Loves me, loves me not

Henry's loves flowers.  Who wouldn't if the flowers you get to enjoy are huge, colorful gardenias. One side of the playground area at the Club is filled with all kinds of these flowers and Henry can spend so long exploring them.  By the way, in some of the photos Henry is wearing a Bangladesh cricket jersey in the spirit of the Cricket World Cup going on right now held in part in Bangladesh.
Here he is heading to the flowers.

Rosa, the mother of the twins, is the one who just loves Henry and makes her daughters jealous when she holds him. She gives Henry little "eskimo" kisses and at this moment her daughters decided they would accept Henry as a little brother and shower him with tons of eskimo kisses, too.  He was loving it.  I just realized, since Rosa basically only speaks Russian she is teaching him words like "flower" in her language.  She and I are always cracking up at how we end up conveying thoughts to each other. Luckily Tanya, the other woman in this photo with her son climbing on her, speaks Russian and English (she's Russian) and sometimes - after she too has been entertained by our "conversations" - chimes in to translate.

Here are some photos from breakfast.  It might look like I captured Henry mid-blink but actually he was giving Scott his cute, giggly eyes

In other Henry news - he just LOVES playing throw and catch.  He can play for so long and is so proud each and every time he throws a ball.  He's figured out that his game will last longer if he faces the person he's playing with and throws the ball in their direction.  He loves balls so much that a few days ago at the Club he was practically chasing a ~3 year old who was kicking a ball.  After a minute or two when Henry finally was able to gather it up in his arms he was so excited. He even managed to pick it up an inch or two and throw it even though ti was so big and heavy.

The other thing he has started enjoying is post-bath time.  Until now, post-bath time was pretty same old same old.  A few days ago, however, he started throwing himself down on the bed waiting for me to put the towel over him and shake and dry him.  When I take the towel off he giggles and flings himself back down for more.  Now when we walk out of the bathroom and he sees the bed he starts wiggling in preparation for the fun.   

 

Beauty sleep

A photo from the airport when we returned last week that I forgot to put in the Bangkok posting.

Fun fact: There are now two arrival terminals so the spectators that you (barely) see behind the bars now have to choose which one to camp out at.  Thus, before the second terminal was built there were at least twice as many people behind the gates. Keep in mind, these people are STARING with their faces pushed against those bars.  One of my first memories of Peace Corps is walking out of the airport, getting the air sucked out of me by the August heat, and seeing what seemed to be hundreds of people pushing up against those bars wanting to greet me.  Lovely memory.
On a Henry note:
About a month ago - during the Kuala Lumpur trip - Henry started waking up every two hours in the middle of the night after having slept through the night for a few weeks.  We figured it was a growth spurt and decided not to worry - worry about my sleep, not Henry.  Well, then he was teething so again, not to worry.  But, let's face it, after those few weeks when he slept through the night, I was getting frustrated that I was feeling so tired again.  During our last trip we decided that when we got back to Dhaka we had to help Henry learn how to fall back asleep on his own again.  Oh boy, could I muster up the will power to hear him cry during the night knowing that if I just got up and went to his room he would be asleep pretty quickly?  Wait, NOT going to his room sure beats getting up multiple times a night.  What was I thinking? It was time to let him "cry it out".  Scott came up with a brilliant plan.  When Henry would wake up in the middle of the night, I would set a 10 minute timer and during that time turn off the baby monitor.  Voila - I didn't have to hear him cry!  The first night he woke up 3 times at midnight, 3:30 and 4:30 and lightly woke up with the call to prayer but I set the timer, fell back asleep for those 10 minutes and then checked the monitor again.  The first time it took 30 minutes to hear silence but after that it was just one 10 minute segment and he was back asleep.  He slept until after 6am.  The next night he woke up only at 4:30 and fell asleep quickly and only minimally woke up with the call to prayer.  The third night - last night - he slept without a peep until 6:30am - a 12 hour stretch!! I actually woke up before him.  Now that wasn't so bad.  Finally I get to catch up on the much needed beauty sleep.

We planned on having Henry learn this weekend how to fall asleep alone at bedtime assuming that we would have to hear him cry and scream for a long time...and just sit in the living room like we're listening to the new trend in music.  But, then, tonight as I was putting him to bed I suddenly felt the motivation to begin the process.  I felt that he, and more importantly I, was ready.  Henry was already crying by the time I closed the door.  Then, he cried for….9 minutes!  I think he was ready, just like we sensed. 


Here are a few more random photos
Katherine and Olivia - who just took her first steps the day of this photo - at the Club playground:

And me and Henry walking to the Club this afternoon:  

Can you see the fires? They seemed a lot bigger in real life. At least each one had a dedicated manager.

