Eleanor and Her Fingernails

Thursday morning started out very well.  Chores were finished quickly, school went smoothly, and we were almost finished half an hour early.  As I read through the last few grammar exercises with Kathleen (please label the subject pronouns and object pronouns in the sentences), I considered what to do with my extra time.  Maybe I could start lunch early and get an extra-long nap.  Or I could work on some organizational things for school.  And of course there's always Facebook.

Then the screaming started.  

I've acquired a fine tuned sense of screams throughout my nine and a half years of parenting.  There are the irritated screams when one child has taken another's toy.  And then the frustrated screams; this toy just won't come apart they way it's supposed to.  Screams of fear when the daredevil car ride is just a little too fast.  Pain screams when a finger gets pinched or a face accidentally kicked.  

But this screaming was none of the above.  It was the scream of pain that meant blood, and lots of it.  

I bolted across the floor to Eleanor, who was sitting next to the running treadmill screaming and screaming and screaming while blood dripped from her fingers to the floor.

I scooped her up, rushed her to the bathroom, washed the fingers, and inspected them.  The tips and fingernails of her pinky finger, ringer finger, and thumb were bleeding and torn.  They appeared to be unbroken, or at least without any visible bones sticking out, so I bandaged them up, gave her a double dose of ibuprofen, and called Brandon.  He told me to call the doctor, so I did.  If she's still unconsolable in the afternoon, give them a call.  Otherwise, buddy tape the two fingers and keep everything clean.

After Eleanor's nap I consulted with Brandon, sending pictures, and he agreed that she would probably be okay.  Eleanor had calmed down by then so we decided to wait until the morning and see if any swelling had set in.

She wasn't any worse in the morning, so we said thanks for keeping us out of London and the surgeon's office and I went on with my day.

By Sunday the fingers had scabbed over enough that we stopped taping them (have you ever tried to tape a baby's fingers?  They're very, very little) and declared the crisis over.  The fingernails had fallen off Eleanor's ring finger and thumb, but we had hope that they would grow back.  

Tuesday was International Women's day.  We took the children to the botanical gardens and everyone had a nice picnic.  I noticed that Eleanor's finger looked pretty swollen and could tell that her temperature was rising.  We put her down for a nap and when she woke up a few hours later, her temperature had spiked to 103.  So Brandon called the long-suffering local doctor (yes, these things always happen on a holiday, on the weekend, or at night) who met him at the embassy.  She attempted to lance the finger, but nothing other than blood came out, so after some poking and spraying with antibiotic, she sent Eleanor home with oral antibiotics and an appointment for the next morning.

I took Eleanor in for the next three days, and by Friday she was declared to be on the road to health and free of her dressing.  As the doctor looked over Eleanor's poor thumb, she shook her head and sighed.  "I'm pretty sure that thumbnail isn't going to grow back.  The nail bed looks too damaged."

And so, at the tender age of twenty-two months, Eleanor has lost her thumbnail forever.  When she gets her nails done for her wedding one day, she'll have to tell the tale, one that she will have told countless times, of how she stuck her hand in a treadmill as a baby and the nail was ripped off.  And then her irresponsible parents let the thumb get infected and she was disfigured for life before she even turned two years old.  Both she and the manicurist will shake their heads at such derelict parents - who would do that to a baby? 

So for the count, we now have four out of the five children scarred for life; two chins, one eyebrow, and now a fingernail.  But no broken bones.  So I guess we're not doing too badly.

And now for the rest of the (much less well decorated) house

It's a little late to be posting pictures of the house, but I kept waiting for a perfectly clean house and good light to take pictures in.  But now that we've been here for over a year, I've realized that those conditions will never happen.  So we'll just call the house in deshabille.  It's French, so it's cool.

This is our enormous, awkward, and unfortunate powder room.  Not only is it always messy, but the tiles could possibly cause seizures.  But the good news is that we do have a full-sized washer and dryer.  And lots of detergent.  But definitely no ambience.

