First Day of School, Part 1

Today is Caroline's first day of Year 1 at the English School of Kuwait! In her words, she was a little excited and a little nervous. I think both had something to do with her being wide awake at 5am this morning! Eric was able to get both girls back to sleep for a bit before we started our big day.

You can see the uniform for the school, making the morning go a little smoother already! We had a quick breakfast before we both headed to the bus for the ride in. Traffic wasn't bad because it's still Ramadan, so after a quick trip, we waited in the courtyard for class to begin. Her teacher seems very nice and immediately introduced Caroline to another little girl who is new at the school. Caroline was very quiet all morning, but I'm sure her energy will shine as soon as she has her sea legs!

I told her her she could have anything she wanted for dinner, and she of course chose Old McDonald's! So we'll be heading down the street tonight for a lovely dining experience!

On the school bus!

Big week...

We have a big week this week, Caroline is starting school & Julianne is getting her 1st tooth. Eric just bought a new tv, ours was 13 years old and we didn't ship it. We're hopefully going to the commissary at the end of the week too...can you say BACON?! I'm posting this with one hand while I hold a sleeping Julianne, but I'll post pictures and tales of the week later! Until then, here's one from last week of Super Droolia in the piano/walker that Uncle Jeff bought Caroline 6 years ago!

Our Roommates!

We've been here a little over two weeks now and we're starting to settle in. The girls have their school assessments this afternoon. Hopefully all goes well and we're handed a huge pile of paperwork to complete in the next couple of days to get them prepared for classes next week. It will be my first solo driving experience, so I'm a bit nervous. B
ut our neighbor has graciously offered to take Julianne so that's one less thing to worry about!

One thing we're learning about is our roommates in our lovely house! Having gone to school in Miami, both Eric and I expected to see a lot of little geckos in this climate. We must have a dozen of them in the place at any given time. The girls love them! They shout out "Lizzie!!!" and chase them around, pick them up, squeeze them too hard, try to contain them until Eric or myself rescues them. Molly even had one poop on her the other day, which both girls found hilarious!

We also have ants everywhere you look on the first floor, but we're told not to get rid of them because they eat the roach eggs, and honestly I'd rather have ants than roaches! Amazingly they leave the food alone and just go for the beetles and roaches. We've seen them carrying off the carcass of much larger bugs, so I'm convinced they're not all bad. They do their job and then leave until word goes out that they have another victim! I don't know if it's really this fascinating, or the lack of cable that keeps me watching them, either way, it's entertainment!

Reunited!

The best thing to come from this move was the reunion of Mr. Tusks and his brother. Caroline found him in a box with dozens of other stuffed animals, none as important as Mr. Tusk's brother. She came squealing out of the playroom to show me, and at first I didn't realize it was the missing twin, I just thought it was tusks! She giggled and informed me of my mistake and we all rejoiced for the reunion of the brothers!

For anyone who doesn't know the story, when Caroline was about 6 weeks old, Katie came to visit and brought her Mr. Tusks, a little stuffed elephant I think she picked up at a Walgreens! He quickly became the special friend, so we started a search for an "emergency replacement". Many friends and family members tried and failed to duplicate (although we now have a wonderful collection of the softest bunch of elephants to play with). I searched the internet and every shop we went into, nothing. So I googled the name of the company, found a contact there and sent them a picture of the very loved Tusks to see if they could help me locate another. They had indeed stopped manufacturing our friend, but they had one left at their headquarters that they were happy to send us if we would just pay for shipping. NO PROBLEM!!

Within a week, we had the emergency Tusks, but no note for the shipping charge. We tucked him away, out of sight from Caroline and went about life.

At the end of the month, I got a bill from DHL for $95!!! They had express shipped our little friend from Hong Kong!!! I've since filed that bill away to pull out when I need a good guilt trip.

Well sure enough, we eventually lost Mr. Tusks, and after looking for him for about 3 weeks, I decided it was time to pull out the replacement. Caroline could of course tell the difference, but we called him Mr. Tusk's brother and she seemed happy. And of course we found the original only a few days later. So the two lived happily for some time, until we lost the brother. We looked everywhere, I even offered the movers a $20 bonus to anyone who found him when they packed us out of Chicago...nothing still.

