Big stuff and little stuff.

1- I was playing with Ethne outside the other day and noticed that she had a bunch of crayons in her pocket.  So I said to her, “Hey, you have crayons in your pocket.”  And she said, “They’re for in case of emergency.”  (She later explained the emergency as feeling like coloring but being far away from home.)

2.  We finally, FINALLY got everything together and went to the embassy and turned in Orrin’s paperwork for his citizen born abroad stuff and passport stuff.  So, hopefully after filling out forms and paying money twice (soon to be thrice when we get him his permit for living here), we’ll be good to go and maybe Brett and I and Orrin can finally go on a trip I wanted to go on since April!

3.  For most people, school is almost (if not already) out, but here the kids go until the middle of July.  Then they go back the middle of August.

4.  The month of June is going to be kindof crazy.  We have guests coming (which I could NOT be more excited for!!!!!!  YAYY for Alyse and Carlos!!), most likely a trip to Austria (if we can get the kids out of school),  Brett will be going to Brussels, Zurich, Austria (hence our trip there), and Berlin for almost a whole week.  Besides that, Hazel will be turning seven and Orrin will turn six months!!  I swear that’s impossible, but that’s what the calendar says.

5.   I was sick the beginning of last week, but got better after about three days.  Then Brett got it, and had a much worse case than I had (had to prove that he’s a man), and had to stay home from work on Friday and got worse Saturday and Sunday because he was really dehydrated because nothing that he tried to eat or drink stuck.  So after the kids were in bed that night, he was using the bathroom and passed out.  He konked his head REALLY hard on the tile floor, which left an awful-looking blood-blisterish bruise, with tile lines and everything (he’ll have fun explaining that when he goes in to work), in the middle of his forehead and the very top of his nose between his eyes, and made his nose bleed.  I was on the computer, and I heard a crash, but it was such a big crash that I was sure it came from outside the door to our apartment in the hall where there is a door in the ceiling that you can pull down the stairs and go up to the attic.  Anyway, when he came to he called me, I went in and saw him on the floor with blood everywhere and his forehead looking like someone had smashed it with a bat.  Quite the sight.  So we got him cleaned up and I called a great friend from church to come over and give him a blessing.  He also happens to be a doctor (very good trait in a friend), which I was glad of because in the middle of the blessing he passed out again.  So, our friend left us with some medicine to help keep something in his stomach and some instructions for me and told me to call him in the night if we should need him.  Brett woke up much better, and has improved a lot today.  So that was exciting.

6.  So, two different people told me recently that I should learn German.  One was the sample lady at the grocery store.  Yeah.  When she started her spiel, I stopped her and said, “English?” and she asked if I knew any German, and if I lived here, and I could tell for sure that she was about to say I should learn (with a bit of a condescending/irritating manner), but then she asked how long we were here for and I said maybe 6 months or a bit more, and she seemed to think it was okay then.  The other one was a neighbor who’s daughter will be in the same kindergarten class as Ethne this coming year, and we talked for awhile.  Her English was okay, though not super, and she asked if I knew German and I told her no, but my husband and kids do, and she basically said, “Oh you have to learn!”  I didn’t explain to her that we aren’t here permanently, so I don’t know if she would have reacted differently or not to that. 

Then today I asked Brett to call a doctor’s office for me (it seems nurses never know German), and we got in an argument because he thinks I should learn German and I … don’t.  It’s so dumb because we have had this argument so many times.  Over and over.  I was so mad and was like, why can’t you just graciously help me out for the few little errands that I can’t take care of? and he was like, why can’t you be bothered to learn enough German to be able to take care of these things yourself? and we go around and around and it makes me SOOO mad.

But then he apologized later on, and that made me feel so better. 

7.  I had the best afternoon the other day.  I took Talmage on a walk past the farm and up the hill a ways, then we came back to the backyard, and were lying on the grass feeding little clovers to our neighbor’s guinea pigs and just relaxing, then Hazel and Ethne came out and they were all playing so nicely and running around and the air was so nice and cool and the warm evening golden light was coming down on them and lighting up their heads and I couldn’t stop hugging them and I just felt so full of love for them and for my happy life.  It was just one of those precious moments that you want to bottle up. 

8.  Sometimes I worry about Jethro a little.  He doesn’t really seem to have friends here.  Although he would just read all day and probably not care, but I would like to see him have someone to chum around with.

9.  Hazel put holes in another pair of jeans today.  It’s to the point where she doesn’t have a single pair of jeans/capris to her name without a hole in the knees.  She is so hard on jeans!

10.  It’s so funny how Talmage “talks.”  For example, the other day when Orrin was crying, he started this little sing-song, “Uh-uh wahhh baby” meaning, “don’t cry baby.”  And as we were walking past the farm animals, he would say, “Bye-bye neigh!”  “Bye-bye moo!” as he went by the horses and cows.  He calls all colors boo (blue) because it’s the only color word he can say, and he calls his toy car his “vroom vroom” and his pajamas with dogs on them his “ruff ruff.”  He also counts a lot, it always goes, “eeh oh eeh oh eee!”

11.  That’s about it.  I have to get to bed.  But I have lots of pictures I want to post (including one of Tile-head, if he lets me post it.)  Goodnight.