July 23, 2010 - Grace

I have been remiss in blogging for some time (also in taking pictures, videos, noticing that my daughter has molars!, etc. Yikes!) so here is an update on Grace.

She currently has bronchiolitis (like baby bronchitis) so hasn't been quite herself. When she is sick (yes! it is winter here!) the first thing to go is her appetite, which of course is the one thing that she can't really stand to lose. But, alas, we are in a near-hunger strike this week. She has finally started to drink juice (we push it for the calories) and a little bit of cow's milk. Her vocabulary is expanding a lot with her favorite word pretty much still being "no", although she also says "yucko" quite a bit for anything dirty or any kind of trash. Grace doesn't have a lot of hair, but she finally has some hair...slowly but surely it is growing. She is sleeping a long stretch at night but still wakes up way too early for anyone's happiness (least of all mine) and takes one long nap during the day most of the time, at which time I am also asleep without fail.

She likes to do a lot of things on her own: going up and down the stairs, brushing her teeth, throwing away her own wrapped up diapers, turning on and off the music in her room, feeding herself, picking out which DVD she wants to watch in the morning, drawing, and climbing up onto the sofa. Grace also likes to try to do a lot of other things on her own even though she might not always be successful, like putting on her own clothes/socks/shoes. It is a really fun age - she plays well by herself and with others (others = adults mostly...with other toddlers we are making progress little by little) and seems to have a creative imagination. She loves to build with her legos, try to dress up her stuffed animals, play with her "choo choos" and little dollhouse, and, as usual, read her books. We can't wait for everyone in Denmark to see her next month!

This is what Grace looks like in the last few days (note that she just decided that she really likes to pose with a smile for the camera...what a ham!):

Our little peanut is getting so big!

LMW

July 22, 2010 - The Rat

No, "the Rat" is not another nickname for our baby...it is a nickname for the critter that we found in our kitchen last night which was actually and unbelievably an enormous rat! We heard some weird noises from the kitchen and my friend Meghan and I encouraged our brave husbands to go fight off whatever intruders might have made the noises. That lead to the discovery of "the Rat" and its subsequent entrapment in a kitchen cabinet.

My first thought: Wait, are we at the 14th Street subway station in NYC?

My second thought: No, we're in Kenya! We're supposed to have monkeys, not rats!

My third thought: How embarrassing! We have 3 visiting friends from the US and did not invite this icky rat to stay too!

While "the Rat" was quiet during the night, he was trying to bust out of the kitchen cabinet this morning while Grace and I were eating breakfast in the dining room. I got nervous - not knowing how strong "the Rat" was - and opened up some drawers that blocked the cabinet doors from being opened. Little did I know that the drawers were connected to the cabinet and so within minutes "the Rat" was on the lose again. I managed to trap him inside the kitchen and then did what I'm sure you would have done in my situation: I called for Charles to come take care of it! I explained to him that there was a big rat trapped in the kitchen and asked if he could please go in through the back door and get it out. "No problem," he said.

So I am back in the dining room with Grace when I hear Charles enter the kitchen. A lot of banging and slamming followed for the next 90 seconds. Then I hear, "It is OK, Madam, you can come back in now." When I opened the kitchen door, there are quite a few things out of place in the room and there is Charles standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding an enormous dead rat by the tail. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I definitely did not know he was going to KILL the rat...thought he might shoo it out of the house or trap it in a box or something! But hey, I'm not complaining!

It was so gross that I can almost not write about it without getting sick, but alas, Charles was my knight in shining armor and disposed of the imported-from-the-NYC-subway rat immediately. Thank you Charles, and thank you to our friends Meghan and Matt for not instantly running for a proper hotel last night :) Never having had a rat in any home I have ever lived in, I hope we can safely say that this was the first and last time.

LMW

July 21, 2010 - Meet Rocky

Grace's brother or sister is due to arrive on the 1st of February. Because Kristoffer's contract ends in November, we aren't exactly sure where our baby will be born but we are very excited for his or her arrival.

While "Rocky" might seem like a funny nickname, it has a certain meaning for us. The last six weeks of our pregnancy (weeks 6 to 12) have been pretty tough. We've had a couple of scares that all might not be well for the baby and the picture above, taken two days ago, is actually the fifth ultrasound I've had to have. For the last three weeks I have been on "complete bed rest"...which does not have the same meaning when you have a toddler as it does when it is your first pregnancy, I imagine. My version of "complete bed rest" has been to let Kristoffer do a lot on the nights and weekends, to give my housekeeper more responsibility on the days she is here, to hire someone to come play with Grace for 3-4 hours every day or two so that I can stay off my feet a little bit, and to nap every moment that Grace is napping. It might not be the most complete "complete bed rest", but it has been the best I could do and it has helped (in addition to some extra vitamins and hormones). We believe that our little one is truly a fighter, surviving odds that might have been against him or her, and so the name "Rocky" seems quite fitting...even for a girl!

