What's a girl to do on a quiet Sunday afternoon with the older kids fishing
with Daddy and the little one swinging with Grandma and Papa? Sweep, of
course. You can tell a lot about a person's life by what she sweeps up. Here
is what was in my dust pan today:
*6 dead crickets. Elsa and Ezra got a magnifying bug trapper from Grandma
Donna and have been loving stuffing it full of crickets lately.
*7 jumping spiders. Although I don't think it counts because they all jumped
away to take up residence somewhere else in my house. They always win.
*1 jumping spider carrying a small dead cricket. (I hit the jackpot today)
*1 tag sticker price that says '35 birr'. I swept it up in the bathroom and
I believe it came off of my new toilet bowl brush. A new one was needed
because before we left for the states Ezra decided to see if his blue car
would float in the toilet. It didn't. The toilet subsequently was jammed
with toilet paper, which I (ignorantly, impatiently) tried to de-jam with my
toilet bowl brush, which only served to get nasty toilet paper bits stuck
to my brush. Hence, new toilet bowl brush.
*1 baby scorpion. Thankfully I did not kick at it, like I first intended to,
but instead saw what it was and smashed it deader than dead. My policy with
undesirable creatures is to keep hitting until it's no longer clear what it
is I am hitting.
*Roughly 18 inches worth of unraveled blue thread and elastic. Ezra's new
Lightning McQueen underwear are unraveling at the waist. But, the fact that
he is WEARING Lighthing Mcqueen underwear is a small miracle. My nearly
completely potty-trained son decided to UN-potty train himself the first
week we were in the US. And then decided to RE-potty train himself the first
week we were back in Ethiopia. Good boy.
*1 JC Penney tag that says $6.99. Elsa has discovered all of her
'to-grow-into' clothing on a high shelf and commandeered two new dresses.
This is the tag off of a pink and white gingham that my mom brought when
they visited last summer.
*1 small silver screw. A more curious or careful person would have fished the screw out and set it aside for when its use may become known, but I can't really claim to be either in a significant way, so out it went.
*About one dust pan's worth full of redish-brown dust. We don't have the
really red, red dirt here found in other parts of Africa, just a fine,
powdery brown dust. Since I haven't swept since yesterday evening, this is a
good day.
Welcome to my life. It's exciting in here.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Learning to Ride
While in the states Caleb bought training wheels for the little XR50 that he brought over for the kids to learn to ride. After giving a little tutorial on the throttle, brake, and how to steer, both kids got a chance to show off their stuff.
Elsa said 'wee!' and posed for a picture.
Ezra promptly ran into a bush.
Ezra, though, shows a lot of promise. He definitely gets the idea of steering and using the throttle smoothly to keep the bike moving. His main problem is that he likes to look behind him so that he can watch himself 'make dust'. Elsa, I think, will be a lot like me--riding because it's something to do with Daddy and she doesn't want to be left out.
I am mentally kicking the pants off our thief who stole the video camera out of our bag for making me miss getting this all on film.
Elsa said 'wee!' and posed for a picture.
Ezra promptly ran into a bush.
Ezra, though, shows a lot of promise. He definitely gets the idea of steering and using the throttle smoothly to keep the bike moving. His main problem is that he likes to look behind him so that he can watch himself 'make dust'. Elsa, I think, will be a lot like me--riding because it's something to do with Daddy and she doesn't want to be left out.
I am mentally kicking the pants off our thief who stole the video camera out of our bag for making me miss getting this all on film.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Settling In
I warned about disappearing for weeks at a time and it didn't take long to
prove true. I beg extenuating circumstances...saying good-bye, packing,
flying, staying a week in Addis to re-supply and get some things done,
>driving two days home and arriving to find the radio (our main mode of
communication) broken. Thankfully Papa Swart is fixer-extraordinaire and was
able to figure out the problem and fix it. Back online...well, as online as
we get down here.
Settling in has been interesting. It feels good to be in our own space,
dirty as it may be...part of settling in is readjusting expectations of what
being clean means. I received a major gift from Caleb's parents--they
insisted that they make the trip from Addis down to Omo one day before us,
so that they could clean out the houses and put the boat back in the river
before we got here. I really can't quite imagine what it would have been
like to arrive here with Daisy and try to get everything cleaned up. It's a
heck of a job, and Caleb's parents did it all for us. It was such a relief
to come home to a cleaned up house and a cold fridge and a cooked meal.
