Strangely, it seems as though that pain i had 4 years ago (almost to the day) in my right lower abdomen, is back again with a vengeance. I had always attributed it to that walk around Ile aux Nattes island, but now that it's come back at almost the exact time postpartum, i'm wondering whether it's some kind of muscle strain that is induced by how i carry/pick up/bend over my baby. Whatever the case, i'm in semi-agony. It's great incentive to do my exercises, but apart from that i'm not sure what i can do to alleviate the discomfort (because 'Aleve' is no longer a viable option for me due to the effects it has on breastfeeding). Your prayers would be most helpful in this regard.

In other less uncomfortable news, Josh is coming home today from a 2 night trip, which just happened to be over the May (Pentecost) Long weekend. Alas. Holidays without Josh or house help are more work than normal days. Boo-urns to Josh-less holidays! Horray for Josh's return. In anticipation of this i've put a Tandoori Butter Chicken into the slow cooker. I've been reading others' facebook statuses about how they can smell the butter chicken wafting it's sumptuous smell all day as it cooks in the slowcooker and now i can gloat report the same kind of thing to y'all. ;-D It really does smell heavenly and i know that i will receive a similarly heavenly response from my husband when he walks in the door and smells it as the master replies in the parable of the talents, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'* (Mt 25:20-22). When i've made a special meal on a day that Josh comes home late he often responds with a beatific look that glazes over his eyes and says, "I love my wife!" Although i dont thrive on cooking, that kind of response makes it worth the effort.

I've finally found a bird feed that the birds come to our garden for in 'droves', which is quite delightful. (although the birds flying through my living room when the french doors are all open is somewhat of a less delightful thing) It's un-husked rice called "akotri", which our former Lady has in abundance in her home. She brought me a kilo upon my request and we've been enjoying the increase of bird activity in our garden since then. The Red Fody's are currently looking somewhat motley though, since their red plumage is disappearing. As a northern girl i've never really noticed the change in plumage on birds, since most birds where i'm from leave for warmer climes before their colours fade. Now we've just to install some sort of larger water feature in our back garden to attract the Kingfisher Josh was wishing the other day would visit us.

Impetigo (sp) is the bacterial skin yuckiness that Judah had in his nose last week, and which i seem to have aquired now on my leg. It's really gross, but i think i've got it under control with Judah's cream. Pray it doesnt spread to anyone else.

I've got to run upstairs and see if i can wake up Asher so i can make it to Jumbo before i need to pick up the kids from school at 3:30, but i wanted to write that i want to write soon about the outbreak of joylessness is running amok in this neck of the woods. Egad! Joylessness in this environment is just shy of a mortal injury!

Can i write this and upload photos in 20 minutes so i can be in bed by 9:30? 2 night feedings plus a 6am wake up is enough to leave my energy level with a slow leak.

Asher is 6 months today, as it happens. I weighed him in the midwife-mobile at my friend's house: 8.2kg. Next week i'll drive downtown (if there isnt anymore shooting going on there) to pick up his 6 month vaccinations, whoo hoo.

Josh is off tomorrow on a 2-night trip around the country. I wish i wasnt so paranoid about malaria and how to entertain two energetic boys on long flights and in places with nothing to do, otherwise we could go along.

Monday is a holiday: Pentecost. I'm hoping i can find something for Judah to do for a good portion of the day since Josh is away until Tuesday.

This last week i've made two-ten cube trays of pureed baby food. I feel pretty stolz auf mich that i actually did what i said i wanted to do. The cubes of baby food are so beautiful, i cant help but think that they symbolize domestic bliss... either that or self-discipline.

I have also made (drumroll please) homemade teething biscuits! SO easy and sans sugar! Asher tried one out today and it dumbed him up for probably 45 minutes in total. Next time, though, i'm going to make them more rollkuchen shaped, with the whole in the middle for easy grabbing. The ones i made are a bit slippery when covered in drool and he finds it difficult to keep a hold on them.

My heart is currently being pummeled regarding the topic of orphaned children who get left in dumpsters and the firemen who no longer respond to reports of babies left on the street because there are simply too many to respond to... and the fact that the official channels for adopting said un-wanted children is such a nightmare and the orphanages (for the most part) are simply places of squalor. I'd say i should go out and get involved to make the situation better... but i just find myself thinking that the problem is so huge, the corruption so invasive, and my heart is simply to fragile to see firsthand the kind of mess these children are born into at no fault of their own. It has joined my growing list of items for prayer for Madagascar.

the bread is in the machine, the cookie dough is waiting to be rolled and baked. Josh is on his way to Fort Dauphin to rescue more unfortunate Air Mad clients stranded there. and i've just heard that there's shooting down town again. it's still peaceful here in our neck of the woods however, and Judah is going over to a friend's house to play in about 10 minutes. I'm thinking i'll take a nap while he's away... i'm feeling a bit drained.

