Happy Valentines Day

Ashlynn Olivia at 4 months

When you think about it, four months is such a short amount of time. Only 120 days or so. It’s my third child and I’m still amazed that in just a few months a newborn can grow to a tiny little being with thoughts, feelings, and a personality. Ashlynn steals my heart every day. She’s laughing now. Great big belly laughs when she is watching her Dad or sisters do something funny. She’s rolling onto her side. She’s discovered her feet and can hold objects to her mouth. She bats at toys that are in front or above her. Her favorite thing to do is watch Addie and Bella play. Her eyes are the brightest and most alert when she’s surrounded by everyone in the family. She’s a happy baby. Only crying when she’s messy, hungry, tired or in pain. Her first tooth is trying to pop through on the bottom. It’s made for some long nights and fussy days lately. This tooth is incredibly early for our family. Bella didn’t get her first tooth until 9 months old! I hope this doesn’t start a trend of Ashlynn growing up too quickly. I am already finding that the weeks and months are flying by faster than I recall with Addie and Bella at this age. One thing I cannot deny is that Ashlynn is a beautiful baby.

School and Embassy

So far, our third world internet leaves a lot to be desired. A whole week without internet access had me itching to search the interwebs. It’s amazing how wireless internet has become something most of us take for granted.

Anyway, crappy internet is the reason why we ended up at the embassy last weekend. We grabbed our iPad and Kindle Fire and spent an hour or so letting the girls play at the playground while Justin and I downloaded the new issue of Wired (hands down the best magazine ever) . We updated our settings, downloaded a book or two, and just sat there while everything loaded. The girls didn’t mind because it’s gorgeous every day here in Ethiopia. Ashlynn napped in the Bijorn and everyone was happy.

We attended an open house at Addie’s new school. Head to Toe preschool has an adorable playground and a very well thought out education program. I was especially impressed with their art teacher and program. Miss Martha has a degree in fine arts and is marching the kids through a children’s art instructional put out by the Museum of Modern Art. It’s no wonder I’ve seen Addie’s artistic side blossom in the past few weeks. She’s thoughtfully creating drawings and coloring impeccably in the lines in her coloring books. Last month she was happy scribbling, this month she’s taking pride in her work. At school they are working with clay, paints, abstract sculpture art, paper mache, drawing and more. It’s amazing really. Each child has an art day during the week where they learn a technique and start a project. Later they can revisit their projects to keep adding to their work.

The music teacher is a sweet British primary school teacher who apologized to the American parents for all the kids coming home singing the British version of children’s songs. Justin and I were hoping she’d come home singing them in a British accent too.

Astamari (teacher) Marki is Addie’s learning block teacher who she spends time with every day. Addie loves her.

Bella loves to come in and play in the mornings when we drop Addie off.

Cooking in Ethiopia

I’m doing all the cooking in our house right now. Eneye has made it clear that she’d rather watch the children than learn to cook American cuisine so I’ve been navigating the kitchen in Ethiopia all by myself.

I love to cook and find it soothing and relaxing so I hardly mind spending my afternoons preparing a meal for my family. I like shopping for the ingredients, planning a meal, or just throwing things together to make something entirely new. I’ve been doing a lot of the later lately.

I have to admit that I am pleasantly surprised at the produce I’ve been able to find here in the markets. The “farm to table” concept that is so hot right now in the U.S. is just the way of life in Ethiopia. If it’s grown locally and in season I will find it in the market. A few months from now will be a new assortment of crops. Growing season is 12 months every year so that means there should be some fresh vegetables and fruit to choose from all the time. Currently I have access to fresh green beans, carrots, onions, garlic, lettuce, strawberries (Hooray!), squash, potatoes, tomatoes, small bitter sweat plums called prim, beets, zucchini, cucumbers, limes, oranges, and bananas. I even found fresh basil, rosemary, and parsley at the store. Everything is grown organically and is very cheap. It’s amazing really. A kilo of bananas is 7 birr. One U.S. dollar is about 17 birr right now. All the produce has to be washed with bleach and rinsed several times in order for it to be safe for us to eat. Here I was, scarfing down salads in the U.S. thinking I wouldn’t have a good salad for a few years. I’ve made several Greek salads at home with olives, fresh mozzarella and homemade balsamic dressing. What I should have been scarfing down in the States was Chipotle burritos and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I won’t be finding those in Ethiopia.

