Monday is the new Tuesday

Hey there,

This morning Benjamin slept until after 8am.  I actually had to wake him up so I could drive Thomas to work.  It was awesome.  I just wish we could have slept in, but it was good to take the van out for a little spin.  When I spell "van" I keep typing "can", and that's not an inaccurate description.  Thomas thinks the back needs new shocks, which maybe it does.  All I know is it's a beater.  Anyway, traffic was really light this morning and I dropped Thomas off at the embassy and then headed home, no incidents.  And that's all the driving I've done so far!

Kristin and her boys picked us up at 10 for a playdate.  It's a very organized group, maybe ten moms and their kids.  The apartment was about 15 minutes away and we hung out on the very large patio.  The hostess provided awesome snacks and we just chilled for a while, then there was an organized song circle, with parachute and silly props, like little rubber snakes for the "snake song", etc.  It was cute.  Benjamin was a little freaked out by all the people but I think he'll enjoy it eventually.  I'm sure he gets bored with just me.  But he does have Emy now, three days a week.  Tomorrow she comes so I can do the class and then get nails done with Kristin!  What a treat.  I'm excited.  Not about driving though...

I was totally beat after we got back from the play group, so Ben ate lunch and then we both took naps.  Not long enough for me though!  I'm just worn out if I don't get my morning nap.  Pretty sad.  We hung out at home and played, then he took another afternoon nap around 4.  He's been in that pattern, he'll sleep from 1-3, play, get fussy, then I'll put him down and he'll sleep until 5:15ish.  Weird.  I guess he's still tired from teething and everything.  I just wish he could sleep from 1-4 or 2-5.  That would be the holy grail.  But I didn't medicate him tonight, he didn't seem super fussy about his teeth.  Normally he's good with me brushing his teeth, like tonight.  I know there's trouble when he pulls away right after I start.  Fingers crossed he can sleep through the night and until 8am.

I tried to take pictures of Benjamin today, he likes to grab Thomas's hat off the entryway table and have me put it on him.  But he was very fussy about it today.  So here's an angry face, and then a sweet face.  Sorry they're so blurry.

 
Funny little guy.  Thomas came home and we ran right out and put gas in the van, the *ahem* gentleman who sold it to us left just a teeny bit, on my way home this morning the gas light came on.  Sigh.  So we had to drive around a bit, they aren't on every corner like back at home.  And they're all full-service, which is interesting.  The guy pumps it and you round up the total and he gets the overage as a tip.  There were lots of people on the road, heading home from work and to their Iftar meals.  Not the best time to be out and about.  We were trying to turn right out of the gas station to get back on Circle Street (Zahran) when a truck just zoomed past, in reverse.  Backing up, at speed, on a 3 lane highway.  Oh yeah, anything goes here.

We made it home safely and ate dinner (spaghetti) and Benjamin played a little before he went down.  Now it's fun internet time.  Oh last night we watched "The Devil's Double" about Uday Hussein (Saddam's son) in Iraq in the 80s and his body double.  Ooof, not sure I can recommend it, it's very violent and disturbing.  I'm not sure how much is true, but evidently he was a pretty awful guy.  That's a movie I never need to see again.  But Dominic Cooper, who plays both main characters, is awesome in it.  He's very convincing as a normal guy with a conscience witnessing these atrocities, and also as the insane perpetrator.  Yeah, only watch it if you have a strong stomach.  Enough said.

And on that happy note... But really, thanks for reading.  If y'all have questions or suggestions, critiques or sneak peeks (what does that mean?  eh, it rhymes) then please leave it in the comments.  Hope y'all are having a good week!

-Rachel

The week begins

Marhaba,

Today was pretty awesome.  Benjamin slept until almost 8am, which is waaaay better than 7.  I got him up and eating breakfast, Thomas rode to work with the neighbors, and I got ready in time for Emy to show up at 9am.  She played with Ben and they had a good time, I started some laundry and showed her the cleaning supplies and what to feed him for lunch.  I left about 9:35 and caught a cab pretty quickly.  Getting to the embassy takes about 5 minutes so it was a quick ride, about .60JD, which is a dollar.

My "class" is really just me and one other woman, who is very nice and we talked a bit after the class.  The teacher is a nice Jordanian woman who is friendly and hopefully will be a good instructor.  We got worksheets with conversations, and just went through how to say hello and other little things.  I need to review at home and find some online pronunciation tools.  There are a couple sounds in Arabic that English just doesn't have, and my mouth and throat are uncooperative.  But it was good to start practicing and meet a new friend.

