Wives Club and Big Boy Baby

Stu turned out fine, so that was good. He only got some scratches from where the airbag went off under the arm he was steering with. But we a great night playing last night, which was really nice. Kaden is more animated every day and he makes me laugh so hard!

This morning while I was finishing my morning mug of green tea I looked over and he was lying in his pool… just hanging out. For a kid that rarely stops “going” it is still funny to me every time he relaxes some. He’s even been great about sitting with me and reading a book without getting restless.

Wives Club was great again yesterday. I “brought” muffins again which always seem to be a big hit… it seemed very lacking without food last time so I decided to bring on the carbs! I think we all sort of crave structure in our lives and we all feel better after getting together to gush about whatever random topics that happen to come up, whether it is babies, or Brangelina, or where to find shorts in a country that frowns upon women’s bare legs in public… Good times. (That said, with Sam and Rainy and I, the conversation is never so modest… OUR topics are about an aunt who shat herself, c-section horror stories, and the nightmare that is gastric bypass.)

Thank God, these itty bitty scratches were the only wounds from the wreck.

Handsome little Sir being a cute face.

Laying down with Daddy on his blankey.

He's really taken a liking to that blanket!

Just chillin' like a villain.

Eating his yummy cereal with banana chunks and milk. Big boy.

Car-wreck-itis

First off, there are some pics of Kaden for the loyal blog-reading grandmothers of the bunch.

Now, about an hour ago Stu called me on his way home from work.

“Hello?”

“Hey baby… I just got in a really bad wreck…”

Other than “so and so died”, these are pretty close to the last words you ever want to hear from your husband. With the psycho drivers in this country I am always so worried about Stu when he is driving to and from work. He and Nick (as you may remember from another blog) got into a little fender-bender shortly after we got here. This time was on the freeway and both cars are apparently more than totaled. Stu said he has a few scrapes but is otherwise ok. Thank God.

But now starts the process of figuring out fault and getting home… Last time Nick was driving and he came by our apartment before going to his own and it was after 8:30 at night! Hopefully that doesn’t happen to Stu. But typically both parties have to go to the Police Station and it is worked out there. Here, there is no such thing as a no-fault wreck. Someone’s going to be in trouble… and if you’re not Emirati and you get in an accident with one (regardless of the antics of the crazy Em-train), YOU are at fault. Period. After finding out that Stu’s fellow accidenters were in traditionally dress, I’d assume that’s what we’re dealing with.

Anytime something like this happens (an accident), regardless of how minor it is, it makes you take a step back from your life and take a mental inventory of it. Then it humbles you.

I have a beautiful son and wonderful husband who tries so hard to make me happy (as I stare at the flowers he brought me just on Thursday). I am blessed to have the opportunity to live in a foreign country and develop a better sense of cultural understanding and patience, while my husband makes more money than we could ever dream of making back in our own country with the skills we have now. We’re all healthy. Our son is developing ahead of his peers. Things are good. And now when my husband does get home I can give him a hug and kiss and thank God for one more day with him. Truly blessed...

baby baby baby

Kaden loves his car jammies… he got up so happy this morning, which is always nice. Even though the mean mean mean construction workers woke him up yet again.




Smart baby put Daddy’s belt on himself… then couldn’t get it off again. But he had a good time crawling around with it on!



So after the spaghetti I got smarter for lunch the next day! We lunches sans shirt! That went much better. A baby wipe and we were clean again. Much better.

Birdie

So we all went for a stroll down by our major street in our neighbo(u)rhood this weekend and took some more pictures using cool shutter speeds. Enjoy:

We also got soma paintings this weekend... they don't do much to minimize the HUGE crack on our wall (surely proof that it will only remain standing another handful of years), but they are fun nonetheless.

Spaghetti!

We had a pretty big event here last night. Spaghetti! Kaden has his first helping of spaghetti and (way too) red sauce. And he loved it! He got it everywhere and enjoyed every second of it. Stu promptly took him to the bath after dinner and it took me the whole bath time and then some to get the mess cleaned up! Haha

We finally found some non-ceramic plates and bowls for him here, so he can have messier food in his highchair. So that was fun!

Picass....So???

