This evening I took the children on a walk around the neighborhood. Theoretically Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but around here life gets a little crazy by four or five o'clock and I'm not feeling very restful, and the kids are feeling more restless than anything. I suppose when your day consists of getting ready for church, going to church, cooking dinner and then eating it, maybe you're ready to go a little stir-crazy by the end too. By five-thirty everyone was making just a little too much noise for being inside, so out we went.
Luckily we live in a neighborhood with deserted streets (we didn't have a single car pass us the entire time) perfect for walking in, so we walked. There are two sections that have been under construction since we moved here that we'll periodically visit for updates, looking for some kind of entertainment (Oh look! They finally put the windows in that house!).
This time we discovered a blobby-shaped concrete pad covered in astroturf, newly laid. I have no idea what its final purpose is, but to children finishing a long, boring Sunday it looked like heaven. Kathleen and Sophia ran up and down, prancing horses in a green pasture. Edwin somersaulted in a long line, loop after loop after loop. Joseph kicked off his flip-flops and ran circles around his siblings. The girls started racing. Edwin joined in. Joseph wandered over and all four joined hands to run up and down the length of their new green wonderland. I sat and watched them in the evening sun.
Sometimes I've wondered if having four children in five years was such a good idea as it seemed on paper (yes! It was all planned). There are days when just about everyone in the house seems to spend the majority of the day yelling, screaming, whining, and crying. Or the weeks when four children pass sicknesses off to each other like they're running a relay race. Sometimes I don't get dinner until it's cold because everyone else needs help with cutting/scooping/serving/eating their dinners. Life is generally pretty busy with so many bodies to contain.
But, even though our plan didn't truly take into account the craziness it would bring, it really did have a purpose. And that was to give everyone a friend and have everyone close enough to play together through the decades of moves to new countries and new homes and new friends and new problems.
Up until recently, this plan hadn't been in place long enough to see complete results. Sophia and Kathleen have been friends for some time now, but Edwin has only recently been behaved enough to be occasionally admitted, and Joseph has just been the baby. I realized just recently, however, that Joseph is almost two and is getting pretty close to the end of being a baby.
This evening, if only a short, golden evening on the brilliant green of astroturf, the plan worked. Kathleen, Sophia, Edwin, and Joseph laughed and shouted as they ran back and forth and back and forth across their new domain, hands linked like paper dolls.
As I watched them, I thought of all of the arguments against larger families - so much work, no time for yourself, no individual time for each child, too much money, too many years of your life sucked away - and laughed. Yes, yes of course all of those are true. They always have been and I would never deny that all of those things have an impact on my life.
But how could you compare that - money, time, a few extra years you won't need when you're dead anyway - to watching four little people that are attached to you forever, will always and forever have started with you, will grow up to be four people with lives full of meaning and more little people, run together on a quiet Sunday evening, full of joy in the way only little children can be? I don't think I could trade anything for that.
And so, when people smile when they hear the ages or count the heads, and comment that my I have my hands full, I smile back and say yes, yes I do. Some days they're full with aggravation. But others are days when they're full of joy. And those will be the days I will choose to remember when I'm old and tired and the sun has finished setting.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Moral Superiority is For the Dogs
A month ago my housekeeper quit. We got home from our R&R Saturday night at eleven o'clock. Sunday afternoon Brandon rolled over in bed and asked me if I had heard the doorbell ringing. I hadn't heard it ring, but since it was three o'clock, I figured it was probably time to get up and feed everyone breakfast/lunch/early dinner.
As I stumbled down the front stairs lugging Joseph, my phone rang. It was Asli, my housekeeper and she needed to 'talk about schedules' with me. She was waiting outside. I crawled over piles of luggage abandoned the night before in our front entryway to open the door and usher her in. 'You see,' she started in. I knew where this was going. 'My daughter is in the hospital. I can't work for you anymore starting tomorrow. But my sister,' she waved to an unknown woman tagging along, 'is happy to work for you.'
I think maybe the door might have hit one of them on the butt as I hustled them out.
Sometimes I wish that people would just be honest and say 'I don't like working for you. I think you're crazy and I hate your children. I'm quitting.' instead of making up the same tired lie about a family member being in the hospital.
The truth is that Asli had been driving me crazy for quite a long time. She had an amazing talent at hiding things in completely irrational places - camera chargers in toy bins, my hair product in the girls' jewelry drawer, nail clippers in the silverware drawer - because she was too lazy to put them up in the right places. Her cooking declined steadily after she realized that I didn't care what she cooked until it was so bad that even Brandon started protesting. I was always happy to see her go, even if it meant paying her until five and letting her leave at two.
But, the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't know, especially when you're leaving in less than five months.
I've now had three housekeepers quit/leave town on me. I'm tired of having to train someone new and try to ignore their personal deficiencies (the housekeeper before Asli was incredibly slow), and so, I thought, maybe wouldn't it be just easier (and cheaper!) to just clean the house with the girls instead? After all, lots of people in America clean their houses all by themselves and haven't died of overwork yet.
So I decided that I could be Super Housewife and do it all. The first week started out okay. On Tuesday I washed the laundry, split the folding with the girls, went to the grocery store with all four of the children, and put all of the laundry away. And I made dinner. All on four hours of sleep (thank you Unisom). Because I'm awesome.
Wednesday, after finally getting a good night's sleep, the girls and I tackled the third floor. Two hours later it was clean. Hooray for our side!
Thursday I vacuumed all of the carpets and mopped all of the floors on the second floor while the girls cleaned all three bathrooms. Really, cleaning isn't that bad. How was I so scared of cleaning my own house?
Friday we were supposed to clean the bottom floor with the dreaded kitchen. I hate cleaning kitchens. So many things to scrub and wipe and keep track of. So instead we went to the grocery store - all of us - again. And I made home made pizza. The kitchen wasn't that dirty anyway.
Monday it started again with the top floor and laundry. At 8:30, I had finally finished cleaning up after dinner and realized something profoundly unsettling - I couldn't handle life, or at least all of it.
I could handle teaching school without anyone watching the boys. I could handle doing all of my own laundry. I could handle doing the ironing. I could handle taking all of the children to the grocery store where we trailed cooing Azeri employees around the store. I could even handle cooking my own dinner every night. But I just couldn't handle doing all of those things and cleaning my house too. Sadly, I wasn't even doing most of the cleaning - the girls were - and I still couldn't handle it.
But even worse than that, I realized after thinking more about my life, I actually could handle the management of cleaning my own house, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to do it, and so I caved and called a friend whose housekeeper has a free day. I'm still ashamed and try to think of valid excuses other than 'I'm too lazy' and even more ashamed that I try to come up with excuses instead of admitting that I'm plain old lazy and spoiled.
