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...