Daily studies and other stories...

Alexander picked this position to do his writing work this morning:

The Villaggio Mall

Phoebe spent the day as an only child, a position she took to quite well. 

She is rather emotional and tends to be rather strongly affected by nostalgia—which is odd because she's only four. How nostalgic can she really be, right?

Remember how just hearing the song 'There's Always Tomorrow' from Rudolph would set her off crying all the time? Like, we could just start singing it and she would start crying? 

It was hilarious, but very indicative of her personality. 

The song just made her so sad that she couldn't even handle it. 

Similarly, she had to laugh boisterously through the entire (loud) call to prayer because it was so loud that once she was startled she was going to either laugh or cry and she settled on laughing and...that was that. Like, those giggle weren't going anywhere until the emotions had fully run their course.

Well, last night we were getting ready to play Nerts together, which Phoebe had uninvited herself from because it's too fast-paced for her. Instead she sat down with a phone and asked it to play some memories for her. She loves the little video montages Apple puts together. So she was just sitting down and watching one of those movies when she started sobbing. 

"Oh, Phoebe! What's wrong?" we asked. 

"Do you...do you miss me?" she blubbered. "Being this little?"

"Oh, of course I miss that sweet little Phoebe! She was so cute and cuddly and funny! But we also love this Phoebe," I said, giving her a hug. 

"But I was sooooo cuuuuuuute!" she wailed. "And I was so little! Just look at me!"

"You were so cute and little! You were my favourite little Phoebe in the whole entire world! And it is so hard to watch you grow up because I always miss little Phoebe. But it is so fun to watch you grow up because you become more incredible every single day!"

We watched a few movies of her being little and cute and fun and we laughed and hugged and blew our noses (or at least her nose)...and...she's not quite over wishing she could reclaim her babyhood, so today (Saturday) was a good day for her to be an "only child" for the day.

Benjamin slept over at G's house last night. 

Miriam left for the library to hang out with her knitting group friends early this morning.

And then Andrew took Zoë and Alexander over to G's house to hang out with G's younger siblings. 

So it was just Phoebe and me and Daddy for most of the day, which was perfect for Phoebe.

We did some window shopping at the mall at some home goods stores, just to see what's available furniture-wise (since we have none), and she quite enjoyed walking around, trying out furniture, and imagining putting a room together. 

Oh, and convincing Andrew and me to carry her. 

I don't know what sweet nothings she was whispering in his ear when it was his turn to carry her, but I had an ongoing rendition of "Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy! She is so nice and sweet! And her cheek is soft and she's wearing black pants! Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy!" going the whole time I was carrying her. It involved lots of nuzzling into my neck and hair. She was very clingy. 

But here she is down for a moment in the rug section (she claimed this area as her fort):

Lotion!

It has been one month since we left the United States, so today I'll confess that I didn't pack lotion. I packed a lot of things, but I didn't pack any lotion. In fact, I gave away a few perfectly good brand new bottles of lotion that had been sitting in our storage room because I didn't want to pack them all the way here. 

Why?

Because they have lotion here. 

Obviously. 

I packed an extra bottle of hair detangling spray because I wasn't sure that they would have that here (I don't know why), but we found some right there beside the children's shampoo (which is in the baby aisle), and it was a good thing, too, because that extra bottle of detangling spray I packed broke on the way over here. 

Which is precisely what I envisioned a bottle of lotion doing.

So I didn't pack any because for sure, for sure they have lotion here, right?

Apparently wrong. 

Rachel's Alberta roadtrip

Rachel and Auntie Josie decided to take advantage of the Labour Day weekend and drove up to Alberta to do some visiting before Rachel leaves on her mission. They drove up to Rexburg on Wednesday after work and spent the night at my cousin Elizabeth's house, and then made it all the way to Grassy Lake to my cousin Eric's house on Thursday. 

I'm so proud of them for taking this road trip! What cool people! 

Earlier in the summer Rachel took a solo roadtrip from Atlanta to Tallahassee, which she was terribly afraid to do, but which she said kind of changed her brain. She managed that drive all on her own, and she managed the drive up to Alberta with Auntie Josie just fine (she said it was even better than all the city traffic in Atlanta/Tallahassee areas....and I believe that...I quite like driving in the middle of nowhere compared to city driving). 

Here's Rachel, having just made it to Alberta:

Crystal Walkway and Hala Summer Contests

Andrew got his residency card and that mean's we're apartment shopping.

Today we looked at some apartments at The Pearl. 

Really I wanted to look at this great apartment right off the Msheireb metro station...but alas it was snapped up before we even got to look at it. But our real estate agent suggested some other apartments at The Pearl.

