10 Ideas for Traveling with Small Children

When it comes to taking  my children across the world on long plane rides by myself, a question I often ask myself is, "Why?" or even, "Why me?!" But a lot of people ask me, "How?" Well, that's something I've been learning, and I'd like to share a few techniques I've picked up over the years. There is no easy answer or quick fix. It is just plain tough and pretty miserable sometimes. But it is doable, and it's getting less and less miserable.

My first long flight on my own was with a 2 1/2 year-old Penny and a 9-month-old Naomi. We had a 13-hour flight from the US to China, and going in I figured, "Well, they'll probably just sleep the whole time." Period. That was my expectation, and that was my plan. I brought some things for myself to read and do on the flight (ha!) and some fun toys for the girls, and high expectations of a happy, quiet, sleepy flight.

Well, they did NOT sleep, at least not for the first 11 hours. The airplane had drop-down TV screens in the aisles, and Penny couldn't see the in-flight movies unless she was standing up in her seat, and it turns out sleeping is pretty hard when you're standing up. Also, when I'd try to nurse Naomi and have her sleep, grumpy 2-year-old would be jealous of the attention I was giving her sister and start kicking her. So nobody slept. I even tried to make Penny sit down by spanking her every time she got up. That certainly didn't work and made everyone feel worse. It was a rough trip. Penny did sleep in the 11th hour, but then an hour before landing, they "wake you up" and feed you breakfast. So she got a snippet of a nap, and I don't think I slept at all. 

Things have gotten better. How could they get worse?! I've learned a few things that I'd like to share, beginning with:

1) Lower those expectations!

Did I seriously expect a baby and a toddler to just sleep through an entire afternoon/evening/night on an airplane? What was I thinking?! Kids, even small kids, get excited to go on an airplane. In general, this means they'll skip their regular naps. They might sleep for part of it, but that can't be the flight plan. 

My expectation is now this: my kids will probably all be awake for the entire flight. Then if they get a single hour of sleep, I am impressed and grateful, rather than at my wit's end! Usually they get more.

2) I keep my watch set to the time zone where we were

As a younger person, I'd hop on the airplane and immediately set my watch to the time of our destination. If it was nighttime there, I'd try to sleep, or vice-versa for daytime. 

Have you ever tried to convince a toddler to sleep all night when it's actually daytime? It doesn't work. Neither does arbitrarily deciding it's nap time when you're sick of playing with your toddler. So I keep my watch set to where we were, to give me an idea of what their bodies are telling them. I try to keep up with snacks and naps like we would have at home. 

3) Nighttime routine

I haven't had to do this lately, but when my kids were even younger, I would bring things so we could do our whole nighttime routine on the plane. I'd change them into jammies, go brush their teeth, then read a story and tuck them into "bed" with a small blanket or special teddy bear from home. If our bedtime at home was 7:30, I'd wait until 8:00 or 8:30 to start it on the plane, so everyone was a bit more tired and ready to fall asleep.

4) Snacks!

I pack a ton of snacks for our plane rides. And this is no time for the boring snacks we eat at home. No, we get fruit snacks, M&Ms, goldfish crackers and all sorts of special treats we never usually buy. And I bribe the kids. I'm sorry, but there is a time for working on intrinsic motivation in your children, but an intercontinental flight is not it! If they won't sit and stay buckled, they will if you dangle M&Ms in front of them!

And feed them regularly! My kids eat snacks or meals about every 2-3 hours in our house. Hungry kids are cranky kids, and I don't want any of those on our flights. And I sometimes forget how long it takes to check in, go through security, find the gate, and line up for the flight. But whenever I find myself in line with a cranky kid, out come the snacks-- once even for someone else's cranky kid!

A note about snacks: you're not allowed to bring fresh fruits, vegetables, beef jerky, or boiled eggs into the US from outside it. I may or may not have accidentally done most of those. But the airport beagle finds them-- especially the beef jerky.

5) Involve the kids

When Penny turned 2, she got a cute, pink, Mickey Mouse backpack. From then on, she has used it whenever we travel. She carries like 3 toys in it, so it doesn't exactly keep her occupied for the whole flight. But it keeps her interested in all the steps in the airport.

When we go through security, she likes to get her own tub and put her own backpack in, then push it through the little scanner. She likes to take off her shoes like Mom and Dad do, even though she doesn't have to. But she loves being involved. When kids are treated like another load of baggage to be handled through the airport, it's not fun, and it's more work for us. But give them something to do, and it's much better for everyone.

At the end of the journey, when we're waiting for our suitcases to come to the carousel, the girls like to put their little backpacks onto the carousel and wait for them to come around. Then they're so excited to pick them back up again! It used to be like pulling teeth to keep Penny in one place after how-many-hours of traveling (and no sleep...). But when she's keeping busy collecting her own backpack (over and over and over), it doesn't really matter how long it takes for our luggage to come off the plane.

6) Activities on the plane

I've found some good ideas for what to do on a plane on a couple websites:

http://www.parenting.com/gallery/50-ways-entertain-kids-plane

http://therulesofmotherhood.com/2013/12/16/16-ideas-keeping-small-children-busy-airplane/

When I scroll through those sites, I'm usually inspired by a few of the ideas. For me, the less preparation beforehand, the better. And there are a lot of those ideas.

My sister does watercolors on the plane with her 3-year-old. Um.... I thought she was crazy. But if you give them about 1/4" of water in their cup and keep a baby wipe on hand, it's actually a very manageable activity. You're sitting right by the whole time as it is, which is more than I can say about when I've let the kids watercolor at home.

Some people buy new toys and let the kids open them on the plane. I've done this once or twice, and it's fun, but it's always a gamble whether they'll actually play with the toy for very long. Sometimes a few weeks before a flight, I go around the house and collect some of their favorite activities and hide them until our trip. Then they're basically new.

We often get up and walk around the airplane. As an adult, I know that even though I'm sitting there looking at the back of the same seat for hours on end, that I'm actually zipping through the air at a ridiculous speed getting to the other side of the world in mere hours. My little kids, though, just look at the seat in front of them. So every little while, we get up and walk around. Sometimes we visit the other babies on the flight. Sometimes we go talk to the flight attendants. But the kids need to move, and I hear it's not bad for me either.

You notice how I didn't list any apps for kids? The iPad is my last line of defense, not my opening act. My kids are small, and they can happily play on the iPad for an hour or two at most. This does not help me on an 8, 11, or 13-hour plane ride. What am I supposed to do for the rest of the trip, once they're sick of all the new apps? We save it for the last 2 hours of the flight.

7) Let the kids get bored

Before one trip (a 5-hour train trip in China), I prepared for days beforehand, collecting and making cute little activities to fill up our time. I gave myself a "Mother of the Year" sticker and a pat on the back. We got on the train, and I pulled out the first activity. Then after 5 minutes, she was bored, and I pulled out the next activity. Within about 30 minutes, all my activities were done, and I had two bored kids and nothing to entertain them with.

Now, when we get on the airplane, those backpacks stay shut. The kids read the safety information card, the shopping magazine, and look at the maps in the back of the in-flight magazine. They learn how the tray table works and what all the buttons do. Then they play pretend with each other. When the whining begins, I pull out one toy-- usually the lamest one. On our last trip to the US, I didn't even bring out the iPad until halfway through the second flight, and it was only because I was trying to sleep and the whining had gotten that bad.

