Back in September I started thinking about my Marine Ball dress. When the pouch can take a month and dresses may take six weeks to special order, September is a very good time to be thinking about a dress you will be wearing in November. I looked around on the internet for a bit, and as usual, didn't find anything with sleeves that I liked. So of course my mind turned to sewing.
I brought this up with Brandon. "You know..." I tried to say as casually as possible one evening as we were getting ready for bed, "I was thinking the other day... maybe I would sew my Marine Ball dress this year."
Brandon swiveled his head toward me, not moving the rest of his body an inch. He fixed me with his dagger-stare, concentrated by the thick black-rimmed glasses hanging off his nose. "What."
"You know," I stumbled on, "because, well, I just can't find anything reasonably priced with sleeves... and... well... I just think it's a good idea...."
Silence.
"Do you remember last year? A week solid of cold cereal for dinner, black fabric scraps covering the house, and neglected children tearing the house apart around you while you sewed for ten hours a day? Do you remembering sewing the buttons on your dress ten minutes before the babysitter came?! No. Absolutely not." He paused, gathering his decency. "Of course, if you really want to, you can. Just start now. But I think it's a bad idea. You're pregnant and worn out. You have school to take care of. It always takes longer than you think. Just buy a dress. I don't care how much you spend. Really. Just get something you like that you don't have to alter."
So I did.
After looking at the entire internet - including fifty-two pages of dresses at NewYorkDress.com - I narrowed down the field to about fifteen that looked like they could accommodate a sixteen-week pregnant me. One night in early October I sat Brandon down and made him decide which dress he liked the best.
The next day I ordered it. Then I ordered a tuxedo for Brandon.
After wearing a suit last year he told me that he never wanted to wear a suit to the Marine Ball again, a suit was what he wore six days a week and if I was going to wear the nicest thing I could find, he was going to wear a tuxedo. Brandon almost never has a preference, and so when he tells me he wants a tuxedo, even after I tell him how much they cost, I had probably better get him one.
So after ordering my dress from Saks Fifth Avenue, I went over to Jos. A Bank, who happened to be having one of their sales that they have about every other week. Wanting to treat my man right, I ordered a tuxedo and a shirt and cuff links and a black silk bow tie and even tuxedo socks. The only thing I didn't get were the shoes and that was only because Brandon's size was out of stock. Since there was a sale going on, I ordered Brandon another suit (who knew wearing them every day would turn suits into things you bought like socks?) and unsure of which fit would look better, I ordered two.
Three minutes after pressing 'confirm order,' I got an email. We've noticed some unusual spending patterns in your account. Would you confirm that you made the recent order from Jos. A Bank.
I laughed as I imagined the pattern-identifying software scratching its head. I suppose it doesn't fit into our usual shopping habits to kit everyone out for a black-tie event. Maybe I would be a cooler person if it did, but unfortunately for my coolness-factor, the only black-tie event I ever attend is the Marine Ball. The rest of my life I'm just a normal person and the sequined dresses lurk in dark corners in my closet waiting for their turn every few years to come out and play for one night.
Fast forward to last week. Once a month I perform The Great Budget Untangling and comb through all of my purchases in the previous month, assigning each one to a category and wincing at the end as I realize exactly how much more we spent on groceries or media or travel than we were supposed to and then vow to eat nothing but beans and not even look at Amazon until those numbers are black again.
October had been an especially bad month for the budget, between ordering formal gear, traveling to Georgia, and traveling to London, the credit card company was very happy with us. Advancing line by line through my statement I found various guilty parties - Saks, Shoebuy, 6 pm, Etsy - testifying to how much of Brandon's hard work had gone towards clothes for just one night.
One line, however, was missing. Nothing from Jos. A Bank. I looked through my emails. No order confirmation there. I looked on the website. No record of ordering any tuxedos. And then I looked back at the email from my credit card company and read it more closely. "Your credit card has been declined."
Brandon took the news much better than I thought, not even mentioning that my dress had come and he was going to be stuck in a suit again. But of course I felt like the most terrible wife ever - I couldn't even manage to properly honor the one request my husband had made but seemed to have no trouble making sure that I got what I needed. "You'll never live this down," he told me with a smile, "just so you know."
I thought that Brandon had resigned himself to wearing a suit again until he came home Friday night and announced that he was going shopping the next morning - the morning of the Marine Ball. "Roger told me that there was a store at Sahil Metro with great powder-blue frilly suits. If I can't wear a tux, I'm getting one of those." I looked at him, surprised. Brandon hates shopping; I can remember the last time we bought clothes for him together, and he really hates doing things last minute - after all that's why he agreed to buy me a dress that cost more than a dress ought to cost. Maybe he was kidding?
When the shock wore off and I realized that Brandon really, really cared about what he was wearing to the ball that night, I found my voice and suggested that we go to the mall instead. They might actually have real tuxedos, even if we have to pay out the nose for them.
And so we did, packing all of the children into the car, and tumbling them out again to wander the temple of commercialism in the pursuit of black-tie formal wear. On the second try we found one that fit, didn't cost an arm and a leg, and didn't even need the pants hemmed. By 11:45 we were home again, in proud possession of Brandon's first tuxedo. All was right with the world.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Pregnancy Cravings
I must say that fifth pregnancies are not so bad (It still shocks me every time I say/think fifth. That's a lot of pregnancies!), all things considered. I don't know if my body is so used to carrying babies that it's decided to stop complaining or my senses are starting to go or my life with the four other children is so busy I forget that I'm pregnant at all or if it's just divine intervention, but I didn't think things would be going so well right now. Morning sickness, all four weeks of it has been gone for some time. General nasty crabbiness only pops up every few days. I'm not falling asleep on my feet by eight o'clock every night. I can't complain. Get back to me in about five months, however, and my story might have changed.
I've never been one for pregnancy cravings, something that Brandon is both disappointed and relieved about. Nothing has been so pressing at two in the morning that I haven't been able to roll over and go back to sleep and so he's been saved from late night McDonald's runs. But I also haven't been so in love with ice cream that I've brought home every flavor that Ben and Jerry's makes to stock our freezer with.
Which is probably good that I can live without both because we live in Azerbaijan and I don't think McDonald's is open at two in the morning and I'm not sure if Ben and Jerry's has even made it over the Atlantic, much less the Black Sea.
