our lives in small town, East Africa

Saturday, July 25, 2009

birthday party

We invited friends over on Juma's birthday Wednesday for a Bakugan-themed party. (Good thing he let me know if plenty of time that he wanted Bakugan, because party items are not in stores yet; I had to order everything online, including the edible cake picture.)




I had the lucky fortune of having access to the great reception hall downstairs from our apartment, so the kids had a gigantic room to run around in, make noise, hide, and just be kids.

The video below contains some highlights of the party, including Juma opening presents from Justin, me, G'ma and G'pa Beckham, and G'ma and G'pa Wilson. If you think you hear Justin's voice in there, you do. He was on video chat while Juma opened the special present from him.

Also, you catch a couple glimpses of my mom--she flew all the way out here to visit during Juma's birthday. I just took her back to the airport this morning. We had a great time with her here, but I think she was missing Dad enough that it was time to go home.



And here is the birthday boy himself. Seven years old, four feet tall, and as great a kid as a mommy could want. I love you, Juma!



Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Monday, July 20, 2009

mom's in town

My mom came to visit Juma and me for 10 days, and we've been running to and fro seeing the sights and keeping ourselves entertained.

Friday, we dropped Juma off at summer camp and then saw Harry Potter 6, which was quite entertaining. Saturday, we dropped Juma off at a babysitter's and took the train into New York City to see Mamma Mia! on Broadway. Also quite entertaining, and I've had Abba songs stuck in my head ever since. We got back around seven, picked up Juma, ate dinner, then gabbed into the night (as mothers and daughters do).

Sunday after Mom went to church, we visited Yale's two art galleries, where we saw everything from portraits of the British leisure class with their favorite dogs to 5000 year old pots from China to Buddha's footprints to carved masks from southern Tanzania.

Next, we took an afternoon stroll around a lovely city park that used to be a private estate, and is still surrounded by a stone fence that seems to belong in a Jane Austen movie. I had to be home for work after that, so we relaxed and watched Nacho Libre, giggling our faces off at Jack Black's funnies.

Today we got a slow, summer vacation start on the day. Since this is Juma's only "real" summer vacation week where he doesn't have any summer day camps to go to, he took advantage of his leisure time by watching Sponge Bob Square Pants all morning. And I do mean all morning. I had a little work to attend to once again, but around noon we took a quick tour of the Yale library, then I sent Mom and Juma off to the public library while I had another appointment.

This afternoon we introduced Mom to the Peabody Museum of Natural History, a long-time staple of entertainment and education in our family. I realized we've been going there for six years, since before Juma could say much more than "Die-saur! Raarrr!" Now it's, "No, Mom, that's a mosasaur, not a plesiosaur," and, "Hey, they moved the triceratops skulls. But where's the torosaurus?"

After those trips, we were 10,000-step pooped-out, and just relaxed the rest of the evening.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

the apartment, part 2

Continuing the tour from "the apartment, part 1"...

Near the art corner, there's an open doorway into another "hall." The view from there is of Justin's desk area



Here's a closer view of Justin's desk area. Since he's been gone, I've taken over this desk, since it provides a good view of the living room where Juma usually plays, is much closer to Juma's room, and is much, much closer to the fridge.



Looking back from Justin's desk toward the entry/hallway, you see this area. I've had grand plans of making it a "reading corner," but without a nice comfy chair to put where that uncomfortable wooden chair is, it hasn't happened.



Directly off this hallway are the bedrooms. The master bedroom:



Juma's bedroom:



Off the other side of the hallway, opposite the bedrooms, is the living room:





The living room blends into the dining room:





And off of the dining area is, naturally, the kitchen. Strangely, it's in two parts:





And finally, as if the builders remembered only at the end, there's the bathroom, hiding behind the dining area, oddly enough.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

the apartment, part 1

Now that my mom came to town (woohoo!) I finally cleaned the whole house all at once. Quite a task. Before a whirlwind hits again, I snapped some pictures so you can finally see the place...six months after we moved in.

It's an extremely strange layout, and there are some big spaces that are kind of giant hallways, rather than actual rooms, but we've used them as rooms, and haven't figured out what to call them. So they're more like "this corner" and "that area." Well, here goes. I'll start where you walk into the house and move from there.

