Fireworks!

The 4th of July was a funny kind of day. I spent most of the day cooking special "American" foods (baked beans with real bacon bits , courtesy of my dear sister in law nikki, and BBQ sauce that i had to make myself; deviled eggs with little American flags stuck in them that I actually made myself; and 3 flavors of homemade ice-cream) for the evening party, while other people went to the beach and played (ironically i was afraid i would overheat at the beach--and did not consider the same hazard in my kitchen). So when evening came and the bathing boy came home to pick me up for the party we headed over to some friends' house to celebrate. We ate LOTS of yummy food, played Settlers of Cattan (will I EVER win that game?) and then we decided it was time to shoot of the 2 fireworks we had. Now, that is easier said than done when you live in a city, in an apartment building, surrounded by buildings. National people here shoot off fireworks ALL THE TIME. For weddings, for elections, for whatever. They shoot them in our street so that when they shoot up into the air and then do their pretty little razzle dazzle they are just about level with our 8th floor apartment. But we were a little nervous about where we could shoot our fireworks. Plus there were quite a few of us, and in general, we try not to travel around in big obvious packs of Americans. But for this we made an exception. After much discussion, we trouped down (the 10 or 12 of us) to the corniche, which is a big sidewalk boardwalk along the water's edge. It was swarming with the usual saturday night crowd, because it's the only place kids can go to ride bikes or for people to go and walk where there is a continuous sidewalk. So we ask a guy who is standing there if fireworks are allowed. And of course, he's like, "sure". But we are still nervous. No one wants to take the responsibility of being the one to light the cannon-thing, because we're still really apprehensive that this is not an OK thing to do here. We are being very American and assuming that there are rules against this, and that we will be fined or punished. All of us, except my husband, who fearlessly squats down to light it. Someone points out that he is lighting it, and I point out that he readily jumps from airplanes too, but I wouldn't advise that as a good idea either. . .
The main reason we are nervous is because somehow we have to keep the zillion skating, biking, and running children that are in the vicinity from going toward the firework-cannon thing after it has been lit. This is no small task. So the area seems to temporarily clear a bit, Matt lights the wick, and for about the next 45 seconds or so (?who can tell, time flies when you are gazing up at exploding fire) we are thrilled by our little firework. It seems to shoot up high enough that no sparks actually fall on any of the surrounding people--this is good. After it ends, in typical American fashion, we all clap. This is quite possibly the funniest moment of all because I'm pretty sure that more people stared at us for clapping, than those who looked at us funny for shooting off fireworks amidst a huge crowd of people on a public sidewalk! Apparently in this world, fireworks do not merit applause.

With that great success under our belt, we proceed to firework number 2. About this time I notice 3 approaching police cars with their lights flashing, and I prepare myself mentally to be arrested. Only they keep right on driving by us. It really IS legal to shoot off what the carton described as "flaming balls of fire with returns" in the middle of the cornice. After that relief, we light the second one, then we ooh and aah and clap, i think someone may have hummed some John Phillips Sousa and then we clap again, get stared at again, and gather our very conspicuous group, and traipse away back to the cultural safety of our baked beans and ice-cream. It was way funnier in person than I can describe here, mostly because we stuck out so badly, but for this one day, we pretty much ignored it and let ourselves be as American as we could, just for a few minutes.

Big Woman vs. Good Pelvis

Had a Dr's appointment this week and we either have the most modest baby of all time, or the most stubborn. He/she (this week it's a he, we're practicing the name Noah) had his legs kind of crossed indian style, but tucked under himself in a way that made it just impossible to see what we were hoping to see the most . . . so there is no drum roll followed by joyous and exciting gender announcement. We are, nonetheless, very happy and grateful that our baby is looking normal and active and healthy. He's about the size of an apple (i'm 15 weeks) and he can pee, make faces, move his jaw and all his joints, and even though his eyelids are still fused shut, he can see and will respond to light. Cool huh? But what I want to know is how do his eyelids get unfused? The Doc had to leave the office shortly after I arrived for my appt to go deliver a baby, and when she came back she was saying that it was a big baby, 4.5 kilo's. But her disclaimer was that it was ok and they didn't need to do a C-section b/c she was a big woman. So then I asked her to define what a big woman is, because women here are just scrawny, skin and bones! So tiny and petite. So there was a kind of funny pause (while she tried to avoid telling me directly that I am a big woman in her thinking) and then she just agreed with me that these women are very small. Then I asked her directly, so am I a big woman? She was uncomfortable and changed the subject by saying that she expects that I will have a good pelvis! What in the world? So congratulate me. Not only do I have a healthy baby so far, I also am expected to have a good pelvis! :)

