Happy 4th!

I almost forgot, happy 4th of July to US readers!

The Swing of Things

Can I just say, jet lag SUCKS. I don't think I felt quite right in my body until Saturday, our 7th day since getting back, and I woke up with a complete sense of well-being from head to toe. I almost didn't realize how weird I felt until the feeling dissipated.

Valerie, though, is still struggling to get back into her rhythm. During our second week in the US she dropped her afternoon nap completely, and slept soundly and well every night. But coming back here, working through jet lag, she's been napping every afternoon and then waking during the night for at least 4 hours. So starting on the weekend we've been trying to keep her awake all afternoon. At MCC it was easy, we'd just take her to the Toy Room and she'd be happy as a clam (where did that saying come from, I wonder? Has anyone ever actually measured the happiness of clams? How would you tell?) Here it's such a deeply ingrained part of her routine to go to bed when Gabriel does (especially when Shpresa is here) that it's been hard to create a new routine. 

Yesterday, however was a triumph! Shpresa took both kids - with help from her boys, whom my kids adore - to a pool nearby where they played from like 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.! She packed a picnic lunch and snacks and some toys and off they went. They staggered in just before supper - Valerie took 2 steps into the apartment and threw herself on the floor waiting for someone to take her shoes off for her - Gabriel stumbled over to me holding up his arms and crying "Gak gak! Gak gak!" - neither of them took a nap (G for the 3rd day straight, but he did take one today then). They had so much fun. SO much fun. Valerie was telling me all about the dolphin fountains and elephant slide. It's a little pricey for them to go every day but I think at least once or twice a week for the rest of the summer would be good! 

They slept so well and so long last night, I wish they could go every day. And I got so much work done, too. with the apartment to myself all day! I missed the little boogers, though. 

(Despite what the conjunction of text and photo implies, I didn't knit at all yesterday - this is a sock I knit during the sessions in Akron - a gift for a friend here who's about to have a baby. I'm making matching baby socks too.)

Great Aunt Gin!

These photos are not great, but our moments with Aunt Gin were spectacular. Yes, I'm still talking about our trip to the States :-). Aunt Gin received mail-order packages for us in anticipation of our visit, then organized two family get-togethers for the weekend we were there. She opened her box of toys saved from when her own kids were little and let our kids run all over her house and yard. She cooked delicious food that the kids both ate with gusto, and even watched them for a couple of hours, along with Great Aunt Sheri, while Terry and I went out for a "dinner" alone! (We went to a fast food chain, so I won't call it an actual "meal" with actual "food.") This was possible because both kids took to her immediately and enthusiastically. The words "Aunt Gin's House" were right up there with the magical "Toy Room." The people Valerie warms up to right away are few and very far between, and Aunt Gin is one of the lucky few. Thank you so much for sharing your home, food, toys, hat collection, and heart of gold with us while we were near.

Saying goodbye right before boarding the van to the airport

Bug

Playing tractors with second-cousin H. at Aunt Gin's house!

This is Gabriel's birthday week! Wow! Two years have gone by so fast. But I should save some mushy-mama-ness for the actual birthday post.

I just love this little guy so much.

A couple stories - one afternoon in Akron, he woke up from his nap, sat up, looked at me in that very serious sleep-dazed way one has just after waking, thumped on his chest and said "Bug! Bug!" Pause. Look around. Think. Then looked at me again and averred, "Bug!"

Since watching Kung Fu Panda, Valerie named us all after characters in the movie: Gabriel is the Bug (Mantis), I'm the Bird (Crane), Terry is the Turtle (Tortoise) and she named herself Fox (really a red panda, but he looks kind of like a fox). It was funny to me that he has embraced his nickname and alter ego. Although he will refer to himself as "Gabe" or "Gabe-uh!" he most of the time now corrects me when I call him that and says very firmly, "Bug."

He's talking a ton these days, mostly in English although he knows a lot of words and phrases in Albanian too. And, like his sister, still uses the Spanish word for water - agua.

