Happy Holidays!

Christmas week has proved to be a great one around here. We've taken advantage of the calm atmosphere as many people left for the holiday to relax and enjoy time around the neighborhood.  It was cold during the first part of the week so we had to bundle up and sip hot chocolate - definitely nothing to complain about!  On Christmas we filled the morning with a skype call with Scott's family and the adventure of teaching Henry how to open presents.  He still has no idea who Santa Claus is so a stocking filled with little stuff to too random for him to think about; or at least that what I assumed and didn't even fill one for him.  We're lucky that we can still re-gift toys to Henry that he either played with a little while ago or even just the day before.  He got through opening a coloring book and a pajama outfit and then opened up a soccer ball (one that he had been playing with all week) and it was time to take a break.

We had Christmas lunch at our friend's house, the same friend who hosted Thanksgiving.  We had a nice mix of Scottish Christmas treats and classic American food - along with homemade ravioli which was delicious.   We stayed over there well into the afternoon and got a little nervous that Henry didn't take a nap.  But, he was a charmer through bedtime and we tallied up another great Christmas. 

Henry is quite the giggle-er and the "Oh my gosh" kind of guy these days.  He keeps adding more words to his vocabulary some of which we have to spend a little time deciphering.  The other day we finally figured out that "kemu" meant cucumber, one of his favorite snacks and desserts. Henry's also still addicted to cookies but very flexible in what a cookie is.  So far he likes apple cookies (just an apple slice), cracker cookies (just a saltine...you get the point), banana cookies, etc.  Of course, he gets to chomp on a real cookie from time to time :)  In other Henry news he discovered an old Sesame Street book with counting activities that we've had laying around for awhile.  Suddenly, perhaps triggered by his love for The  Monster at the End of This Book book, he got excited to learn the names of all the Sesame Street characters.  He loves 'Bert' the best it seems. We just found a free Sesame Street video podcast that we can subscribe to offering weekly, ~7 min 'word on the street' episodes.  They're little bursts of entertainment.  We've watched 'fantastic', 'incognito', 'healthy', and 'identical'. Check them out if you're so inclined.

Oh, Scott discovered a few days ago that if he folds Henry in half Henry will laugh so hard.  What a good party trick Henry is.

The other day Scott hosted a surprised, unplanned as of that morning, event at his office....

 

What a great Big Boss!

We hope you're still enjoying a great holiday season !

Glamorous

Brrrr it's cold in Bangladesh!  It might not sound cold to say its 60 degrees here but I swear it feels COLD.  I won't complain because I certainly like the cold more than the heat.  Tonight was a special night because me, Henry, all the ladies from our apartment and the apartment across the hall, and James, a man who helps us walk Guinness, all ended up leaving the house at the same time today.  That's the first time that's happened. Usually when I get home Henry wants to leave with Shilpi and Shobita so I take him on a walk or we go to the Club to play for a little while, but usually it's just the 4 of us walking.  Today it just so happened all 7 of us got to walk together and it was lots of fun. 

Henry has been a big bundle of fun lately.  His latest phrases:
"Yum" and if he really likes the food "Yummmm".  If I trigger him he'll say "delicious"
"Like it"
"Feel good"
"Awesome"
"Cat hiding" if he can't find a cat on the street.
"Bhat khabo" which means I will eat rice.
"Good night" and "Good morning"
And if I yawn he, rightfully, says "Mommy tired. Momma sleep."
And perhaps my favorite new phrase starting 2 days ago... "Lub ew" (Love you) I've been getting excited to hear those words out of his mouth and the other day when I was putting him to bed he said it and then yesterday when I was leaving for the office he yelled it out.

Yesterday I came home to quite a surprise.  I was wondering why Henry really wanted to take his socks off and convinced him to keep them on for awhile because of the cold. Finally he took them off and there we go - he had red glittery painted toe nails!  Lily, the 4 year old who lives across the hall, was so jealous and I was so shocked. I was mostly shocked that someone was able to coax him to sit still for long enough to paint all of his little toes nails - but who did it and with whose nail polish since I don't have any in the house? I found out the next day that it was Shobita who had painted his nails but with whose nail polish I still don't know.  An interesting situation indeed.  I have a feeling Shobita (and Lily) would be happy if I had girl next!

Getting ready for the big holiday

It feels good to be back in the big city with Scott and with a calm office.  Henry and I left for Gaibandha the same day Scott's parents left Dhaka.  On the last day they were here Dada and Henry wore their matching shirts we had just had made, along with Gigi wearing a similar shirt.  Definitely a kodak moment.

