The parable of dumping all the silverware into the bottom drawer

This morning was rough. 

It didn't really stop at the morning because the whole day was a little bit rough, if we're being honest. 

But the morning? It was rough.

I won't tell on everybody, but I will tell on the four year old. 

I interrupted Phoebe's play to ask her to help me unload the dishwasher, which—granted—was rude of me. Like, why should she have to do chores? Pretty rude. 

But she eventually decided that the dishwasher could be on the plane, so unloading it could be part of her game. But, like, if any turbulence happened she'd have to go back to her seat...which sounded fair enough.

Though...also...things did get turbulent.

First, though, here's a picture of her earlier in the morning setting the stage for today's pretend play:

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):

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. 

Well, good

This morning I was doing Phoebe's hair while she was playing Minecraft and she was prattling on and on about everything:

"Mom! Do you want to look at my house? I decorated it so goodly! I mean well. I decorated it well. Did you know that well and good are the same word, but you can only use them sometimes. You can't say that you do anything goodly. You do things well. Not well-ly, either. Just well. Like, I decorated my house well, you do my hair well. But things can be good, I think. Like this is a good house or this is a good hairstyle. You can't say well hairstyle. It's always good."

*****

Miriam and I are watching The Other Bennet Sister, certainly a pleasant watch (which diverts from Austen quite markedly, is drowning in anachronisms, and seems to be at least a little cloying (according to the linked-to review)—not only because our television seems stuck on "soap opera effect"). I'm reading The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion and this series seems like a lovely companion to that. I'm pretty unconcerned with doing Jane Austen justice or perfectly replicating society as it was during the Regency or Victorian eras. I'm simply happy to enjoy a rather wholesome retreat from the world and both serve that purpose. 

Light, fluffy, uplifting, occasionally quite humorous. 

When Mary is talking with Mr. Sparrow at a ball, he mentions something about "less oysters" and Mary quickly says, "Fewer. It's fewer oysters; not less." Miriam and I just about died laughing. I don't know that this was a joke in the series, per se, but it certainly is an ongoing joke at our house.

Ice cream v. Stranger danger

On Thursday morning Miriam took the metro to the library by herself for the "creative threads" group while the rest of us stayed home to do our homeschool lessons. Then in the afternoon I took the kids to the pool while she stayed behind to fold laundry. 

She's been here for one week now and I think the hotel apartment is starting to feel like close quarters for her. She's craving alone time (and that's fine). 

We are the first "generation" of employees at GUQ to get go house hunting on our own. In the past people have simply been assigned a place to live. While people are excited about getting to live anywhere in the city...living in a hotel while waiting to find a place is perhaps less than ideal, particularly for a family our size. But, there are perks!

Apparently popsicles at the pool are more standard than we originally thought. We've been offered popsicles three times now! 

Yesterday the lifeguard (who I am guessing is Filipino, though I couldn't say with certainty—some places...like Carrefour...have a person's originating country on their badges, but not here at the hotel, so I'm just guessing) came right up to Phoebe, who was taking a swimming break in a swinging chair. He patted her head and pinched her cheek and said, "Hey, hey—what's your name? Phoebe! Phoebe—do you want some ice cream? Come with me, we will get you some ice cream!"

And I just...am not sure how I'm going to teach her about "stranger danger" here when every time we turn around someone is trying to lure her away with ice cream. And the thing is...it's safe here...to allow oneself to be lured away with ice cream. It's a little less so in other places, but generally fine here. 

Anyway, here she is with her pink guava popsicle, which rejuvenated her swimming spirit:

It has been less humid lately and yesterday was so windy (and still quite hot). We've only been getting up into the low hundreds (in °F) this week, which has honestly felt more manageable than when we're reaching into the teens.

Phoebe's ice cream adventures in IKEA and disorientation in the GCC

I really will write about our flight(s) one of these days, but in all honesty they were pretty standard (albeit business class) flights and we are busy discovering the world around us. Today we took a field trip to IKEA so that we could get some kid-friendly dishes for our apartment...and to get out on the town and have a meal since we haven't quite figured out how to cook at home yet—we're still getting everything set up.

Years ago (approximately 20 now!) my friend Bridget gave me the advice to pack simple just-add-water things in a suitcase like instant oatmeal or ramen just so that I would know there would be something to eat upon arrival. And we did bring a few things (and have a Carrefour in our basement, as the kids like to joke), but while we're getting settled this was a nice treat. 

After having lunch we wandered around to look at things and try out couches and beds and pick up a few essentials. Then as we were approaching the check out counter Andrew saw a sign announcing ice cream cones for 1 QAR. That's like 0.27 USD! Phoebe has been dropping hints that she would appreciate an ice cream cone for days now. 

Walking around the mall yesterday she pointed at some kids rapturously licking ice cream cones and said, "Look—some parents did get their kids ice cream!" as if to tell us, "See? It can be done!"

