Thanksgiving 2021

Our Thanksgiving this year was very quiet.  Each year our Thanksgivings have grown smaller.  We started with twenty-four people in 2018, spent 2019 in North Carolina, fed sixteen people in 2020, and this year we spent the holiday entirely alone - although for us 'entirely alone' still means dinner for nine.

Our close friends left us this summer and we haven't taken the time and emotional energy to make many new friends for our last year in Tashkent.  Making friends with new families is hard - there are a lot of things to match up in family friendships.  Not only do the children need friends, but the parents have to also work well enough together that everyone can have a nice time together and nobody is counting down the minutes until the visit is over.  It's much more challenging with seven children.  There are families that have friends for our older children and families that have friends for our younger children, but there are very few families that have friends for all our children.  Additionally, there aren't that many people who are that interested in/capable of enduring the unavoidable amount of noise and chaos that naturally comes with seven children.  We are a lot to handle.  

So when the discussion of Thanksgiving guests was held, the kids decided that they'd rather have it as a family.  We knew families with small children who probably would have been happy to come over, but the older children said that they didn't want to spend all day cooking and then not have any friends of their own to share the holiday with.  And admittedly, having nobody over also had some appeal.  We wouldn't have to rush to get everything done by a specific time, the house didn't have to be that clean, and nobody minded if I served the mashed potatoes in their cooking pot.

One major downside of not having guests, however, was that I had to cook the entire dinner myself.  Usually when we have guests, everyone contributes and we split up the meal. This year everyone was busy with school and Brandon was busy with work right until the day itself, so I was on my own.  I've cooked all of Thanksgiving a few other times, but it was always with help from Brandon.  This time, it was all me.

So Thanksgiving day turned into Thanksgiving week.  On Monday I made pie crust, rolled it out, put it in pie pans, and froze it.  On Tuesday I made sweet potato casserole, cubed and toasted bread for stuffing, and sauteéd onions and celery for stuffing.  On Wednesday I made giblet gravy, mixed up pumpkin and pecan pie fillings, mixed up stuffing, brined the turkey, and as an extra bonus for Brandon, made eggnog.  By the end of Wednesday afternoon, we had a refrigerator full of Thanksgiving food.

For the actual day, the cooking was light enough - only rolls, turkey, and mashed potatoes - that I spent part of the morning playing games with the children.  We had the meal around two, which took about forty-five minutes to eat, about fifteen times less than the time it took to cook the entire meal.  We only ate about a fifth of the food, and the seventeen-pound turkey was only missing its leg quarter by the time we were finished with it.  

But that was okay with me because, as I mentioned earlier, Thanksgiving happened this entire week, and Thursday was only day one.  We have now enjoyed Thanksgiving days two, three, and four, and tomorrow will probably be able to squeak out a Thanksgiving lunch before our leftovers are exhausted.  After those are done, we will get to have turkey salad, turkey pot pie, and turkey soup.  There are some definite leftover benefits to cooking all of Thanksgiving oneself.

I am hoping, however, that next year will have a little fewer leftovers and a little more friends.  As nice as it was to spend the day quietly alone, I also have also enjoyed all of the Thanksgivings with friends we've made all of the places we've lived.  Either with friends or only with family, Thanksgiving is always a wonderful holiday.  

Elizabeth Joins the Fray

 Elizabeth is officially talking.  She's been saying words for some time now, but in the last month she has mastered the art of three- and four-word sentences.  Overall, I'm very happy when my children are capable of communicating things to me.  The crying decreases dramatically because everyone can understand each other enough to keep emotions generally stable.  When they need something, they can tell me instead of bursting into tears when their incomprehensible gabbles don't get what they want.

But the one time I'm not happy about talking toddlers is dinner.  Dinner is often the top of the crescendo of noise and craziness that has been increasing throughout the day.  By the evening, everyone is tired, the activities of the day have created hurt feelings or resentment, people have been pushed through their required school work, and I'm ready for everyone to get to bed so that I can finish my work day that began at 5 am that morning.

