the joy of TP

Hi from Little Lady

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you all the fun and exciting things I have discovered about Toilet Paper! I think that adults do not fully appreciate this thing. I mean it is on a roll of all things and at my level. It is just begging me to play with it. Plus it is in a room I don't go in so an even better reason. Now of course it is really fun to grab one end and run with it like a streamer. However this requires adults to actually put it on the thingy that holds it in place. Since it never seems to be there I only get this joy once and a while. It is just as much fun to be worn as a head band, a hat, a dress, and even shoes! You can throw it and watch it unroll down the hallway. Even better when your kitty gets involved and pushes it farther! Then you can take all that unrolled TP and you can shred it while you run around the house. It is like snow in the house! DON"T EAT IT. it just gets stuck on your tongue and is nearly impossible to get off. It is super squishy and great to stuff in shoes/ diaper bags/ open drawers where ever you can find a place. Also TP comes on this great roll thing so once you have emptied the paper off you get this tube and that makes lots of fun noise when you spin it on the holder and if it is not on the holder (see earlier complaint) then it is fun to use as a telescope or to just crush in your hand. OK well that is enough for now I hope you get a chance to enjoy TP as much as I do. Oh and I hate when Mommy uses it as Kleenex. It is not for faces Mom!

Sorry to say I do not have any pictures as mommy was a bit surprised/ flustered/ who knows what when she discovered my new talent to take any. Maybe Next Time!


Mommy note: Yes she has done all of these things with TP. Thankfully it has been over a course of a few weeks and many escape attempts into rooms unknown to her. I just wish there were TP locks. We have the toilet lid locks but that has never seemed to be a problem with her playing with it or even coming close to falling in so where are the TP locks to keep it on the roll! oh and to all my friends with children who are not yet walking and are sitting there laughing about this...just wait!

a little less excitment would be ok

what a night and well day we had yesterday. Yesterday we all woke up and Little Lady had her play time running around in the morning as usual. S slept in and when LL went back down for a nap so did I. Then S got up with her and I slept in. It is a great weekend routine. Once everyone was up we had some lunch and the plan was to get showers and go out and enjoy the 60 degree weather. LL has been cooped up most of the week with her nasty cold and ear infection and we figured it was time to get out. S went to take a shower first and there was no hot water. It was also at that point he discovered our in floor heat was off too making for a really cold bathroom (hehe). He came out and all the lights were off for the water. Naturally the next step is to check the breakers. Well we have 3 fuse boxes in our apartment, 2 in the basement, and 1 in the boiler room. As he tried to flip the one in the apartment the whole apartment lost power. oh joy! Next he turned off the 3 mains in the apartment and tried to turn them on one by one (I kinda feel like it is a scene in Jurassic park when you have to do it in a certain order and pump the handle and all that. lol) Nothing. So S then ventured into the basement and tried to figure out which boxes are ours. We had no luck and of course this all happens while the boab is at prayer. S comes back up to the apartment and we wait. Our boab returns an hour and 1/2 later and after 30 minutes S and him have it figured out and we even got the hot water turned back on (there was a lot of failed attempts in this process) then while S is in the basement being shown which boxes are ours I hear a pop, a buzz and a radio turns on in the spare bedroom all by itself (spooky right?) I call S and tell him about it. Apparently now our AC (fan and heat too) units have tripped their breakers! S comes in and we go to the bedroom and can smell the electricity. I reach to turn the radio off and it is already off...but the sound continues! We unplug it (very quickly). Then S tries to flip the breakers and a light blub explodes and shoots across the room! At this point we had enough with the power and we called for someone to come fix it. He shows up and flips some switches and declares that the light bulb had a short in it and with all the power flickers from the hot water heater it just was too much for it. He then says that our AC Unit has a blown fuse and he will send someone on Sunday as it is not necessary right now. We were ok with that answer as everything else seemed to be working fine. We even had hot showers in the evening. We all went to bed and everything was hunky dory....or not. At 4:30 am we hear a pop and once again we have no power. We think about ignoring it and dealing with it in the morning except LL's white noise machine was off and she could not stay asleep. S goes and fixes it in the basement and I give LL some milk to try to get her back to sleep. No Go! We leave the hot water off and S parks himself in the living room with LL to play. At 6 I put her back to bed and then we all tried to get some sleep. I should mention that after S got the power back on it continued to surge and the lights would get bright then dim terribly. Also our transformers would hum loudly then get quiet. It made for a long night. Anyways we slept in until 10 and now here we are at 2:30 ish with no hot water but at least power. S could turn it on but it frightens me since it keeps surging and popping for no reason that something major is going to happen and we will have a fire or something. In other words if we stink for a few days it is not our fault. We are waiting for them to come and fix the problem before we will be lucky enough to get showers. However it is looking like I will miss another Arabic class on Sunday and that makes three in a row. I missed all last week because Millie was sick and we were either at the Dr or trying to get some sleep since we were up all night. oh well what can you do. So I hope that everyone else had a less exciting Friday.

