I’m Back!

In the last year I’ve wondered whether or not I want to keep blogging. I don’t always have exciting or funny stories worth sharing, especially since I’m not actually that funny (at least not intentionally, according to my husband), and other times I just can’t find the energy or time. Earlier this summer I decided I did, if for no other reason than to share stories of our lives with the kids someday. So here we go, starting now and hopefully using some time this year to catch up on the 1.5 years I missed (thanks COVID).

Last week we were scheduled to return to Cairo after 6+ weeks of home leave in the US. A few hours into a pretty stressful morning at the airport, I texted my girlfriends to say “Hey! At least I’ll have something to blog about again!” A friend quickly reminded me to be careful what I wished for….and she was right.

It all started two days before our scheduled travel back to Cairo. Abby, JR and I were required to get COVID tested to go back. We used an urgent care one town over, one of the only places nearby that guaranteed results and a stamp in less than 24 hours. Egypt inexplicably requires a wet stamp or QR code, which is not standard in America. We did the nose swab – much more pleasant because they no longer try to reach your brain – and continued our day packing and preparing. That evening, Abby and JR’s results came back negative but mine were inconclusive. Awesome. First thing the next morning I called their office. The nurse was very helpful, she said the lab would run the results again but wouldn’t know the results until around 11am. Since we were less than 24 hours out from our departure, I had to find a backup plan.

We also had to return our rental car to the Akron Canton airport that morning, so we made our way there while I found a testing place about 30 minutes from Akron that offered results in less than an hour. After returning the car, we waited outside the other new testing place until 11am, when I heard from urgent care that my test was still inconclusive. I went into the testing place, took a second test, and quickly got my negative results – thank goodness!

After spending the morning running around, the afternoon was dedicated to more packing. William was missing his favorite new toy, so I was out in the garage searching my mom’s car for it when I saw my travel stroller in the corner. Here’s my inner monologue: “Oh! I would have completely forgotten about that, thank goodness I came out here. I’ll move it over to this pile….wait. Where is the other stroller? Where is the City Mini? No. No. NO!”

I went back in the house and asked my mom and JR if either of them had removed the City Mini stroller from the rental car we had just returned earlier that morning. Nope. And so, JR was off to the airport for the second time that day to retrieve it. Thankfully, the nice people at Enterprise were able to grab the stroller from their Lost & Found rather quickly.

Also yes, we still travel with multiple strollers. Come at me, bro.

The rest of the day passed without issue. I couldn’t sleep that night and dreaded my 4am alarm, but once we were up and moving I was ready. Except our transportation to Cleveland airport never showed up. They were supposed to come at 5:15 and JR started calling them about ten minutes later. The driver said he had a flat tire and was 40 minutes away. But during the next call 15 minutes later he said he was still 40 minutes away. Alarm bells were ringing. We quickly had to think of a Plan B in the likely event that the driver wasn’t going to make it on time.

My mom and I had the kids in her car driving to my grandma’s house on the other side of town to borrow her van. Keep in mind, it’s super early in the morning. It’s dark out, and my elderly grandma is sleeping. My mom and I are calling her repeatedly. We have a garage door opener to her house, but the door to get inside is locked and we know she sets the alarm. My mom is looking for keys get in the house (her copy was conveniently back at our house), but we’re also scared to use it even if we find it because the alarm will go off and it will probably scare the crap out of grandma. Eventually we decide to drive back to my mom’s house to get her key. Poor JR is just standing in the dark driveway with all of our luggage, pacing and waiting for someone to show up. Just as we drove away from her house, grandma called – she’s awake! So we rush back to her house, grab her van, call the driver who was still MIA and inform him his services won’t be needed anymore, go back to my mom’s to load the luggage, and race to the airport.

JR is reassuring me the whole drive. We have enough time, this is okay, just don’t get a speeding ticket. At the airport, I parked grandma’s van and then met everyone else at check in. We said a hasty goodbye to my mom and got in line to check-in. At the check-in counter, the United employee informed us that William’s passport didn’t have the required 6 months validity for travel to Egypt. He was about 20 days short. Mind you, it is 7am at this point. Our flight leaves at 8:35. The security line has grown alarmingly long and goes further than I can see. I am PANICKED. I started texting my coworkers, asking them to have someone from the travel office at the Embassy call me. I got a call from Susan, who worked some serious magic. She spoke to the gate agent, explained why this was all ok and not an issue, and then we just had to wait for the gate agent to get approval from her supervisor. The minutes were ticking by. I asked her if we were going to make the flight. She said she would get us to the front of the security line and we should be fine.