Our cloak room and storage room.  I can't complain.  I have a cloak room.  And it's nice to have our consumables on the same floor as the kitchen.

The Mysterious Concrete Space.  This runs the length of the entire house and is below ground level.  There is a door at street level that leads into the space and opens up twelve feet above the floor.  We don't have the key.

The second floor landing.  It works very well for impromptu dance parties, family prayer time, and somewhere to drop all of the random junk that you've been told to clean out of your room.  And it comes with a chandelier!

The master bedroom.

Complete with sparkly floral wallpaper.

Master bath.  Every time I get in the shower I want to tell Scotty to beam me up.  One day I want a bathroom with double sinks.  That day is not today.

The guest bedroom, with a view into the stairwell and matching bathroom to ours.  It is the only other bathroom on the second floor.  Rather inconvenient.  So who wants to come visit?

Another bedroom with a view onto the landing.  We use it for more storage, and a back-up bedroom for Eleanor if we need to use Eleanor's room for guests.

The boys' bedroom.  

The girls' bedroom.

The study.  It has wonderful light and has beautiful sunset views (when I have time to watch the sunset).  It's the coziest (and therefore messiest) room in the house.  

Eleanor's bedroom.  It used to have a carpet until I stole it for decorating the first floor.  But she hasn't missed it.

The stairs to the third floor (and down to the first floor).

The toy room part of the third floor.

The school room part of the third floor.

The TV room part of the third floor.

The box house part of the third floor (that's what nine UAB boxes look like).

And the exercise room part of the third floor.  Can I say that the third floor is large?  It's perfect for homeschooling because everyone has room to do the things that they need to without being on top of each other and I can keep an eye on everyone and break up fights.  It's a great space for us.

And the kitchen, also very large.  When we moved in, the furniture guy commented that the standard four-person table wasn't going to work very well for us.  So they just gave us two and pushed them together.  With the dining room table, two kitchen tables, two school tables, our own folding table, and outside patio furniture, we can seat a. lot. of. people.  It's nice after having five (five!) chairs in our entire apartment in Oakwood.

So, that's our house.  I don't like the finishing details or general construction quality, but the space works really well for us (it's almost 6,000 sq feet, so there's not much to complain about) and we're happy to be here for over two more years.  I don't have plans for a European shoebox any time soon.

What Was in All Those Boxes

I've finally unpacked all of those boxes that landed me in trouble with Brandon (which, by the way is still in force), bought required plants, and hung pictures.  Which means that it's time for the big reveal!  I had to take pictures for the decorator, so I can offer before and after.

I wondered, after getting the finished plans from the decorator, if really all of this money and stuff would really be worth it.  And I can say that definitely, yes, I am really happy with the change that has been made.  Brandon is happy that I am happy, so that means that everyone is happy.

Every time I walk down the stairs or in the door, I feel happy about my space.  I like to sit on the couch, admire my home, and feel the warm cozy glow of being in a lovely, cheerful room.

I tell myself that happiness isn't based on stuff and of course it isn't, but I do like having a space in my house that is so pleasant to be in.  If everything burns up in a house fire or drops to the bottoms of the sea, I'll be a little sad.  But for now I enjoy it.

I've always been hesitant about having all of the knick-knacks that decorators use to make give a room the 'cluttered' look, as Sophia calls it, because of the children.  A bowl full of ceramic balls says "SMASH ME!!!" to any child under the age of twelve.

But I've been shocked at how well the children have left things alone.  Eleanor will occasionally take off with her favorite bronze horse knick-knack exclaiming "Doggie!! Ruff! Ruff!", but all five of the ceramic balls have actually remained intact.  I underestimated the children's self control.  And I also realize that I haven't been laying down enough laws around here.

And the best part about all of this?  We get to keep it for over two more years.  That's long enough that leaving feels like a far-off myth.  I don't know what I'll do with myself when we retire and actually stick around for a decade or two.

