RRRROOOOOOOOAAAARRRRRR!

 

There was quite a bit of Halloween excitement around here.  Given Henry's infatuation with all things dinosaur it was only fitting that he got to be one for this holiday.  He loved the costume I was able to pick up during a recent quite trip to the US and wore nearly the whole 2 hour party at the Club.  He, of course, tried to impress everyone with his roar and even shook his costume at people as he roared if they came to close.  Elliot was a Pittsburgh Pirates fan thanks to a proud fan providing the clothes. 

Before getting to the main Halloween events, we started off the festive atmosphere with crafts at his friend's house. They made spiderwebs out of cooked spaghetti that had been doused in Elmers glue and white paint.

On Halloween day there was an party at the Club complete with a bounce house (neither boy got in through), an arts and crafts station, a few other activities, roaming candy corn distributors, and a few trick or treating stations.

While Henry didn't quite get comfortable with saying "Trick or treat" during this party, he certainly quickly realized the bounty of candy he had collected as soon as we finished visiting the stations and took a peak and the results.  He then picked out a pumpkin shaped marshmallow for his first treat.

On the weekend after Halloween we went on the trick or treating adventure around the neighborhood stopping at a few apartment building garages to collect candy.  We were a group of about 15 kids and their parents along with others who are a kid at heart. 

 

Then we headed through the park to the final destination complete with a....

 pinata!  Always a kid favorite.

 the breaking of which Elliot had a great time watching.  At least he finally woke up for this part since he slept through all of the trick or treating.

After the party we hung out for a bit which gave time for Henry to hang out with his two best friends (by the way, the indoor swing is a kid favorite!)

Here's a few other random shots from the week:
a wipe out on the slide awesomely caught on film. Don't worry, he got up with a laugh.

And a huge floral arrangement Shobita's son made as a present completely out of (kleenex) tissues!

Scott and Henry enjoyed and Eid celebrate and Scott's colleague's house while Elliot and I were in the US.  While we'll spare the gory photos (this year Scott didn't take any as he avoided the main event), you can see the potential for what photos could have been captured:

 Scott smartly distracted Henry and some other kids with the ipad.

In other news, Elliot turned 5 months. He's sitting and crawling but luckily not crawling too quickly. Phew, a few more weeks (hopefully!) of not having to chase him around.  it's quite interesting to see the differences in growth pattern between Henry who was always skinny and Elliot who is turning out to be chunky.

Henry loves the opportunity to have Elliot lay on his belly

And just in case you were wondering, Henry is still obsessed with stickers.

There's a snake charmer in my bu*$

I thought I'd start off with the most neutral of stories I'm posting today.  Yesterday Henry, Elliot and I along with a friend, Erin, went with Pollobi (our current nanny)  and her family to a nearby Catholic Church to watch her 8 year old daughter's confirmation. It was a great morning.  There were so many wonderful boys and girls in their fancy outfits and so many proud parents and community members.  The ceremony included baptisms as well.  Although I didn't understand much of what was said, the atmosphere was festive and welcoming and the singing beautiful.  The boys were amazing through the 3 hour ceremony staying quiet and calm and flashing their smiles to all the women who were sitting nearby.  I just thank everything that it wasn't a hot day!  After the ceremony we went to Pollobi's house for a relaxing late brunch....followed by lunch 15 minutes later.  The lunch component was a surprise and hard to force down politely after the delicious other treats.  But, I can always find room. Here are some other photos from the morning:

Getting to the event.

 

All the kids dressed up and waiting to enter

 Pollboi and her daughter                                                       Looking for pigeons on the roof next door

the traveling chicken shop (2 men on the left - one is carrying chicken and one has a basket of them on his head)... just in time for lunch

You may have caught on the last entry that I had dengue hemorrhagic fever in September.  Well, just as I was starting to feel better Scott began to get a fever, chills and a few other classic symptoms. Within days the diagnosis was clear.  Scott is finally starting to feel a bit more energy but he still has the dengue aches. One day soon we'll both be 100%.  What's been quite great about the doctor's observation period is that blood (and any other kind) samples can be collected from the convenience of our own home - or office in the case of Scott's first blood draw!  Discovering this luxury was a highlight. 