And she was right! After about 30 minutes at the counter, we were checked in and being ushered to security. We collected our things after the checkpoint and started husting to our gate which is always, without fail, the furthest gate from security. How is that possible? But we made it, even with a few minutes to spare, boarding the plane at 8:15. I’m dripping sweat, my heart is racing, and I am like, wow that was enough excitement for the month/year! We settled into our seats and I sent that fateful text to my girlfriends – “Hey! At least I’ll have something to blog about again!”

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About 15 minutes later, the pilot came on the speaker and said we were experiencing a maintenance issue and would be slightly delayed. Because of course. I wasn’t too concerned because we had a full two hours to transfer in Dulles airport. Around 9, the pilot further explained the maintenance issue and said it could take some time (no specifics were given). He said anyone with a tight transfer in DC should get off the plane to speak to the United agents to rebook. JR and I discussed and felt like we still had time, even if it meant another race through the airport in Dulles. At 9:30, the pilot gave more details and said they needed to get a part from a different aircraft, install it, and then run through safety checks. I called Susan at the Embassy again – bless her – to talk through our options and we got off the plane. The kids were SO confused. Because our onward flight was Egypt Air, there wasn’t another flight from DC to Cairo until…two days later. Awesome.

After another hour plus of waiting and phone calls and lines and decisions and begging for our luggage to be taken off the plane (we got 8 out of 9 bags back, which is it’s own story), we found ourselves waiting outside the airport for my mom to pick us back up, a mere 5 hours after we had said a tearful goodbye.

We sure made the most of that extra 40ish hours in Ohio, redid our COVID tests (my third in 4 days – FUN!), said our goodbyes once more, and I’m happy to report that we are now back in Cairo! The second attempt two days later went much smoother than the first, with the only notable exception being William face-planting in the Cairo airport and having the worst nosebleed I can recall seeing. Blood EVERYWHERE and kids screaming going through customs. The perfect way to end about 24 hours of travel.

Now we’re recovering from jet lag and settling in for two more years in Egypt!

Quarantine

I knew from the news and talking to friends and family that life in Ohio would be very different when we arrived, but I wasn’t fully prepared. Social distancing wasn’t really happening when we left Cairo. We started teleworking, alternating our days at work and at home, our kids were home from school but still playing with their friends, and we were still enjoying hanging out with our neighbors.

The morning after we landed, Governor DeWine announced that anyone arriving to Ohio should self-isolate for 14 days. We had already basically planned to do this with my parents and my brother  since they had all stopped working. My mom purchased groceries for our rental house and had it all set up for us. We knew to bring our own Lysol wipes and toilet paper, but she had our favorite foods and an impressive selection of beer for JR waiting for us.

Pretty quickly we realized we needed more food, so I tried to order on Instacart but deliveries were several days out. We called S, a college student and family friend, to ask if we could pay her to buy our groceries and run other errands for us. She was up for it, so that was helpful although not cheap.

I went on a desperate hunt for Aperol, because I really wanted to make an Aperol Spritz. First issue was that my college shopper is underage. No problem, I have family members that work at the drive-thru. Thank goodness for essential workers! My joy was short-lived because they didn’t sell it and had never heard of it. My mom, bless her, started making calls. She called Jerry’s, a bar/restaurant in town, to see if they’d sell us a bottle. They didn’t have it, but the woman who answered said if we found it at Buehler’s she’d be happy to pick it up for us since we were quarantining. #smalltownperks. No luck when we called Buehler’s. Then my mom called a spirits store in the next town and huzzah, he had it! He let me pay over the phone, then I drove over and he loaded it into the trunk with zero contact between us. A quarantine victory!

I still checked the Instacart app each day, and one day it gave me a delivery option within 5 hours. We quickly filled a cart and then I watched in awe as a shopper was assigned and started chatting with me while he bought my groceries. The technology! He sent me a very kind personalized note, and messaged me when items I’d requested were out of stock.

It’s possible he thought I needed extra prayers because of all the ice cream on my list.

My feelings have been all over the place lately (State Med if you’re reading this, I’m totally stable! Promise!). I’m relieved to be home. I feel an immense sense of hometown and state pride right now, this feeling of everyone coming together to try to do the right thing, that we’re all in this together. And then I feel sad and scared that this is all happening, wondering what will happen next. What will it be like in a week or a month or 6 months?

We couldn’t eat together with our extended family on Easter, including my Grandma M (the one we usually live with when we are here), so I dropped off a plate of food for her. I opened her garage door and walked up to the steps to put down the plate. The door into the house has a window on top, so I could see her walking up to it. She waved at me, I smiled and signaled at the food. I yelled “I’m sad. I wish I could hug you.” She said “I know. It’s okay.” I started to cry but didn’t want her to see me getting upset so I waved and then walked back to the car. I could not have imagined a scenario where we would be forbidden from visiting with and hugging our loved ones.