Coming back from the US, we had a layover in Rome, and on the concourse by our gate there was a little cafe with a play area for kids. Genius! Every concourse in every airport in the world should have one of these. Coffee and a play area. It was so good for the kids to be able to run around like maniacs after enduring 9 hours confined to their seats (or the near vicinity thereof). They were so sleep-deprived and manic, but it was so good for them. There was a little girl there whose mom told me was about 2.5, but much closer in size to V than to G. Valerie called her "the mouse" as they chased each other around. At one point the girl came over to our table and took a drink from Valerie's cup. Her parents immediately jumped up saying "no no no no!" G was startled, then looked at me and very earnestly and seriously said "Mouse! Agua! Val-Val!" Pause. "Da-da Noooooo!"

I fear he may be dropping his afternoon nap already (second day in a row today). "Fear" because the mid-day lull is so nice. But if he sleeps better at night as a consequence, I won't complain too much.

Impressions

Gabriel loved watching the airplanes passing by overhead - and there were a lot of them!

Whenever I get off an airplane, I'm always aware of my reactions to the sights, sounds, and smells. Traveling between Peru and the US during my growing up years made me aware of how the familiar can become strange through absence. My clearest memories of this are of getting off the plane in Pucallpa, in the Peruvian Amazon, and feeling the warm, humid, tropical air hit my whole body like a soft pillow. Hearing frogs and crickets in cacophony, seeing the tall grasses and mango trees by the side of the road as we drove to the mission center. My other set of memories are the aerial views coming into the States - the enormous swaths of wide, smooth gray interstate highways snaking everywhere below, looping through on- and off-ramps, edged by grassy green.

At some point in my 20s I had gone back and forth enough that the familiar just stayed familiar. Or maybe I was transitioning more often. It's been a long time since I've spent more than two years within the boundaries of any one nation.

But I did have some fresh impressions of the US on this last trip, and of Albania upon our return.

Driving to the heart of Pennsylvania from Newark, again I was struck by the vast swaths of smooth gray interstate edged by grassy green. Everything was so very, very clean. Not a scrap of litter to be seen anywhere. The road was so smooth and wide. Then, in Akron, again everything so clean and green. But the coffee!!!!  Pale brown dishwater! Weak and tasteless. I felt like I had not actually drunk any coffee, just something warm and coffee-like. And even though I was thrilled beyond belief by the plump, sweet blueberries we had almost every day, the carrots and other produce seemed tasteless in comparison to what we've become used to here. And the fruit juice selections were always a bit disappointing - apple, grape, or orange, and never any pulp in any of them. I missed our wide selection here which includes the kids' favorites, sour cherry and apricot!

When we landed in Albania, memories flooded back about our first arrival almost two years ago. I remember scrutinizing every detail from the moment I could begin to make out the shape of the landscape from the airplane, the whole drive into the city. I remember that time looking for things that seemed different, strange, exotic - things that would tell me I was in a new place the like of which I had never been before. I recall being a little disappointed that it wasn't all that different - concrete block buildings, people, oleander bushes. The main thing that stood out to me then (besides not being able to decipher any of the signage) was all the laundry hanging out to dry from every window, it seemed.

This time, I was looking for a sense of familiarity - recognition - the feeling of coming back to a known place. A comfortable feeling. And I found it.

It's been interesting processing our trip with Valerie. She mostly talks about N., a little girl her age that she played with a lot, especially towards the end. She talks about the toy room, and about the airplane trip itself. And always she concludes with these words: "And then we went home. To Tirana."

~::~

The next few months will be interesting. Maybe "interesting" isn't the right word... we'll see how things pan out! Terry's contract here is up in mid-September. We're planning to move back to the US at the end of August - at least the kids and I will, he may stay on to wrap things up a bit. We'll be staying for 2 months back in the 'Burg, and then in early November we are to begin a 5-year term with the Mennonite Central Committee in Colombia! This decision came about very quickly over the past few months and so we are still in a way processing all the implications of it. We had a great orientation session at the MCC campus in Akron; it was especially fun trading stories with all the other outgoing volunteers (we'll be national program directors, it's a shared position, so everyone else there was also going into leadership). One thing I learned through the trip to Akron was that my kids are way, way more resilient and adaptable than I give them credit for being. They did so well during the trip and during our stay there (of course there were a lot of factors that played into making both successful), I was encouraged tremendously to see that. So, stay tuned, it's sure to be... interesting!

Akron and Back Again

This post is mostly a random collection of photos and thoughts, I'll try to put up something more coherent later this week.

