Recap of today

My toes are cold; we’ve plummeted from 100°F to 70°F since Miriam was born. I put away the fan this afternoon and I’m even considering wearing socks full-time, at least while in the house. It always seems chillier in the house than outside during the winter.

Maadi is a wonderful neighbourhood to live in because there are so many trees to shade the streets. It’s absolutely fantastic in the summer and even nice in the winter, except that our jaundice-walks aren’t working very well. Not only is it difficult to find a sunny patch of sidewalk (or street) to stand in, locals would think I’m a terrible mother for having my baby’s bare skin showing in this "cold, cold" weather.

The Egyptians have started donning their winter coats and babies are carted around in little bassinets, swaddled in blanket after blanket.

Our jaundice-walks have thus morphed into jaundice-standing-by-the-open-windows. The master bedroom lets a lot of sunshine in during the day if we open the shutters. Miriam and I stood in the window for a half hour today and sat in a chair by the window for another half hour more.

Rachel and Grandma went for a walk so Miriam and I waited by the window to wave to them. Rachel had a hard time finding us and then wanted to know where we were; she didn’t quite understand that we were still at home since she had left home, gone around the corner of our apartment building, and was half-way to the Cannon’s house.

We also got to see a motorcycle drive by dragging a big palm frond behind him. The frond was probably three times the length of his motorcycle and it was just tied to the back; the driver acted like everything was normal even though it was an absurd site and made a horrible racket as it scraped along the pavement.

Rachel loves to hold baby Miriam still and demands to do so frequently. She has to be watched carefully, though, because when she’s finished holding her she just drops her. We’re working on having her tell a grown up when she’s finished.

Today was Daddy’s long day at school. He misses us when he’s gone for so long; when he came home he walked over to me and kissed me hello, then he fixed the internet, and then he took Miriam from me and collapsed on the couch in pure bliss.

“I love this!” he said.

And then we watched and laughed while Rachel rode around the living room on her camel puppet. She looked so goofy waddling around with the puppet pinched between her knees. I think she was trying to gallop because she was moving fairly quickly but she just couldn’t quite break into a full gallop due to the waddle. She was gawaddling. Or gawalloping. Something. It was cute.

We quickly had dinner, which Grandma prepared (and the first she’s had to since we came home from the hospital—hooray for Relief Society), and then moved onto Family Home Evening.

We filled out the family tree from the October 2009 Friend with pictures of our “ancestors.” It doesn’t really feel appropriate to use the term ancestors since Rachel and Miriam still have two full sets of living great-grandparents. Their great-grandparents are our grandparents and since we know/knew them they can’t be ancestors…right? Or does this just mean we’re getting old?

Rachel understood where she went on the tree, and she understood where Andrew and I went on the tree but things got pretty sketchy after that. Understanding which set of grandparents belong to which parent is still a little confusing for her. My favorite part of the evening, however, was when Andrew said,

“And did you know that Naanii has a Mommy and a Daddy?”

Rachel looked up at him, full of surprise and innocence, and said, “No, I didn’t know that!”

She was pleased with the end result, even though we couldn’t scrounge up pictures of Karen’s parents (due to the internet being down all. day. long).

In other news, Miriam used the potty twice today. She’s getting alert enough now that I’m getting brave enough to hold her over Rachel’s little potty. It’s one thing to hold a new born baby over a potty; it’s an entirely different thing to hold a sleeping new born baby over a potty. I mean, they’re limp enough as it is when they’re awake…

And Miriam’s getting more alert…at midnight. Now we just need to get her sleeping at midnight and alert at noon. Part of me thinks it’s a coping mechanism for being Rachel’s little sister—only wake up while she’s sleeping.

She will take a pacifier, which is awesome. Except that it kind of makes me feel like I’m neglecting her somehow.

Oh, and I got a massage this morning. Sharon Levanan gave it to me as a baby gift—a hand, foot, and head massage. It was wonderful. She soaked my feet in warm water while she massaged my hands and arms. Then she rubbed down my feet with these scratchy gloves and then massaged my feet and claves. And then she massaged my shoulders, neck, and head. It was divine, I tell you, divine!