What a Month, What a Week. . . .

The same onesies they took their one month picture in :) So adorable. (ABG)

The month of May has been chock full of things as our move looms large. The boys are have done fairly well in terms of understanding that they soon won't live in Doha, they will be moving to Iowa City, and most of their stuff will be coming with us. As we have sold items off (or discreetly given them away) we have had a few "HEY! Where's my . . .?" For the most part they have accepted that it's not a toy the play with/it's too big to bring with us to Iowa/another child needed it/etc. The closer we get to the move, the less understanding they have been and the more we have seen outbursts - often around them missing the cars we sold in less than a week. I think Aidan must have been the most attached to the red and blue car as his emotions seem to run the deepest, but Gavin too has shared his sadness about not having our cars any more. Hence, the picture below - hope it brings back good memories boys! :)

GAB in the minivan the day before we sold it!

Good friends - Heidi and Sam

Gavin, Johanna, Aidan, Brady and Santi - enjoying the sprinklers

Gavin, Aidan, Brady, Alexandra, Santi

Gavin the cat and Aidan

Who knew Aidan could balance a fork on his nose?

Brady too! Our boys will have a long and prosperous future I can tell . .. .

Here are some pictures the boys have been drawing. I'm so impressed by what they have begun doing and always love the labels they put on them . . .. :)

Aidan - Elephants at the zoo

Brady - Self-Portrait

Aidan - Self portrait with Brady

Gavin - Happy!

Gavin - Gavin and a sad baby

Gavin - Scared with Shadows and Thunder and Lightening

As I type I am listening to the sounds of packers taping up boxes - YEEHAW! The boys are with Tess at our friend Heidi/Johanna's house and I have a few moments to sit and think. In all the excitement of the preparation for moving, Gavin has decided to potty train himself, and I do mean HIMSELF. Last Sunday he announced at the pool that he wanted to poop in the potty, I made a MAD DASH to get all of us home, only to find he then said he did not want to use the potty. OK, no worries. Then while he is in the tub, he says he is "holding it in" and I tell him he can sit on the potty while we are taking a bath if he wants to and he agrees - HOLY COW. The kid must have been holding his pee all morning, because he pees for about 2 minutes straight - full on Austin Powers. He is SO PROUD of himself, as he should be! We are jumping up and down, Brady and Aidan are telling him they are proud of him. It's awesome. On MOnday, he pees twice at school. On Tuesday he pees at home 3 times, once while visiting the Dr where he says "Mommy! I have to pee!" just as we enter for the appointment. Luckily we have an excellent pediatrician who says "be my guest!" and Gavin goes and pees on a PUBIC toilet without the help of our seats at home - amazing. At school he peed on the toilet 5X between 730 AM and 1230 PM. he is ON LIKE DONKEY KONG and now he's a pro. He says he is still nervous about trying top poop on the potty, but he has started telling us more regularly if he is dirty since he's not wearing undies yet, just pullups. I think the books say not to try to potty train during times of high stress, like a move, end of school, etc, but I guess they didn't take Gavin into account. :)

Gavin YOU are a SLAM DUNK! :) Way to go buddy!

Last week was also one of the saddest weeks here in Doha. Sadly, there was a terrible fire at Villaggio Mall that ended up trapping kids and teachers in the Gympanzee. All 13 children, 4 teachers and 2 rescuers died from smoke inhalation. Every death is a tragedy because it SHOULD and COULD have been prevented (especially when we read more and more stories about how things have unfolded) but even more distressing for us were that the two year old triplets we knew perished. Lilly, Willshire and Jackson were 6 months old when I met their mom Jane and they were a very kind couple whom we did not know well. Thinking about how devastated Jane and Martin must be will forever haunt me, as I'm sure it will them. I can not imagine losing all three of our boys in one fell swoop. Nor can I imagine having lost only one or two - how could you not just smother the other two by keeping them twice as close if you had lost other children? Our boys were lovely all day the day I learned about Jane's kids, hugging each other and me. Hopefully people will use this as a learning experience and will truly improve safety features and training, and people will take fires seriously. We had visited the nursery/drop off babysitting site when the boys were small, and while we had both thought it was a pain to get our stroller into and was a little claustrophobic, we never connected it to fire safety. I will never be able to look at another place where my kids are going to be in the same way again. Thankfully.

We have also had the opportunity to do all of the things you always plan to do, but never make a priority until your experience comes to a close. We have gone out for dinner with some adult friends, hit up the jazz club that plays anything but jazz, and just lived it up with the boys as much as we could without completely losing our minds from exhaustion. It's been great.  One thing I hope the boys remember is that even though they will miss these friends, they have made some really good friends whom we plan to have reunions with and they will make even more friends in Iowa City. Moving is always hard, I know i've done it enough, but this move is easiest for me because my family is moving intact to a familiar place and I'm old enough to know that the most important people are together.