Thomas met me for lunch at 11:30, it was fun to hang out just the two of us during the day.  Although he enjoys getting to see Benjamin for lunch sometimes, maybe on a class-free day I can swing by.  Because, drumroll please: we got the van!  Our residency cards came in and the dude dropped the van off tonight.  It still has his plates, and we don't have a parking pass for the embassy until our plates come in, but still.  I'll drop Thomas off at work tomorrow and hopefully make it home without incident.  We drove around a teeny bit tonight just to celebrate.  It's definitely an old van, 1999, and has 130K on it.  I'm a little sketched out, the check engine light is always on because the dirty fuel here messes with the catalytic converter (not that I understand).  So I'm hoping Thomas might let me drive the Cruiser if I'm still not 100% confident in the van.  We'll see...

In other exciting news, we got two packages from Target, one was two tubes of face scrub and the other were my two new pairs of sunglasses.  Yay!  I will definitely be wearing my contacts more now.  It's suuuuuper sunny here, all the time.  Hardly ever cloudy.  Which is great, except for pale people like me.  We've got a couple more packages to wait on, some things needed to go through the pouch which takes longer than the DPO.  Certain things can't be shipped to a DPO.  It's always fun to get stuff in the mail.  I remember studying abroad in college and it was the best thing ever to open up the mailbox and see a letter from home.  Ahhh the good old days.  I have to say, living overseas this time is still hard with all the differences and language and general craziness, but it's so great having Thomas here and the support network the embassy provides.  (This is a whole three weeks worth of wisdom for ya.)

Oh and I think Benjamin was okay for Emy, he took a little nap in the morning so she was able to clean a couple bathrooms (awesome) and straighten some things.  I think she'll work out, she's very sweet.  I hope that Benjamin will grow to really like her a lot, and look forward to hanging out with her.  She's no Alison (sniff) but she'll do.  It was really nice to take a break for a couple hours, do the class and lunch and get a couple things at the co-op.  Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a playgroup with Kristin and her boys.  I'm not nearly ready to try and drive anywhere outside of the embassy and home, so I'm grateful for a ride.  I can't believe it's already August.  Time is already flying.

Hope y'all have a great week,
Rachel

Weekend, Part 2

Aaaand we're back.  Saturday was great, extremely low-key and relaxing.  Ben and I took morning naps while Thomas figured out our financial situation.  Yay for Thomas!  I'm really grateful I'm not the money person in charge, it's a lot of pressure.  Very thankful for my finance/econ major husband.

We (or really I) had planned on going to the pool this afternoon, but Benjamin went down for a nap at 2, then woke up again at 3.  Then got super fussy and went down at 4 until 5:30.  Poor baby, he's a mess.  I think it's the teething more than anything else.  Looking forward to that being over, whenever that will be.  We ended up just hanging at the house and playing on phones and the computer.  Thomas walked to a nearby grocery store to get some bananas and bread, just basic stuff while I stayed home with Ben.  I watched the trailer for "The Master", Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix.  Looks awesome!  Evidently movies here are very expensive, so that might need to be a splurge.

After dinner, which was pita and hummus (did I mention I'm not a cook?) we went for a little walk around the neighborhood.  It was nice to get out and walk around, the weather felt good and we went by a little community park.  No grass, of course, and there's usually some litter everywhere, but it's cute.  No toddler/baby swings, though. 

Here are some pictures, Ben enjoying the pillow on the floor, reading a book with daddy, and then our walk around the 'hood.  Notice the gargantuan height difference in the sidewalk to the street.  Must have been ten inches.  I'm really regretting not having bought a more off-road type stroller.

After we got back Benjamin was super fussy again, so we packed him up for bed a little early.  Since he's waking up at 7am anyway, might as well.  Tomorrow I'll need to really wake up and get going, since Emy will be here at 9am.  The plan is for her to meet Ben again and play a little, then I'll leave for my class and eat lunch with Thomas at the embassy (yay!) and then I'll head home.  I think Benjamin will take a nap, so maybe she'll be able to get a little cleaning done.  That would be the best case scenario.  Fingers crossed!

Tonight we're just stretched out on the couch, maybe we'll watch something on Netflix.  I'm still not used to Sunday being the start of the work week, but I did enjoy having church first thing on Friday.  And maybe we'll get our residency cards this week and be able to drive the van.  That would be amazing, then we could start sightseeing.  There's a work holiday coming up, some part of Ramadan, so I'm hoping we could go to the Dead Sea for a night, or do something interesting.  And it looks like my friend Clay is hoping to visit in the fall, which I'm super excited about.  Seriously guys, come visit!  Hopefully in a couple months we'll be able to be tour guides.  And maybe, if my class is good, I can speak a little to the locals!  Here's hoping.