Other than pure exhaustion - all the time! no matter how long I've slept! - I have had many usual first trimester symptoms quite similar to my pregnancy with Grace. As we move into the second trimester this week we hope that my food aversions and sickness will subside and that I will get a bit more energy to enjoy the middle phase of pregnancy (when I'm not yet waddling and can still sleep comfortably!). We are also looking forward to preparing Grace for life as a big sister. As Kristoffer said to her a few days ago, "Grace, I think you are very catered to...but only until February!"

So let the countdown begin and cheers to the next six months of preparation for our family to grow!

LMW

July 16, 2010 - Only in Kenya

In the last month we have had three visitors from the US, which has been really fun but also a bit time consuming away from this blog! Johanna is a friend from college and she came to Kenya for a couple of weeks with her friend Sharon (below). We had a great time with them!

My friend Karen, who I worked with for 2 months in Washington, DC, has been here for the last week (sorry, we haven't taken any pictures yet!) and has been a great guest. She and Grace are best friends now and we're showing her all the ins and outs of Nairobi. When she leaves we have more visitors coming: my friend Meghan from high school and her husband! So fun to have so many Americans around!

In other news, my wallet was stolen two weeks ago. Of course this can happen in any country to any person at any time and was not really that big of a deal. Yes, I was annoyed and inconvenienced about having to call banks in the US, Denmark and Kenya but it was a pretty small blip on the screen. I dealt with it, got over it and never thought I'd think of it again. UNTIL...I got a phone call yesterday from a branch of my local bank saying that they had my wallet! Somebody actually turned it in! All the cash was gone, of course, but all of my cards and identification were still there. Inside there was also a name and phone number of the guy who turned my wallet in to the bank, but I can't decide if I should contact him (he likely wants a reward...) because what if he was the one who stole it in the first place?! Tough call, but really ONLY IN KENYA! I would have never gotten my wallet back in the US - thank you, Kenya!

In addition to visitors and travels, we've been busy with Grace being busy, busy, busy. She is into everything: running around, playing with everything, and talking up a storm! We think she is at a very fun age and enjoy all the funny little things she says and does. In two more weeks we are traveling to Denmark and really look forward to seeing all of our family and friends there.

LMW

July 13, 2010 - WFP "news"

Please read this story on the WFP website today about a project that Kristoffer is working really hard on. It will give you a bit more of an idea about some of the important work he does here. You can also see some of his photography from his trips to "the field". He doesn't like to brag, but I am really proud of him and recognize that not all of WFP's work ends up on their front web page. It is a big accomplishment for him!

LMW

June 18, 2010 - Baby, It's COLD Outside

In a post that is likely to surprise you, I would like to report that we are VERY COLD in Nairobi right now! Our "winter" season isn't really supposed to start until July , but the cold has come a few weeks early and, for some reason, has caught us completely by surprised. Perhaps it's because we just came from nice, warm Boston or perhaps we have lived here so long that our blood is now thinner and, thus, more sensitive to slight drops in temperature. I don't know why it is...but I do know that I'm wearing layers. How cold is it, you ask? Well...I would say high 50s F/14 C in the morning and evening, but even during the day it hasn't been getting too warm. No higher than low 60s F. BRRRRR! Who could tell that we are Danes and New England-Americans!?!

Good thing Grace has a wonderfully warm sweater that Oldemor (her great-grandmother) made her to keep her warm!

LMW

June 16, 2010 - We'll Always Have Nairobi

One of the more difficult parts of being an expat is not only dealing with our own transient lifestyle, but also the transient lifestyle of the people we know. Most people are only "stationed" here for 3 years, on average, and given that we have now been here for 2 1/2 years, we are starting to know a lot of people who are packing up and moving on. Although a little strange to know such a fluid population, this isn't so much a problem when it is "acquaintances" who leave. Nobody we have been very close has left before...until today. The family across the street moved back to the US today and it almost goes without saying that this severely rocks our world.

Over the last two years that we have lived in our house, Jen (the wife/mom/professor/UN consultant) has probably become my closest friend in Nairobi. She was around through my whole pregnancy with Grace, was among the first people to meet Grace, and has been a big presence in Grace's entire life. She knows all the details that most people don't know about our life here (nope, not even you!). Her son Ben was my "pupil" when I tutored him all throughout the school year, and together we built a lot of trust that allowed him to really make academic progress. Mae is Kristoffer and Grace's best playmate in Kenya; she was with Grace when she sat up by herself for the first time and has spent countless hours playing, playing, playing at our house. Tsavo has inspired Grace's sincere love of dogs and "Tsavo" is probably the word Grace says the most everyday. next to "Mama". Almost every afternoon around 4 pm, you could find the group of us watching Mae's tae kwon do lesson (she is a black belt now!), or playing basketball in their driveway, or watching Grace and Tsavo fight over Grace's sunhat. Sam and Kristoffer, more often working during the week than playing in the driveway, also formed a friendship and most weekends would end with our two families sitting on our couch, eating pizza, and watching American Idol.

It has been the kind of family-friendship that you dream of: neighbors with an unlocked door, who will take the baby for a few minutes here or there if you need to get something done, who always have plenty of eggs and sugar and flour to borrow, who will jumpstart your car, and who celebrate birthdays in the family with great joy. It is certainly not the kind of friendship that either of us expected we would find here, of all places, which is why we had such a tearful goodbye today and why I am so, so sad that our dear family-friends are gone. It is one thing to explain our life to our family and friends at home, but it is quite another to have people close by who just "get it" and all the little quirks that we go through on a daily basis because they live through them too. I am so grateful for two years of increasingly special memories with this special American family and wish them all the best in their next adventure.

