January 28 - February 11
Professionals say that you should write the most important information first. I have always thought this a poor idea as it provides readers the perfect opportunity to skim the first paragraph and then disregard the rest. So, (perhaps like always) you’re going to have to wade through the mindless drivel before reading our exciting good news . . . .
Christian has begun telling us that he’s going to have a baby. “See: my tummy’s growing up.” This is really unintentional coaching from his father who has tried a gamut of excuses to explain his own sweet tooth and accompanying “spare tire.” Christian’s proportionately smaller figure is no less rotund than his father’s—probably average for toddlers in general, but his attempt to justify eating a variety of foods of the dessert food group is remarkable. He is deeply settled into the phase of life in which dinner is disgusting until there’s a cookie at the proverbial bottom of the plate. He regularly asks to be excused from the dinner table having picked at his potatoes, poked at his peas, and pushed aside his pasketti, but as soon as the dessert tray rolls by, he’s suddenly regained his appetite. Like father, like son.
But it may not be totally my fault. As they used to say back in the days after the Great Depression, “It’s that confounded jazz music!” A few days ago, we were listening to a children’s jazz CD with the song “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House” about a guy who encourages Davy to eat more gravy, Hanna to have a banana, and Barney to fill up on—you guessed it—chile con carne, and so on, and so on, and so on ad nauseum. Christian loves the song and last time he heard it commented, “That guy sure has a lot of food.” The boy is rather astute. Hours later, while playing with the remnants of one of the many made-in-China toys that was broken within hours of Christmas morning, he said, "Santa's a cheese skate," which we can only guess is a cross between a cheese cake and a cheap skate, the latter being what he was really trying to say. If he only knew what a miser the real Santa is . . . . Hours after this comment, he piped up, "I don't have any money because I don't have any pockets." That philosophy will get him far in life. At least he can always justify incompetence.
Christian’s fascination with scuba divers continues unabated, and my fascination with its origin continues as well. It’s all thanks to the movie “Finding Nemo.” Having watched the film several times myself, I can tell you that the diver is only in the film for a matter of seconds, really. It’s strange to me that it was so impactful to Christian, but since those hot summer days of repeated viewings, he hasn’t stopped dressing up with gloves, tank, and goggles and going around snapping pictures of stuffed animals, sibling(s), parent(s), and anything else that comes across the viewer of his imaginary underwater camera (or, ‘crama,’ as he calls it). He even asks people to reenact the scene: “Okay, daddy, you go over there, and I’m the diver, and I’ll come up to you, and you be scared when I take a picture of you.” Christian just about had a conniption when a friend of his gave him a real, child-sized snorkeling mask. He carries it around the house, dives with it during bath time, and it is his new, latest bed fellow. He is also crazy about Batman, who knows how or why. We are currently using it to our advantage by informing him that Batman eats lots of carrots and broccoli and fish so that he can beat up people and ride his cool motorcycle really fast. We're not sure how long this will keep him fooled.
Christian has also caught on to church primary in a big way. When the older children got up to give talks and read scriptures in closing exercises last week, Christian kept blurting out loud, "Now it's my turn: I want to do that." It seems at church that the kids only have two volume levels: loud and loudest. Henry's verbal excitement at seeing the sacrament trays loaded with bread and water is becoming almost ridiculous. I've never seen a kid so carried away by the spirit . . .
Henry’s alimentary likes and dislikes seem to be more related to place than substance. He can only stand to be in his high chair for three minutes before he’s throwing a fit to get down. (We have a sneaking suspicion that when the nanny’s watching him, he never makes it into the high chair, and she literally has him eating out of her hand . . . .) Of course, he can’t reach this temper without first throwing food from his tray onto the ever so recently cleaned kitchen floor. When told not to throw food onto the floor, Henry responds with a devilish smile as if to say, “Had I known this simple attempt at getting rid of food would draw so much attention, I would have been doing this months ago.” So Henry, who doesn’t like much of anything, usually ends up wandering around the kitchen clearing out every single cupboard of pots, pans, bowls, etc. during dinnertime . . . and lunchtime . . . and snack time . . . . He has also become fond of throwing everything he can hoist a foot off the ground into the garbage bin. Just this morning, we found one of my socks, a lid to one of the pots in the kitchen, and the cord that connected the TV to the VCR. Who knows what else he has thrown away in the meantime, but Amy is having trouble locating one of her student's writing journals . . .
Amy’s opinion of food has mysteriously changed in the last few weeks. Lately, she just feels sick to her stomach all day and nothing sounds good. When she is hungry, she wants very specific things, down to the brand, e.g., “No, Rich. How could you think I want that disgusting excuse-for-a-pizza from Pizza Hut? How insensitive. I want Little Ceasar’s. Duh!” So I bravely go into Dubai rush hour traffic and drive across town to the only Little Ceasar’s in town (AND the only pizzeria whose delivery area we live just outside of), and order “anything that has pineapple on it” per strict orders. At home, Amy bests me for the most-slices-eaten award and then tops it all off chugging a quart of chocolate milk. “I’m impressed,” I concede. It's rare, but at times it's like she's eating for two.
Okay, okay, okay: now for our good news. Amy is actually eating for two! We are expecting our third bundle of joy sometime in mid-September. We are hoping for a healthy (read girl here for Amy) baby that will sleep a lot, eat well, and keep the poop to a minimum. Since we haven't had one of those kind of babies yet, we think we're just about "due."
Me? I'm just waiting for Girl Scout cookies. Yes, thin mints, samoas, peanut butter delites, all here in the middle of the Middle East. All you folks out there who think we're eating locusts and honey: eat your heart out. Even in Dubai, I hold the record for the most contraband cookies smuggled into this household! Until they arrive, I'm forced to snack on Scottish shortbread and hobnobs. But Amy's unusual cravings are certainly rubbing off onto me. This week, I couldn't drink enough milk. Normally, I'm an h-two-oh fan, but this week it was cow juice that floated by boat. The other strange sympathetic occurrence is the having of vivid and strange dreams. Amy can't get through a single night without seeing pop star Sting take her hostage or help Rich plan a snowshoeing trip across the desert for his work colleagues. I don't know if it's just hearing about her dreams, but recently I've started experiencing this odd phenomenon as well.
We hope that all is going well for our beloved family and friends -- that's you guys! Keep us updated on what your cute families and yourselves are up to. We would love to hear from you.
Our movie quote is in honor of all the Brits living here and on that little island of theirs:
Who are the Britons?
We are all Britons, and I am your king.
Well, I didn't vote for you.
You don't vote for kings.
Well, how'd you become king then?
The lady of the lake . . .
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"