In Lieu of the Loo

I promised Stephanie and other FS bloggers I would try to find a sign that I once saw at a public bathroom in Manila.  It said:

Please do not wash hands or feet in toilet.

Somehow I lost the picture but it will be burned into my brain forever.

This did give me a chance though to bring up the root of my insanity during my two years in Manila. 

We lived in an AMAZING apartment.  The place was freaking designed by I.M. Pei.  The Marcos' (not Imelda but a relative) lived above us.  It was nice and I often felt like oprhan Annie at Daddy Warbuck's mansion. 

The thing that killed me while living there was our parking garage.  Once again, nice.  In places like these it was pre-requisite to hav guards everywhere.  There were bathrooms for the building employees but often the guards in the parking lot thought it was too much of a hassle to go use the proper toilet and instead would just use a plastic liquid container.

This became my cause.  I fought to eliminate bottle urination my whole tour.  I failed.

The last day I was in the Philippines I saw this:

Yup, look for it, look for it.  You see the two water bottles in my parking spot.  Yes, they are full of urine.  What did you think it was Mountain Dew?

What You Can Hide in Brownies

Some of your may remember a few months back I decided to try out the Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious.  My children are picky eaters.  Stella in particular is not just kind of picky but she is extremely picky.  For example, if Tiger or myself is eating a banana, yogurt, sour cream, or an apple she has to leave the table. 

To her credit, she is really polite about it.  She picks up her food and takes it to another room where she does not have to be bothered by the smell and sounds of the offending food.  It drives me CRAZY (but at least she doesn't throw a tantrum when I eat a Yoplait).

So, I decided to try out the Sneaky Chef  and Deceptively Delicious.  I thought they both had their pros and cons.  In the end though, who wants the hassle.  I like the idea of pre-made purees that I could throw into things but after four hours of cooking all these veggies and mixing it up who wants to make chicken nuggets by hand?  Not me.

And I imagine not most people.

So, I have been dabbling into my own recipes of sneaky things.

I came up with the idea when someone was talking about the mainstay of many colleges: pot brownies (disclaimer: my college was not famous for pot brownies).  I started thinking, if people can hide marijuana in brownies what other things could I hide?

As it turns out about a cup of pureed broccoli, spinach, and peas. 


Make brownies from a store box mix.  Add 1 cup of green puree (see recipe below).  Cook as instructed and have a guilt free dessert.

Green Puree

Makes about 2 cups of puree This recipe makes about 2 cups of puree; double it if you want to store another 2 cups. It will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or you can freeze 1/4-cup portions in sealed plastic bags or small plastic containers.
 

- 2 cups raw baby spinach leaves*
- 2 cups broccoli florets, fresh or frozen
- 1 cup sweet green peas, frozen
- 2 to 3 tablespoons water

*note: I prefer raw baby spinach to frozen spinach for this recipe (more mild flavor); if you must use frozen spinach, only use 1 cup of it.


> If using raw spinach, thoroughly wash it, even if the package says "prewashed."

> To prepare on the stovetop, pour about 2 inches of water into a pot with a tight-fitting lid. Put a vegetable steamer basket into the pot, add the spinach and broccoli, and steam for about 10 minutes, until very tender. Add the frozen peas to the basket for the last 2 minutes of steaming. Drain.

> To prepare in the microwave, place the broccoli and spinach in a microwave-safe bowl, cover with water, and microwave on high for 8 to 10 minutes, until very tender. Add peas for last 2 minutes of cooking. Drain.

> Place the vegetables in the bowl of your food processor along with 2 tablespoons of water. Puree on high until as smooth as possible. Stop occasionally to push the contents to the bottom. If necessary, use another tablespoon of water to smooth out the puree.

Scammed

Saturday is easily my most favorite day of the week and without rehashing Rebecca Black lyrics lets just say it is the ONE day of the week that Seth is around all day and we have no obligations.  Ahhh, heavenly.

As a precursor to the best day of the week my favorite in-law, Andrea, came over and hung out.  Long evening turned into a long night and so we had a sleep over.  The kids were ecstatic to wake up and find their cool aunt eating French toast with them.

