Just because I can. =)
1) Single-mom'ing it. Shannon's out of town this weekend. He and some friends went skiing, back to the same place we all went in January. They drove over today, will ski tomorrow, and will come back on Sunday. I'm hoping he doesn't come back with one of these, which is what he came home with after his last skiing adventure.
Yeouch!
2) Adventures. The girls and I are living it up over here while he's gone. This morning we went to the grocery store. Yes, all of us. Shopping with two kids alone is something that I try really hard not to do over here. I either have to carry Noel in the ERGO or I have two kids in a cart that's not more than half the size of one in America. Today I opted to put both kids in the cart and carry my cloth bags and purse. Noel sat in the seat, Lane in the basket as I piled food on top of her (I wish I had a picture, but no iphone here!). After one juice box, one chocolate milk box, $55 worth of groceries, one fit pitched, and one pair of pants removed, we left the store with my sanity mostly in tact, even if I did get stares while leaving with a pants-less child (who just happened to squeeze chocolate milk all over her pants while I wasn't looking. Since I had to carry her in the ERGO to the car [since there are no elevators to bring my cart to the main level and then to the car] I didn't want chocolate milk all over my own clothes as well).
3) Weaning. We've officially weaned Noel from her pacifier. We had one rough night (the first one...she cried for an hour before falling asleep), one really early morning (she woke at 5:30 the second morning and couldn't get herself back to sleep), and other than that, she's been doing pretty well. She still has trouble falling asleep for some naps, but overall, she's doing great. And I'm glad we pulled the plug (haha) when we did. She only used it for sleeping, anyways, and I had said that we were going to take it away at some point when she wasn't teething, and here we were. That being said, I'm pretty sure she's cutting her eye teeth now. Sigh. Poor girl. She got four molars and two other teeth within two months...now come the eye teeth, probably all at once if I know her. At least we'll be done afterwards, though! (Until the 2-year molars come, that is.)
She's getting better with a spoon, and better with a cup. She still likes to dump her drink out when she's finished with it. So we've reached the 6-months-or-so-long phase of eating most meals in nothing but a diaper. Saves me from unnecessary laundry. Now if only we could get her to keep her hands out of her hair...
4) Menu-planning. It's been interesting, moving to another country after living in Turkey for over two years. I think I had taken for granted how familiar I was with what's available there, how much it costs, and so on. I spent the first three or so months here trying to figure out what I could cook, how much it would cost me, what wasn't too much work, what Shannon could complete on Thursdays when I'm not home for dinner, and so on. After three months of work, I finally came up with a menu plan. I've made a document with four weeks' worth of menus, links to the recipes, and an accompanying grocery list. By then end of April I hope to have enough meals collected that I can make another document. Then, next winter, I'll have two months' worth of menus. I can rotate them during winter. And I won't have to make a grocery list, other than for snack foods, breakfast items, toiletries, and the like. Although eventually I'm hoping to get the breakfast menu added into the dinner menu, too. It's a lot of work now, but I'm telling myself it's going to pay off in the long run...
Having a picnic on the trampoline. Notice how the dolls don't have clothes on. Do all children go through phases where they thinkeveryone all their dolls should not wear clothes?
5) Oddities. There are just some funny things about living in a country that's not your own. Just things that you notice that locals probably would never think twice about. Like... *Speed bumps always come in pairs here. There is never just one. *Cows just wander around certain parts of town, looking for some grass, with their owner kind of herding them along to make sure they don't run off. *Older people here always have candy ready to give to your children. Yesterday we actually had someone give Lane a piece of candy in the elevator as we were heading down and then make us wait while he went to his car to get her some more. Umm, thanks? *It is rarely cheaper to buy products in bulk. It's generally cheaper to buy them in the smaller containers. Drives me nuts. *If you go to the local market, you'll find all sorts of animal products for sale, and all sorts of people clamoring for you to come and buy their chicken feet, pig feet, chickens-with-the-neck-and-head-still-attached, etc. *Speaking of chickens with their heads still attached, for New Year's people here eat turkey. So you can find turkeys at the local malls. On tables in the foyer (or whatever you call the big open spaces in shopping malls), laid out all pretty-like, with their necks and heads hanging down off the side of the tables. No plastic wrap, no covering. Just some good-ole dead turkeys on the table at your local shopping mall for you to peruse, much like you might peruse crafts at a craft fair.
6) Glimmers of hope. I catch these sometimes. I'll see Lane and Noel actually playing together for a few minutes and I'll get a glimmer of hope that soon they'll play together nicely and for more than two minutes. I'll see Lane apologize to Noel and hug her and tell her she loves her, all with very little prompting, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that she will learn to be empathetic, loving, and to accept responsibility when she's wrong. I'll chat with someone for a few minutes and realize that I really do understand more than I did four months ago when we moved here, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that I can actually learn this language and that Iwon't have to study forever am improving.
Playing on mommy and daddy's bed, or dancing on it. Never gets old.
And I could go on. But instead I'm going to go wash the rest of the dishes from our daddy's-not-here-so-let's-eat-pizza-for-the-second-time-this-week dinner. And then I'm going to go to bed before 10 p.m. Because I'm 33 and have two kids and I roll like that.
