

So you can have Paris and it's wonderful sights and magnificent food.  I'll pass on London and all the amazing history.  I can even give up Thailand and its fresh mangoes and amazing beaches.  Those places may have great things, but here in Dushanbe we have great people.

Mother's Day

Sometimes I get a little grumpy on Mother's Day.  This morning was one of those days.  My parents are in town and we've been partying a lot, going hiking and swimming and out to dinner, and I knew that Brandon hadn't had time to go out and get me flowers.  We were gone almost twelve hours yesterday and I knew the children hadn't had time to make me cards or plan a special breakfast.  And I hadn't intercepted any packages with contents more exciting than twenty pounds of brown sugar.  I knew that Mother's Day this year was going to be a bit of an on-the-fly affair.

Last year I was in London and didn't get a Mother's Day either.  Sure, I didn't have to make dinner or anything, but I also didn't get the adulation that I had certainly earned by squeezing five children out and then keeping them alive for nine years.  So I was a little grumpy this morning, irritated that - for the second year in a row - I wouldn't have the picture-perfect Mother's Day I deserved.

As I showered alone (brownie points to Brandon for taking care of breakfast this morning) I lectured myself.  "Mother's Day is not about flowers or cards or presents or breakfast in bed or any of those things that you post about on Facebook to let everyone know how great your husband is.  It's about letting your family be grateful for you.  Not stuff.  Gratitude."

By the time I came down for breakfast, I was almost entirely not grumpy.  So when Sophia presented me with the creme brulee toast she made me and I saw the vase filled with flowers Brandon had picked and he apologized for not having a card, I was able to graciously thank Sophia for the toast and tell Brandon that it had been busy and not to worry about things too much.

We had church this morning and for our speaker, we watched an old conference talk by President Monson about mothers.  The boys made cards in their class (well, Joseph did.  Edwin told me that it was too much trouble to write).  My Dad and Brandon made dinner and cleaned it up.  Sophia made my mother and me several cards.  Kathleen told me what a great mom I am.

And sometime during the day I stopped being resentful about what things hadn't been done for me and I started being grateful that I get to be a mother for Mother's Day.

I'm grateful for my children, the ones who make me a mother.  Often they drive me crazy - like when someone forgets to put a top on the milk and half a jug is spilled on the floor.  Sometimes they make me mad.  Every now and then they make me sad.  But I would never ever trade the crazy and mad and sad for the tranquility that comes from being childless.

When the house is loud, it is because it is filled with people.  When it is dirty, the dirt comes from little feet and hands.  When it is quiet and clean, it is a blissful break from loud and dirty.

I am grateful for my husband, because without him I wouldn't be a mother either.  Sometimes he drives me crazy.  Occasionally he makes me mad.  And every now and then he makes me sad.  But I would never trade those things for the autonomy and independence that comes from being single.

When my room has three suit jackets hanging over the chair, they are the suit jackets of the person who goes to work every day to keep me and my children fed.  When I fold pair after pair of socks, they are the socks of someone who reads stories to my children every night before they go to bed.  And when I make the bed every day, it is the bed where I sleep next to the man who still finds me beautiful after twelve years and six children.

And so, in the end, Mother's Day isn't really about spa days or jewelry or flowers or brunch (as nice as those things can be).  It's about being a mother.  This job has lots of crazy and sad and angry and messy and exhausted and frustrated days, but those are the price we pay for having a life that is, in the end, full of happiness and joy and love and beauty.  And children.  Lots and lots of children.

Happy Birthday, Eleanor!

This week Eleanor turned three.  I'm a little sad about that because three is the beginning of attitude in my children and I'd actually not mind keeping her two pretty much forever.  I've got enough older children now that I like having a sweet little sidekick around.  Unfortunately, however, life is all about growing up and learning things so I can't keep my children little just because I like them that way.

We stretched out the birthday celebrations over three days, starting with Eleanor's birthday Saturday.  After a lot of quizzing (would you like to go to the park or go hiking or go to Madagascar?  Madagascar!!!  What's Madagascar??), I ascertained that Eleanor wanted to go to the embassy playground.  So we spent the morning playing games and getting burnt and then watched a movie (Rogue One wasn't Eleanor's choice, but I figured she didn't care that much) and had pizza.

Sunday we celebrated with cake.  When I asked what kind Eleanor wanted, she responded 'brown,' so I figured that meant chocolate cake.

Brandon covered Joseph's mouth and Eleanor got to blow out all three of her candles by herself.

And then open her presents.  Turns out when you're number five, you have lots of siblings who are very happy and eager to help you open presents.

Her grandmother sent her pajamas, we gave her an outfit for her baby doll and a book, and her sisters wrote her a story.  That's birthday presents when you're the fifth child.

The next day we met friends at the Botanical Garden (it was a school holiday that happened to fall around Eleanor's birthday) where the twenty-three children ran completely wild while the mothers enjoyed much-needed mom time.  We enjoyed a nice picnic lunch and one of my friends even brought Eleanor a pizza set, which all of the children are enjoying.

So now my baby girl is three, the girl that was seven months old when we moved to Dushanbe.  Eleanor is mostly sweet (except when her siblings take her toys) and is good company, chatting your ear off whenever she gets a chance.  We are very happy to have her in the family.  Happy Birthday, Eleanor!