8) What I pack

As little as possible! I've learned after traveling quite a bit, that it is not a vacation if you have a gajillion bags and suitcases to drag all over the place. I'm pretty proud of our last trip: one suitcase for four people on a two week trip to New Mexico and Los Angeles. But because of those four people, we also had three car seats, a large stroller, a carry-on, and a diaper bag, as well as two little girl backpacks. But I think if I had more than that one suitcase, I probably wouldn't have been physically able to get everything where it needed to go. As it was, I had to have Penny push a little luggage cart holding half our stuff through the airport at one point. We keep it as minimal as possible.

I strap the baby on with a Baby Bjorn and check the stroller as soon as possible. I love being able to use both hands. 

On the flight, I bring a change of clothes for everyone, including me, and times-three for the baby. I've been puked on before, and I was very glad I didn't have to sit in it for the rest of the flight. Anyone who is only borderline potty-trained gets to wear a diaper on the airplane, and I bring plenty of those. (And since there are fewer on the way home, that means room for souvenirs!) I bring toys for the kids and snacks for everyone. I've learned I don't need to bring anything for myself to do during the flight. I feel a lot of things, but bored is not one of them!

9) Nap until the jet-lag wears off

When traveling on my own, it used to make sense to force myself to stay awake while it was daytime, and then force myself to sleep at night. I tried that once with little kids. It was horrendous. Forcing children to stay awake when it's light out is futile when their bodies say it's time to sleep. And then pretending that they'll be tired when it's dark outside is just as ridiculous. So I take short naps with the kids when they nap during the day. And when they wake up at 1 AM with bright eyes and bushy tails, we all go do something quiet and calm for two hours or so, until I can convince them to sleep again. This is not what works for everyone, but has been the best for our family, especially with kids ages two and younger.

10) Just do it!

It's a little daunting to travel with children, but I can't just put life on hold until life is convenient. That just doesn't happen. When we travel with our kids, we see more humanity. People stop to talk to us about our children, their children, and their grandchildren. People smile at us. People tell us we have our hands full. Our kids play with other kids. We've gotten to see a side of the world that not everyone gets to see. 

We've made mistakes, and we've learned from bad experiences. That's where many of my ideas come from! But you get better, your kids get used to it, they get older, and everything just gets easier.

I hope.

Let me know if you have any ideas to add to this! We travel a lot as a family, with one or two parents to wrangle the kids, and I see no end in sight. Whether it's a great idea or even an idea of what NOT to do, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Snippets

We got home from our trip today. I was able to bring home my Felicity doll and accompanying American Girls' books from my parents' home in New Mexico. I loved those books, and I loved the doll. Naomi is sitting on the kitchen floor carefully looking at all the pictures in my books. It makes my heart happy.

Kevin brought us an empty suitcase on our trip, which I filled with a bunch of stuff from Ikea. We have 9 ridiculous bathrooms in our house, and while I have no intention of decorating or even using all of them, I decided it would be a good idea to have hand towels, soap dishes, and (wait for it) even soap in the ones we use. And I did get a rug and nicer towels for our living room guest bathroom.
I also bought 12 children's plastic cups. We started out here in Brazil with about 20, and we are down to two. I'm not sure where they've all disappeared to (though our 9 bathrooms probably had something to say about them), but now we have more. And they're so bright and cute and happy!

The rainy season is here in full swing! The yard is green, my tomato bushes are huge, and it's kind of bizarre to remind myself that Christmas is right around the corner. We'll be dreaming of a white Christmas this year, and reality will be much, much different!

I went to go unpack my suitcase only to find a puddle of water on the floor of my closet. Not all is happy and fantastic about rainy season.

It's good to be back. We're working through the jet-lag, which should only last a couple days-- or maybe six days if one day per hour is actually true. Maybe I'll write a more coherent post once we've settled into life again.

The William Post

How is it possible that I have had a baby this amazing for this long (6 months) and hardly written anything about him?
Well, it turns out that three kids keep me pretty busy. I can't say that three kids are harder than two, but it's just very busy!
So William is 6 months old now. He is working on learning to crawl, and in the next few weeks, I'm pretty sure he will do it. At 4 months, I started putting him in the Bumbo. The girls loved the Bumbo, since they got to sit up and look around instead of just lying on their backs. But William didn't take to it. He knew that whenever I would put him in the Bumbo, I would then walk away (to get something done-- imagine that!), and he was not a fan. But at 5 months he could sit on his own, which allowed him to reach and grab his toys, and he liked that much better. Now he's on his way to crawling, and I'm wondering how to slow it all down!
I have enjoyed this baby immensely. The first reason, and the only thing I can give myself credit for, is that I have gotten more sleep with this baby. He doesn't sleep that well at night, and I can't control when he wakes up in the morning. But what I can control is when I go to sleep. Instead of putting the kids to bed and then unwinding on the couch for a couple hours every night, I would unwind while I slept. It wasn't unusual for me to go to bed by 8:00, and there were a handful of nights where I'd be asleep by 7:15. It saved my bacon. Instead of feeling zombie tired for months and years like I did with the first two babies, I actually felt great and happy to have such a fantastic baby!
And William is a fantastic baby. He is easygoing and contented. He doesn't cry very much, and when he does, he is easily appeased. When he falls asleep in the car 5 minutes before we get home, get this: he TRANSFERS into his bed-- still sleeping! Ahhhh, it's amazing!
Now that Penny is in Kindergarten all day, Naomi and William are building a fun friendship. Naomi LOVES her little brother and can make him laugh just by smiling up close to his face. She loves to play with him, and just tonight she got in trouble because she wouldn't leave the room when William was trying to go to sleep. She just wanted to keep touching and snuggling and playing with her little brother. And it's hard to put a baby to sleep with such a fun sister in the room!

Happy Birthdayzzzzz.....

When your kindergartener falls asleep on the way TO the birthday party, you're definitely not in Kansas anymore. We left last night at 7:30 (PM!!) for a birthday party of one of Penny's classmates from kindergarten. She was turning six, and the other little boy was turning five. It started at 7:30, which is Portuguese for, "If you show up at 7:30, you can help the catering staff set up."
So we left our house then. It was outside the city in a suburb I've never been to. I couldn't find the exact address on the map before I left, so I set out with just a vague idea of where it was. Cut to the point: we got lost. We made a brief detour through one of the little towns outside Brasilia. Isn't that why we're here in Brazil? To see the world and explore new places? It is, but I don't usually mean to do it on the way to birthday parties. We found the place on our fourth try, and Penny was asleep in the car.
I woke her up, and we went to an amazing party. It was at a birthday party center, which was like a small carnival with rides, an extensive McDonald's-type play place, a zip line, and cotton candy,  hot dogs, and kebabs. It was a fun party, and Penny ran off to do the rides with her friends from school. It's amazing how being at a carnival makes my sleepy five-year-old suddenly perky again!
There's not a lot to do at a party where you don't know anyone or even speak their language very well. But Penny had a blast.
Eventually, I decided we'd better go home. I knew Penny would sleep the moment she sat in the car, and I was guessing that William was probably awake and hungry again at home. When we left at 9:45, we were the only ones leaving. There was a buffet set up, but the food hadn't come out yet. The party favors and grandiose birthday cake had yet to be broken open. We were leaving several hours too early. But we're crazy Americans who go to bed early-- even on weekends.