We had such a good trip. It was hard; 9+ hours on an airplane will tire anyone let alone a sleep-deprived toddler. But it was nothing like the original trip 2 years ago. The return travel was equally tiring and yet overall uneventful, which is a good thing.

The kids - and by extension their parents - LOVED the MCC campus. Green, clean, kid-friendly, safe, and BUNNIES!!!!!

The blue building is the guest house we stayed in. The kids loved the "hammock" chairs (as we called them).

We were able to borrow this double stroller - until the back wheels fell off! We're hard on strollers, I think. It was great during the first few days of jet lag to be able to take the kids out for walks before breakfast (there's not much else to do at 5 a.m. when you're trying not to bother the other guests!)

Oh my gosh. THE TOY ROOM. The child care during the seminar was so, so good. The kids would wake up saying "toy room! Toy room!" every morning. They bonded with the staff and with the other kids - there was a little girl Gabe's age, a boy Valerie's age, and two little girls aged 3 who all played together and it was awesome how much fun they had.

 This is what my kids do when I say "Smile!":

Coming soon: the reason for the trip, what the seminar was all about, and finding Kitty at Aunt Gin's house!

So homemaker-y

I finished a pair of socks! These are "Frankensocks" cobbled together from two different colorways, interspersed more or less at random. I love them. But not as much as I love those chubby little feet!!!!!

Here are some more shots of Valerie's haircut:

This is their latest thing: they are pretending to drive a car. With two steering wheels. Sometimes it's an airplane.

Speaking of which, we've been role-playing "airplane" a lot because Saturday we're flying to the US! What? Didn't I tell you? We're going to be in Akron, PA for 2 weeks attending meetings at MCC. More about that coming soon...! For me and the kids, it will be the first time on a plane since we landed in Albania! So that will be... an adventure, I am sure.

We won't have much time for visiting people but if you're in the Akron area give us a call (at MCC, our cell phones probably won't work there) or drop an e-mail and we'll see if we can get together.

p.s.

I really did think yesterday was Friday! We'll call this a Gabriel photo fest.

 Can someone caption this one for me?

Friday Foto Fest

In an unusual confluence of events, I had a nap this afternoon AND Shpresa took BOTH kids out in the afternoon for a walk! So I am having a rare relaxing afternoon. Here are some cute pictures to take you into the weekend.

Early-morning outing to the park

 My beloved balcony garden! 

 (This was the cat that we lost, in her hand above)

They never stop finding new places and ways to play...

Look at those toes! I want to gobble them up!

Weekends are for (mis)adventures

Rainy weekend, slightly under-the-weather kids... what better time for a Phantzi family outing, right? :-) 

We probably would not have done another trip, except that one of Terry's coworkers who lives in Librazhd lost her father last week, and so his office-mates organized a condolence visit to her family on Saturday. 

It was definitely a sad occasion but we thought it might be nice to extend the journey for ourselves, anyway, and go on to Lake Ohrid which we love so much. We rented a car and caravanned with Terry's coworkers as far as Librazhd, visited the family (I kept the kids in another room since they were pretty rambunctious after 2.5 hours in the car), then went out to lunch just our family while the rest of the group headed back to Tirana.

So then we had to decide what to do next, and we decided to go on to Pogradec, on the opposite side of the lake from Ohrid city in Macedonia. In the photo below, you can just make out Sveti Naum at the far left end of the green spit of land, just over the border in Macedonia. 

Here's a bit more of a close-up (the white rectangle at the left is the border crossing checkpoint):

 This is the hotel we stayed at; our room was on the top floor, at the far right in the photo. It was pretty nice.

And it had a playground! Valerie was not a fan of the taxidermied wolf in the outdoor cafe area that we had to walk by, but the playground itself was a hit.

On Sunday we drove across the Macedonian border to visit Sveti Naum again. 

That gray dome beyond the man on a bicycle is an old concrete bunker. There are a lot of them close to the border.

 We think the peacocks were in mating season because they were shrieking and displaying their tails quite aggressively!

 We had some of the worst hamburgers I've ever tasted just before heading out to drive back to Tirana. That didn't stop Terry from eating two!

Despite the bad food and rainy weather, the kids did really well on the drive there and back. Gabriel was definitely not feeling really great, but he took it all in stride. It was nice to get home and back into our routine. Oh! And then, we did this!

She loves it.

And now for some Happy