21 months

It has been ages, so I won’t even bother playing catch up, but Adele has been doing so many things that should be recorded that I thought I’d put a little something on this space to help me remember.

*When she wants to be picked up, she says “hug?” which is as close as we get to an actual hug, because she is such a busy bee who can’t be bothered to show affection (a trait she may or may not have gotten from her mother).

*We went to a little mommy and me music time and the leader asked everyone to sit in a circle. Everyone did, except for Adele, who spent the rest of the hour dancing in the center. She loves attention.

*She is super friendly and says hi to practically everyone she encounters. Quite often people stop to interact with her. She’s a total charmer (a trait she definitely got from her dad).

*She struggled with puzzles for a very long time, until one day it just clicked, and she now does them over and over again. She sometimes gets a bit frustrated and lets out a shriek and throws the puzzle piece, only to pick it up again and put it in the right place almost immediately.

*Her favorite things these days are necklaces, hats, balls and cars. You will rarely see her without at least one of these things.

*A few months ago we went to Utah to visit my family while the hubs was in Manila for work. We stayed with my sister who has an adorable little dog, who kindly tolerated Adele (at least most of the time), lots of cousins (and their friends) who adored her, and she was in heaven! Every morning she would wake up and say “Hat? Ball? Rosie/Brosie (the two are interchangeable)?” One day she climbed up the stairs saying in a sing-song voice “Brosie, I love you!”

*If you ask her what her name is (or in an attempt not to encourage her typical response (“I am mommy, who are you?”), she will answer “Name.”

*I was trying to teach her her age, and said “One.” She answered, “two.” I replied, “7” she said “8.” Amazed, I continued “6” and she followed with “5” me: “5” Adele: “4.” She then broke the streak. I know it was a fluke, but we were pretty shocked at her apparent genius. I didn’t even know she knew the number 8, let alone the fact that it comes after 7!

*She loves Yo Gabba Gabba, and while I try to limit her viewing to one show while I get ready in the morning, we do listen to the soundtrack quite often. There is a song called The Freeze Game, and she will move around until they yell Freeze! at which point she stops and hold her arms outstretched in front of her with her fingers spread until they start singing again. It’s pretty adorable.

*We went to a Christmas concert put on by our local high school, and during one of the little acts between songs, there was a lag between the dialog of the characters on stage and Adele yelled “YAAAAY!!” The entire auditorium looked at us and laughed. I think the conductor said something about it as he continued on the show.

*She has quite the personality. She doesn’t need a mirror or phone flipped on her to give her best performances, but it does help.

If you haven’t had enough cuteness, or if you’re curious to see more of Adele’s antics, you should check out my instagram page here. There is so much good stuff there!

See you again soon (or in another 6 months, if the pattern continues).

Tap tap...is this thing on?

It has been months and months since I've visited this space, and that makes me sad. So much has happened since we said goodbye to Guinea (including things calming down there, which means that we totally could have stuck around with Mister...oh well, hindsight is 20/20 I guess). We've had birthdays, roadtrips, eaten numerous cheeseburgers, grown teeth, and now have a new place to live in our new city. I am typing this on my iPad which makes me crazy, so this will be short, but I promise to come back soon once we get settled into our new digs in Vienna.

In the meantime, since i'm an instagramming fool, feel free to visit my Instagram page to check out some of our (but really mostly just Adele's) adventures.

Goodbye Guinea

Many months ago, likely during one of my hate days in my love/hate relationship with Guinea, I jokingly said that the two best things about this place were their gummy bears and butter, which, ironically, are actually French. Last week I was eating a piece of toast with my beloved butter on it and told Mister that it didn’t taste good anymore, so I guess that means it’s time to leave Guinea. So leave we will, at least Adele and I. Provided we can make it to the airport amid the violence that has erupted throughout the city, we will fly out tonight. It’s sooner than we originally planned, but the country is scheduled to have their (hotly contested) legislative elections at the end of June, so Mister thinks it’s best that we leave sooner rather than later. It super sucks to leave him behind, especially since we don’t quite know yet when he’ll get to join us, but we both agreed that this is the best solution, and that he’ll be able to better focus on the safety of our embassy family during this fragile time if he doesn’t have to worry about ours.

Conakry is definitely a hardship post that necessitates a close, friendly community, and we have been so lucky to have met some amazing people during our time here, many of whom will be life long friends. It is sad to think that we will all start to scatter around the globe in the next few months, but we’re glad to be living in the age of social media where it will be easy to keep in touch. That, and the fact that we’re moving back to DC where we are likely to cross paths with many of them at one point or another, makes saying goodbye a bit easier.

10 months!

Is it horrible that I can’t think of anything noteworthy that happened last month? I mean, lots of things have happened this past week, but those will be part of her 11 month update. I really should be better about recording little details about Adele as they happen, especially since I have a horrible memory!

Oh yes! I remembered something! So, Adele rolled over from her front to her back like four times when she was 4 months or so, but hadn’t done it since. Well, she is now a rolling fool, in both directions. She especially likes to do it when she’s wearing her sleep sack, which makes her look like a fish out of water. Naps for the first few days of her new discovery were a bit rough. She would start lying on her back long ways on one side of her crib, and would somehow maneuver herself down to the other end with her head and feet stuck against the slats, and she’d cry for help. She figured out how unpleasant that is, so now she just plays with the mosquito net until she’s tired enough to sleep. You can see how far she’s traveled (and how long it took her to fall asleep) by the different places the fabric has been pulled in. Another sleep related tidbit: now that she can roll, she’s figured out she likes to sleep on her side. Oh man, it’s the cutest thing ever. I could just stare at her rolled up in a little ball all day long.

She’s also very expressive. My favorite is when she gets excited about something. She will yell, punctuating each inflection with a wave of her arms, and on the final syllable, she will freeze her arms mid flap while she holds the note. She does this both with her hands balled into fists, and also with her palms facing outwards (my personal favorite). I know that’s not a great description, but it’s like she’s a witch, casting a spell. I keep trying to capture it on video, but by the time the camera’s cued up and ready to go, she stops. Maybe some day.

Still no crawling, but I am trying to convince her to wait until we fly back to the states next month. We’ll see how well she obeys. Semi-spoiler alert, she’s getting close!

She’s almost one year old. That is crazy to me!

Flipping Jeff Galloway the bird

Ok, so my beef isn’t actually with Jeff Galloway (I’m sure he’s a nice enough fellow), but his run/walk system. I know that many people swear by it and have successfully completed races using it, but it’s not for me. You see, when I very first started running seven or so years ago, I was convinced that if, during a run, I stopped to take a walking break, I wouldn’t be able to resume running again, so I didn’t. Ever. Then I read an article written by Mr. Galloway that said that walking breaks could actually make you a better, more efficient runner, so I took that advice and ran, or rather walked, with it. Although, instead of run/walking at prescribed intervals as he instructs, I interpreted it to mean that I could walk whenever I felt any twinge of discomfort or just for funsies. What resulted is a super wussy runner who walked probably more than she ran.

This time around I’m paying more attention to my mental game. I have accepted the fact that running is not supposed to be pleasant. My feet hurt, my knees hurt, sometimes I have a hard time taking  a good breath, but in the last few months I’ve been running I’ve stopped to walk exactly zero times. This is HUGE for me. I know I’m slow, (my average pace for my runs is around 14:00 minutes/mile) but if being slow means that I can run without stopping then I’ll take it. Last week I ran for 58 minutes straight. I haven’t done that in like six years. It wasn’t a particularly pretty run, but I did it, and that feels really good.

*ETA* It looks like I’m registered for an organized 5k race in a few weeks here in Guinea. There is no way I’ll finish in anything less than last place, because, hello, African’s are historically fast, but still. Cool, right?!

9 months

I can’t believe 9 months have passed! She has now existed on earth longer than she did in my belly and that is just crazy to me. I look at pictures of her when she was just born and I hardly believe she was ever that small. It’s amazing how much she has grown and developed in such a short amount of time.

If you look at the picture closely, you can see that she’s got two new teeth, and considering all of the drooling and gnawing on everything she’s been doing, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more pop out soon. She’s definitely aware that there is something different with her mouth, because she spends a lot of time pulling the funniest faces to show off those pearly whites. She is very expressive and super funny.

Aside from the pivoting on her belly and occasionally moving backwards, she’s still immobile. I love that I still have some time to relax, but I’m excited for the day (hopefully months from now) she’s able to fully explore her surroundings.

She will now clap her hands and yell on cue, (mimicking the “YAY!” we always say when we clap at her), and if I attempt to do patty cake without the hand motions, she will grasp my fingers and make me do them. It’s pretty awesome. She’s basically the best.

Slower than average

I read a lot of running blogs. Folks who are running sub 8 minute miles during their easy runs. I can’t sustain a sprint at an 8 minute mile pace for 10 seconds. I am currently on week 7 of the couch to 5k program and, curious to see what my current pace is, ran with my garmin on my 15 minute run today. You want to guess how fast I was running? Not at all, unless you consider 14:30 fast, and that was when I was really pushing it at the end. Most of that 15 minutes was run right around 15:30. Most people can walk faster than that. I realize that I’m just starting, but the truth is, my body is not built to run fast. When I was in my prime running shape, I was lucky to run a 10 minute mile, and even that was rare. Where are all of the runners who are slow like me? Do they blog? Do they even exist?  I’m pretty sure I’m the only one.

My most recent attempt at running has been pretty rough. Even in the first weeks when I was running three minutes at a time I was burning out. The hot African sun aside, it turns out I was running too fast. I moved my runs inside to the treadmill and things got a bit better, but it was still pretty difficult, but then again, a treadmill will do that to ya. Then I found my iPod touch that had been missing for a long time and rediscovered the PaceDJ app. It analyzes every song in your library and sorts them by BPM. You can then have it play only songs that fall around your target cadence, which it calculates for you (mine is 156). The first day I ran this way was awesome. I ran 20 minutes, slow and steady, and I didn’t feel like I was going to die. No walking breaks for me, which is HUGE. If you’re like me and have a hard time keeping your pace in check and you run with an iPod touch or an iPhone, I highly recommend it.

Just for fun, here are the songs that got me through the past few runs. Maybe you’ll find a few that work for you.

Rain King – Counting Crows

Pump It – Black Eyed Peas

Hotride – The Prodigy

Kathy Fong is the Bomb – Tsar

Power – Kanye West

Music is the Victim – Scissor Sisters

Hey Sailor - The Detroit Cobras

Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen

Stars – Ulrich Schnauss

Chains of Love – The Dirtbombs

Paint it Black – The Rolling Stones*

Like a Drug – Hard-Fi

Song for No One – Miike Snow

*A quick story about Paint it Black. Every time I hear this song, I’m transported back to Washington DC as I trained for the Marine Corp Marathon. As I listened to it today, I watched my feet land on a brick lined pathway, not much different than the cobblestone streets of Georgetown, only instead of tourists, I was dodging a 3 foot long monitor lizard. What a crazy life I live.

8 months

She’s outgrown the red blanket/backdrop. She’s getting so big!

I have been trying for two days to capture Adele’s smile on camera. I’ve made many embarrassing noises and tried many tricks with no success, but the second I put the camera down her cheeks become more pronounced, her eyes crinkle, and her dimple pops out. It’s like she’s saving it for an actual human connection.

Adele is a chatterbox. I don’t think she ever stops talking, even when she should be sleeping. In addition to the typical ma, da, ba (among a billion other) sounds, she’s also mastered clicking her tongue and other interesting noises that don’t exist in the English language, which makes me wonder if she’s absorbing her African surroundings and will be speaking Swahili soon.

She’s eating solid foods like crazy and loves using her fingers, although she’s picky about what she’ll grasp. Cheerios, yogurt bites, crackers, cheese, the occasional egg? No problem, but stick some banana on the tray and she’ll hover her pointer finger and thumb above it, but will refuse to touch it. It makes me laugh.

She’s an expert at sitting up and likes to stand up while we hold onto her hands, but shows no interest in crawling, which, if I’m honest, is fine by me. I’m secretly hoping she remains immobile as long as we’re in Conakry. Babyproofing with all of the voltage regulators and cords we have scattered around the house makes me exhausted just thinking about it.

The other day we were watching Justin Bieber perform on Saturday Night Live and Adele watched, transfixed, and the second he finished the song, she burst out shrieking, just like the teenage girls in the audience.

I am pretty sure I say this every month, but she is such a delight!

Uh oh

I just committed to run a race in Richmond this November*. There are three distances, a marathon, half marathon and an 8k, one of which I will pick at a future date. You’re probably thinking, awesome, Anne, that will be fun! Here’s the trick, I’m on week 1 of the couch to 5k training program. You see, when they say couch, they are referring to lazy butts who spend all day eating cookies and watching TV. You know, people like me. I know I have practically a year to prepare for a minimum 6 mile race, but in the past few years I have attempted to get back into running shape no less than 10 times, and where did that get me? Spending all day eating cookies and watching TV and living in clothes with elastic waist bands.

I am determined to make it work this time. I want to be ready to not only run around all of my favorite spots in DC, but to enjoy it too! Please wish me luck and a healthy, injury-free journey.

^{*and also tentatively, possibly a race in July too…}

7 months

This month was full of new things, but really, isn’t every month? This one in particular meant meeting family members for the first time while on R&R in Texas, most notably her 100 year old great grandma who wanted nothing more to meet her newest great grandchild. A wish we were able to grant just hours before she passed away. She has transitioned from three naps to two, but now often spends those two just talking away in her crib thanks to us giving up the swaddle, which means passing out while on our daily walk around the compound more often than not. While in Utah she had her 6 month check up and in the words of her pediatrician “she’s just perfect, guys!” She had a series of shots, and she reacted by not really being phased. She’s such a tough little cookie. During one sleepless night at the beginning of the month (got to love time zones and jet lag), we discovered that her front teeth are coming in. I can’t wait until they have grown in enough to change her smile. Toothy grins are my favorite. We have been trying lots of new foods lately and have learned that she absolutely hates potatoes and can’t shove grated sharp cheddar cheese into the vicinity of her mouth* fast enough. She’s the best.

*we’re still working on her ability to consistently transfer things from her hand to her mouth

6 months!

I missed last months update, intentionally even, because on the 13th she had this unfortunate bright red chin which clashed horribly with the red blanket and I just didn’t have the heart to post it. So, this little lady is 6 months old today. Right this very second she’s laying in front of me with her bib covering her face waiting for me to pull it off and say “boo!” It’s one of our favorite games. Right around her 5th month she rolled over front to back four times. It was just enough time for me to take a photo and a video, and she hasn’t really done it since. It’s like she has a list of milestones and is set on checking the blocks. There’s no time to do things over and over, she has to move onto the next big thing. The next big thing being sitting up. While I still have to keep pillows within falling distance, she can sit up, unsupported, for a very long time. She is alert and very curious. Recent discoveries include her feet, her tongue and the upper register of her voice. The latter of which she likes to practice in the wee hours of the morning, much to the chagrin of her parents.

Tomorrow she embarks on her second trans-Atlantic trip (fingers crossed it’s as uneventful as the last), as we travel to Texas and Utah to spend the holidays with our families. I can’t wait to introduce her to more of her relatives and to amaze those that have already met her with how much she has grown.

Happy holidays everybody!

Looking ahead

We still have 8 months left here in Guinea, but my mind is already back in the states. We’ve already (loosely) planned our home leave and when I wake up in the morning I think of what I would do that day if I was in DC. This includes things like eat yogurt parfaits with fresh strawberries and homemade granola, get into my car and drive somewhere, roam the aisles at Target, have playdates, go for a run (wog)  on the W&OD trail, eat delicious fish tacos at Tacklebox, brush my teeth with water from the tap, and the list goes on and on. Yeah, I’ve pretty much checked out of Conakry.

I’m also thinking about the not so exciting things about moving back to the DC area, like a paycheck reduced by 1/3, paying state taxes again (our current residence is in a tax-free state), having major monthly expenses, paying $2,000 dollars a month for an apartment the size of my living room, and on and on. I have lived in DC before, but never like this. I can’t help but wonder how in the world people support a family on a single measly government salary that hasn’t budged in three years, and probably won’t for three more. Seriously, DC friends, how in the world do you do it?! I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Simple mathematics

+

=

Bathtime for both of us!

Cue Neil Diamond

We’re coming to America!

As much as we would have loved to stay overseas for another assignment, we are super thrilled to be going back to DC next summer. Mister is excited about his new job, and I think it will be good for me to get a healthy dose of America and all of its loveliness after being in Conakry. I have had visions of grocery store produce sections running through my mind all morning. I can’t wait!!

How many…

…Africans does it take to kill a snake?

According to one source, 300. Sounds to me like he may have taken a few liberties with the details, but whether it was 3 or 300, I’m just glad I wasn’t the one who stumbled upon this python (found just across the driveway from work)!!

World Hello Day

According to some random FB comment I saw on my feed, today is world hello day, which is used as an opportunity to demonstrate the importance of encouraging communication for preserving peace. I thought it sounded like a good excuse to find out where people are reading this blog. Would you consider de-lurking for just one day to say hello?

Randoms

*One of Mister’s Army buddies came to visit us this weekend, and it was fun to hear stories about their service. Mister’s pretty tightlipped about his time in the military (although the stories he does share are awesome/scary), so it was a treat to hear some things I hadn’t heard before.

*We drove 7 hours round trip to a town called Kamsar to visit a grocery store owned by a Lebanese guy who imports goods from the states. I almost cried tears of joy when I saw not one, but three different flavors of Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce, dill pickles, dark brown sugar, Jif peanut butter and three coolers full of ice cream. Totally worth the drive! We will definitely be back!