At Al Shaqab under a pic of HH The Emir and one of his prized arabians (Brady, Santi, Aidan, Johanna, Te'a and Gavin)

A little MOther's Day fun at Same, Santi, Te'a and Shawn's house (B, Santi, Te'a, G and A)

Fun with Ahmed and Maria (AGB) at Ameena and Hamads' house!

Feeding horses at Al Shaqab (GBA with Johanna and Santi in the background)

The whole gang at Ameena and Hamad's house

More playdates!

Our dear Tess with GAB

Wil Arooj and Jess with BGA 

JIll Duffy with GAB

Anatomy of a Black Eye

As we were skyping with Grandma and Grandpa V in early April (i know, i know, I'm late on these posts) the boys were playing "gymnastics" and jumping into a pile of pillows by the bed as they "did" the vault. Everyone had been landing just fine and on Gavin's 3rd or 4th pass through (after I had thought to myself, should we move those pillows further from the bed? No, I am just being paranoid.) he completely misses the pillows and lands eyebrow first onto the wooden bed frame. Immediate crack, blood, tears, etc. Poor kid. I took ER duty that night and we got him two stitches with just a couple of hours wait. He was so brave and the shot he received was the worst part. When I asked him which hurt worse, the original injury or getting the stitches, he said emphatically "The stitches." The black eye unfolds below:

Morning after at the scene of the crime

A little junior shopping at Giant the day after (BGA)

Getting dressing changed the first time at Al Ahli ER - LOVE the throne chair. :) (Day two)

Hey there eye shadow from the 80s! (Day three)

That's my boy Sid Vicious. (That's Betadine making it look worse than it is) (Day four)

Wow, Gavin has a really big tongue. (Day five)

He now has a little red mark in his eyebrow - something to tell kids about when he gets older. :)

In other news, life in April is going swimmingly. We are far enough from the move with enough of the big items solved (house, Grad assistantship, moving date, plane tix, etc) that we can chill a little bit and just sort of enjoy our time. It's been lovely. 

I swear, Aidan BEGGED to vacuum.

Who says parenting is hard? Gavin put himself in here to play the drum. For about 20 mins. awesome.

Aidan, Santi, Brady and Gavin hold hands on the way into a museum for the japanese comic exhibit. They are too cute. 

This is Brady's devilish face. But we see it a lot. So maybe it's his regular face. :)

The boys model their new Easter socks the Easter Bunny left them. Brady seems non-plused, but he was REALLY into the egg hunt! (GAB)

Brady - he looks like a teenager to me here.

Face painting day at school (AGB) - Dog, Cat, Spiderman Eye

Anybody recognize this? The boys wanted to get in it as we were pumping up the tires. Can you BELIEVE how big they are in it?

GBA - It's tiring just GETTING to the beach . . .

ABG - homemade popsicles at Fuwairat Beach. Yum.

Popsicles with friends - Alexandra, A, B, Johanna, G

These two are like 2 peas in a pod. Too cute (A and J)

Brady keeps telling us how he "Loves" his brothers. Here he is showing it. Aww . . .

Dad and some carousel fun! (G&B)

We could NOT get a smile out of Aidan, but I do think he was having fun . . .

Brady, Mom and Gavin - I should be on the other side of the camera ONCE in awhile!

**Let me just say, I thought I had posted this FOREVER ago. I must have gotten distracted by something shiny . . .

March and April - where did you go?!

Well, after living in Doha for 5 years, I finally made it to the camel races. I did not SEE any camels racing, but we were there. We have been told by many people that they begin at 1PM every saturday and you can just go and all of the action will be happening. Knowing that they would stop after March due to the heat, we knew we HAD to make it happen in March. Now, you may be thinking - why not just call or go to their website to verify what time they start? or that they are even happening at all? Ha - you clearly have never been to Doha. I happened to talk with a friend that morning who said, "oh, they all begin at 1130AM. BUt maybe they also run again in the mid afternoon." What the what?! Now, we are trying to do this and still get naps in, so we have to get a move on! In order to pack a lunch for 5 and leave and hour and a half before we planned (oh, and shower and entertain the boys while we are doing the other two things) curt and I are SUPER annoyed with the lack of organization here.

GBA - on our way to see the came races

Camels - lots of camels heading to the barns?!

How you catch a camel - by the reins . .. and tail.

We get to the camel racing track(s) just after 1130AM (Whew) and see TONS of camels . . . walking back to the barns. hmmm . . . so we drive toward where they are coming from and it appears they are just doing some training - hundreds of them. We drive around the complex (no signs explaining much of anything, like where you watch) for awhile, nearly get hit head on by an owner whose camel is running down the track with his robot jockey (not kidding) and finally decide to get the boys out of their car seats so they can run around a bit. We did get to watch some of the insanity at the end of the track (see pics below) and at one point, a man riding a camel gives me the "1" - i assume for one o'clock and he smiles at me. Now I think he is telling me is he #1. We saw NO camel races as every single one of these stinking beasts went back to the barn. boo.

The guy on the right was the one who is #1. punk.

Half of these men wore sandals. The other half seemed to be barefoot. Not joking.

More camel wrangling with tails (notice the barefoot guy!)

Literally, dozens of camels hanging out on the fence. BTW, they are STINKY. Like, close the windows and put the AC on recirculate, stinky

More camels. They really are not the most attractive of creatures.

Camels getting squirrely and getting all tangled up with each other.

I would LOVE to know what this orange stuff is! About half of them had it on their faces.

Those yellow things by the guy's feet are the robot's that "ride" the camels (controlled by an R/C in a Landcruiser driven alongside the race). It used to be small children between the ages of 4 and 6 until it was outlawed. no joke.

When we let the boys run around on this huge lawn, it devolves into a total wrestling match. It is awesome. They are laughing and running and just having the best time. It's a great day to be a parent.

The running and the falling (BGA)

And the wrestling (GBA)

I swear there is laughter this whole time (BGA)

ABG

More running - GAB

Hamming it up for the camera on the way home (B&G)

This winter we were invited to celebrate a friend's 3rd birthday. They rented a bounce house for their backyard (awesome and cheap) and after Johanna's party the boys would say things like "Can they come to my birthday party?" or "Can they have some of my cake for my birthday?" when talking about some of their friends. Knowing that we would not BE here for their birthday, sort of broke my heart and I wanted to both celebrate the boys' birthdays a smidge early (ok, 6 months) but also enjoy the weather and enjoy our friends. So 2 days after Curt got back form his conference in Boston, we hosted a few friends/families over, grilled out and just enjoyed the day. It was wonderful. As you can see in some pics from the previous post, the kids had lots of fun and so did we. As the boys grow, I'm more aware that the choices Curt and I will make will impact them in MANY ways. Before, we could have moved and wouldn't have mattered to them at all, but they are getting to an age where they have friends and their routines mean something to them, outside of just knowing they will get food and sleep at regular intervals.  While I don't think this will scar them for life or anything, as a kid who moved a few times, I remember how tough that was. The nice thing is they will ALWAYS have each other, but it still makes me want to enable them to have either 1) the desire to move around a lot - hard to do or 2) provide them with stability and to stay in one place - hard to do in student affairs.

Brady and Tess jump before they come take away the bounce house

Brady - a little backwards sliding

Aidan - make that in reverse please

Gavin is so chill when he does this

Our awesome Batman House. Brady said "Why are there fish on it?" yes, batman and under the sea totally go together. I'm guessing Batman wasn't getting any royalties on this one . . .

Swimming - pool weather is back and the boys are taking off with their confidence. mostly. After Gavin's scare with the lifeguard this fall who pushed the floating crocodile he was sitting on into the pool in spite of my telling him not to over and over, Gavin has been much more scared in and around the water. For awhile, he would only play on the side. Then walk around the little kiddie pool touching the sides (but not leaving the sides at all). Well, their good friend Santi has been taking swim lessons and he is a FISH! As in swims without ANY devices in a frigging triathlon held at American School of Doha (ASD) for his age group. WHAT?!?!?!? anyway, we thought it might enable some positive peer pressure for us to swim with them (and the kids all just love each other). Boy were we right. Gavin sees Santi jump in the deep end of the pool and he just goes over to the side and hops right in while holding onto the side in a 10 foot deep pool. No water wings or noodle - nothing! Then at various points in the morning, Gavin would just put his whole face in the water without goggles on for several seconds!!! It was CRAZY! Aidan was totally cool to float and swim with water wings and Brady was up for trying it for awhile as well but he got a little tired.  SUCCESS! In the swimming we have done with and without friends since this weekend with Santi, etc the boys have all been growing in their water confidence SO MUCH. Aidan will go down water slides with his water wings, and is a regular fish kicking and floating and just loving the water on a noodle or without. Brady has gone down the water slides a few times, but several times I have seen him floating on his back, just testing out the water wings and what he can do in the water. Gavin has allowed me to take him out into deeper water with his water wings on and practice just kicking around and having fun. We also were able to talk about swim lessons and how they will be able to swim like Santi when they take them. So far everyone is excited about taking them in IC, except when Gavin is in his opposite phase (which seems to be about every other meal these days - anyone know when that will stop?!). I just hope we will be able to get them in this summer!

Some fun video from the bounce house . . . check out the new way Gavin found to come down the slide. He is a daredevil!