Funny timing that while I was writing this, my friend B (lover of a good hug!) shared this with me. I look forward to the day when things are back to normal (normal-ish? new normal?). I just want to give some hugs.

The Longest Flight

That’s not my normal exaggeration, our flight from Cairo to Washington, D.C. was my longest plane ride ever. It was scheduled to last 12 hours, and we were certainly seated on the plane that long, but from take off to landing I think it was about 11.5 hours. Truth be told, it wasn’t terrible. The fear and anticipation was probably worse for me mentally than the actual flight.

We woke up around 5:00am to get ready. Kids were up at 6, and by 7:15 we were in our shuttle van on the way to the airport. Considering that the Cairo airport was closed and we were the only flight of the day, you might have thought that the check in process would be faster. It was not. I was hyper-aware of every thing the kids touched (I lost count at 1000 opportunities to get sick). It was a relief when we dropped off our checked bags and then went to wait at the gate.

We had Jake’s monster car seat for the plane, 2 strollers that we gate checked, and 5 carry on bags packed to the brim with food, mostly. After our last flight (we hadn’t flown since we arrived in Egypt in August, which is unusual for us) I vowed to pack less activities for the kids and rely more on the iPads. The issue is this flight was during the day, not an overnight. My kids love movies and shows, but even they don’t want to watch a screen for 12 hours straight.

Honestly, the flight was as uneventful as we could have hoped. William napped for a while, Abby stayed up the entire time, and Jake slept off and on. Jake had the hardest time since he’s recently begun to walk and he loves to explore. He wanted to get down on the floor and we had to keep him confined to our laps or his car seat. JR and I took turns passing him back and forth most of the time. The lovely passengers in the rows right behind us played endless peekaboo with him. Everyone did pretty well until the last 20 minutes or so. By that point it was about 11pm our time, so well past bedtime. Abby finally broke down in tears, William was throwing a major fit, and Jake was fighting sleep in the carrier.

We were told our strollers would be at baggage claim, but we weren’t prepared for the long walk or how many times William would throw himself on the ground while we made our way to a shuttle and then to passport control. JR was carrying the 20+ pound car seat, I was wearing Jake, and William alternated being carried, crying, and occasionally taking a few steps on his own before tantruming all over again.

We were a mess while we waited in a short line for passport control. Just then, I remembered that I had a banana in my backpack leftover from our snacks. JR told me not to worry about it, we could throw it away on the other side. I was like, yeah but what if he asks me about it? He gave me this look like, don’t you dare even think about it. We walked up the customs officer and answered some standard questions about where we had traveled. Then he looked directly at me and asked if I had any food in my bags. I said, yes some snacks for the kids. He followed up with “any fruits or vegetables”?

As casually as possible I said, oh I think I still have a banana in there but we don’t need it so I can just throw it away. He said “I’m sorry, you’ve passed the point of no return. You’ll need to visit the team at the Agriculture office to take care of this.”

You can probably imagine the look JR gave me.

Honestly, it’s been a week and he still hasn’t forgiven me. But I couldn’t lie! To a law enforcement officer! He put all of our passports in this clear plastic box and called for a colleague to direct us down a very long path, far in the direction we wanted to be going. We walked and walked. Well, William didn’t really walk, of course. Finally we arrived in a separate waiting room set up like the DMV. I panicked. What had I done?! Just as we were called up, an officer informed us one of our children (I’m sure you can guess who) had run away. William made it almost back to passport control before JR caught him.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture officer walked up to me and said “ma’am, so you have a banana in your bag?” Near tears I replied, “yes, and maybe even two clementines. I’m sorry!”. He said why don’t you give me those, I’ll throw them away, and you can go get your bags. Bless his kind heart.

The whole ordeal lasted less than an extra 20 minutes, but it was still a setback. We made it back to baggage claim and I won’t bore you with the frustration of collecting all of our bags, not being able to find one for the longest time because someone had pulled it off and pushed it to the side, and the conveyor belt holding the strollers not working and preventing us from getting ours off.

There were no connecting flights to Ohio that night. When faced with the idea of taking all of our stuff, checking into a hotel, and returning to the airport the next day, my mom, as usual, stepped in to save the day. She rented a 15 passenger van and drove from Ohio to DC with my brother to pick us up. They were waiting for us when we walked out of baggage claim. They scooped up the kids, helped us load the car, filled us with food, and let us sleep most of the 6 hour ride home.

We’re getting settled in our AirBNB in my hometown, just a few miles from my parents. We’re quarantining with them and my brother. We all know it’s a risk, but no one is working or having physical contact with other people so we’re doing our very best, and we’re so thankful to be home.

 

 

Back in Ohio

Surprise, we’re back in Ohio! How did we end up here?

I’m trying to remember when coronavirus really became a daily concern for me. I think it was mid-February when we started reading news reports about a bad outbreak in northern Italy and Milan. I was on the elevator at work and remarked that I hoped this wouldn’t impact our trip to Italy in late March (we planned to fly in to Milan and then drive down to Lucca to meet my parents for vacation). A colleague turned to me and said “You probably aren’t going to Italy.”

I was sure he was overreacting. The rest of February passed with visits from Tbilisi friends and regular routines, but towards the end of the month the news out of Italy was grim. We were constantly checking the news, talking about the potential of canceling the trip, and feeling really sad about it. The first week of March, after the CDC raised the Italy travel warning to a Level 3, we canceled. It wasn’t that simple, because we had tickets for my parents, our tickets, car rentals, and our AirBnB reservation in Lucca. After what seemed like endless phone calls, tears, and time spent on hold, we were able to cancel and receive refunds for everything. We are thankful for that.

The ripple effects of this outbreak are beyond my comprehension. Every day I find a new thing I think is the “most” sad, in addition to the lives lost. High school seniors missing their last semester and graduation. Weddings canceled. Nursing home residents without visitors. People losing their jobs, unable to pay their bills. It’s all awful and really sad. And I know how incredibly lucky we are, but I’m still pretty sad about the ways it has impacted us.

I spent nearly every day in March worried about coronavirus, personally and professionally. It became a daily topic at work, and then it completely took over my workday. At home we worried about our own health and the medical care available in Egypt. On March 15, the State Department said that anyone at an overseas post who thought their health might be adversely impacted by staying at post could go on Authorized Departure. Authorized Departure is a type of evacuation where you have the option to stay or go. The next day the Egyptian government announced they would close their airport for 2 weeks starting March 19. JR and I barely had time to even consider whether we would want to take the AD. He was leaning towards it, and I was against it. I didn’t want to uproot everyone, I didn’t feel like I could make that decision and pack so quickly, and I didn’t want to leave my job. We talked it over and agreed to reevaluate and not make a rushed decision.

We spent the next several days discussing and going back and forth endlessly. There were many tears. We considered the quality of the health care, the ability to hunker down and practice social distancing, the challenge of keeping the kids away from other kids in our apartment complex, whether or not we could telework (luckily we are both able to), and many other considerations. I struggled with the idea of abandoning my responsibilities. My job description is literally to support the Embassy community, and it feels like when things got tough I left.

Ultimately, I agreed with JR that it would be best for us to make plans to leave when the airport reopened. We informed our supervisors and friends, and started packing. We had flights for April 1. We told the kids, which was in some ways easier and harder than I expected. They really just rolled right along with it, even as I explained we weren’t certain when we could leave because the airport was closed, we were leaving because of coronavirus, and we didn’t know how long we’d be gone. We told our nanny, and that was incredibly difficult.

As April 1 approached, we worried endlessly that the airport would not reopen. I also doubted our decision. Many of our good friends chose to stay. I wondered if we’d done the wrong thing, we were overreacting, were we putting ourselves at a greater risk by traveling and going to the US.

On March 25, the Prime Minister announced the airports would remain closed until April 15. That’s when I started to feel a little panicked. We knew we wanted to leave, but we were unsure when we could. The situation in America was only getting worse, but we still wanted to be in Ohio. There were rumors at work that we might have an opportunity for a special flight for Embassy employees and American citizens who were trying to leave Egypt, but no one knew when the flights would happen or how much notice we would have.

Our bags were strewn around the apartment in various stages of preparation. When we grocery shopped we didn’t know how much to buy. I felt overwhelmed daily. Of course, we were also trying to telework and do e-learning with Abby, while William and Jake were home. Our nanny was there but the kids knew we were there and would scream like banshees at our bedroom door for attention to complain about the most recent atrocity one had inflicted on the other. There is no office in our apartment, no desk, no space for working from home. We sat on our bed and worked side by side, and when JR had conference calls I worked from the floor of my closet.

If you have well-behaved children, if you are managing to telework and homeschool your children, if you start each day with a color-coded schedule and stick to it, cheers to you friends. Let me assure you that was NOT happening in our home. Also to those of you just trying to survive right now, cheers to you as well.

Last weekend we learned there would be flights available on April 1 and 3. We requested the 1st, quickly finished our packing, and finalized our plans to leave. After one VERY long travel day, which I’ll write about soon, we arrived safely in Ohio. The day we arrived Governor DeWine announced that all incoming people to the state of Ohio must self-isolate for 14 days. We had already planned to do just that at the farm house we are renting but it was one more sobering announcement.

Things here are much different than I anticipated, but we are incredibly grateful to be home.

 

 

 

 

Christmas in Cairo, Part Deux

Happy New Year! We had a really busy two weeks full of food, presents and family time. My mom arrived on the 21st and definitely made the most of her visit.

She brought some holiday cheer in the form of Christmas light necklaces, headbands, and one bag completely full of presents, crafts, and my Grandma’s famous peanut butter fudge.

She made crafts and tons of cookies with the kids.

       

We tried our best to get a decent photo of all three kids… It is what it is.

We marveled at the Christmas morning gift-opening aftermath and wondered where we would put ALL THAT STUFF. The size of our apartment already has us limiting the amount of toys that are out at one time and I had a toy-rotation even before the holidays began. So that continues to be challenge.

We took my mom around to the sites, visited a few pyramids, and Abby posed with another camel.

We played a lot of Guess Who?, which brought back some great childhood memories for me. Abby also received the game Outfoxed from her Aunt and Uncle in Kansas City, and it’s a really fun game for kids. Highly recommend.

Took my mom on a felucca ride on the Nile. The kids loved the ride but William was sad he didn’t see any crocodiles.

Didn’t want to let a whole holiday season pass with no snow, so we visited Ski Egypt, an indoor snowpark/skiing/tubing place at the Mall of Egypt.

Skiing in the desert. Go figure.

My mom constantly put JR and I to shame and gets an A plus for effort at all times. She even brought out some science experiments, including constructing and painting a volcano that they  “erupted“ outside the apartment.

JR and my mom took them to the Children’s Museum in Heliopolis. They learned about tombs, mummies (maybe a little too much detail on the mummies) and digging for artifacts.

We were really impressed with the ease in which my Mom became accustomed to Cairo. She downloaded Uber and WhatsApp and had no trouble making her way around our neighborhood. Which is amazing considering it took us months to feel at home.  She had several massages since she was, technically, on vacation.  She took Abby to the hair salon for blow outs, manicures, and they even went back a second time with William and both kids got haircuts. All in all, a pretty impressive showing by mom.

It really was so wonderful having her here and we can’t wait to see her again!

Christmas in Cairo, Part 1

I’m calling this part 1 in the strong hope it will force me to write a part 2 in a week or so. We’ll see.

This weekend we held our Embassy Christmas party, celebrated here as a Breakfast with Santa.  My office is in charge of the party so there was a lot of prep work and cajoling to find just the right Santa Claus. We had around 100 adults and 75 kids turn out for crafts, pancakes and eggs, cookie decorating, sending a letter to the North Pole, and of course a photo-op with the big man himself.

A really cool thing here is that Santa arrives to the party on a camel! I was pretty pumped about this. Abby came with me an hour early to help set up and we passed the camel sitting outside waiting for his grand entrance. He seemed grumpy but aren’t camels always grumpy? Anyway, I mentioned it to my coworker who informed me that the camel had diarrhea.

Yep, you read that right. Of all issues I expected to face in my professional career, camel IBS was not one of them. The handler walked him around for a bit to help settle his stomach, hosed him off, and we all hoped for the best.

Thankfully the camel rallied and delighted all the guests. Abby surprised me by wanting to sit on him alone and even having him stand up. These things are really tall and it’s not super smooth as they maneuver up and down, so I was a little nervous. William played true to self and was scared of both the camel and Santa. Jake just napped and took it all in like a pro, third kid style.

It was a fun – but exhausting – party. Definitely a highlight of our time here so far and new memories we will treasure.

Now the real countdown to Christmas is on. Nana arrives in a week!

 

Come Visit (but call first)

More than a month (!) has passed since my sister visited us in October. I’m terribly behind on blogging but determined to catch up.

Abby was over the moon to pick up her Aunt Jamie at the airport.

Having my sister here was just the motivation we needed to cross off some major bucket list items in Cairo.

First and foremost, the pyramids! There are signs that say please do not climb, but you try keeping kids off of them while listening to a long-winded tour guide in 90 degree weather. I thought the weather would be much cooler. I thought we should semi-color coordinate our clothes and take a nice family photo for potential Christmas cards (something I haven’t managed to pull off in about 5 years). I had a vision. I thought we should have Jake come for the first part and then it’d be easy enough to send him home with the nanny.

I thought a lot of things and they were all wrong.

BUT! The pyramids were really cool to see. JR, my sister and the big kids actually went underneath one of the smaller ones in what our guide called “an Egyptian sauna”. I was especially impressed by the Solar Boat, this massive wooden boat that was found buried beneath giant stone pieces in front of one of the pyramids. Ancient Egyptians believed this vessel would carry the pharaoh into the afterlife.