Andrea is so cool that she lives in the actual city.  We decided to load the kids in the car and take her home and finally finish my failed trip to the National Building Museum.

But as fate would have it, it was not to be.

First there was the D.C. marathon.  Then there was the kick-off of the National Cherry Blossom festival. Oh, and lets not forgot at the circus is also in town and was performing about 30 minutes from the time that we were in front of the Verizon Center. 

This could only mean one thing: no parking in the entire District of Columbia.

We were a sad lot.  After looking for 30 minutes the kids started in on the whining.  Goldfish can only sate children for so long.

Finally we see a man asking us if we were ready to park.  We did inform him that yes we were parking and he led us to a lot, took our $10, and gave us a ticket.  It was too good to be true.  As I parked I noticed signs all around saying that it was permit parking only.  Yup, paid $10 and I couldn't even park there.  We were scammed.

So we gave up on DC and went back to Virginia where we had a wonderful yuppie Saturday.

Hitting the Wall

Today I woke up feeling like I was going to cry.  This is an occasional event that happens when I get less than six hours of sleep a few days in a row.  I felt crummy and after an attempt to medicate my exhaustion with Coke Zero fails I usually want to cry.  Today was one of those days.

I have just been burning the candle at both ends for too long.  Between shuttling kids, visiting friends that are in town, trying to learn French, and having a huge project due for work I just hit a wall.

The wall hit somewhere in between an argument with Stella about three year olds needing to put their own leggings on and losing my keys.  I knew I was spent.  I knew I needed a break.

So I did what any woman would do.  I called back up and picked him up at lunch.

Seth came home during lunch, I took a nap.  Life is good again.

I am so happy we rented a house by FSI, a house that Seth can walk to work from, a house that has a yard that I can throw my kids outside.  I admit I go crazy all the time at the furnishings and the junk that was left behind by the landlord but those naps and lunch visits are awesome.

Without saying too much I will say that we got our housing options in Brussels.  Both options are great and we are excited.  Both options require a two month stay in temporary housing, which I am less excited about.  I am trying to force time to learn French (hence wall hitting moments), it is tough but I am committed to finishing Rosetta Stone.

As an instructional designer it is hard for me to take this training because of the MAJOR educational design flaws I see in the system.  I am so so so so very happy I didn't pay ANYTHING to take this because I would be really really mad if I did.  I am pretty sure Rosetta Stone gives it to State for free so they can say that diplomats use it to learn language.

The main complaint I have with this system is that there is no guidebook or manual to accompany the lesson that offers any explanation of what they are trying to teach me here.  I am supposed to look at a picture and somehow figure out what is going on and guess the right French sentence.  The problem is  there is no explanation of why you get things right or wrong and the pictures they use are really bad.  You would think they would have had some small photo shoot to get these photos but as far as I can tell most of the images are just stock images.  Bad, really bad.

Now I should put a disclaimer out there that the speaking portion of the course is disabled on the State version of the course.  Perhaps if we had that it may justify more of the individual license cost, but even then I find this method of learning to be incomplete.  There needs to be a way to find out what you are doing right or wrong or what they are trying to teach you and Rosetta Stone doesn't have any of that,  they just let you figure it out yourself.  Boo.

Even so it is better than nothing and I try to put an hour of time (that I don't have) to do it every day.  If I had to do it all over again I would have seriously thought about brining our Filipino nanny so I could have taken courses at FSI, but alas, that was not to be.

Zooing

We have spring potential. 

Washington DC and I are not fighting anymore.  She has decided to stop freezing me to death and instead has brought SPRING!

OK, so maybe it isn't quite like that yet, but it is close and my iphone is not the best camera.  This is a photo from April 2008.  Nice right? 

To celebrate the 78-degree weather, I let Stella wear shorts under her dress instead of leggings (a HUGE deal from this child that is forever ruined by the tropics).  We also went to the zoo.  We bought a membership when we moved here and it has been TOTALLY worth it.  A family membership is $45, but parking is then free.  Without the membership, parking is $15.  So the membership pays for itself after three visits.  We live less than 12 minutes from the zoo, and the amount of animal cookies we have obtained may just have covered the $45 cost (you get them free when you show your card).