Dinner is also the time when everyone wants to talk about their day.  And it's when they want to ask me questions about the most strange things they can think of.  Additionally, it's the place for unresolved fights to continue.  And the children want to make all the requests they've been saving up during the day.  Also it's when everyone has all the conversations they couldn't have while during their school work.  

It's basically when everyone makes all the noise they can think of, combined with spilling milk, food, or both.  Sometimes I have to shout so that everyone can hear me.

And now that Elizabeth can talk, there are nine people trying to talk over each other at once.  Most of the time, having seven children isn't too much trouble.  Our house is big enough that everyone can spread out.  I usually only have to help one child at a time, and often I can get a bigger sibling to help out a smaller sibling if I'm already busy.  It's a lot less work than one would think.

But when everyone is together at dinner, I can really tell that I have seven children.  Our kitchen isn't that big, and all of the noise seems to bounce off the cupboards, tile floors, and high ceilings and multiply into a dull roar.  And now we've added a two year-old to the mix.  Since everyone else is already noisy, Elizabeth figures that she's got to be even noisier so that she can be heard.  In the usually declamatory fashion of toddlers, she will sit in her high chair and talk about whatever comes to mind.  

"PICK UP FORK.  EAT FOOD.  YUCKY FOOD."  She has has no idea what conversation is, so she figures that if everyone else is talking, it must mean that she should also be talking.  But even worse than her 'conversation' is her requests for things.

"MORE MILK.  MORE MILK!  MORE MILK!! MORE MILK!!! MOOOOORE MIIIIIIIILK!!!" If she asks for something and nobody gets it for her in five seconds or less, then she figures that she needs to ask again and keep asking repeatedly until she gets what she wants.  And in her defense, that's probably true most of the time because we don't hear her until she's said things at least ten times because everyone else is trying to talk over each other.

Every now and then we try to bring up the idea of everyone taking turns talking during dinner and it lasts for maybe ten or even fifteen minutes before someone can't stand holding their thoughts until all of the eight other people have had their turn and everything degrades into a free-for-all again.  

Or if one conversation gets boring, various side conversations pop up because there's always somebody else available to talk to.  And it's a guarantee that at some point during dinner one of those side conversations will turn into a fight.  With so many people in the family, there's always someone you can find to disagree with.  Often I spend half of dinner not saying anything at all, if only to do my part in lessening the general dinner noise.  

The only bright spot of hope is that our usual dinner conversations will now be capped at nine participants.  Unless we have an intrepid dinner guest or two, nobody else will be joining the fray.  And as everyone gets older, they might begin to learn how to listen to what everyone else has to say before just talking over them.  But for now, our dinners can get very, very noisy.  But I suppose that's what happens when you have seven children.  In the end, I've got nobody to blame but myself.  

Happy Birthday, Joseph!

This week Joseph turned ten years old.  When Kathleen turned ten years old, it was such an unimaginably ancient age that I hardly knew what to do with myself.  With two adult-sized children in the house, ten is less of an advanced age, but for Joseph ten is still a big milestone.

We celebrated his birthday with a day off from school.  Everyone loves this family tradition, and almost every child has their birthday during the school year, so we get to have a lot of birthday holidays.  According to Eleanor, the best part of being homeschooled is that you get to have school off on your birthday.  The children ended up watching two movies during the day because we decided to home.  Even as an adult, watching a movie in the middle of the day still feels like the height of luxury.  

In addition to picking both movies, Joseph got to pick the breakfast (aebelskivers), his cake (lemon tart), and dinner (sushi).  With so many people in the family who have so many different opinions, a birthday is a special day when the birthday child gets to make all the choices without having to take turns with anyone else.  