-Rachel

Weekend, Part 1

Hi y'all,

Friday we finally made it to church.  Kristin and her oldest boy picked us up, because her youngest was sick and staying home with daddy.  I'm so glad we got a ride, because we would have never been able to describe how to get there to a taxi driver.  It was more in the northwest area of Amman.  The church is technically the Anglican church of Amman but there's a special service for families with kids.  They meet in a person's home each week, the hosting duties rotate.  So we hung out with about 4 other families, then the kids went with the pastor's wife to do a craft and the adults stayed in the living room and sang songs, then went through a fairly traditional order of service.  The sermon (really more like a homily) was more conversational, not very formal.  It was nice.  Afterwards the hosts set up lunch, so we got to eat and mingle some more.  The people were very kind and it was neat to meet some expats who aren't embassy families.

Benjamin got a little fussy toward the end, I had him on my lap the whole time.  But he was just really tired and ready to go home, eat his peanut butter on bread and take a nap.  I was worn out too, he's been getting up at 7am these days.  Not. my. jam.  So I'm hoping that with just one nap today, and going to bed a little early, maybe he'll sleep in a bit tomorrow.

After everyone finished napping around 3pm I started laundry and we just hung out.  Thomas and I cooked dinner while Ben sat in his high chair at the kitchen island.  I'm really going to miss having a large, eat-in kitchen.  We may have to buy a house immediately upon our return.  Eeek.  Oh and our renters move in this weekend, I really hope they like it and want to stay for two years.  And that their dog doesn't eat all of Thomas's garden.  Anyway, after dinner we went out on the patio and just watched people and cars go by.  It felt amazing, must have been low 70s with a good breeze.  It was hot when we left church around noon, but man it gets great in the evening.  Thomas brought over some of the chairs from the patio off of the kitchen so we could rest and just hang out.  Benjamin sat with us for a little while but then wanted to get down and crawl, and walk with daddy, and just be active.  Here are a few pictures.

Benjamin is doing this funny thing where all of a sudden he'll just lie down and roll onto his back.  I'm not sure if he does it because he's tired, or for fun.  It always makes me laugh.  After crawling and walking and rolling around in the dust, he was just covered in gray.  So immediately after going inside Thomas gave him a bath and I did the dishes and folded laundry.  It's a lot easier doing dishes now that I bought some kitchen/cleaning gloves.  I much prefer using the hottest water possible, and my hands were really feeling it.  Washing dishes by hand creeps me out, I feel like they aren't as clean as they get in the dishwasher.  Maybe that's just me being lazy, though.

Today was a good day, Benjamin's doing better but he's got two molars coming through so he's still fussy a lot of the time.  We're still doing the antibiotic, I really hope it's effective and the ear infection doesn't come back.  He really hasn't been that bad at night, thank the Lord.  Last night I went to bed late and he made some noise right around midnight, but I was still awake so I just held him for a bit and then he went back to sleep.  I'm sure he's tired of sleeping in the pack-and-play, that thing can't be comfortable.  I really want our stuff to arrive.  We definitely have the space to accommodate the church crowd, but I can't even use our oven until my pans arrive.  Not that I love cooking, but I would enjoy it more with the stuff I'm used to having.   Alright, TV time!

I hope you guys have a great weekend!
-Rachel

Productive Thursday

Howdy howdy,

Today was really good.  Benjamin had a fussy time taking his morning nap, but eventually settled down.  We ate a quick lunch and went with Kristin to Spinnys, a grocery store at the Taj Mall which is pretty near the embassy, and basically a straight shot from our neighborhood.  It's funny to me that the malls are the places for the nice grocery stores, but hey, I'll take it.  We parked in the underground garage and took the cart-escalator up.  It's a huge store, and they had plain Cheerios.  That was a big surprise.  But of course, only one box.  And it was probably $8 or so, but whatever.  I guess I should set up an Amazon shipment.  Another funny thing, they don't have honey nut Cheerios, just honey Cheerios.  I'm not eating them, but Thomas likes them okay.

I was able to stock up on some cleaning supplies so hopefully Emy will have what she needs when she starts working for us on Sunday.  I'm really excited to have someone to clean and watch Ben.  My class time got moved to earlier in the morning, which I'm bummed about 'cause I was looking forward to maybe eating lunch with Thomas occasionally.  I guess I could wait around for an hour, but that sounds boring.  Kristin and I will hopefully go and get our nails done sometime this week.  Yay!  I'm in dire need of a pedicure.  It's really a public service at this point, since I'm wearing sandals every day.