So, that's my brief foray into moral superiority. It didn't last long. I guess the warm glow just doesn't make up for every day reality. Sigh.
As I stumbled down the front stairs lugging Joseph, my phone rang. It was Asli, my housekeeper and she needed to 'talk about schedules' with me. She was waiting outside. I crawled over piles of luggage abandoned the night before in our front entryway to open the door and usher her in. 'You see,' she started in. I knew where this was going. 'My daughter is in the hospital. I can't work for you anymore starting tomorrow. But my sister,' she waved to an unknown woman tagging along, 'is happy to work for you.'
I think maybe the door might have hit one of them on the butt as I hustled them out.
Sometimes I wish that people would just be honest and say 'I don't like working for you. I think you're crazy and I hate your children. I'm quitting.' instead of making up the same tired lie about a family member being in the hospital.
The truth is that Asli had been driving me crazy for quite a long time. She had an amazing talent at hiding things in completely irrational places - camera chargers in toy bins, my hair product in the girls' jewelry drawer, nail clippers in the silverware drawer - because she was too lazy to put them up in the right places. Her cooking declined steadily after she realized that I didn't care what she cooked until it was so bad that even Brandon started protesting. I was always happy to see her go, even if it meant paying her until five and letting her leave at two.
But, the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't know, especially when you're leaving in less than five months.
I've now had three housekeepers quit/leave town on me. I'm tired of having to train someone new and try to ignore their personal deficiencies (the housekeeper before Asli was incredibly slow), and so, I thought, maybe wouldn't it be just easier (and cheaper!) to just clean the house with the girls instead? After all, lots of people in America clean their houses all by themselves and haven't died of overwork yet.
So I decided that I could be Super Housewife and do it all. The first week started out okay. On Tuesday I washed the laundry, split the folding with the girls, went to the grocery store with all four of the children, and put all of the laundry away. And I made dinner. All on four hours of sleep (thank you Unisom). Because I'm awesome.
Wednesday, after finally getting a good night's sleep, the girls and I tackled the third floor. Two hours later it was clean. Hooray for our side!
Thursday I vacuumed all of the carpets and mopped all of the floors on the second floor while the girls cleaned all three bathrooms. Really, cleaning isn't that bad. How was I so scared of cleaning my own house?
Friday we were supposed to clean the bottom floor with the dreaded kitchen. I hate cleaning kitchens. So many things to scrub and wipe and keep track of. So instead we went to the grocery store - all of us - again. And I made home made pizza. The kitchen wasn't that dirty anyway.
Monday it started again with the top floor and laundry. At 8:30, I had finally finished cleaning up after dinner and realized something profoundly unsettling - I couldn't handle life, or at least all of it.
I could handle teaching school without anyone watching the boys. I could handle doing all of my own laundry. I could handle doing the ironing. I could handle taking all of the children to the grocery store where we trailed cooing Azeri employees around the store. I could even handle cooking my own dinner every night. But I just couldn't handle doing all of those things and cleaning my house too. Sadly, I wasn't even doing most of the cleaning - the girls were - and I still couldn't handle it.
But even worse than that, I realized after thinking more about my life, I actually could handle the management of cleaning my own house, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to do it, and so I caved and called a friend whose housekeeper has a free day. I'm still ashamed and try to think of valid excuses other than 'I'm too lazy' and even more ashamed that I try to come up with excuses instead of admitting that I'm plain old lazy and spoiled.
So, that's my brief foray into moral superiority. It didn't last long. I guess the warm glow just doesn't make up for every day reality. Sigh.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
How to Buy a Car While Living Overseas
Did I ever tell you the story where Brandon and I bought a car this summer? I didn't think so.
Up until two months ago in our entire lives Brandon and I, combined, have owned two cars. When I was a sophomore in college, my parents helped me buy a silver 1996 Honda Civic. The original plan was to buy a Prelude, but we couldn't find any over the summer, and so I grudgingly bought the Civic instead. My parents insisted I would be happier in the long run since I'd probably put carseats in the back eventually and I knew they were right. But that's why I didn't want a responsible car - I knew the next car I owned would be a minivan.
Which was almost true - it was an SUV - but only because we were moving to Baku and didn't think a minivan could make it here. The Civic lasted eight years - from 2001 until we moved to Cairo in 2009. Then we were without a car for two years until I bought our Honda Pilot, sight unseen with a check, the day before driving up to DC to set up temporary living during the Great NEA Evacuation of 2011, or the Arab Spring.
So that's it. Eight and a half years of marriage. Thirty-three years combined driving experience. Two cars. I guess we're boring, cheap, or very utilitarian. It probably helps that we both come from families that drive cars into the ground before buying another used car to drive into the ground (or crash).
But.
Brandon's in the Foreign Service, and he's a political officer (who favors posts to strange countries that speak obscure languages) and that means that we're pretty much guaranteed to spend at least nine months in between each posting in language training. With training that long, we could choose to permanently relocate to DC and have our car and things shipped back to DC, but that means we'd have to pay for housing. And I'm cheap. So instead we're TDY (temporary duty) for nine months which means we get 900 pounds of stuff. Period. But in exchange, our housing is paid for. And in the DC area, that's nothing to sniff at. So we deal.
However, the housing doesn't include a car and so we have to figure something out. We considered ZipCars (they don't generally come with six seats), renting a car (have you ever tried to rent a minivan for nine months?), going without (grocery shopping would get kind of tricky, and church isn't a walkable distance), renting a car just on the weekend (but no weekday library trips! and have you ever been to the Pentagon City Costco on a Saturday?), and just buying a car and selling it nine months later.
Obviously we decided to buy a car. We all have our luxuries that we can't live without - a particular American product, some personal service, or a favorite TV show - and mine is mobility. I don't like being trapped in a three-bedroom apartment (yes! three! for nine months!) with four children and no way to go and see all of the zoos and museums and parks and libraries and Target and Costco and friends and family that I can cram into a nine-month period. So yes, not the cheapest option, but in the end, the one that works best with my personal sanity. We all pay for that in some way or another.
This spring when I started looking into flight schedules and car rentals, I was shocked by the prices I found. We're big enough that we have to rent a minivan, and our flight schedules involved flying into one small airport and out of a big one or the other way around and it all ended up looking very expensive - about $1500. So I started thinking. What if we just bought the car we were going to buy in January six months early? We could pick it up in North Carolina, drive it to Missouri and see various family members and then leave it at Brandon's parents' house until we needed it for home leave. Six months of car insurance and gas for driving was going to be cheaper than the rental - and then we could have a car for home leave.