The best part of Joseph's day was, of course, his presents.  This year some of his siblings gave him presents, so he was a very happy boy with five presents to open.  All but one were LEGO sets, adding to the number of possible caltrops that can be scattered across every imaginable place in the house.  As soon as the tart was shoveled into their mouths, Joseph and Edwin sprinted upstairs to start building their new treasures.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do for presents when they finally grow out of LEGOs.  

For Joseph's birthday Saturday, we went to the circus.  The "Russian" ('more like Kazakh' was Edwin's verdict after noting the ethnicity of the performers) circus was in town, so we decided to join in with crowds of Uzbek children and their parents for an afternoon of entertaining acts.  This was our third trip to a Soviet-era circus building, having gone to the Baku and Dushanbe circuses also.  We were happy to see that Nur-Sultan also has a circus, although it was built after the Soviet era.  

Watching acrobats perform breathtaking feats of strength, balance, and agility never gets old, and everyone enjoyed seeing what amazing stunt would be next.  We got to watch tightrope walkers, jugglers, a bear, acrobatic archers, funny acts, and someone jumping rope on the back of a cantering horse.  Nobody was bored.

We are all happy to have Joseph as part of our family.  He is irrepressibly cheerful and can usually be found with a wide grin on his face as he finds a new joke to tell or a funny story to relate.  I can always count on Joseph to help out with whatever I ask him to do, and he always wants to make sure that his siblings are taken care of.  I'm quite interested to see what Joseph will find to pour his interest into as he grows older.  But for now, we'll enjoy him as the newest decade-old child in our house.  Happy birthday, Joseph!

Switching Stables

 The children and I have now been riding together in Tashkent for three years.  When we first moved here and were looking for a stable, Brandon brought home a flyer for a local stable.  I didn't know anything about stables here - not even knowing if there were any other than this one - and it looked like a nice place on their website, so we signed up for lessons.

We found out that it was new, only having been open for a year, and was very nice.  The horses were well taken care of, the facilities were in good condition, and the teachers were good teachers.  I got to start jumping again and the children were progressing pretty well and getting pushed to learn new skills most lessons.

But after the first year and a half, the teachers started leaving.  New ones would appear but mysteriously leave after working for a few months.  Eventually there were only two teachers left.  After I broke my arm last year, I wasn't allowed to jump any more and the lessons every week just consisted of a lot of trotting and nothing else.  I knew that things had gotten to a bad point when Kathleen - the most horse crazy of any of us - admitted that even she was bored at her lessons.

So I decided that it was time for a change.  I don't really like changing things up.  I'm a creature of habit and will keep doing the same thing for years on end if there's no really, really pressing need to do something different.  We've been eating the same twenty dinners for the last ten years, and I don't plan on varying those dinners any time soon.  

When I finally decided to look for somewhere new, it was with a lot of trepidation.  After all, our system was working okay, and we will be leaving in less than a year anyway. Why go through the trouble of finding a new place? But after talking with Brandon about how bored the kids were, he was all for finding something more for the kids.

I went to my favorite place - the internet - to start doing some research.  Half of the trouble of getting things done in a foreign country is trying to figure out the systems.  Everyone who lives in the country is so used to the systems that they don't even realize that there is a system and they probably can't explain it to someone who doesn't understand it.  The first stable we went to had a system close enough to the American one that it made sense to me.  The stable owned all the horses and paid the teachers, so we just had to contact the manager to get things done.

Eventually I was able to find a teacher who was willing to take us on and scheduled a trial lesson.  When I set things up with the first stable, I took my Russian teacher to act as a translator.  But this time I decided to try and do things on my own.  My Russian is about the level of a two year old's, which means that I can understand a lot of what is being said to me - especially when it's kept simple - but I'm limited to pretty basic replies.  I can't just sit and chat about whatever comes in to my mind; I have to keep the conversations pretty straightforward and concentrated on business.  I dream of one day making it to the conversational skill level of a three year old, but we'll see if that ever happens.

