"See, See!"

"See, See" is the refrain that echoes through our compound these days because that is what Tiras says several hundred times each day. He especially likes us to "see see" things in the sky.

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Sometimes he will say "See! See ant!" And sure enough, he will be pointing to an ant. While we have a range of sizes of ants in our compound and while they all seem to send an occasional representative or two on quests into our home, we are fortunate to have very genteel ants. None of those biting fire ants or safari ants for us so far. And I hope it will stay that way because those biters sting! Here's hoping that by typing that in the Blog I don't have to soon eat my words and fend off the biters!

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In general Tiras is talking up a storm! He loves to use new words and seems to be gaining them by the day. "Indow" (window) is a newly acquired word Tiras seems to particularly savor saying! He also has started saying "Micah" rather than just "Cah" and this has proven to be a source of great delight to Micah, who is intent upon teaching Tiras to now say Micah James.

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And Micah has his own special way of "see see"ing lately. If he really likes something he is viewing, he will announce "I'm going to take a picture of that." He will then make a clicking camera noise and capture the image in his mind forever with his brain camera. The other day he beckoned me, "Mama, come and see this grasshopper!" Out on our entryway was a beautiful green grasshopper. I was just thinking how great it was that Micah appreciates nature with so much enthusiasm when he busted the brain camera move. And it touches my heart every time!

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And, oh my goodness, I can barely concentrate on typing any more news and text until I say "See! See! I learned how to post an image!!!" And it seems fitting to give you the setting of our blog tales. Pictured above is our compound. Our home is the unit on the right of the duplex pictured above.

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To the right you can see the shadow of the one stand-alone home on the compound. Living there is a couple with grown children and they are great with the boys. Tiras makes several trips a day to their front steps. Cement steps he insists on climbing. And our neighbor always comes out to visit with us when one of these climbing sessions is underway. Even when it is early in the morning and she is having coffee and still in PJs. She's that kind of friend and neighbor. And she sure does take time to get to know my boys and what they are like and what they like. She has planted various veggies and recently went out of her way to share seeds with Micah so he could do the same. She also showed him the first squash to grow on the thriving squash vine she cultivated from a seed! She likes science and seems to anticipate well what will be magic to a science fan like Micah. She also came to the Friday morning assembly at Micah's school to see him presented with a certificate for being a student of the week for reading.

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Behind the photographer is the other duplex on the compound. This is the home of the other two CDC families. This is where I ate just about every night Deron was away in the U.S. and Ghana for a conference and meeting. This is where I watched my boys lavished with love and smiles. This is where I watched my boys giggle and laugh with their beloved buddy, Aria. This is where I was kept far too busy and happy to ever have much time to feel lonely while Deron was gone.

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And the couple residing in the other side of our duplex are very nice as well! They just arrived here fairly recently and both have had some travel, so we don't see them quite as much yet, but always encounter warm smiles. Plus, they have added two more doted upon dogs to the compound. What's not to love about an elderly pug named Pudgy and the frisky and ever-jumping beagel puppy named Harley?!

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This, right now, is home. And come Thursday, I will be giving thanks for the blessing of my friends and family far away and for all the ways technology helps soften the blow of that distance and I will also be giving thanks for this wonderful and warm community which has become like a family to us here in Kisumu. We are blessed indeed!

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Note: I could not get spaces between paragraphs and since it looked like an overwhelming blob to my eye, I tried several ways to get those spaces and settled on the asterisk approach. For those of you who "follow" the blog, I hope you don't get an alert for every time I edit or you probably have about 10 for this entry alone!