Dad is great! He gives us chocolate cake! (reference old Bill Cosby routine [just listen, if you click; the video is just some guy lip-synching to it])
We have a family tradition that evolved from the need to get rid of leftover birthday cake. :-P We never ate it all, because after the sugar-rush of the party, I was loathe to feed it to the kids again. And ML and I didn't want to eat it all by ourselves. In ML's family growing up, his dad would eat the leftovers for breakfast until they were gone. I decided that cake was no worse in sugar-content than donuts or pancakes with syrup, so we now have cake and eggs for breakfast the morning after a birthday party (I've discovered that morning is actually the best time to feed sugar, if you're going to; it gives them time to work it off before naptime/bedtime; really). Cake leftovers? Taken care of.
Seriously, it's no worse than many other sweet breakfast options (although those particular options are just treats for us, we have a limited number of birthday cakes to do away with, too). And, truth be told, I think the main reason I chose to institute this tradition is that I want to go down as a fun mom. Hopefully, this will balance slave-driver mom who rules during school hours (and even she is trying to reform to become more fun, so maybe there's hope...).
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Happy Birthday, Z!
This is going to be close to a wordless post. Today was Z's birthday party (his birthday was last Friday). Several friends with young kids came over, we had cake (yay, ML; his cake decorating just keeps getting better & better), and we opened presents. Short but sweet (like this post :-).
Pardon the quality of the photos. We win Mother and Father of the Year Award for not being able to find our camera for the entire party. ML found it later, but it was, of course, not charged. We'd been looking for it for several day in anticipation of needing it for birthday stuff, but today (after all of the birthday events, of course) ML went back and looked in the drawer where it was supposed to be and...it was there. It was just buried. :-/ So, we took pictures with ML's camera, hence the graininess. Sorry!
Monday, November 3, 2008
I have a confession to make.
I hope that no one reading this will decide to stop being my friend, but...(no, this doesn't have anything to do with the election; however, don't ask me about that; you probably don't want to know)...I have a housekeeper. Not like Alice, but a lady comes once a week (Monday mornings; this is a timely confession) and cleans my house. There, I said it.
She washes any dishes that are dirty, and, although I try not to leave a huge pile, there are weeks... She cleans the floors and vacuums. She dusts. She cleans the bathrooms. She brings in and hangs out laundry (otherwise, that is [recently] the kids' job; yay!). And she folds any clean laundry (notice I make no such disclaimer as to not leaving a huge pile there; I do sort the laundry afterwards, though). Oh, and she changes any sheets as needed (I put out clean sheets on the beds that need to be changed).
Anyone ready to disown me?
Here's the deal: I've discovered, during the times when I've been without househelp here, that I can A) keep the house clean/straight and B) homeschool the kids or I can do A) and C) meet with people here or there's the A) and B) option. However, I cannot do A), B), and C) for a sustained period of time.
Therefore, we budget to bring someone in once a week to clean (roughly $15 each time, in case anyone's curious; up from around $12 when we first started having someone come almost 5 years ago). I'm okay with that. Especially on Mondays. When my house gets a big ol' "re-set," as I explained to my friend one time. I'm very okay with that on Mondays. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and actually relax for most of the day (okay, so I front load our week and hit school hard and heavy that day, but I relax on the housekeeping side of things).
Some other random details for the curious: we had a wonderful Indonesian lady who cleaned for us for 3 years from around Christmas of the first year that we lived here. She was *amazing*! She cleaned perfectly, tackled projects like cleaning curtains on a rotating basis without having to be asked, and had a very happy disposition. She disappeared around Ramadan last year. My best guess is that she was trying to get out from under the man who brought her here. Not an abusive situation, but he controlled the jobs she took, and I'm sure she wanted more say and may very well have fulfilled her obligations to him and needed to make a clean break. Unfortunately, I realize in hindsight that I think she was asking for more money to stay on with us (she was very cultural in asking in such a round about way that I didn't figure it out until I put some things together later). It was not until I tried to replace her and learned how much the going rate was that I understood. I would have gladly paid her more to keep her on, but hindsight and 20/20 and all that.
So, I fished around for someone new to come while struggling to keep my head above water doing it all myself, encountered a couple of examples of what I was not looking for. And finally, an ex-pat friend who was also looking for some help thought to ask a lady she knew who has three live-in housekeepers/nannies (hey, go to the one who knows, right?). Rich Friend knew of an Arab lady looking for just such work. She wanted to be selective in who she worked for, so she could keep her dignity (it's not a popular job choice), and Rich Friend promised her that we would be a perfect option.
She's been coming since late Spring/early Summer, and I'm pleased. I've had to do a little more directing than I had to do previously, but that's hardly a hardship. She's now cleaning for three of the four ex-pat moms in our little circle, and the fourth is trying to figure out when she can work herself into the schedule. Oh, and today she asked me to teach her to cross-stitch, which means she considers me enough of a friend to ask. She's been shy, so I was blessed by that.
Well, my secret's out (okay, not so much a secret, but you may or may not have known). I hope everyone's okay with that. If it makes you feel any better, I met my challenge to myself of keeping the house clean for the three months we were in the US last time with only a little help from ML. Of course, I wasn't homeschooling during that time, but we did have a big social schedule. I guess not all hope is lost for me. :-)
She washes any dishes that are dirty, and, although I try not to leave a huge pile, there are weeks... She cleans the floors and vacuums. She dusts. She cleans the bathrooms. She brings in and hangs out laundry (otherwise, that is [recently] the kids' job; yay!). And she folds any clean laundry (notice I make no such disclaimer as to not leaving a huge pile there; I do sort the laundry afterwards, though). Oh, and she changes any sheets as needed (I put out clean sheets on the beds that need to be changed).
Anyone ready to disown me?
Here's the deal: I've discovered, during the times when I've been without househelp here, that I can A) keep the house clean/straight and B) homeschool the kids or I can do A) and C) meet with people here or there's the A) and B) option. However, I cannot do A), B), and C) for a sustained period of time.
Therefore, we budget to bring someone in once a week to clean (roughly $15 each time, in case anyone's curious; up from around $12 when we first started having someone come almost 5 years ago). I'm okay with that. Especially on Mondays. When my house gets a big ol' "re-set," as I explained to my friend one time. I'm very okay with that on Mondays. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and actually relax for most of the day (okay, so I front load our week and hit school hard and heavy that day, but I relax on the housekeeping side of things).
Some other random details for the curious: we had a wonderful Indonesian lady who cleaned for us for 3 years from around Christmas of the first year that we lived here. She was *amazing*! She cleaned perfectly, tackled projects like cleaning curtains on a rotating basis without having to be asked, and had a very happy disposition. She disappeared around Ramadan last year. My best guess is that she was trying to get out from under the man who brought her here. Not an abusive situation, but he controlled the jobs she took, and I'm sure she wanted more say and may very well have fulfilled her obligations to him and needed to make a clean break. Unfortunately, I realize in hindsight that I think she was asking for more money to stay on with us (she was very cultural in asking in such a round about way that I didn't figure it out until I put some things together later). It was not until I tried to replace her and learned how much the going rate was that I understood. I would have gladly paid her more to keep her on, but hindsight and 20/20 and all that.
So, I fished around for someone new to come while struggling to keep my head above water doing it all myself, encountered a couple of examples of what I was not looking for. And finally, an ex-pat friend who was also looking for some help thought to ask a lady she knew who has three live-in housekeepers/nannies (hey, go to the one who knows, right?). Rich Friend knew of an Arab lady looking for just such work. She wanted to be selective in who she worked for, so she could keep her dignity (it's not a popular job choice), and Rich Friend promised her that we would be a perfect option.
She's been coming since late Spring/early Summer, and I'm pleased. I've had to do a little more directing than I had to do previously, but that's hardly a hardship. She's now cleaning for three of the four ex-pat moms in our little circle, and the fourth is trying to figure out when she can work herself into the schedule. Oh, and today she asked me to teach her to cross-stitch, which means she considers me enough of a friend to ask. She's been shy, so I was blessed by that.