One of the issues we had to work out was how to get all six people taught without taking three hours.  Our teacher only had two horses and so could only do two lessons at a time.  So at my Russian lesson on the day of my trial lesson, I practiced telling my Russian teacher that I didn't want to have three hours of lessons and could we maybe do it in two?  This sounds like a simple conversation, but it involves asking questions, listening to the replies, and then asking questions based on what the reply was.  It's not a simple 'please give me two kilos of cheese' request, but something that evolves as it goes along.  

By the end of our time together, I had managed to chat about my family (seven children!!!), my riding experience, tacking up a horse, follow the instructions during my lesson, and then work out the scheduling of how to get six people schooled in two hours.  There was another teacher who was willing to take on the overflow and so we got to talk with him, too.  It sounds like a simple conversation in print, but in the nature of all conversations with Russian speakers, it was very long and everything had to be said five different times in five different ways.  But by the end, I had done everything entirely by myself in a language that is not even close to my native language.  I felt like the six preceding years of Russian torture lessons had finally been worth it.  

When I brought the girls the next week for their lessons, they loved the new place and the new teacher.  It was certainly not nearly as fancy (at all) as the previous stable, but I got to jump, Sophia got to canter to her heart's delight, and Kathleen worked on having a more stable seat.  And everyone got to practice their Russian a lot.  There were quite a few instances of having to make people explain what they meant, but we all understood it in the end.  Everyone was happy about the switch.

As we were leaving, I commented to the girls that it's probably a good thing we've been studying Russian so long.  "Yeah," Kathleen replied, "there's no way we could have done that without speaking Russian.  I guess it's useful after all.  We would have been stuck at the first stable if we weren't able to speak Russian."  

We'll have to see how the boys like their lesson this week, but so far everyone who has gone has been happy about the change.  So I guess change can be good sometimes.  And so can Russian lessons.  

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth turned two last Sunday.  Brandon spent all Sunday observing the Uzbek presidential election in Bukhara, so we didn't celebrate on Sunday, but instead on Monday.  One of the advantages of being two years old is that you're not quite clear on what exactly birthdays are and when they're supposed to be celebrated.

Sophia has been teaching Elizabeth the happy birthday song, so she was delighted when we lit the two candles on her cake and all sang to her.  She was even more delighted when she received a bag of candy that her siblings has bought for her and a book that her grandmother had sent.  When the evening ended with a piece of cake, her birthday bliss was complete.

Elizabeth is a very typical two year-old, busily getting into all the trouble she can find.  After Elizabeth repeatedly ransacked Kathleen and Sophia's room while they were doing their schoolwork, the girls have started locking their door whenever they leave their room as Elizabeth can now open doors by herself.  

One morning this week, Edwin found Elizabeth in the kitchen.  She had pulled a chair over to the counter, climbed up the chair, and then found a bin full of chocolate chips.  Knowing that someone would find her eventually, she busily stuffed as many chocolate chips into her mouth as quickly as she could.  When she was discovered, her face was smeared with chocolate and Elizabeth looked very pleased with her ability to find tasty treats entirely on her own.  

Kathleen and Sophia begged me to buy a bike trailer so that they could take Elizabeth on their afternoon bike rides, and I finally gave in a month ago.  Now one of Elizabeth's happiest things is being tucked into the seat of the trailer, cuddled up with her blanket watching the streets of our neighborhood whizz by as her sisters pull in her style.  Whenever she wakes up from her afternoon nap, she immediately starts demanding, "Bike trailer!  Bike trailer!! BIKE TRAILER!!!" 

I've always enjoyed two year olds, and Elizabeth is no exception to that.  She definitely has her moments when she's loudly demanding something that she can't have, or desperately wants a thing that I don't understand, or hops on and off and on and off my lap constantly while I'm trying to teach school lessons.  But she is usually adorable cute, cheerfully happy, and oh so sweet to cuddle in my lap.  