I was also given the impression that you couldn’t get cheese here. Surprisingly, there are plenty of choices of cheese. The issue is just the price. I picked up a block of fresh parmesan a few weeks ago and did a double take because the conversion told me it was about $30. I put the cheese back. I found good locally made provolone, mozzarella, ricotta, and feta cheeses. Edam varieties are imported along with cheddar, blue cheese, camembert, and goat cheese. It’s painful to spend close to $10 on 200 grams of cheddar cheese but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.

I’m so excited that Ethiopia has a good dairy industry. The locally made butter, yogurt, cream, and sour cream is very good and inexpensive. You can find milk but I haven’t tried it yet. Some say you have to boil it again even though they advertise that it’s been pasteurized and homogenized. So far we are sticking with the boxed UHT and powdered milk.

With a smaller selection of produce and food to choose from I have been more creative with my cooking. In the U.S. I was overwhelmed with the selection and ended up in a rut with dinners. Here in Ethiopia having less to choose from makes my meal planning simpler. My Mother would be proud of some of the things I’ve taken a risk to make. I’m immensely thankful that she taught me how to really cook with real ingredients. For the very first time I’ve made the following meals from scratch and without a recipe: tomato sauce (much more challenging to perfect the taste that I first thought), chicken soup with homemade chicken broth from the carcass and giblets, stuffed red peppers, Shepard’s pie, banana bread pudding, and a lentil soup. Everything has turned out pretty decent. Good in fact.

There is no processed food in Ethiopia. I bought eggplant yesterday for eggplant parmesan and realized that not only would I have to make another batch of tomato sauce for the meal but that I’d need to make my own bread crumbs as well. It’s all about preplanning and substituting what I can’t find or don’t have. Clearly there will not be any parmesan in this meal so I think I’ll use mozzarella instead.

The entire family is eating healthier. Everything is real and fresh. The girls are choosing bananas and carrots for snacks over crackers. We are stressing the idea of not wasting our food since some things are hard to find and more expensive. Everything that gets made gets eaten for leftovers. I am back in my third-world saving mode where bits of things that are unused go in the freezer not in the trash. Heals of bread are made into croutons, leftover yogurt gets thrown in pancake batter, a spoonful of tomato paste seasons ground pork, fresh herbs get dried for later, black bananas get mashed for banana bread. It’s a more healthful way of eating. Certainly less wasteful.

For some reason when we are in the U.S., even for the short 6 months we were, slipping back into the wasteful American mentality was easy to do. Plastic bags were used once and thrown away, the last hunk of a block of cheese got tossed, leftovers were thrown out often. For me, the knowledge that down the street at the supermarket is an unlimited supply of absolutely everything I could ever need is the culprit of my wastefulness. Why save the cheese when I can simply get in my car and go buy more, right now, as much as I want, for cheap? It’s why all of America is wasteful. Americans have too much of everything. It’s funny how quickly we start saving things when the only way we can get another box of Ziploc bags is to order them on Amazon. You’d start washing them and reusing them too!

Anyway, I’m cooking...a lot right now. It feels good to create things from real ingredients that haven’t been salted or sugared prior to cooking with them. I like seeing the look of admiration on my husband’s face as he tastes a new meal I’ve created. “I knew you were a good cook, but man, you’ve stepped up your game!”, is the best compliment I could get. Seeing the girls try something new and not immediately hate it is encouraging too. All in all we are going to eat just fine in Ethiopia, as long as I don’t get burnt out by all the cooking and as long as I can keep the creativity flowing.

And when our consumables shipment arrives, you better believe I am ripping into a box of Trader Joe’s chocolate Joe Joes cookies. But instead of eating an entire box in a week, we’ll be saving them...and savoring them.

Everything else in that shipment is gravy!

Unrelated to food, here is a sweet photo of Ashlynn Olivia for the grandparents and aunties.

Bella Goes to School

Bella had her first day of school this week. She’s attending a parent/nanny run morning program at one of the mom’s homes three days a week. It was started a few years ago by a mother who had a child that was too shy to attend the school Addie goes to. Bella’s not the shy type so I wasn’t worried about her starting. In fact I couldn’t wait for her to have a more structured day with socialization with other children. The other moms were hesitant to have her start during a transitory period for the school and kept putting off her start day so it wouldn’t interupt anything. When we finally showed up for the first day, Bella walked right in like she owned the place. She started playing with the toys and introduced herself with her name during the morning song. She didn’t even turn to say goodbye. When I came to pick her up she was happy as a clam playing outside with the other little girls. The other moms were shocked at how easy it was to have Bella joing the school. I am very proud of my big girl attending school all by herself. The teachers say she participates during the lessons and plays well with others. There are a total of 5 little girls in the class which is really fun. She loves playing at school and is especially happy about her new backpack. Thanks to Aunt Rachel for such a thoughtful Christmas present. She loves wearing it!