Alright. The goal was to hop in the car right after Kaden had a nap, head to the Emirates Palace, see the Picasso exhibit, “oooh” and “ahhh” a bit, then head to Rainy and Marcelo’s for some chatting and baby-and-Benji play time. Not quite how it went down.

Call me crazy but when a pretty big art exhibit comes to a town near you, people go, right? Not here. As when we hit up the Treasures of Sudan exhibit, the people here just seem… I don’t know… indifferent. When a museum decides to bring a good portion of their most prized works to a foreign country, the people of that country should be grateful for the opportunity and, you know, go see it. This time around there were definitely more people there (still not as many as you might find at a weekly poetry reading at your local library), but they were all as pale as me.

So, now that the scene has been set, here’s how our day ACTUALLY went: Sure, we made it out of the house after a short diaper change right after Kaden woke up from his nap. The problem was that Kaden was then STARVING about ten minutes into our trip. Awesome. So we got to the Palace gate and took some pretty great pictures of the monstrosity, and made our way to the FREE valet service. The Emirates Palace is absolutely insane, both in size and glamour. There were red ropes sectioning off a trail down to where the exhibit was held, so we sauntered like cattle to the entrance. Not ten steps through the door, with a famous 1901 self-portrait of Pablo from his blue period directly in from of us, Stu gets stopped by a security guard for taking pictures. I realize this shouldn’t shock anyone, BUT, I had specifically called to see if we COULD take pictures of the exhibit and the Asian lady on the phone told me could indeed. So the guard tries in hushed broken English to explain to Stu that he may NOT in fact take pictures of the “very expensive stuff”. (He also made us delete the ones we had taken) In the mean time, on his secret-service-inspired headset, he calls for a South African reinforcement to come explain again that we may not take pictures. So with a dampened mood, the Cubism seemed to lack the allure in person that it had in my head. We drifted through the hallways and took in what we could, but I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. The Louvre better not do this me once I finally get there! Not to mention that I had to sneak Kaden Cheerios every two minutes to coax him into quietness.

The Emirates Palace Hotel

They have grass!

A view of the Gulf from a window of the hotel

A view straight up at the roof

A harpist (is that a word?) at the Emirates Palace

Needless to say we left less enthused than when we arrived. We changed our clothes at home and headed over to Marcelo and Rainy’s and that ended up better. Kaden loved hanging out with Benji as usual and decided Benji wanted to “eat” too, so he was “feeding” him with his spoon. He also met a kitten that is staying with them that was really sweet. Kaden loves to pet things that are soft so he got a kick out of that.

"Feeding" Benji

Rainy, Benji, Kaden, and Marcelo

Kaden with the kitty.

Now Stu is in the kitchen preparing “breakfast for dinner” of French toast, bacon (real pork bacon even!!!), and eggs. I am really looking forward to it! There are few things that are better than NOT having to cook a meal every so often, and since I am hungry this will be even better.

Look what my wonderful Stuart brought home for me on Thursday night. :)

Confession

Yep, that’s right. I have a confession to make. Stu came home this afternoon bearing a package from Marcia. “Yay! Christmas again!” I tell Kaden as I get out the scissors to cut the tape. It has the cutest little jumpers with more characters and stripes and bright colors to add to his nothing-purchased-by-his-own-parents wardrobe. The bottom was loaded with mail which Stu and I gleefully went through saying, “taken care of”, “that one’s done”, etc. It feels so nice to be almost out of debt. It means that when we go home instead of half a month’s worth of paycheck going to car payments and rent and various charge cards, it can go into a savings account. Or become one heck of a Christmas for a baby we couldn’t spoil last year. Anyway, along with the mail and Kaden goodies (including a “Koi toy” floating Koi fish for the bathtub! Cool!) were an assortment of foodstuffs. We got corn meal (!!! Hehe, WHO reads my blogs???), and some mixes for muffins. Well, and here is the confession part, I opened one of these packages after Stu mentioned that we didn’t have muffin pans, dumped it into a bowl, added the half a cup of milk called for in the directions, stirred it up…. And proceeded to eat half of it. Yep. Raw. In all of its yummy goodness. Mom would have smacked me! Hehe.

So needless to say, I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, but now am full. From blueberry muffin mix. Right on.