I'll freely admit that part of my enjoyment in her is because she's the last one.  Whenever I have to clean up another mess she's made, I know that those messes won't last that much longer.  Her irritating screams and cries aren't that bad because they won't be followed by someone else doing that.  And every new milestone she reaches is the last time I get to watch one of my own children reach do that new thing.  I now understand why the babies in families get special treatment from everyone.  

We are all happy to have Elizabeth in our family.  Happy Birthday, Elizabeth!

Girls' Saturday

Recently Brandon and I decided to start having boy's day/girls' day.  Brandon wanted to start doing Boy Things with the boys, so we decided to spend one Saturday a month doing splitting up so that each of us could enjoy doing things that maybe wouldn't appeal to the entire family.

For our first Saturday, held in September, the girls stayed home and did some online shopping for horse show clothes, watched videos of how to do nail art, and then practiced on each other.  The boys went out into the mountains and scouted out camping and fishing locations.  It was a lot of fun, if only because I had four children to talk with instead of seven.  Three fewer makes a difference, especially when all three of them are boys.

This month, the girls got to go out while the boys stayed home and watched Elizabeth.  I had found a couple of stables outside Tashkent that had trail riding out in the surrounding fields, so we decided to go and try one, Конный Дворик, out.  Even though we ride twice a week in town, it's always in a ring, so we thought it would be fun to get out and see some pretty scenery while having a chance to do some fast riding.

We were able to find the place pretty easily, and the the setup was quite scenic, with a nice courtyard with a rose garden and pleasant seating to have lunch afterwards.  The horses looked well cared for and happy, and after a few minutes of meeting the horses, we headed out.  

Fall is settling in here, so the trees lining the field were turning lovely colors, and the weather was clear and sunny - a perfect fall day.  I always love getting out of Tashkent, so it was pleasant to be out in the fields.  The girls enjoyed clopping along and even got to get an invigorating canter in halfway through the ride.  Too quickly, the ride was over and we headed back to the stable.

While petting an amazingly fuzzy pony, we started chatting with an English speaking guide.  He introduced us to the owner and they invited us to come and watch them do some archery on horseback.  We all eagerly agreed, and were treated to a fun show of Central Asian mounted archery.  After they were done, our friend let everyone take a turn shooting, but not from horseback. 

We finished our afternoon with freshly-grilled shashlik, or shish-kebabs.  The stable dogs happily joined us for lunch as we watched a two year-old Fresian stallion being trained by another new friend we had made earlier that morning.  The girls all agreed that it had been a perfect afternoon, and I had to agree.  We're already looking forward to our next visit.

Elizabeth, Emotional Support Toddler

Brandon is, sadly, back to working full-time at the embassy.  He has been since the spring, but we're still in mourning that he has to go to work and leave us all day every day.  Occasionally, however, he will still work from home if can swing it.  

Last Thursday he participated on a conference on religious freedom in Uzbekistan.  Before covid times, these conferences were held in person, but now everyone has discovered the joy of virtual conferences and attendees can enjoy attending from the comfort of their home or office.  It saves travel time, and the organizers don't have to worry about providing snacks and drinks for breaks.

Before I went downstairs to do school with the children, Brandon let me know when his slot for speaking would be.  He had spent a reasonable amount of time working on a speech that he was giving on behalf of the U.S. government and he didn't really want it to be punctuated by screams, shrieks, cries, pounding, slamming, or any other other random noises that happen on a regular basis at our house.  It's pretty impressive how well microphones can pick up the exact noises that you'd rather not have shared with everyone.

As the time approached, I let all of the children know that Dad would be giving a speech, and everyone should be very careful to keep quiet.  William started shrieking just before the appointed time, but I was able to chase him down and force silence on him just in time.  We all tiptoed carefully around the house, speaking in whispers and most especially staying out of the upstairs where Brandon was working.  As I helped Eleanor work on her grammar lesson, I heard Brandon speaking loudly and clearly and felt like a Good Wife for keeping everyone quiet for this important moment.

