Small Victories

School holiday is dragging on and things continue to be slow here. My jobs is still tied up in HR limbo so I am hanging out at home, or ferrying K from playdate to playdate, our scouring the local grocery stores for supplies to make things with all of our fresh tomatoes. I also spend a lot of time at the gym mostly to get out of the house and let the poor nanny and housekeeper have a beak from me. I have no doubt my being around all day is totally cramping their style.

There have been, however, a few exciting goings on. For instance I spent three days going to ever grocery store or market I could think of to try to and find horseradish so I could make homemade Bloody Mary mix with yet another huge pile of tomatoes from our garden, having already done two vats of pasta sauce and one experiment with salsa. My failure to find horseradish was particularly depressing because at one store I found the place on the shelf where it was supposed to be, but there was none, and at a second store when I asked about it I was told it was "finished." I love this particular response to a query. I also heard it a couple of weeks ago regarding my attempt to find a humidifier for the girls' room. Those too were "finished." What does that mean? They are gone for now but there will be more? You won't have it again until some more fall off a truck? You have some in back but are too lazy to go and get them? Who knows, but the horseradish was finished and I was sad. I even purchased fresh a white root called "white radish" in the foolish hope that perhaps it was horseradish (forgive me, I have never seen fresh horseradish so did not really know what I was looking for. Wikipedia told me that I was the proud owner of some daikon root. Not exactly what I was hoping for. But then the ever helpful Wikipedia told me that horseradish is frequently dyed green and used in cheap versions of wasabi paste. I had seen wasabi paste several time sin the course of my vain quest! Sure enough, I got my hands on some "wasabi" paste and the first ingredient: horseradish! Huzzah! Bloody Mary mix successfully concocted. so I feel like me week was fairly productive.

And I am not alone in my accomplishments:

T learned not only to take off her socks but also to shove them into her mouth. So proud!

K made some good progress learning to ride her new bike once we got her out in a nice empty parking lot for practice.

This is one of the best photos I have managed to get of the squirmy worms. As usual, K looks ever so slightly like she might be about to eat T.

The girls reading together... or at least in the general vicinity of one another.

T is successfully removing the rings from the ring stack. Not so much putting them back on as flinging them about gleefully but we will take what we can get.

Gratuitous sleepy spiky haired chunky baby!

School Holiday is the Devil

As I look at the calendar this morning I realized much to my chagrin that we have another full month until school starts up again. Sigh... Not only does K not have a daily structured activity, but the kids she plays with the most have both gone back to the States for extended vacations. We do have a number of playgroups scheduled, including a weekly one on Friday afternoon's at our house, but it really just isn't the same. As a consequence we are facing a daily battle against boredom, not to mention trying to make sure K has enough interaction with other kids that she doesn't become totally feral over the summer. So, without further ado, a small sampling of school holiday activities!

K with the only friends she has to play with because everyone else is out of town :(.

K and T helping me make a giant vat of homemade tomato sauce using tomatoes from our garden. The texture wasn't quite right (a little watery) but the flavor was great. In addition to the basic herbs and olive oil I also added in some olives and capers which added a very nice dimension. We froze a good bit of the sauce and used some last night to make eggplant parm also using eggplant from our garden, so that was pretty cool. I think I will attempt salsa with the next batch of tomatoes. Matching aprons courtesy of grandma!

We did have one very exciting event recently. The Binky Fairy came! After a good month of hype, the Binky Fairy arrived and took all of K's pacifiers and left her with her very own blue big girl bike! This whole exchange was remarkably successful. We met with some resistance at nap time and bedtime on day one without binkies, including a claim from K that the Fairy had taken the wrong binkies and was supposed to have taken T's instead (good creative thinking there!). However, after that things have been smooth sailing. The bike ended up being a bit big for her despite my attempt at careful research, but she will grow into it in no time.

K is dealing pretty well with T as she becomes more interactive and mobile and leaves her days as a lump behind. Often K will play with her, as she is here patiently attempting to show her how the caterpillar car works. Equally often she will just steal her toys. So there is some jealousy, but things are mostly working themselves out.

As this scene was explained to me, it is a birthday party for baby dog (who, it is worth noting, is actually the stuffed polar bear K is holding and I have no idea why it is "baby dog" and not "puppy" but she is quite adamant on that point), and the purple tub upon which she is precariously perched is a bouncy castle (a common feature at birthday parties here). Happy birthday baby dog!

You Are just Here for the Cute Kids and Animals Part II

Greetings again! See, I really am back and posting regularly, as promised! I wanted to add a few more shots from our recent adventures with my parents. We did two trips while they were here, one was a return visit to what is rapidly becoming our favorite lodge (short-ish drive, great food, tolerate, and may even like, our kids), and the second was our first trip down to the local water feature. Both outings went quite well and everyone got to see lots of neat critters.

A troop of monkeys spent one night at the lodge, which meant they did a lot of frolicking during the day. We spent a good bit of time watching "monkey TV" which K and T both enjoyed.

The falls. It is hard to get a picture that even begins to capture how large the falls actually are. They were much cooler than I had anticipated.

I continue to be fascinated by the hippos. They are just such odd creatures. These are a couple we disturbed while they were sunbathing on a sandbar. They managed to hop up and scurry into the water with amazing speed and agility for creatures of their bulk. Once in the water they hung out and gave us dirty looks for a while.

We also had the treat of seeing two elephants amble into the river for a quick late afternoon shower.

T in her "safari" gear. I think I managed to dress her in animal themed clothing the entire trip, which is as close to "safari" as a 9-month-old needs to get.

One of the big crocs getting some sun. You don't see as many crocs as I had expected. I don't know if there is just less population density than you usually get with gators, or if the crocs or more shy, but it isn't like seeing a whole bank full of gators in Florida. You may see one or two over the course of a trip, but the ones you do see are usually impressive specimens.

K playing tour guide during our boat trip. She was much more interested in the animals this time around and excited to share them with her grandparents.