We know we will see them again at some time and in some place, but in the meantime...I guess we'll always have Nairobi.

LMW

June 14, 2010 - Big Week for Jikos

“Jiko” means “stove” in Kiswahili and it was one of the first words I learned in Kiswahili.

For WFP’s School Meals Programme (formerly School Feeding Programme) stoves are a big issue because they are needed to cook food with firewood. WFP provides food to the schools but there is no provision for firewood so the parents have to cover this cost of firewood themselves. The cost of firewood as gone up, especially since the government has acted on illegal logging. Nairobi schools spend up to $500 per month on firewood, which is an indirect and very high cost of sending children to school. Schools cook on the traditional three-stone open fire stove, which basically is three big stones and a large cooking pot on top and of course a fire underneath. There are 20,000 schools in Kenya and most of them use this method for cooking, which doesn’t really help Kenya’s problem with deforestation either.

Fortunately high quality institutional stoves are available in Kenya. They save between 40-70% of firewood, have a chimney that directs all smoke out of the kitchen and they are highly popular among schools but are also very expensive; between approximately 1,500 to 3,300 USD depending on the size. I visited a Nairobi school last week, which could report a 400% savings in firewood since they received the new 600L stove through the WFP stove programme. The 600 liter jiko can cook for the school’s 2,000 children. The school signed up for our programme and received the stove at no up front cost. Next month they will make their first of six payments, which will account for 50% of the cost of the stove. The school knows that the money it repays will not go back to WFP but will finance a stove for another school, that will then have to pay 50% and so on.

We designed this project** and the schools in Nairobi have really embraced it. It has actually been a big part of my job for the last year. On top of other things I am responsible for at work, this is the cream of the crop. In March 2010 we received USD 1 million for this project. We are now taking the project to the rural schools and it will be interesting to see if the rural schools are willing to share 50% of the cost. I am going to Masai land this coming week to meet with 80 head teachers and try to get their “buy in” for the programme. Wish me good luck.

KW

**Publisher's Note: "We designed this project" should really be "I mostly designed this project" because it is Kristoffer's "baby". It is a project that has incredibly positive environmental impacts for Kenya and is the first of its kind being done within WFP (worldwide). Kristoffer may not like to brag himself because he is Danish, but I am happy to brag about him because I am American! ~LMW

Also a Note from Grace: Tillykke med fodselsdagen til Farmor! Jeg elsker dig!

June 12, 2010 - Cold Turkey

Surgeon General's Warning: this blog is about breastfeeding, which I know is of very little interest to most people who pass through this blog looking for updates on our life and would fall into the category of TMI [too much information] for many readers too. I am mostly documenting it here for my sake and for Grace's sake someday in the future, so I am not the least bit offended if you choose to say goodbye for now and check back another day for a less intimate blog about how our housekeeper may or may not be stealing from us.

When I was pregnant with Grace, it was my sincere desire to breastfeed my baby when he or she was born and also my sincere hope that I would like breastfeeding. This was before knowing anything about the actual baby, who wonderfully turned out to be Grace, or knowing anything about actual breastfeeding. I had read a list of things you should and shouldn't do to help breastfeeding go well and, while I had heard a few positive "breastfeeding was easy" stories, most of the stories I had heard were full of challenges and tears and mastitis and stress and dislike so I went into the whole experience with two things: high hopes and low expectations. I didn't want to have my heart too broken if it didn't work out well for us so I set two small goals for myself and hoped hoped hoped to reach them both: I will breastfeed the baby within an hour of giving birth (because I had read that is the best thing to do) and I will breastfeed the baby for three months, just three months, please let us get to three months.

And then Grace was born. I was lying under the lights praying praying praying when we heard "It's a girl!" and they swept away my blue baby (how did that cord get around her neck anyway?!) to be cleared out and cleaned up and weighed and bathed and swaddled and proudly planted in an incubator clinging to her Far's finger. I saw her sweet little face, I declared her beautiful name, I said "I love you", and then she was gone and I didn't see her for two more hours while I went through the rest of the surgery and pretend-yelled in the recovery room, "Where's my baby? I want to see my baby! I have to feed my baby!" So my first goal was not even close to accomplished which made me nervous about the reality of my second goal.

When Grace and I were finally reunited, she latched on instantly and could suckle very well. The problem was that I didn't have any colostrum or milk yet. So days went by with me drinking lots of hot liquids (tea and hot chocolate are believed, in Kenya at least, to help bring your milk), and Grace happily latching on to me but not actually getting anything to eat. I was worried that she would starve, but was reminded that she came out pretty full from all the good stuff she had on the inside and that she didn't need to eat that much just yet; and at one point the nurses gave her a thimble or two of formula that sustained her until things started working from my end.

Three full days after she was born, my increasing fears were assuaged when my milk finally came in and I could nurse her. Then it turned out that I was one of the lucky ones, for which I am still extremely grateful. Grace was a clock-like pro, eating pretty much every two hours on the dot. My anesthesiologist (surprisingly) spent five minutes giving me some "try this" tips for nursing, which was very helpful and the only professional advice I got. I had a small amount of discomfort that is expected when you start nursing but was never in actual pain, never got mastitis, never had a problem. I was equally thrilled and surprised because I had really expected a much more difficult experience and actually my three month goal came and went quite easily. Soon the next goal was to nurse her exclusively for six months and then reevaluate, which also went by with a breeze. Particularly for our travel-inclined lifestyle, nursing was perfect for several long flights in Grace's early life. It seemed that Grace could be comforted through any fussiness or discomfort by breastfeeding, which was truly a relief to all three of us (and probably hundreds of other people on various international flights).

When Grace started eating solid foods a few days shy of six months, we were happy to have reached the World Health Organization's recommendation for nursing and Grace naturally started to nurse a little bit less often, although still many times a day. I read in a few different books that breastfeeding for as long as possible is especially good for future-vegetarians and we decided to continue. Soon we were at nine months and then a year: it was still easy, it was still "working" and Grace showed no indication of wanting to stop. It is hard to say what role breastfeeding has played in Grace's inability to gain the normal amount of weight since she was six months old. Both doctors we have seen indicate that some babies just loving breastfeeding so much that they aren't that interested in solid foods, which could very well be the case with Grace. At thirteen months I stopped nursing her during the day - which she was not happy about - and kept it up only first thing in the morning and before bed (admittedly, this rule was broken during air travel and sickness). This didn't produce any big changes in her solid food consumption though, and as our trip in Boston came to an end the doctor we met with said, "You've gotta stop nursing her now. Cold Turkey. It will be a week of pure hell, but eventually she will be hungry enough to eat and drink other things." For the last several months, however, it was obvious that nursing was definitely more for ritual and comfort than actual nourishment because I had a pretty low supply of milk for such a growing girl, so who knows about how hungry she was even then. But I knew the doctor was right and so last Friday morning I nursed Grace for the last time. Fifteen months and nine days after she was born, I stopped breastfeeding. Not bad for a mom who was hoping to get to make it to three months, even if I didn't start in her first hour of life.

For three days leading up to our grand finale, I had been telling her all kinds of things to prepare her for the event because, if you have spent any amount of time with Grace you know that, she understands absolutely everything you say (or very nearly that). So I started telling her these things:

• You are a big girl now, Grace. Soon you have to drink other milk because Mama almost doesn't have any more milk.
• Mama's milk is almost gone now, Grace. In two more days you can't have any more of Mama's milk.
• Grace, after tomorrow Mama won't have any more milk.
• Tomorrow morning is your last time to have Mama's milk because you are a big girl now.

You probably think I sounded crazy, but she definitely understood what I was saying. The night before our last feeding she was really, really sad and wouldn't go to bed easily with her usual routine. I cried a little bit the two days leading up to this event because to physically feed a child for nine months inside your body and then fifteen months out in the real world...was an enormous and emotional commitment! But the day we ended I was in a good place and was happy about the decision and, frankly, my upcoming freedom.

The next few days were a little bit of a roller coaster with brief morning and evening temper tantrums when she would scream "Ma-Moo! Ma-Moo! Ma-Moo!" while making her sign for "milk" repeatedly. She hit me, threw my glasses, and tried to bite me, which provoked a few more tears (from me); but, ultimately going "cold turkey" was not nearly as hellish as anticipated and I am proud of Grace for mostly being over the whole thing by now. She seems to only ask for "Ma-Moo!" every couple of days and, while she is not drinking any other kind of milk yet, we hope that will come with a little more time.

I have been asked if I regret having nursed her for so long; perhaps after reading this you can predict that my answer is no, because since breastfeeding worked for us it was the healthiest way to start her life and, while it is still not the norm to nurse for so long in the US, throughout the rest of the world it is completely mainstream. The only thing I regret is not having introduced a bottle of breast milk to Grace at the appropriate 6-10 week marker because I think that would have given me a bit more freedom, involved Kristoffer in her early days a bit more, and would have made transitioning to other liquids much easier down the line, particularly when she wasn't gaining weight and we wanted to give her formula (which she never ended up taking). So that lesson has been learned for whenever it is that we are blessed with another baby, but I am proud of what I have been able to give our daughter and of the bond we have because of it. Who knows if a future baby will even be as good at or interested in breastfeeding; I am sure that it will be a whole new ball game when the time comes. I'll know what I'm doing, of course, but I think I'll stick to my two initial goals and go from there. It seemed to work pretty well this time around.

To begin with, there was lot I didn't know about breastfeeding, including my own feelings on the topic, and I could not have predicted how much we would both love it and what a big part of our lives it would become. To end with, even though I nursed her for a long time it seems impossible to me that that part of Grace's life is over.

Grace, you are a sweet, sweet girl and I love you very much.