Soon enough, Brandon grew quiet and we returned back to our normal school noisiness.  A little while later, I checked in with Brandon to see how the speech had gone.  

"It went well," he told me, "but right before I had to speak, I heard Elizabeth coming up the stairs, babbling to herself.  Right as she came up to me, the moderator announced that I would be speaking, and I had to turn on my camera.  I couldn't do anything about her being there.  Everyone was waiting for me and I couldn't suddenly rush off camera so that I could carry Elizabeth downstairs and give her to someone.  I just had to start my speech.  There wasn't anything I could do.  

If she had come up five minutes earlier, I could have taken her downstairs to you.  If she had come ten minutes later, I would have been done.  But instead she had come at the exact wrong moment in my entire workday.  I had visions of that BBC guy with the little kid in the background flashing through my head and I couldn't believe that the exact same thing was happening to me.

Luckily, she came from the side and she's short so everything happened where the nobody could see what was going on.  So I clapped my hand on her head to keep her from trying to climb on my lap and just started my speech.  I was afraid that she was going to cry or complain about being kept still, but I think she was just surprised at my my reaction and also how loudly I was talking.  She might have been able to tell that something important was going on and kept quiet, but I'm just grateful nobody but me could tell that she was there the entire time.  Maybe she just knew I needed a live audience."

As I listened to him, I couldn't decide whether to die of mortification or die laughing.  I had been so careful about making sure everyone kept very quiet, but didn't even think to wonder where Elizabeth was during that all-important ten minutes.  I literally had one job to do, and only had to do it for ten minutes, and I wasn't able to get it done properly.  

But when I thought of Elizabeth standing next to Brandon, held immobile by his hand firmly held on her little blonde head, I couldn't help but laugh.  What a perfect encapsulation of life as a father of seven children - giving a speech to numerous government officials and members of various organizations while desperately trying to keep your almost two year old daughter from making an unannounced appearance in the meeting.  

In the end, everything turned out okay, and nobody was the wiser except the three of us.  And now the entire internet.  But I know that the next time Brandon has to give a speech while we're all at home, I'll be very sure to make sure that Elizabeth is kept as far as physically possible from Brandon.

Camping!

 

This weekend, we went camping.  I actually really enjoy camping, but I can't quite figure out why I find it so much fun.  There's something about fires, sleeping outside, and beautiful mornings that I like a lot.  We actually haven't gone camping the entire time we've been in Tashkent, and the last time we went camping, I was pregnant with William.  

One of the biggest obstacles to camping here (and also in Tajikistan) has been finding a place to camp.  There aren't any established campsites or camping areas, as 'camping' isn't something that anyone does here.  There are camps, but those don't have areas for tents, just concrete huts with shashlik grills outside them.  

So last weekend I sent the boys out to go and find us a place to camp.  The list of requirements is pretty short - it has to be somewhere that can fit the tent, is isolated enough that nobody will bother us, and has to have somewhere nearby to park the car.  When you're camping with nine people, car camping is the only option.  They returned with a place to go, but Brandon didn't make any promises about how great it was.  "It's flat and isolated, but that's about it."

So on Friday afternoon, the kids and I packed up the car to go on our first camping trip in five years.  It was significantly easier that it was five years ago, as I had very willing helpers to haul the stuff, load the car top carrier, and prep everything that I needed.  We finished up with several hours to spare before Brandon came home and we headed up to the mountains.

The site that Brandon found ended up being about a ten-minute walk from where we could park the car, and included fording a small river.  Brandon ended up personally hauling two-thirds of our stuff and two-thirds of our children across the river himself and everyone else helped where they could.

The site itself was big enough to fit our tent and very isolated, so it fit the bill nicely.  We were able to find plenty of wood to make a good fire and enjoy our usual camping dinner of roast hot dogs, chips, and s'mores.  My rule for camping food is that it has to be able to cooked on a stick because I don't wash dishes when I camp.  

