Mallory’s Birthday
Mallory turned one on the 10th. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed so quickly. I made a cake that looked like a watermelon because that is her favorite thing to eat. She wasn’t sure what to think of everything. I found a little princess party hat and put in on her head when we sang to her. We had invited our friends, the Willis family, over and then called in our househelp, who adore Mallory. We all sang to her and she was all smiles. When we gave her a piece of cake and a scoop of ice cream she looked at it and picked up the whole scoop of ice cream. She held it for a second and then just started to cry because of how cold it was. She wouldn’t let go of it though. We had to make her drop the scoop. Then she wouldn’t touch the cake, I assume because she thought it was just as cold as the ice cream. I finally got her to eat a piece off a spoon and she was happy.
We found some Fisher Price toys in one of the toy stores here. Unfortunately, they are two to three times the US price. We bought a few anyway and she has really enjoyed them. A couple of them play songs and I often see her playing with them and dancing. She’s a fun little girl and very different from the boys.
I found some strawberries at the grocery store last week. I put two on her high chair tray for lunch that day. She looked at them, picked them up and started to eat them. I walked away and then heard, ‘NO!”. I walked over to her and found the strawberries on the floor. I picked them up and got her some new ones. This time, I sliced them and put them on her tray. She looked at me with a look like, “Hey lady. I told you I didn’t want these!” yelled, “NO!” and swiped them off her tray again. I got the hint. She definitely has an opinion.
Her new words are Ba Ba which means baby, she says ‘Wow’ every time she hears thunder, and says, ‘Da Da’ which is Indonesian for ‘Bye’.
After much searching, I found some new sandals for her. They squeak when she steps and she thinks they’re the greatest thing. She loves to walk around and hear them squeak. When she does, she’s all smiles.
Baseball
The boys started baseball a couple of weeks ago. We now spend our Saturdays up at the school on the baseball diamonds. Luke’s and Grant’s games are in the morning and Nash’s in the afternoon. It gets so hot sitting there for hours. We’re all so hot and sweaty after the games we usually come home and all take a swim.
Grant was the pitcher yesterday during one of the innings (it’s machine pitch but he has to catch the return balls). One of his friends, Arama, was on the other team and was up to bat. He hit the ball straight for Grant and it hit him in the shin. I totally missed the whole thing, but noticed Creed was carrying Grant off the field. When I got to the dugout I looked at Grant’s shin. There was a purple bump swollen about an inch already. It looked horribly painful. Several parents were around with ice and ointment. Grant did not shed one tear! I was so shocked and so was everyone else. Today it is bruised and very sore. I told Grant that he was very brave. He said to me, ‘Arama said he could hit hard.”
United Nations Day at School
This past week the boys had UN week at school. They had to decorate several posters with things from their home country. Now, had I known this, I would have brought a few more things. I had one piece of American Flag scrapbook paper and we made it go as far as we could.
On Friday, the entire school had to come to school in their home country’s traditional costumes. Grant, in preparing for it said, “Mom, America is dumb. We don’t have any cool costumes.” I said, “Yes, we have cowboys.” He looked at me and said, “That’s not American, that’s from Texas!”
I finally convinced him to wear a plaid shirt, jeans and his cowboy hat. He wanted me to find him some cowboy boots, but I told him fat chance.
Friday morning, they had the parade of flags. All the students marched on the field and stood behind their country flag. It was so interesting to see how many countries were represented at their school. Countries like, Ethiopia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Swaziland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, India, Argentina, Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and many others. They had the Olympic music playing and it was quite stirring to see all the students. Then they marched off and into the theater where they presented each country and its flag and the children cheered for each one. The school choir sang some very moving numbers about children all over the world and singing a song of peace. It brought tears to my eyes.
For lunch that day, they had the ‘Taste of the World’ lunch. Parents signed up to bring dishes from their home countries and the kids were able to try them. Then they had another assembly where several children did their traditional dances. The Koreans did the fan dance; two Argentinean kids did a dance, the Indonesians, Americans, and several others. The boys loved it.
It’s good for the boys to see that the world is a big place and that we can all come together. They have made friends with kids from all over the world.
Thanksgiving
We are going to do our best this Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving. The turkey won’t fit in our oven (I had to pay a small fortune to get a turkey) so we are going to try to BBQ it. We are keeping the boys home from school and Creed is taking the day off.
We hope you will all enjoy this time of year. We want you all to know that we miss you and think of you often. We are thankful for this experience we are having and also thankful for family and friends. Happy Thanksgiving.