Well, my secret's out (okay, not so much a secret, but you may or may not have known). I hope everyone's okay with that. If it makes you feel any better, I met my challenge to myself of keeping the house clean for the three months we were in the US last time with only a little help from ML. Of course, I wasn't homeschooling during that time, but we did have a big social schedule. I guess not all hope is lost for me. :-)
Sunday, November 2, 2008
A new restaurant
We went with some other ex-pats (one family, two couples) to a new restaurant here in town tonight. No, you don't understand. We went to a.new.restaurant. in.our.town. *Not* a common occurrence. Well, there was when Burger King opened, and Pizza Hut remodeled a while back (we also have Popeye's, but that's it). No, we're not suffering too much in the fast food department (unless you count not having Taco Bell, which we do count and do consider suffering). It's just that it's A) unhealthy and B) expensive (maybe 1 1/2 x's what you'd pay in the US).
It's one of the things that's very different about where we lived in the West Bank and here. There, the town was more isolated/self-contained. Therefore, you had pretty much everything you could want/need from furniture to restaurants. Here, with the capital only an hour's drive away, if you want a nice restaurant or a wide selection of furniture, you go there. The furniture example has been changing for a while now, and you can find so much more than when we first moved here. Hopefully, the restaurant situation tide will turn, too.
So, this new restaurant is called Saj Wok. Roughly translated: "kebob wok," maybe? "Saj" is related to the grilled meat that they do here, which may or may not be on a skewer. It's an attempt to introduce a new concept but relate it to a familiar one. Familiar is necessary around here. So, they have huge woks, which they light on fire and then cook the meat in (the fire in the pan itself is gone before they put the meat in; I guess this is to superheat it?).
The meat is all chicken, but you choose different flavors of sandwiches, and they wrap them in a bread very much like a large tortilla. The end result is kind of like a chicken burrito. They have Mexican, Indian, Barbeque (as in grilled, not the sauce flavor, much to ML's disappointment), Spicy, and Chinese. I tried all but the spicy. ML was coughing and choking as he ate it. If it had that effect on him, I'm not touching it. I liked the Chinese, the Indian, and the Mexican. They had a variation of veggies (i.e. the Chinese had cabbage, like an egg roll) and each had its own sauce/spices. MS and Z had mexican. MS came back for seconds, so he apparently liked it. JW & MA had Indian, and JW came back for seconds. MA later, though, asked to come back to the restaurant again, so I think she enjoyed hers, as well, but may just have been too distracted to ask for more.
We ordered a *ton* (a "wejhba" or "meal" of each kind, which was two good sized "burritos" each), so we have leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, even, which is always nice.
Bottom line: it would be a good option for an in-town date night (we usually drive to the capital, but occasionally are just not feeling like the trek or would rather save gas money), and we might take the kids occasionally. We could probably put it as one of their options for Mommy/Daddy dates.
It's one of the things that's very different about where we lived in the West Bank and here. There, the town was more isolated/self-contained. Therefore, you had pretty much everything you could want/need from furniture to restaurants. Here, with the capital only an hour's drive away, if you want a nice restaurant or a wide selection of furniture, you go there. The furniture example has been changing for a while now, and you can find so much more than when we first moved here. Hopefully, the restaurant situation tide will turn, too.
So, this new restaurant is called Saj Wok. Roughly translated: "kebob wok," maybe? "Saj" is related to the grilled meat that they do here, which may or may not be on a skewer. It's an attempt to introduce a new concept but relate it to a familiar one. Familiar is necessary around here. So, they have huge woks, which they light on fire and then cook the meat in (the fire in the pan itself is gone before they put the meat in; I guess this is to superheat it?).
The meat is all chicken, but you choose different flavors of sandwiches, and they wrap them in a bread very much like a large tortilla. The end result is kind of like a chicken burrito. They have Mexican, Indian, Barbeque (as in grilled, not the sauce flavor, much to ML's disappointment), Spicy, and Chinese. I tried all but the spicy. ML was coughing and choking as he ate it. If it had that effect on him, I'm not touching it. I liked the Chinese, the Indian, and the Mexican. They had a variation of veggies (i.e. the Chinese had cabbage, like an egg roll) and each had its own sauce/spices. MS and Z had mexican. MS came back for seconds, so he apparently liked it. JW & MA had Indian, and JW came back for seconds. MA later, though, asked to come back to the restaurant again, so I think she enjoyed hers, as well, but may just have been too distracted to ask for more.
