Catching the bus

We have gotten very good at timing our walk to the bus stop so that if we run the last little leg of our journey we just barely are able to hop on the bus. 

I'm not sure if that's actually a good thing...but it's our thing. 

I took the kids to a library event today (a crafting session) and then we popped by Andrew's office to show him the results after he finished teaching and then we headed home (while Daddy headed to mutual night). 

When we arrived at our home metro stop, I pulled out my phone to check where the bus was along its route. 

"And what bus do we take again?" I quizzed the kids.

They don't really know our address, but they could get themselves home from pretty much anywhere in the city if they needed to. Even Phoebe could direct someone to drop her off right outside our door, if need be. She knows all the landmarks.

They chorused the bus number.

"Okay, it looks like it should be coming soon...there might be one over at x-stop...but I don't really want to miss picking the bus up here if it's already looped around..."

We debated whether to cross the street or to stay on the metro side (we basically have two opportunities to catch the bus because it picks up at the metro, drives to x-stop, and then goes around the traffic circle and stops at the street across from the metro before continuing on its loop. But crossing the street can be tricky.

There was a woman near us (from Africa somewhere) and she's the one who saw our bus approaching on the opposite side of the street.

"Is that your bus?" she said. 

"Yeah," I said. "But...we'll just catch the next one..."

"Go!" she said. "It will leave without you!"

"I just don't think I can cross the street in time with all my kids..."

"Come, come!" she said, stepping into—and stopping—traffic.

Pencil holders and roof dinners

Phoebe can be a very intense child. For example, she made this creative pencil holder this morning:

She was very excited about it. 

Very. Excited.

When the moon hits your eye

We went to the beach this afternoon. Miriam watched the little kids while Benjamin and I swam (like, she really did watch them—she wasn't on her phone the whole time) and then went home to work on her application essays for college.

The rest of the kids and I played out the afternoon.

Miriam is 17!

I didn't see much of Miriam today. She and Benjamin spent most of their time in Education City at a homeschool teen meet up. They were going to make a whale shark out of water bottles for some eco-art display somewhere, but they pivoted and went with a jellyfish instead, which I think is wise. A whale shark is an ambitious project—it has to be executed correctly in order to be recognized as a whale shark. A jellyfish, on the other hand, is...blobby...and a little more general. There are so many different kinds of jellyfish that your project has to be a generally recognizable blob and you'd have succeeded. So, that's what they were working on.

They also went to one of Andrew's classes where they learned about sampling sizes and extrapolating survey answers to make them applicable to the general public (or something like that). They were looking at the colours of M&Ms to see what colour the factory in Poland (that produces all the M&Ms for the MENA region, apparently) favours. Using a small sample size of "everybody in class gets a package of M&Ms to count" they can determine the percentage of colours the factory in Poland produces (which differs from other places).

Miriam's birthday cake

With Rachel out of the house, Zoë is determined to become the new baker of the family. It's extra challenging for her because we live in a new place with different ingredients and a tricky new oven and a kitchen that isn't entirely set up.

She baked the cakes yesterday (from a mix...because our kitchen isn't entirely set up...and we don't know where or how to source all the ingredients we need for American-style baking yet) and it was clear we still had a thing or two to learn about how our oven works.

I love yêu!

"I'm sending you emojis to tell you how much I love you and I miss you!" Phoebe explained to Rachel while pressing the heart button a million times. 

"You! You! You! You! You!" she said as she pressed it.

"FYI—she's saying 'you' because for us it says that under each heart she sends because it's coming from our account," I explained.

"That's really funny," Rachel said. "Because in Vietnamese love is yêu."

So I love yêu means I love love!

Stake conference and no kittens

 

In the middle of stake conference, Phoebe handed me this picture and explained, from left to right, that this is our sun, and this is our sun as a red giant, and this is our sun as a white dorf (dwarf), and this was our sun as a black dorf (dwarf)—you can barely see the little speck of it on the page. 

So I'm happy to announce that science class is going well (thanks, Science Mom)!

Rain storms and Ramly

It was cloudy this morning—a rare sight in Qatar! We saw reports that it was absolutely pouring in Education City, but we missed out because we were not in Education City...we were at home. Still, it was neat to see the clouds roiling in from the sea.

Fortunately she stopped before she crashed into the Berlin Wall!

Being a kid here in the Middle East hits different than being a kid in North America.

To be sure, there is a wide range of experience for children on either side of the world, but in general children are not only tolerated more here—they are celebrated more—than they are in North America.

As an example, a friend of mine recently described a six-hour flight she went on and how the child behind her kept kicking her seat. Her description—hopefully—waxed a little hyperbolic. She shared a video showing a few lurches in her seat before she just goes crazy being jostled in her seat, thrashing back and forth enough to give someone whiplash. 

Typical Tuesday

This morning Benjamin and I hit the bay early for a swim...and found this cute little hermit crab wielding an auger for a sword: