The Embassy Wife

Skinny

The embassy wife — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:07:12 GMT

Although I don't personally recommend this to anyone -- go have your tonsils removed with red hot pliers, it'd be more fun -- one unintended benefit of a sick-for-nearly-three-weeks family is that I have lost quite a bit of weight. Maybe as much as eight pounds. When you're feeling awful and your kids are feeling awful and there's nothing to eat in the house, it's just more fun to go to bed hungry than to actually fix something to eat. I'm not really sure what my kids ate the last couple of weeks; they all look healthy enough.

Anyway, I am now able to fit into a pair of pants my Mom gave me two years ago that I have never, until now, been able to even zip up. (Why did I take them? One of those inexplicable female mysteries.) Now, not only can I zip them up, they're so loose they're in danger of falling off without a belt.

A skeleton, I am not. I am still quite "healthy." However, this silver lining has shown up at a perfect time: the Marine Corps Birthday Ball (THE social event of the year for the US Embassy) is this Saturday and, again for female reasons unfathomable, the only formal dress I have is actually a full size too small for me. I bought it KNOWING it was a full size too small. I decided to buy it while standing in the dressing room recovering from a claustrophobe's panic attack at having to slip the skin-tight sheath (it's not supposed to be skin-tight) over my head and then not being able to breathe because it was so tight.

Yeah. Not too bright.

So every year a few weeks before the Marine Ball I go into panic mode and end up spending the evening of the ball sitting up very straight, not moving or breathing so I don't split a seam in my much-too-small dress.

I tried my dress on the other day and it was loose. Loose! There will be enough room in it this year that I can even wear hose!

And, when I modeled it for the boys, I got a chorus of genuine and enthusiastic WOW!s. I told them they'd make great husbands some day.

Gotta run -- I need to find my belt before my pants fall off!

Home from the Hospital!

The embassy wife — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:30:39 GMT

We're home and healthy now!! And the best part about the last night in the hospital: the nurses forgot to give Benjamin one dose of his medicine in the middle of the night, so we actually Slept Through The Night! It was delicious.

We saw the doctor today and he gave us the OK to send Jonathan and Timothy to school tomorrow. Thank heavens. There were three F5 tornadoes whirling through my house today. I'll be glad for them to whirl at school a bit tomorrow -- I have a feeling the school is slightly more indestructible than my house.

And now, of course, I seem to have The Virus: I woke up this morning with aches, chills, and lungs that hurt whenever I breathe. Ibuprofen held everything at bay enough that my husband (who has visitors in from Washington, natch) could go to work. Hopefully this ploy will work tomorrow as well.

Thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes!

Warthog Flu. With Tusks.

The embassy wife — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:38:21 GMT

Something new seems to have swept through our family in the wake of last week's illness. Or perhaps it's a continuation. It's hard to tell. We thought for a couple of days that it might be the swine flu -- it had all the classic earmarks: sudden onset of high fever, respiratory distress, extreme tiredness.... Benjamin and Jonathan both had it; mysteriously, Timothy (who can get sick from just looking at a picture of a rainy day) seemed perfectly healthy. Jonathan 'only' had 102-103 fever and chest pains. But it was Benjamin who really worried me. He woke up Thursday morning (the day I had planned to send him to school) with 102 fever and labored breathing, both of which continued intermittently all day.

By Friday morning, we were well ready to take him to a doctor, even at the risk of infecting people at the doctor's office with whatever it was he had. Dr. Herrera took one look at him, gathered up his stethoscope and said, "We're moving. I have to admit him to the emergency room."

Apparently, he was worse off than even we suspected. I think that when you see an ER doctor go pale and the orderlies break into a run of their own accord, things are bad. Everybody in the ER went pale started running when Benjamin got there.

Diagnosis: Croup caused by some (as yet) unknown virus. But croup that had come within 1/8 inch of completely closing off his airway.