That isn't to say, however, that I haven't had food phases that do occasionally get indulged. Like hamburgers and french fries - with fry sauce. Most of my pregnancies have a meat craving at some point, and for whatever reason hamburgers usually feature in that daydream. Perhaps it goes hand in hand with my chronic anemia. A few weeks ago I decided that we needed to use up the bag of charcoal doubling as a cat pillow on our back porch and as we all know, charcoal was invented solely to make meat perfect. Vegetables are just an afterthought to not waste the leftover heat.
So hamburgers it was. Big, juicy, dripping red-meat hamburgers. Yum. And to go with it, homemade french fries with fry sauce. The rest of the week I couldn't get french fries with fry sauce out of my mind, the golden salty crunch hiding a creamy inside dipped in the perfect combination of tangy ketchup and creamy mayonnaise. The frying oil in our refrigerator beckoned to me, promising another round of salty, greasy, crunchy, tangy goodness if I would only put it to the use God intended it for. By Sunday I couldn't resist anymore, and so for dinner that week we had homemade whole wheat pasta with walnut pesto alfredo, matchstick carrots with buttermilk sour cream sauce, and french fries. With fry sauce, of course.
There are other times, however, when being overseas leaves me with memories of Cafe Rio's pork barabacoa salad with cilantro-lime dressing replaying over and over and over and over in my head until I almost can't stand it - and I haven't been to Cafe Rio in five years. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have a restaurant less than a mile from Oakwood. Because, pork. I think that is the worst part of living in muslim countries - no pork. So even if I wanted to make a tortilla, black beans, lime-cilantro rice, crispy tortilla strips, find some romaine lettuce, make a knockoff dressing substitute, and trade a child for an avacado, it still wouldn't matter. Because, no pork. The first thing I will put in my Costco shopping cart when I make it back to the land of all good things will be at least five pounds of bacon.
Or banquet pot pies. Sure, I can make a pot pie, but there's not substitute for the perfectly regular cubes of salty, tender something meat in those pot pies. And there's more crust in an individual serving size than a 9x13 pan.
And of course, as always, Krispy Kremes. I know not everyone cares for them, but I was brought up in their birth state and they will always be airy, sugary, perfectly tender doughnut perfection for me. I have wanted chocolate covered creme-filled Krispy Kreme doughnuts after the birth of every single child, and it's never happened. We'll have to see this time around.
Thankfully I'm generally too busy to think much about the random cravings that pop into my brain - macaroons, guacamole, McFlurries, tempura anything, Snickers, crab cakes - and by the time I put out fights, clean up urine puddles, follow up on assigned tasks, and feed everyone - the craving has popped back out of existence and I am left at peace again.
But sometimes it would be nice to just run down to Krispy Kreme and get a diabetic coma-inducing creme-filled chocolate covered delight on a complete whim because hey - I'm pregnant! Just once. That's all.
I've never been one for pregnancy cravings, something that Brandon is both disappointed and relieved about. Nothing has been so pressing at two in the morning that I haven't been able to roll over and go back to sleep and so he's been saved from late night McDonald's runs. But I also haven't been so in love with ice cream that I've brought home every flavor that Ben and Jerry's makes to stock our freezer with.
Which is probably good that I can live without both because we live in Azerbaijan and I don't think McDonald's is open at two in the morning and I'm not sure if Ben and Jerry's has even made it over the Atlantic, much less the Black Sea.
That isn't to say, however, that I haven't had food phases that do occasionally get indulged. Like hamburgers and french fries - with fry sauce. Most of my pregnancies have a meat craving at some point, and for whatever reason hamburgers usually feature in that daydream. Perhaps it goes hand in hand with my chronic anemia. A few weeks ago I decided that we needed to use up the bag of charcoal doubling as a cat pillow on our back porch and as we all know, charcoal was invented solely to make meat perfect. Vegetables are just an afterthought to not waste the leftover heat.
So hamburgers it was. Big, juicy, dripping red-meat hamburgers. Yum. And to go with it, homemade french fries with fry sauce. The rest of the week I couldn't get french fries with fry sauce out of my mind, the golden salty crunch hiding a creamy inside dipped in the perfect combination of tangy ketchup and creamy mayonnaise. The frying oil in our refrigerator beckoned to me, promising another round of salty, greasy, crunchy, tangy goodness if I would only put it to the use God intended it for. By Sunday I couldn't resist anymore, and so for dinner that week we had homemade whole wheat pasta with walnut pesto alfredo, matchstick carrots with buttermilk sour cream sauce, and french fries. With fry sauce, of course.
There are other times, however, when being overseas leaves me with memories of Cafe Rio's pork barabacoa salad with cilantro-lime dressing replaying over and over and over and over in my head until I almost can't stand it - and I haven't been to Cafe Rio in five years. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have a restaurant less than a mile from Oakwood. Because, pork. I think that is the worst part of living in muslim countries - no pork. So even if I wanted to make a tortilla, black beans, lime-cilantro rice, crispy tortilla strips, find some romaine lettuce, make a knockoff dressing substitute, and trade a child for an avacado, it still wouldn't matter. Because, no pork. The first thing I will put in my Costco shopping cart when I make it back to the land of all good things will be at least five pounds of bacon.
Or banquet pot pies. Sure, I can make a pot pie, but there's not substitute for the perfectly regular cubes of salty, tender something meat in those pot pies. And there's more crust in an individual serving size than a 9x13 pan.
And of course, as always, Krispy Kremes. I know not everyone cares for them, but I was brought up in their birth state and they will always be airy, sugary, perfectly tender doughnut perfection for me. I have wanted chocolate covered creme-filled Krispy Kreme doughnuts after the birth of every single child, and it's never happened. We'll have to see this time around.
Thankfully I'm generally too busy to think much about the random cravings that pop into my brain - macaroons, guacamole, McFlurries, tempura anything, Snickers, crab cakes - and by the time I put out fights, clean up urine puddles, follow up on assigned tasks, and feed everyone - the craving has popped back out of existence and I am left at peace again.
But sometimes it would be nice to just run down to Krispy Kreme and get a diabetic coma-inducing creme-filled chocolate covered delight on a complete whim because hey - I'm pregnant! Just once. That's all.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
This time I don't even care about charm
I fired my fourth housekeeper last week. To clarify, I haven't fired four housekeepers - two quit, one went missing, and the last I fired - but I now have had four former housekeepers in less than two years. I'm not sure what this says about me; am I bad to work with, do I have bad luck, are my expectations too high, or is it just Azeri housekeepers? I think maybe I hold the record among my friends, however, and maybe in the whole embassy community.