We ordered a *ton* (a "wejhba" or "meal" of each kind, which was two good sized "burritos" each), so we have leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, even, which is always nice.
Bottom line: it would be a good option for an in-town date night (we usually drive to the capital, but occasionally are just not feeling like the trek or would rather save gas money), and we might take the kids occasionally. We could probably put it as one of their options for Mommy/Daddy dates.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
I used my re-usable bags at the local grocery store today!
I have had several re-usable fabric bags that I've been using/wanting to use for grocery runs for a couple of months now. I've used them 3-4 times in the capital, but I've either forgotten them (because I went shopping in a taxi) or ML's done the shopping the rest of the time.
Tonight, JW and I went to the store. I drove, of course, because of our wonderful new van (wait, you don't know about that, do you? cha-ching, another post topic**). I actually remembered to get the bags that were sitting on the shoe bench (sweet, another post idea). The theory is that we'll take them to the car the next time we go somewhere after they've been unloaded. The reality is that we're *always* in a hurry when we're leaving the house, and they often just sit there.
(Fun aside: the bag that holds the rest of my empty re-usable bags is one of the Sonlight free-gift-when-you-buy-a-core canvas bags from several years ago. I ended up with two, because I bought two cores within that year due to when they came/were brought over to us. The other...wait, that could be a whole other post!)
I had to fight with the guard at the front door not to have to check my bag (of bags) at the customer service desk. As with many stores in the States, larger stores here will not let you enter with shopping bags from other stores or large, non-purse handbags. However, I was willing to stand my ground not to have to leave my cart in line and retrieve my (empty) bags from the service desk. He finally waved me on in. Somedays the "crazy foreigner" thing works for you.
So, I hung my bag (of bags) on the hook at the front of my basket (Do baskets in the US have hooks in front of where the child seat is now? They're so handy. I usually hang my purse there, so I have more room in my cart.) The bagger was a tad confused when I handed him the bags when it came time to check out, but he was cool with it. He even asked about how heavy I wanted them to end up (two of the bags are huge), etc.
I survived! No one looked at me like I was crazy*! One small step for God's creation. Yay!
*Okay, there was this one college-aged girl who remarked to her friend on the way out of the store, "*She's* not from here!" I wanted to say back to her, "And *she* speaks Arabic!" but I didn't. Well, actually I did, but they were out of earshot.
**In case you're wondering why I'm so post-topic happy, I will bury this little piece of information down here: I have made a commitment to myself (well, I guess now to all of you, and I use that term "all" lightly) to post once a day during the month of November. A certain friend has been encouraging me to blog more, to share our life here, and so I'm giving it a shot. After November, it might not be quite as consistent, but I figure 30 days is supposed to set a habit (and, according to the rhyme I just said in my head, November has 30 days), so maybe I'll at least still be posting more.
Blessings!
Tonight, JW and I went to the store. I drove, of course, because of our wonderful new van (wait, you don't know about that, do you? cha-ching, another post topic**). I actually remembered to get the bags that were sitting on the shoe bench (sweet, another post idea). The theory is that we'll take them to the car the next time we go somewhere after they've been unloaded. The reality is that we're *always* in a hurry when we're leaving the house, and they often just sit there.
(Fun aside: the bag that holds the rest of my empty re-usable bags is one of the Sonlight free-gift-when-you-buy-a-core canvas bags from several years ago. I ended up with two, because I bought two cores within that year due to when they came/were brought over to us. The other...wait, that could be a whole other post!)
I had to fight with the guard at the front door not to have to check my bag (of bags) at the customer service desk. As with many stores in the States, larger stores here will not let you enter with shopping bags from other stores or large, non-purse handbags. However, I was willing to stand my ground not to have to leave my cart in line and retrieve my (empty) bags from the service desk. He finally waved me on in. Somedays the "crazy foreigner" thing works for you.
So, I hung my bag (of bags) on the hook at the front of my basket (Do baskets in the US have hooks in front of where the child seat is now? They're so handy. I usually hang my purse there, so I have more room in my cart.) The bagger was a tad confused when I handed him the bags when it came time to check out, but he was cool with it. He even asked about how heavy I wanted them to end up (two of the bags are huge), etc.