I talked to Brandon and he agreed that it sounded like a reasonable plan so I emailed my car guy, Jef. When I suddenly found myself in the US and in need of a car to take to DC, he came through with our Pilot that has been great. My sister had used his service to buy her car, and so I knew that when he said the car was in good condition, it would be. He did all of the taxes, tags, and registration and mailed my permanent plate to our Oakwood apartment. All I had to do was hand him a check. I didn't even test drive the car first.
I emailed him in April. We wanted an Odyssey or Sienna, within a certain price range, with leather seats. We were coming into Raleigh on August 2. Could he do that? Of course! Within a month he had a car that looked like a good deal, so we sent him a check. The week we left on R&R I sent him our flight information.
My parents are in Peru for three years and so when we landed in the Raleigh airport after almost 24 hours of traveling, we had no welcome crew. Instead we staggered down to the baggage claim, corralled our two suitcases, one duffel, and two carseats and looked around for Jef. He wasn't at the baggage claim, so Brandon went outside to look for him, presumably in a Sienna. As Brandon headed for the doors he turned to shout back "What color is it?"
"What color is what?" I shouted back, too tired to care if half the baggage claim could hear me.
"The car!!" Brandon gestured wildly.
I thought for a minute and guiltily shrugged with a smile. "Um, I forgot to ask!"
I could see his shoulders hunch in a sigh as he continued out the door. Who would forget to ask the color of their new, check-has-cashed, car?
I nervously waited with the children, hoping that my plan that connected the dots starting with transportation picking us up out our house at 1:30 AM Baku time to getting to the airport, making our connections through Frankfurt and DC, and finally being picked up by Jef, who had never confirmed getting our flight plans, to be driven to the Days' Inn to finally crash-land, would work out. There really were a lot of dots to connect.
Five minutes later Brandon returned without his back-pack, and I let the knot in my stomach go as the last dot got connected.
"It's gold," he told me as he hefted a suitcase-duffel-carseat combination in one hand and Joseph in the other, "your new car is gold."
I've never liked gold too much. Oh well. It won't be ours very long.
We loaded the bags in the car, strapped in carseats, strapped children in carseats, and followed Jef to the Days' Inn a few miles down the road. We pulled in and Jef pulled out a stack of papers to sign. Brandon signed while I kept Joseph from picking cigarette butts out of the trash and Sophia from crawling under bushes. Brandon finished signing. Jef explained some things. He handed over the keys. And then we had another car.
So, for the first time in our marriage, Brandon and I are a two-car family. I suppose it's not a normal arrangement - each car on a different continent. But hey, who said we were ever normal?
Up until two months ago in our entire lives Brandon and I, combined, have owned two cars. When I was a sophomore in college, my parents helped me buy a silver 1996 Honda Civic. The original plan was to buy a Prelude, but we couldn't find any over the summer, and so I grudgingly bought the Civic instead. My parents insisted I would be happier in the long run since I'd probably put carseats in the back eventually and I knew they were right. But that's why I didn't want a responsible car - I knew the next car I owned would be a minivan.
Which was almost true - it was an SUV - but only because we were moving to Baku and didn't think a minivan could make it here. The Civic lasted eight years - from 2001 until we moved to Cairo in 2009. Then we were without a car for two years until I bought our Honda Pilot, sight unseen with a check, the day before driving up to DC to set up temporary living during the Great NEA Evacuation of 2011, or the Arab Spring.
So that's it. Eight and a half years of marriage. Thirty-three years combined driving experience. Two cars. I guess we're boring, cheap, or very utilitarian. It probably helps that we both come from families that drive cars into the ground before buying another used car to drive into the ground (or crash).
But.
Brandon's in the Foreign Service, and he's a political officer (who favors posts to strange countries that speak obscure languages) and that means that we're pretty much guaranteed to spend at least nine months in between each posting in language training. With training that long, we could choose to permanently relocate to DC and have our car and things shipped back to DC, but that means we'd have to pay for housing. And I'm cheap. So instead we're TDY (temporary duty) for nine months which means we get 900 pounds of stuff. Period. But in exchange, our housing is paid for. And in the DC area, that's nothing to sniff at. So we deal.
However, the housing doesn't include a car and so we have to figure something out. We considered ZipCars (they don't generally come with six seats), renting a car (have you ever tried to rent a minivan for nine months?), going without (grocery shopping would get kind of tricky, and church isn't a walkable distance), renting a car just on the weekend (but no weekday library trips! and have you ever been to the Pentagon City Costco on a Saturday?), and just buying a car and selling it nine months later.
Obviously we decided to buy a car. We all have our luxuries that we can't live without - a particular American product, some personal service, or a favorite TV show - and mine is mobility. I don't like being trapped in a three-bedroom apartment (yes! three! for nine months!) with four children and no way to go and see all of the zoos and museums and parks and libraries and Target and Costco and friends and family that I can cram into a nine-month period. So yes, not the cheapest option, but in the end, the one that works best with my personal sanity. We all pay for that in some way or another.
This spring when I started looking into flight schedules and car rentals, I was shocked by the prices I found. We're big enough that we have to rent a minivan, and our flight schedules involved flying into one small airport and out of a big one or the other way around and it all ended up looking very expensive - about $1500. So I started thinking. What if we just bought the car we were going to buy in January six months early? We could pick it up in North Carolina, drive it to Missouri and see various family members and then leave it at Brandon's parents' house until we needed it for home leave. Six months of car insurance and gas for driving was going to be cheaper than the rental - and then we could have a car for home leave.
I talked to Brandon and he agreed that it sounded like a reasonable plan so I emailed my car guy, Jef. When I suddenly found myself in the US and in need of a car to take to DC, he came through with our Pilot that has been great. My sister had used his service to buy her car, and so I knew that when he said the car was in good condition, it would be. He did all of the taxes, tags, and registration and mailed my permanent plate to our Oakwood apartment. All I had to do was hand him a check. I didn't even test drive the car first.
I emailed him in April. We wanted an Odyssey or Sienna, within a certain price range, with leather seats. We were coming into Raleigh on August 2. Could he do that? Of course! Within a month he had a car that looked like a good deal, so we sent him a check. The week we left on R&R I sent him our flight information.
My parents are in Peru for three years and so when we landed in the Raleigh airport after almost 24 hours of traveling, we had no welcome crew. Instead we staggered down to the baggage claim, corralled our two suitcases, one duffel, and two carseats and looked around for Jef. He wasn't at the baggage claim, so Brandon went outside to look for him, presumably in a Sienna. As Brandon headed for the doors he turned to shout back "What color is it?"
"What color is what?" I shouted back, too tired to care if half the baggage claim could hear me.
"The car!!" Brandon gestured wildly.
I thought for a minute and guiltily shrugged with a smile. "Um, I forgot to ask!"