We took my sister on a felucca (small boat) ride on the Nile and let the kids tag along. I went back and forth on whether or not I was supposed to put them in life jackets (which we don’t own) or at least a puddle jumper for William. But I’ve never seen anyone, American or Egyptian, do that so we felt reasonably safe with our adult-to-child ratio and just went for it. I’m much more concerned about crocodiles, to be honest. Sure, everyone says there are no crocodiles in this part of the Nile but everyone knows that:

 

We spent a morning shopping for bargains at the Khan, and since my sister is a foodie, she was excited to sample the different cuisines and restaurants here. She was also the first member of our family to visit the Egyptian Museum. The rest of us are holding out for the opening of the brand new one, which will hopefully open in 2020 (read more here).

The week went by too quickly, as it always does, but we are so grateful for the time spent together. Come back soon, Aunt Jamie!

 

 

 

Slump and Stuff

I started a post last week about being in a pretty deep slump. And I wouldn’t say I’m out of it, just that I’m coping, or at least finding ways to cope better. There is a handy chart somewhere that shows the different phases of adjusting to life in a new place. Initial honeymoon phase, then a period of culture shock, then you slowly adjust. There’s more to it but that’s the general gist.

I probably experienced a similar feeling in Tbilisi but I either don’t remember it or I’ve subconsciously blocked it out, the way we don’t recall the worst parts of child birth or newborns. Because if we did remember how bad it was, why in the world would we ever sign up to do it again?! I know this just a normal part of things and that it will get better. Right?

Let’s focus on the positives. We got our stuff! Our HHE (household effects – 5400 pounds of toys, clothes, furniture and books) and our UAB (unaccompanied air shipment). Normally JR and I would have both been at home the day everything arrived, but I wasn’t able to take off so he coordinated the delivery. He sent me updates throughout the day. At first I was thinking, oh this is going pretty smoothly, and also I really lucked out not dealing with it all. Then the pictures started to give me intense anxiety.

This truck arrived with all of our worldly possessions.

Here come the boxes.

William was an excellent supervisor. 

I bet you are wondering, why did they pack so much food? Does it make sense to pack food that will sit in boxes and storage containers in 100+ degree temps for more than 4 months? Just know that I am wondering the same thing.

I also cracked up laughing when I opened the box that my former Tbilisi colleagues packed for me. They packed out my work desk and made sure to include 4 McDonalds ketchup packets. It’s the little things in life, you know?

Because everyone needs a cooler in your bedroom. 

 

JR was focused on the top priorities, which included immediately unpacking and displaying his Halloween decor.

 

He was also busy shaming me for a bit of over purchasing I did YEARS ago before we packed out for Kosovo and Georgia (I know you can relate, KBS!)

The anxiety only increased when I arrived home and basically walked into an episode of Hoarders. There was stuff everywhere. Every surface, almost every available floor space, I mean just everywhere. Our treadmill doesn’t fit anywhere except our living room. It’d be one thing if we used it for it’s actual purpose, but I like to use it for clothes and storage so having it in the living room is really quite inconvenient.

My first priority was making a path to the beds and clearing them off so everyone could sleep that night. After the kids were in bed, JR and I were working on our bedroom. I grabbed our duvet from the top of the dresser and turned to put it on the bed. This huge, heavy mirror that sits propped up against the wall on top of the dresser came crashing down, rebounding off the dresser and then slamming down on the floor. Not awesome.

Even worse, I had just set up these two acrylic jewelry holders I liked and placed my rings in them. The holders lay in pieces on the floor and my rings were scattered. We found two pretty quickly but my wedding band was missing. I was so upset. There were open boxes and piles of stuff everywhere. I was convinced we wouldn’t find it. Frustrated, I told JR I was going to sleep and we’d deal with more in the morning.

A few hours later during the night I woke up to a loud crash. I was convinced the mirror fell down again but when I turned on the light I couldn’t see that anything had happened. JR started looking around and opened his closet door to reveal that the entire shelf and hanging bar had collapsed in a pile on the ground. He looked at me and then just quickly shut the door and said, “that can wait until the morning.”

Over the next few days we made progress little by little, including finding my wedding band! While I wish we weren’t still hauling our gigantic living room furniture all over the world, it is so comfortable and it makes us feel like we are at home. The kids are playing happily with all of their toys and loving the playroom set up. Now that we are in an apartment we don’t have an obvious place for our outdoor toys, so all 37 of them are parked outside our front door and crowding the walkway. No doubt the neighbors are loving this and wondering who allowed the circus to move in. All we need is a few spare tires and a broken refrigerator to really complete the look.

Hopefully my sister doesn’t mind the mess because she arrives TOMORROW!