little fish

Little Lady started swim lessons this week. We figured that since she has absolutely no fear of water and now that she is walking and not yet listening we would need her to be as safe as possible this summer. Life here at the embassy is spent around the pool from May to September and I plan to be part of that life and live at the pool too. Until then we will continue our lessons with Ms Andrea in her heated pool at her house and hopefully Little Lady will learn something. Class one was spent working on kicking, paddling, blowing bubbles, and how to get to the side if it you fall in. There was lots of songs and the kids were supposed to practice holding their breath. If you have never taking baby swim classes you may be wondering how one teaches breath holding. Well Ms Andrea uses the lift them up in the air and slightly drop them so they catch their breath method. This seemed to work with all the other kids except little lady. We have been playing that game with her forever so she just laughs. Then the whole lets blow bubbles thing? Yeah she decided it was much more fun to drink the water or suck it in and spit it at mommy. Jumping in the pool then getting out at the side? Jumping in was great getting out resulted in screaming. Though she was very happy to kick and splash until a fellow class mate was given a toy to play with to calm her (apparently so she would leave the pool on a happy note). All that did was leave little lady determined to swim over to her and take the ball/turtle/boat whatever she had at the moment. The rest of the class was spent with LL trying to figure out a way to steal the toy. Go Figure. At least she had fun and it was a nice way to start our day. Can't wait for our next lesson!

crying it out

Well we started the new bed time routine and the cry it out method with Little Lady 2 1/2 weeks ago and it has greatly improved naps and she is starting to get it at bedtime. Before this I was giving her a bottle and holding her until she fell asleep. Then I would move her to the crib and well most of the time she would wake up and it would start again so we knew it was time for a change. Now I know I should have given up holding her at night awhile ago but I just couldn't do it. She hates to snuggle unless it was night time so I just wanted to hold onto the moment a little longer with her. Then it became unbearable and yeah I was ready. Now the first night we put her to bed and it took two hours, 2 sheet changes, 2 pj changes, and eventually she was asleep only after we gave up and I gave her more milk and snuggled. We had to change the sheets and pjs as she got herself so worked up crying and screaming that she was throwing up. Then during the day the naps went great she was out in 15 minutes or so. Night time # 2 and it was around an hour and only 1 sheet and pj change. YAY for improvement. Then S went out of town...It was last minute otherwise we would not have decided on a new routine just before he left. It was a disaster. She was screaming and screaming. There were lots of sheet and Pj changes. it was not a pretty few days. S came home and we got back on track. Here we are two and half weeks into this technique and some nights she is out in a matter of minutes. Other nights it is an hour or so. It all depends on her mood.  The best part of this new routine is that her naps have improved. She went from 1 maybe 2 30 minute naps a day to 2 naps that are 1 to 2 hours long. She is sleeping through the night and if she wakes up she finds her own binky. Before we would have to go back in and give her a binky or even have to cuddle her for a while. In other words life is improving. We have stuck it out and she is getting better. She will even play quietly in her crib if she doesn't feel like sleeping.  Here is our routine:

30 minutes before bedtime: We get her pjs on and all play with quiet toys in her room
Bedtime: She drinks some milk, gets her teeth brushed and we read Llama Llama Red Pajama ( she will actually get the book and let us know when she is ready for bed now)
Then I sing Twinkle Twinkle little star and you are my sunshine and give her a kiss.
Finally I lay her in the crib (she screams) and I shut the door.

S and I are then spending the next few minutes staring at the video monitor making sure she doesn't get sick. Eventually she is asleep and we get to watch TV!!!

 It works but it was tough. We tried the methods where we would go back in once she was screaming but that just made it worse. We talked with other parents and they had similar problems and the best thing was just to leave and not go back. She hated it and we hated it and well we all still hate it but like I said it is getting better and soon it will be great. So if you are going through a routine change just stick with it and be patient. Especially if you have a strong willed child!

The hazard of falling asleep on your binky