When we bought our tent eight years ago, I bought the biggest tent that I could find.  I told Brandon that I wanted one that I could stand up in because there's nothing more obnoxious when camping than having to crawl around in your tent because it's too short to stand up in.  At the time it was ridiculously large, easily fitting us plus four small children.  This time, however, I realized that it was a good thing we had bought such a large tent because we could barely squeeze everyone in.  When they call a tent an eight-man tent, it really means eight sleeping bags and no more.  Elizabeth ended up sleeping in the middle of everyone's feet.  When she graduates to her own sleeping bag, I guess everyone will just have to squish a little.  

All the children had a grand time camping and doing all the camping things.  Nobody had to wash their hands, everyone got to eat as many marshmallows as they liked, they got to climb rocky hills and get extremely dirty, and the river got a lot of rocks chucked in it. 

And best of all, everyone got to burn stuff.  Because who doesn't like setting things on fire?  Our campsite had lots and lots of dead branches laying around, so everyone got to burn as many branches as their little hearts desired.  Elizabeth learned that one of end of the stick is hotter than the other, and William had a grand time setting everything he could find on fire.  What else could a four year-old boy want?  

By the end of the trip, everyone was thoroughly dirty, very stinky, pretty tired, and quite happy.  It was a completely successful trip and I already have plans for out next one.

Uzbek Fall, Take Four

 The children have been back in school now for three weeks.  Our routines have settled back into their usual groove, and order and sanity have resumed their usual supremacy in the house.  Our summers are a welcome break from the rigid schedules of the school year.  Everyone is happy for a chance to do some relaxing, spend more time playing, and not be so ruled by routine.  Summer always ends in the climax of our yearly trip to the US where the routine and predictability get entirely tossed out in window in a wild month of staying up late, seeing friends, and partying non-stop.  So by the time we get to fall and school, I (and perhaps the children) am happy to be embraced by the routine again.

This is our second last fall in Tashkent.  All last year I spent thinking that it would be the last fall, winter, and spring we spent in Tashkent.  When pumpkin somsas came into season in the fall, we ate as many as we could because this was the last time we'd get to enjoy the delicious mix of sweet and savory inside a flaky crust (if you've ever had them, you'd know exactly the heaven I'm describing).  After going sledding once last year, I bid the mountains farewell because we wouldn't be visiting them again.  And in the spring, everyone gorged themselves on the last season of amazing Uzbek strawberries.

But here we are again, and it's fall again, and we're still in Tashkent.  Sometimes I imagine a parallel life where I'm in DC right now, settling into a tiny little apartment while Brandon learns Kazakh and we enjoy a Virginian fall.  And then I look around and see the same fall I'm having for the fourth year in a row.  

That's not to say that I'm unhappy about another fall here in Tashkent.  And when compared with the alternative - hemorrhaging money while sleeping on top of each other and waiting to see what the next place will be like - I'm very happy to be here for a fourth year.  I haven't seen four falls in the same house since I was a teenager at my parents' house.  And I'm not likely to see another string of falls until Brandon and I retire and we finally settle down, whenever that will be.

This fall has been the usual September of Shattered Hopes.  After a long, hot, dry Uzbek summer, everyone is desperately waiting for a breath of cool air so we can all stop sweating the second we walk out of our houses.  And as is usual, the beginning of this month offered a false hope, a string of crystal-clear, blue-sky days that never got hotter than the low eighties.  I opened the windows, pulled out my cardigans for date nights, and looked forward to the next two months of beautiful weather.  Then, as usual, it got hot again.  Yesterday Brandon had an office farewell/welcome party, and it was outside next to his co-worker's pool.  Nobody said anything, but I know at least a few of us were looking longingly at it as we tried to hide in the shade from the 97-degree heat.  Eventually it will cool down for good, and then I will really have my last Uzbek fall.

