Anastasia, Pirates, and Plans

Mother and Daughter...Sharing a special moment together. She looks really cute here...and so does Anastasia!

Anastasia celebrating TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY (19 September for you landlubbers) with her dad...She only started screaming when we took the camera out (I promise!). Her shirt, by the way, says, "BORN TO BE A PIRATE." Those of you who know me, you know I like my pirates. They're even my college alma mater! Go AASU! Arrrrrr!

Anastasia makes lots of funny faces...At least she isn't crying in this one! She's yawning...but it's a happy yawn!

And here she is smiling. She's chillin' with her homies in her crib. Anastasia loves mornings (she gets that from her mother, definitely NOT from dad). This is the time when she smiles and coos the most.

AND NOW A FEW NOTES AND ASIDES:

1. Anastasia is legal! She's had her passport for over a month now, but this week, she received her residency visa. You may recall Christine's blog entry about my attempts to get that visa. It involved a few trips to the Ministry of Immigration (not the US Embassy) and several hours of waiting in line. But she has it now! We're ready for our first trip out of the country...to Oman of course. Christine's friend Kim is coming to visit over our Eid break, a week-long break to celebrate the conclusion of Ramadan and the return of normal business hours. I can't wait to enjoy coffee at a reasonable hour...

2. My sister Rebekah is thinking of coming to visit. Everyone, please encourage her! Especially Brian and Alan and Lucy, tell her what a wonderful time you had, how it was well worth the expense...Her email is...well, I won't publish it here, but write me and I'll give you her address. Yes, I'm making a shameless plug here. I want visitors from my "side" too, darnit!

3. We are often asked what our plans are for next year. The simple answer: We don't know.

The more complicated answer: We may stay in Abu Dhabi one more year after this; otherwise, we would look elsewhere overseas. Right now, we both would be willing to do Oman or Georgia, and I think I could convince Christine about Lebanon, Jordan, or Syria easily enough. Christine has been thinking about Saudi Arabia, mainly for the money. With a baby, we don't get out much anyway, and in two or three years, we could earn some serious cash. It would be an interesting experience too. I could do Saudi for two years...

We would both be willing to try out Cambodia as well. I think there are places in India that could be promising, and of course I love the Czech Republic, one of the few places in central and western Europe I'd be willing to move to. That and Ireland. And Scotland, but so cold! Anyway, I doubt that I could convince Christine to move to any cold parts in Europe...

We're not sure yet what we'll do at the end of this year. We might sign on for an additional year, especially if our wonderful nanny Misrak will still be here. Otherwise, there's Oman (I have connections there), Beirut (my dream job), Georgia (the country, not the state...again, we have connections--last year's assistant principal now works outside Tbilisi)...Other possibilities include Jordan and Syria. I'd really like to stay in the Middle East for a bit longer, just to give us an opportunity to travel in the region with ease...

So that's the more complicated answer to "We don't know."

Of vaccines, visas, and very shocking photos

Vaccines.
We were successful on our second attempt to get Anastasia vaccinated. So far she is only running a slight fever and doing quite well; she even managed our regular Friday trip to a mall with no problems. For some reason they couldn't get her name right even after writing it and spelling it- so she was called "Anutusia" throughout the visit. She now weighs in at 11 lbs. and 5 oz. and is 22 in. long. Thus, she's holding her percentile in weight, but jumped from a 9% to 46% in length. (Can you tell I'm a math teacher?!) For all those with children, there's a cool site where you can graph and identify their percentiles for up to 2 years- http://www.mybirthcare.com/favorites/babygrowth.asp

Visas.
Poor Randy spent Wednesday and Thursday at immigration (after his teaching day was over.) He was #189 (they were on #21) in the waiting line on the first day and even worse off the second. Together I would estimate a total of 4 hours for both days. The second day was needed because once again, the perfect size, color, etc baby picture was elusive. We paid the expediting fee so that we will be able to take her into Oman without having to try to sneak her across the border over Eid holiday. But, oh what a sense of accomplishment we will have when it's all done!

Very shocking photos.
These are NOT pictures of Anastasia, but in fact RANDY as a child. Especially identical is the top left picture. Even her own mother would have said that that was her!

"Beware of road surprises"

The title of this post is an actual sign that one can see along the Emirati highways. I find it a lot more entertaining than just "caution" or "danger ahead". And today on the way to school I did encounter a road surprise: as I was getting off Kaleej Al Arabi Road at the East Road exit, I came within a few meters of hitting a gazelle! I think I have seen maybe a gazelle or two out in the middle of the desert towards Saudi Arabia, but never one in the metropolis of Abu Dhabi. I can only wonder why the poor, terrified little guy was there. My guess is that an eccentric family has a farm inside their compound and my surprise is their escapee. The whole experience ranks nearly as weird as hurricane weather in Indiana.

Our ticket to deeper cultural interactions

We are now half-way through Ramadan. Traffic in the afternoon on the way home is still horrible- everyone in all of Abu Dhabi appears to be released from work between 1-1:30pm. Still no food, drink, gum, etc in public during daylight hours. Supermarkets remain open, but all restaurants are closed until dusk. I called to check on Ramadan hours at the clinic we planned to go to for Anastasia's 2-month vaccines. The answer: 8:30am-2:30pm and then again from 7:30pm-1:30am. Can you imagine taking an infant for a shot at 1 in the morning?! The malls and post office follow a similar timetable.

Other interesting cultural phenomena we encountered this week came from our nanny and some Chinese couples that Randy ran into on the Corniche while walking Anastasia. In Misrak's country, New Years was this past Thursday. Happy 2001 for them!! The Ethiopian calendar is different from the Gregorian in the spacing of months and they are about 7 years behind the rest of the world. You should have seen us trying to use the internet to discover Misrak's birthday in our calendar! We finally settled on June 1, 1984. She knows it as Ginbot 24, 1977.

And the interesting tidbit from Randy's stroll: Chinese babies are often kept indoors for at least 3 months.

We are still getting stares, smiles, claps and requests for photos when we take Anastasia out in the BabyBjorn. She's quite the cultural barrier-breaker.