At the zoo with the kids.  They preferred climbing to animals.  Maybe I can leave them in the cages next time.

Our friends from Manila, the Langleys, are in town before going to Finland and we had a blast at the zoo with them. 

And now for my Belgium update.   I am a little bit bummed this week.  I have been trying to self-learn French but it is S-L-O-W to say the least.  I hired a tutor and that is helping but I am frustrated.  I take care of two kids all day, one of which NEVER NAPS.  I work 10-15 hours a week (from home) on top of that and then I am somehow supposed to find time to learn a second language? How?

In the back of my mind I had thought it isn't really THAT important.  Then this week I got an email from someone at church there, begging me to learn French.  Apparently a year ago they disbanded the International aka English speaking congregation of the church that we attend.  They decided to make all of the expats go to the local congregations.  Which is a really good idea if you don't want people to get ANYTHING from church.  Which was my exact experience in the Philippines.  I would love to be pleasantly surprised but will make a plan of sitting in church for the next two years without knowing what is going on. 

Now let me give credit before I get there, there is a rumor of a translation system and blah blah blah, but I am just bummed, I don't speak French and I am positive I will NEVER speak French to a level that I could discuss religion.  I am still not recovered from my experience in Manila dealing with an unrecognizable form of my faith.  Also, we still don't know what neighborhood we will be living in so that will definitely affect my need for French (or not). 

In the meantime Rosetta Stone and I will have a serious session of French.  It is sort of like learning how to speak English from watching Scooby Doo, but it is better than nothing. 

A Separate Piece

I like to think I am a good mom.  I spend pretty much every living waking moment attending to their needs, whether I want to or not.  Not only do I manage to keep my children alive, I even try to help them become good people.  Really I try.  I promise. 

So despite my darndest efforts or maybe to spite those efforts it is BEWILDERING to me that my youngest son cannot seem to get over his separation anxiety.  Every time I drop him off at playgroup, unless I am staying, he throws a three hour tantrum.  Seriously, I wonder if I am going to be the first parent to be kicked out for having a child who can't stop crying.  I have been called back several times.

Today I had to co-op next door at Stella's preschool, so I couldn't go and get him.  I heard Tiger cry the whole morning.  The week before he cried the whole time.  I can tell the other moms dread it when I show up to drop him off and really, I don't blame them.  Tiger is pretty awful when I leave.

This isn't my first time dealing with separation anxiety.  Stella was super super attached, as in, we didn't put her in preschool until she was 2 1/2 because she was just sort freaking out.  Now I am here again.  I keep telling myself it will get better, because historically it does, but it sucks.   I was so excited to have five hours a week to myself and now they are ruined because I can't relax knowing my baby is screaming for someone. 

In other news, we might have a date to leave Arlington.  We are looking at the calendar, talking to the gods of travel, thinking about leaving.  I feel (a little bit) TERRIBLE because it seems like we are going to miss the end of the year ballet recital and preschool graduation.  I have toyed around with changing our dates to try to accommodate these little things but it just doesn't make sense for our timing with our family.  Seth and I have gone back and forth about this and come to the conclusion that this is probably one of THE ONLY TIMES it won't really matter.  So...we will miss preschool graduation and the ballet recital (which I already spent $50 on some green tutu sill frilly thing).  There could be worse things in life. 

 Oh and the final bit of news!  I met Ashley from The Sherwood Family Nonsense.  They are going to take our over-furnished, heater breaking, amazing location rental.  Stella and her girls played together in our mud pit yard and Tiger and Edwin played around each other.  I love the FS Blogosphere, it makes me feel like I have a community when my world is always changing. 

Hot Patience

I feel like I am a reasonable person, I try to be fair and understanding.  I understand that "things" happen that cause delays.  However, I have absolutely no more patience left for the repairman that was supposed to be here five hours ago.

Our heater broke yesterday.  It is no longer freezing but it is still March and winter.  It is cold at night.  We had a chilly night with extra blankets and space heaters pumping.  Today the repairman was supposed to come at 10.  We canceled all our morning plans in anticipation of this man.  We waited, we waited, we baked to warm ourselves, and waited.  We called our landlord in Peru who was unreachable due to third world country problems (power outage, internet having a coup, you get the gist).  This guys doesn't come and we don't have a number for him.

So we call our own repairman.  He says he will be here in an hour.  Once we do this our Peruvian landlord calls from Lima and informs us Marben (yup, that is his name) is on his way.  Grrrrr.

Our whole day is shot.  Saturdays are seriously sacred, it is the ONLY day in the week where we have nothing schedule and we can just hang as a family, and Marben stole it from me.

Metroid

Spring is in the air, everyone (sans Seth) in my family is taking antibiotics, life is almost looking rosy again.

I decided Tiger and Stella needed to stay home one more day from the strep even though they should be over the contagious stage.  Stella's stomach has taken a number from the antibiotics and she just isn't herself.  She keeps complaining about a headache.  Tiger is finally acting like himself again although he still isn't eating much.

So while neither child is school/playgroup worthy today I figured they were both museum worthy.  I had heard fantastic things about the National Building Museum.  We live less than two blocks from the metro so I thought we could take a brief walk to the metro and it would eventually spit us out at the museum.

Without really thinking much about it I assumed Judiciary Square was on the orange line.  My days away from DC and the metro got me here.  It is on the RED line.  It took me about 3 stops beyond our transfer point to figure this out.  I try to run out with my double stroller but the mobs of DC are blasting me and yelling at me.  I finally got aggressive, used the stroller as a weapon and pushed my way out before the train doors closed and I was even further away from where I needed to be.

We finally got the L'Enfant Plaza where they we had to switch trains again.  Finding an elevator is like finding a clean place to put your hands in the metro, impossible.  So I get both kids out, lug the double stroller up the stairs and get on our final train.  We get out and then realize that while there is an elevator it is no where near the exit I need to be.  In fact as far as I can tell the only way to get to the exit I need to be is to have wings and fly with my two children and double stroller across the tracks.  So I give up and take the wrong exit.  I beg some women to help me with the stroller up the stairs with the two kids.  They oblige but when we get to the top one of them feels the need to chew me out for not using the mystery elevator that I searched in vain for.

I left our house at 10:00, it was now 11:30.  My kids were hungry and cranky.  I was sweaty, hungry, and cranky.

Tiger going to town with the giant Legos

Stella building a house out of blocks.  She was very annoyed when the "little kids" knocked it down.  

I walked to the museum.  We played for 30 minutes.  Seth came home for lunch and I begged him to drive into the city to pick us up, I am done and done with Metro for today.

Stella is napping which tells me she feels rotten.  Tiger is napping.  Seth is at work. Quiet time?  What is this?

Unleashed

So the mystery of my week long high fever was solved this morning.  My doctor called and informed me that although the q-tip that made me gag was negative they were able to grow an entire colony of strep bacteria.  Apparently these bad boys have been living on easy street in the back of my throat, causing me to have a fever over 102 on most days and a cough to boot.

Of course I couldn't just be sick alone.  Both Stella and Tiger have been out of sorts.  None of us have an appetite and it has been a bunch of cranky cranky people in this home.  Seth has played Florence Nightingale through it all.

Stella was so mad when I wouldn't play with her (because Tiger was having a massive meltdown begging me to take a nap).  She ended up drawing the picture below.  Apparently it is a drawing of her crying because I am not playing with her.  

I was so happy when she handed to me because she had managed to find a way to entertain herself for two minutes.  

Which leads me to my next quest in parenting: teaching Stella to entertain herself.  Am I the only parent dealing with this?  She wants to play with me all. the. time.  I like playing dollhouse about as much as the next thirty something mom but really?  I can get her to do a craft or something alone but when it comes to her playing pretend (which is all she ever wants to do) she is always begging me to play along.

Sometimes I can get her friend across the street to play with Stella and they can pretend for hours on end, but when I have two kids and a million things to get done it is really hard to play with two inch kitten dolls for my entire afternoon.

Any advice?

