Beach Baby

so happy i found her a bathing suit that didn't cost a small fortune! hooray for overstock stuff from the states making it's way here somehow! (she's not loving the sun in her eyes in this shot, this was while we waited for the staff to bring us an umbrella)

we are both very excited to be there!

the water was COLD but she didn't mind one bit!

she was a fan of the floatie as long as she didn't sit too far back. she got a little freaked then.

the waves don't look big, but after one just about took my feet out from under me (while holding maya) we returned to the safety of the pool. . .

Daddy was sick and we missed him a lot but we had a GREAT first trip to the beach/pool!!

The Things I Will Miss: Advice Giving

We are getting ready to come back to the U.S. for six months (we'll be arriving in Birmingham July 1st, woo hoo!) and I keep thinking of things about this country that I will miss. Most of them are things that used to really upset or annoy me. But love (and I'm talkin' the real kind of love--the kind that takes supernatural intervention from a loving God) tends to make those the very things you end up loving. As I think of them over the next few days and weeks, I'll share them with you. I'll start off today with advice-giving. Now I'm not talking the occasional solicited kind of advice or something shared between close friends or even family members. I'm talking everyone from a stranger you meet in the bathroom to a man driving you in a taxi having something that you need to know. Advice giving is chronic and personal here. And if you're not used to it (or if you tend to take things personally) it can really feel like an attack. I've been given advice on how to clothe, feed, care for, and bathe our child. Some of the hardest things for me have been being told what I am doing wrong that is causing her to be fussy or unhappy. I've been told how to solve morning sickness, how to exercise (or not exercise) while pregnant, how to treat every illness from diarrhea (lemonade) to Narcolepsy (one of our personal favorites was a taxi driver volunteering to take me up onto a special mountain to sleep in order to heal me of my Narcolepsy). We're constantly given instruction on how to get into a parking spot by any passerby. In a particularly comical event, my American friends were even given instruction on how to speak English--by a man who could barely speak English. He was convinced that "Happy Sylvester" was a standard holiday greeting. We've been instructed in how to speak Arabic (of course), and often criticized and told that our accent is not very good. We've been told that the ash from the volcano in Iceland is the reason Matt had a cold and also the reason the fruits and vegetables are early this year. We've been told how to cook correctly and how we should arrange our furniture so that it looks better. We've been told to pierce Maya's ears since she was born.


Here are a few more favorites (they may or may not be helpful--we should probably try them!)

• If you have stomach cramps, drink lemonade


• If you have a belly ache it's because the A/C was blowing on your belly


• If you are nauseous, drink yogurt


• If there is anything wrong with you, drink tea and eat olives or garlic


• To help you have adequate milk if you are nursing, drink yogurt


• Do not drink anything while eating your meal, it will give you a stomach ache


• Do not drink cold drinks, it will give you a stomach ache/diarrhea


• Do not shave (your legs)--it is bad, use a wax-like process called sugaring to rip all of your hair out (including your arm hair)


• In the winter, always drink a glass of hot water before going out in order to avoid getting sick

Next post I think I'll talk about noise . . .

Eating and Other Adventures

We've now officially branched out into solids. Rice cereal (tasty), apples (not a huge favorite but she eats them anyway) and bananas (which she squeals about while eating them she likes them so much). As soon as I can find some ripe avocados we'll give those a whirl (isn't there some trick to ripen them if they're not already ripe?). Except for the rice cereal, I'm making her food so far. Fresh fruits and vegetables are SO CHEAP here compared to the States, and she's only eating solid food like twice a day, so it's very easy right now. We'll see if I keep it up once we're in the states this summer . . . baby food in a jar is quite a bit more expensive here and since the fresh stuff is affordable I feel good about giving that to her. No preservatives, you know. Then I ask myself if I should be trying to use organic produce. The danger of blogging and being able to be so connected to others, for me, is that I have that many more people to compare myself to. I know I shouldn't, but when I read about this person who doesn't eat sugar or flour, and that mom who kept her kids vegetarian until they were four years old, and this other mom who made all of her own baby foods out of only organic stuff I just get overwhelmed and think, is that really a battle that I want to try to fight? Give me some feedback and tell me what you did and why . . . and enjoy the pics and video!

The Monkey Show

Hey everyone. Do you ever discover a new blog by reading someones blog who is listed on a friend's blog and then they reference a blog and so you click on it (because who can resist that?) and then you discover the funniest blog you've seen in recent history? Well thanks lady whose blog I was reading who had a link to this gem: http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/. I think I love it partially because my older brother (who shall remain un-named to protect his identity) is a photo-sneezer. I'm not talking about once or twice he sneezed in a family photo. I'm talking we have an entire collection of family pictures disfigured by Jason in the middle of a sneeze at the precise moment the picture was taken. Oh whoops, sorry J. So much for anonymity. You know you want the paps at your door. Anyway, my fondness for my big bro and his uncanny ability to spice up so many family photos with a giant sneeze (or just a generally strange and awkward expression) made me identify so much with so many of these truly awkward family pictures. (mom, you should scan and post some of those amazing pics and I'll link to your blog). Jason grew up to be a very handsome man, so all of those not so photogenic childhood moments have been redeemed.