Rainbows and butterflies

Yesterday I saw the most beautiful butterfly I've ever seen. Each wing was thickly outlined in black, surrounding a vivid blue. Then at the bottom, there was a row of four hot pink dots, two on each wing, like they'd been painted on with nail polish. I've seen beautiful butterflies flying around, and I've seen some in museums. But the beauty is taken to the next level when you get to watch one up close in the morning sun. As it slowly moves, the light catches its wings at different angles, and it just glistens.
Of course, my first thought was, "Where's my camera?" I could have run inside for it, but there is no way a butterfly would sit still long enough for me to come back. And when I did eventually move, it was startled and flew off. So I'm glad I just stood and enjoyed it for a minute. I enjoy life more when I stop to enjoy the moments.

It must have been this kind of butterfly. It's lovely in this picture, but it was ten times more beautiful in real life.

After school, Penny came running to find me in the house. "There's a butterfly flapping and flapping in the pool!" I rushed outside with her. Now let me explain, our pool is well fenced, and there's no way for Penny to get in without help. But the life preserver that hangs on the fence was now lying on the ground inside the fence. Penny had flung it as far as she could to try and rescue this poor butterfly. It was still flapping in the pool, so I was able to fish it out with our net. It was exhausted, so it stayed on our net for several hours, until I assume it flew away.

Life is not entirely rainbows and butterflies-- though with my little girls, there are a lot of those around the house! Last week I fished a dead centipede from the pool, which somehow didn't make it onto my blog. (I'll let you find your own picture. Just trust me, it was gross.) We have a lot of normal moments, a few gross moments, and several special moments, some of which I try to post on my blog.
I hope you enjoy your moments today!

Pirenopolis-- in which Kevin is awesome

Kevin has been planning a bike ride with some friends for several months now. I knew about it and put it on the calendar, but it was only recently that I found out it was a 100-km mountain bike ride to Pirenopolis (a city not far from Brasilia-- 100 km, give or take) with about 600 other people. Okay, so this is a major event. And for my husband, who loves riding his bike and rides up Hawaiian volcanoes just for fun, this was a perfect event for him!

The ride set out early, so when Kevin left at about 5 AM, I woke up and sent him off with an enthusiastic, "NNnnngghhh."

Pirenopolis is about 2 or 3 hours away from Brasilia (or 8 hours, if you decide to do it on a mountain bike). It's a little Portuguese colonial city founded way back in the 17 or 1800s. It reminded me enough of Santa Fe that it really made me happy to go!

Narrow streets lined with art galleries, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, and an ice cream shop.
I actually took this picture so I could remember the way back to our car.

One of the "plazas." Really, it could be in New Mexico.

Kevin, the mountain biking machine! We drove into town at about the same time that he rode across the finish line. But because of traffic and parking issues, we didn't see him until a little while later. But he was still exhausted, so the effect was similar, I think.

Kevin is officially a Guerreiro da Bike! (Translation: warrior of bicicleta). Either way, 8 hours mountain biking is seriously tough stuff. Kevin is awesome!

Penny's comment: "Dad looks really strong in that picture!"

Penny and Dad enjoyed wading in the river running through town.

The river and wooden bridge reminded me a lot of New Mexico. The bamboo is a good reminder that it's actually Brazil.

Amaryllis growing in the sidewalk

Another picture of the small cobble-stone streets.

 That night, we stayed at a Pousada at the Salto de Curumba.

This was the pousada next to ours. Holy cow, isn't this gorgeous!

Penny picked a bunch of these little flowers from the tree and made one big flower from them.

We hiked partway up to the Curumba falls. The thing about hiking is that the further you hike, the longer it is to walk back. And with a 3-year-old getting tired, a baby strapped to his parents, and a dad who had just ridden his bike 100 km the previous day, we reached our limit before we reached the top. But these are the lower falls.

During our hike, we saw some birds, and Naomi told us, "Sometimes I think about if I was a bird."
I asked her, "What would you do?"
She waved her hand in little circles. "I would fly around."
To me this was beautiful and profound, to know that my tiny girl thinks big thoughts and uses her vivid imagination.

Gorgeous! I love the zip-line going across the swimming hole. That would be so fun!

An action shot of us hiking. This is William's first time hiking-- can you tell? Nature! Must grab!!

My lovely Naomi

At the pousada, there are several swimming pools and a couple large water slides. Even though it was across the valley and halfway up the hill, I went on one of the slides, and it was seriously fun! There was a long line, and even though I love water slides-- enough to hike across the resort to go on one by myself-- I wanted to play with my family at the swimming pool.
Once I got back, the girls were swimming in the pool with their water wings on. Penny is a confident swimmer (well, bobber. She only "swims" with her water wings on, but what she does she enjoys), but Naomi steers clear of the water. At the Embassy there's a kiddie pool that would go up to her waist, but she has never once gotten in. I think she's a little afraid of water, and I know she hates getting water splashed in her eyes. Also, she just gets cold, too. So I was pretty surprised to come back to our pousada to see BOTH my girls bobbing around the pool in their water wings. It was very shallow on one end, making the water almost bathtub warm. She stretched herself out into the water where it was shallow, and she even paddled around where her feet couldn't reach the bottom. I am very happy that she decided to swim!
William enjoyed it, too. He splashed the water all up into his face, but he didn't mind at all and kept splashing and smiling in that warm, shallow pool.
On our hike, Penny had been walking ahead of the rest of us as an explorer. At the pousada, she explored around the garden, trying to find the way back to our room so she could show us the way to go when it was time to leave. Which she did.

Attempted break-in

There was an attempted break-in at our new house we'll be moving into next week. It was me. They gave us the keys a few days early, and we've been taking a few things over* each time we drive to that side of the lake. The first time I went over there, I couldn't get the keys to open the front door, so I just went in through a side door. Unfortunately, this side door just opens onto a courtyard and not into the actual house. As I stood there trying to open the actual door to the house, I realized that while I hadn't been successful in actually getting into the house, I had managed to trip the alarm. And it was at that moment that I remembered that the alarm code was at home on our kitchen counter--unread.

It wasn't even an actual break in. I'd make a terrible thief.

While I was having this adventure, William was in his car seat-- how shall we say this?-- making a big mess. I cleaned him up with baby wipes, but even though you'd think I should be an expert in packing a diaper bag, I had managed to leave the house without any diapers or clean clothes. 

With William dressed in some strategically placed burp cloths and a blanket, we headed over to Penny's school for a welcome breakfast for new families. And what a breakfast it was! There was an absolute cornucopia of fruit cascading over itself on the buffet table. There was a foundation of grapes, interspersed with plums and carefully carved papayas as colorful accents. I wish I'd had a camera! And with classical piano music playing in the background, there were a couple guys in tuxes ready to take away your juice goblet once you finished. In my jeans shorts and T-shirt, I felt a bit underdressed-- like I usually do in Brazil. But William was even more underdressed than I was, so that's something, I guess.