*The owner fed us lunch while we were there and made us this amazing Lebanese dessert. They’re these little sweet pancakes filled with mozzarella cheese, deep fried, sprinkled with sugar and then topped with a simple syrup. I was a little skeptical, but oh it was good. I stopped myself after three, but could have eaten lots more! I must figure out the recipe!

*I am a total over-packer when it comes to Adele. I packed five outfits, 8 bibs and 5 burp cloths for a day trip. I mean, it’s better to have more stuff than less, but still, it was a little much. I can’t imagine how crazy I’ll get when we’re packing for our R&R next month.

*Speaking of, I am so excited to go back to the states. We’ll be in Houston for a little under a week, and then Salt Lake for Christmas. We may even take a little road trip to Denver. Should be super fun. I wish we were going to be there for more than two weeks though.

*As you have probably deduced, we still don’t know where we’re headed next year, although it’s not any of the 7 overseas positions we initially bid on. Man alive this process is frustrating. I really hate that we have to do this every few years. There should be another panel next week, so hopefully we’ll have some news soon.

*It’s our own fault for missing the sign-up for the dinner at the Ambassador’s house, but we have no plans for Thanksgiving this year. I’m pretty bummed about it, but oh well. On the bright side, this means I can stay in my pj’s all day. Maybe I’ll take the opportunity to blast Christmas music and put up our Christmas tree.

update: Apparently it’s NOT too late to RSVP for Thanksgiving. We have plans after all!! Thanks Meredith!

Happy Veteran’s Day

Mister spent 13 years in the Army Reserves, during which time he deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Ecuador. I didn’t know him during this time, but I have heard many stories of his service. Heart wrenching, white knuckle, nail biting stories. He is a hero, along with all of his military brothers and sisters.  There are no words to express how grateful I am to them, for their selfless service to defend all of the freedoms that we, as American’s, enjoy. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Randoms

*Rumor has it that fall is practically over, although you’d never guess it here in Guinea. It’s as green and lush as ever, which is lovely, but I miss watching the leaves change. In an effort to channel a bit of autumn, I made pumpkin soup (an old favorite) and will make chili (If I can track down chili powder) this week. I have also made my favorite pumpkin cookies, which consist of a box of spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin and white chocolate chips. I heard about these when I was on weight watchers, but there’s nothing weight watchers about eating a dozen in one day, which is what I did last week. They are so so so good.

*While at the grocery store last week I found some herb and garlic cream cheese like spread, so I decided to try my hand at bagels. Today was the day and I must say, they were delicious (even though the power went out while they were baking and reset the oven), and super easy. I will definitely make them again!

*This was the first week normal bidders will be considered for assignments, and we were told that a panel would be held on Thursday. It’s now Friday and the FB traffic from fellow bidders indicates that no one received any word. I hope that just means that they spent all afternoon planning our futures and had to wait until today to update the bid-list/send emails to the lucky folks who were placed. I know there are still some folks from AIP waiting on assignments, and they obviously have priority, but there is a small chance that today we’ll know where we’re headed next year. At the very least we should have a better idea of where we’re not going.

*On a related note, this is the one time I wish my husband had a blackberry. Fridays are short days here, so by the time Mister packs up, the DC folks are just getting to work. I wish we could just give them our personal email account. That way, he wouldn’t have to go into work on a Saturday to see if handshakes were given out, or worse, wait until he’s back in the office on Tuesday.

*Last Saturday I went with friends to the Miss Conakry pageant in preparation for the Miss Guinea pageant being held in a few weeks. We were seated front and center and my friend even got to pin the sash on the first runner up. It was quite the experience. I would write more, but since Meredith did such an excellent job recapping the night, I’ll just send you over to her blog for the details.

*I didn’t get home from the pageant until 2:30 am or so, which is like 5 1/2 hours past my bedtime. I was so trashed for a few days after that, and it’s the most sleep deprived I’ve been since I had Adele, which is to say that Adele is basically the best, most considerate sleeper ever!

*The marine ball is this weekend. Mister is working it, and frankly, parties make me a tad uncomfortable, so I’m going to stay at home with the little babe. Perhaps we’ll put on some fancy dresses and have a dance party of our own. Most likely though, I’ll eat a bowl of cereal and fall asleep before 10.

*We’ve booked our flights from Houston – SLC over the holidays. First class tickets were the exact same price as economy, so we will be flying in style. I think the rest of the first class passengers will LOVE to share their fancy first class cabin with a 6 month old.

*Adele tried rice cereal last week. I don’t think she quite understands the appeal…

Baby’s first Halloween!

Likely the cutest (and only) elephant in Guinea.

Not a bad haul for someone who doesn’t eat solids!