We've been telling her no a little too much for her liking. 

She is not the only child who feels this way. 

But at 1 QAR a cone we decided the answer could be yes today.

We ordered five ice cream cones (I didn't have one because I didn't want to take out my braces again) and the kids sat and ate them at the tables by the exit.

Lifelong teasing

Yesterday I was doing Phoebe's hair and asking her silly questions to help her keep still.

"Who is the cutest Phoebe in the world?" I asked. 

"Me!" she said proudly with a giggle.

"Who is the sweetest Phoebe in the world?"

"Me!"

"Who is the smartest Phoebe in the world?"

"Me!"

"Who is the goofiest Phoebe in the world?"

"You!"

"What—me?!" I objected. "But my name's not even Phoebe!"

"It is," Phoebe insisted.

"It is not!" I said. 

"It is," Phoebe explained, "It's just that no one has ever called you that because everyone has been teasing you for your whole entire life."

This is just the kind of joke she'd consider hilarious (she's been confusing Rachel and Miriam since she was about 6 months old...surely in part because she neglects to verify their identity entirely before saying their names, but also because she thinks it's funny—some days she'll switch them up entirely, other days she'll call them Rachel #1 and Rachel #2 or Miriam #1 and Miriam #6000). She's all about a good long-term prank.

A gripping tale

"Oh, dear!" Phoebe cried, barreling up the stairs and crash-landing, completely out of breath, in my bedroom doorway. "This baby's family got on the boat to Qatar and left her behind! I just found her in the basement all alone! She is so scared! What do we do?!"

This story has all the trappings of a very dramatic novel.

There was a little girl

 

There was a little girl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,

            She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow apparently composed this poem while walking his infant daughter up and down and around and around in the middle of the night. So it is appropriate that Miss Phoebe had this curl spring up right in the middle of her forehead the other day. 

She is so much better about bedtime than she used to be...but I do remember those horrid days of pacing the floor with her every night (and just the other night she had Andrew up most of the night because she just couldn't sleep and was so very sad about it). 

Double the Phoebes

Phoebe met another little girl at the pool today. 

"Hello!" she said. "Do you want to play with me?"

"Sure!" said the little girl.

"Okay!" said Phoebe. "What's your name?"

"Phoebe," said the little girl. 

"No, that's my name," Phoebe said, shaking her head. "What's yours?"

Phoebe's Slide Face

Our neighbours threw the most awesome block party today (in our honour) and the main attraction was an inflatable waterslide. Phoebe was thrilled about this, telling Grandpa on a video call yesterday that she was super glad about it because the last time we went to a waterpark the kids weren't even allowed to use the waterslide, which wasn't very fair (and also wasn't very true because only children under 4 ft tall weren't allowed to use it...all other children were). She loved the waterslide...

But her face had me harkening back to her early days when any change in elevation made her cringe:

Waterpark with swim team friends

One of my swim team mom friends started a group chat with about a dozen swim team families, suggesting that we meet up at a water park this afternoon. So that's what we did! 

When we took this picture we had about 25 kids (though some more came later). You might think it would be difficult to gather 25 kids from several different families together for a picture, but this waterpark enforced "adult swim" for the last 15 minutes of each hour. 

Adult swim is not my favourite concept, but I do admit that it has a few perks. It forces the kids out of the water so they check in with their parents. You can reapply sunscreen, make sure kids go to the bathroom, take a group picture...and so on. 

We really took advantage of the first adult swim that was called. 

"Come on, moms!" one of my friends called. "We've got the pool all to ourselves. That's right—all of us. Miriam grab Phoebe. Who will take Baby Red?"

She marched us all over to the water slide and demanded we head up the stairs. It was really quite fun! We all went several times. 

And then the kids suggested a jumping contest off the high dive. 

It was also fun to just float around in the pool, taunting the children that we were swimming and they weren't!

Stripey kids

 I came across this memory of a very stripey outfit that Rachel put together for Zoë on July 3, 2017:

I noted on Facebook: "Rachel dressed Zoë this morning. She wanted everything to, uh, match. So, rainbow-striped shirt (18 months), rainbow-striped pants (9 months), rainbow-striped hair bow, and striped socks."

Oh, what do you do in the summertime?

It was hot today.

Our swimmers were hosed down with cold water while they swam because the pool was a little too warm to work out in. It was hot yesterday morning—hot enough that we got hot just playing around and had to go home to cool down. 

We didn't plan on extra pool time today because...it was just too hot.

But our little neighbour knocked on the door asking if they could have phase two of the water fight they started last night. 

"Only this time can we use your hose?" he requested. "Because my dad is working. I can bring all my water balloons! I just need a grown up to fill the tub with water!"

So that's just what we did because...it was hot!