The last one didn't survive very long. After swearing off housekeepers entirely, I broke down and admitted that I can't handle life by myself and hired my friend's housekeeper. As a salve to my conscience, I only hired her for one day instead of the two I had my last housekeeper working. I never liked having someone else fold and wash my laundry anyway and Asli had never, ever stayed for the eight hours I was paying her for. I figured that if she didn't have to put anything away, wash laundry, tend children, or cook dinner, a housekeeper should be able to clean the house in seven hours. Just basic cleaning, after all, nothing fancy. Our windows would just have to be dirty the last four months of our tour, and I suppose I could finally bring myself to clean out the refrigerator every now and then. Or, maybe four months isn't too long to leave the refrigerator uncleaned? I know that if I didn't have children to watch, I could clean the house in seven hours. Really.
Boy was I wrong. I had been warned that she was slow; another friend had her previous to my first friend and she had commented that people had fired this housekeeper for being slow, but I thought that they were just being picky. They weren't. At all.
The first day she came, the housekeeper (I'll avoid publicly smearing anyone's reputation that hasn't done me any wrong) cleaned the bathrooms and the kitchen. Then she left, because her six hours were up. Granted, we have four and a half bathrooms, but the bathrooms aren't that dirty and Joseph's only gets used for diaper pail duty. She'll get better, I told myself, it's just the first day. The next week she cleaned all of the rooms, but no bathrooms. When I discussed the situation with Brandon he asked if maybe there were toothpicks and q-tips involved with the cleaning? I looked, but the rooms didn't look any better than when Asli took five hours to clean the whole house, including hiding all of our stuff and watching Joseph - they even looked a little worse.
I really like to think that I'm a reasonable person. Maybe I'm not, but I like to think that I am. However, I also have a house that I need cleaned every week - the entire house, not just half of it. After all, we have four small children and four children make a lot of mess over one week - mess that needs to bed cleaned. And I would be inclined to be less concerned if every other housekeeper I've had hadn't been able to clean the whole house in one day. But they did. I'm also a cheap person, and I can't stomach the idea of paying someone to clean half my house when I can pay someone else to clean the whole house for the same amount of money. So she had to go.
Meanwhile I had another friend whose housekeeper had some extra days and by this time I was so desperate that I didn't even care that the lady doesn't speak English. If she can clean my whole house in one day, she can speak whatever language she wants. Or none at all. Or be a mime. I don't care. I just don't want to scrub my own toilets.
So yes, that is five housekeepers in two years, if you are keeping track. Good help is so hard to find these days. Don't laugh. It really is.
The last one didn't survive very long. After swearing off housekeepers entirely, I broke down and admitted that I can't handle life by myself and hired my friend's housekeeper. As a salve to my conscience, I only hired her for one day instead of the two I had my last housekeeper working. I never liked having someone else fold and wash my laundry anyway and Asli had never, ever stayed for the eight hours I was paying her for. I figured that if she didn't have to put anything away, wash laundry, tend children, or cook dinner, a housekeeper should be able to clean the house in seven hours. Just basic cleaning, after all, nothing fancy. Our windows would just have to be dirty the last four months of our tour, and I suppose I could finally bring myself to clean out the refrigerator every now and then. Or, maybe four months isn't too long to leave the refrigerator uncleaned? I know that if I didn't have children to watch, I could clean the house in seven hours. Really.
Boy was I wrong. I had been warned that she was slow; another friend had her previous to my first friend and she had commented that people had fired this housekeeper for being slow, but I thought that they were just being picky. They weren't. At all.
The first day she came, the housekeeper (I'll avoid publicly smearing anyone's reputation that hasn't done me any wrong) cleaned the bathrooms and the kitchen. Then she left, because her six hours were up. Granted, we have four and a half bathrooms, but the bathrooms aren't that dirty and Joseph's only gets used for diaper pail duty. She'll get better, I told myself, it's just the first day. The next week she cleaned all of the rooms, but no bathrooms. When I discussed the situation with Brandon he asked if maybe there were toothpicks and q-tips involved with the cleaning? I looked, but the rooms didn't look any better than when Asli took five hours to clean the whole house, including hiding all of our stuff and watching Joseph - they even looked a little worse.
I really like to think that I'm a reasonable person. Maybe I'm not, but I like to think that I am. However, I also have a house that I need cleaned every week - the entire house, not just half of it. After all, we have four small children and four children make a lot of mess over one week - mess that needs to bed cleaned. And I would be inclined to be less concerned if every other housekeeper I've had hadn't been able to clean the whole house in one day. But they did. I'm also a cheap person, and I can't stomach the idea of paying someone to clean half my house when I can pay someone else to clean the whole house for the same amount of money. So she had to go.
Meanwhile I had another friend whose housekeeper had some extra days and by this time I was so desperate that I didn't even care that the lady doesn't speak English. If she can clean my whole house in one day, she can speak whatever language she wants. Or none at all. Or be a mime. I don't care. I just don't want to scrub my own toilets.
So yes, that is five housekeepers in two years, if you are keeping track. Good help is so hard to find these days. Don't laugh. It really is.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Happy Birthday, Joseph!
I have reached a new milestone in my life - all of my children are at least two years old. I've never had a second birthday that didn't have some small sibling missing from all of the pictures because they were too young for the celebrations. I confess I'm really enjoying it.
To celebrate Joseph's birthday, we took all of the children to Zoom Zoom, an indoor play place. We had plans to go somewhere outside to enjoy the nice fall weather we've been having - upper sixties, low seventies with golden yellow sunshine - but then the weather wasn't nice at all and we were driven indoors.
We've been there several times with the children, but this is the first time that all of the children have enjoyed themselves; previously Joseph had been too young to enjoy exploring more than arm's length from the maternal safety zone. But not any more. Sometimes all of the children will go for a walk while I'm working inside, and these days I'm almost never involved with bath time. Everyone in the family can walk. Everyone is in underwear (during the day anyway). Everyone can feed themselves (mostly). And all of the children will play together on occasion. Life is getting pretty easy, which means that it's time to bring back the crazy. But I'll always look back to this little window of sanity with fondness.
