When my friend stayed with us for a few days  she brought Henry a face paint set. The first day she was here she painted him up like a tiger and Henry had so much fun going out on the street scaring people. Since then he has wanted to paint his face, and Elliot's, whenever he gets a chance.

Last week Scott's aunt and uncle visited for about 6 days.  They arrived when Scott was still in Burma on a work trip so the boys and I were able to bond with them.  Scott came back on his birthday which more than doubled the motivation to celebrate. 

While they were here, the guys enjoyed a single malt thanks to Johns' generosity and the handy duty free

And then we had some birthday cake - packed full of fresh, delicious strawberries that Henry helped me place:

Then we were off to the Club where we ended up seeing some more friends:

Not only did Henry enjoy reading with Susie and Elliot all the books she brought for him:

But he also liked letting them know how much he appreciated the dinosaur figurines they brought.  He aced the quiz:
?Henry which one is a ....
- Giganodasaurs - check
- Argentinosaurs - check
- Stegasaurus - check
- Triceratops - check
- Brachiosaurus - check
- Pteranodon - check

All thanks to riding the Dinosaur Train - Thank you Aunt Sarah, Uncle Drew and Kaylin.
In fact, he's incorporating dinosaurs in to his life enough to where he feels confident saying "I can (or can't) do this or that, ie jump off the couch, eat more food, go to sleep, etc, because I'm a T REX!"

1 or 2 kgs of mishti??

Today I got a missed (or meeshed as they say here) call from my nanny and I promptly called her back. The missed call is the way to tell someone you want to talk while avoiding the phone minute charge and is our way of communicating. When she picked up I heard giggling in the background and Pollobi began telling me boisterously in Bangla that I needed "to bring home a meesh-tree".  A meeshtree is an electrician which I knew we needed because an outlet in the kitchen stopped working over the weekend.  I respond by saying that I will try to get one but since we have three days of country wide strikes it will be a few days before he shows up.  The giggling continued...  Then Pollobi says in Bangla, "No, you need to bring home meeshtee....  giggling  Elliot's first tooth came in!"  YAY!! Now I get it.... "meeshtee" means a sweet dessert often dripping in sugar syrup - dripping so much so that I have seen people literally squeeze sugar syrup from them before eating them - used to celebrate just about any occasion.   Bangladeshis LOVE their sweets.  I went on to ask "ekta ba duita?" (1 or 2?) and was referring to the number of teeth that came in.  She went crazy with laughter thinking I asked if I should buy 1 or 2 kgs of sweets keeping in mind these would be split between ~4 people associated with this joyous event.  Um - 2 kgs of meeshtee would be just a bit excessive!
And to think I told Pollobi just this morning that I swore he was going to get a tooth this week because of the exponential increase in drool yesterday. 
Photo to come!

All done - at least for now

Elliot turned 9 months this week. His latest trick is waving and he's on the brink of walking.  He still has no teeth but that might be changing soon since his drool rate tripled today.  Oh, I almost forgot, this Friday we were at the Club in the morning.  Elliot was trying to follow around all the other kids running all over the place. I noticed him heading for the jungle gym but figured he wouldn't go far and just let me continue on his way.  And he kept going and going.  Before we knew it he was already at the top of the structure (~5 levels) and I arrived just in time to be at the base of the slide as he went down hands first!  He went about this adventure with his usual happy, calm nature.  It impressed us and cracked us up. 
He continues on his path to being a big dude.  I tell you it's hard carrying around a 22 lb kid.  He's proportionately large which means that he doesn't look like a sumo wrestler even though his weight for age ranks at the 90th percentile.   I wasn't organized enough to snag a more posed photo than the one here.  

Henry's imaginative play is taking off. He loves making us coffee, cupcakes, and grilled cheeses with sand and buckets.  Plus, the stories he tells are getting more entertaining by the day.  I'll have to record the next funny one.

I'm happy to be spending more time with the kids at the home front after the record breaking number to trips I made up north.  Phew. I thought I'd post a few photos from a random stop at a market on the way back from the field last week. I hope you've already eaten your meal....

 

Here's a zoom in to one of the items he's selling - because I know you wanted this level of detail.

FYI: It was interesting to me how quickly the head is sold.

Have a great weekend!

Playing catch up

I'm feeling quite behind with my blog updates!  One of the reasons I'm behind is that I've been traveling to the project site a number of times. At this end of this week when I return to Dhaka I'll have been up and back 5 times in the past 9 weeks.  I'll just post a bunch of photos to catch back up.

My dad came for a visit and the kids had a great time with him.
We celebrated another Christmas:

Of course the dinosaur had to come out

Then we all took a trip up to Gaibandha! Henry had not been there for quite a while and was super excited to get to go back. He now asks if he can go to Gaibandha all the time.  Not only does he, and the rest of us, enjoy getting out of the big city, but he gets to:
throw rocks:

 Make friends with the neighbors. I was really happy they wanted to invite him over but before I could realize what was going on, just after I snapped the picture on the right, the woman in the photo had lifted and squeezed Henry through the gap in the wall.  He was almost running off to play with the animals and other kids when I convinced him, much to everyone's sadness, that he should come back through.  I'm sure it would have been fun but who knows how far he would have explored before coming back and I was not about to fit through that tight space.

.

One friend waiting for Henry on the other side: I hope the shirt was keeping him as warm as it was intended to do.

He danced with happiness and entertained Elliot

 And Tad enjoyed relaxing and reading a book:

We played on the roof:

And went on a walk or two:

 Enjoyed a tight bucket bath

Watching Jahangir prepare a fish for dinner:

And had an all around great time

Back at home:
Elliot turned 8 mo on Feb 1:

Henry really started loving veggies again and steals steamed broccoli we have in the fridge any chance he gets. In this photo he has a broccoli piece while he plays and prepares to go to school:

We're preparing for the nearing time when a variety of vegetables won't be available. We've been freezing all sorts of veggies - here's the gang popping out peas:

Heading out with the gang for an after-work walk:

And here I capture Henry with his hand on Elliot's cheek while we're on the morning jog/walk. Henry will keep his hand on Elliot and sing to him a lot of the time (note another one of the deep pot holes behind the boys):

Henry and Elliot enjoy their post-lunch bath everyday:

 

Henry got his first hair cut!!  Complete with a Bangladeshi styling

Before

 

 Finally, on the way back up to Gaibandha we saw elephants on the highway! They were roaming around asking for taka and we were happy recipients of their attention:

  And then the driver amazed us with the comfort he exuded when passing our taka to the elephant trunk that sniffed around inside the car.  Did he normally interact with elephant trunks??