But that's not what I set out to post about--Let's get down to it. Matt made fun of me the day before yesterday for saying this, "You know sometimes these people seem very competent and professional and the next minute it's like watching a monkey show." I think that I meant to say circus. But I kind of like how monkey show rolls off the tongue. Unfortunately, when I made this comment we were at the e.r. with Maya. She's fine, she's fine. Don't worry. She had the big d as well as immense vomiting and after I called the Dr (who was out of the country) her sub told me to take her to the e.r. to see if she needed fluids. So we waited around for Matt to get home from where he was (because Mays is not the only pathetic puking and pooping one lately there was no way I was going to try to take her there alone in a taxi). Then we headed to the e.r. Now since I was in the e.r. a few months ago with a gall stone attack, we kind of know the drill here. You check in and then they get an initial paper filled out on you then you go pay. Then they examine you, then you go pay. Then they do some things and order labs. Then you go pay. It's pretty smart. It's how they eliminate all those annoying poor people--no pay?--no way! This system means that you have to make sure that when you get suddenly and seriously ill that you take a little pay pal with you so that they can keep going to the cashier window and paying every few minutes while you writhe alone in your hospital bed (when i had my gall bladder episode we had to have friends run up to the hospital with i think a thousand dollars in cash at one point before we realized we could use our credit card).

So then we get to the point where they are actually beginning to help Maya. They determine that the best thing to do is to give her an anti nausea suppository, then try to give her some oral re-hydrating solution to try to avoid having to give her an i.v. Well I am all about sparing my child pain (and i have heard from my nurse friend here that they make you hold your own child down when they are doing anything that requires holding down and I'm pretty sure i can't handle that, so we opt for the rectal route). They give Maya the suppository. She cries and cries. I ask the nurse, "Is it supposed to hurt her?" She tells me that it hurts a little. Maya decides they can stick that thing where the sun don't shine--and swiftly fills her diaper--pooping the offender right out. So the nurse comes back and inserts #2. Maya again cries and whines and acts very uncomfortable before filling her diaper once again. Hah! She will not be man-handled! Then another nurse tells me that we will have to put the third suppository in, and hold it in for 5 minutes. Then he looks at me and says something along the lines of, "Madam, are you going to do this or am I?" Uh. . . I'm thinking, you're the one with the latex gloves brother--tfadl (which means, go right ahead!!!!!). So he sticks his finger in there (thankfully at this point she has given up her protesting and is desperately sucking her thumb and has fallen asleep). He informs us that she is still trying to push it out. After the five minutes have passed, he tells me (even though Matt is standing right there beside her stroking her hair), "Madam, you need to hold her now here for five minutes." The "here" is her butt cheeks. He wants me to hold her butt cheeks together so she can't poop it out. I have no idea why that needed to be my job, since her DADDY was already standing there with her and i was sitting on a chair across the room, but whatever. Her cheeks are cute and at this point i have her puke all down the front of my shirt, so why not position myself at her other shooting end. At least I'm not having to pin her arms down while some resident learns how to give babies i.v.'s. She stayed asleep thankfully and the third suppository stayed in long enough to work.

This is when the monkey show comment came out. After the suppository was finally successfully administered, they come in with a prescription and tell us we need to go to the pharmacy to go and get the solution for her. I'm thinking, "This is the pediatric section of the e.r., and you don't have any oral re-hydration solution ON HAND? What is wrong with you people?" So as Matt is running to the pharmacy I'm just thinking crazy. This is crazy. After Matt tries two different pharmacies and neither one has what is on the script, he calls my cell and wants to know where he's supposed to find this stuff. I find the nurse with the finger and put him on the phone with Matt. Hero of the day (Matt) returns with a bottle of "Babylyte". Then I ask the nurse for a bottle to put it in, so that i can feed it to Maya. He looks at me like I've asked him for a spandex cat suit. They don't have bottles. Of course. Thankfully (read irony here) the night before I had started on Flagyl (a medication to kill parasites) and had to switch Maya onto formula, so I had a bottle with me that I dumped the formula powder out of and put the Babylyte into. We got her started drinking that and things went okay until she threw up again. This time she missed the front of me and went for the floor instead--good girl. We then spent the next two hours or so giving her about 5 ml of the solution every 5 minutes (for those of you not currently bottle feeding children this is painfully slow and the tiny amount is very frustrating to the aggravated and hungry infant) but she was able to keep it down. We still don't have her lab work back so we don't even know what caused this now 3 day fiasco, but we are happy to report that the little munchkin is back on formula as of this morning and is keeping things down just fine. (praise ye the Lord) Happy side note: mommy seems to be taking quite nicely to the Flagyl (minus the awful metallic taste it causes in your mouth and the brown pee that comes from it) and feels the best she's felt in three weeks. Except that she can hardly walk her foot hurts so bad. But that's another post for another day. Truly, thank you for praying for us. Clearly, we need it. We are the monkey show. . .