I could see his shoulders hunch in a sigh as he continued out the door. Who would forget to ask the color of their new, check-has-cashed, car?
I nervously waited with the children, hoping that my plan that connected the dots starting with transportation picking us up out our house at 1:30 AM Baku time to getting to the airport, making our connections through Frankfurt and DC, and finally being picked up by Jef, who had never confirmed getting our flight plans, to be driven to the Days' Inn to finally crash-land, would work out. There really were a lot of dots to connect.
Five minutes later Brandon returned without his back-pack, and I let the knot in my stomach go as the last dot got connected.
"It's gold," he told me as he hefted a suitcase-duffel-carseat combination in one hand and Joseph in the other, "your new car is gold."
I've never liked gold too much. Oh well. It won't be ours very long.
We loaded the bags in the car, strapped in carseats, strapped children in carseats, and followed Jef to the Days' Inn a few miles down the road. We pulled in and Jef pulled out a stack of papers to sign. Brandon signed while I kept Joseph from picking cigarette butts out of the trash and Sophia from crawling under bushes. Brandon finished signing. Jef explained some things. He handed over the keys. And then we had another car.
So, for the first time in our marriage, Brandon and I are a two-car family. I suppose it's not a normal arrangement - each car on a different continent. But hey, who said we were ever normal?
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Sick Week(s)
Our family doesn't get sick very often. Every now and then a few of the children might pass around a cold, or I might get struck down after eating out (but, for some unknown reason, never Brandon. He claims moral superiority), but for the most part we've avoided any major disasters. I think homeschooling might have something to do with it (less access to germ-of-the-week), but mostly I'm just grateful. I hate vomit. A lot.
However, nobody avoids being sick forever, and this past week and a half has been our turn. Kathleen started off the fun two Saturdays ago, waking up with fever and other toilet-intensive issues. She stuck close to her bed for a few days and was reasonably recovered by Monday. Not that bad, I thought. But I hope she doesn't share.
By Tuesday afternoon, I was stuck in bed with Joseph. Brandon had to come home from work and make dinner while I lounged in my bed of pain. The next day school was cancelled, but I did manage pancakes for dinner. Thursday was a no-school day, too. By then I was trying really hard to feel guilty about abandoning my schol responsibilities, but I was just too tired and sick to care. Because did I mention that Joseph was sick too? And he has a tendency to need lots of diaper changes in the middle of the night. I finished recovering Sunday, but we were still up last night changing diapers.
Right on schedule, Sophia got ill Saturday night. I stayed home from church with her Sunday, but left her with a movie to go next door for a branch pot-luck. It's really nice to have church next door.
Last night about midnight, Edwin's high voice outside my door woke me up. "Dad, I have a problem. Dad, I have a problem. Dad, I have a problem." I stumbled out of my room and followed him into his to look for the disaster. He apologetically gestured to his sheets (and pillow and blankets), which I gathered up and stuck in the wash after plopping him on the toilet.
Brandon hunted up some pull-ups and helped me put new bedding on. With a parting discussion about passing gas vs. going to the the bathroom, we crawled back into bed. Brandon had fallen back asleep and I was on the edge when Edwin's voice returned. This time he had gotten the carpet, and only after inspecting his shorts we realized that the problem was coming out of the other end. So new sheets and back to bed - with a bowl.
At 1:30 Joseph woke up screaming to tell us he needed a diaper change.
So today I've been hanging out with Edwin and school has been called off again. After having dealt with a sick seven year-old, five year-old, three year-old, and one year-old, I think I can say I prefer the three year-old the least. He's potty trained, but I don't quite trust him, and he'd rather have my company and a movie.
Brandon's the last man standing. He claims he won't get sick. But we'll see.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
And We're Back!
Actually, we got back two weeks ago. But the combination of jet lag (one memorable night I didn't sleep until the Unisom kicked in at 4:30), internet problems, wrestling life back into its normal schedule, and having no housekeeper has kept me from posting.
Just in case you were wondering, we survived our R&R. We even had seats assigned that didn't leave any children in the care of strangers, except once, and Kathleen was in heaven having an adult pay attention to her chatter for the entire flight. Every time we fly the children are older and the flights get easier, thank heaven.
The R&R was great, and we managed to see three of my siblings, including my brother Mike who I haven't seen in three years, two of Brandon's siblings, Brandon's parents, all of the kids' cousins on my side, all but three of the cousins on Brandon's side, and a handful of second cousins thrown in for extra fun.
We started out in North Carolina at the beach.
Just in case you were wondering, we survived our R&R. We even had seats assigned that didn't leave any children in the care of strangers, except once, and Kathleen was in heaven having an adult pay attention to her chatter for the entire flight. Every time we fly the children are older and the flights get easier, thank heaven.
The R&R was great, and we managed to see three of my siblings, including my brother Mike who I haven't seen in three years, two of Brandon's siblings, Brandon's parents, all of the kids' cousins on my side, all but three of the cousins on Brandon's side, and a handful of second cousins thrown in for extra fun.
We started out in North Carolina at the beach.
Then in a moment of insanity we thought that we should drive our new car from the NC coast to St. Louis in one day. We made it, but when the boys started screaming to relieve the boredom from nine hours of driving and we still had seven hours left in the car, I swore I'd never do it again.
We stayed the night and caught up with Brandon's sister and brother-in-law and their five children before heading to Hannibal to see some more cousins and Brandon's brother and his wife.
One afternoon we visited Nauvoo and got to see rope-making, baking, pottery, weaving, blacksmithing, and various other demonstrations. The girls decided that dressing up was the best.
Then we headed west to Brandon's parents' house for more cousins, lots of tasty sweet corn, trampoline-jumping, and cow-watching.
We celebrated Kathleen's seventh birthday with a pizza party
and a visit to the zoo.
So now it's back to normal life until January. When I get asked about the difficulties of living overseas, I shrug off the usual ones because life is generally composed of the same actions regardless of location - cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, spending time with friends, going to work. It's being separated from family that is the worst. We only have three weeks each summer to cram all of the family fun we can and then we have a drought until the next year. And I think each year it's a little harder. Sophia was nearly in tears this week because she couldn't understand why Brandon wasn't going to move us all to Jacksonville so she could be near her cousins.
But, such is the nature of life and the choices we have to make. I'm looking forward to next summer already.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Vacation Time
I run for exercise. I've been running for exercise over a decade, and I would never call myself a runner. Calling oneself 'a runner' implies that you enjoy running and I don't. I hate it, wondering at least every thirty seconds how much longer I have until I'm done, and when I am finished with my torture session exercise, being so incredibly happy when I am. Maybe it's my short legs or my nonexistent torso or just that I'm a wimp, but I never enjoy it. However, it's the fastest form of exercise I can do without leaving my house, so I run.