 

 

 

A Day in the Life

A fellow blogger just posted about how she doesn’t like to be called lucky for her and her husband’s choice to live overseas. I thought it was an interesting read and it’s been on my mind a lot, especially this week because JR is traveling. It’s only my second week at work and it’s really tough when we still living out of our suitcases, still figuring out our morning routine, and just working full-time with 3 little kids. It’s a big adjustment.

Here’s how my day went.

4:00am – Jake wakes up crying. I settle him back to sleep, but now I can’t sleep because I’m sure he’ll wake up again, and since the kids share a bedroom wall, he’ll wake the other two up. He’s finally quiet and I think it’s safe to shower. I don’t actually want to shower at 4:45 in the morning, but it seems like the right move.
5:00am – Jake is up again. I rush out of the bathroom barely taking a second to dry off so I can scoop him up and take him to my room before he makes too much noise. This time I give him a bottle and manage to get him back to sleep in the pack n play we set up in our bedroom.
5:30am – I don’t know what to do now, because I’m in my robe with wet hair, but Jake is asleep in my room. My bathroom door is right beside him and I can’t do my hair or anything without waking him up. I get the sound machine from his room and plug it into the bathroom, then quietly take my hair dryer, straightener and makeup to the bathroom on the other end of the apartment.
6:00am – I eat some toast and putz on my phone and think, well, if nothing else at least we have plenty of time and I won’t be rushing out the door this morning since I leave at 7 for work.
6:20am – Abby and William are up. I give them cereal and then straighten Abby’s hair because it’s picture day at her school.
6:40am – Jake is awake again, but at least Remy, our nanny, is here now to help. Abby is dressing herself, William is making a huge mess with his cereal, and Jake is crying because he’s not feeling well and is running a slight temperature. I give him medicine and then hand him off to Remy because I’m still not dressed (as my clothes are in the aforementioned bedroom where he was asleep, and also because getting dressed for work is a real process right now. I am still dealing with the dreaded baby weight. Note, I plan to call it baby weight for at least the next 3 years.)
6:50am – I’m panicking now. Abby is in tears because she can’t find this little hairbrush that JR bought her a few days ago. The school said students could bring a favorite stuffed animal and/or toy for picture day, and apparently that’s her new favorite toy and the ONLY thing she wants to take. And it’s missing.
7:00am – We locate the hairbrush and the tears are miraculously gone. Jake is still fussing and I feel like a terrible mother for leaving him when he might not be feeling well. I can’t spare a moment though, because I cannot miss my ride to work.
7:40-11:00am. Still learning the ropes at work. Meetings, fielding questions I can’t answer just yet, eyes glazing over at all the emails coming in, wishing I could take a nap.
11:05am – Remy texted me to say Jake’s fever was not going down and she thought I should take him to the doctor. I was feeling very “ehhh third baby, it’s a fever, he’s okay,” especially since he’s been drooling non-stop and we expect that he’ll start teething soon. Then I felt guilty so I called the Med Unit to make an appointment. Now, we live in Maadi which is a suburb of Cairo, and it can take 25-45 minutes or more to drive from our home to the Embassy, which is downtown. The health unit is located at the Embassy, but twice a week they have office hours at the USAID building, which is conveniently in Maadi. Thankfully this happened on a day when the doctor was available at USAID, so I took the first appointment they had for 2:00pm.
12:00 – I canceled a meeting, finished up a few things at work as quickly as I could, and then walked outside to catch an Uber. I’ve used Uber frequently since arriving and rarely have issues. It can take longer than expected, and they often don’t have seat belts so it’s not my preferred method of travel but without a car, my options are limited. On this particular day, the Uber driver kept going in circles and did not get any closer to my actual location. I canceled and asked for another. Same thing happened. Not only was I getting frustrated, I was also feeling increasingly uncomfortable standing outside by myself because on this day I happened to be wearing a dress. Now, the dress came to my knees and had flutter sleeves, so it wasn’t particularly showy and I felt perfectly fine at work, but now being out in public I was hyperaware that I was showing more skin than anyone else around me. No one said anything to me, but many people stared. My third Uber request finally worked, after about 20 minutes of waiting.
12:45pm – I arrived back at our apartment, ate lunch quickly and changed, and contacted a driver that we’ve used before to take me to USAID. It’s not easy to find because of construction, and also since I was going to have Jake with me, I wanted seat belts and someone to wait for me there so I didn’t have to go through an Uber again. Then came a lengthy internal debate about which stroller to take (the double or the single travel stroller) and serious frustration that the one I wanted to take is in our shipment, which is arriving approximately never.
2:00pm – The driver picked us up and we drove to the appointment. I manhandled my double stroller through doors that were just an inch too small and met with the doctor. Jake was fine, no infection, just maybe a virus or teething which is what I expected. I told the driver the appointment would probably take 30-45 minutes, but we were done pretty quickly. I texted to say we’d be outside in 5 minutes. He texted back that he would be back in 15-20 minutes. Urgh. We wound up waiting 30 minutes for a ride home. I was displeased.
3:30pm – I figured, if I’m home early from work and Remy is still here, I should use this time wisely and take a nap. Ha. Ha. Ha. The kids were so loud, they kept running in my bedroom for urgent things like, “Abby looked at me funny”, and “Mom can I have a drink of water.”
5:00pm – I didn’t get a nap but I did enjoy laying in bed and reading a book in between interruptions, so we’ll call it a win. Remy stayed to help with dinner and baths. I don’t know if I’m lucky to be living overseas or not but I do feel very lucky that we found another great nanny.

