Odds and Ends

I guess I haven’t posted anything for a while… oops!

We are all doing well and keeping healthy, except for the runny nose our little Aria has. The last couple of days, it seemed like she came to me every couple minutes saying, “mommy, nose running again today!” Despite her very runny nose, she was her happy, joyful self. Today she seems to be doing better. I guess we could blame her runny nose on the weather changes this past week. For a couple of days it was quite chilly and rainy outside (we even got out the girls’ warm winter pajamas), but now it’s very warm again. I guess that’s normal for this time of year.

People have, and are definitely taking notice of us ‘foreigners’. The other day, I met our neighbors across the hall, and right away she told me where I was from! How did she know?!?!? Often when I’m out on our balcony, I will notice people just watching me. Obviously, we have not gone ‘unnoticed’ here. Of course, as foreigners, we will always ‘stick-out’. Yet, we’ve been thinking about some changes that we could make that would help us ‘blend-in’ a bit better. Here are just two ways…

Usually, I’ve been doing laundry every four days. I would do two loads, one of whites, and one of darks. Well, these two loads fill up the couple clotheslines that we have on our balcony. I’ve noticed that most other people only have a couple of clothes items on their balcony at a time. I think it has to due with the fact that most people wear the same outfit several days in a row, or perhaps they just don’t have as many clothes. I think our balcony ‘sticks out’ a lot when it is full of clothes. So, I’ve decided to do laundry every couple of days, and only one load a day.

Since we are not in walking distance to a grocery store, David has been going grocery shopping about once a week. He then buys the groceries that we will be needing for that week and hires a taxi to drive him and the groceries back home. Well, lately, as he walks through the store with a cart full of food, he’s been noticing that people stare at his cart quite a bit. The other day, after David had finished shopping and was waiting for a taxi, an elderly man came up to him and just looked at everything he had in his cart! The taxi driver then asked him if someone was having a birthday, since he had five plastic bags full of groceries with him! We’ve noticed that here, most people seem to go the store every day. Yet, they will only buy a couple of things, perhaps all that they need for the day. So, we really stand-out when we buy a cart full of groceries in order to ‘stock-up’ for the next week or so. To us, it really seems inconvenient to go to the store once a day, but perhaps to fit-in a bit more culturally, we should consider going twice a week, instead of just once. Then our cart wouldn’t be so full, and perhaps we wouldn’t ‘stick-out’ as much. (Oh, by the way, the grocery carts here are a LOT smaller than the ones we are used to ‘back home’. They are probably about half that size. That’s why ours get filled-up so fast!)

Our two little girls keep us laughing!

The other day, I was cutting up some fresh parsley for the soup I was making, when Aria saw me. She exclaimed, “mommy, you are putting trees in there!”

When Aria can’t do something, she will say, “mommy, I can’t open it up”! Not sure why she says that. But the other day when her nose was really runny, she got frustrated as she tried to wipe her nose, yet found she needed some help. She said in exasperation, “mommy, I can’t open up my nose”!

Right now, Aria and Nina’s favorite song is “Zaccheus was a wee little man”. They know most of the words and do the motions right along with it. Their favorite part is saying, “Zaccheus, you come down!” Perhaps because they are used to me telling them to get down from places. :D

The other day as I was holding and cuddling with Nina, Aria came up and smiling said, “Awww, Nina is just so cute!”

Yesterday, the girls watched pop corn being popped for the first time. I popped it on our stove, and as the pot had a see-through lid, they were able to see each kernel pop. At first they jumped each time one popped, but then they started laughing and laughing. They enjoyed eating it even more. :D

If you could see our girls now, you would think that their mommy did NOT know how to dress them! Right now, Nina is walking around in a red turtle neck, a blue pair of tights with pink panties on top of them, pink slipper socks, and her winter hat. Aria doesn’t look much better!