Tonight was BBQ night at the embassy outdoor cafe by the pool, so I got a cab around 5:45 and we met Thomas for dinner.  Getting a cab was no big deal, and I even counted out the correct change to the driver.  The coins are very similar, at least to me, so it takes me a while to figure out which one is 10 piasters, which one is half a dinar, etc.  Dinner was okay, it's never great but definitely passable.  And it's fun to sit in a group of Americans and relax.  There were tons of families, with kids running around in bathing suits.  I imagine we'll go to the pool sometime this weekend, it's a good fall-back plan.  Since we still don't have a car (argh) we can't really do the day trips, like to the Dead Sea or to the ruins around Amman.  But Insha'Allah (God willing, or basically, whenever it happens) we'll get our papers this next week.  And also maybe our UAB soon, which would be amazing.  


There's a sweet couple who work at the embassy and actually live just two buildings down from us, they were super kind and drove us home.  It'll be fun to have friends close by and hopefully we can have them over sometime, if I can get up some energy to cook.  One thing I forgot to pack is a baking sheet, I just need to buy one somewhere.  They didn't include one in the temporary housing package, which had utensils and plates, etc.  So the oven is basically useless to me until I find one.  Things to remember for the next time.


Tonight Thomas went to bed early, so I stayed up late and watched "Captain America" on Netflix Instant View.  It takes about two weeks for the Netflix DVD to get here, so we may up our subscription to two at a time, so we aren't just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the next one.  But the VPN is great, I'm so glad we can watch stuff online.  I feel a little left out of the Olympic stuff, I wish I could see the women's gymnastics stuff.  I guess it's probably on YouTube somewhere.  But it's also nice to be insulated from all the political commercials and idiocy.  


I hope everyone has a good Friday and weekend!  We're looking forward to hopefully, finally, going to church tomorrow.  


-Rachel

Happy Wednesday

Hello!

Today was much better, but of course, that wasn't too difficult.  Benjamin woke up early, I'm sure he was feeling his ear pain.  He didn't take much of a morning nap, and then we went to the embassy with Kristin to have lunch with Thomas.  We spent some time at the playground and Ben enjoyed the swings.  Thankfully he wasn't too fussy and even ate some goldfish and yogurt bites at the cafe.  (He hasn't been eating much of anything, just drinking milk.)

It was really nice to get out and talk to Kristin.  And I'm starting the Arabic class on Sunday!  There's a new class starting, for now it'll be just me and one other lady.  I was a little stressed because I had wanted to interview more people, but I called them and either the schedule wouldn't work (the class is 3 days a week) or they needed to be sponsored.  Since we've decided not to sponsor, at least not right away, I texted the first girl I interviewed and she accepted the job.  We're doing a one month trial, starting out at just 9 hours a week, which will end up being 45JD.  Not a small amount, but I definitely want to take the class.  If we need to up her hours in a couple weeks I'm sure she'd be glad.  We just need to find out what Thomas is making over here. 

So tomorrow Kristin is taking me grocery shopping again, yay!  I need to get more cleaning supplies so I can everything ready for when Emy comes on Sunday.  Although I think I'll just have her hang out with Benjamin so hopefully it won't be a disaster when I leave.  Eeep.  Please pray that they'll like each other and get along well.  It would be awesome to have a dedicated babysitter so Thomas and I could go out on dates.  Ahhhh to see a movie.  Decadent.

I don't think I mentioned it yesterday but Thomas got our cell phones set up, so I can actually call people while I'm out and about.  Super great.  It's nice to be able to text people (Kristin) and be more connected.  I don't know if the iPhone messenger will work internationally, I tried texting my dad and it didn't work.  It went as a text message, so that'll be an interesting bill.  But I also feel a lot better about going around town on my own if I can contact Thomas at the office in case I need him.  I hope catching a cab on Sunday won't be too terrible.  I think when you have a kid with you there's a little more respect, just a single American woman might be more ... interesting.  You're just not supposed to answer questions if they get personal, etc.

Benjamin's doing a good job taking his medicine, and I think it's working.  He didn't feel as warm today and seemed in pretty good spirits most of the day.  Now that the class is set up and we've got a housekeeper/babysitter, I'm feeling good about stuff.  Now we just need our residency papers so we can actually drive the van we bought, and for our stuff to arrive.  And I've got a couple packages from Target coming, looking forward to those.  One is a foam mat for in front of the sink, since I'm washing dishes by hand.  Ugh.  Marble tile floors are great for keeping the house cooler, but man are they hard on the back.  Another package (they got sent separately) will be new sunglasses!  Mine broke during the flight, not sure how.  But Target had a buy one, get one promotion so I've got a backup now.  And sunglasses are totally necessary.  I might be using my contacts a lot more, which is sad since I love my new Warby Parker glasses.  Yes, I'm an aspiring nerd.