~Mama

June 9, 2010 - Trot Trot to Boston (and back again)

One week ago we arrived back in Kenya after three wonderful weeks away (all of them in the US for me and Grace, two of them in France for Kristoffer before he joined us). It has been a very busy month for us so please pardon my longest absence from blogging! Sadly, I was also not the best picture-taker on this trip, missing out on catching Grace in some wonderful moments with our loved ones...but I've been realizing that sometimes it is more important to just live in and enjoy the moment than to worry too much about photographing it for the future. Apologies to anyone who was left out of our photos; please know that it is not a reflection of how much we love you...and trust me, family and friends, we love you a lot!

Grace changed a lot during this trip. She went from being a crawler who could walk, to a walker who occasionally still crawls. She began "performing" in front of other people: dancing in circles, screaming and "singing", playing hide-and-seek, and many other fun acts. She started using even more words AND she even started eating better towards the end of our trip! Now can she put two and occasionally three words together to say, for exampe, "More cheese" or "No more cheese". Usually she puts "bye bye" with names she can say or "no", so we are hearing a lot of "bye bye balls, bye bye Elmo, bye bye Tsavo" and "No, no Tsavo! No, no Mama! No, no door!" Finally, Grace met and I should say fell in love with ELMO when we were in the US. It is a sweet love affair that travelled all the way back to Kenya with us. But lets go back to the beginning of trip...

It was a long trip to get to Boston initially. Kristoffer travelled with us as far as Amsterdam (an 8 hour overnight flight from Nairobi) and was with us for 1/2 of our 9-hour layover before flying to France. Then Grace and I got caught up in a bit of volcanic ash drama and were stuck on our plane with the doors closed for an extra three hours before the flight was cleared to take off, which made 11.5 hours alone with her on the second plane. We both did as well as could be expected under the circumstances, but Grace did have some pretty fussy moments (who could blame her?!) and I did have a near meltdown when a nice woman said to me, "You're doing great, honey. Only 7 hours to go!" Door to door from our house to my parents house was 32 hours of travel. But we survived!

And when we arrived in Boston, Nene and Pops were there to very happily pick us up and we spent our first day at Auntie Meghan's house with Auntie Meghan, Uncle Tim, Michael, Sean, Molly and Baby Nora - who we were very excited to meet for the first time! They even had a little belated-birthday party for Grace and she was excited to get more legos and a baby doll among other gifts.

In our first week, Grace enjoyed some quality time with Auntie Meghan, Nene and Pops...

Grace's friend Brady and his daddy, Mark (my friend from college), came over one day to play at the beach. It was really nice to visit and we are hoping that next time the little ones will be even more interactive!

Then we travelled to New York City to visit with Bibi and Jen and Mrs. Duffy and for Grace to meet my friends! Grace walked around a bit of Central Park on her first visit to NYC.

Several of my former students, who are seniors in college or newly-post-grads, came to meet us in Central Park, along with an old friend from graduate school and a friend I used to teach with. It was a great way to enjoy the only good weather we had while in New York.

Grace also got to spend a lot of time at Bibi's apartment playing with her new puzzle and all of Bibi's beanie babies. Bibi threw a nice party for many of my friends to come and meet Grace for the first time. I have to say, Grace's new personality emerged during this visit. Suddenly she became a little star, standing in the middle of a circle of people and dancing and laughing and running around. It was so funny!

After our great (albeit quick) trip to NYC, we stopped in Connecticut to visit with Brooke and Dave and their new puppy Callie! Grace thought that the big new pillow in Brooke's living room was pretty awesome...

...but then realized that it was Callie's bed for napping! Have you ever seen such a cute puppy?!

It was nice to take a picture together with our two babies :)

Back in Boston, we got to spend time with Grace's Godfather (my cousin) Reid. And throughout our trip home Grace became pretty close to her nearly-life-sized Simba lion. Coincidence? I think not.

Grace visited Chuck E. Cheese for the first time for her cousin Sean's 7th birthday. She did pretty well considering it was the loudest, brightest place she has ever been in her life. No breakdowns until Chuck E. Cheese himself approached her to say hello at which point she yelled in his face, "No no!"

Another big part of our trip was to get Grace checked out at Children's Hospital and to get some more answers regarding her continued lack of weight gain. We met with a wonderful doctor who quickly gained my trust and assured me that while she is small Grace is healthy. She did want to do some more tests before we left for Kenya, so Grace underwent an endoscopy a few days before our departure. Kristoffer and I were nervous to put her under general anesthesia, but we also felt it was the best place to do it and that we really needed some answers. Grace was an amazing trooper and recovered well from the procedure with lots of balloons from Auntie Meghan and an Elmo balloon from her Far.

The good news is that Grace's endoscopy showed that she does not have celiac disease or any parasite or any other digestive disorder which is causing her to not gain weight. In the end, the doctor called Grace a "diva" and said we just have to keep trying to get her to take in more calories. She even prescribed a medication to make her REALLY hungry before meals. Finally, she said it was time to cut Grace off from breastfeeding because that might also have been holding her back from eating enough solid foods. We noticed before leaving the US that Grace was starting to eat better already and even now back in Kenya she is doing great without the medication. She is not nursing anymore (and that's the subject for another blog altogether) and is finally over her jet-lag so all seems to be pretty well in Grace's world. I am going to stop having her weighed for a few months to give us a little break from the stress. Now that we know she is perfectly healthy, albeit still underweight, we will just keep doing our best and know that she will be just fine.

But back to our trip...following Grace's hospital adventure, Kristoffer went to his first Red Sox game at Fenway Park with my Dad (bummer they lost!) and then we had a fabulous final weekend with all of my immediate family. We had not all been together since Grace, Kevin and Nora joined the Mueller gang so it was long overdue and really fun.

Grace and Nora enjoyed swinging together...

...Kristoffer enjoyed playing basketball with his brothers-in-law and my cousins...
...my parents enjoyed all seven of their grandchildren...

...and we all had a wonderful weekend together. It is times like these that I am reminded of how wonderful it is to have a large, loving family. Even though we don't see each other that often, when we do it is sure to be a good time!

Thank you to everyone who went out of your way to see us in Plymouth or NYC, and there are quite a few of you I know, and thank you to my parents especially for making three wonderful weeks at home for us.

LMW

May 4, 2010 - Staff Stories

Last week proved to be another interesting week with our staff. Friday in particular.

I was due for a conversation with Jonipher about her work and it was pay-day so that seemed like a good time. We had agreed to consider Jonipher for a raise after she worked for us 8 months (per her request) and we did talk about it a lot, but decided against it. For one, she is late to work every single day and stays much later in the evening than we would like her to in order to get her work done. She also talks on her phone A LOT during the work day (also contributing to her staying late) and finally, she makes a lot of money already. That sounds a little strange, particularly in Kenya, but between the salary she makes from us and the salary she makes from her other family, she is paid more than any other housekeeper I have ever heard of (and most of those include live-in, 6-day-a-week housekeepers - trust me, I've asked around) AND she is paid more than both educated teachers and registered nurses who have four years of formal education. So really, no raise. I explained all of this to her in what I thought was a clear and friendly way and she said she understood what I was saying, but she abruptly stopped talking to me and was pretty rude before Grace and I went out for the day. I encouraged Kristoffer to talk to her later that day (he had the day off from work for May Day) and she told him that I told her that I didn't want her to speak again at all, as opposed to me telling her that she shouldn't speak on her cell phone while she is working. Kristoffer talked with her and thought everything was cleared up (he also did a little seminar on hand-washing for her because that is another battle altogether).

Come Monday morning I tell her that I'm sorry we had a misunderstanding, and she goes on again about how she couldn't believe that I don't want her to talk anymore (again...REALLY not what I said or how I said it) and that we went back on our promise to give her a raise. So I had to go through the whole speech again, speaking very slowly and politely. Again, she said she understood - which probably means that she still doesn't - and went about her business, not totally like "normal" but not as mad and rude as on Friday. I tell you, having staff is definitely my least favorite part of living here.

Then there was Charles. Poor Charles. He got into a car accident on Friday on his way to pick me and Grace up from a birthday party. It seems likely that he caused the car accident, because we think he was rushing: the sooner he got us home, the sooner he could leave to see his family for the weekend. We don't know for sure, but that is our hunch and at any rate he didn't hit anyone but was actually hit by two cars. Charles was fine and our car was fine, but there was some damage to the two cars that hit him. The bigger problem was that one of the drivers that hit him was a Kenyan that we know pretty well and this man unfortunately didn't treat Charles very nicely. He spoke to him in a very degrading way using foul language AND it appears that he paid the policeman a bribe to report that Charles was at fault (even though the law says if you get hit, it is not your fault...whoever hits you is at fault). When Kristoffer arrived at the scene the man we knew acted very charming but Kristoffer says he looked at Charles as if he were the devil and he was very patronizing to Kristoffer, "Oh your driver made a big mistake." He intimidated Charles so much that he was afraid to speak and probably thought we would fire him. Any given person could get into an accident in Nairobi on any given day, because everyone drives by his or her own rules and some drivers have no rules at all (this is why I don't drive here!), so we wouldn't let Charles go for such a minor incident. But the situation has us very upset and disappointed: on a personal level, because we know this man and he acted so inappropriately, but on a much larger level because corruption in Kenya shows up at every corner and in every interaction.

So here were are 5 days away from going home, and I'm ready for it. I always get really annoyed with everything here right before I know I'm going home. Don't even get me started on...our recent four days without internet...or our greedy landlord increasing our rent by a large percentage even though she did that last year...or some pretty sad news that we got from the By Grace Orphanage about a fraudulent promise of financial aid from a UN impostor...or my visit to a cafe yesterday (our house was being fumigated so I had to take Grace out for lunch) when they told me they had a high chair for Grace but had really lent it to another cafe so it wasn't even there to begin with but they didn't tell me until after I ordered food ("we do have one, it just isn't here..." AAAHHHH!!!!) and so I had to hold her and feed both of us at the same time which made for a really unpleasant lunch...and oh yeah, I said don't get me started...

At least today I have both book club and mom's night out with my friends which should bring enough laughter to get me through the next couple of days and well on our way (door to door we have a 32-hour trip home this time!). Now all I can think is that the water in Boston better be clean for me by Sunday night because the Dunkin Donuts at the airport is calling my name.

And this little girl is ready for America too...

LMW

April 28, 2010 - Long Time No Blog

Our life has been pretty "regular" lately: Kristoffer works really hard at the office and plays squash really hard on the court; Grace reads really hard at home and plays really hard across the street with her friends; I do lots of other things really hard to keep us all happy and organized and good.

Our trip home to Boston is coming up a week from Saturday and I think the timing is just perfect. Grace's battle to gain weight has hit another plateau: she didn't gain any weight in the last 4 weeks which puts her, at 8 kg (17.6 lbs), well below the normal range for her age (about 0-1 percentile on any growth chart I can find). Two blood tests to screen for gluten intolerance (celiac disease) have come back inconclusive: the first time because we learned that Grace has a deficiency in one type of antibody necessary for the blood test to be accurate and the second time because the lab in South Africa screwed up. From 12 to 13-months-old and on a gluten-free diet Grace gained 300 grams, but this past month from 13 to 14-months she was also on a gluten-free diet and gained nothing. So we really don't know where we stand on that front, but what we do know is that she is eating a good amount of healthy food as well as foods that are really high in fat - yes I butter everything for her! - and nothing seems to be working. This is where our trip to Boston comes in; we are waiting for our appointment to be confirmed at Children's Hospital so that we can make sure that Grace is just perfectly petite and not facing a serious medical challenge to gaining weight.

The good news is that Grace is developing wonderfully, which is really the most important thing. She can walk for real now; even if she doesn't always do it she can do it perfectly whenever she wants and often does it when nobody is specifically asking her to. She can say a lot of words; the ones she says the most are "ball" and "Tsavo" and her newest word is "door" which she proudly says every time she sees or goes through a door. Example: today she screamed "door" over and over and over to the doctor and his nurse while pointing to the door because she hates being weighed and desperately wanted to leave. Or because she wanted them to leave so she could play with their toys in peace.

She has such a sweet and funny personality, with a bit of stubborn and bossy thrown in for good measure. And, even though she is small, she is still keeping up with all the other babes who talk on their mothers' cell phones...

...and send text messages to their friends.

[Note: not on the same day as these pictures were taken, but two weeks ago I left my phone unlocked by mistake and Grace did somehow manage to send a text message to my friend that said "fish" and nothing else. Think she is asking for it?]

LMW

April 18, 2010 - Loves

What's new with Grace these days? Well...not too much!

She loves fruit (if only we could pack pears with calories!)!

She loves Tsavo!

She loves trying to do whatever Mae does!

She loves shoes!

~pictured in her new official walking shoes, now that she is doing a lot more walking by herself (today she initiated walking for the first time, instead of us trying to get her to do it)~

LMW

April 15, 2010 - Just the Other Day...

After arriving in Kenya, we quickly noticed the different ways that Kenyans speak English. They have some language patterns and sayings that are really foreign to me, even though they are speaking my native language (as their 2nd or 3rd language, usually). We often hear old-fashioned British vocabulary and sayings that, from what we can tell, British people don't actually still say, along with what seem like "strange" uses of specific phrases and translations from Kiswahili that can make a native-English speaker feel more than a bit confused. I'm not writing this as a criticism, just a humorous observation...after all, when I try to speak Kiswahili, or better yet Danish, I am used to laughter or confusion on the other end.

Kristoffer and I often talk about this "Kenyan English", as we call it, particularly because we often (I shudder, but it is true) catch ourselves saying some really bizarre things! Here are just a few classic examples:

• "Pick it (or you/him/her/me)" instead of "pick it up": "Charles will pick you at the main gate." or "Please pick the package and deliver it to..."

• Someone says hello to you and you respond, "Fine". Why? Because in Kiswahili you will say "Jambo, habari" which pretty much means "Hello, How are you?" and someone responds, "Mzuri", which basically means "fine". Kenyans translate this to English so if someone says "Hello", the "how are you" is assumed and they will respond "fine" even when you didn't actually ask. It took me at least 18 months to not be annoyed by this and I have since done it myself at least three times.

• The word "alight", which means to come down/settle/get off of/dismount. I have never heard an American use this word and have never actually heard a British person use it, but it must have been used a lot by British here during colonialism. Charles will often say to me when arriving somewhere, "Will you alight here or should I drop you somewhere else?"

• "Just the other day..." When a Kenyan says this phrase it could mean yesterday, last week, last month, 10 years ago, or before independence. Literally. Kristoffer had a conversation with a colleague during which he was talking about the early 80s when President Moi was in power and he actually said, "Just the other day, the president blah blah blah..." And, by the way, they don't say this in a nostalgic manner, such as "It seems like just the other day that Grace was a tiny baby." Once, Charles told me, "Just the other day we had a dog but it died and we didn't get a new one." And then I found out that was a few years ago!

• "Isn't it." Said more as a statement than a question. After everything. It seems to be used to verify that something is true or when you want someone to acknowledge/agree, but it sounds horrible to a native English speaker's ears.

This meeting will be called to order. Isn't it.

I'm going to play squash this evening. Isn't it.

Grace doesn't like to sleep in the morning. Isn't it.

We should think about where we want to go for lunch. Isn't it.

I hate when I catch myself speaking Kenyan English. Isn't it.

The thing I wonder about most is will these "Kenyan English"-isms stay with us when we don't live here anymore?! Maybe "just the other day" will sneak up on me every now or I will occasionally drop an "Isn't it". In the same way I sometimes say "papah" instead of "paper" and am reminded of growing up outside of Boston and with my mother's strong accent, it will be proof to the world and to myself that indeed I have lived here and I have known this place.

LMW

April 14, 2010 - Staff Stories

Charles and Jonipher are having a tough week.

Late Sunday night, or early Monday morning rather, Charles heard noises outside of the room he lives in here in Nairobi. There were people outside and they called to him, "Charles, do not come out. Do not alert anyone that we are here. If you do, we will shoot you." They then proceeded to break into and rob his next door neighbor's room (the neighbor was away). He was worried and it sounds like a bit scared, although he would never use the words to us. He thinks he might know the young boys who did it; they obviously knew him. This is a reality of our life in Nairobi that we are always aware of but actually try to not talk about that much: a lot of crime. If Kristoffer had been leaving our house a little bit earlier that morning, Charles might have been outside using the bathroom and they would have been able to get into his room and rob him, or worse (since he would have seen them). So we are grateful that the situation wasn't worse and hope he doesn't have to deal with any similar incidents in the future.

Jonipher's trouble, on the other hand, is even worse because we learned from her this week that she has really high blood pressure. As in, 180/120 the last time it was taken. Kristoffer drove her close to her house on his way to a squash match on Monday night and this came up in conversation. When he came later he said to me, "I think Jonipher might die soon." WHAT?!?! Well, not only is her blood pressure dangerously high, but she is having severe headaches, tingling and numbness on one side of her body, and sometimes she has moments where she doesn't know where she is. We basically think she is a walking-stroke-about-to-happen and we are worried about her. So this morning I've sent her to a clinic to see a doctor and tell him these specific symptoms to find out what medicine she can take. We will have to pay for the medicine because she is supporting a very large family and can't afford it. She has 5 children: of the 4 adults, 3 are currently unemployed and she has one school-aged son with school fees. There are also several grandchildren and she is supporting all of them. So buying herself medication or spending money on healthy foods like fruit is too expensive for her. We'll see what the doctor at this clinic says today and then make a plan from there. Can you even imagine have a very serious blood pressure problem and doing absolutely nothing about it?!

I know that I complain about Kenya and Kenyans a lot (or at least I feel that I do) but really it is stories like these that do give me a shadow of understanding why Kenyans are the way they are. They live a pretty difficult life.

LMW

p.s. I'm adding to this blog to say that Jonipher has now come home and her blood pressure was actually 233/125. The doctor gave her some kind of pill to dissolve in her mouth over the course of an hour along with 2 other kinds of medication for hypertension and wants to see her again on Friday. Yikes!

April 10, 2010 - Blast from the Past

Remember these drums from a very long time ago? Well we are finally putting them to good use and started taking drum lessons this week! I hired a guy who used to teach after-school drum lessons at the international school and he came to our house yesterday for our first lesson. Since it is not very likely that I will get to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro this year (time, money, Grace, etc.) I was determined to do at least one of the two things that I really wanted to do when we moved here. Kristoffer is better at impromptu solos and I am better at a keeping a steady beat, and we both had a lot of fun! Our teacher, Obuya, is maybe the coolest Kenyan I've ever met. Picture a darker-skinned, skinnier Bob Marley with a Kenyan-but-nearly-Ugandan accent (he is Nairobi born but his family comes from Western Kenya). Now we just need to find a baby drum so Grace can practice too...she did great for the first 20 minutes or so but then she wanted to play our drums and got frustrated that we weren't that into her. We intentionally planned the lessons for when Jonipher is here so she can entertain Grace. Can't wait for our next lesson! Keep your calendars out for our international concert schedule...

LMW

April 9, 2010 - Trip Down Memory Lane

Almost two months after we moved to Nairobi I blogged about meeting a woman who turned out to be my first friend here. She and her husband got married one week after we did and they arrived in Kenya a few months before us. Well they had a baby in December and we had a play date at our house yesterday. We also saw them a few weeks ago at their house and it has been really nice to reconnect with our kids after a long time of not seeing each other (she was working in Europe during her pregnancy and had her baby in the US).

Little Miss Grace and Master Santiago got along very well, and their naps overlapped so that my friend and I could have a nice visit. Grace has gotten very good at sharing recently and was happy to bring him her toys.

I have to say that it was really nice to have a small baby in the house again. We brought out all of Grace's old gear: her boppy (nursing pillow), her swing, her bouncy seat, her rattles...the works! It was a real trip down memory lane for Grace and she loved examining all her old stuff. The fun really started last night before bed when she started filling up the bouncy seat with all her current and past toys. Lately she has taken to "sorting" things: she puts things in a pile and then when she is done she individually moves each item to a new pile, and usually does it one more time after that. We are really enjoying all of the cute play we are seeing at this age.

LMW