Boys

I have boys. I have three boys, to be exact. And they’re all awesome.

Malachi’s doing well in first grade. He’s taking swimming and Tae Kwon Do for his after school activities, and he’s liking them. He was learning the back stroke in swimming, and said it was hard. I told him that it was the hardest one I learned in my swimming lessons too. His reading and writing are coming along quite well.  He’s been making friends, and has no trouble finding someone to spend time with. Even our next door neighbors love playing with him. This is a nice change from the hardships of the neighborhood relationships in Costa Rica. Malachi has been seizure free for 21 months. I basically am just waiting for the next one to happen. However, he’s around the age where his first neurologist said he could grow out of them. So maybe we’ve left the seizures behind. We’ll have to see.

Simon is almost three. He’s growing, and developing quite well. He loves his brothers very much and wants to spend time with them as much as possible. He has a few friends and one whose house he knows so well that every time we pass it he gets quite excited. He specifically asks to play with that friend, and another often. He has requested an airplane cake for his birthday party, so that’s the theme we’re going with this year.

Coen had his eighteen month well check a month late (but that beats Malachi, who still hasn’t had his well check yet – oops). He’s already 26 lbs and 36 inches long! John suspects he knows 25-30 words, but I think it’s a higher number than that. He’s running around the house either after a brother or away from one. He plays with all the little toys, sending me into fits of fear that he’s going to choke and die – so far, nothing has been swallowed. How we’ve pulled that off, I don’t know.

Today I took all three of them and their yaya to the Mind Museum in Global City (also known as Fort Bonifacio, or BGC (Bonifacio Global City)). They had a great time running around and touching anything they could get their hands on. However, it seems like they’re all like me. They go through museums quickly. I tried a few times reading to Malachi, but it wasn’t tolerated much. John’s better at it than I am.

It’s (almost) that time again

Is it really? Is it really (almost) that time, already?

We’ve only been here (almost) six months, but yes it is. We’re on our second assignment, so it’s only two years long. Which means that this summer we’ll be planning our lives around our next move.

It’s time to research posts, because this summer…it’s bidding time.

This will be a new experience for us. John will be bidding on a mid-level assignment. In consular, it’s management. Depending on the size of the Post we go to it could be Visa (or American Citizen Services) Chief. It could also be deputy chief.

John’s been looking at the available jobs for a little while. There’s a position open in Santiago, Chile. There’s one open in Kyiv, Ukraine (which is where some good friends of our are going next). There’s a position in Ho Chi Minh, Vietman. There are a bunch more Asian posts that he’s interested in.

So we’re asking ourselves questions like…do we want to do a long language training in the U.S. (yes)? Do we want to speak Spanish again (yes)? Would we want to do an Unaccompanied Tour and be separated for a year (no, not really)?

After we think about those things, we have to consider what posts are available for Malachi’s class 2 clearance (for occasional Epilepsy). Which posts are good for me working (because that’s my requirement). Which posts have good schools. Where we can afford to have house help.

There are so many things to consider.

But for now, it’s down to research. We have to figure out what jobs are available in places where Malachi can go, and research the heck out of them. Once our above questions are answered we can have a good idea of what jobs to bid for. Then the real nail biting and unfortunate amount of waiting begins.

Facing a fear

If you're my friend on Facebook, you may have seen some pictures taken yesterday.

John and I decided to take the kids on a day trip. We wanted to get out of the city, and there are great places to go. John thought Tagaytay would be good and looked up ideas on what to do.

After eating brunch at Antonio's, we headed just down the street to Residence Inn. There's a hotel there with an amazing view of the lake and Taal Volcano, but there's also a zoo. It's small, smelly, and the cages are horrible.

However, the kids had a good time, and we got really close to some animals. Really, really close. Petting the tiger wasn't really scary, it was fun actually. I was excited to do it and even bought the photo.

This is taken with my camera by one of their employees. 

After going through the aquarium, we saw a similar encounter with a very different animal. A long, skinny, slithering kind. I guess you'd have to call it a reptile...a snake. A python to be exact. I have a strong fear of snakes. I had a nightmare once about being in a room full of snakes and not getting out before being bitten. The room went black before I woke up. I still shudder when I think of that nightmare.

This snake was rather tame and just laying there. I told John I kind of wanted to hold it, but that I was really scared. He pointed out that I should do it exactly for that reason.

The lady thought we'd want the face to be facing the camera. In all honesty her moving the snake made it worse.

So I payed the P50 ($1.25) and scooted my way down the bench towards the snake. The woman working that stand was just throwing the snake around like it couldn't kill me!

Maybe it didn't want to eat me, but I certainly wasn't thinking that way. But I held it, and John took pictures. And I was terrified. Like...couldn't-stand-straight-for-about-30-seconds-after-I-walked-away terrified.

But I did walk away. And I faced a (strong) fear. And I felt really good about that.

Test

This is a test. I'm posting this from the blogger app on my iPad. And now I'm going to sleep.

Adventures

Christmas break started on Friday at noon. Malachi’s home for three weeks. I love Malachi so, so much. And I’m happy about the perks of Christmas vacation.
But I think sometimes, Simon values his time at home without him. Or maybe Malachi values his time at school away from the youngins and with kids his own age. Either way, the two have them have been fighting a lot today.
Sunday night a mom from Malachi’s grade texted and asked if Malachi and I could join them for the Hi-5 Holiday concert. And of course we couldn’t pass up free tickets, especially since it was Malachi’s girlfriend that was inviting us.