And here's a picture of Joseph.  Because Joseph loves having his picture taken.  And who can resist that smile?

Snow Day at the Park

A few weeks ago it snowed during the week.  Dushanbe doesn't get much snow - I think three snowfalls total this winter - so when it actually does snow, the children like to go out to play.  There's something magical about playing in falling snow and I'm much more okay with going out in the snow now that I have the proper gear.

So after everyone had finished school we went to the local park.  Tajiks aren't much fond of snow because they're sane people and snow makes your life difficult when you don't have central heating and have to get everywhere by walking and marshrutka.  It makes sense.  This means that we have the park to ourselves while everyone else is staying inside, wisely trying to stay warm.

When we showed up the park was, as usual on a snowy day, empty.  The children got to work trying to sled (the snow wasn't quite deep enough), playing dogsled instead, and building various iterations of the snow castle.  I love that the children always have somebody to play with; it's a definite perk of large families.

As the children played, I sat and watched.  Like I said, everyone has someone to play with, which means my job is sitting.  After awhile I noticed a mom walking through the park with her child.  Within a few minutes, the child had dragged her mother over to play near my children.  Before long she was happily making snowballs and depositing them in an equally happy Eleanor's lap.  "Ball!" Eleanor would exclaim each time a new one appeared.  I'm not exactly sure how this was fun, but they both enjoyed it.

Ten minutes later, a boy showed up on his bike.  We had passed him on our way to the park, and he must have been bored enough to wonder what these five brightly dressed children carrying sleds were up to.  Before long, he was pulling Edwin on a sled followed by the girls pulling him.

Next was a group of teenaged girls.  The came over to ask if they could borrow an unused sled and left with Sophia in the sled.  Another came in, enticed by all of the fun, and pretty soon a snow party was in full swing at the jog track.  The girls were pulling the boy, Edwin and Joseph were being pulled by someone else, Eleanor was surrounded by snowballs, and my girls were practicing their Russian with everyone they met.  Where there was once an empty park there were now friends-for-the-afternoon all enjoying a snowy day together.

In time everyone slipped away, heading back to class or home or riding the streets alone and we left last to warm up with hot tea, leaving the park empty again.  But the snow bore record to our party, once pristine and now covered with footprints and sled tracks and snowballs, never used.  Perhaps we may never meet our snow afternoon friend again, but everyone will remember that afternoon every time they pass the park, the afternoon of the snow party.

Hiking Fails

So, it's spring here in Dushanbe.  Two weeks ago we were sledding in sub-freezing temperatures and now all of the fruit trees have literally burst into bloom.  The temperature, right now at 6:39 in the evening, is sixty-eight degrees.  My walk this afternoon was in cropped pants and flip-flops and I was thinking pretty seriously about sweating by the end.

I think this is awesome.  It's like I've suddenly been transported to a crumblier, less expensive California.

Brandon, however, is grouchy about our early spring.  He likes a nice, decent length winter and he's had about four weeks less winter than he was expecting.  I know I would be grouchy about missing four weeks of spring, my own favorite season, so I don't blame him.

All of this warm weather has meant the beginning of hiking season.  Because when it's too warm to sled, it's time to hike.  This year we have a much, much better idea of how to go about hiking in Tajikistan and so have had much fewer I'm-not-your-friend-right-now moments.  The children, after hiking all last year, have finally resigned themselves to being dragged up into the mountains every Saturday for the next two years, and have even flirted with the idea of allowing themselves to maybe enjoy hiking.  It's all been quite pleasant.

But still, we have our moments.  Because who would like just nice pleasant experiences all the time?  Not me!  That would be boring!

One of our recent hikes was past the village of Zimchurud.  The drive in was very tame - there were no sketchy bridges, the road occasionally was paved, and we never drove any closer than two or three feet to any steep drop-offs.  The parking was even easy.  I had read about this hike before, the description had noted this hike as having several 'stony bathes' that are nice for swimming in the summer.  I'm always a sucker for 'stony bathes' and so had saved this hike for a hot summer day last year, but when one of those days made it around, we were grounded from hiking and the Zimchurud hike never happened.