We brought out one of our empty bins as well. I haven't decided on the fate of this bin yet (it doesn't have a lid) but it made an excellent little pool today. 

Here's Phoebe dancing around in the arc of water from the hose (I had to keep making water rainbows for the kids to run under while I filled the bins with water).

Sounding things out

Apparently Phoebe's doll Anastasia turns one in just five days (we're on a countdown until the party—it's going to be huge, I'm told...there's fireworks and everything). 

Mumbly mornings

Last night we did not have a thunderstorm, but Phoebe remained terrified of the non-impending storm all night long and throughout the morning hours. 

See, the kids stayed out late playing night games (kick-the-can and things of that nature) and they noticed that they sky was simply crackling with energy. The clouds were resting about 60 miles away (the storm was over Athens) but we could see the lightning in the clouds on the horizon. The kids were very excited about this—it was quite neat to watch, but felt a little strange because we couldn't really hear any thunder (whether it was too far away or whether the cicadas and katydid screeching simply covered it up, we will never know). 

Phoebe was completely freaked out. 

She wouldn't go to bed. And then when she did finally go to bed she woke up a few hours later in a state of panic over our inevitable doom. 

We tried to explain that the storm had dissipated before it made it to us. We didn't see a drop of rain or hear a single crack of thunder. We looked out at the stars—see how clear the sky is? We looked at the weather forecast—no storm.

We tried lullabies. We tried nightlights. We tried prayers. We tried melatonin. We tried stories. 

We tried simply sleeping snuggled up beside her. 

She remained on high alert. 

Procrastination

"I need to call the doctor to make an appointment for you girls," I said to Phoebe and Miriam while we were playing with play dough in our rather empty basement. 

"Oh, for what?" Phoebe asked. "Please not for shots."

"For shots, actually," I said. "I don't remember which ones. I just have a note in my calendar that says to call the doctor to schedule a couple of shots for you. I remember that when you had your check ups you both had the first shot in a two-shot series, so now it's time for the second shot."

"Aw, man!" Phoebe said. Then she asked brightly, "Can you make the appointment for Sunday?"

"Why Sunday?" I asked (not even bothering to tell her that the doctor's office is closed on Sunday). 

"Because I don't like shots," she explained.

"How would making an appointment on Sunday help that?" I asked.

"Because I know I'm only four and I don't have a good sense of time, but I do know that yesterday was Sunday so that means I have a bit of time to go before it's Sunday again."

"I see," I said. "You'd like to put this off for as long as possible."

"Yeah."

"I'll see what I can do."

Their appointment is for Thursday, which is still a good ways off!

A birthday and a swim meet

This morning Andrew took the first set of kids (A and Z) to swimming and then came home so he could be here when our moving pods were delivered. I was getting the second set of kids (B and P) ready for swimming when Andrew came home—and it was a good thing he came home when he did because the pods were delivered half an hour earlier than what they stated our expected delivery window to be!

Phoebe was very excited to get to watch the fork lift at work while I braided her hair. 

I took the second set of kids (B and P) to swimming and brought home our two middle swimmers (A and P). Then I went to the dentist and Miriam went back to the pool to pick up the remaining children (Z and B). 

So it was a bit of a swimming circus in the morning.

And I had to get some metal "buttons" for my particularly stubborn teeth...and having braces makes me feel a little bit grumpy. Honestly, we joke about Miriam sometimes because whenever she comes home from getting her braces tightened she needs, like, a three-hour nap to kind of reboot because it just makes her so grumpy. And I...kind of understand that...because...same.

And there are always so many surprises. Like, you might just think you're going in for an ordinary check up and they're like, "Oh, while we have you, we're just going to put a power chain on..." (or whatever).

And, like, sometimes I'm not emotionally prepared for a power chain (or whatever), okay?

So today I was grumpy that I had to get metal attachments (so much for the invisi- part of Invisalign) and elastics. Especially because my Original Plan was to work through twenty sets of trays over the course of forty weeks. That still sounded long to me, but I was like, "Fine. This will be worth it."

Folks, it has been 585 days since I had my braces put on! 

There are only 280 days in 40 weeks. I have been in braces for more than 83 weeks now. I'm so over this whole process. 

I readily admit that I really do have a very stubborn tooth that still needs some fixing, so it's not like it's the dentist's fault. But I still feel a little grumpy about it. 

Couple with that has just been some stress of trying to figure out what to do about my job now that we're moving overseas...and whether and how to continue working...and how to figure out my course schedule and what kind of tuition I will be paying (which depends a bit on what I figure out about my job). And then some things are happening that make me wonder if I even want to continue in that position and what certain things like "free speech" even mean these days when everything feels so stifling. 

Lucky for me there was cake and ice cream when I got home from the dentist. And then I got to have a nap (to try to get over my grumpiness and my cold and have enough energy to make it through the evening's swim meet), which was lovely.