Joseph is the very first child in our family to have spent the entire first two years of his life (minus seven weeks) in the exact same house in the exact same room in the exact same crib. Everyone else has had some sort of move, whether it was across town, across the country, or across the world. Joseph's just been here the whole time. I think that makes it seem like he's grown up much faster than his siblings did; I still can't quite believe that he is two. That used to mean something, when Kathleen was two she was very grown up. Now two is just a bigger baby that is starting to talk.
Being the very happy boy that he is (Brandon credits the stability), everyone loves Joseph and there is usually a fight at one point during the day over who gets to play with him/dress him/bathe him/dress him up/push him in the stroller. The girl's favorite evening activity is the kit out the stroller into a royal littler with pillows, scarves, blankets, and toys and parade him through the house proclaiming "Joseph! The king!" until I tell them that twenty times is enough announcing. Tonight his siblings were very eager to help him open presents and will be just as eager tomorrow morning to help him play with his new toys.
I've enjoyed having a little extra time with him as my baby and my buddy. He generally follows me around the house, nesting his hand in mine as we go up and down stairs rotating laundry, doing chores, and cleaning up the general mess. When I cook dinner, he pushes a chair over to the sink, climbs up, and keeps me company while playing with the water. If I sit down, he immediately finds my lap to snuggle down in. And when he is hurt, he always runs to me because all any bad thing needs is a cuddle from Mom to make it better.
So happy birthday, Joseph. We're happy to have you with us!
To celebrate Joseph's birthday, we took all of the children to Zoom Zoom, an indoor play place. We had plans to go somewhere outside to enjoy the nice fall weather we've been having - upper sixties, low seventies with golden yellow sunshine - but then the weather wasn't nice at all and we were driven indoors.
We've been there several times with the children, but this is the first time that all of the children have enjoyed themselves; previously Joseph had been too young to enjoy exploring more than arm's length from the maternal safety zone. But not any more. Sometimes all of the children will go for a walk while I'm working inside, and these days I'm almost never involved with bath time. Everyone in the family can walk. Everyone is in underwear (during the day anyway). Everyone can feed themselves (mostly). And all of the children will play together on occasion. Life is getting pretty easy, which means that it's time to bring back the crazy. But I'll always look back to this little window of sanity with fondness.
Joseph is the very first child in our family to have spent the entire first two years of his life (minus seven weeks) in the exact same house in the exact same room in the exact same crib. Everyone else has had some sort of move, whether it was across town, across the country, or across the world. Joseph's just been here the whole time. I think that makes it seem like he's grown up much faster than his siblings did; I still can't quite believe that he is two. That used to mean something, when Kathleen was two she was very grown up. Now two is just a bigger baby that is starting to talk.
Being the very happy boy that he is (Brandon credits the stability), everyone loves Joseph and there is usually a fight at one point during the day over who gets to play with him/dress him/bathe him/dress him up/push him in the stroller. The girl's favorite evening activity is the kit out the stroller into a royal littler with pillows, scarves, blankets, and toys and parade him through the house proclaiming "Joseph! The king!" until I tell them that twenty times is enough announcing. Tonight his siblings were very eager to help him open presents and will be just as eager tomorrow morning to help him play with his new toys.
I've enjoyed having a little extra time with him as my baby and my buddy. He generally follows me around the house, nesting his hand in mine as we go up and down stairs rotating laundry, doing chores, and cleaning up the general mess. When I cook dinner, he pushes a chair over to the sink, climbs up, and keeps me company while playing with the water. If I sit down, he immediately finds my lap to snuggle down in. And when he is hurt, he always runs to me because all any bad thing needs is a cuddle from Mom to make it better.
So happy birthday, Joseph. We're happy to have you with us!
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Halloween 2013
My children, not knowing any better, were perfectly happy with our Halloween celebrations. Some friends from the embassy living in our neighborhood threw a neighborhood/embassy party the Saturday before Halloween complete with selected trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. The girls, showing off their bulging lunch bags of candy, were ecstatic, and spent the next week gorging themselves.
I'm not a sugar-hater, but I do try and keep the family sugar intake fairly low. Normally. But when it comes to Halloween candy, I'd rather it be gone and off their things-to-beg-for lists, so I let them have a free-for-all. One morning after school Edwin announced he didn't need any lunch because he'd had so much candy and took himself upstairs to sleep it off. I was happy to have one less person to feed before it was my lunchtime.
Halloween itself passed by with just one trick-or-treater ringing our doorbell and the children didn't even ask to go. They knew that the next day was the embassy Halloween party where they would get to dress up again and get candy again. What more could a kid want?
This year Edwin wore an old bedsheet as a ghost (Sophia's suggestion), Sophia dressed up in scarves as a peasant, Kathleen was a princess for the third year in the row, and Joseph was a prince (Sophia's suggestion again). Total cost of costumes: $0. Total time spent: 30 minutes. My kind of Halloween costumes.
Friday, November 1, 2013
London, All By Myself
When I went to the doctor here at post to announce my pregnancy (when your life is paid for by the federal government nothing, especially childbearing, is private), she started in on the usual info-dump about babies. I've now had two babies with the Foreign Service and know how the program goes.
She mentioned something about medevac, and I nodded my head. Yes, medevac, but that won't be necessary since we'll be at FSI in April. Planning is crucial in this lifestyle and I'm nothing if not a planner.
"So we'll send you to London for two days," she continued, and my head snapped up. London?!? For two days? When did this happen? I hmmed and asked for clarification. "Well, you can get first trimester screening here, but it's not considered dependable, so we can send you to London to have that done and we'll know the results are accurate. Would you be interested in that?"
I tried to wipe the enormous grin off my face and be very serious and professional. "Why yes, of course I'd be interested. With this lifestyle, it's always good to know about problems as far in advance as possible. You know, so we can rearrange our next tour if it looks like there are going to be problems." She nodded her head.
I tried to hide the happy-party complete with fog machines, disco lights, and strobes while we talked about appropriate dates, but I don't think she was fooled. She has children too and knew exactly what was going through my head. Maybe even the song.
And that is how I ended up on a plane to London last Monday night while the entire rest of my family was at home, either being wrangled into bed or wrangling into bed.
I have not traveled alone since before I married Brandon. I have never ever checked into a hotel all by myself. And I have certainly not done these things in London. My only regret now is that I don't get to do them more often.