Antipodes

On Saturday night, I had gone to bed early. At about 10:30, though, Kevin came in and woke me up, whispering, "Hey Chelsea, I'm back!"
As he stood there in the dark, I was racking my brain trying to remember. After several moments, I finally had to ask, "Where did you go?"
"China."
Oh yeah!! So Kevin was in China for a month. He was given the opportunity to go work at the Embassy in Beijing this summer, and so there he was, on the absolute opposite side of the world for four long weeks. We considered the possibility of our going with him for the assignment, but with a newborn baby, Penny starting school, and the ridiculous amount of time it takes to travel to the antipodes (38 hours on the way home), we decided I'd just stay here in Brazil with the kids while he went to Beijing to work.
It wasn't as bad as I anticipated.
Kevin is an elder in our church, and before he left, he gave each of us a Priesthood Blessing, invoking the power of God to bless us as I was on my own for the month and as Penny started kindergarten. I've had a few Priesthood Blessings in the past, but this time I felt the difference more than I ever had in the past.
Usually, by the time Kevin gets home at 5:30 or so, I am done. I toss the kids at him and go work on dinner. Sometimes I just turn in at 7:00 or so and let him take care of bedtime. I'm cranky, exhausted, and just done with kids. But while Kevin was in Beijing, we were happy in the evenings. I'm not kidding! We were happy and having fun, playing games together and generally enjoying being together. This does not usually happen. Ever. But during the whole month Kevin was gone, there were only three evenings where I got angry or lost my patience with the kids as we were getting ready for bed. I had been afraid it would be every single day, so that's a miracle in and of itself.
I focused a lot on keeping everyone fed. I made sure we didn't run out of groceries, and I kept food and snacks available. And I just fed everyone, keeping all of us from getting hangry (you know, hungry + angry). Full tummies prevent a lot of problems.
We hired a housekeeper 2x a week while Kevin was gone. It's always embarrassing to have someone come in and see my house when it's an absolute wreck. But it does amazing things for my sanity to have someone there to be on my side when it comes to the house. Plus, she is amazing. She sings and plays horsie with the kids. Naomi absolutely adores her and follows her around the house chatting and playing pretend with her. This is pretty hilarious, because Naomi speaks only English and Renata only Portuguese. But Naomi doesn't seem to care, and she just goes on and on. Renata cooked meals and snacks, stocking our fridge with healthy and/or delicious Brazilian food for us to eat during the week. She supported me in all my efforts, and I am intensely grateful.
We kept busy. The girls were in day camp for part of the time, then Penny started kindergarten, and we all got out of the house to take her to school every morning. We talked to Kevin on Skype every morning and evening-- the only times our 11-hour time difference overlapped. I started a Portuguese class at the Embassy, and we often went to play with friends in the mornings.
And we made it through! We were all so excited to see him once he returned, and I'm incredibly grateful for all the help he gives me. Now that he's over the worst of the jet lag, we'll start going out and doing fun things as a family again.

Naomi missed her dad but gave him hugs through the computer

New Neighbors

So the "giant" we met at the grocery store last night? New embassy family. Lives in our building.

After we got home, we did the neighborly thing and went over to say hi. And like most embassy families, our new neighbors seem really cool! They have a daughter about my daughters' age, they were posted in China last-- just like us. I'm sure they'll be a fun family to get to know.

On the way home, the elevator stopped to pick up more people. Penny was still wearing her school uniform, and the woman who got on said, "Oh, is that the school you go to? My son goes there, too!" I asked her what grade, and which class, and it turns out that yes, one of Penny's classmates lives here in our building. (Let me just explain that we live 20 minutes away from the school in a different section of the city, and that there are only about 12 kids in Penny's class. The odds of this are so slim it's ridiculous.) We took the elevator back to their apartment, where their son was pretty confused as to why Penny had suddenly showed up on his front doorstep. 

I'm glad we're meeting people and finding a little community here in our building, because... we're moving into a house pretty soon. These families we just met? Yeah, they can be friends with each other. We'll just have to try and make friends in our new neighborhood. 

And in the mean time (for a few days at least), we have people to carpool with to school!

Welcome to our neighborhood

One thing I LOVE about being overseas with small children is that when they make awkward comments about strangers in public, you have a much better chance of that person not understanding what was said. 

Before our car came, we took taxis a lot, and there was one driver we got many times. He was an older man, probably in his seventies, and he had a hearing aid. (He also drove really slow-- always about 5 under... but that's not the point here.) My kids would ask me, "What's wrong with his ears?" "Why can't he hear very well?" "His ears are broken, aren't they?" and my personal favorite, "He can't hear because he's SO OLD!"

I shushed them or changed the subject, but it was comforting to me that in addition to his probably not speaking English, he apparently had hearing problems. Or maybe with his hearing aid he could hear clear as a bell. I'll never know.

Today we saw a man at the grocery store who was really tall. The girls were running ahead of me, and when they got to him, Naomi stopped dead in her tracks and yelled, "Aaaah, a giant!!!" Then she made sure Penny had seen him and that she knew he was a giant.

Once I caught up to them, Penny said, "Mom, do you see that guy? Is he as tall as you? or dad? He's really tall, isn't he!"

I assured the girls he was probably as tall as Grandpa, then I smiled at him. He smiled back. "How's it going?" he asked, in non-accented American English. I think his shirt said "Washington DC" across the front. 

Awesome.

Sometimes I ignore my kids. There's no proof they're mine anyway. For all he knows, they could just be the local, English-speaking urchins that run wild in grocery stores in Brazil. 

Welcome to Brasilia!

A core sample of our life at the moment

I'm really excited to start Portuguese class tomorrow at the Embassy. I've been meaning and hoping to do this for a while now, and now that we have a car, Penny is in kindergarten, and William is a little older, it's actually going to happen. I never saw myself as one of those people who enjoys learning language upon language, but I might be on my way to becoming one.
I studied French in high school for three years. I got pretty good at conjugating verbs on charts, but I never learned to use the language at all. I've avoided that in Portuguese. I don't know how to conjugate anything! Ha ha, sort of joking. But instead of worrying because I can't think of how to conjugate the right way, I just throw in a verb, sometimes infinitive and sometimes in my best guess of a conjugation. It works well enough. People can understand me when I say something wrong-- more than if I say nothing at all!
I'm excited to have a class and a teacher. Maybe she'll manage to teach me past tense.

Penny finished her first week of kindergarten, avoiding all but one major crisis. On her first day, I dropped her off and told her to be sure and take the bus that the Embassy arranged for the American kids. I missed a phone call at about 3-something that afternoon, and then got a phone call at about 4:10. "Penny did not get on the bus this afternoon," explained the bus company. Turns out, there should have been a paper in Penny's school registration packet giving permission for someone besides her parents to pick her up. That includes the bus company. So I rushed over to the school, picked up Penny (who was fine but just a little annoyed that I was so late), and signed the form. The next morning, on our way out the door, she told me, "Mom, try not to pick me up so late today, okay?"
It's a really long school day for her. If I didn't take her in the mornings, it would be a 9-hour day with both commutes. So I drive her in the morning, but she still has to have an hour+ commute on the way home. When she got off the bus this week, a couple times, she ran over to give me a hug and said, "Mom, I missed you!" And on Saturday, she was very excited that she got to stay home with me instead of going to school. She loves kindergarten, but misses being home.
She has violin class that she is VERY excited about. She was also looking forward to "Doctor Class." See, she wants to be a doctor when she grows up, and she figures they should start teaching her about it in kindergarten.

Naomi is a fun little pixie with a lot of independence and personality. For example, when I put her to bed this week, an hour later I hear some singing coming from her room. I open the door to find her singing and jumping from her bed to Penny's bed via a kitchen chair between them.
She likes to dictate her play. This means that whenever she has toys, she is narrating a story the whole time. When Penny plays with her, she also dictates to Penny what she should say and what her toys should do. I don't have much patience for that, so she always gets mad when I won't be the bad guy, say what she tells me to say, or generally let her boss me around.
Naomi has a major whining problem. She throws fits and refuses... just about everything. It's normal. She's three. But I'm finding that every time she's whiny or otherwise horrendous, it's not as much about the drink of water she wants, or the different kind of toothpaste, or the needing help putting shoes on. It's just that she needs a hug. Every time. She might be throwing the biggest temper tantrum in the world, but she'll absolutely melt into my arms when I finally remember to just hug her.

William will get his own post tomorrow. He is absolutely fantastic.

