Jun 22
One of the keys to parental happiness is either cultivating shared hobbies with one’s children, convincing (or cajoling) them to embrace one’s own favorite pastimes, or finding complementary activities that allow the simultaneous indulgence of both adult and child interests. In Maine for the summer with Munchkin, D struck gold on the latter front.
From the outset, we have sought to instill a love of literature in our little man while limiting Munchkin’s screen time. Given how much time we spend in front of our laptops, the latter was bound to be a bit of a quixotic quest. At three, Munchkin is by no means immune to the draw of the bright screen; the educational series of Daniel Tiger videos is his current obsession, and he wheedles his way to watching a video most days. Even so, we spend considerably more time reading to him each day than he spends watching videos, and that is one victory of which we are proud.
Right before S packed her bags for the cross-Atlantic journey with Munchkin, we went out for a rare night of rock-n-roll in Kigali. Several of our Embassy friends and colleagues play in a cover band, and the set list featured a number of 90s rock classics. It was a bittersweet show – a pointed reminder of the one thing D misses above all else while serving abroad: live music.
Jun 19
“Here’s a kiss and a hug for you / I love you mommy for all you do / Happy Mother’s Day!” Munchkin sang to D, ignoring S’s softly whispered exhortations to substitute “papa” into the Mother’s Day song he had learned at school. “Happy Mother’s Day, papa, and babushka, and dedushka, and mommy!” he concluded. At least the sentiment was right, and he did tenderly refer to D as “my little fuzzy papa” a little while later.
Jun 17
Rushing home from work last Thursday – his last day in the office – D was still too wired, too caught up in wrapping up last-minute projects, to actually relax. The red-eye flight from Kigali to Amsterdam, with its obligatory refueling stop in Entebbe, did little to help. It was only when D reached his friend’s office in Paris around midday on Friday, dropped his bags, and settled into a cute Parisian bistro for a luxuriously slow-paced lunch with two former college classmates that he felt the stress of the previous months begin to ebb away.
Eight months pregnant and chasing after a three-year-old daredevil, S was glad for all the help she could get before D came back stateside. Fortunately, help was aplenty. S’s childhood friend came to spend a long weekend in Portland with her six-year-old son, and S’s parents came down from Bangor the following weekend. And midweek, when S was on her own with Munchkin, she took advantage of the outdoor meet-up groups that proliferate in Maine during the summer months.
After spending two weeks with her parents in Bangor, S and Munchkin transitioned to our rental in Portland to await D’s return and the baby’s arrival.
With the Gulf all over the news last week, S realized that she never got around to writing about her and Munchkin’s first foray to the peninsula a couple of months ago. Originally, we had planned to go to Dubai as a family to celebrate S’s birthday, taking advantage of the long Easter weekend and the rare direct flight from Kigali. With D’s grandmother’s passing a few days before our scheduled vacation, however, the trip became a solo parenting adventure for S.
Munchkin had been talking about leaving school and going to nana’s house for weeks on end. Of course, he was much more excited about the three airplanes than S with her 8-month bump and old-lady compression socks, who was decidedly more apprehensive about the 25-hour trip. All in all, he was a very good traveler, sleeping overnight from take-off in Entebbe until touchdown in Amsterdam, and eventually napping on the flight to JFK as well.
It’s been a while since we’ve felt the urge to tickle the keys of our laptops – more than a month has gone by since we’ve last added a page to this digital story of our Foreign Service life. A month spent in a whirlwind of work deadlines and pre-departure preparations, interrupted by the occasional social outing and a visit from one of our Moldova-era friends.