I was only in London for less than thirty-six hours - I flew in at 10:30 Monday night and left at 10:00 Wednesday morning, but those were some of the most relaxing (and expensive) thirty-six hours I've had in quite awhile. I didn't wipe anyone's bum but my own. I didn't feed anyone but myself. I read my book whenever I liked without having to worry about neglect. I went shopping. I took a nap. I ate pastries and had fresh orange juice for breakfast. I rode in taxis. I took myself out for a very, very nice dinner and read my book (some more) the entire time. I walked through Hyde Park at sunset. I managed, in a two-hour time span, to take a shower, get dressed, pack my suitcase, eat breakfast, check out of my hotel and get to the airport. In a word, it was wonderful.
Now lest you start thinking that my normal life is awful, it isn't. It's great. I have a family I love and a husband that treats me amazingly and I have a job that is both fulfilling and lets me take a nap. I just got back from a great trip to Georgia, after all. So it's not like I was in desperate need of forty-eight hours alone, about to go crazy from stress.
But boy was it great.
And the baby? It's just fine, as healthy as one can tell from a twelve-week ultrasound. Which is, after all, the best part of all.
She mentioned something about medevac, and I nodded my head. Yes, medevac, but that won't be necessary since we'll be at FSI in April. Planning is crucial in this lifestyle and I'm nothing if not a planner.
"So we'll send you to London for two days," she continued, and my head snapped up. London?!? For two days? When did this happen? I hmmed and asked for clarification. "Well, you can get first trimester screening here, but it's not considered dependable, so we can send you to London to have that done and we'll know the results are accurate. Would you be interested in that?"
I tried to wipe the enormous grin off my face and be very serious and professional. "Why yes, of course I'd be interested. With this lifestyle, it's always good to know about problems as far in advance as possible. You know, so we can rearrange our next tour if it looks like there are going to be problems." She nodded her head.
I tried to hide the happy-party complete with fog machines, disco lights, and strobes while we talked about appropriate dates, but I don't think she was fooled. She has children too and knew exactly what was going through my head. Maybe even the song.
And that is how I ended up on a plane to London last Monday night while the entire rest of my family was at home, either being wrangled into bed or wrangling into bed.
I have not traveled alone since before I married Brandon. I have never ever checked into a hotel all by myself. And I have certainly not done these things in London. My only regret now is that I don't get to do them more often.
I was only in London for less than thirty-six hours - I flew in at 10:30 Monday night and left at 10:00 Wednesday morning, but those were some of the most relaxing (and expensive) thirty-six hours I've had in quite awhile. I didn't wipe anyone's bum but my own. I didn't feed anyone but myself. I read my book whenever I liked without having to worry about neglect. I went shopping. I took a nap. I ate pastries and had fresh orange juice for breakfast. I rode in taxis. I took myself out for a very, very nice dinner and read my book (some more) the entire time. I walked through Hyde Park at sunset. I managed, in a two-hour time span, to take a shower, get dressed, pack my suitcase, eat breakfast, check out of my hotel and get to the airport. In a word, it was wonderful.
Now lest you start thinking that my normal life is awful, it isn't. It's great. I have a family I love and a husband that treats me amazingly and I have a job that is both fulfilling and lets me take a nap. I just got back from a great trip to Georgia, after all. So it's not like I was in desperate need of forty-eight hours alone, about to go crazy from stress.
But boy was it great.
And the baby? It's just fine, as healthy as one can tell from a twelve-week ultrasound. Which is, after all, the best part of all.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
It's That Time Again
We have some news. Quick. I'll give you three guesses.
Okay, time's up.
Why yes, that is right! We're having another baby!
The first time I was pregnant, I kept the secret so close it almost suffocated. Nobody knew until we had gotten positive confirmation that there was indeed a baby in there and it was even a girl. And when I spread the news around, everyone was surprised, delighted, and all of those other feelings you want to create when you're spreading some pretty exciting news.
The second time around, I expected the same reaction. Of course everyone was delighted, but not so surprised. I was a little crestfallen. "Well," my mom explained when I asked if she was surprised, "we figured that we'd be hearing that news any time now."
And the excitement has declined steadily ever since. When Brandon told his (single) brother that we were expecting our fifth, he was completely non-plussed. "You call that news?" he replied, "It's more like keeping to a schedule. It's like saying 'happy birthday.' You know it's going to happen the same time every year.'"
If you've been keeping up with the blog, this news shouldn't come as any surprise to you, just as it wasn't much of a surprise to friends and family. Everyone was just relieved that the fifth one was able to come.
But even though nobody else is that excited, I sure am. Maybe I'm even more excited than when I was pregnant with my first baby. Perhaps I had some excitement hiding somewhere in the back of my emotions - I remember putting tiny baby socks away and thinking that very soon I would have something with a foot small enough to fit into such a minuscule thing and that would be pretty amazing. But mostly it was just a mix of dread, anxiety, fear, and overwhelming desire to get the watermelon out.
Now that I've gone through this four times, I know what there is to be scared about, how long I can expect my life to be turned upside down, and the various tricks that have worked on various children. So that's not really on my mind. And the excitement can now take center stage.
It helps too, having my own pregnancy fan club with me every day. The last time I was pregnant Kathleen hadn't had first grade human body science, complete with the full story on babies. Now we get the twice- or thrice-daily update on exactly how big the baby is followed by a discussion about who will get to feed it and change it's clothes and whether it will be a girl or a boy and what we should name it (Edwin's vote is Lightning McQueen or Edwin) and how much longer until we get to see it. How could you help but be excited when everyone is going to be singing "Happy Birthday" for the next six months?
I recognize with the fifth on the way we have fully crossed the Rubicon into That Weird Family status. After all, who in their right mind has five children? But it doesn't bother me; after all a major part of my family planning priorities actually don't consider how normal I am (but I do confess that I think about it occasionally). I'm more focused on being happy and for us, that means lots of little (and later bigger) people to fill our lives with joy, even if that joy costs a lot of personal sacrifice. When I'm eighty-five and I get at least five flower arrangements on Mother's Day (do you hear that, older children reading the archives?), I think the sacrifice will be worth it. Even without the flowers, I'm pretty darn sure it will be worth it.
It already is.
Okay, time's up.
Why yes, that is right! We're having another baby!
The first time I was pregnant, I kept the secret so close it almost suffocated. Nobody knew until we had gotten positive confirmation that there was indeed a baby in there and it was even a girl. And when I spread the news around, everyone was surprised, delighted, and all of those other feelings you want to create when you're spreading some pretty exciting news.