Daisy is a hit here. Everyone loves her. She's pretty much the first white
baby the Daasanech have ever seen. Settling in with Daisy has been fun in
that regard but kind of miserable otherwise. She's hot. And she won't sleep.
And she misses her swaddler. But she's too hot to swaddle. So she's
requiring a lot more attention than usual, at a time when I have a lot more
things to do every day. Poor baby. We'll figure it out.
Ezra is happy. This is pretty much boy heaven so he's having a ball. He's
been helping Caleb and running around outside and learning to ride the 50.
He's good.
Elsa misses her cousins. She's slightly out of sorts. I think she is happy
to be home, but it's been harder for her to adjust to the different pace of
this life. She really thrived on having people to see and places to go
everyday and we don't really offer that here. Again--so thankful for
Grandma. She's giving Elsa lots of special love.
It was really a strange feeling, driving home. It almost felt like we'd just
been gone on a normal supply trip and only been away a week or two. I had to
continually remind myself how much time has passed. Arriving home was
beautiful. Our area had a lot of much rain while we were
away--uncharacteristic amounts. So the tiny little flame and neem trees that
we'd planted around our house had exploded with growth in our absence and
now I have these beautiful trees outside my windows. Our workers did an
amazing job keeping up our compound while we were away and everything looks
beautiful.
So we've been home a week and I'm sure it'll still take time to settle in
completely--find our routines once again. It'll help once Daisy starts
sleeping more than 35 minutes at a stretch. We went out to church this
morning and she nearly caused a riot with everyone wanting to see her and
touch her. It was sweet to see all of the familiar faces of our friends and
neighbors.
35 minutes are up. Gotta go get the babe.
prove true. I beg extenuating circumstances...saying good-bye, packing,
flying, staying a week in Addis to re-supply and get some things done,
>driving two days home and arriving to find the radio (our main mode of
communication) broken. Thankfully Papa Swart is fixer-extraordinaire and was
able to figure out the problem and fix it. Back online...well, as online as
we get down here.
Settling in has been interesting. It feels good to be in our own space,
dirty as it may be...part of settling in is readjusting expectations of what
being clean means. I received a major gift from Caleb's parents--they
insisted that they make the trip from Addis down to Omo one day before us,
so that they could clean out the houses and put the boat back in the river
before we got here. I really can't quite imagine what it would have been
like to arrive here with Daisy and try to get everything cleaned up. It's a
heck of a job, and Caleb's parents did it all for us. It was such a relief
to come home to a cleaned up house and a cold fridge and a cooked meal.
Daisy is a hit here. Everyone loves her. She's pretty much the first white
baby the Daasanech have ever seen. Settling in with Daisy has been fun in
that regard but kind of miserable otherwise. She's hot. And she won't sleep.
And she misses her swaddler. But she's too hot to swaddle. So she's
requiring a lot more attention than usual, at a time when I have a lot more
things to do every day. Poor baby. We'll figure it out.
Ezra is happy. This is pretty much boy heaven so he's having a ball. He's
been helping Caleb and running around outside and learning to ride the 50.
He's good.
Elsa misses her cousins. She's slightly out of sorts. I think she is happy
to be home, but it's been harder for her to adjust to the different pace of
this life. She really thrived on having people to see and places to go
everyday and we don't really offer that here. Again--so thankful for
Grandma. She's giving Elsa lots of special love.
It was really a strange feeling, driving home. It almost felt like we'd just
been gone on a normal supply trip and only been away a week or two. I had to
continually remind myself how much time has passed. Arriving home was
beautiful. Our area had a lot of much rain while we were
away--uncharacteristic amounts. So the tiny little flame and neem trees that
we'd planted around our house had exploded with growth in our absence and
now I have these beautiful trees outside my windows. Our workers did an
amazing job keeping up our compound while we were away and everything looks
beautiful.
So we've been home a week and I'm sure it'll still take time to settle in
completely--find our routines once again. It'll help once Daisy starts
sleeping more than 35 minutes at a stretch. We went out to church this
morning and she nearly caused a riot with everyone wanting to see her and
touch her. It was sweet to see all of the familiar faces of our friends and
neighbors.
35 minutes are up. Gotta go get the babe.
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