You walk up a steep, narrow, 18-step staircase to be greeted by...shoes. How exciting.



Then as you turn around to face the room instead of the wall, you see one of the "halls" that doesn't really have a name.



If you walk to the other side of the "hall," you find our art corner, part 1 and part 2.





Standing in between the art corners, and facing back toward the entryway, you see this:



In the middle of this hall is a great sky light, which brings in a lot of natural light and nourishes this great plant we inherited from the previous residents. If you are still standing in the spot the above picture shows, right behind you is a gigantic closet with two parts. One we use as a utility/miscellaneous closet



and one as a clothes closet.



Also in that area we've designated a "sports shelf," to keep our climbing, baseball, basketball, and biking equipment handy.



Of near the shoes, there's a room that in the past has been used as both a bedroom and an office. Currently, it's a multi-purpose room, holding my desk (this is where I labored to finish my thesis):



the "maker corner," where we keep every odd bit of junk to take apart and rebuild into new things:



and the computer our employers keep for job purposes, but that we rarely use (not that we don't work--we do, just use our computer instead):



More in another post...

Thursday, July 16, 2009

count down



We've been counting down every day Justin has been gone. We started with 101 days, and a chain the stretched across the wall. It was depressing, seeing how long it was. But slowly, slowly, a link at a time has disappeared.

The other day, Juma commented that he missed Justin so bad, and that as soon as he sees him, he's going to give him the biggest hug ever!

We miss you, Justin. Five weeks! Five weeks!

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

juma-ism

Juma: from the couch Mom, come here.

Sarah: What's up, babe?

Juma: I'm not sure you want me to tell you this, but...

Sarah: trying to balance the role of parent with confidante What? You can tell me, it's ok.

Juma: I think...I think I'm addicted to resting. I've been resting on this couch for an hour.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

dragon and lyra

I'm pretty sure we're the worst pet owners ever. Ok, maybe we've just had bad luck.

Yes, we've had yet another pet funeral.

Actually, a double pet funeral.

Juma's two green anole lizards, Dragon and Lyra, died within a couple weeks of each other. Juma figures it was a communicable lizard disease. I doubt that, but whatever it was, we'll miss watching them chase crickets.

We always have a little funeral to help Juma cope and grasp, in his six-year-old way, a little bit about death. This time, we buried them in our backyard under a homemade gravestone.

(Juma thought the digging was a blast.)




Goodbye Dragon and Lyra!

grandma's summer reading club

Justin's Grandma Beal was a great reader, and encouraged her 13 grandchildren to read by starting a summer reading club. A certain number of pages or books earned them prizes, and at the end of the summer she'd treat all her (reading) grandkids to ice cream, toys, videos, and even grand prize money. (Justin and I, already big readers ourselves, and a bit old for the club, got the satisfaction of being able to exchange books and opinions about them with Grandma.)

We lost Grandma Beal to cancer just four days before Juma was born, this week seven years ago. Justin's mom, Vicki, re-instituted the reading club for her six grandchildren.

Juma's was a little reluctant to start, but since I allowed him to read in bed before he falls asleep, he's been reading three or four books a night. That kid, like many, will do anything to put off sleep. He's already earned the first two levels of prizes:

a slurpee




and a dollar store purchase of his choice



I've also continued to read to him, especially books that he believes are a bit hard for him. Lately, we've read The Indian in the Cupboard, the entire Great Brain series, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, and How to Eat Fried Worms, all books I read when I was a kid. We've also read most of the Harry Potter books, but have taken breaks as things get a little scary for him. We are currently paused in the middle of the Order of the Phoenix.

As for me, (Grandma Beal would like to know) I'm currently reading When Atheism Becomes Religion: America's New Fundamentalists, In Fact: The Best of Creative Non-fiction, and Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster, and Speak Peace in a World of Conflict.

Friday, July 10, 2009

summer day camp: cabinet of curiosities

Juma's second week of day camp went wonderfully. He felt like the hours and days just flew by. Here are the things he created and collected.


The cabinet




Inside the cabinet




a magnifying glass



A globe




a flower




a flea circus




decorations of the inside of the door




a mummy's coffin




a mummy's coffin, opened




a castle




a bird on a bird stand




a skeleton




a ship in a bottle




a rock




a merman with spears that shoot fire and smoke




treasure maps