I survived! No one looked at me like I was crazy*! One small step for God's creation. Yay!
*Okay, there was this one college-aged girl who remarked to her friend on the way out of the store, "*She's* not from here!" I wanted to say back to her, "And *she* speaks Arabic!" but I didn't. Well, actually I did, but they were out of earshot.
**In case you're wondering why I'm so post-topic happy, I will bury this little piece of information down here: I have made a commitment to myself (well, I guess now to all of you, and I use that term "all" lightly) to post once a day during the month of November. A certain friend has been encouraging me to blog more, to share our life here, and so I'm giving it a shot. After November, it might not be quite as consistent, but I figure 30 days is supposed to set a habit (and, according to the rhyme I just said in my head, November has 30 days), so maybe I'll at least still be posting more.
Blessings!
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Toddler Video Recommendations
I wrote this over a year ago in response to a fellow overseas mom's request for video suggestions for her toddler (specifically she was looking for "quiet time" DVD's to be used while she and her husband were having their devotional time in the mornings, but was having trouble with some of the videos she had hyping up her son). I thought I'd put it up here, in case it would be of use to anyone else.
- It's not animated with stories, just worship music, but we love the Praise Baby DVD's. They're contemporary worship music with Baby Einstein-type graphics (i.e. pictures of kids, toys, landscapes, etc.). While we're not huge Baby Einstein fans (although we do own a few select ones), these are great for when the kids are up before we're done with our QT's in the mornings. The lead singer is the lady who was the little mermaid in the Disney film, and she's a believer. I've looked at reviews and borrowed a few of the other "Christian Baby Einstein"-type videos, but I didn't like them as much, because they were instrumental, and I really like the fact that my kids are learning the words to the worship songs. Oh, and lest you be worried about the age for these, MA turns 4 next week, and she still loves them (and, shhh, JW still watches them some, when they're on :-).
- Other than that, we do VeggieTales and Story Keepers for QT videos, but both of those would probably lend themselves to the problems you're already having. Sorry, I can't be more helpful with more options.
- The Boz videos were just coming out when we were in the States last (we got magnets when we purchased something somewhere), so I'm glad to hear good things about them. I'll have to get a couple while we're there this summer (short trip for my brother's wedding). Follow up: we can't get enough of Boz. ZL *loves* Boz, and we're amassing a collection of them.
- As for educational videos, we're very into Signing Time and Baby Signing Time videos/DVD's. We bought the Baby Signing Time DVD's for ZL with some gift money and then had my brother TiVo and tape regular Signing Time off of his PBS station. They have a list of stations that carry their program, which might be worth checking to see if you have friends/family in one of the areas.
Some other educational videos that we like are:
- must-have in my book: at least The Letter Factory and The Talking Words Factory from LeapFrog; by far, the easiest way to teach children basic phonics and sounding out words
- Sesame Street Let's Make Music (the cast of the musical Stomp on Sesame Street)
- " Learning About Letters
- " Elmo's Musical Adventure: The Story of Peter and the Wolf
- " Alphabet Jungle
- Baby Einstein Meet the Orchestra
- We're just starting to watch the Little Einstein series downloaded from iTunes (my kids got iTunes gift certificates from my brother for Christmas so they could buy shows [with our approval, of course]). I like these for their classical music aspect. Follow up: we're big Little Einstein fans now, too. Love the musical (and general) education aspect.
- There are a few more, but we rotate our kids' videos, so only 1/3 are out right now. I keep the majority of the educational ones at whatever level I'm pushing out (learning letters or basic phonics or sounding out words), but I'm sure there are a few in their khazana in their room, and they're asleep. I'll look tomorrow and see what's there.
- It's not animated with stories, just worship music, but we love the Praise Baby DVD's. They're contemporary worship music with Baby Einstein-type graphics (i.e. pictures of kids, toys, landscapes, etc.). While we're not huge Baby Einstein fans (although we do own a few select ones), these are great for when the kids are up before we're done with our QT's in the mornings. The lead singer is the lady who was the little mermaid in the Disney film, and she's a believer. I've looked at reviews and borrowed a few of the other "Christian Baby Einstein"-type videos, but I didn't like them as much, because they were instrumental, and I really like the fact that my kids are learning the words to the worship songs. Oh, and lest you be worried about the age for these, MA turns 4 next week, and she still loves them (and, shhh, JW still watches them some, when they're on :-).