We have grand plans for this fall, with camping, fishing, and horseback riding planned.  I've been scouting out some hikes to go on, and we might even try to make some friends for our final year here in Tashkent.  After all, if we don't have friends, there won't be anyone to have Thanksgiving with.  

I'm happy that this is our last, last fall in Tashkent.  One day I look forward to settling down and not having any last seasons at all as I actually don't like moving around very much.  But although we live in Tashkent, this isn't our home and we've always known that we would leave at some point.  So when it's time to leave, I'll be happy to go and explore the things that Kazakhstan has to offer.  Every place has something good about it, so I'm looking forward to finding those things out.

But for now, I'm happy to be here and have another year of stability.  And also, pumpkin somsas.

Last Time

 Two weeks ago, on the first day of school, on a whim I decided to put Elizabeth in undies.  The timing wasn't really the best, but it was going to be happening soon, so why not make an already crazy week even crazier?

My three least-favorite parenting tasks are sleep training, potty training, and teaching children how to read.  There are lots of unpleasant things about parenting (the noise is definitely one that gets old), but those three tasks are ones that call for a high amount of patience and faith that at the end of your effort, you'll get a child that is a little more like a real human being. 

 I think they are also frustrating because there often seems to be a lot of work put in for very little, if any, discernible progress.  It's nearly completely random reinforcement, with almost no tie between what you do and what results come from the child you're trying to teach.  It's an unfortunate reminder that even though you may want your child to pee on command in the place you want them to pee, if they don't want to, it's not going to happen.  That is one of the great frustrations of parenting - there are two wills involved, and usually the one that is less logical wins in a head-on confrontation.  

This year I also started teaching William to read.  And if I'd had another child, I'd probably be sleep training them right now too.  But thankfully I only have to do two of my least favorite things simultaneously instead of going for the unholy trifecta of complete insanity.  Everyone is happy that is the case.  It's funny how much an unhappy mother can make everyone's lives fairly miserable.

Potty training has had its usual and expected triumphs and disasters which are common to teaching any child a new skill.  I've cleaned up puddles, washed sheets and blankets, handed out chocolate chips, listened to (seemingly endless) wailing, and let everyone in the house know of all Elizabeth's successes. Thankfully her siblings are happy to clap for a potty full of urine. She, as is usual, hasn't liked it, but she's submitted to the program because I'm more stubborn than she is.

At this point, we're over the worst part of the process and nobody in the house wears diapers during the day.  Elizabeth toddles around the house wearing tiny little undies, which is possibly one of the cutest things that toddlers can wear.  I love their round little bellies poking out as they wander around the house with no shame, not yet realizing that everyone else is wearing clothes and their lack of them is an unusual thing.  I have perhaps two more years of this before she vigorously defends her modesty and insists on things like locked doors when she dresses.  

I have found, as seems to be true about many things with my later children, that this process hasn't been nearly as hateful as it used to be.  I don't know if it's because I'm older and less prone to hysterics, or I'm older and just don't have the energy to get wound up about things, or I'm older and have more experience and perspective about what things are really worth getting upset about, or I'm just older.  Whichever it is, I'm happy to be older.  It seems to make some things in life easier.  

But even if potty training is less unpleasant than it used to be, I'm still happy that this is the last time I have to try and figure out where the puddle is, use my mom-senses to figure out if that crying fit is caused by a full bladder or just pique, haul the little red potty around the house, and have endless conversations about the state of one's bladder.  Bathroom use is something I'm very happy to not to have to think about for anyone other than myself.  

There are lots of things I'm going to miss about having small children - having them cuddle up in my lap and fall asleep into limp relaxation, watching their pure delight with simple, little things - but I'm very happy to be done with diapers.  I can't stop my children from growing up and leaving innocence behind, but at least I can enjoy them leaving dependence behind also.  I've been changing diapers for fifteen years now, and I'm happy to quit for good.  I feel like I've done my time and I'm ready to move on with my life.  I'm happy to change diapers occasionally for someone else, but I'm happy that that stage of my life is almost over.