Eid Mubarak!

It's been a very peaceful week around here as we enjoy the calm of Dhaka during Eid.  The streets have emptied, offices are closed, there's a festive atmosphere, and the snake charmer, or "nake hamer" as Henry likes to say, passes by daily.  Once Henry learned the charmer plays music as he walks around trying to lure in an audience by playing a flute-like instrument made out of a gourd, he excitedly warns us when he hears one coming.  Unfortunately this year we haven't been able to see the charmer's act yet.  Henry is either sleeping or I don't have taka on me when we hear/see one. The other day we were on a walk when we discovered, along with a few others passers-by, that a house had hired the snake charmer.  Henry was hoisted up for a good view.  Afterwards he kept talking about how he wanted to hold the snake.  Hmmm, I wonder if he would still say that if he were presented with the dancing cobra.  If we get a chance to see a show again this year I guess we''ll find out. 

Yesterday we had a great morning and lunch over at Scott's colleague's house.  We invited some of our friends to join us which made for a lively morning with 4 little kids (they have a ~1 and a 2 year old) running around.  The home-cooked food was amazing.  Kaiser's daughter enjoyed giving me some hair clips and would have loved to put mendhi/henna designs on my hands but I was finally successful at convincing her that with two kids running around I didn't think I'd be able to manage not using my hands for 5 hours why the color set in. All in all we had a great time and are already looking forward to spending some at their house again during the next upcoming Eid.

As you can see in the photos above, Henry is still obsessed with stickers.  I'm not sure if it was such a good idea to buy him a sheet of neon colored heart stickers the other day at the store.  Perhaps we need to let our supply dwindle out and wait awhile before we get more.  Here are some photo series that capture the sticker madness and more:
Here are Scott and Henry putting together the crib for Elliot. Notice they are sticker-less in the beginning and then take a break to put on their selections before continuing.

Here's Henry putting about 21 stickers all over himself.  During his afternoon nap that day the stickers had migrated all over his body even ending up under his shirt and on the back of this thigh.  We'll be finding stickers around the house for awhile.  Even Guinness was attacked...

 

 And one more from this morning

Here are a few random snap shots
The boys and the ladies during lunch (we hired another nanny, Pollobi, to cover for Shilpi during her maternity leave. She just had her baby last Friday! Yay!)

 I think that Elliot looks so much like Scott in this photo.

Why don't you come visit

We won't make you stay too long if you don't want to (click to find out more).

Here's a teep for you

Last week Henry discovered that his Sesame Street stickers make great teeps which are the decorative stickers South Asian woman wear between their eyebrows.  There were times when Elliot was the happy recipient of everyone's discreetly discarded teep; I wish I had a photo of the time I found him with 4. 

This past week Henry started his formal school year.  He's going to school at the same place where he went to 'summer camp'.  On the first day of school, which I told him about the night before, he woke up and before I even asked him about what he wanted to do that day he told me "I go to school. I to go Jingle Bells school."  Yay! He was ready.  I'm happy to say that not only was he ready to pack his bag and head off in the school bus (his friend's car) but he was also ready to show his teachers and friends that he is potty trained!  We've been working at this grand accomplishment for a few weeks now.  He's just about 97% of the way there and he's proud to tell you so.  We're super happy that just as we took on changing and washing Elliot's diapers we phased out dealing with Henry's. Phew. 

Elliot turned 2 months on August 1 and we have photos to celebrate.  This first photo to the right is hilarious. The second I propped him up on the chair he put on a HUGE smile!  I nearly didn't catch it on film though.  After that he was back to his chill self.  Once Henry joined in the mix Elliot because a bit curious about what was going on (as captured on film) but he loved the brotherly attention.  Speaking of brotherly attention, this past week while Scott was out of town, Henry asked if Elliot could come in with me to read a book and put him to sleep.  When it was time to pick a song to sing Henry wanted to know what Elliot would want to sing. 

                 

Here are some other fun photos:

Henry trying to do a puzzle WITH Elliot meant putting all the puzzle pieces on Elliot and waiting for him to put them back on the puzzle. Henry got bored and walked away before Elliot made his move.