- Other than that, we do VeggieTales and Story Keepers for QT videos, but both of those would probably lend themselves to the problems you're already having. Sorry, I can't be more helpful with more options.
- The Boz videos were just coming out when we were in the States last (we got magnets when we purchased something somewhere), so I'm glad to hear good things about them. I'll have to get a couple while we're there this summer (short trip for my brother's wedding). Follow up: we can't get enough of Boz. ZL *loves* Boz, and we're amassing a collection of them.
- As for educational videos, we're very into Signing Time and Baby Signing Time videos/DVD's. We bought the Baby Signing Time DVD's for ZL with some gift money and then had my brother TiVo and tape regular Signing Time off of his PBS station. They have a list of stations that carry their program, which might be worth checking to see if you have friends/family in one of the areas.
Some other educational videos that we like are:
- must-have in my book: at least The Letter Factory and The Talking Words Factory from LeapFrog; by far, the easiest way to teach children basic phonics and sounding out words
- Sesame Street Let's Make Music (the cast of the musical Stomp on Sesame Street)
- " Learning About Letters
- " Elmo's Musical Adventure: The Story of Peter and the Wolf
- " Alphabet Jungle
- Baby Einstein Meet the Orchestra
- We're just starting to watch the Little Einstein series downloaded from iTunes (my kids got iTunes gift certificates from my brother for Christmas so they could buy shows [with our approval, of course]). I like these for their classical music aspect. Follow up: we're big Little Einstein fans now, too. Love the musical (and general) education aspect.
- There are a few more, but we rotate our kids' videos, so only 1/3 are out right now. I keep the majority of the educational ones at whatever level I'm pushing out (learning letters or basic phonics or sounding out words), but I'm sure there are a few in their khazana in their room, and they're asleep. I'll look tomorrow and see what's there.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Birthday Playlist
In preparation for JW's birthday yesterday (yay!), I put together the beginnings of a Birthday playlist, which will hopefully become a family tradition. We listened to it on the way to the capital yesterday where we watched Wall-E with some friends and had dinner and cake and presents at Hardee's.
1. Happy Birthday to You - Various Artists (Mickey's Party Songs)
*2. Cut the Cake - John McCutcheon
3. And Jesus Grew - Steve Green
4. I Knew I Loved You - Savage Garden
5. Fingerprints of God - Steven Curtis Chapman
*6. Your Song - Elton John
*7. Eli's Song - Rich Mullins
I have an "Adult Birthday Playlist" (don't worry, it's much more tame than it sounds) that includes "Forever Young" by Rod Stewart along with a couple of the above songs.
I still need to locate a CD with Happy Birthday in Arabic (Sena Helwa) on it so that I can import it and include that (I looked for an mp3 on the internet, but didn't find one the right tempo).
And I would love to hear suggestions as to other songs, secular or Christian, that I could include, on either list. Thanks to andreabt for getting me started.
* Added since originally posted. Thanks, Wendrie & Heather!
1. Happy Birthday to You - Various Artists (Mickey's Party Songs)
*2. Cut the Cake - John McCutcheon
3. And Jesus Grew - Steve Green
4. I Knew I Loved You - Savage Garden
5. Fingerprints of God - Steven Curtis Chapman
*6. Your Song - Elton John
*7. Eli's Song - Rich Mullins
I have an "Adult Birthday Playlist" (don't worry, it's much more tame than it sounds) that includes "Forever Young" by Rod Stewart along with a couple of the above songs.
I still need to locate a CD with Happy Birthday in Arabic (Sena Helwa) on it so that I can import it and include that (I looked for an mp3 on the internet, but didn't find one the right tempo).
And I would love to hear suggestions as to other songs, secular or Christian, that I could include, on either list. Thanks to andreabt for getting me started.
* Added since originally posted. Thanks, Wendrie & Heather!
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