First Run!

Yesterday I went running, for the first time this year, for the first time in...many months, not quite the first time since Little Guy was born but pretty close.  And it was great.  It was hardly an impressive run (we don't really need to talk stats here, do we?), but it was more than the minimum goal that I had set for myself, and it really wasn't hard.  Apparently all of the trekking up and down hills is better cardio prep than I expected.

Babyproofing in Palestine

With the exception of fresh produce (admittedly a very significant exception), things here are very expensive.

We had been hunting around for a highchair, could find nothing affordable, and were spending a lot of time lamenting the loss of Craigslist and the multitude of thrift stores we had access to in the States.  But then we mentioned our highchair search to our landlord who assured us that there were, indeed, places to buy used stuff in Ramallah, and he offered to keep an eye out on our behalf.  And a few days later, for a handy 90 shekels, we had this:

Hooray!  So much easier to feed the child or let the child hang out to play with toys or, best of all, watch the laundry spin in our fancy washing machine.

Then it was time to address playspace in the living room.  We'd had a quilt laid down where Little Guy could play, but he rolls around like crazy right now so there was still a lot of trying to keep him away from cold, hard tile floors, wooden furniture, and, let's face it, carpet that really needs to be vacuumed.  I'd set him on his quilt with some toys, walk away to sweep the kitchen floor, and hear myself say, "Tiny Face, can I trust you not to jack yourself?" as if this were the beginning of a productive conversation about self-care.  And more often than not, this is where he'd be after a couple of minutes:

So over the weekend we rearranged the furniture to create a play corner for him that, at least for now, he can't get out of.  It should be noted that this area isn't actually isolated from hazards; there are still plenty of furniture edges to crash into, for example.  It's not babyproofing so much as it is baby-confining.  But I'm all for it!

Hiking

Over the weekend, E went hiking near Ariha in Wadi Qelt.  A random selection of his photos:

In the Neighborhood

So, the upside of having to trek uphill anytime we go anywhere is that we get these views around our neighborhood and on our way back down to our house.

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.