So, even though it's not the right time of year for stony bathing, I decided to try the Zimchurud hike, mostly because it's within a 30-minute drive of home and we had started late in the morning.

The hike started out nicely - the day was beautifully sunny, the weather pleasant for hiking, the grass a brilliant spring green, and we were greeted with sprinklings of yellow crocuses telling us that yes, spring really is coming.

Then we reached the first ford.  And I say first because there were several.  In the beginning we were fastidious about crossing, choosing a narrow place where Brandon could hand the children across the stream.  But then we reached one about twenty feet wide (and only five or six inches deep) and Brandon slipped off his carefully planned rock route and just sloshed across the whole thing with two or three children on his back.  I had my Vasque Gortex hiking boots (thanks for that present fifteen years ago, Mom and Dad!), so my feet weren't wet.  But that didn't salve my conscience.

When the fords started occurring every eighth mile and we had to hike through a five-inch deep snowy portion of the trail and Brandon was wet to the knees, we decided that really, this hike is only good for a hot summer day.

So we turned around, hiked back through most of the fords to a nice picnic spot, and had a picnic.  Because, really, that's what everyone hikes for anyway.

Last Friday night we got a text from a friend who wanted to tag along on our Saturday hike.  I had planned to find a new hike that I had read about, but rearranged the plan to go to a hike we'd done before.  Because you don't take friends on wild goose chases on sketchy roads.  It's just not nice.

The hike itself it a nice easy hike with no fords (the hike is called Seven Bridges) and a supposed waterfall at the end (not that we've ever made it to that far), but the drive to the hike isn't so nice.  There are spots where our car tire is about six inches from a drop-off into river and six inches from a rock wall.  These spots are bad, but the worst spot is a bridge that gives our car the same six inches of wiggle room on either side combined with a steep approach followed by a wall, sharp turn, and another lovely drop-off.  I'd take pictures, but whenever we go over this bridge, I'm too busy playing guidance crew in front of Brandon as he attempts to not wreck our car in the river.  It's very nerve-wracking.

We made it over the bridge, our friends did too, and we went on a lovely hike.  The children found an abundance of sheep bones and Kathleen is now the proud possessor of one sheep skull (why can't I have two?  Because you don't need two).  We stopped for snack at yet another perfectly beautiful spot with a rushing crystal-clear river, bright sunshine, and brilliant green grass.  The adults chatted while the children threw rocks in the river (an official part of every hike), poked sticks in the river, and almost fell into the river.  Everyone reluctantly headed back after an hour or so, but really I could have stayed there all day.  There is no end to the idyllic mountain beauty of Tajikistan.

Everyone made it back to the car with no dunkings, and we even got the cars successfully turned around (although it was a little dicey when the car started sliding backwards down the hill) and headed in the right direction.  Then we hit the bridge.  Our friends, driving a Rav4 made it over the bridge after having their back tire literally halfway off a sheer drop-off.  Brandon decided to take the way of caution and hug tight next to the jutting corner of somebody's dacha wall.  Taking lessons from our time in Baku, he folded the mirror in before starting.  I guided him in, heart pounding, and praying that our car would stay out of the river again and maybe promising that we'd never go on this hike again.  The front of the car cleared the wall with inches to spare and then I watched as the back of the car didn't.  Brandon and I cringed as the cinder block corner scraped across the car, but there was no going back and he just drove forward, hoping for the best.  We made it a across the bridge (again!) with a new set of scratches on the car.  Thank heaven body work is so cheap in Dushanbe.

All of these mishaps haven't, of course, stopped me from planning out next hike this weekend.  I'll pretend to be good so that Brandon will agree to go, but we both know it's just a show.  Poor Brandon.  And poor car.