1) Single-mom'ing it. Shannon's out of town this weekend. He and some friends went skiing, back to the same place we all went in January. They drove over today, will ski tomorrow, and will come back on Sunday. I'm hoping he doesn't come back with one of these, which is what he came home with after his last skiing adventure.
Yeouch!
2) Adventures. The girls and I are living it up over here while he's gone. This morning we went to the grocery store. Yes, all of us. Shopping with two kids alone is something that I try really hard not to do over here. I either have to carry Noel in the ERGO or I have two kids in a cart that's not more than half the size of one in America. Today I opted to put both kids in the cart and carry my cloth bags and purse. Noel sat in the seat, Lane in the basket as I piled food on top of her (I wish I had a picture, but no iphone here!). After one juice box, one chocolate milk box, $55 worth of groceries, one fit pitched, and one pair of pants removed, we left the store with my sanity mostly in tact, even if I did get stares while leaving with a pants-less child (who just happened to squeeze chocolate milk all over her pants while I wasn't looking. Since I had to carry her in the ERGO to the car [since there are no elevators to bring my cart to the main level and then to the car] I didn't want chocolate milk all over my own clothes as well).
3) Weaning. We've officially weaned Noel from her pacifier. We had one rough night (the first one...she cried for an hour before falling asleep), one really early morning (she woke at 5:30 the second morning and couldn't get herself back to sleep), and other than that, she's been doing pretty well. She still has trouble falling asleep for some naps, but overall, she's doing great. And I'm glad we pulled the plug (haha) when we did. She only used it for sleeping, anyways, and I had said that we were going to take it away at some point when she wasn't teething, and here we were. That being said, I'm pretty sure she's cutting her eye teeth now. Sigh. Poor girl. She got four molars and two other teeth within two months...now come the eye teeth, probably all at once if I know her. At least we'll be done afterwards, though! (Until the 2-year molars come, that is.)
She's getting better with a spoon, and better with a cup. She still likes to dump her drink out when she's finished with it. So we've reached the 6-months-or-so-long phase of eating most meals in nothing but a diaper. Saves me from unnecessary laundry. Now if only we could get her to keep her hands out of her hair...
4) Menu-planning. It's been interesting, moving to another country after living in Turkey for over two years. I think I had taken for granted how familiar I was with what's available there, how much it costs, and so on. I spent the first three or so months here trying to figure out what I could cook, how much it would cost me, what wasn't too much work, what Shannon could complete on Thursdays when I'm not home for dinner, and so on. After three months of work, I finally came up with a menu plan. I've made a document with four weeks' worth of menus, links to the recipes, and an accompanying grocery list. By then end of April I hope to have enough meals collected that I can make another document. Then, next winter, I'll have two months' worth of menus. I can rotate them during winter. And I won't have to make a grocery list, other than for snack foods, breakfast items, toiletries, and the like. Although eventually I'm hoping to get the breakfast menu added into the dinner menu, too. It's a lot of work now, but I'm telling myself it's going to pay off in the long run...
Having a picnic on the trampoline. Notice how the dolls don't have clothes on. Do all children go through phases where they think
5) Oddities. There are just some funny things about living in a country that's not your own. Just things that you notice that locals probably would never think twice about. Like... *Speed bumps always come in pairs here. There is never just one. *Cows just wander around certain parts of town, looking for some grass, with their owner kind of herding them along to make sure they don't run off. *Older people here always have candy ready to give to your children. Yesterday we actually had someone give Lane a piece of candy in the elevator as we were heading down and then make us wait while he went to his car to get her some more. Umm, thanks? *It is rarely cheaper to buy products in bulk. It's generally cheaper to buy them in the smaller containers. Drives me nuts. *If you go to the local market, you'll find all sorts of animal products for sale, and all sorts of people clamoring for you to come and buy their chicken feet, pig feet, chickens-with-the-neck-and-head-still-attached, etc. *Speaking of chickens with their heads still attached, for New Year's people here eat turkey. So you can find turkeys at the local malls. On tables in the foyer (or whatever you call the big open spaces in shopping malls), laid out all pretty-like, with their necks and heads hanging down off the side of the tables. No plastic wrap, no covering. Just some good-ole dead turkeys on the table at your local shopping mall for you to peruse, much like you might peruse crafts at a craft fair.
6) Glimmers of hope. I catch these sometimes. I'll see Lane and Noel actually playing together for a few minutes and I'll get a glimmer of hope that soon they'll play together nicely and for more than two minutes. I'll see Lane apologize to Noel and hug her and tell her she loves her, all with very little prompting, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that she will learn to be empathetic, loving, and to accept responsibility when she's wrong. I'll chat with someone for a few minutes and realize that I really do understand more than I did four months ago when we moved here, and I'll get a glimmer of hope that I can actually learn this language and that I
Playing on mommy and daddy's bed, or dancing on it. Never gets old.
And I could go on. But instead I'm going to go wash the rest of the dishes from our daddy's-not-here-so-let's-eat-pizza-for-the-second-time-this-week dinner. And then I'm going to go to bed before 10 p.m. Because I'm 33 and have two kids and I roll like that.
10 pm, wow you're a crazy girl! On my single mom days {and nights} I force myself to stay up until 9 - 9:30 is a wild night! We are trying to take away the pacifier but after 30 minutes of crying I give in. I need more will power.
ReplyDelete