We're still enjoying an almost daily swim at the Club. Henry is getting quite adventurous and will leap off the edge into our arms even when we're not looking.  The other day I turned my head for one second to watch someone jump in and the next thing I know Henry's smiling face and flailing appendages splatted into me.  Today Henry kept telling Scott to go further from the wall and at one point jumped in and went totally under since Scott was too far away to catch him. Instead of freaking out, Henry just told Scott to not stand so far away next time.  We'll see how long this fearlessness lasts but we're enjoying the 1.5 - 3 hour swimming sessions as they come.  Since Henry loves the water, he's really enjoying all the time we spend at one of our friend's houses since they have a little pool up on their roof.  He swam when we first got there, hung out practically in the pool throughout the evening, and convinced Scott to get in.

 

Here's some Dhaka news:
This past Saturday we headed out to order some furniture, stop by Scott's colleagues house who lives near the furniture maker, and then drop Scott off at a movie theater to see Avengers.  By the time I got home with the kids we had been out for 4.5 hours with only 1.5 hours out of the car and we probably only drove about 10 miles.  Unfortunately, after Scott ran the last 100 meters to get to the movie theater in time he found out the movie was sold out and he couldn't get any tickets from scalpers (yep, there are scalpers for movies here as there is only 1 respectable movie theater for a town of 15 million).  The kids and I had just passed the point of making it worth while to turn around to pick him up so Scott and a friend found a taxi home.  Catching a taxi in one of the world's biggest cities may not seem like that shocking of an idea but it's quite the adventure here where there just aren't enough of them to go around. Well, it turns out we got motivated to venture that far on just the wrong day.  Note to self, the "Black Friday" of Bangladesh is not the time to try to get some errands done!  Here's the link to an article:  Photo in Dhaka newspaper

When Scott went out of town last week he visited a floating jute market as well as a dried chilli market.  We all love when we brings back treats from his trips. This time he brought back ~8 lbs of guava from someone's personal orchard and 1 kg of dried chillis.  1 kg of something dried is a LOT of something...we're trying to find people to take some of the chillies off our hands but we're enjoying them as well.  Here are some photos from his trip...

School and afternoon fun

A few days after we got back Henry started going to "summer fun" at a place nearby called Jingle Bells.  Summer fun is a morning program that he goes to with his best friend Jafe along with, as chance would have it, a few other friends from his neighborhood play group.  Here they are with Jafe's nanny and Jafe's family's driver.  Jingle Bells is on the second floor in the building behind Henry and Jafe.  After getting Henry used to day care in the US ( what a stressful ~2 weeks that was) I found dropping him off at this summer fun program to be a breeze. In fact the first day I took him, which was 3 days after we returned, he just walked right in and basically didn't look back. One thing that helped him get really excited for school was the opportunity to wear his school bag with his name embroidered on it. He's wearing it in the photo.  What a great present from my friend Christine!  Below is a photo I snapped of Henry after he got dressed up for his last day of summer fun which ended last week.  After a break this week he'll start going to "school" at Jingle Bells.  

 

All of Henry's neighborhood friends who are in town over the summer, which is about half, still meet up for afternoon play group on most days.  Last week we hosted one at our house. Since I'm at home now I was able to take some photos.  It cracked me up that everyone was playing cozily in Henry's room - didn't they want more space?   Since it's Ramadan and office time is shorter, Scott made it home in time to see the playgroup excitement - especially when they were playing in the tent.

Henry has become so much more fun to talk to in the last week or so because he's started including reasoning in his conversations. He now uses "because" and will confidently answer when I ask a "why" question such as "Why do you not want to take a bath?"  "Because I want to play with Odin".  Before I would just hear a "Huh?" in response.  I love getting to learn more about what he's thinking and feeling.