Enjoying the view

Looks like "someone" else also enjoys watching the parrots and hawks fly around the forrest:

 

I know I've posted about the monkeys before but I still find it strange that they crawl around on the apartment buildings.

One night - or make that six nights - in Bangkok and...

Scott, Henry, and I just got back from a great week in Bangkok. We planned the trip around Scott needing to get a new visa which takes a week. Shucks. We started off the week with a day at the famous weekend market navigating the infinite isles.

 enjoying a lunch by an adjacent park

The rest of the week we spent roaming around the hotel neighborhood enjoying the calm that is Bangkok - anything is calm after Dhaka - and, of course, experimenting the street food.  Bangkok is wonderful in the array of delicious, clean street food you can safely eat. 

The carts roll in around 11am and chefs start cooking anything from noodle soups to sausage type things to buns stuffed with bean paste to grilled bananas.  There are also moving fruit sellers offering bags of freshly cut guava, papaya, pineapple, etc and even strawberries.  Although general areas for the stalls remain the same, it seems that each day there are different vendors and certainly different concoctions on offer.  The picture below suggests why the stall owner and his diners seemed impressed that I so confidently said with my body language "Sure, I'll take a serving of whatever you have cooking today."  I'll blame it on placing my order when it was dark outside...

Yep - you guessed it, that's a plump chicken foot.  There were also quite a few eggs in there - small ones that were perhaps pigeon eggs? - and a red "meat" that I think was chicken liver.  I must admit, while I tried the broth, I decided to forgo the adventure of consuming this soup. 

We took serious advantage of the wonderful tailors in Bangkok.  I had some stuff made at Pinky's

And Scott ordered from Rajawongse

The clothing orders required fittings the second night. No complaints from us because, with the help of my friend Natalia, we discovered some of the best Mexican / Taqueria food either of us has ever eaten.  We, um, ate there three times.  Strange to think that now when I look forward to visiting Bangkok I'll crave all things Thai as well as a good fish burrito with salsa.  Although this photo doesn't catch the deliciousness of the food you can see how the decor screams Mexican food restaurant with its bright orange and red walls and blue wood furniture.

We spent some time with my graduate school friend, Natalia, who lives in Bangkok and who passed on great information about the city.  Henry and her 7.5 month old son Joseph had a fun time together. 

We also spent some quality time hanging out in the hotel either at the pool or in the room playing cards

watching Henry figure out how to climb up on things

and ensuring Henry got his beauty naps in while making sure that if we felt the urge to head out on the town we could get right up and go.

Ha, just kidding.  Actually, all the closet doors in the hotel bedroom had mirrors on them.  Since Henry is at a stage when he really enjoys all the fun games one can play with mirrors it was challenging to get him to nap.  Alas, the brilliance of the Ergo.

Now we're back in Dhaka.  I think my mosquitoes missed me because they are all coming to say hello.  Time to go get the Racket...

Shake shake shake

The other evening I was on the phone with a friend here when she said - "Oh my gosh, it's an earthquake!" Simultaneously I felt the shake and looked up and saw all the clothes in our closet moving back and forth and a picture frame on our wall rattle. I feel like the movement lasted a good 6 to 8 seconds.  If it hadn't lasted so long I would have tried to tell myself it was just some construction going on as there are so many high rise buildings being built around here.  I just looked on the USGS website and found the quake - a 6.4 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter on the Myanmar - India border.  Wow.

I hope this link works for awhile because sometimes they remove the link after 7 days:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb00018qf.php

The turtle wins

When Henry started teething a few weeks ago he began to reject his pacifier that we used at night. We figured it was an opportune time to get rid of them and didn't offer them again once his teeth had come in.  Well, that doesn't mean that the kid doesn't enjoy chewing on something.  He has figured out that the turtle head of one of his bath toys is just perfect for a chew-thing.  It cracks us up when it's sticking out of his mouth and more so when he acts surprised when it falls out every time he wants to "say" something or smile. I wish I could post video...

In other news, Scott has joined the Masters Swim Club and is swimming a mile multiple times a week. He makes it looks so easy!

The playground

Because we live so close to the Club it's really easy to go over there many days of the week to enjoy the outdoors without the noise and other "distractions" of the city.  Many other people agree and often times in the afternoon and on weekends there are number of kids playing in the playground.  Actually, just an FYI, there are two playgrounds, one for kids older than ~5 and one for the younger kids. 

 The woman holding Henry can't get enough of him.  She's the mother of twin girls (in the background) and I just found out the day of this photo that she's 3 months pregnant.  She's Russian and doesn't speak English; I think we communicate through Henry.

 Here's Scott and Henry with Tony and Olivia playing a little football.

Here's a random photo of Henry from when the ladies were playing dress-up