9:00pm – I treated myself to an early bedtime.

Now of course this is not a “normal” day. JR rarely has to travel for work at his new job in Egypt. Most of the time no one is sick in our house. And someday, our car and our things will arrive. But it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes.

 

First Impressions

One whole month of living in Egypt! Here are my first impressions:

• It’s hot. I mean REALLY hot. I’ve basically stopped checking the weather forecast because it is hot and sunny everyday. People say it’s different because this is dry heat, but I think when it’s hovering at 100 degrees (or more) daily, calling it dry heat doesn’t matter. I’m certainly not dry, because I start sweating the moment I walk outside. Straightening my hair is pointless.

• It takes a lot longer for mail and shipments to arrive. We were spoiled in Tbilisi! Our UAB (smaller air shipment meant to hold you over until the rest of your stuff comes) arrived at the same time as our HHE (all of our household goods, aka, the rest of our stuff), three weeks after we landed in Tbilisi. Now I know that was a fluke, but the wait for our UAB, or any planned delivery of it, is wearing. We are tiring of the same clothes and toys, and very much ready to make this apartment our home.
• We also won’t have our car for 3-4 months, so we are walking much more than we did at home. Our neighborhood is nice and it’s been fun finding new places to take the kids or go out to eat. There’s something like a country club that we joined nearby (but not as fancy). They have a swimming pool, lots of green space, playground and restaurant as well as offering classes and other events for kids. It’s a 15 minute walk from our place which isn’t too bad, and we are enjoying all the opportunities to swim with the kids.
• The work week is Sunday-Thursday. I wonder how long it will take until that feels normal. The schools are on the same schedule, so what’s interesting is I suspect when we leave here Abby will be surprised to learn that Monday-Friday is the norm back home.
• Speaking of school, Abby had her first day of Kindergarten! The school told us that we could ride the bus in with the littler kids on the first day, so I planned to do that. When the bus pulled up she turned to me and said, “Mom, I think I want to go alone.” So I did what any helicopter mom would do and raced to the school in an Uber to walk her into her classroom and take a few photos. So far we are really impressed with the school. The campus is really nice, and everyone we’ve met there is super nice and welcoming. She is taking Arabic 4 times a week, plus an Egyptian culture class. Gym is twice a week and includes a uniform, definitely not her favorite as it cramps her style. But right now the school is offering their swimming courses and we’ve already seen a big improvement in her freestyle stroke after just a few classes!

• The commissary (a grocery store on a nearby government compound) is amazing. We have had commissaries at our previous posts but they weren’t like this. The sign at the entrance says “Where your dreams come true.” You can get most of the American groceries you need there, and there’s a wide selection of brands. Wonder sandwich bread! Doritos! Tyson chicken breasts! The best thing is that the prices are reasonable, as opposed to a huge mark up usually found on the local markets.
• We have a really nice apartment. The layout works for our family, and the people in our building are all friendly. I think we’ll always miss our house in Tbilisi  with all of the green space but the kids are getting along just fine here. As an added bonus, our good friends and next door neighbors from Tbilisi live directly below us with their two kids!
• Grocery and food delivery are affordable and super convenient. Jake was low on diapers, so I used an app to order a pack and they were delivered 2 hours later. The store charged me 134 Egyptian pounds and I tipped the guy 30 pounds. Grand total was $9.91 for delivered pampers! Last week I used a different app to order from Gourmet Egypt, kind of a smaller version of Whole Foods. They delivered bananas, onions, bread and sweet potatoes quickly and pretty cheaply. It’s so convenient to order groceries from your phone – I could really get used to this.
• JR and I celebrated our anniversary with a felucca (traditional wooden sailboat) ride on the Nile. It was relaxing and a great way to spend the evening.

On to month two, and if we are really lucky, we’ll get slightly cooler temps and the rest of our possessions!