Bug Struggles

Take a look at Little Guy's totally messed up face (it looks worse in person).

Apparently we have a ready supply of mosquitoes waiting to come in every time we open the front door.  This is what Little Guy looks like after two nights in a row of them buzzing around the bedroom.

Nothing drives E more crazy than hearing mosquitoes in the middle of the night, and it gives both of us flashbacks to other mosquito-laden travels.  Like the night at a hostel in Tunisia when E tried to preempt any mosquito attacks by spraying the shutters with super-lethal bug spray which, unfortunately, also made me sick.  Or the night, also in Tunisia, at another hostel on the sea, when the buzzing mosquitoes were so bad that I had to pull the sheet up over my head, which made me too hot to sleep at all.  (We do actually have good memories of that trip as well)

It used to be that I would get ten mosquito bites for every one that E got.  Now it looks like poor Little Guy's sweet cheeks are getting most of the attention.

I suppose it's not classy to post about compliments that your child receives, but this story is really about the compliment-giver.  Or at least, that's what I most enjoy about it.  It's also possible that something was lost (or gained) in translation.

We recently visited some acquaintances, a French-American family with two young boys for whom English is sort of a second first language since they only speak English regularly with their mother and do everything else in French with a little Arabic thrown in.  Consequently, the constant stream of little boy chatter during our visit was in slightly stilted English.  The five-year-old produced a great deal of noise and activity.  In brief pauses from tearing around the living room, he'd tell me, "ARRGRRR!  I'm a lion.  I can do the animals of the world.  I know everything!"  Then he climbed up on the arm of my chair, looked closely at Little Guy, and said, "He's too beautiful."

Oops

Apparently I thought it would be OK to leave a plastic spoon resting across a pot of boiling lentils.  It wasn't.

Yum

There is a beautiful apartment building on the corner across from our house with a lovely lemon tree that I always wish were ours.

Also, where is an ostrich when you need one?

Sock Mittens

We knew that moving back to this part of the world would mean being very cold all winter long.  Still, knowing it and living in it are two very different things.

A lot of homes here have central heat in the form of radiators, but they run on diesel, which most homeowners find too expensive for use.  So typically, the only heat source that may be available in a home is a space heater.  Current weather tends to be in the 50's outside during the day, but when there's no consistent heat source inside, the indoor temperature never breaks 60 either.  It's usually somewhere around 55 degrees in here, which feels crazy cold when you aren't really moving around a lot.  That's why one of our most important early purchases was slippers for E and me, and that's why Little Guy sleeps in this (and under blankets):

Home at Last

Our new front door!

After almost three weeks of traveling through Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, DC, Paris, and Amman, we arrived in Ramallah and found an apartment that we're very happy with.  We're on the ground floor of a lovely villa.  On our first night here, our landlords, who live upstairs, brought us this delicious spread for dinner.

One little detail: to get from our apartment to our primary supermarket or to transportation to downtown, we have to walk uphill.  Part one:

 Part two:

Part three:

OK, I'm not sure it really looks all that steep in photos, but trust me, when you're either pushing or carrying 22 pounds of baby, going up is hard work and coming back down is a little scary!