So, I'm blogging at the moment from his hospital room. We spent last night here and will spend at least tonight here, and frankly, I'd be glad with a 3rd night because this virus he has makes him sick for two days, gives him two days off, and then resurfaces.

Today is a 'day off.' He has no fever; he's breathing AND talking today and quite cheerful. They took him off the IV at lunch and reduced his oxygen and inhaled medicine to a minimal amount. He's eating like a horse and starting to get bored.

I am starting to get psychotic. Knowing that he seems to be heading straight out of the woods has given me the leisure to become grumpy about other things. Things like: in a hospital, where you go to get well, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get any type of quality sleep. Between 8 p.m. last night and 5 a.m. this morning, we averaged about 30 minutes of sleep per hour in the face of malfunctioning equipment (resulting in klaxon alarms sounding repeatedly in my ear. Once it was because the IV machine battery had run down and it needed to be plugged in. Took two nurses to diagnose that problem. Sigh.); interruptions at shift change; the obligatory medicine and temperature interruptions; and someone delivering the NEWSPAPER at 6 a.m!

There's no way for the nurse's station to hear the alarms and malfunctioning equipment, which means that I spent a good deal of the night shuffling down the hall barefoot in my pajamas, bed hair sticking out into several dimensions, trying to think how to say in Spanish that the IV machine is malfunctioning. Again. And wondering if I'll be able to understand their response.

So, you can see that if I'm complaining about such petty things, Benjamin is really doing better.

But, when I thought it was the swine flu, and I was listening to him struggle for every breath, I remember thinking: if ONLY we'd been able to get that vaccination. I don't know where you stand on the H1N1 vaccination, but this particular scare has left me in no doubt. It is scary to not know if your child will ever take another breath. Literally. And if it comes down to a question of wondering whether this will, literally, be your kid's last breath, you want to know, whatever happens, that you did everything you could to make sure he'd keep breathing.

So that, from a formerly-panicked mom is my plug for getting the swine flu vaccine.

Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick, sick.

The embassy wife — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:03:33 GMT

But we don't think it's the Swine Flu. More like Warthog Flu. Or maybe Wild Boar Flu. With tusks.

The little one seems to have brought it home from preschool, last Wednesday. Since then (five days now), he's had off and on fever of about 103, BAD headaches, tummy pains that made him spend a lot of time screaming (And were bad enough that I called his dad home from work to take us to the emergency room. Then he got better. Doesn't it always happen that way?). Oh, and some vomiting for good measure. He's also been taking 3-5 hour naps. That part isn't so bad.

We took him to the doctor last week, she said it was a "respiratory virus" (odd, since respiratory problems are the only problems he HASN'T had). So, we did do our duty as parents.

I came down with a facsimile of this on Friday, spending all day asleep in bed, waking up only long enough to hit "Play" on the computer in bed next to me for the next episode of Backyardigans downloaded from iTunes. Thank God for iTunes!!

And thank God for a husband who can cook, clean, and take care of small children while his wife drools into her coffee.

And, so, that's the kind of week-end we had. The other two came down with fevers on Saturday, none of us went to church (despite the fact I was supposed to have been teaching Sunday school!), and all three boys are home today, and maybe tomorrow as well.

Swine flu? The swine flu doesn't scare me. I've been bowled over by a rampaging wild boar -- what terror can a standard pig possibly hold for me?!

Cookies? Cookies!!!

The embassy wife — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:32:54 GMT

I woke this morning to the delicious, but rather disturbing, smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. Extra vanilla. Why disturbing? Because the oldest person stirring in the house to that point was nine years old, and the youngest has been known to alter the time-space continuum simply by walking through a room. I really wasn't sure what to expect when I walked into the kitchen.