On living at high altitude

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is at roughly 7,700 feet above sea level. Essentially the city is on a large plateau. This is my first time living at a high altitude and I’ve learned a few things in just the few weeks we’ve been here.

I’m fat and old. Well, at least the altitude makes me feel that way. I am sucking wind pretty hard when I reach the top of our four flights of stairs. Going up and down during the day is all the exercise I need right now. It takes about a month to get acclimated to the new altitude. I can feel the stairs getting easier and easier as the weeks go on.

I’m starving. Our bodies work extra hard while moving around in the high altitude and I’m burning a ton more calories just living in this thin air. That makes me hungry all the time. Addie and Bella are hungry all the time too. I’ve never seen these children ask for as much food as they have in the past few weeks. Nursing Ashlynn is burning a ton of calories every day too. In the few weeks we’ve been living here I’ve lost enough of the baby weight to get back into a pair of jean shorts I bought while we were in New Zealand in October of 2010! WooHoo for getting my pre-baby body back. High altitude is kind of awesome in this way actually. Keeping enough healthy snacks on hand for the girls is kind of tough though.

I’m thirsty like a camel. It’s extremely easy to get dehydrated here. Maybe it’s a combination of being at a high altitude and at the equator at the same time. Whatever the reason, we have to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated. We get headaches frequently in the evenings if we haven’t had enough. If the girls wake up with dry crinkly lips I know they haven’t had enough. I go through about three Nalgene bottles full of water in a 24 hour period and that’s probably still not enough.

I’m exhausted. Just for the same reasons I’m hungry all the time; I feel even more tired at the end of each day. Having three kids under the age of five has something to do with it too; but my body is working pretty hard to get oxygen where it needs to go let alone run after my little ones. I’ve noticed the entire family is crashing harder at night.

I can still bake. I was nervous about trying to bake at high altitudes but really, it’s not much trouble at all. I’ve made banana pineapple bread, brownies, and bread pudding so far (after much searching for the ingredients-and making some substitutions here and there) and everything has turned out great. I simply adjust the recipe a bit according to a high altitude baking chart I found online and BAM-yummy eats are still in our house. Justin isn’t completely thrilled about this because he wants that high altitude extra calorie burning factor to help him stay slim and trim. My baking doesn’t help but it sure tastes good.

The sun in intense. Spending even a short amount of time in the Addis Ababa sun gives the girls a pink tinge. The weather may not be hot and humid here but the sun is much more intense than we are used to. I am trying to load up on SPF for everyone.

We have a marathon runner in the making. Little Ashlynn will have the amazing lung capacity of an Ethiopian runner by the time we leave here. Summer Olympics 2030? Maybe!

Ashlynn Olivia Update

Ashlynn is over 3 months old now. She's reaching out for objects I hold in front of her. If she grips them she can move it to her mouth to chew on. She's soothing her self with her thumb here and there when the pacifier falls out of her mouth and she's too tired to cry out for me to come put it back in. She's still a good nurser which is new for me. At this point with my other two I was pumping full time. I'm definitely getting more sleep this way since nursing her takes about 10 minutes or less and she's back to sleep. I'm not missing the middle of the night pumping sessions and then lying awake for another 30-40 minutes trying to fall back asleep afterwards. Nursing Ash is sweet. I like the convenience of it and mostly the closeness of it. It's nice to be forced to sit down and pause during my busy days. Sometimes I huff and puff about having to stop what I am doing to breast feed, but the moment I sit down with Ashlynn to nurse I feel happy and content. Everything else in the world can just wait! I have been trying to pump at least once a day to have a freezer supply in case I get a parasite which causes me to pump and dump during the medication. Fingers crossed this never happens and if it does hopefully not until my freezer is full of milk.

Ashlynn is a good sleeper at night. Some nights she nurses every 2-4 hours and other nights she sleeps a huge chunk. Last night she slept for 7 hours straight! Amazing. Since she's a good sleeper she's a pretty good napper and therefore she's a happy active baby. Every single day I have a moment when I look at Ashlynn and thank my lucky stars that I get to be a Mommy for the third time. She's such a precious little girl and I'm so blessed. When the day is long or something isn't going quite right it's nice to snuggle my warm soft baby and the world is right again.