William the wonderful

William is a delightful baby. I guess when I married the kindest, happiest, most laid-back man I've ever met, it logically follows that I'd have a child take after him. He is very easy. He doesn't scream and cry for an hour every night like his sisters sometimes did. He doesn't need a bedtime routine. 

Manassa

My dad grew up in a small town in southern Colorado called Manassa. And when I say small, I mean tiny. Wikipedia says there are almost 1,000 people who live there. And I believe Wikipedia. It couldn't be more than that!

Every year, the town hosts a huge Pioneer Day celebration, with parades (well, the same parade a few times), a carnival, a rodeo, a demolition derby (!), and a 5k run. Side note: when did my whole family get up off the couch and decide they were all runners? I swear everyone entered the race this year, even my dad and my brother, whom I've never seen run in my entire life. But good for them. Crazy, but good
I was a little weepy last weekend, and one of the biggest reason is this:

Practically everyone on my dad's side of the family

What's that? My entire family! All in one place!! With my siblings and one missionary cousin as the ONLY ones not there!!!
My sister has a great excuse: she just had a baby a week before. I had a great excuse: I live in Brazil. But for the first time, I really really REALLY hate that excuse.
There are cousins I haven't seen in years. There are children of those cousins that I've never met. And there is the fact that they are the coolest family in the world-- and I was not there to enjoy them! Brazil is lovely. I had a great weekend. But I wished the whole time that I could be somewhere else.

There's a facebook page that sends updates about the Pioneer Days celebration. A few days after the celebration ended and the town was back to its almost-1000 people, the page sent out a fundraiser notification. A couple young kids-- 2 and 5 years old, about the same as mine-- were playing out in a camper and managed to start a fire that blocked them in. The neighbors rushed over to put out the flames, but the children were badly burned. They were flown to Denver and are still being cared for there.
The web page is here.
They are doing some local fundraisers, and I am so impressed by the community of Manassa, for its generosity and love. No one there has a McDuck style money bin in their backyard next to the barn, and yet people found ways to give of what they have.
I decided that with all the money I saved by not being there to celebrate this summer, I could spare some to help this family. And I want to spread the word. Please take a look at the website and decide if it's something you're willing or able to contribute to.

Kindergarten

Life gets busy sometimes, and before you know it, your kids are going off to kindergarten! Penny started today, and she is very happy to go. She chose a Disney Princesses backpack, which we ordered for her birthday present. She decorated it with stick-on jewels and had me write her name right under the large crown on the top. 

Penny in her uniform and ready for school!

Penny has a school uniform, which is a new concept for me but one that I like. It sure makes getting ready for school much easier! I only anticipate one problem. I got her a skirt, shorts, and long pants to choose from, but she only wants to wear the skirt. Today is one of the chilliest days since we've gotten here. (It gets down to 60* at night, which is not cold but definitely chilly!) Nope, she still wanted to wear her skirt!

We decided to drive Penny to school. Since we live so far away, she would be the first kid picked up on the bus, and 6:50 is just too early for a kindergartener to catch the bus! Instead, we woke up at 6:50 and had plenty of time to get ready, talk to Dad, eat breakfast, and even feed the baby before hopping in the car. It will be nice when we move closer to the school!

On the front porch of her kindergarten classroom

Penny was happy to go to class. Not scared or worried, not overly giddy or silly-excited. But confident and happy. She walked right in and started in on the coloring activity with the other kids. Her teacher is Miss Claudia, and when I was describing her to Penny this weekend, I told her, "Well, she has dark brown hair that goes down to her shoulders, dark brown eyes, tan skin. Basically, she looks exactly like you but bigger." I think Penny is going to love her new teacher.

Naomi stepping up as big sister

Naomi is now my big girl at home. It will be a different dynamic, as she is usually the one following Penny around. I think she'll be excited to have more time with me, and once her brother grows a little bit more, I think they'll have a lot of fun playing together.

Just Biden our time

A couple weeks ago, Vice President Biden came to visit Brasilia. As part of his visit, we had a meet-and-greet at the Embassy. Kevin had to work airport duty, but I took the kids, and we met and gret  meeted and greeted attended the event.

We milled around, the kids played with some princess dolls I made (by gluing magazine pictures onto popsicle sticks-- very labor intensive, ha!), and had a great time chatting with friends. William slept peacefully the whole time, and the girls played quietly with their friends. 

Until the Vice President arrived.

Then William decided to wake up and be cranky. Naomi decided she'd rather play on the playground than see the VP. And Penny disappeared. As I was walking around with William to check on Naomi, another mom told me that Naomi had peed her pants and was refusing help. I got to the playground, and sure enough, there was my little naked 3-year-old, standing in the playground and crying. Her dress was 99% dry, and I finally persuaded her to put it back on, and I was just glad it was long enough to cover the fact that it was the only thing she had on.

Then we went back to meet the VP:

This is my fantastically photogenic family meeting the VP. That is the back of Penny's head, pre-haircut. That is my profile and a tiny glimpse of tiny William. Naomi is somewhere behind the flags. It was not her best time of day.

I'd missed the children's photo-op. When I got back from one of my tours of the Embassy with a crying infant, all the children were on the stage with Mr. Joe. Naomi, William, and I squeezed onto the edge of the stage where we weren't in any pictures. I was just hoping that Penny would represent for us.

Turns out, that's exactly what she was up to.

VP with a bunch of kids. Notice the tiny hand pushing its way to the front.

Excuse me, Mr. Joe. Can I sit on your lap?

And I want a doll and a new toy train...

She's telling him where her mom is. I actually have no idea where I was at this point. But there was a cranky baby involved somehow.

Penny charms even the most charming of politicians.

I'm pretty sure we're printing this one for our wall.

Darndest

Yesterday morning we went to buy fruit from the fruit guy in our neighborhood. While we were there, we met a neighbor, an older woman probably in her 80s. I was really surprised that she said hello and talked with me in English. She had lived in the US while her husband went to college in Minnesota, and some of her children lived there now. So we chatted and then went on with our shopping.
"Mommy, that lady is REALLY OLD," I heard a certain 4-year-old announce when she had walked away. "I think she needs me to help her stand up and walk."
I glanced back at the lady (who appeared not to have heard), and she was stooped over writing a check on the table. I assured Penny she probably didn't need our help right now.
One thing about living overseas is that those embarrassing announcements in English have a higher possibility of not being understood. Yesterday I was just hoping they hadn't been heard.

I took the kids outside to play in the grass outside our apartment. Our neighbors came out with their little son, and Penny immediately switched to Portuguese.
Now before you're all impressed, let me clarify that Penny knows about 5 words of Portuguese. But she was using them. She insisted on calling me, "Mamae," explaining that, "This way our neighbors will understand me!"
She also likes pointing to William and telling people, "Um bebe! Um bebe!"
There's not a lot of Portuguese to use, but I am thrilled that she uses what she has.

Last night I had a Zumba class until 9:00. Then once I got to bed, William decided to wake up, for the first of many times during the night. It was a rough morning!
At one point I was back in my room, making my bed, and Penny comes to tell me, "Mom, I think you should take a nap."
"Why?"
"Because the baby woke you up during the night."
Aww, how sweet. "But really, why do you want me to take a nap?"
"So I can play.... games with my sister."
"Games on the iPad?"
"............ yes......."
And so I got a 30-minute nap this morning.

My Writing Process

There's a nice little community of Foreign Service bloggers, and I've been following several blogs and bloggers for a few years now. It's an online community, of course, but I've had the chance to meet a few of these ladies in person. One of them is Bfiles-- who has a real name, of course. (And it's not Bfiles, though that would be kind of cool.) We met in real life earlier this year while we were both in DC. She was studying Mandarin for her upcoming move to China, and I had just moved FROM China. This in and of itself doesn't qualify one as "speaking Chinese," but since it was my major in college, I do actually speak a bit. So we got together and talked China for a while. 

And now she has tagged me in a Writing Process blog-hop. And since I'll pretty much jump at any opportunity to talk about myself, I said I'd be happy to join in. I'm not going to tell you when I was supposed to have posted this, but we'll pretend it was today and not sometime last week. Okay? Great!

What am I working on?

When I moved to Brasilia in January, I was working on absolutely nothing. I even went back and reread (i.e., read for the first time) The Scarlet Letter, because I had nothing to do. I'd brought a cross-stitch project to finish, but I finished it my second day here. It was a long six weeks with no internet.

But now I'm working on several things:

1) Building small people. 

Did I mention that I had a baby boy a few months ago? He's 2 1/2 months and learning how to laugh and kick. This does make nursing kind of challenging. He's relaxed, chill, and generally so much like his father that I absolutely adore him! I couldn't have asked for an easier baby.

My older two girls are going to day camp at the embassy this summer. They won't go every week because I miss having them here, but they're gone today and having a blast. 

2) Playing the violin

This is new. It has been over a year since I've played the piano, and I miss it terribly. We're realizing, though, that a grand piano doesn't fit in UAB, so I'm going to be going without it a lot in the future (between posts, etc). I used to play the viola, but for various reasons, I decided I'd like to learn how to play the violin. I thought about it, but never seriously. Then last week someone was selling their violins before moving back to the US. I jumped on it, and now I have two violins and no excuse not to fill our home with beautiful music. Except that it wakes the baby. And "beautiful music" isn't quite what I'm playing yet. I'll get there, though.

3) Learning Portuguese

My biggest dose of Portuguese comes every week at Church. I sometimes study our Relief Society manual a week in advance. And I have a goal to read the Book of Mormon in Portuguese before the end of the year. But my serious study has dropped significantly, see item 1.

4) Other creative projects

I have a bunch of sewing projects that are in various stages of completion. For a while I was kind of bummed I never had time for them. But considering that I just created an entire person, and he has never eaten ANYTHING except what I physically created for him, I think I'm doing just fine in the "creative" arena. 

5) Harry Potter

It got to the point where (dorky as this sounds), I missed Hogwarts. The last time I read the books was when I was nursing Penny, and that was in 2009. I don't think I'll reread the series annually, but every 5 years or so sounds great. Next time it will probably be with my kids. How fun!! 

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Well, first of all, I prefer to call it my Opus. And my Opus has significantly fewer pictures than many others. This is because my google account has a stifling limit on how many pictures one can upload. I've been blogging on here since 2006, and my account has since filled up. I could pay money to expand my limit, but I haven't because I am cheap. I could go through and upload significantly smaller versions of a bunch of my photos, but that would take time and I'm lazy busy. So sometimes I upload the pictures onto facebook and then just use the urls and link to my pictures. But I'm busy, as I said, so I usually just upload pictures onto facebook and then write on my blog. 

Otherwise, it's pretty much your typical narcissistic blog. 

Why do I write what I write?

Because I like to talk about myself. I have never had a more captive audience than my blog, and for that, dear blog, I thank you. 

I just like to blog about what happens in my life. I don't aspire to chronicle every happening in my life, but I do enjoy writing about things that happen.

How does my writing process work?

First of all, what I don't do: I don't do catch-up posts. The point of my blog is not to cover everything interesting that happens. I try instead to write something interesting about whatever happened recently.

I once kept a diary of a family road trip. It went something like this:

This morning we ate breakfast at Burger King in Rio Rancho. Then we drove through Albuquerque. Then we ate hot dogs at a gas station in Gallup for lunch. Now we're somewhere in Arizona.

And that was it for the day.

I didn't write much-- because that's boring to write-- and I almost died from the pain of trying to read it. No one cares where we ate for breakfast!

Instead of chronicling everything that happens, I try to write about the experience: what happened, why, how I felt about it, and what people had to say. Dialogue makes it interesting-- and it breaks up long paragraphs that I generally skip when I read things.

I also don't edit very often. But when I do, I realize that I ramble a bit and start too many sentences with "so." It would be a good thing for me to start doing, but I usually have something that needs doing. So there goes the editing.

Passing the torch

I've asked the lovely Kate, from Pulling Stakes, to write about her writing process. I did have to offer my first-born son in exchange, but I think it will be worth it. Plus, I should get him back. (Right? Maybe? Please?)

Kate lives in Brasilia-- like me! So I thought it appropriate to pass the torch to someone that I happen to know is a lot taller in real life than online.

Mrs. Penny

When we first moved here (6 months ago now), Penny started asking me a lot of questions about getting married. Why did Dad and I get married? How do you choose someone to marry? What does it mean to get married? She was asking some good questions, and we had some good conversations about marriage in general.
Well, it turns out that Penny wasn't talking about marriage in general. She had someone very specific in mind, her friend Lucas from preschool. Some other moms from church and I set up a little preschool with 4 little kids in it-- 3 girls and 1 boy. And Penny decided that Lucas was the one she was going to marry-- after she grew up, of course.
Whenever Penny saw Lucas, she would go sit by him, or hold his hand, or give him a hug and a big kiss. One time I think I told her she probably doesn't need to be kissing Lucas so much. She replied, "But it makes him happy when I kiss him!"
I asked Penny one day how she decided that she was going to marry Lucas. "We had preschool over at Lucas's house, and we played together. He was really nice to me, and," she looks up at me and simply says, "We fell in love."

Penny and Lucas dancing at preschool

Lucas would always share his toys with Penny and was always very nice. Now that I think of it, I married Kevin for pretty much the same reasons.

Penny and Lucas at a Primary Easter activity

Penny and Lucas during the opening prayer

Lucas has since moved back to the US, and Penny has taken it all in stride. She misses him, but she seems to think it's normal that her friends always move away, and it hasn't been as big a deal as I thought it might be. I think that's actually the sad part.
Anyway. Penny told me yesterday that she doesn't want to get married when she grows up. She wants to be a doctor instead. (This is after several episodes of Dr. McStuffens on Neflix, by the way.) I tried to tell her she could do both, but she would hear none of it. "Maybe at kindergarten they'll have doctor class AND violin class."