Photo shoot May 16, 2010
Asher's nickname, fyi, is no longer "Asher Dasher", but "Asher Basher". Geez that kid is HUGE! Today he was wearing a sleeper labled '12 months'. The little "Feed Your Baby" paper i have clipped to the fridge says my baby's tummy is the size of a toonie... well, with the amount of solids that boy is eating i cant see how that is possible! Anyway, a trip to the hangar scale is obviously in order, since the weight to age scale on medicine labels seems way off as well.

Saturday morning shines brightly through the side french door window onto my desk where i'm having a few minutes of "quiet time" while Judah plays with Asher and Josh has gone on a flight. I've managed to make two cakes (spice and chocolate), all that remains is the icing. I've also made two batches of ice cream (vanilla bean and rich chocolate), which taste heavenly, but i'm quite certain they wont stretch very far with the group we have coming this afternoon for Josh's birthday (which was yesterday). Ah well. It's the cake the matters anyway, isnt it?

Josh made a fire in the fireplace (he still loves playing with his slow burning insert) this morning because our living room was a chilly 11C. Brr.

Yesterday on Josh's birthday Judah was at school for the morning, so Josh enjoyed his day off with reading and relaxing. They also spent holiday Thursday scrubbing the deck and cleaning up the old firewood we've had sitting by the side of the house for 2 years (we missed last winter because we were in Kenya), which have since disintegrated somewhat due to the harsh sun and torrential rains. After 3.5 years of nagging Josh now buys wood in summer and stores it in the garage so it's mostly dried out in time for winter, instead of buying wet wood at the end of autumn, which causes no end of frustration when we want to burn it. Anyway, back to Josh's birthday: we went out for lunch at one of the newer restaurants that has popped up on our end of town due to the flash new American Embassy that's just across the street from our church's property. I'm not sure how to explain the restaurants here in Madagascar (for the most part) except to say that they're french and dont have much in the way of imagination or creativity. But this Combava has a lovely atmosphere with a beautiful garden and the mousse au chocolate is to die for! not to mention the chocolate fondant (which is like a warm moist pudding-y cake, not the fondant they use on Cake Boss!) I asked for a tour of the hotel rooms, just because that kind of thing amuses me and besides, we DO get guests from MAF that at times need to stay in a hotel and it has been my job in the past to reserve a room for them. So i reckon it's part of my job to check out the rooms for future reference. Pretty nice, relative to Madagascar that is, although the price is outrageous in comparison. Anyway, we had a lovely lunch there sans enfants (our house help came early to garde Asher while we were out).

There has been another new cafe open up just down the road from where we live. We walked down there the other day to check it out (since we've been waiting for years for a nice cafe around our end of town with a) nice ambiance, b) good food, c) good coffee.) The owner told us that should we have suggestions of what she could add to her menu we should just tell her. This is a huge mark in her favour since, if she caters to what her patrons want (namely the n.americans who live around here) she'll have no shortage of business from us. I reckon our first suggestion will be to change the brand of coffee she uses and perhaps that she should go visit the Cookie Shop across town to get an idea of what we would LOVE to have over here! Yep. It's all about investing in our community on this side of town. Perhaps after a while we'll have fewer reasons to make the trek over there for a good meal and a great cuppa. 

 
Asher is eating voraciously all manner of solids. One of my top to-do items is to start making some baby food recipes so he can move up from cereal and apple sauce.

Judah is working not only on his french and pre-math at preschool, but also doing math workbooks at home. So far he's done a fair bit of addition and is just starting to learn about subtraction. This, above, is Judah doing his homework while Asher has his evening meal.

Judah's nose problem, whose name i can never remember, is finally clearing up thanks to some antibiotic cream from Dr. Aaron. Josh has been so good at remembering to apply the nose cream three times a day and the psoriasis cream to Judah's foot twice a day. bah. what a drag that is! I hope his skin problems get better with age rather than worse!

I have finally, a month past due, completed the lamba quilt i made for a friend. This is the finished product. I'm going to take a rest from quilting for a few weeks before i try that again. For those who are interested in the details: i did the outer pattern a la main, and the inside rectangle with machine. I just did wavy lines that followed roughly the contours of the bridge across the whole picture area, with the exception of the trees (Madagascar travelers palms) which i machine sewed the outlines. The trees looked really cool on the reverse side.

I've far surpassed my grace period for quiet time with two boys begging for attention, so that's as far as i can write today.

How asher is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways!
You will surely eat what your hands have worked for. You will be asher, and it will go well for you.