We had written him off as on vacation, the black sheep of the family that had moved to the caribbean to become a scuba instructor, or he had gone to the moon and would be back someday, far away. So you can imagine our joy when he finally returned to us! Welcome back Mr. Tusk's Brother!!

Q8 Update

We've made it to Kuwait and through our first week or so, we just got the internet hooked up, so I'm writing an update for anyone interested. It's a little too much to put on facebook, so this is my forum of choice for longer updates.

Anyway, the flight was A LOT smoother than expected. We left at 10pm, so the girls didn't have much trouble going to sleep almost right away. All three probably slept 9 or 10 of the 12-hour flight, as did Eric, so it really was an easy flight. I didn't sleep as well, but had plenty to occupy my mind!!

Two of E's coworkers met us at the airport and helped us through customs, we had 9 suitcases, 3 carseats, 5 carry-ons and the 5 of us, we're a traveling circus! This being our first overseas assignment, we're learning a lot about what to pack in which shipment.

We arrived at our house on the embassy compound around 6pm and explored our new abode, this took awhile! It's 5 bedrooms + a den, 4 1/2 baths and three floors of marble! I think we have 6-7 patios as well! The embassy had already made up beds, bath towels, the kitchen and a crib for us! It was really nice just to be able to take it all in rather than getting right to work. Our sponsors stopped by shortly after we arrived to welcome us with a huge pan of lasagna too! They have a 5 year old girl that C & M were thrilled to meet, they're obviously a little tired of each other as playmates and have been anxious to meet some other kids.

The jetlag has honestly kicked my butt! E & J were the first to get used to the new time, but the girls and I took almost a full week. Lots of nights waking up around midnight and not being able to doze off again until 3 or 4! It made for some cranky days, but we're getting better now.

The girls have done very well, but we're all anxious for school to start and some routine. We still have a lot of unpacking to do, but all in good time. They love having a playroom which we've set up right off of the kitchen. I love having a door on the playroom!

I'll post pictures of the house once we get it in order, there's a lot of boxes and piles everywhere right now, so pictures wouldn't do it justice. We have one more shipment of belongings from Virginia that is currently stuck on the docks here, has been for a few weeks. So our Wii, electric piano and various other things are melting in the dry heat! We're hoping to get it before Ramadan starts on Friday, or it could be another month before we see it.

OK, enough for now, I hope to update this frequently and keep the posts a little shorter, but with a 7 hour time difference, I can't call any of you to chat until late in the day, so this is my outlet!

Julianne Update

"Bless you!"

So, I thought I would share why I lost the "Mother of the Year" award this week! I took Julianne to the doctor on Monday for her 2 month checkup and shots. She's gained 3 1/2 pounds and grown 2.25 inches since birth if you were wondering. Over the weekend, we travelled to Indiana for my cousin's wedding and received many compliments on what a perfect baby she was because she was constantly, almost unnaturally sleeping, ALL of the time! So at the appointment on Monday, I asked how much sleep is too much? The doctore wasn't worried so much with the amount of sleep (I estimated 18-20 hours a day!) but asked how her development was. I answered what I could of her questions, but quickly realized we haven't been giving Julianne the attention and TLC she needs!

So at dinner on Monday, I explained to Eric and the girls that we needed to interact with her more, talk to her and engage her. Everyone has taken to the task wonderfully and it's amazing how much she has really come out of her shell! I thought she was a serious baby, as well as sleepy. But she's actually quite fun! We were just letting her sleep too much because it was the easy thing to do while chasing the older cuckoos as well as getting ready for our trip home, the movers that are coming on Monday and the impending move to Kuwait! So while I got a lot of snuggle time with my angel, I wasn't doing her much good in developing her mind and personality!!

Reality is setting in...

For some reason, it took Julianne turning 6 weeks for the reality of us moving to Kuwait in 10 weeks to set in.  We've also figured out that shipping our stuff a little earlier than planned might be a good idea. While we'll have to go without the minivan, the girls' toys, some kitchen gadgets and other little things for a few extra weeks here, it could mean they get delivered a few weeks earlier in Kuwait. My fear right now is arriving in 120 degree weather with a month until school starts, no car, no toys, no way to easily entertain the three cuckoos. So this has put me at ease...a little! It means getting our act together a lot faster than we had planned. 

So we're making our lists, checking them twice and getting through as much red tape and logistics each day as possible. At the end of each day, I get to snuggle with my newest monkey and relax!