Thursday, April 3rd: What a quiet day. We were up at 5:30 to get Katherine ready for the bus at 6:30. Without a hitch, the bus came and she was off for her first day at the International School of Manila.
Then I went upstairs to call and fire the housekeeper even before we hired her. Combine the two and I was glad Ian was still home to offer a shoulder to lean on. How will I handle when my last baby goes off to school? How will I manage being a boss to someone? Ugh, too much to think about. And all so uncomfortable. But boy did she looks cute in her uniform of a yellow ISM polo with khaki skort.
He took the kids to the park while I messed around at home, then around noon he went off to the Embassy to meet with the Ambassador and DCM.
Katherine was home from school at 2:30, did her homework and then we went to the playground where there was a passel of kids and yayas.
Friday, April 4th: A couple comments on TV viewing and various other items.
Gain: An infant formula, one marketed for 6+ months, one marketed for 12+ months. Sold as a brain-fortifying nutrition source, huge letters on can saying breast milk is best, with a tag on the end of the ad saying breast milk is best for children up to 2 years old. Thumbs up for this one!
Skin White Whitening cream: A cream that blanches the skin. Women rubbing cream all over themselves. It’s slogan? Defy color. Thumbs down.
Oh yes, today at the playground I was approached by a yaya saying that she’d heard that I was looking to hire a yaya. That’s funny, I haven’t talked to anyone at the playground and I certainly haven’t told anyone that I’m looking for a nanny, so it would seem that the rumors are flying already. It sure must look weird to them to see me with my 4 kids. Jonathon just loves the playground and going down the slides. He can climb the ladders by himself, even the 8 rung ladder to the bumpy slide, but I admit to being right next to him for that one. The 4 rung ladders he’s on his own. He’s putting more and more words together like “dihdis abbap” (Nicholas blanket) and just saying more in general. I think my favorite word to hear from him is nuts. He says it so perfectly. Nicholas is getting clearer and clearer as well and it’s wonderful. Of course the one thing he says perfectly clear is “Baby nurse!” Thank goodness we spend a lot of time at home. This evening when he was very ready to get into bed he said “Dihdis eeepy.” And in reply to my saying I loved him very much he said “Uv you ‘ery much” I teared.
The highlights of our day were receiving our UAB shipment and getting our water dispenser. OK, granted the dispenser didn’t give out cold water so we called the company and they sent over a new on (only to discover once the new one was installed that the actual problem was that they’d plugged the flat 220v plug into the flat 110v outlet, and all it had needed was an adapter to go into the round 220v outlet. Oops, like I was supposed to know to check that.) But yes, we got our UAB and the 7 boxes were largely clothes, so we have plenty of stuff to wear now and Ian doesn’t have to order more shirts from Penney’s. Of course, we also received our crib which they assembled. Now we have 2 fully assembled cribs and my child is sleeping in the twin bed reliably. Well, I suppose I can use it to hold clean laundry and for the naptimes he decides he’s going to fight me. Not like today where he was falling asleep at the table during lunch so when I brought him upstairs he just climbed into bed and conked out. Yes yes, I do still stay with him until he’s asleep. He’s so small I can’t imagine just leaving, he doesn’t understand it all yet and just calls out Mama if he thinks I’m gone. He’s back in cloth diapers, which I’m very happy with as disposables are just not nice to him.
And we had tuna sandwiches for lunch. I have a working can opener!
After some delicious Atlantic salmon for dinner (I was wary of picking it up, I mean, the Atlantic is pretty far from here), Ian headed walked over to the DCMs home for a meet and greet with a bunch of other JOs. After drinks and hors d’oevres, they were all corralled and played Taboo. I can see this will be a tough post.
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