We've gone the whole week without treats, can you imagine! Judah hasnt watched any movies nor have we bought candies at the shop. Whew!! So today, since Josh was delayed in his flight due to Air-we-cant-get-our-act-together-Mad. being late and therefore his clients being late for their connecting flight with MAF and subsequently him only getting back home after noon rather than at 10:30 we took off downtown on our own to pick up a) my newly framed batik i bought in Kenya (which barely fit into the truck, jeepers that thing is huge!) and b) some dang good icecream. Further to a post i wrote a while back, icecream has become a treat of the highest order since we cant get any good stuff in the shop anymore, Tiko having gone out of business, so when we do go out to get some home made stuff at Aero Pizza or Leaderprice Ankoandrano it's a special event indeed!

Judah's psoriasis on his foot is looking pretty ugly again, and i'm wondering if the spots here and there on his arms and legs are also new eruptions of the same thing (oh, i hope not!!) He's also got a very runny nose and it's all sore and... ick. the poor guy. I'm really hoping that the facial problems are not also the psoriasis... and that he wont have to live with this skin problem getting worse as he grows older.

This (below) i cut/pasted from Christal's blog because i keep thinking about it and i reckon it's appropriate in light of what i blogged about yesterday or whenever that was i blogged last. Thanks for posting it Christal! (sorry i stole it and keep linking to your blog ) I wish you were here (or me there) so we could eat a huge piece of chocolate cake and chat about this topic.

i can hear the children playing out front in that lovely golden late afternoon, late autumn sunshine that is so beautiful in any country i've ever been in.

...
after writing that i thought to myself, "why am i sitting inside this cold cement house in the dark when i could be enjoying that sunshine myself!?" Indeed! So i went out and took some photos and did a bit of quilting on the deck.

Here are the kids playing something about horses (aka. their bikes). They gallop up and down the driveway a couple hundred times enacting some sort of intense drama.

This is the quilt i've almost finished for my friend Heather for her birthday mid-April. I saw something similar (although way less finished) at the Olerai lodge in Kenya and thought it a great and less labour intensive project than a fully quilted quilt. Apparently even less labour intensive is still intense for me. Anyway, it's made from one of the Malagasy "lambas" that they usually wear as skirts or overwraps or to sling their babies on their backs.

 Here's another "Who's Who?"

In other news, i can fit into my pre-pregnancy pants finally... with a healthy sized muffin top all the way around. LOL. Recently i have also been thinking a lot about the figure of a mother, how i am now in that age where most women find themselves somewhat of a different shape than when they were in college and newly married. Yep. It's a struggle. So much so in fact i've found myself doing pilates more than once in a week and for any of you who know how much i HATE doing exercising, that's indicative of how seriously i'm flummoxed by my body shape. ...mind you, obviously the concern comes and goes with the availability of Doritoes and monster cookies in my kitchen. Ha. I have found, however, that although there are fitness freaks within the European community here also, i continue to sense the freedom within the European culture that i first noticed when i was in Latvia (of all places): the freedom of ease with one's own body that we simply arent taught in the Canadian (American) culture. I'm talking, for example, about the freedom and confidence to wear a bikini no matter what your body type because it's simply a) comfortable and b) no one is even remotely bothered by the question of whether or not they look good (or, like a magazine model) in it. The comment i left on Christal's blog on this same topic is something i truly believe and aspire to live out if only to help promote confidence to those around me. I've resolved not to fret over the fact that i dont have a figure conducive to going clubbing... fortunately i can no longer stay up late enough to do such things, so it doesnt matter. LOL. I do need to continue to make a concerted effort to do pilates if only to keep my body parts in working order. As far as other health related endeavors, i just heard from Beth Moore, who read from Randy Frazee's Making Room for Life and John Ortberg's Everybody's Normal 'Til You Get to Know Them that hanging out with people in community does as much to lengthen your lifespan as quitting smoking! And something about those who spend time with friends have proven to get sick less and produce less mucus! I obviously need to work on my social skills, because i've got an overabundance of mucus most of the time (LOL, ok, that's probably too much information.) ...do you reckon hanging out with friends should count for checkmarks on my exercise bribery check-chart in order to get that treat i've been working towards?

I have a tree in my front yard that i call the Winter Tree because no one seems to know the actual name for it. I reckoned that Winter Tree was as good a name as any since it blooms now in late autumn and during the winter months. I would send a photo into a gardening forum online, but i dont know of any in the southern hemisphere that have such (do you?).

I especially like that it's growing there by the arbor and, once those blooms are gone the jasmine blooms crawling up the lattice just behind it are not far behind. I'm pretty stoked to see those jasmine blossoms since i havent been around to see them in bloom since i planted them.

Here are my boys sittin' around in the front garden just after Josh got home from work. Judah is enthusiastically doing his workbook homework since it's one of the items on his chore chart.

And here's picture proof that Asher can sit up en seul. He's also 'creeping' around on the floor quite a bit recently and just today i saw him get up onto his hands and knees. It seems to me it's a bit early for that, but i cant remember what's usual and what's not.