My other child has a different sort of problem.  Today I took him to CVS to pick up a prescription.  When I went to check out they of course, only have self check out.  I HATE self check out.  I was not a huge fan pre-children but now that I have kids they are seriously from the fiery bellows of hell.  Shouldn't I be getting a discount for using them?  They are terrible.  The time it takes me to scan the item and then click the button and then pull out the proper payment is exactly the amount of time my son needs to run away as fast as he can and hide.  Which is exactly what he did today.

He was no where to be found in my slightly seedy local CVS.  After a few panicky moments I found him in the lotion aisle with every bottle of lotion on the ground.

This has caused us to contemplate purchasing a child leash.  I always mocked parents that use them but my son thinks it is the funniest thing in the world to run away.  When I hold his hand he won't use his legs, making him dead weight.  So I either let him run away, hold him in my arms, or carry his arm and the dead weight.  The entire time any of this happens he is laughing thinking he is hilarious.  Mrmph.

Disguise This Couch!

When you live abroad as a diplomat Uncle Sam usually puts you up in some kind of housing.  The main reason for this is safety, there are standards to be met.  However as the recipient of this housing you have very little say in where you live (you can indicate a preference but that doesn't mean you will get it).  There is a whole lot that goes into housing including family size and rank in the service.  Sometimes the timing just works out and you get lucky and sometimes you end up spending two to three years in a red light district with razor wire, a fifteen foot fence around you, and a man with a machine gun who gets paid $20 a week.   

The one thing you can depend on with embassy housing is the couches.  They are all the same model of couch size but vary in the pattern.  There is gray and blue French gag and then there is light gray and gold French gag.  We tried to disguise our couches as a mustache but it all we could get was stubble.

This couch could only grow stubble.

Interior decorators of the world I ask this question: what would you do to disguise U.S. Embassy couches?  

Here is a picture before our couch grew facial hair:

Out Flat

Monday night is when it started.  I had a hankering for PF Changs (I am ashamed as I type this because there are so many awesome non-chain restaurants in this neighborhood).  Seth took me out.  It was sorta a belated Valentines date.  We paid $7 to park and walked to the restaurant.  We sat down, I looked at the menu and chills overcame me.  Nothing looked good.  I begged to go home.  So we did.

Then the kids got pink eye.  Then I got pink eye.  And still through it all I had a fever that would come and go.  Today I woke up with a 102.7 fever.  I felt awful.  I went to the doctor.  This doctor was fantastic but in the end we have no idea why I have a nasty fever.  Boo.

Seth had to call in sick today because this mom was out flat.  FLAT OUT.  I could not even muster to sit up and watch cartoons with the kids.  I slept all day long.  I woke up at 6:30 to put the kids to bed and now I sit here and blog.  I feel sorry for myself.  You should feel sorry for me too.  I feel like crap.

This is the part where I am supposed to tie my blog post with something Doogie Howser inspirational, but I am not in the mood, so I am just going to say this:  I am so grateful to have a husband who understands the importance of a work-family balance and manages every time to do it right.

The Evil Eye

My sister Shari just left today.  It was so much fun having her here.  We went to the zoo, the Art Museum, the Air and Space Museum.  Fantastic visit.  The best part about having my sister here is it is so easy to entertain her.  This is what makes the perfect guest:

• She helps out in the kitchen
• Chips in for groceries or when we go out to eat
• Helps clean up
• Offers to watch our kids so Seth and I can go out on a date 
• Doesn't need to be entertained every minute of the day
• Love my kids (and I love her little guy, Daniel)

Why am I including these?  No reason, maybe I am just trying to inception all of my future guests in Brussels.  

The only down fall to Shari's visit was the pink eye that Little D had and then distributed.  I didn't think it was contagious until Stella woke up looking like this: 

I believe we have a contagious one.  You also know something is wrong when your three year old is ASKING to go to the doctor.  

This would be less of a hassle if I was in good health but I also have a cold and the beginning of an itchy eye.  Seth and I went on a date Monday night and I wasn't even able to make it ten minutes before fever and chills started.  It was lame but who wants to pay for food that isn't able to stay?  I went to bed at 8:30 that night and have been on a slow road to recovery.  

What do you do to fix the evil eye?  I believe a visit to the pediatrician (and maybe beg them to give me a script for my eye just in case).