We looked at one and were not very impressed. I just don't see how it could possibly be as big as they were telling me it was (or perhaps it was simply that a lot of the square metreage was a terrible use of space) and it was rather...run down...though we were still considering it. 

And then he took us to another place that was incredible. It was a little over our housing allowance (meaning we'll have to pay some of our rent out-of-pocket), but for its size and location it feels worth it. Plus, most utilities are included (whereas at the other place no utilities were included). Plus, we get a percentage off because of our corporate connections...so...it all...seemed to even out in the end. 

Eventually we won't need a place quite this big, but with five kids (all homeschooling), it feels necessary. 

We wish the pool were bigger, but it also comes with access to the beach and a long, air-conditioned pedestrian promenade called The Crystal Walkway, which looks beautiful enough in the daytime...but our real estate agent said we had to return in the evening to see it all lit up:

Church City, license plates, and little things

Church City is a designated quarter of the city where churches with official status can rent out buildings for their congregants to worship in. Our friends attend the Anglican church, which shares its facilities with the Seventh Day Adventists. There's a Catholic church as well as a Coptic church, Greek Orthodox...and a handful of other officially recognized religions. And they all meet in that quarter. 

Privilege

We went to IHOP the other day, which was a bit of an extravagance...but was also really good...so I suppose it was somewhat worth it. Phoebe got a funfetti pancake and was thrilled to pieces.

She got ridiculously sticky eating it, so Andrew grabbed one of the "moist towelette" packs the waiter had left on the table and offered to clean her up a bit. 

"What is this?" she asked. 

"It's a moist towelette," Andrew told her.

"Huh," she observed. "It's not even hot! The ones on the airplane are hot!"

We were given hot towels to freshen up with at meals and at waking time on the plane. Miss Fancy Pants thinks that should be normal, apparently.

Ella's chair and cutting with scissors

As promised, here are some pictures of the adaptive chair Phoebe made to help Ella be able to join her friends at the table. 

Phoebe-isms

Today Phoebe was running into our bedroom at top speed—which requires multiple turns down a hallway and a brave dash past the scary full-sized portrait of a falconer—when she "stabbed" her toe. 

"I stabbed my toe!" she shrilly announced. 

"You did what?" I asked. 

"Stabbed my toe!" she repeated. "I stabbed it right into the wall!"

She meant "stubbed."

*****

Every time we get on an escalator—which is a lot these days—Phoebe makes some remark about getting to ride the "excavator."

She also saw a sign at the airport in Turkey that used the word "travelator" for "moving sidewalks" and since that was her first exposure to them, that is 100% what they are to her. She will not be convinced otherwise. 

As I was saying...

"I won't say that the call to prayer is ever disappointing to hear, but we've mostly heard it played quietly over the speakers in the mall or the library, almost like soft background music. We had high hopes that the muezzin at the suq would really belt it out...the way they did in Cairo when we lived there...but it ended up being much quieter than we expected (which was a little disappointing)..."

—me, like two days ago 

This evening was a bit of a circus with Andrew staying late on campus, me having meetings at 4:00 and 7:30, Miriam having a YW activity in one location (7:00), and Benjamin having a YM activity in another location (also at 7:00). 

After my meeting, Miriam and I heated up some boxed soup from France (so fancy) and we quickly ate dinner. And then I took all the kids on the metro down to the Corniche station and then walked Benjamin down to the soccer pitch while Miriam took an Uber to her activity (which isn't precisely on the metro line). 

There was some confusion about which pitch was which (the security guard was certain we* hadn't reserved the pitch we had so wouldn't open the gate), but since Benjamin was with his leaders and peers, we left him to walk across the street to the playground on the other side. It was quite the hike to get to the pedestrian bridge! It looked so close, but the access point was so far. 

* We is doing a lot of work in this sentence because here "we" means...the church? The YM leaders? I think actually the bishop reserved the pitch. We (as in me and the children) merely showed up. We contributed nothing to the logistics of the evening.

I was in a hurry to get to the park and send the kids off to play so I could hop onto my meeting. A lot of video call features on social media apps are blocked in Qatar (like FB is...even WhatsApp), but thankfully Zoom is not, so I was able to connect and have my meeting from the park, which was very convenient. But I wanted to make it to the park before my meeting, so was rushing the children along. 

And then I heard, off in the distance, the call to prayer. 

"Hush, hush," I said to the children. "Be still and listen and you'll hear the call to prayer."

"Oh, yeah! I hear it!" Zoë said. "Where...does it come from?"

"Well, you know the tall towers at the mosques? Those are called minarets and they have a special kind of balcony where a muezzin stands and sings the call to prayer, which is then usually broadcast over a loudspeaker..."

"Too bad," Zoë said looking around. "I don't see any minarets nearby."

"Me neither. Shhh...we'll just listen quietly for a minute."