I've noticed over the past decade a curious phenomenon about running. Back before children I would run six miles several times a week. At the end of those runs when home was in sight I remember feeling that I couldn't take it one more step and would surely die before I got there. Sometimes I would have less time to run so I'd cut my route down but still at the end I felt the same way - completely spent. These days I don't have the time to run six miles, so I'm down to around three. And still I feel like three is the longest distance I could ever imagine running. Some mornings when I'm late I might run only a mile or two - not enough to even think about - and still by the end I'm checking the clock wondering when this awful punishment will be over.
So my sense of being utterly spent and finished isn't actually based on how long I run - after all, six miles is a lot longer than one - it's just based on how close I am to being done. When I'm close to being done, I can't take it any longer.
That's how I feel about my life right now. We've been in Azerbaijan for almost an entire year without leaving the country (except Brandon, who's been to Turkey a few times) - which is the longest I've ever been outside the US in one stretch - and I'm just about done with it for now. I'm also getting tired of school and the four walls of my house and Brandon being at work every day and having the same three options every weekend. Which means it's time for a vacation!
The funny thing about vacations living overseas is that they tend to be longer than ones people take stateside. As a child we would take one big vacation every summer, for one week to the beach two hours away. Every few years we would visit family on the west coast for two weeks (I remember thinking how horrible three hours of jet lag was. ha.), but that was the longest we went on vacation.
But when you live overseas, anything less than three weeks simply isn't worth the time it takes to get over the jet lag. We have some friends in the military who came here direct from Moscow and had to fight to get some of their home leave. In the end they were given two weeks so they just went to London for a week because there wasn't enough time to make travel to the States worthwhile.
We have some other friends who just got back from their three weeks with family. When we saw them we asked how their time with family was - lots of fun? They smiled and sighed and we nodded knowingly and smiled too. Three weeks of living out of our suitcase with family is a long time.
It's wonderful to see family and fantastic to be back in the US where nobody stares at you and everyone drives in the lines and anyone in any store can understand your questions. I love it. I look forward to it every year as the highlight of the summer. I always wonder how I'm going to live life when I have to return to crazy-life.
But by the end, we're ready to get back home to schedules and our own house and regular life. So it's good - we're looking forward to going and by the end we're looking forward coming home.
Right now, however, we are oh so very much looking forward to getting the heck out of here and not being in Azerbiajan, not being in our house, not waiting endlessly for Brandon to come home from work, not fighting crazy traffic, not being a magnet for adoring fans every time we go to the grocery store, and just taking a break.
I'm looking forward to seeing my youngest brother, who I haven't seen in three years, my cousins, my other siblings, and spending a week playing at the beach. I'm looking forward to to seeing Brandon's family (yes, really) and taking evening walks through cornfields at dusk, reveling in being the only people in that hundred-acre field. I'm looking forward to Target, getting my hair cut, and being able to talk to anyone I see. At this point, I'm even looking forward to watching movies on the plane, and the orderly first-worldliness of the the Frankfurt airport.
It's time to escape from every day life and go on a vacation. See you in a few weeks!
I've noticed over the past decade a curious phenomenon about running. Back before children I would run six miles several times a week. At the end of those runs when home was in sight I remember feeling that I couldn't take it one more step and would surely die before I got there. Sometimes I would have less time to run so I'd cut my route down but still at the end I felt the same way - completely spent. These days I don't have the time to run six miles, so I'm down to around three. And still I feel like three is the longest distance I could ever imagine running. Some mornings when I'm late I might run only a mile or two - not enough to even think about - and still by the end I'm checking the clock wondering when this awful punishment will be over.
So my sense of being utterly spent and finished isn't actually based on how long I run - after all, six miles is a lot longer than one - it's just based on how close I am to being done. When I'm close to being done, I can't take it any longer.
That's how I feel about my life right now. We've been in Azerbaijan for almost an entire year without leaving the country (except Brandon, who's been to Turkey a few times) - which is the longest I've ever been outside the US in one stretch - and I'm just about done with it for now. I'm also getting tired of school and the four walls of my house and Brandon being at work every day and having the same three options every weekend. Which means it's time for a vacation!
The funny thing about vacations living overseas is that they tend to be longer than ones people take stateside. As a child we would take one big vacation every summer, for one week to the beach two hours away. Every few years we would visit family on the west coast for two weeks (I remember thinking how horrible three hours of jet lag was. ha.), but that was the longest we went on vacation.
But when you live overseas, anything less than three weeks simply isn't worth the time it takes to get over the jet lag. We have some friends in the military who came here direct from Moscow and had to fight to get some of their home leave. In the end they were given two weeks so they just went to London for a week because there wasn't enough time to make travel to the States worthwhile.
We have some other friends who just got back from their three weeks with family. When we saw them we asked how their time with family was - lots of fun? They smiled and sighed and we nodded knowingly and smiled too. Three weeks of living out of our suitcase with family is a long time.
It's wonderful to see family and fantastic to be back in the US where nobody stares at you and everyone drives in the lines and anyone in any store can understand your questions. I love it. I look forward to it every year as the highlight of the summer. I always wonder how I'm going to live life when I have to return to crazy-life.
But by the end, we're ready to get back home to schedules and our own house and regular life. So it's good - we're looking forward to going and by the end we're looking forward coming home.
Right now, however, we are oh so very much looking forward to getting the heck out of here and not being in Azerbiajan, not being in our house, not waiting endlessly for Brandon to come home from work, not fighting crazy traffic, not being a magnet for adoring fans every time we go to the grocery store, and just taking a break.
I'm looking forward to seeing my youngest brother, who I haven't seen in three years, my cousins, my other siblings, and spending a week playing at the beach. I'm looking forward to to seeing Brandon's family (yes, really) and taking evening walks through cornfields at dusk, reveling in being the only people in that hundred-acre field. I'm looking forward to Target, getting my hair cut, and being able to talk to anyone I see. At this point, I'm even looking forward to watching movies on the plane, and the orderly first-worldliness of the the Frankfurt airport.
It's time to escape from every day life and go on a vacation. See you in a few weeks!
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Thank Heaven for Amazon
Remember the great wall of Charmin?
I went upstairs yesterday evening to replenish my bathroom stock and found only this left.
So when you ask yourself, 'Self, how much toilet paper does one family need for two years in a foreign country?" (because that's a question most people ask themselves at least once a week), the answer might just be: more than a ten-foot pile.
Thankfully, our root beer stash is still in good condition.
Joseph is very happy about this.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Would You Switch Seats With Me?