I've got a couple new pictures, Ben on the grass at the playground and then this evening we sat outside for a bit and enjoyed the mid-70s temps with a cool breeze.  Not too shabby.

Sweet baby.  Even when he's fussy and mad I'm so glad we have him.  Now if he wakes up multiple times tonight, I might have a different story...

Until next time,
Rachel

Well, that was a (Tues)day.

Hey guys,

Today started off okay, Benjamin still had a fever of about 100, but seemed in good spirits.  He didn't eat much and drank a lot of milk, which has been the pattern the past couple days.  However after lunch he felt much warmer, I took his temp and it was 103.  That made my heart stop and I quickly called the pediatrician, made an appointment, called Thomas to let him know we were going, and we rushed out of the house.  I had to walk up to Jounia Pharmacy, at the traffic circle near us, to catch a cab.  And it seemed like 20 went by who didn't stop, but finally one did.  The nurse had given me directions, so I told the cab driver to go to 5th circle, by the Sheraton.  After talking to a guard near the Sheraton we figured out where the doctors office was, and I paid and hopped out.  Poor Benjamin was just sweating and miserable.  We waited for about a half hour, they squeezed us in at the end of the day.  The doctor was very nice, he had lived in Maryland for a long time and taught at Johns Hopkins.  He determined that Ben had the beginnings of an ear infection and also a virus in his throat (maybe just a cold?).  Poor baby.

He wrote a prescription and told me to give him pain reliever, we've been doing Motrin so I'm continuing that.  And the doctor was very kind, he called the building guard to hail me a cab, there are lots in front of the hotel.  I was able to direct the driver to the American embassy, then from there to the pharmacy, where I got Ben's medicine.  He'll be on antibiotics for a week, and then we'll go back for a follow-up in late August, since the doctor is going on extended vacation to drop his son off at college in the US.  What I thought would be the worst thing ever, hailing a cab on my own, turned out to be the least stressful part of my day.  After we got home Benjamin went down for a good nap, over two hours.  He seemed cooler when he woke up and was pretty playful with Thomas when he got home.

Needless to say, we were all exhausted with the drama of the day, so Thomas kindly ordered delivery from Faroujna, a Middle Eastern place he'd heard about.  It took a while for the guy to show up, I'm guessing they were pretty busy with Iftar.  I put Ben to bed right when the guy arrived with the food, he was so tired.  The food was delicious, but the hummus was weird.  It was very lemony, which is not a flavor I typically associate with hummus.  But the meat (I got chicken, Thomas got a mixed grill with lamb) was great, and came wrapped in this large, very thin pita-type bread thing.  I thought it was awesome.  So, the meal was a great capper to the awfulness of the rest of the day.  On the happier side I got to watch "Bunheads" while Ben napped, it was great to watch something silly and light for a few minutes.  And we finished up "Breaking Bad" season 4.  Whoa.  Crazy.

We got word that our HHE, large shipment by boat, has left the US and is en route.  Supposedly the UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) is at the airport in Amman, but has to go through customs.  We won't get it for a little while longer.  I'm looking forward to getting our stuff, but I'll also miss the spare, uncluttered look around the apartment.  Well, in some rooms anyway.  And I still want to rearrange the setup a bit, I'm thinking of moving the desk/office stuff into the guest room and making the office a playroom for Ben.  We don't really need a dedicated office, and it would be great to shove all his toys in one room at night.  Anyway, I'm not a good home decorator, I'll have to get your opinions on things!

I hope y'all have a calmer day tomorrow that I did today.  I think a lot of emotions had bottled up, just from the move and everything, and I really had to hold back from crying as I walked up to the pharmacy, holding Benjamin and praying that God would heal him and bring us safely to the doctor.  I know kids get sick, and ear infections are common.  But he'd never had one before, and that's the highest his temperature has ever been.  I'm so grateful that things worked smoothly, we got there fine and got home, no issues getting the medicine.  I just pray that he'll sleep well tonight and start feeling better soon.  At the doctor his temp was 40C, which is like 104F.  Ack.  Praise Jesus that he felt so much better this evening.  My mind and body are so tired, I think I'll crawl into bed a little early tonight.  (Before 11pm counts as early, right?)

-Rachel