Elliot is doing great.  He is a chatter box making all sorts of cooing noises when we interact.  On Saturday he giggled for me for the first time as I was talking with him about the London Olympics.  As you can imagine, he's sleeping a lot during the day.  I had forgotten all the things the nanny did when Henry slept back when he was a baby, but when I saw the same things being done for Elliot my memory came back along with a smile and a chuckle. As you look at the photos keep in mind that it's probably 85 degrees in the apartment during the day.
Check out the stuffed animal bumper, the pillow bumper, the quilt bumper, and then of course my tank top as a blanket.

Notice the rolled blanket? For some reason, about 90% of the time sleeping Elliot will have a rolled up blanket somewhere around him - laid on top of him, propped along his side, under his legs when he's on his back on the bed...  I think I'll have to ask about the purpose of the rolled blanket.

Settling in

After a wonderful 3+ months in the US we’re back in Dhaka. We’ve been back about a week and I think we’re settled back in to our ways with the addition of Elliot – and what a great addition he is :)  Since the last time I wrote we spent 10 days in Vermont with Scott’s family.  Sarah and crew were able to join us for a majority of that trip which was awesome.  We returned to Williamsburg on July 4 after which it was a whirl wind of activity to get ready to return to Dhaka a few days later.  After getting so much quality time with my sister and her family I was in shock and a state of denial for many days after we drove away.  Henry had an amazing time in the US playing with his cousins from sun up to sun down and playing outside every single chance he got, but he was still happy to be Home. 

To catch us all up I’m going to put a slew of photos up.  I expect to be back on the “1 entry a week” rate (or at least close to that) after this so keep checking back.

Kaylin and Henry bonded:

Elliot's 1 month old anniversary was back on July 1.  I remember when I took Henry’s photos at that age he just would not open his eyes.  Elliot is quite different in that respect because in contrast he doesn’t seem to close his eyes.  What is so hilarious to me is that completely unknown at the time Elliot and Henry were dressed in the same exact onesie on their 1 month day.  I promise this wasn’t planned because I had not seen Henry’s photos in 2 years and it wasn't even a special onesie.  Since it's hard to see Henry's face in the photos I included another one from a similar age.
Henry:                                                                         Elliot:

More of Elliot:

One adventure in Vermont was catching (and releasing) crawfish.  Over a 3 day period, Scott let Kaylin and Henry put left over turkey bones in a trap, throw the trap in the lake, transfer the trapped crawfish to a crate and then eventually release the ~50 crawfish on the dock and watch them scurry off.  Henry had no fear of the crawfish and chased after a few to catch them until one tried to take a little clip at him. 

We spent a lot of time out by and on the lake, as expected.
We went inner tubing behind a motorboat:

 Kayaking putting the men to work:

Everyone enjoyed trying out the new paddle board. It was awesome. I highly recommend everyone try it out!

 Of course we had to document the initial whip-outs (Scott then Seth).  Everyone was an expert in no time.

Elliot and Henry got a lot of lovin’ from grandparents and cousins.

 Gigi trying out the Moby

 Elliot LOVED being held by Connie.  The second she took a hold of him he would pass out and stay that way until we had to separate them.

 Matching shirts made in Bangladesh

 Blowing a kiss

Henry was forced to play games and run around all the time since he was the youngest by ~20 years after Sarah’s family left.  In order to keep up with the big dogs he wasn’t allowed to sit for one minute.
The "balance beam" kept him busy

 Smores:

 Cooking - of course making cookies was a fav

 Making Uncle Fish (Seth - Henry initial attempts to say Seth sounded more like "fesh" so Uncle "Fish" took hold) and Dada roll down the hill and learning to roll himself.

Enjoying a music concert by Deirdre on the violin and Linda on the piano with Gigi's impressionist dance of Twinkle Twinkle:

And the glorious Merrill family photo:

Back in Dhaka we’re having fun:
Back to cooking:

 Finger painting with the neighbors

 Climbing (and finding monkeys out back)

 And swimming

 

PHEW!!  Are you tired of looking at photos now??  At least we're all caught up and can go back to short entries.  Let's hope my computer doesn't crash again before the next entry like it did this week as I was creating this post. We hope everyone is having a great summer.