Every time we schedule plane tickets, something comes up. We've had problems with E2, scheduling routes, medical clearances, passports, and on and on. I've done this a few times and I've gotten clever, so this year after a few hiccups (like changing our R&R dates after spending two weeks wrangling over tickets because of office scheduling conflicts) we had our plane tickets scheduled early. I even went online and reserved our seats. I've heard horror stories of families being scattered around airplanes on long-haul international flights. And as much as I like the thought of abandoning Joseph to a stranger for nine hours, I know in reality I could never get away with it and so it's easier to just seat us all together in the first place.
Since our flights are two airlines, Lufthansa and United, I have to reserve seats on their respective websites. Twenty minutes on the United website (for some reason our tickets are in two groups which ought to prove fun if there's some sort of trouble. I've only got Edwin with me, so Brandon has the short end of the stick if we get separated) and half of the flights were reserved.
Next was Lufthansa for the other half. All of the seat maps had open seats in our favorite configuration - everyone with a partner - so I clicked away getting those valuable window seats. It's always wonderful to have your toddler wedged between you and a window so there's no contact with other toddler-hating passengers. And with three rows of seats, he's surrounded on all sides and can only kick his sibling's seat. There are some advantages to flying with a larger family.
After I'd reserved all of our seats and ordered various meals - vegetarian for Kathleen, fruit for Joseph, and kid's for Sophia and Edwin - I checked over my work. I would hate to have messed up all of my careful planning by not double-checking our numbers. When I checked I noticed one flight - the nine-hour Frankfurt to DC leg - hadn't saved the seats. The United site had listed the flight as operated by Lufthansa (which I am biased towards. Maybe it's the cheery yellow-and-grey color scheme. Or maybe the polite German accents.), so I should be able to reserve seats on their website. I tried again. No seats. So I did the reasonable thing: I gave up.
Fast forward to this week. We're leaving in a few weeks, and I have been having dreams about screaming matches with other passengers over switching seats, so I decided to try and reserve out seats again. And again, it didn't work. I knew that twenty more attempts wouldn't change the computer's mind, as much as I would like it to, and knew I was the only one who could keep disaster at bay. So I put on my big-girl pants and actually picked up the phone to call a real live human being.
After a few phone menus, an extremely polite German voice came on the line. "Good day, thank you for calling Lufthansa, and how may I help you?" I think that if I were exiled from the United States, I would live in Germany, if only to hear those wonderfully polite accents every day. Maybe it's good associations from my study abroad in Vienna or the sense of relief when we leave chaos land in the yellow-and-grey planes with helpful flight crews, but I have a special fondness for German people.
In just a few moments, he was looking up our seats to see what he could do about seating our family together. Just the day before I had been asking friends at the pool about having seats together. Everyone I talked to never had them together, and one of my friends had spent four hours on the phone in the US trying to get their family of seven in seats together last summer. The United customer service person tried to charge $25 a ticket before finally giving up and 'against regulations' assigning their seats together.
I was expecting a fight, so when my new German best friend set right to helping me with no complaints or protestations, I wanted to kiss him.
But as in all good stories, there was nothing he could do. The tickets, it turns out, had been issued incorrectly by the Carlson Wagonlit travel agent who booked them. Although the flight is operated by Lufthansa (hooray!), the agent had coded it as being owned and operated by United with no codeshare. So it turns out that the seat map for that leg in our itinerary is (for us) in a nether-world untouched by United or Lufthansa, with nobody being able to do a thing for us until the agent changes how our tickets are issued.
He advised me to talk to the travel agent who booked the tickets to have them reissue the tickets with the correct flight number. If the travel agent were a Lufthansa employee, this would have been no problem, but ours is not, and worse yet, she's not even in Azerbaijan, she's in Georgia which means two times the Soviet customer service to deal with.
My first clearly explained (twice over) email got this response:
I emailed her back today, hoping vainly that something had been done.
My first clearly explained (twice over) email got this response:
Dear Ashley.
Please try to follow below procedure (travel agent tried to do it online, they were unable to get seats even though they can see seats online together, but unable to reserve them ).
But please try yourself or try to call Lufthansa as per below.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to rebook flights as seats are not available.
After I explained (again) that I had already done all of this, and please don't rebook, reissue (as carefully explained to me by my new best friend at Lufthansa) with the correct flight number, I got this:
Dear Ashley!
Actually, we always book Lufthansa as code-shared United flight from Frankfurt to United States. (this is the regulation we have to follow).
And in most of the cases, passengers are able to reserve seats as per the procedure I mentioned below.
I really don’t know what is the problem at this time.
I will check once again with the Travel Agent on this.
Sorry about inconvenience.
No, I'm sorry about the 'inconvenience,' and will be cursing your name when my five year-old is halfway across the plane and needs me.
I emailed her back today, hoping vainly that something had been done.
Dear Ashley!
I have double checked.
Unfortunately nothing.
In the future, we will try to reserve LH flight to avoid this problem.
Here is the answer from Carlson Wagonlit:
From:
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:21 PM
To: V
Subject: Sherwood
Sent: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 2:21 PM
To: V
Subject: Sherwood
Dear ,
Please be informed that on web cite [sic] I can not confirm seat on plane. United airlines also did not see seat map.
Thankfully I have done enough traveling to not worry too much about one nine-hour flight. Even if it takes some standing in the aisles blocking everyone trying to get on the plane (which is fun on two hours of sleep while trying to manage four wiggly children), I have never met anybody who won't offer to switch seats when faced with the prospect of minding somebody else's toddler for nine hours. And who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and be upgraded to business class.
Yeah, I didn't think so either.
Friday, July 19, 2013
I Like Small
I don't like large cities. Actually, I don't even like cities. Once I used to like large cities, back before I actually had to live in them. In college I studied abroad in Vienna for a semester and actually switched housing assignments to be downtown and not in the suburbs - a place I had lived my entire life and was destined to be stuck in for the rest of it. Little did I know.
And now, after living two years in one of the biggest cities in the world, I can say that I really don't like living in large cities. Too many people breathing the same air, living on top of each other, vying for the same parking space, and watching me. All of those big city amenities are probably nice for other people - shopping, cultural offerings, restaurants, social gathering spots - otherwise why would there be cities? But they're not nice for me.
So when we moved to Baku, I was so happy to be in a 'small city' of about three million people. For a US city, three million is pretty big, but everywhere else three million isn't too bad. It helps when everyone lives on top of each other. And it really has been nice being in a smaller city - when the traffic isn't bad you can get across the whole city in thirty minutes. Good luck doing that in Cairo. You'd probably get to the next neighborhood in thirty minutes there. I hardly ever use the GPS to get around because there are only so many roads in the areas of town I go to and I know most of them by now. And it doesn't take very long - about twenty minutes - before you're out of town. It's nice. I'm looking forward to scaling down even more next time.
I've also discovered that I like smaller embassy communities also. The Cairo mission is one of the largest in the world, with about ten times the number of mission members as here in Baku. It definitely had benefits - a grocery-store sized commissary so extensive you could even buy bagged ice from Germany, a good-sized med unit, Maadi House, and church that met in a building instead of someone's house.
But when we were leaving after a two-year tour I was still meeting people for the first time that had been there as long as we had. The embassy had two towers and an entire complex in another part of the city, so you pretty much knew people from your section and that was it. That definitely afforded anonymity if you wanted it, but there wasn't a strong sense of community (at least for me. And this may have had something to do with me being a hermit for two years).
I think there are some people here that I've never met. But most people I've met and even had a conversation or two with, which I like. I go to lots more community events because I know I'll see friends there and not be stuck in awkward getting-to-know-you conversation for the next few hours. At our last Fourth of July party, I looked over to see my children plying the ambassador (and then his wife) with custom decorated cupcakes covered in M&Ms, paper umbrellas, cookies, and I think I saw one with potato chips. In a larger mission, I would have been horrified with embarrassment, quickly shepherding my children somewhere far away from the Important People and hopefully out of their sight. But here, I just laughed and told them to hold the cupcake with potato chips. The ambassador knows my children by name, and has hung out with them on a few Saturday mornings when we've invaded his pool for swimming.
There are constant all-call invitations for zoo trips, restaurant nights, craft nights, beach trips, and weekend trips not organized by the CLO. Since the mission is so small, if you're breathing and available, people are happy to have you come. I like not having to be cool or wear the right clothes or even be that interesting to be invited to lots of things. There might be cool kids here, but they're so cool that I'm not aware of their club that I'm not invited to.
Some people may call it a fishbowl - everybody knows what's going on with everybody else - but I call it a community of people who care about each other and are always happy to have new people to care about.
So, that's my plug for small posts. Sure, we don't have world-class shopping (maybe we do?) or tourist destinations or even that many weekly flights in and out. Most people I talk to haven't even heard of Baku. Azerbaijan will never be France. But that's okay. Because the Eiffel tower doesn't take care of my children when I have to take one of them to get their chin glued. And the pyramid don't have me over for craft night to chat and gossip every month. And not even mangoes make me feel that despite living so far from family, I still have something close to it here.
Hooray for small places.
And now, after living two years in one of the biggest cities in the world, I can say that I really don't like living in large cities. Too many people breathing the same air, living on top of each other, vying for the same parking space, and watching me. All of those big city amenities are probably nice for other people - shopping, cultural offerings, restaurants, social gathering spots - otherwise why would there be cities? But they're not nice for me.
So when we moved to Baku, I was so happy to be in a 'small city' of about three million people. For a US city, three million is pretty big, but everywhere else three million isn't too bad. It helps when everyone lives on top of each other. And it really has been nice being in a smaller city - when the traffic isn't bad you can get across the whole city in thirty minutes. Good luck doing that in Cairo. You'd probably get to the next neighborhood in thirty minutes there. I hardly ever use the GPS to get around because there are only so many roads in the areas of town I go to and I know most of them by now. And it doesn't take very long - about twenty minutes - before you're out of town. It's nice. I'm looking forward to scaling down even more next time.
I've also discovered that I like smaller embassy communities also. The Cairo mission is one of the largest in the world, with about ten times the number of mission members as here in Baku. It definitely had benefits - a grocery-store sized commissary so extensive you could even buy bagged ice from Germany, a good-sized med unit, Maadi House, and church that met in a building instead of someone's house.
But when we were leaving after a two-year tour I was still meeting people for the first time that had been there as long as we had. The embassy had two towers and an entire complex in another part of the city, so you pretty much knew people from your section and that was it. That definitely afforded anonymity if you wanted it, but there wasn't a strong sense of community (at least for me. And this may have had something to do with me being a hermit for two years).
I think there are some people here that I've never met. But most people I've met and even had a conversation or two with, which I like. I go to lots more community events because I know I'll see friends there and not be stuck in awkward getting-to-know-you conversation for the next few hours. At our last Fourth of July party, I looked over to see my children plying the ambassador (and then his wife) with custom decorated cupcakes covered in M&Ms, paper umbrellas, cookies, and I think I saw one with potato chips. In a larger mission, I would have been horrified with embarrassment, quickly shepherding my children somewhere far away from the Important People and hopefully out of their sight. But here, I just laughed and told them to hold the cupcake with potato chips. The ambassador knows my children by name, and has hung out with them on a few Saturday mornings when we've invaded his pool for swimming.
There are constant all-call invitations for zoo trips, restaurant nights, craft nights, beach trips, and weekend trips not organized by the CLO. Since the mission is so small, if you're breathing and available, people are happy to have you come. I like not having to be cool or wear the right clothes or even be that interesting to be invited to lots of things. There might be cool kids here, but they're so cool that I'm not aware of their club that I'm not invited to.
Some people may call it a fishbowl - everybody knows what's going on with everybody else - but I call it a community of people who care about each other and are always happy to have new people to care about.
So, that's my plug for small posts. Sure, we don't have world-class shopping (maybe we do?) or tourist destinations or even that many weekly flights in and out. Most people I talk to haven't even heard of Baku. Azerbaijan will never be France. But that's okay. Because the Eiffel tower doesn't take care of my children when I have to take one of them to get their chin glued. And the pyramid don't have me over for craft night to chat and gossip every month. And not even mangoes make me feel that despite living so far from family, I still have something close to it here.
Hooray for small places.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Home Primary... Take One
It summer season here in Baku. For those of you not in embassy communities, summer season means that a lot of people get out of town. Either people are moving (this year about two-thirds are leaving) or taking vacations or haven't moved in yet to replace the people who have left. When the ambassador made a tour of the embassy this past week, Brandon and one other colleague were there to welcome him to the economic section. Everything gets a little thin this time of year.
Since at least half of our branch members work that the embassy, the summer slump also affects church. Our church meetings are already short (I won't deny I see it as a perk of living overseas) and in the summer they get shorter. Since our branch present, primary president, and counselor were gone all last summer, we only met for sacrament meeting until everyone came back in the fall (don't be jealous). Another sister and I decided to hold our own primary after sacrament meeting so that we could justify getting everyone ready for more than thirty minutes of church. Everyone got a little wiggly by the end (Kathleen and Sophia were the only girls), but it worked out well.
This year primary has held out a little longer, but last week the primary president left on vacation, and the other counselor moves from Baku on Tuesday, so primary is taking a break again.