Mom and Son going out for their second concert.

Malachi really enjoyed it. And besides his girlfriend being there, he met another friend. They had fun dancing and singing. They would even dance in the aisle (we had aisle seats).
I think it was a memory Malachi will hold onto for a while. On a side note, I wonder when Malachi’s taste in concerts will change. Will I enjoy the concerts as much (or little)?

In other news, Coen had quite a fall yesterday. I was trying to rest and there was a knock on my bedroom door. Lucy had Coen and said she was so sorry but that Coen fell (The helpers here are so apologetic when one of the kids falls. I think they fear that they might lose their jobs. It would be so unfair to lose a job if a boy falls.). There was a prominent scratch and a large goose egg on his forehead.

Coen was most upset by the fact that he wasn’t still outside playing. He didn’t want to come to me, and all he wanted to do was go back outside. I told her that if he starts crying and won’t stop, or if he starts walking funny to let me know. Otherwise, he seemed fine. We continued keeping an eye on him that evening. Nothing was wrong with him. He ate fine and acted fine.

I checked on him twice in the night to make sure his color was good and that he was breathing fine. Both times he passed. I was going to the Medical Clinic on the compound today for another reason so I brought him to have him looked at in case there was something that a medical professional could see that I couldn’t. She said we handled the situation perfectly and that his pupils were responding to stimulation. He checked out just fine.

A little out of focus, but happy to smile for the camera.

Good view of the bump and emerging bruise. The bruise isn’t much worse than this, today.

A Haunted House in December

When we asked Malachi in October what kind of party we wanted for his birthday he said “Halloween.” It was before Halloween, and neither of us thought he would stick with it after the excitement of the holiday was over.

We were wrong.

It’s what he continued to want, even after winning 1st place in the village costume contest for 6 years and under as Zombie Malachi.

I think we dreaded doing it, and we put it off. We went on our anniversary trip and when we got back his birthday was in less than ten days and we hadn’t started planning it.

By the time we did start planning it, it was too late to have it in November and send out invitations with an appropriate amount of time before hand.

So we decided on a Saturday in December. And we decided on a morning party so we could avoid making a big food spread, and so we wouldn’t disrupt the littles’ nap schedule.

We started planning and prepping and on Thursday started changing our multipurpose room into a haunted house. We were pretty proud of of what we produced.

The room was very dark, but we have a good flash. Also, the kids had already been playing in it for a while before John took pictures. The spider piñata was just a spider hanging out in the big red spider web before we took it down to use.

Malachi and his friends LOVED the haunted house. Loved. It.

It was so much work, but it ended up being worth it. And though we were sad that only about 10 kids were coming, it was a perfect number so that they could all be in the house at the same time.

The Weekend of Body Fluids

and introducing our household help

It’s been gross and has involved all three children. Let’s leave it at that. The title is catching, though, isn’t it?

I like to think that I’m a good employer. I really hope that I am. I have an amazing live-in helper, Lucy. She was referred from a friend at John’s work who hired her to help over the summer. When the summer was over, they didn’t need her anymore and we snatched her up.

I couldn’t have asked for a better match. She’s been here for over three months now and she’s definitely part of our family. My children love her, and she loves them. I feel completely comfortable leaving all three of them with her because I know that she’s more than competent at taking care of them. We were even comfortable leaving them with her while we hopped over to another island for our anniversary.

We have a driver, as well. We’re his first Embassy family, and he’s fitting in well. He got his clearance from the Embassy and now has a badge, which makes entering both compounds much quicker. Manila’s roads and the drivers are unpredictable and to put it bluntly, crazy. They’re drivable, but out of the three drivers in our family our driver does it best. We ran into horrible traffic one day on the way to a movie. We left with only 20 minutes until the start time (a very bad idea, normally), and we got there in time to see the whole movie. He can be pretty amazing. There’s only one tiny scratch on our car, and it’s from our gate, so we’ve as of yet had to deal with an accident. It’s so common that most people I know have been in at least one, sometimes two incidents. Most are small and usually involve a public transportation vehicle.

We have a part time helper that comes in three days a week. We hired her a couple of months ago, and she was told by her son she couldn’t work for us anymore. She came to help out during our anniversary trip and I asked if she could come work part time for us. Her son doesn’t know, and we’re not telling him! It’s nice when she’s here to help with the ironing and floors and bathrooms. The days she’s here are great for shopping or sending out Lucy to do something. She doesn’t live far, but she doesn’t like traveling in traffic, so she stays at our house two nights a week.

We have a pool guy that come MWF between 6:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. He’s only here for about an hour, but he cleans the pool and surrounding area and balances the chemicals. We had an issue with the pH balance and he was able to fix it right up. We were very happy to not have to call a “professional” service.

Our gardener comes on Mondays and sometimes he’ll come on other days to water the gardens or help out with other outdoors projects, like hanging Christmas lights. His other two employers are across the street and down on the corner, so he’s never very far. 

It’s a lot to manage, but Lucy is great at helping me out with that. The driver gets managed mostly by John because I feel that’s more appropriate. Though, we really don’t have many problems with him. Sometimes I can tell that I’ve texted him to pick me up from a shop or mall or the school mid-cigarette because he and the car smell like smoke. I very much dislike those moments but they’re not so common that I’ve had to say something. And I don’t feel like I can tell him that he’s not allowed to smoke the whole day he’s working.

I hope they think of me as a good employer. I try to be. I would be totally lost without Lucy. She’s absolutely precious to me and I’m so happy we have her in our family.