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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Photo Dump

Here's another random dumping of photo's taken on my iPhone over the last few weeks.




We rock the side saddle approach, babies in tow!  And helmets are for wussies.






This one's for you Pa!  Moooooooove over, cows coming down the road.






Either he's too lazy to wash a glass or he's decided it's a good idea to start measuring his sweet tea intake.  Since he refilled it 3 times, I'm guessing it's laziness.






We finally visited the Cairo Tower, only took us 3 years!







Crib is ready and waiting!







Cleo found this ball somewhere in the house the other day, it's a little pink wiffle ball.  Absolutely no idea where it came from or where she found it.  But she luuuuuuuvs it.






Sometimes it's just too hard to move your head and lay down properly.  








Her preferred sleeping position.





Apparently the m&m's did me in.  I didn't even know this pic was on my phone, Ryan must have gone ninja style.  We call this the 9th month collapse.



Sunday, May 19, 2013

Would you like barbecue sauce with that?

One of the many interesting quirks to Cairo is how problems are solved.  My American upbringing taught me that things should be solved quickly, efficiently and that solving problems correctly was very important.  Here things move at a different pace, as is evident by the most common said phrase when problems arise, "Insha'Allah" meaning "if God wills it".

Have a giant pothole in the road?  Don't fill it in or repair the road, instead have all the cars move to the other side and drive against oncoming traffic.

Is there a roof that leaks in your school?  No point fixing the leaks, instead gather large supplies of plastic sheeting to bring in and cover all the electronics when it rains.

Internet not working? Why find out what's wrong with the wiring in your house, instead let's run a line from the main source outside and in through your living room window.

Now, some of the solutions we see on a daily basis are down right ingenious.  Others make us want to tear our hair out in frustration.

And sometimes they make me smile.

Like yesterday when we went to City Stars for lunch.  Our usual routine is to stop at Dairy Queen on our way out for a cool frosty treat.  Ryan was in a store paying for something while I was given the task of ordering the ice cream.  Now, Ryan always gets the same thing.  An oreo blizzard, with hot fudge sauce added.  We've made this same order at least 20 times in the last 3 years, at this exact same location.  Sometimes the language barrier makes things dicey, sometimes there's new staff who don't know how to use the machine, but most of the time it's no big deal.

Here's how it went yesterday:

Me:  One oreo blizzard, add hot fudge please.

DQ guy:  Ok, one blizzard, oreo, add hot fudge?  (Quizzical expression.  He gets the blizzard added to the computer and then spends at least 2 min punching various buttons trying to get the hot fudge added.)

Another DQ guy comes over and starts a rapid fire conversation in Arabic with the first guy.  Now they're wrestling over the machine, each trying to prove to the other that they can make this happen.  Things are being added and taken away from the computer monitor in front of me like crazy.

Third DQ guy working in the back leans over the counter and yells something in Arabic.  They have a quick meeting and come back to the computer, punch in something and turn to me smiling.

I look at the screen:


Me:  Barbeque sauce?

DQ Guy:  Yes!  (smiles very enthusiastically)  

Me: Ok

So I handed over my money and took a picture of the receipt because it was all so absurdly fitting with life in Egypt.

We got the better end of the deal in the end, normally it's an extra 6 LE to add hot fudge.  I guess we'll call this the barbecue discount?  :)










Sunday, May 12, 2013

A Pox on Your House!

I'm working from home for the next two weeks because our school has the pox.

Chicken pox to be more specific.  It's been spreading throughout the kindergarten for awhile now, but that didn't really worry us because I have virtually no contact with those kids.  And then we found out there were several cases in the middle school.  The same middle school I'm currently running standardized testing for. So I've been instructed to avoid the kiddies and work from home.

I'm only 3 weeks away from starting my maternity leave, it seems a bit silly.  But at the same time, it's much better to be safe than sorry.  Although it's unlikely I would catch the chicken pox again, if I did it could be very dangerous for me and the baby, especially since I'm so close to popping.

So I'm home, still waking up at 6, but I get to stay in my sweatpants and Cleo doesn't have to get locked up.  She's in heaven.

The funny thing is, I was really looking forward to these next few weeks at work.  Map Testing is so busy that the days fly by. Now that I'm stuck at home it feels like the last month of baby brewing might drag very slowly.

We are so ready to meet our little man. The other night Ryan had his first dream where the baby was born and he got to hold him.  Waking up from that to realize the baby is still out of reach is a bit frustrating.  I should know, I experience it just about every night.  Though I do prefer those dreams to the ones where I'm nursing rabbits or being chased by robots.  Seriously, pregnancy dreams are weird and exhausting.

At our ultrasound last week we learned a couple of important things.  Baby weighs almost 6 lbs, is "breathing" which means his lungs are working (score!), his testicles have descended, so he's definitely still a boy and won't need any help in the ball department when he's born.  And he's in an oblique position.

Everything else the doctor had said up till that point was followed with a nod and a smile, but that last point made her frown.

Basically the little guy is in an awkward position.  He's head down and facing the right direction, but he's lying diagonally, instead of vertically.  So that's why my belly always looks lopsided!  When Ryan and I looked at the Dr. with our stupid faces, she proceeded to draw a little picture of the uterus and where our baby is located.  In the water balloon that is my uterus, the baby's head is at an angle to the opening, which makes a natural birth impossible since he can't come out shoulder first.  Luckily there's still a chance he'll shift in the next few weeks, though it's getting harder for him to move in there now that space is running out.

So the deadline has pretty much been set.  We have another ultrasound in 2 weeks, when I'm 38 weeks.  If he's shifted and in the proper position then all systems are go and we wait for the big day like everyone else.  But if he's still oblique then we'll need to arrange for a C-section and our June bug becomes a May baby.

Think vertical!  :)