Festa Junina

We went out this weekend, which for a family with tiny kids and a baby, is pretty exciting just in and of itself.
I didn't take any pictures. And so, I shall write.
This whole weekend, there was a Festa Junina at our neighborhood Catholic church. I'm not going to try and explain all about it here, but here's a link to the Festa Junina article on Wikipedia. Suffice it to say, it's a festival like an American carnival or fair, with some fun traditions and activities.
So the girls and I headed over on Friday evening leaving a sleeping William and a gleeful Kevin, who jumped at the chance to stay home. I made Penny a little Festa Junina skirt, intending to make the rest of the dress at some point. But I've finally learned something about making clothes for the girls: always make the bigger one first. That way when I don't finish them for a year or two, I'll still have Naomi to squeeze into it. But try telling that to the 6-month-sized dress that's half-finished in my to-do pile. Maybe next year Naomi will fit into this Festa Junina dress, and I will have gotten around to making an even bigger one for next year's Penny. No promises. But I can't imagine having LESS free time next year. The baby's not getting any younger.
So we went to the festival, where they were selling all sorts of flashing light toys, balloons, and other stuff for parents to spoil their whining children with. I saw this from hundreds of yards away, though, and told the girls we'd walk around the WHOLE fair before deciding what to buy. And it worked! We walked around the fair, where they were selling all the Festa Junina foods, and then we bought tickets for the girls to go "fishing." They were pretty excited to catch their fish and then get a prize-- a Brazil tambourine for Naomi and some butterfly stickers for Penny. Then we bought a hot dog on a stick for the girls. I tried some of the arroz doce, corn pudding, and then some chocolate pudding with the last of my tickets. I liked them alright, but I brought most of it home to share with Kevin.
One of the Festa Junina traditions is to have a love letter delivery service during the fair. There were some teenage girls with hearts stuck on their shirts, and from what I understand, people can write a note and have these girls deliver it anonymously. I'm pretty sure that if I had been a teenager in Brazil, this is where I would have spent all my money-- first to write secret admirer notes to the guys I liked at the moment, but more importantly, to write a bunch of fake ones for my friends to get all excited about. If you've never written a fake love letter for someone, you've never lived. Add it to your bucket list.
So, the girls jumped on the trampolines for a few minutes, and then on our way out, we bought some firecracker poppers (those little things you throw on the ground and they pop). I was pretty impressed that even Naomi, being able to reach about 3 feet off the ground on her tippy toes, could even throw them hard enough to pop. The girls and I emptied an entire pack and then headed home at about 8:00.
When we left, we were pretty much swimming upstream. The party was just beginning. People were still coming, bringing their dressed-up kids who were as small or smaller than mine. Brazilian kids are on a different schedule than my American ones, that's for sure! If I brought my kids to something starting at 8:00 and tried to keep them awake for the duration of it, you certainly wouldn't call it a party. Torture session, more like it.
But anyway. I'm glad we went. Maybe next year I'll make the girls dresses, and then I'll be sure to take pictures. Happy Festa Junina, y'all!

How do you like Brasil?

People ask me all the time how I like Brasilia. It's not much of an answer. I like it. I like it a lot. The air is clean, the weather is perfect, and we have a lovely apartment. In fact, the air is clear, sweet, clean, and refreshing-- nothing like the smog we lived through in Shenyang. The weather is always about 80 degrees, perfect for shorts or long pants, and the seasons (all both of them) are either clear-without-a-cloud-in-the-sky (dry season) or with-a-refreshing-afternoon-rainstorm (wet season). Our apartment is big enough that we have a sewing room and a guest bedroom, but small enough that I can keep it clean on my own. I love watching the trees outside our windows blowing in the breezes, looking so ALIVE.
So in a nutshell, I like Brazil a lot.
But if you read carefully between the lines, you'll notice I don't get out much.
We take taxis a couple times a week. If we go to the Embassy, it's about R$20 each way (or 10 bucks), and if we go across the lake to visit friends, it's more like R$50 each way (or 25 bucks). It's cheaper than Washington DC cabs, but still expensive enough to keep us from going everywhere all the time. (Unlike Shenyang, where you could practically go anywhere within the city for under $7.) But most days we just stay home.
There's a subway line, but it's a long walk to the station, and it doesn't go to the embassy or across the lake to Lago Sul, which are the two places we go most often. So... no metro.
They recommend we don't take the public buses because they're dangerous. I'm not sure if it's the driving (definitely dangerous-- to the other cars on the road!) or if you're more likely to get robbed on the bus, or what. But we follow that guideline.
I'm a little tired of taking my kids with me every time I go to the doctor. True, I could ask someone to babysit them for me, but the one time I did that, it meant she drove 20 minutes to pick up my kids, then drove 20 more minutes back to her house, then repeated that again to drop them off. The other option would be for me to take them in a cab, which would add about US$100 to the Dr. appointment tab. And insurance doesn't reimburse it, I'm pretty sure. So I just take everyone with me. But it will be awesome to not to, because....
A couple days ago... we got our car!! (Penny's imaginary pet dragon, Toothless, came too.) This opens up a world of possibilities. We went to the baby playgroup the next morning, and then in the afternoon we went to ballet class without mooching a ride home afterwards. I can go to Zumba class this week! I can go to the big-kids' playgroup! I could set up a play-date for the kids! I can get out, go places, and make friends!!
I'm kind of excited.
Brasilia's a great city, but it's made for driving. But our vehicles take FOREVER to get here. We got here January 15, and lo and behold, 5 1/2 months later, here comes our car! But we're grateful it's finally here, and we're going to probably go a little nuts driving here and there, going out every day to everything we can think of. It will be awesome!

Welcome Kit Limao Bars

When we got to Brasilia, before our stuff arrived, we lived in our apartment with just a welcome kit. The kit consists of the basics of what you need to live in your home: sheets, towels, and some basic kitchen supplies. The kitchen supplies do the job, but it's always hard to make what you're used to. I don't know, whenever I move into a new place and try to start up a new kitchen, it seems like I always have 80% of what I need, whether it's ingredients or kitchen tools or whatever.
So one day I decided to make cookies. I flipped through a cookbook I found at the Embassy lending library (thanks, whoever donated that one!), and this was the first recipe I found that we could make-- we had all the ingredients, and the welcome kit provided all the tools we needed (minus the lemon squeezer, but that's what Kevin is for).
So I now present to you, Welcome Kit Limao Bars-- modified and clarified enough by me that I'm going to call it my own recipe
(How's that for a title?!)

preheat oven to 350* F (or 180* C)
Crust:
2/3 c. butter or margarine
1/2 c. sugar
2 c. flour (50% whole wheat is best)

Combine in a bowl and mix well until crumbly (I use the hand mixer from our w/k). Press into the bottom of a 9x13" pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Filling:
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 T flour
2 T lemon or lime zest
1/2 c. lemon or lime juice
1/2 tsp baking powder

Combine ingredients. Beat 2 minutes. Pour over hot crust (after it's through baking, of course). Bake again at 350* for 25 minutes.

Cut when cool. (Putting it in the freezer speeds this process significantly.)

And enjoy! We've made these several times since being here. It helps that limaos grow on trees here, so they're super cheap in the stores, and many people have limao trees in their backyards. We need to make friends with some of those people....