The excitement doesn't stop there.  Guinness had a cyst on his back leg that was getting quite big. We called in a vet to take a look at it. Low and behold, the vet said he makes house calls so he came over one evening for the consultation.  He said the operation to remove the cyst  would take 30 minutes total and could easily be done...at our house!!  We agreed and prepared for the next evening when the event was scheduled.  To make a long story short, the cyst turned out to be a huge tumor and the operation took an hour instead of 30 minutes   Tension in the house was running high for that hour. Luckily we were able to keep Henry entertained in his room with an ipad so he didn't seen any of the action. It was just surreal to see Guinness getting an operation by a man who wasn't wearing gloves, who had cleaned his instruments with water boiled in our kitchen, who tried to control blood flow using a rope on Guinness's leg, and who wrapped the incision with one of Scott's old T-shirts.  Despite the drama Guinness seems to be doing fine a few days after the operation.  We're now in charge of giving him the daily antibiotic injections. Yesterday was my first day to give an injection to anything. Thankfully Guinness is an easy patient.

Cleaning pre-operation

 Henry making sure Guinness is falling to sleep after getting anesthesia.

Now, if you're not disturbed yet here comes the real kicker.  The following anecdote proves I love Henry and shows that Bangladesh wants a little more of us then we should be offering.  I heard from a friend that the doctor here told her to give everyone in the family deworming medicine every 6 months after 6 months of age.  I took that bit of advice home with me and gave Henry a pill a few days later.  Then I forgot about it.  Worms?  Nah.  7 days later we were treated to a surprise at bedtime.... I had to pull the rest of an 8 inch worm out of Henry's bottom!! AHHH!  Before doing so I put on my best Mother's poker face complete with a jovial smile, took a deep breath and completed the action.  To prevent Henry from being traumatized I acted like this was the coolest thing ever. He started running in circles, like a dog chasing his tail, trying to find another one.  I think I made him a bit too proud about it because he now tries to tell everyone that he had a worm in his butt or, this one is much better, he has a snake charmer in his butt. I hope the excitement blows over before too long - it's not really the best first impression to give someone ;)

Phew.  Luckily Elliot has been left off the drama chart; we'll try to keep it that way.

Now, in other luxurious Dhaka news we just visited with tailor who specializes in costume making and who came to our house (catch the trend?) to order Halloween costumes for the boys.

I could get used to all of these house-visit services. Now if only online shopping were possible here. Too bad it's nearly impossible to send anything to Bangladesh.

Until next time....

Worm
Guinness's operation

Take a bow

At random times Henry surprises me by doing something I taught him long ago.  The other day we were kicking a ball and, as he often does, he fell down from tripping over his foot or kicking the ball too hard or looking the other way when he ran.  When he got up from one of his wipe outs he smiled really big and said "Take a bow. Take a bow." while performing a bow. The last time I remember telling him to take a proud bow was a few months back when we were living with my sister and he had a spell of random tumbles.  He never took to bowing then but suddenly last weekend he was happy to. 

 

I don't think I ever posted photos of our nanny's baby boy but I know some of you are interested. We visited her and her son once about a week after the birth back in August and then Henry visited again one time while Elliot and I were at the project site for a week. To this day Henry still mentions that he went to her house and saw her baby and that he wants to go again. I guess they made a quick bond.

 

Elliot turned 4 months on October 1.  He's getting so old so quick.  As I mentioned before, he's rolling this way and that and now he grabs on tightly to things.  He's pretty quick to give a smile, espeically if you speak Garo to him.  There's something about saying "shai-a" and "mong-cho" which mean "who?" and "what happened?" that make him the happiest camper. That's actually what I kept saying when we were taking this series of photos. 

 

I went to my projct site at the beginning of September.  It was a great week spent mostly out in the field since we launched a new, large infant feeding trial that week. Here are a few photos from that trip.

 A kitchen

 A portable stove

A kitchen shelf system

 Transplanting rice

 Hmmmm, perhaps its not so hygenic to tie the cow up right next to the kitchen stove (hole in the ground with a molded structure to rest the pot)?

 Some of our followers

 A house with a "homestead garden" - there are vines with gourds growing all around along with some pepper plants.

 These kids made a store and were selling fish (the bunch of leaves hanging) :)

 A banana tree leaf makes a great umbrella

 An ELEPHANT! and then we saw two more the next day as you see below.  I guess the circus was in town.

 Taking a 6 month old's length measurement.