Being a Mom

I've been looking at friends' blogs today and I'm feeling a bit old. I'm about to become a first time mother and I will turn 31 before that happens in Dec. So many of my friends have multiple children and they seem like seasoned old pro's at the whole mothering thing. Matt will be 36 by the time we have the baby and I'm trying to see the bright side of being "older parents". I guess one of the good things about becoming a mom older is that HOPEFULLY, I'm a little wiser for the extra years I've put on. (And speaking of putting on, I'm starting to put on the pounds!) I think for me, becoming a mom a little behind the average has made me take the enterprise of motherhood a bit more seriously. Or maybe it's my personality type, but I feel like the seriousness of motherhood is heavy on my mind. My sweet mother in law sent me a little book called "1001 Things it Means to Be a Mom". This is meant to be a fun, happy little book, but after only a few pages of little anecdotal mothering suggestions, I was in tears. Not laughing till I cried, more like overwhelmed till I cried. Maybe this has to do with the fact that I was helping to babysit four children earlier in the day and things did not go well. It started fine over lunch (in spite an outbreak of dipping bread into their lemonade), but it started to turn ugly while all four of them were in my backseat and we were stuck in traffic for about an hour. . . how many times can we play the quite game? So as I was trying to tolerate the circus act in the back seat, all I wanted to do was knock their heads together like a couple of coconuts and tell them to shut up. And these are good kids. Kids I usually like, who are usually well-behaved! So what kind of mother will I be?



Number 18 in the book was: "Being a mom means sometimes not telling your child what you really think of them." At least as I've gotten a little older I've learned (mostly from my incredibly diplomatic husband) how to say less and listen a little more, and how to tone down my initial reactions (that are usually off the charts opinionated). Maybe it's not so bad to be an older mom. I'm taking this job VERY seriously, I'm a little wiser than I used to be and hopefully A LOT more flexible (living on this side of the pond has helped form that in me, as well as multiple re-locations and re-starts over the last 2 years). So, to all of you young moms, who are light years ahead of me and popping out number 3, anything you've learned that I need to know? And to you fabulous mom's who have survived the marathon of the first 18 or so years of motherhood, what do I need to learn from you? And from those in the same boat, getting a slightly later start at this race, what have you loved/hated about being an "older" mom? I will add them to my little book of 1001 mom things . . .

What's in a name?

Well, matt and I have discussed baby names since before I was pregnant. And we haven't really followed "the rules" when it comes to not telling people you're pregnant until after the 3 month mark, and all of that. So I think we're not going to follow the rule of don't talk about baby names until the baby is born b/c people will make comments about the names you like and discourage you, and then you won't want to use them. I don't care. Let's talk about them. Top runners for a girl are: Zoe (I forgot which middle name we liked for Zoe) but we liked this b/c of the Greek word zoe, as in zoe life. Ooh, i just had a thought. Maybe we could do Zoe Aiysha (b/c aiysha means life in Arabic!). Our other favorite girl name is Maya Grace. Maya means water in Arabic. We really want to chose names that will enable us to talk about what is true when we share with people what our kids' names are. We would also love to use Arabic if we can come up with names that sound ok to people like you guys back in the states. For boys we are really struggling. The last name Jacobsen limits first names b/c you don't really want to have a first and a last name that end in the same sound (like Jason Jacobsen, Jackson Jacobsen, etc.), so that kind of rules out all en/on ending names. We don't like most Arabic names for boys b/c there are very few that aren't very Islamic, that sound good to us, that have a good meaning. We like Noah, and there's an Arabic pronunciation for it that we like. But that's about all we've agreed on so far. Not even a middle name. So, we are open to suggestions. What do you think?

Having Babies Over Here

A good friend of ours just had her baby this week and it was lots of fun to go and meet her for the first time. It was also lots of fun to observe some of the cultural things that are connected to having babies here. When we went to the hospital, the first different thing that we noticed was all the way down the hall, outside of every new mom's room, there was a balloon statue kind of thing, tall enough to touch the ceiling. In addition to the huge balloon sculpture, there were flower arrangements that words cannot describe. Sitting on the floor in vases, they came up to our thigh or waist! One arrangement was made to look like a baby bassinet--they were simply extraordinary! EVERY room had 3 or 4 really fantastic arrangements like this. (except our American friends' room!) The next thing we noticed was that as we walked by the rooms going to our friend's room, every room had about 8 to 12 people inside, maybe more. Each room was just overflowing with family members, and although i didn't actually see it happening, i'm certain based on other experiences I have had here, that most of them were pinching the babies cheeks, and pretending to bite their cheeks (common way to show love and affection to those you think are cute or adorable here). The final funny thing was the mandatory plate of baklava that should be in each room, to feed to the guests that come to visit. That's not a difficult thing here, since all the sweets shops and bakeries sell it, but kind of interesting cultural phenomenon. When we arrived, the nurses had taken the baby away to change her, and after about an hour of waiting, daddy went to check on bringing her back into the room. After a second check, one nurse asked the other which baby, and the second nurse responded, "azhnaby", which means, "foreigner". I guess her blue eyes and blonde hair were a clear enough ID marker that everyone knew by looking at her that one of these things is not like the others. In whole, the visit gave me new incentive to keep hanging in there through the continued misery of what i would like to officially re-name, constant sickness, instead of the very misleading morning sickness. God willing, we too will have a baby to show for all of this vomitting, and hopefully a miracle will occur and time will start to fly. . .