Housing

Today we went and visited our new house. Yes, because moving every two or three years wasn't enough, we've decided to try doing it more often.
Actually, it's been a long decision and an even longer process.
When we found out we were coming to Brasilia, one of the things we were super excited about were the houses-- with backyards! After spending 2 years in an apartment in the middle of the city in Shenyang, and then another 9 months in one in Arlington, we were excited to move somewhere with perfect weather year-round, where our kids could play outside, I could plant a garden, and we could enjoy God's green earth.
Then we got our housing assignment: because we were moving to Brasilia in January and because of availability, there were no houses for us at that time, and we were assigned a nice apartment in the city.
Now here's where the dilemma comes in: it is a nice apartment! It fits our family perfectly, with a couple extra bedrooms when guests come. We have windows along the entire length of the apartment, giving us a beautiful view of the tall trees outside. I can walk to the grocery store, which has been convenient, since our car still isn't available. There are two schools, each about 5 minutes from our house, for Penny to attend. There is a lot to be said about our apartment.
Having said it, though, the final decision was to appeal our housing assignment and move into a house. Even with the extra work and expenses associated with living in a house, it is the better choice for our family. We live in a beautiful city with perfect weather year-round. And as we are right now, I take my kids outside to play about once or twice a week. Usually they just play inside all morning, then we eat lunch. After lunch it is nap time, and Penny plays inside some more, or else watches a movie. Then it's time for dinner and then bedtime. Sometimes we go out in the mornings, but that requires packing a diaper bag, snacks, and generally making an outing of it. We can open our windows and get some fresh air, but it's still a shame to be missing out on Brasilia.
When we were in China, we had the opportunity to move outside the city. We weighed the pros and cons, and finally decided to stay in our apartment. The deciding factor was that I'd made some friends in our apartment already, and I didn't want to leave them. And I'm incredibly happy we stayed with them! But here it's exactly the opposite. All the families I've met live over in Lago Sul, so when we move over there, we'll be closer to all my friends and the kids' friends. I'll be able to have kids over and ask people to watch my kids much more easily and without it being such a burden. As it is right now, we're a 20-minute drive away. So we either ask people to drive all the way over here, or else we take a cab, which is about a $40 round trip.
I can hardly wait for our car to be here! (But that's another post for another day.)
So we're moving. It won't happen for several months-- mostly because there's already a family living there, and they don't leave for a few months. Then there are some repairs to be made, but then after that, we'll be moving... again.
I'm really excited, though. There is a beautiful yard-- but not so beautiful I can't do some gardening to make it better. They have mango, avocado, pina, and Brasilian cherry trees in the backyard. It will be awesome to have a place for the kids to ride their bikes and just go play-- without my having to pack everything and everyone up and go out for an outing. We have a baby monitor, and I intend on using it daily!

A Miracle

Despite my going to bed by 8:30 every night, I'm still spending my days pretty much exhausted. Maybe it's something about being up for most of the night-- I don't know.
This morning was particularly painful. By the time I got up for the day, I was feeling horrid and particularly cranky. I wasn't sure how I'd make it through the day, or even until naptime. Prospects didn't look good.
Somehow, though, the girls decided that they wanted to curl up on their bed after breakfast. Penny settled in, read a story with me, and then snuggled into her blanket. Naomi graced us with a lot more whining and generally being annoying, but then, miracle of miracles, she snuggled into my arms and FELL ASLEEP! This is the girl who has been struggling against and boycotting her afternoon naps for the last couple weeks, and here she was sleeping at 10 AM! She slept for 2 1/2 hours, and I got to rest for the entire time. I couldn't have asked for anything better.
We're making it through the rest of the day. I wasn't sure we would. I'm incredibly grateful for today's miracle!

Transitions

It's a little hard on everyone to welcome a new baby to the family.

First day on my own

I have had some incredible support from home these past few weeks. First of all, my mom came to visit and help for a couple weeks. She wondered what she should do at the delivery, and we told her just to bring a book or something to do while we waited and waited. Ha ha ha! That's the new joke of the century. She was incredibly helpful during the delivery and my time in the hospital. Then Kevin took a week off during the first week at home. Between the three of us, we had a pretty good handle on whatever the kids would throw at us.
Then my mom and dad overlapped for 2 days, and my dad came to stay for about 10 days after my mom left. Kevin took the last week of that off, too, and everything was great and fantastic.
My dad left on Saturday, and Kevin went back to work today. (The original plan was that he would take this week off to help out, but he got a new assignment at work in a different division for the World Cup. It started today, and you can't really take the first 5 days of your new assignment off. So we dealt.)
We started out great! The kids got dressed, and we headed out the door to see the veggie guy. The girls ate bananas and watermelon, William slept in the Baby Bjorn, and the longer we stayed, the more produce I bought. It was a great morning. Kevin called shortly after we got home, and I cheerfully told him how fine we were doing. Life was good.
Turns out, though, this mom-of-three-kids thing is much more of an endurance race than a sprint. I'd just left the blocks running with the wind, ahead of the game, and on top of the world. Then at about lunchtime, I hit the wall. Naomi gets pretty grumpy before her nap, and Penny does too, since she has a slow-burning cold that zaps her energy by about midday-- removing my cheerful helper and replacing her with an ornery, self-satisfied stinker. When I sent her to her room (the first time), she came out at the end and started lecturing me on how I wasn't being very nice, because it hurt her feelings when I made her go in her room. And she wasn't to be convinced otherwise.
This was only about 1:00 PM, and suffice it to say, it was a long afternoon.
At 4:00, I sent this email to Kevin:
I'm so frustrated I want to scream right now, but instead I'm going to tell you about it. When Naomi took her nap, I dozed with her for about 5 minutes before I woke up and fed William. He was then awake for the next 2 hours or so, until about 20 minutes ago. Penny has been getting more and more ornery, so I talked her into a resting time. She told me she was "too scared" to choose a room, so I chose one for her and sent her into it. She was grumpy, and she slammed the door as she went in... waking up Naomi.
So now, instead of the moment of silence I was anticipating-- where three kids would be napping or resting and I could nap, rest, or finish a few things I started today-- I have a screaming Penny (she didn't like the spank I gave her in return for Naomi's waking up), a whining Naomi, and a fitfully napping William.
Tomorrow is another day.... and I can't imagine it will be much worse.

Sleep

Now when I write about sleep just days after having a newborn baby, I'm supposed to write about how I miss it and lament that I won't be able to sleep for another 6 months, blah, blah, blah. But actually, this is different.
I had a horrible time with my first two children. In addition to being up all night, my body refused to take naps. I might go rest in bed, but nothing would happen, and then I'd eventually just get up again. I'd go to bed at my normal time, get up every couple hours all night long, and then just spend the day in a fog of exhaustion. After a few weeks, with both girls, I'd reach a point where my body was so exhausted that I'd have about a week of insomnia. Not only could I not sleep during the day, but my body would refuse to sleep at night, too. I felt awful emotionally and physically, and I was really REALLY not looking forward to having another infant.
So this time we came up with a strategy. I'd been taking little catnaps most afternoons since coming to Brazil. I'd go read stories to put Naomi down for her nap, turn on a movie for Penny, and then keel over on the couch and snooze for a few minutes. Sometimes I'd hear the movie the whole time, but sometimes I actually fell asleep. Part of me was feeling guilty for letting her watch so much TV every day (because she'd usually watch in the morning, too), but I started noticing the value in my actually falling asleep.
Thankfully, in the five whole days since William was born, I've been able to sleep once or twice during the day-- actually falling asleep! It might just be for 10 or 15 minutes, but the reset and recharge makes all the difference in the world.
And then there's the question of my bedtime. For the first two girls, I'd just stay up until my regular bedtime, about 10:00. I'd usually put the baby to bed earlier than that, then when she'd wake for a feeding, I'd just go to sleep with her after that.
This time, though, I realized that I need to go to bed earlier, when the kids do. I value my couple hours in the evening, just to read, surf the internet, watch a movie, or just put my feet up. But I value my sleep even more. So I made the conscious decision to go to bed when the kids do, or right afterwards. It's been about 9:00 every night, and I feel fantastic! Physically, I'm still recovering from having a baby. I move slowly, and I'm still healing. Mentally, there's still a little bit of pregnancy-brain, where I can't think of words, my train of thought changes constantly, and I can just tell I've been sleeping in 2-hour spurts.
But the exhaustion isn't there. The frustration of not being able to sleep despite my needing, wanting, and craving it isn't there, either. I'm mostly able to be patient with my kids, mom, and husband (although Naomi still wakes up at 6:00 and won't let anyone but me take her to the bathroom.... grr!) (She was better this morning, though).
I think I can do this. My mom will be here a few more days, and then my dad is coming for a week or so. Then Kevin will take a few more days off of work, and after that I think real life will resume again.
Though really, I feel like it's already started.