Yesterday evening, I had come upon Jonathan in the kitchen with flour, butter, sugar, and an electric mixer spread across several acres of my kitchen. "I'm making cookies!" He announced. In response to my worried look, he reassured me: "I'm even following the recipe this time." We have had several batches of I-made-it-up-myself-and-cooked-it-in-the-microwave.-Is-a-cup-of-vanilla-too-much? cookies which made the aftermath of a nuclear war look like the Garden of Eden.

But, sure enough, he was following a recipe, so I helped him find a few of the more esoteric ingredients (shortening) and gave him a few pointers (The beaters tend to fall out of this mixer so be careful), and pointedly left the room.

Yes, I know, I'm still in shock myself -- leave an easily-distracted nine-year-old in the kitchen with five pounds of flour and a hot oven? But one of my main goals for my boys is for them to be good cooks, who like to cook, who can plan a menu, shop, and make a lovely meal. Because I want my daughters-in-law to like me. Maybe that way I'll get to see my grandchildren occasionally. I like my mother-in-law, and I've taken her grandchildren to the other side of the earth. I know the power daughters-in-law have.

Anyway, back to the cookies. Jonathan made a very passable batch of cookies. In fact, except for the fact that I forgot to tell him the vanilla was double strength -- it really did taste like he'd put a cup of vanilla in the cookies -- they were nearly flawless.

But it was still surprising, and a bit disconcerting, to know that he'd turned on the oven with Benjamin unsupervised in the house. Jonathan, I'm not worried about. Benjamin, I'm always worried about.

Jonathan confessed, with a cheerful grin, as soon as I came down the stairs, that he had forgotten to take the cookies out of the oven and they were burned to a crisp. "I call them hockey pucks!" He announced proudly. "Benjamin wouldn't even eat them."

I checked the kitchen, and there they were, marble-sized, blackened hockey pucks, still in the pan, still smoking a bit. Yup, looks like my boys are on their way to becoming excellent cooks -- just like their mom.

At least he remembered to turn off the oven. In fact, maybe he's turning out to be a better cook than I am.

It's 8 a.m.; Do You Know Where Your Toddler Is?

The embassy wife — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:00:22 GMT

My husband and I slept until 8 a.m. this Saturday. It was a blissful experience. Not since we started having children 9 years 5 months and 6 days ago (but who's counting?) have both of us been able to sleep past about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. It was a moment to be savored.

Unfortunately, it was the telephone which woke us. Telephone calls at 8 a.m on a Saturday morning are rarely good news.

"Hi! This is (our new next door neighbor, also Americans from the Embassy. They have a daughter Benjamin's age.). My husband saw Benjamin wandering around outside this morning and brought him home. He's been here about an hour. Is it alright if we feed him breakfast?"

WHAT?!?!

As you might expect, this little tidbit of news rocketed me right into full wakefulness. After I had apologized that Benjamin had escaped, thanked her profusely for taking care of him, and clawed my way down from the ceiling, I asked myself: How did this happen? Did we forget to put the chain on (a chain which, I might add, my six-foot-tall self has to reach UP to unlock)? Was the door somehow unlocked? Where had we gone wrong? How could he have escaped?

He's a Jedi knight, that's how he escaped: he took his toy light saber, extended it to its full length, and -- without the slightest bit of trouble -- flicked the chain right out of its track.

The fact of his escape also explains how we were able to sleep in so late: No Benjamin = no noise, no screaming, no crashing thuds or minor earthquakes, no one jumping on our heads = sleep.

This episode was not nearly as serious as it could have been: we live in a tiny, gated community in which we know almost all of our neighbors. The night guard is extremely trustworthy and knows Benjamin and knows where he belongs. Approximately every 30 minutes guards from the Embassy come up to our house to make a visual inspection of our home and the condominio. Short of tripping, falling, and knocking a tooth out, there's not much trouble Benjamin can get into here. But doesn't it make your blood run cold just the same to think of a 4-year-old roaming the world alone in his pajamas? My blood is frozen solid.