Henry and I stayed up in Gaibandha for a week while I worked long hours and Henry did the usual of playing by the pond, throwing rocks in the water, pointing out all the big trucks, and entertaining everyone with his Bangla.  With the pure Bangladeshi diet up there, instead of an American breakfast and dinner when we’re in Dhaka, he started eating even more vegetables and showing that he knew how to eat with his hands properly – tearing piece of tortilla and pinching it around food to make a delicious bite.  In the photo here you can see his dinner plate with pumpkin, lentils, and the 'dinosaur eggs' made of rice mixed with vegetables which in this case was red spinach.  

He also showed off all the leaves and rocks he found.

 

Playing tablas with a student who lives up in Gaibandha:

We’ve been preparing for Christmas.  We enjoyed a Christmas party at the club last weekend (where I took the picture below of Henry playing with sand) and just finished decorating our tree today.  I bought the tree from a garden when I was walking home from a meeting last week.  No rickshaws were available at the time so a boy who works at the garden helped me bring it home.  Notice that he's wearing a heavy winter coat; I was sweating.

Henry helped out with cleaning up after the decorating, after he made a bit of an extra mess.  He still loves sweeping.  He'll take advantage of any chance he can find to run and fetch the broom.

 It’s getting cooler here.  I finally feel a chill when I go on a morning walk; I think it might be about 50 degrees at that time.  Of course, any temperature below 80 degrees brings a chill to a Bangladeshi’s bones.  Even the cows and goats must feel a chill because they have started wearing coats.  To keep warm, just about everyone has been lighting little fires on the streets and in homes using leaves, garbage, wood, anything you can name every morning and night to keep warm….The drop in temperature has quickly been reflected in the air quality – made worse because ALL the brick kilns are up and running for the winter.

Here are a few more photos from trips outside of Dhaka:
What more selection could you ask for?

 Photos from one of the community group meetings Scott's organization helps to organize

 Gigi enjoying herself:

 A scene where an interview was conducted with a rural farmerby some of Scott's employees

 The mini packets of seeds Scott's organization helped to launch:

 Rice harvest and processing:

More bufferfee-ey

We have been enjoying a fast paced two weeks with Scott's parents in town. We're really sad to see them go. I wonder how many days Henry will wake up and ask if it's okay to go knock on Dada and Gigi's room ("GiGi...Dada...knock?") or will ask when they are coming to play with him (Dada coming?....Gigi coming?") Alas, we'll have to rely on reliving the great memories to assuage his sadness when we say that they have gone home.  Besides hanging out with Henry helping him to hunt for butterflies ("buffer-fee-ey?"), his new favorite activity, playing basketball (He's learning how to catch the ball and shows such a proud sense of accomplishment whenever he does, rightfully so!), kicking around a ball (his latest move is dropping the ball in front of him and trying to kick it on the bounce), reading his new dinosaur books that Dada gave him, or learning Bangla from him, they also went on many adventures.  They ventured about 1.5 hours from our house to attend a USA vs Bangladesh WOMENS cricket match (did you know USA had a womens cricket team?), toured around hectic Old Dhaka with Scott's colleague, ate wonderful Bangladeshi food at a few of Scott's colleague's houses, went on a lunch time boat cruise, went on a work related 2.5 day road trip with Scott, enjoyed some Thanksgiving festivities, helped make mango sorbet from our last stash of frozen mangos from last summer....  Of course we took photos of a bunch of the fun:
Henry celebrating their arrival.  He discovered balloons at our neighbors birthday party and fell in love.  I'm surprised that when they pop he doesn't get too upset. Just runs off to get another one.

 Dada and Gigi lugged a basketball hoop with them and set it up their first day.  Henry thought that pointing out all the pictures of balls on the big box was enough fun let along opening up the box to discover more treats.

 Going immediately for the ball

 And trying to shoot it anytime there was some semblance of a "hoop"

Gosh guys - can you work faster?

The lunch time boat cruise was a lot of fun.  We rented the boat with a family we're friends with and their friends who were in town from Vancouver.  Since we were on the river during the day there was tons of activity which we tried to capture:
The wooden covered boat was our luxurious one...

Typical riverside scene

 Water taxi - notice the man sitting on his motorcycle

 Big, busy water taxi stand

 Ceramic supply man

 A fisherman

 A garbage dump. Notice the rickshaw dumping out garbage. Usually a team of younger boys walks around and collect garbage then walks it out to these sites

 Henry at the helm

  Henry on the roof hanging out with Kirin

Passerbys

 Looking for dragon flies...

Phyllis, Bob, and Henry were the only Merrills to participate in the Dhaka Turkey Trot even though i helped to organize it because I LOVE Turkey Trots but happened to have a meeting come up at the last minute.  They had a great time.  Happily the winners of the rickshaw art we had painted in Old Dhaka were excited with their prizes.

And finally for this blog entry, one of Phyllis in the field on the road trip: