Happy Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween.  On Thursday night, the kids' school had the annual Fall Festival, which has a bunch of games and trick or treating in the hallways and pizza and a haunted house.  The kids love it so much that we were on our way to the Fall Festival after Lizzie's soccer and she said, "The Fall Festival is definitely the rose of my day!" Anyway, I didn't take any photos there that are worth posting so you don't get to see Tommy as Harry Potter (costume from Aunt Jan and Uncle Vyn) complete with a Snowy Owl (from Aunt Marilyn) as Hedwig.

On Friday (yesterday), we went to Tommy's first soccer game, and then we came home and carved pumpkins before meeting some friends to trick or treat in our complex.  It was really fun and despite the fact that some people gave out weird things (potato chips, a cookie) it felt very similar to trick or treating in the US.  The kids LOVED it.

We went in a group with three Queen Elsas but - again - I didn't get a good photo.  I TOLD Eli we should all four go as Queen Elsa, but he declined.  I think Tommy would have also been a hard sell.

I lied:  here's one of T in his HP robes.  He's with a good friend of his - who is also missing her two front teeth.

Queen Elsa is getting dressed - but check out Eli's pumpkin carving skills.  

The rest of my family carved pumpkins while I finished reading P&P for the fiftieth time.  
To be honest, this scene ended with just Eli at the table, carving. 

While we trick or treated, we ran into friends from Lizzie's class.  Here are two Elsas.

I'm sorry this photo is so horrible -- but here are two Elsas with one toy poodle puppy called Princess.  She is adorbs.

Tofu

On Friday, we had a long day and by the end of it, Lizzie was beat (and, I think, very hungry).  So when Eli announced that we were having tofu tacos for dinner she screamed, "EVERY NIGHT TOFU.  OH MY GOD!"  (To be fair to her, we had tofu twice during the previous week and we usually have it only once.)

It was really rude (and she was really mad and laughing at her when she's mad is almost always a horrible idea), so Eli and I both tried hard not to laugh as we suggested that she could use her manners next time.  We offered her a bowl of peppers and she settled herself on the floor to eat them.  About five minutes later, she knocked the bowl over and SWORE so we yet again had to try not to laugh and convince her to listen to us despite her hunger and exhaustion.

So you know the ending:  after a heated negotiation, she ate five pieces of tofu (but only because Eli cut them smaller than I do) and we were confident that she went to bed with some healthy food in her tummy.

Testing

This year, Tommy is in second grade and so has begun to have tests.  He has biweekly spelling tests, and a math test at the end of each unit.  Apparently, this means he thinks we should all be taking tests, because on Friday he decided to test me on Ninja weapons and carefully wrote this exam.  He promised me that if I studied, I would earn 200% (I chose not to wonder about his math abilities at this point and just have fun).

See the part where I try to get extra credit?

PS:  I know that we both misspelled Samurai.  Embarrassing. 

Soccer (Lulu)

Tommy is not the only one doing soccer this year.  Lizzie is doing a very pricey program through Arsenal.  She is really good at some parts of it, but not really the "playing soccer" parts.  (She excels at running fast and "Japanese" running (which is actually high knees).)

Not sure why she's holding her braids.

Adjusting her ball with her hands.  Sigh.

IPads are better than soccer, did you know?  This little girl is one of her best friends, and the little boys are in her class as well.

Is this photo less cute if you know that Lulu is just trying to maintain her view of the iPad?

Two front teeth

One member of our family is missing two front teeth.  Luckily, he can still talk without a strange s-less accent.  He is thrilled, and now 6 rial richer.

Pumpkins in Muscat

On Monday while I was at our local grocery store, I noticed a nice display of pumpkins.  On my walk home, I decided to take the kids over there after school to pick out jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  Exciting fun for all of us!

I didn't dress them matchy matchy on purpose.

But as you can see above, I bought the most expensive pumpkin in the whole wide world.  Want to know in dollars what I spent on this smallish pumpkin? $15.  And let me tell you this.  One of them in the display was already rotting.  (Not this one.)  A nice British lady told me to go to the fruit and vegetable market - "they won't be orange, they'll be pink, but you'll pay 100 baisa per kilo" (for those curious, there are 1000 baisa in one rial).

I am certain I can talk Lizzie into pink pumpkins.

Coming up in my next  blog post:  how much I pay for sweet potatoes.  (Not really.  But I do pay a lot for sweet potatoes.)

The downside to TED talks

I listen to TED talks quite a lot.  I try to branch out with my podcasts - but mostly, I just love TED talks and best of all I love the TED radio hour (though I also spend as much time as possible listening to This American Life, and now I loooove the new one, Serial).  But do you know what? TED talks often make me feel inadequate and unsuccessful.  I heard one this morning about a doctor who quit his job at UCSF and went to Somalia and then another country in Africa.  He worked mostly on containing and eradicating typhoid and cholera outbreaks.  Then, tired of that, and ready to live somewhere with running water and thermostats, he moved back to the US and decided that gun violence should be treated like an epidemic and has done some impressive work to stop it.

And what am I doing? Compared to that guy, I am doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.  It is more than a bit discouraging.  So then I have little pep talks with myself about raising my kids and feeding them healthy food and how much I love and like my husband and that I am happy in my life.  And, hey, maybe Lizzie (or Tommy) is going to do enough to help people who need help that I don't actually need to.

But did my parents raise me for my output to be two happy and successful people (and I fully recognize that we are nowhere near being able to put my children in the 'happy' and 'successful' columns though at this moment in time they are both)???  No, they most certainly thought I would do something - anything! - in my own right, completely separate from my littles.

Would you call this a midlife crisis?  Or is just this an inability to appreciate and revel in my life as it is here and now?

Another TED talk lady perked me up a bit yesterday when she said that telling people to follow their passion is stupid:  the few people that have identifiable, honest-to-God passions are definitely following them, and the rest of us just feel disappointed that we don't have a passion to pursue, or confused.  She suggests that we all follow our curiosities.  And that, my friends, is most definitely what I do.  Maybe, for now, it's enough.