... and why was this conversation necessary?

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

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

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

Me: (stating the obvious) Yes.

Sophia: I need to use the bathroom.

Me: Can you use your bathroom?

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

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

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

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

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

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

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

Sophia and Kathleen decided to be reindeer with the branches.

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

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

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

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

In the last three weeks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And now there are six

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's time

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

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

Bringing Baby 'Home'

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

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

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

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

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

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

Consumables Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Celebrating Halloween in the US

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

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

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

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

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

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

Midnight thoughts

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

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

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

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

Why I can't hack it in the US

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

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

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

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

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