We went out that very afternoon and purchased a lock. And now at night, every night (and sometimes during the day), we bolt the door, put the chain on, and lock the chain to itself so it can't be removed without a key, which I keep up so high even lightsaber boy can't reach it and so well hidden I can't find it most of the time.

We're also putting in a request to the Embassy to have a deadbolt-with-key installed and we're going to start using our malfunctioning-and-the-Embassy-has-no-idea-how-to-repair-it alarm which goes off right by my husband's head whenever the door is opened: I'd much rather be woken up at 2 a.m. to a mechanical voice stating "Zone 5 in alarm" than at 8 a.m. by a kind neighbor on the telephone.

I Hate Mornings

The embassy wife — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:19:20 GMT

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at0600 on a Saturday morning.)

Benjamin: "Mom, the boys are playing."

Me: "Uhnh." (I'm not at my best in the morning)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old leaves at 0601)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0605)

Benjamin: "Mom, Jonathan yelled at Timothy."

Me: "Uhnh."

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0606)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0608)

Benjamin: "Mom, are you awake yet?"

Me: "Uhnh."

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0609)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0612)

Benjamin: "Mom, are we going to the volcano today?"

Me: "Uhnh."

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0613)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0617)

Benjamin: "Mom, I made my bed."

Me: "Uhnh???"

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0618)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0622)

Benjamin: "Mom, I got dressed in my lizard shirt."

Me: "Uhnh???"

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0623)

SLAM! (my bedroom door closing as the four year old comes in at 0626)

Benjamin: "Mom, I got my backpack ready."

Me: (Cracking one eye to see him wearing his bright yellow traveling backpack) "Uhnh?!"

SLAM! (my bedroom closing as the four year old leaves at 0627)

Groan. Creak. Sigh. (My husband getting out of bed at 0628.)

We’re going to Arenal Volcano today. I think Benjamin is ready to go. NOW.

But, he did make his bed (????!!!) and he did get dressed – he even showed me proudly that he remembered to put on underwear – so how can I really complain?

Gotta run. Benjamin’s got the keys and he’s headed for the car.

Light Saber Battle with Squirrel

The embassy wife — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:25:52 GMT

I stepped outside today to put the trash by the curb, and was startled by some movement in the bushes by our house. It was a squirrel. A cute, fuzzy little squirrel with a black body and red feet. Awwww, how sweet, I thought as I watched it scamper and cavort innocently across my carport.

Then, as I turned to go back in my house, I saw this cute little furry creature headed straight for my open front door. “No!” I cried. “No, you unmentionable little rodent, keep your filthy self out of my house!”

But this was a Costa Rican squirrel; it didn’t speak English. It ran inside. And a black cloud obscured my vision as I imagined the infinite number of horrible things a terrified squirrel could do to the government-issued furniture I would be responsible for paying for if it felt trapped in my house. I recovered just in time to watch it disappear into the partly-open coat closet by the front door.

“Ah ha! I’ve got you now,” I chuckled, rubbing my hands together in glee. And I closed the door to the closet. Then my four year old and I set about constructing a barricade: a large box, a large basket, a rolled up carpet holding everything together for good measure. And Benjamin standing behind all this waving his hands, making noise like only a four year old can, and doing everything possible to look terrifying to a squirrel. There was only one place for this rodent of questionable parentage to go: out. I was sure.

I was wrong. Rather than head for the vast, wide-open spaces of the great outdoors, just a few tantalizing feet away to the right through my still-open front door, it turned left, squeezed through an invisible and microscopic hole, ran between Benjamin’s feet, and into the guest bathroom. Good thing we didn’t have any guests.

I picked up a light saber lying conveniently nearby and tried a little Skywalker action on the rodent. He was unimpressed, and continued to skulk in the dark recesses of my bathroom underneath the sink. I’m guessing if I can’t look threatening to a tiny mammal, I have zero future guarding and defending the galaxy as a Jedi knight.

And then I came to my senses and I was glad I was not a Jedi: the bathroom door opens at the foot of the stairs. Were our visitor to actually run out of the bathroom, his track record indicated he’d head straight upstairs. I put the light saber away.

I considered building a second containment barricade, but Benjamin was showing a decided interest in staying as far from our furry visitor as possible. I couldn’t count on him to be scary again. And besides, look how well our first attempt had worked. We’re just not scary enough for squirrels.

And once again, visions of a terrified rodent loose in my house rose before my eyes. And this time, in the background, I could hear the Administrative Counselor intoning, “You are a dependent spouse, not an animal control specialist. Why didn’t you call the Embassy in the first place?” As he hands me a bill for $3,000 to repair the furniture and the holes the workmen have had to knock in the wall to evict the squirrel.

I locked the squirrel in the bathroom.

So whom, exactly, does one call to remove a squirrel from government quarters? Not my husband, who had thoughtlessly left for lunch just moments before I phoned. Not the Office of Defense Cooperation, which was the first wrong number I got. Not the Housing Coordinator, which was the next wrong number I got – although she and I did have a very nice chat anyway. On my fourth try I found Maintenance, who sent a lovely young man over with a stick and a blanket to battle our fierce little visitor.

Now that an official Embassy representative was present, I didn’t mind a bit if the squirrel decided to take off upstairs. So when the nice young man suggested I could scare the squirrel out with a stick while he captured it in a blanket, I just smiled serenely, completely unaffected by the sheer madness of the plan. I even thought of suggesting I could use the light saber instead – it was a bit longer. I still had visions of a squirrel burrowing into my mattress. But now, the Embassy would foot the bill. Ha ha. Burrow, you furry little rodent! Go ahead and burrow!!

Of course, as soon as the nice young man opened the bathroom door, the squirrel scooted right out the front door at near light speed. I heard the little sonic boom as it passed me.

And the young man and I smiled and laughed, and in his eyes I could read “silly female” as he looked at me, and in my eyes he should have read “If anything went wrong it would have been your fault!”

Where are You?

The embassy wife — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:32:07 GMT

Oh Frabjous Day!! Callooh! Callay!

The embassy wife — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:01:27 GMT

She chortled in her joy!

A friend has loaned me her breadmaker!! Come to my arms my beamish.... friend.

Well, it doesn't have quite the same ring as the original, but it certainly captures my feelings.

I was working hard to re-tool my kitchen (and myself) to make lots and lots of bread without a bread maker, and had already produced a pretty decent loaf. Only problem: the bread pans I have must be for 4 lb loaves of bread, because my dough, event though it rose beautifully, more or less just puddled in this huge container. The loaf turned out about as high as a soda cracker is wide. Somehow, just not quite as satisfying. And with children who Refuse to Eat (even imaginary) Crusts, well, not a lot of bread was actually getting inside anyone.

So, thank you, Jeanne!!

Callooh! Callay!!

It's a Sad, Sad, Sad, Sad Day

The embassy wife — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:13:38 GMT

There is moaning and wailing; weeping and groaning. Even some gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes (well, I got flour on myself, does that count?): my breadmaker died last night.

I am well aware that in most households, this would qualify for a brief "Darn," and life would move on.

In our house, life has come to a screeching halt. Because I use this breadmaker nearly every day. It is my lifeline; it is my hope; it is my only succour in times of screaming; and the only thing standing between me and screaming-meemie children.

You may remember that two of my boys can't eat wheat and that, consequently, I have to make all our own bread. You may also recall that these two boys are extremely picky eaters (to the point of occasionally and uncontrollably barfing on Mom to remind her that they Still Do Not Like Green Beans. We skated real close to that territory tonight, as a matter of fact.); and their main sources of nutrition for two meals each day are toast and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They have to eat what I fix and be happy at supper, but that's the only battle I have strength enough to face every day. I'm good with toast and PB&J.

So, when I say my breadmaker has died, it is cause for sackcloth and ashes.

I promptly wrote the company and asked about replacement parts. Guess what? This model was discontinued FIVE YEARS before I bought it fifteen years ago in an overseas military PX.

You have a point: 15 years is a long time for any appliance to last. But my husband's 20+ year-old toaster oven is still working; why not my breadmaker?? Why couldn't it have given me some warning: flashed a little light; emitted some smoke for a few days; or treated us to the sound of screeching gears? No, it just died. Abruptly. And I shed a little tear.

There is one light at the end of the long, dark tunnel until we can get a new breadmaker: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. And they're not kidding. Check it out. And, dang it's good. But Artisan Bread does not make good American PB&J sandwiches. So I see a lot of trial, even more error, and lots of hockey pucks in our immediate future until I get a new recipe worked out.

So, what did I do with the dough the machine was kneading when it conked? Stuck it in a pan, let it rise, and turned it into a very respectable looking hockey puck. I fed it to the children for breakfast this morning. They started to scream, but took one look at me and the flames shooting from my eyes and the ends of my hair and meekly gnawed their toast.

Bread anyone?

I thought not.

Talent Show

The embassy wife — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:02:36 GMT

The boys' school had a talent show on Friday night: planned, organized, and completely run by the students themselves. They also organized a bake sale and an art show and sale to raise money for their respective classes' community service projects. Pretty amazing when you realize this school only goes up to fifth grade!

Oldest didn't feel he had a talent he wanted to share (his karate is rusty and a discussion of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics might have put most of us to sleep), but the middle one wanted to read a poem. He wouldn't read it at home. He wouldn't practice. He kept stumbling over some of the longer words. I was in a panic for him. I know about talent shows. I know how cruel they can be. But he was sure he wanted to do this, so I gave him a lipstick kiss (at his request: I put on lipstick and then gave him a big smoochie kiss on the cheek. The boys loved these when they were in preschool; I guess they felt like they had a bit of mom with them. Anyway, I gave one to Timothy. He liked it.)

So, they call his name and he walks out under the bright lights in front of about 400 people. He's only about three feet tall and tiny; they had trouble getting the mike to go down that low. My blood pressure is through the roof, my heart is pounding.

And cool as a cucumber, Timothy starts to read in his perfect, clear, little boy voice, slurring the S's a bit in his efforts not to say "sh": "True Story" by Shel Silverstein. (From my faulty memory):

I got up this morning went out for a ride

But some wild outlaws chased me and shot me in the side

So I went into a wildcat's cave to find a place to hide

But some pirates found me and soon they had me tied

To a pole (I almost cried)

But a mermaid came and freed me and begged to be my bride.....

And at this point, Timothy turned his cheek to the audience to show the kiss I'd given him, pointed at it, and chirped out, with absolutely perfect comedic timing: "And she kissed me!"

And the audience went wild! The laughed so loud and so long and so hard, I wasn't sure Timothy would be able to finish. But then, again, with perfect timing, he waited until the laughter had died down to exactly the right place, and started reading again.

And the poem ends (after a broken engagement with a mermaid, encounters with jungles, water snakes, and cannibals):

And an eagle swooped me up and through the air we flied,

And he dropped me into a boiling lake a thousand miles wide.

And you'll never guess what I did then: I DIED!

And of course I didn't get any pictures because we'd forgotten the camera. Sigh. I'm a D- mom this week.

Oh, the crowd loved him again at the end. I think he was proud of himself.

And I was actually, quite proud of the kids who ran and attended the talent show: EVERYONE, no matter how awful, got a vigorous, healthy, encouraging round of applause, led every time by the kids. We had to leave before it was over, but I heard today that one of the final performers, a 5th grade girl who was supposed to sing a solo, burst into tears with stage fright at the critical moment.

But, instead of a teacher coming to usher her comfortingly off stage, several girls from her class jumped down out of the audience, ran to stand with her, and from behind her back encouraged the audience to give her a round of applause. And then she finished the song in a blaze of glory.

What a great evening. What nice kids.

Batman's Secret Identity

The embassy wife — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:59:04 GMT

Imagine "Willow" meets the Caped Crusader. That's what's living in my house this week.

Benjamin got -- at his express request from the absolute best most amazing dad in the world -- a complete head-to-toe Batman costume: Mask, gauntlets, cape, utility belt (with, I'm informed, a container of Shark Repellent Bat Spray), and full-body black suit.

He hasn't taken it off in two days. We've persuaded him that even Bruce Wayne wears PJ's to bed, so at least he's not sleeping in it. And he doesn't wear it to preschool, but he does take it in a backpack. He even talked me into letting him wear the mask and utility belt at the grocery store. You can imagine the looks we got. In Costa Rica.

I'm starting to forget what his face looks like: he eats with his mask on; plays with his mask on; watches Batman re-runs on the computer (another gift from Dad) with his mask on; and yesterday, he even took a bath with his mask on.

This is a new thing for us. My two older boys are a bit.... weird.... For them, "dress up" consists of either coating themselves in bubbles in the bathtub or cutting large chunks out of their hair. We're beginning to suspect that Benjamin is the most "normal" of the bunch, but from where we've been with the other two, "normal" looks a bit "strange."

But oh so cute! as he runs down the street with his tiny cape flapping in the wind, tiny bat ears sticking up over his head, tiny bare feet pattering on the asphalt, going off (as he says) to look for his friend Robin.

Gotham City bad guys, watch out: Batman is coming for you!

How to Host the World's Best Kids' Birthday Party

The embassy wife — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:48:20 GMT

I just threw the world's best, most awesome, wonderful turning-four-years-old birthday party.

We had NONE of the following:

1. Games

2. Ice cream (we're allergic anyway)

3. Matching plates, cute napkins, or theme tablecloths

4. Balloons

5. Goody bags

6. Screaming four year olds

7. Loud music (a fixture at parties here)

8. Pinatas (another fixture)

9. Dancing (my least favorite fixture. And yes, for toddlers too.)

10. Pizza (which I would have had to make)

11. Expensive "place to have birthday" rental

12. Stress.

We DID have:

1. Three families my whole family loves (with nice, non-screaming, non-mean, non-fighting kids. Eleven of them, ranging in age from 10 to 4.)

2. Cake

3. Candles

4. Heartfelt rendition of "Happy Birthday" in at least two languages

5. Fun

We may have even remembered to take a picture or two. My new four-year-old was delighted at the amount of attention paid him (20 people in our house in his honor!!), the cake, and getting to blow out candles. After that little ceremony, the kids ran and played all over the house (there was a great deal of Tropical Rain outside or we would have shooed them into the street), and the adults sat and visited over a glass of wine. Since I had invited everyone for "Kaffee und Kuchen" (the German ritual of afternoon coffee & cake), I didn't even have to cook a meal.

I had an AWESOME afternoon.

Best of all, so did my not-such-a-baby-anymore!!

Happy Mother's Day to Me!

The embassy wife — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:28:27 GMT

Some positively brilliant person at our church scheduled the week-end-long women's retreat at the beach for this coming week-end. I'm going.

I'm driving with a friend and we are planning to leave the house at 8 a.m. tomorrow, to arrive around 10 a.m. The retreat does not start until 7 p.m., and we're not even allowed to check in -- not even with the preferred membership status my friend has -- until 1 p.m. We don't care: we're mothers of small children and we're going to make every minute of silence count!

The other great thing is that Costa Rican mothers day is in August. And it's a national holiday, so I'm set for this year!

I'm going to miss my husband and my kids. I'm going to miss getting snuggles and sloppy kisses on Sunday. But I'm planning to work very hard to make up for that the rest of the year!