December 5 - January 16
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all that jazz. So as not to compete with all the other Christmas updates that have been written, read, or filed in the big round filing cabinet, we now present the Bangerter blog. Actually, we have just been way too busy to write anything. We have included a table of contents so that all you people out there who have trouble reading an entire newspaper in one sitting (and we’re not talking the weekend edition) can skip to the most interesting parts, of which there are a great number.
Istanbul
Christmas
Cute Kids Doing Cute Things
Since arriving in Dubai, Rich and I have both been able to fulfill one of our respective life-long dreams. Rich has now seen the Temple of Karnak in Egypt and Amy has been to Istanbul. What an amazing city. We spent the first two days just grateful Christian and Henry were a four hour plane ride away, and then we spent the last two days falling in love with the city. It could be the fact that Dubai is basically just one big mall, but we were overwhelmed with the sense of history and culture in Istanbul. It seems like every major ancient civilization has been there and left brilliant reminders of their reign. Our favorites were: of course the Hagia Sophia where you can see a fresco of the Virgin Mary and the Christ child right next to an enormous metal pendant that reads Allah is great; the enormous underground Roman cistern complete with two Medusa head pillars to keep the evil spirits at bay; St. Chora Church which boasts the largest collection of Byzantine mosaics in the world (and may I just say that these mosaic and frescos defy description); the Dolmebache Palace where Ataturk died which was visible from our breakfast nook in our hotel; the bustling Istiklal Street which I think we visited at least once a day every day we were there (a great place to eat, window shop, and people watch); and the Spice Souk where we found the best Turkish delight while the scent of saffron, tumeric, and Ottoman spices wafted all about us. We also found some really neat old churches, wandered around neighborhoods where real people live, and drove across the bridge that connects the Asian and European continents. The Turks we met were fantastic people. We had heard the Turks like babies, but we had no idea what that meant until we were out walking around with Cyrus. I don’t think I’ve ever seen sixteen-year-old boys make such a fuss over a baby before. Everywhere we went people would stop us for a better view of the baby, stroke his head and mutter, Mashalla, Mashalla (God protect him). On a couple of occasions we would look behind us to find a group of people following us trying to see the baby. Cyrus, bless his heart, slept through the whole thing. We would stop every once in a while to change his diaper and Amy would nurse him in the back of the taxis. It was one of the best trips either one of us has ever been on or may ever be lucky enough to take.
This year our Christmas was a rather low-key event, as low key as it can be for a family that traditionally breaks out the Christmas CDs on Labor Day Eve. It was great fun to hear Christian walking around the house this year singing, “Do you see what I hear?” On Christmas Eve, Christian was really excited for Santa Claus to come and give him a new ‘puter’ (computer), even though on Christmas morning when we were asking him who came the night before he hadn’t the foggiest idea what we were talking about. (Who? Who came last night? he kept asking us.) Henry was a little bit disappointed that there were no more chocolates left in our advent calendar on Christmas morning. He kept sitting in his high chair asking for chocolate, one of only 30 words he knows. You can tell he is spending way too much time with his mom. He’s also spending way too much time with the maid since his favorite Christmas present was a little cleaning cart complete with working vacuum cleaner (Christian has already vacuumed up a bunch of popcorn, a jelly bean, and two candy wrappers), mop, broom, bucket, sponge, and cleaning rag. Henry also liked his little garage and the GeoTrax set that Santa brought Christian. Henry is much more into trains than Christian is: I don’t know what Santa was thinking. Christian’s favorite toy was a rather large rescue copter, complete with rolling stretcher, little plastic casts, an IV line, a rescue four wheeler (which Christian insists on calling a “fwee wheewer”) that fits inside the helicopter, and a machine gun mounted to the copter’s front end just in case they have to shoot their way out of the jungle after rescuing a fallen hiker. Clearly a Republican Party approved toy. Christian also got a computer with reading games on it, and an SUV/robot transformer SO complex it took Rich about 45 minutes to morph. We’re talking removing hatchback doors and attaching anterior wings, etc. Ages 5 and up my eye. Santa brought Rich a bunch of music and videos, and Santa didn’t bring Amy anything: darn APO. She didn’t get any coal either, which seems to indicate she wasn’t THAT evil last year. Cyrus was just happy to be here.
The kids are growing up so fast. They (whoever that is) say that the days are long but the years, or in our case, the months fly by. Christian is becoming a curious mix of immaturity and eldest child syndrome. We were driving past a local bank the other day when Christian made the astute observation that the bank looked a lot like a temple. As Rich was about to launch into the historical connection between the architecture of banks and temples for Christian’s sake, he happened to glance in the rearview mirror only to find Christian with his finger up his nose. Needless to say, the impending conversation took a different turn. One of Christian’s favorite joys in life is telling Henry what he can and cannot do, and contributing his two cents to his parent’s discussions about discipline. It’s usually along these lines: “Mom, if Henry does X one more time, he should go to time out.” And it’s not just us. Christian approaches total strangers and tries to have adult conversations with them. It’s like he feels he has some special access to the adult world that Henry or Cyrus will never have. Perhaps there is a bit of truth to that after all. Christian always begs you to play with him, but refuses to share the cool toys with you and he has these long, drawn out scenarios, like mini plays, which he explains to you in great detail and which you are then supposed to remember and act out with the nerdy guys he has allowed you to play with. Christian’s favorite word is “pizz”, his version of because. He also says things like, I love to be “taked”, meaning he wants to go somewhere, and regularly informs us at sunset that the sky is bleeding. He heard his name for the first time last week in church in a talk about how to be better Christians. He turned to Rich and I and asked us why that guy was talking about him. He is enjoying being here in Dubai (he likes to find large snails on the beach and throw them into the water), but we think it’s about time to get him back to the States: he thinks the first president of our country was George Washing His Head.
Henry’s language development has skyrocketed these last few months. Some of his favorite words are “Shishan” (Christian),“e-ya-yo” (stands for cereal which he and Christian would eat until their brains turn to fruit loops), “appy” (happy, although Christian insists Henry is talking about his cousin Abby), “meamy” (a unique combination of Mommy and Amy; the funny thing about Henry is that he tries to get my attention by calling me Meamy-Daddy and the same thing for Rich), “oo-oo-aah” (a monkey), “eeein” (electric beaters or blender), and bye-bye IS the car. We walk into a parking lot and he points at all the cars that aren’t ours and says, “no bye-bye.” He also calls all crackers and cookies “fishies,” in honor of his all-time favorite snack on the planet, Goldfish. In his childhood innocence, he also thinks that every time somebody on the road honks their car horn they are saying hello so he waves and says hello back.
Cyrus is the most alert of all the Bangerters, which isn’t saying much considering how tired his parents are, how spaced out Christian is, and how bent Henry is on destruction. He doesn’t sleep but a few minutes a day, and when he is awake, he watches everybody’s every move. It’s probably a self-defense mechanism since at any moment his two older brothers could crush him into oblivion. The threat is mitigated by the fact that he now weighs about as much as Christian does. Henry loves to snuggle with him, although Cyrus doesn’t like eating Henry’s hair that much. Cyrus can already swordfight with Christian if mommy helps him, and he is so very smiley that we all love to be around him. His presence has truly made us a family, and a happy one at that.
We miss you all, and hope that one of your New Year resolutions is to let us know how you are doing at least once this year.
Movie Quote: “Dinner, the Japanese word for the evening meal.”
“Roast beef, the Swedish word for beef that is roasted.”
Count Olaf, A Series of Unfortunate Events