With only six months left in our tour, I've started thinking about the next place we'll be, skipping over the language training part because I already done that before. But after that - a ward with nursery and separate primary classes for the children and maybe even time for me and Brandon to sit and hold hands during Sunday School - we'll be completely on our own. There is an LDS family currently in Dushanbe, but they're leaving before we get there, so Brandon will get to be branch president-elder's quorum president-sunday school president and I'll be relief society president-primary president-nursery leader. Or, as Brandon likes to put it - dad and mom.
So Sunday after we walked home from sacrament meeting, I suggested we have primary at our house. You know, so we could have some fun with them and let them not miss out on primary for the next few weeks. And it would be good practice for when we have to do it every single Sunday for three years.
We decided to start with singing time. Brandon had to run back to church for something, so I got out the Primary Songbook to set the tone. A few measures into "Reverently Quietly" I looked over to see Edwin trying to shuck his pants. He had already gotten off the shoes and socks and was trying for the pants next. Luckily he wears a belt so the pants weren't budging. But when I suggested that he pull his pants back up and sit on the couch, he began wailing in pain while running around the room.
That set Sophia off, "Why can't we change our clothes?!? My dress is so hot! I'm tired of being in it! I don't want to do Primary!! Why are you so mean?!?" [fade into wail].
Brandon walked back in about this time. I was trying to struggle along with "In the Leafy Treetops," hoping that I could drown out the wailing and everyone would eventually give up and realize I wasn't kidding about primary. Kathleen, conscious of being in the right, sat primly on the couch as Sophia wailed next to her and Edwin wailed around the couches, satellite-style. I should look int utilizing self-righteousness to get things done more often.
"What is going on?!" Brandon shouted across the din to me. I shrugged my shoulders and kept playing. "Hopefully they'll calm down soon......?"
Not being an optimist, he snagged Edwin as he sailed by and dropped him on the couch. Unfazed, Edwin hopped back up, still wailing, and ran for the stairs. Luckily Brandon has longer legs than Edwin (it's a good thing children start small), so he intercepted Edwin and plopped him back on the couch. Sophia, not seeing any attention directed at her, started crying louder. Edwin hopped back up without missing a wail. Brandon, patience growing thinner by the second, grabbed him and may or may not have applied his hand to some disciplinary action and set him down again, this time sitting next to him just in case Edwin decided to run for it.
"Everyone, shut up!! We are going to have primary and Mom is going to play the piano and all of you are going to sing!" Nothing changed. Joseph started crying, startled by daddy yelling.
Kathleen raised her hand while Sophia continued to cry unabated, "What about Joseph? He can't talk yet. Is it okay if he doesn't sing?"
I kept playing the piano, switching to "Love at Home."
Brandon shot me dagger-eyes. Sometimes knowing what your spouse is thinking isn't such a good idea.
Eventually we got everyone settled down, or at least located on or near a couch. I led singing time, followed by Brandon's lesson about Eli's wicked sons being killed because their father hadn't disciplined them. I'm not sure if that counts as wresting the scriptures.
Hopefully things will get better when we have to do this for real, or it's going to be a really long three years.
Since at least half of our branch members work that the embassy, the summer slump also affects church. Our church meetings are already short (I won't deny I see it as a perk of living overseas) and in the summer they get shorter. Since our branch present, primary president, and counselor were gone all last summer, we only met for sacrament meeting until everyone came back in the fall (don't be jealous). Another sister and I decided to hold our own primary after sacrament meeting so that we could justify getting everyone ready for more than thirty minutes of church. Everyone got a little wiggly by the end (Kathleen and Sophia were the only girls), but it worked out well.
This year primary has held out a little longer, but last week the primary president left on vacation, and the other counselor moves from Baku on Tuesday, so primary is taking a break again.
With only six months left in our tour, I've started thinking about the next place we'll be, skipping over the language training part because I already done that before. But after that - a ward with nursery and separate primary classes for the children and maybe even time for me and Brandon to sit and hold hands during Sunday School - we'll be completely on our own. There is an LDS family currently in Dushanbe, but they're leaving before we get there, so Brandon will get to be branch president-elder's quorum president-sunday school president and I'll be relief society president-primary president-nursery leader. Or, as Brandon likes to put it - dad and mom.
So Sunday after we walked home from sacrament meeting, I suggested we have primary at our house. You know, so we could have some fun with them and let them not miss out on primary for the next few weeks. And it would be good practice for when we have to do it every single Sunday for three years.
We decided to start with singing time. Brandon had to run back to church for something, so I got out the Primary Songbook to set the tone. A few measures into "Reverently Quietly" I looked over to see Edwin trying to shuck his pants. He had already gotten off the shoes and socks and was trying for the pants next. Luckily he wears a belt so the pants weren't budging. But when I suggested that he pull his pants back up and sit on the couch, he began wailing in pain while running around the room.
That set Sophia off, "Why can't we change our clothes?!? My dress is so hot! I'm tired of being in it! I don't want to do Primary!! Why are you so mean?!?" [fade into wail].
Brandon walked back in about this time. I was trying to struggle along with "In the Leafy Treetops," hoping that I could drown out the wailing and everyone would eventually give up and realize I wasn't kidding about primary. Kathleen, conscious of being in the right, sat primly on the couch as Sophia wailed next to her and Edwin wailed around the couches, satellite-style. I should look int utilizing self-righteousness to get things done more often.
"What is going on?!" Brandon shouted across the din to me. I shrugged my shoulders and kept playing. "Hopefully they'll calm down soon......?"
Not being an optimist, he snagged Edwin as he sailed by and dropped him on the couch. Unfazed, Edwin hopped back up, still wailing, and ran for the stairs. Luckily Brandon has longer legs than Edwin (it's a good thing children start small), so he intercepted Edwin and plopped him back on the couch. Sophia, not seeing any attention directed at her, started crying louder. Edwin hopped back up without missing a wail. Brandon, patience growing thinner by the second, grabbed him and may or may not have applied his hand to some disciplinary action and set him down again, this time sitting next to him just in case Edwin decided to run for it.
"Everyone, shut up!! We are going to have primary and Mom is going to play the piano and all of you are going to sing!" Nothing changed. Joseph started crying, startled by daddy yelling.
Kathleen raised her hand while Sophia continued to cry unabated, "What about Joseph? He can't talk yet. Is it okay if he doesn't sing?"
I kept playing the piano, switching to "Love at Home."
Brandon shot me dagger-eyes. Sometimes knowing what your spouse is thinking isn't such a good idea.
Eventually we got everyone settled down, or at least located on or near a couch. I led singing time, followed by Brandon's lesson about Eli's wicked sons being killed because their father hadn't disciplined them. I'm not sure if that counts as wresting the scriptures.
Hopefully things will get better when we have to do this for real, or it's going to be a really long three years.
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