Moments to remember

Time is going by so fast and as each day passes more and more changes so here are some things that I hope to never forget (hence writing them here).

*Everyday Little Lady wakes up and gives me the best hug ever. For the rest of the day she is too busy for hugs but first thing in the morning is our snuggle time.

* She cannot go anywhere with out Elma (elmo) everything has to do with Elma and she often asks about him (her?) during the day.

* She loves to wash her hands. She will rub them together and say "wisss". We head into the bathroom and turn on the sink. I then give her some soap and she says "A" which is the start of the ABC's which we sing everytime (have to start early teaching her the proper washing length of time)

* She loves to have lotion on. She will say "A, A" and hold out her hand for some lotion. I will put some on and she rubs it in her hands and on her facing while saying "A" for the ABC song.

* If she falls down she rarely crys. If she hits her head she says "ow" while rubbing it and if she hits her hands or legs or something she will say "brish brish" (brush brush) and wipe them off and continues on. She actually said it to a friend that fell the other day and didn't understand why they were crying about falling over.

* She loves spelling her name. I have a song I sing with her about spelling her name and any time we color or draw I help her write her name first. So now she grabs crayons or pencils and says "A. M" and then she expects me to finish spelling it!

* She has some manners and actually uses them correctly. It is the cutest thing to hear her say "biss" when every anyone sneezes. She also says "peees" when she wants something, like to use her slide, or something out of reach. She can say thank you as well but that one is used much less often.

* "wee" and "wow" are her favorite thing to say when she is having fun. Usually swings have the Wee sound and Slides have a wow.

* She loves to ride on the slide at home, the playground, anywhere. She says "side" while pointing at it and waits for the ok (most of the time) then climbs up. She loves to go down on her belly face first and has no fear of the tallest of the slides at the playground.

* She also says "side" when she wants to go outside but that involves her pointing out the window or glass door. She even says it while playing with the lock on our main entrance.

* She has entered the Daddy phase. She loves snuggling with him. When she hears his key in the lock she gets all excited and will ask me "Daddy?" and I say "yes" she goes running to greet him.

* She loves to blow her nose...or well grab tissues and blow raspberries in them. Then she shreds the tissue. The shredding of the tissue is not my favorite part.

* She gives hugs, blows kisses, and or waves and says "buh" to everyone when we leave somewhere.

* I am pretty sure she thinks the phone is called grandma because everytime she sees it she picks it up and yells grandma at it.

* Her rubbing her fingers together and tongue clicking to call the cats. It is her way of snapping her fingers.

There are still plenty of things I cannot wait for her to out grow too.

* Getting so mad she screams and breath holds until she passes out.

* Biting (she is back to it and leaving some serious marks, S is afraid he is going to turn into a baby. lol)

* Screeching ( my ears ring)

* Hitting in anger or I guess hitting for any reason.

* Throwing things. Though I am amazed at the durability of her toys.

* Bottles. I hate cleaning them and she just does not want to give them up. Starting May 6th operation loose the bottle begins!


That is about it. I am sure there are other things but she is now up from her nap (YAY she took a 2 hour one for the first time in days) and I should get in there while she is still a happy camper!

Hedjaz Jordan railway.

 On Saturday April 13^th (that was a Saturday right?) we went on the Hedjaz Jordan railway. This railway has a long history…which I only know about from reading Caroline’s blog. Lol Basically I saw there was this trip going and said to Joe we have to go. It will be fun and he said ok. We bought our tickets and that is the end of the story.  Anyways we met at the embassy in the morning and had a caravan of around 10 cars following the bus to the train station. We drove through a souk and lost a few cars but eventually everyone made it to the station. I am very glad we caravaned because there was no way S or I could have found this place by ourselves. We arrived and found our train car. Train car 3 or the young kids car. It was Little Lady, Wyatt, Ellie, Jack, and Kathrine in our car plus some loud and rambunctious local kids that never sat still and kept running up and down the car and hitting Wyatt’s stroller.

Our friend Caroline trying to eat Little Lady...She ditched us for the VIP car

Just trying to figure it out

An old engine

 Continuing on… we loaded in and off the train went. It of course blew the whistle a lot and by the end of the day Little Lady knew what a train says. She has been running around say “choo choo” or really “Woo Woo” ever since. I am not clear on the details but I do not think that this train runs often and when it does it is a sight. Many of the locals came out to see the train as it passed by. Little Lady thought it was awesome getting to wave to all the kids as we passed by. There were plenty of police officers blocking streets and monitoring the train as we went. Apparently in the past there has been problems with people throwing stones at the train. As far as I know we didn’t see any stones this trip. After leaving the city behind we traveled through some countryside and 1 hour and 30 minutes later we were at the end of the line.

Waving to the people

Some trash...

Going to take a break from sitting and stand outside to feel the breeze

"WOW" also a new favorite word that we hear often

CAMELS

 Everyone got off and we had a picnic. It was a nice place. We all sat in a tent with tables and chairs that had table clothes. There were carpets in the tent as well so this was not what I had planned when they said picnic but it was awesome! After we finished eating we admired the train and the VIP car (which we were not allowed to ride in because we had Little Lady), Played on the playground, and enjoyed watching as the planes from Queen Alia Airport were flying over head. There was a horse that kids were taking rides on but Little Lady was afraid of it.

Not the best family picture. lol

Just enjoying the train. This one is for Grandpa L...hehe

Making a new friend.

The VIP car

So this is what it is like to be a VIP

Trying it on for size. I think she likes it!

Daddy Daughter time

 After our picnic we loaded back on the train. Train car 3 had become deserted as most of the other families had chosen to take the bus back at the half way point. That meant we would ride with the obnoxious children or join the crazy kids car. We joined the crazy kids car! The kids were having a blast. There was face paint, snack, games, all kids of things going on in there. As the train traveled we were exciting to find that there were lights in this car that went on whenever we went through a tunnel. In train car 3 we were plunged into pitch black for the duration of the tunnels. Little Lady fought a hard battle but the not so gentle swaying of the train and the comfort of Mommy’s arms eventually won out and she was asleep. She slept around 40 minutes or so of the ride home so that was great! We had one small incident on the ride home. The train stopped in the middle of the track because some kids A) put a tree on the tracks (that is what our car heard) or B) were standing on the tracks (what another car heard). Either way I am sure the kids were surprised when the police officers on board hopped off and began to reprimand them. After that we continued without incident into the station. 

The train station in Amman

The station looked really neat.

Everyone said farewell to the train and home we went listening to “woo woo” all the way.