The second time around, I expected the same reaction. Of course everyone was delighted, but not so surprised. I was a little crestfallen. "Well," my mom explained when I asked if she was surprised, "we figured that we'd be hearing that news any time now."
And the excitement has declined steadily ever since. When Brandon told his (single) brother that we were expecting our fifth, he was completely non-plussed. "You call that news?" he replied, "It's more like keeping to a schedule. It's like saying 'happy birthday.' You know it's going to happen the same time every year.'"
If you've been keeping up with the blog, this news shouldn't come as any surprise to you, just as it wasn't much of a surprise to friends and family. Everyone was just relieved that the fifth one was able to come.
But even though nobody else is that excited, I sure am. Maybe I'm even more excited than when I was pregnant with my first baby. Perhaps I had some excitement hiding somewhere in the back of my emotions - I remember putting tiny baby socks away and thinking that very soon I would have something with a foot small enough to fit into such a minuscule thing and that would be pretty amazing. But mostly it was just a mix of dread, anxiety, fear, and overwhelming desire to get the watermelon out.
Now that I've gone through this four times, I know what there is to be scared about, how long I can expect my life to be turned upside down, and the various tricks that have worked on various children. So that's not really on my mind. And the excitement can now take center stage.
It helps too, having my own pregnancy fan club with me every day. The last time I was pregnant Kathleen hadn't had first grade human body science, complete with the full story on babies. Now we get the twice- or thrice-daily update on exactly how big the baby is followed by a discussion about who will get to feed it and change it's clothes and whether it will be a girl or a boy and what we should name it (Edwin's vote is Lightning McQueen or Edwin) and how much longer until we get to see it. How could you help but be excited when everyone is going to be singing "Happy Birthday" for the next six months?
I recognize with the fifth on the way we have fully crossed the Rubicon into That Weird Family status. After all, who in their right mind has five children? But it doesn't bother me; after all a major part of my family planning priorities actually don't consider how normal I am (but I do confess that I think about it occasionally). I'm more focused on being happy and for us, that means lots of little (and later bigger) people to fill our lives with joy, even if that joy costs a lot of personal sacrifice. When I'm eighty-five and I get at least five flower arrangements on Mother's Day (do you hear that, older children reading the archives?), I think the sacrifice will be worth it. Even without the flowers, I'm pretty darn sure it will be worth it.
It already is.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Georgia, Part II
When we pulled into the Tbilisi train station, we were met by the usual zoo of taxi drivers looking for easy marks. Brandon, deciding to be an easy mark in a foreign country where he didn't speak the language, accepted the assistance of one, stipulating that we first buy our return tickets. So to the ticket desk we hustled and I stood guard over children and luggage while Brandon got the harder task of buying tickets in a language he didn't speak. Thankfully the Russian worked enough.
After a few minutes he came back. "They don't have any coupé tickets. They're all sold out." I had worried about this, since the tickets had been sold out on our journey from Baku. I panicked, thinking about spending sixteen hours in third class. Can you even sleep in third class? I kept thinking of poor Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas.
"See if they have any first class tickets," I instructed him, "just buy two compartments."
After ten minutes he came back with the good news that they had first class tickets available and the bad news that the money he had changed in Baku ($200) wasn't enough to buy the tickets. Thank heaven for ATMs. And so the tickets were bought, and all of the disastrous situations in our trip were finished. I'm not going to complain when the worst thing that happens is we have to pay more than expected for a return trip.
The rest of our vacation went great.
Monday we started our day with taking a funicular to the top of the hills surrounding Tbilisi. On one of the hills is an amusement park filled with lots of tacky rides that appeal to small children. Very cultural.
The hike started out well. It was a lovely day, a lovely hike, and the views were quite nice.
Smelled the sulfur baths. We had brought swimsuits for bathing if we had time, but we didn't. So we just smelled instead.
After a few minutes he came back. "They don't have any coupé tickets. They're all sold out." I had worried about this, since the tickets had been sold out on our journey from Baku. I panicked, thinking about spending sixteen hours in third class. Can you even sleep in third class? I kept thinking of poor Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas.
"See if they have any first class tickets," I instructed him, "just buy two compartments."
After ten minutes he came back with the good news that they had first class tickets available and the bad news that the money he had changed in Baku ($200) wasn't enough to buy the tickets. Thank heaven for ATMs. And so the tickets were bought, and all of the disastrous situations in our trip were finished. I'm not going to complain when the worst thing that happens is we have to pay more than expected for a return trip.
The rest of our vacation went great.
Monday we started our day with taking a funicular to the top of the hills surrounding Tbilisi. On one of the hills is an amusement park filled with lots of tacky rides that appeal to small children. Very cultural.
In the funicular.
The view from the top.
On the Ferris wheel.
The Ferris wheel, which lights up at night and can be seen across the city.
Having exhausted our the rides and our funds by 1:00, we decided to walk to the botanical gardens, which looked like a reasonable hike on Google Maps.
The only problem with arial shots is that they're really bad at showing elevation, and scale can sometimes be hard to determine.
The only problem is that we just kept hiking and hiking and hiking.
We stopped for rest breaks, water breaks than then necessitated other types of rest breaks, granola bar breaks, picture breaks, and ibuprofen breaks for Brandon's knee, injured while he worked at Stouffer's, and no longer happy about going up and down lots of hills while carrying twenty-five pounds of Joseph on his back.
But eventually we made it to Narikala fortress, which was next to the botanical gardens, and as we realized after looking around, only separated by a 500-foot drop. Those maps really don't show ridges very well, and no guidebook (we had three) mentioned the botanical gardens being in a side valley not connected to the city.
By this time it was 5:30 and everyone was exhausted and hungry so we took the cable car down into the city,
crossed the river, and trailed through the old city looking for somewhere that didn't ask for Joseph in exchange for dinner. My favorite part of the March of Death for Dinner was Edwin repeating over and over in monotone while being dragged down cobbled streets past tourists, "I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired," until we told him to quit it. But really, it was a pretty long day for a three year-old and he took it quite well.
The next morning, after eating a very big breakfast, we took a leisurely stroll back down to the old city to enjoy it with somewhat fresher eyes than the evening before.
We paid through the nose for two dolls that could add to our Christmas tree ornaments from foreign countries collection.
We found a trail that went past the baths and into a ravine behind the city that dead-ended into a waterfall.
We finished the afternoon with more Georgian food, for the third day in row. "Please, no more khachipuri!! the children all begged," so we obliged. Who knew you could get sick of khachipuri? After a late lunch, we hailed a taxi to swing by the hotel for our bags before taking us to the train station for our night train back to Baku. We arrived the next morning by 9:00, too early to even eat the breakfast we brought. Whatever else you can say about this country, the train (to Tbilisi) seems to run right one time.
And that was our trip. If you're ever in the mood to travel to Tbilisi, I recommend it. Even if you're not, try it anyway. You might be surprised!
Sunday, October 20, 2013
So How Was საქართველოს*? *Georgia (the country, not the state)
We're back from Georgia and I am proud to report that we still have all four children. Nobody got lost, nobody got hurt, and most importantly, nobody got abandoned by the side of the road because we just couldn't stand them anymore. And that is something that I'm proud of.
We've obviously traveled with our children before (otherwise, how would I be writing this from my home in Azerbaijan?), but this is the very first trip we've taken for pleasure that didn't involve seeing any family. And it's also the very first international travel we've done with the children. So even though we've flown across the world with all of the children, we've never gone on a trip with the express purpose of having fun. Which is a pretty tall order when you throw in two overnight train rides, two nights in a hotel, lots of Georgian food, and a major amount of walking around a city with not much to recommend it other than old buildings. Even the guidebook, under the heading "Tbilisi With Children," told us that it wasn't a good city for children.
Nevertheless, we still enjoyed ourselves. So take that Lonely Planet.
We started our adventure Saturday night downtown at the Baku train station waiting to board the 8:30 train to Tbilisi. Brandon and I had walked down to the station a week before to purchase the tickets which turned out to be a good thing as the train was sold out a few days before our trip. As Brandon asked his way to the correct window and then chatted with the lady in Russian and explained what he needed I thanked the heavens (for the hundredth time) that I was married to someone who had lived in a Russian-speaking country for two years. I imagine buying tickets would have been possible without Russian or Azeri, but it certainly would have been much more complicated.
Not wanting to park our car downtown for five days, we took a taxi down to the station and enjoyed the pleasant evening, having arrived too early to board. As we waited we saw friends coming down the platform and soon realized we were next door to them on the train. The children had a fun time running up and down the platform and wondering when the engine would come and if we would get left behind and which window would be ours and what would the train look like inside and how fast it would go and could we have snacks yet? I think they didn't really care where the train was going, just that they were going on a train.
The inside turned out to be very clean and recently renovated; we had a coupe with four beds, two down and two up that worked excellently as clubhouse and monkey-swinging tree and something to climb. Stored on the top two bunks were pillows and pallets to lay on top of the padded vinyl seat benches. After we had been on the train for an hour or so the attendant brought bags of linens to put on the pillow and pallet and we made all of the beds while the children negotiated who would be sharing with whom.
I had been wondering ever since we decided to try traveling with four children how getting all of them to sleep on a train with everyone in the same compartment would work out. When we put them to sleep at home, every night there are at least three requests for water, five bathroom trips, two fights to break up and seven injunctions (increasing in severity and decreasing in civility) to just go to sleep already. And that is without Joseph in the room.
But either the running had worn them out or the excitement of sleeping on a train that was moving or the late hour or perhaps the Benadryl helped, as everyone actually just went to sleep after they had been pajama-ed and tucked into bed. Joseph gave us a little trouble so Brandon pulled him up to the top bunk and wrestled him down to unconsciousness (in a loving, non-violent manner) in about ten minutes and returned him to the bed he shared down below with Sophia.
I've flown enough red-eye flights to know how to get sleep in uncomfortable places and had packed accordingly: earplugs, Unisom, and my own pillow. So that just left Brandon, who was a big boy and had the Kindle's warm LED glow to keep him company if he couldn't sleep.
The night wasn't exactly the best sleep I've ever gotten - the room was hot until someone turned the air conditioning on and I had to keep shifting to find a comfortable position - but it certainly wasn't the worst and I didn't hear a peep from the children all night long. Maybe Brandon did, but that's why I packed earplugs.
The next morning after dressing, waiting in line for the bathroom (we knew enough of traveling to bring our own TP, but I'm not complaining because the toilet wasn't a squat), and making our beds, we had breakfast. When I mentioned something about a dining car to Brandon, he just laughed, "Dining car?!? Don't you realize that this is a Soviet system? All you get on these trains is hot water for tea. Period." So I had packed accordingly and we had pumpkin muffins, slightly squashed bananas, and granola bars to start the day off with.
We finished before reaching the Azeri border where we stopped for about an hour for border control and then rode for about half an hour before getting to the Georgian border where we stopped for more passport flashing and stamping. By then we were getting close to Tbilisi and I made a vain attempt to get Joseph to sleep (and maybe catch a nap myself) which worked about fifteen minutes before we pulled in, around noon.
So in summary: train travel with kids is vastly better than air travel. You can sleep laying down, you can shut the door, nobody has to wear seat belts, everyone can look out the window, and your children can misbehave without any witnesses. Of course the train took longer (sixteen hours versus ninety minutes), but we spent over half of the trip sleeping. And not once did anyone ask me to take off my shoes, empty out the liquid in my bags, or send my children through a metal detector. The only line we had was at the bathroom. And it was cheaper - one hundred dollars to get everyone to Georgia.
Of course, the way back was a different story. But that's for next time.
We've obviously traveled with our children before (otherwise, how would I be writing this from my home in Azerbaijan?), but this is the very first trip we've taken for pleasure that didn't involve seeing any family. And it's also the very first international travel we've done with the children. So even though we've flown across the world with all of the children, we've never gone on a trip with the express purpose of having fun. Which is a pretty tall order when you throw in two overnight train rides, two nights in a hotel, lots of Georgian food, and a major amount of walking around a city with not much to recommend it other than old buildings. Even the guidebook, under the heading "Tbilisi With Children," told us that it wasn't a good city for children.
Nevertheless, we still enjoyed ourselves. So take that Lonely Planet.
We started our adventure Saturday night downtown at the Baku train station waiting to board the 8:30 train to Tbilisi. Brandon and I had walked down to the station a week before to purchase the tickets which turned out to be a good thing as the train was sold out a few days before our trip. As Brandon asked his way to the correct window and then chatted with the lady in Russian and explained what he needed I thanked the heavens (for the hundredth time) that I was married to someone who had lived in a Russian-speaking country for two years. I imagine buying tickets would have been possible without Russian or Azeri, but it certainly would have been much more complicated.
Not wanting to park our car downtown for five days, we took a taxi down to the station and enjoyed the pleasant evening, having arrived too early to board. As we waited we saw friends coming down the platform and soon realized we were next door to them on the train. The children had a fun time running up and down the platform and wondering when the engine would come and if we would get left behind and which window would be ours and what would the train look like inside and how fast it would go and could we have snacks yet? I think they didn't really care where the train was going, just that they were going on a train.
The inside turned out to be very clean and recently renovated; we had a coupe with four beds, two down and two up that worked excellently as clubhouse and monkey-swinging tree and something to climb. Stored on the top two bunks were pillows and pallets to lay on top of the padded vinyl seat benches. After we had been on the train for an hour or so the attendant brought bags of linens to put on the pillow and pallet and we made all of the beds while the children negotiated who would be sharing with whom.
I had been wondering ever since we decided to try traveling with four children how getting all of them to sleep on a train with everyone in the same compartment would work out. When we put them to sleep at home, every night there are at least three requests for water, five bathroom trips, two fights to break up and seven injunctions (increasing in severity and decreasing in civility) to just go to sleep already. And that is without Joseph in the room.
But either the running had worn them out or the excitement of sleeping on a train that was moving or the late hour or perhaps the Benadryl helped, as everyone actually just went to sleep after they had been pajama-ed and tucked into bed. Joseph gave us a little trouble so Brandon pulled him up to the top bunk and wrestled him down to unconsciousness (in a loving, non-violent manner) in about ten minutes and returned him to the bed he shared down below with Sophia.
I've flown enough red-eye flights to know how to get sleep in uncomfortable places and had packed accordingly: earplugs, Unisom, and my own pillow. So that just left Brandon, who was a big boy and had the Kindle's warm LED glow to keep him company if he couldn't sleep.
The night wasn't exactly the best sleep I've ever gotten - the room was hot until someone turned the air conditioning on and I had to keep shifting to find a comfortable position - but it certainly wasn't the worst and I didn't hear a peep from the children all night long. Maybe Brandon did, but that's why I packed earplugs.
The next morning after dressing, waiting in line for the bathroom (we knew enough of traveling to bring our own TP, but I'm not complaining because the toilet wasn't a squat), and making our beds, we had breakfast. When I mentioned something about a dining car to Brandon, he just laughed, "Dining car?!? Don't you realize that this is a Soviet system? All you get on these trains is hot water for tea. Period." So I had packed accordingly and we had pumpkin muffins, slightly squashed bananas, and granola bars to start the day off with.
We finished before reaching the Azeri border where we stopped for about an hour for border control and then rode for about half an hour before getting to the Georgian border where we stopped for more passport flashing and stamping. By then we were getting close to Tbilisi and I made a vain attempt to get Joseph to sleep (and maybe catch a nap myself) which worked about fifteen minutes before we pulled in, around noon.
So in summary: train travel with kids is vastly better than air travel. You can sleep laying down, you can shut the door, nobody has to wear seat belts, everyone can look out the window, and your children can misbehave without any witnesses. Of course the train took longer (sixteen hours versus ninety minutes), but we spent over half of the trip sleeping. And not once did anyone ask me to take off my shoes, empty out the liquid in my bags, or send my children through a metal detector. The only line we had was at the bathroom. And it was cheaper - one hundred dollars to get everyone to Georgia.
Of course, the way back was a different story. But that's for next time.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Fourth's Time the Charm
It feels like I just finished toilet training Edwin and now it's time to train Joseph. I've never been much of a 'wait until they're ready' parent with any kind of training, more like a 'now you're ready because I'm ready,' so this means it's time to toilet train Joseph. My sincerest apologies to whoever gets the house after us. I'll try and clean the carpets before we leave.
When you're a parent in this transitory lifestyle, it's all about using windows of opportunity. And since we're leaving Baku at the end of January and Joseph will be two next month, this is a window of opportunity to get him trained. I could wait until after we settled into Oakwood at the end of February, which would mean really April, but that would mean six more months of changing diapers. And why have six more months of changing diapers when you can have no diaper changing for the first time in over seven years? I have been changing someone's diapers since Kathleen was born in August 2006 and I think I'm ready for a break.
So its underwear and bare bums time around our house. Just be warned. If you come over you will probably be treated to some toddler full-frontal nudity.
The other day I was cooking chicken pot pie to take to a friend (never again on a weekday. I don't know how those ladies in the fifties did it, but in our house chicken pot pie is a Sunday meal from here on out) and looked around for Joseph. It's always good to keep free-range babies close at hand where you can see that wiggle dance and crotch-grab that precedes real trouble.
He wasn't in the kitchen, so I looked to make sure wherever he was, he wasn't on the carpet and couldn't find him in the living room. Then I happened to glance at the door and noticed it open a crack. Joseph is always trying to open the front door but we have to keep it locked so usually he's stymied since not even Sophia can figure out which way to turn the lock.
It looked like someone had forgotten to lock the door and Joseph had gotten out. I pulled the door open and scanned the road looking for Joseph. Then I looked down and there he was - innocently sitting on Edwin's red tricycle enjoying his jail break. Watching him were two nannies with their charges, just standing in the middle of the street. When looked more closely, it was more like staring at him with odd expressions on their faces.
People around here, ladies especially, are very diligent about keeping their children very warm. When Joseph was just a little thing I got bothered so much about having his head uncovered that I finally knitted a tiny baby ear-flap hat just so I would be left alone. That day was kind of cold and windy and I knew that Joseph hadn't taken the time to put on a coat, or gloves, or a hat, or shoes, or socks, or even pants, so I shouldn't have been surprised that those nannies had something to be shocked about. Then I looked closer. He hadn't even bothered, for that matter, to even put on underwear. I suppose my boys must have some exhibitionist in them. At least this time Joseph was wearing a shirt.
I was too far gone in children, chicken stock, pie crust, and patience to even feel ashamed. I scooped up Joseph and the ladies kept on walking. After I got inside, the door got locked.
So that's toilet training at our house. After having done this three times, the fourth time barely registers as something new in the daily circus our house. At least, however, this will be over at some point. Hopefully.
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