November Hello!

Note: On November 21, I added some images from our expat Halloween! Many thanks to Grandma for sending us costumes and Aunt Kimmy for sending us Halloween candy from home. Skittles and Tootsie Rolls do great in the mailing process!

It is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and the idea is to post every day of the month including weekends. Well, in honor of NaBloPoMo, I figure I will endeavor to at least post ONCE this month. Wry smile. Blah blah blah internet down and blah blah blah busy with kiddos and all the usual reasons for falling way behind.

I do miss blogging more regularly. I have had the distinct delight of finding out good friends have been reading my blog and it makes me feel so connected to you to know you are out there reading this from time to time! Plus, I like the idea of having a little record of our family's time here in Kenya and here in toddler/preschooler mode for the boys to read later (and for me and Deron when the details so crisp and pronounced now start to inevitably fade a bit).

It's been a happy time. Because I have let so much time go by between posts, we have yet another bullet format update.

• In October Micah started really making some breakthrough progress in his swim class. He was concerned about drowning for a while there, but finally trusted Teacher Mark enough to spread his wings and fly, or swim as the case may be. It's been a number of years since he took his first steps in our New York appartment, but I do believe my thrill at seeing that face in the water, arms reaching overhead, and legs kicking was as acute here and now as it was back then. I realize walking is such a huge developmental milestone, but there is something about seeing my baby boy SWIMMING all on his own that just seems so incredibly capable and independent and as if he is plunging into the outside world. It is thrilling to me!


• Tiras is like a little toddler version of an extreme sports athlete. It's not enough to climb tall cement steps, which has my heart in my throat more often than not, but I am learning to hover close and yet give him enough space to try out new skills. No, it is not simply enough to insist on making an obsession out of climbing up and down the most precarious spots on the compound; once he masters these steps he has to start swinging his arms as if to jump and, at a minimum, to make balancing more difficult. I haven't found new grey hairs yet, but we shall see what I am looking like when he rings in birthday number two!


• Tiras is talking more and more. I think I am going to have quite a chatterbox when we share more words from the same lexicon. For now, it is so fun to see his delight as he uses a new word and looks at my face for a reaction. He also makes me laugh with all his pretend phone calls. These can take place with my cell phone, a shoe, his hand, really just about anything. They start with a hearty "hello" and have a pretty animated middle content (though this is where the differing lexicon limits my ablity to fully appreciate all that is going on) and end with a "goodbye". One morning I heard him chattering away in his crib and came in to discover him in the middle of one of these phone conversations. He smiled brightly at me but kept talking to his hand/phone and I swear the smile looked as if he were trying to say "good morning--so great to see you mom--but I really have to take this call". It is rather hilarious.


• Micah received a certificate at one of his school's Friday assemblies recently. I thought he was going to be too shy to even stand up. Instead, he walked up to the head teacher and I swear he puffed out his little chest and just beamed at all his schoolmates, teachers, parents etc out in the audience as the head teacher explained that Micah was reading three letter words. He was thrilled and delighted and I got such a kick out of how much he enjoyed being the center of attention. Did not see that coming based on how shy he can be in group settings.


• While we do not have crisp weather, gold, crimson, and orange leaves, jaunty pumpkins, or other traditional signs of autumn here, we DO have an expat community which celebrated Halloween in style. There was trick or treating on a couple of the Embassy compounds here followed by a potluck dinner party at our compound. The kids were SUPPOSED to get to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown but the DVD did not work. This DVD was provided for the occasion by yours truly. Yes, I do have a teaching background in which I was trained to test every single audio visual before class time. No, I did not do this because I did not think our brand new boxed set of Charlie Brown holiday DVDs would contain any defective DVDs. Yes, I did assume and yes I do remember what happends when one assumes. Yes, the defective DVD did have to be the one DVD which we needed for a group of kids hopped up on sugar who had been successfully corraled into one place and were now impatiently waiting for this great movie they had been promised. Yes, I have learned my lesson! (I have also ordered a replacement and Micah watched it yesterday and had a giant grin on his face! How fun is it to see my kiddo watching what I watched as a kid?! I tried to explain how we did not have DVDs and so we could only see this cartoon when it came on television once a year. I explained how everybody would be home watching it at the same time and how it was really special. Micah seemed pleased to have the DVD option!)


• We have plans for a big expat Thanskgiving gathering next week! Looking forward to it. Still, I cannot actually believe it is already November. Time is truly flying by!


• My history books and Schoolhouse Rock DVDs have arrived and I am really excited about both. The latter brings back so many memories. The history series is really great. It's by Scholastic and is the If You Were There series. I love the format and it contains a lot of information. Micah loves the Schoolhouse Rock videos. "Interjections", "Interplanet Janet", and "The Shot Heard Round the World" seem to be his favorites right now. Which is a nice range of grammar, science, and social studies now that I type this out!

Here endeth today's writing. I may try and jump on the NaBloPoMo bandwagon late and do some daily posts. I think it might be fun later to have slices of life reported that consistently. Recognizing, of course, that some slices of life might be "could not post yesterday because internet was down every time I sat down to computer."

And to all a good night!