Noche Buena

Tropical Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and Manila is empty,
They’re all in the provinces, visiting family.
I in my sandals, and Lisa is dressed
for the warmth of the tropics, this weather’s the best!
Outside the gates there arose such a clatter,
We dashed to the guard hut to see what was the matter -
There was Donder and Blitzen, but no reindeer,
they celebrate Christmas with fireworks here!

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night!!!!!!  We Love you! (well, most of you; this is the internets, so some of you we probably don’t even know.  But Merry Christmas to you, too!).

 

Aunt Mary

My aunt Mary passed away on November 8th after suffering a stroke in early October. She was 96 years old, so I guess she was nearly retirement age the first time I met her, but she always seemed to have such a youthful outlook. She loved to travel and had wonderful souvenirs from all over the world; saris from Varanasi, weird little cookies from Japan that seemed to never get stale, lace from Belgium, things like that. As a former art professor with a special interest in textiles, she kept a house full of things that fascinated my little girl self. Spinning wheels, drop spindles, and looms, and she taught me how to use them all. I remember one visit when we dyed wool using natural dyes; onion skins heated in water made the wool turn various shades of yellow depending on which kind of metallic salt the wool had been treated with. A particular species of lichen made it a brown color. Tiny Mexican cochineal bugs turned it red. At the end of every visit I would always cry when it was time to leave; we had never stayed long enough, and there were never plans to return any time soon.

When I was older, she wanted to share her love of travel with me and two of my cousins and invited us on a trip to Europe. If she hadn’t done that, I don’t think I’d be in the Foreign Service today. She was fiercely independent and accomplished so much that it’s easy for me to forget that her scholarly and professional achievement happened before the women’s movement ever came along. I’m not doing her justice in this post, but she was a wonderful aunt and role model for me and I loved her very much; I’ll really miss her.

Happy Birthday, GrandDaddy!

Today is the 88th anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite people.  For the last 6 years now I’ve been thinking how lucky I was to discover so much later than most people, that there really was that one person out there made just for me, and I finally found her.  And shortly after doing so, I met the people responsible for making her.  I’m speaking of course of my Lisa, and her Mama, and her Daddy, Tom .  And today is Tom’s birthday, and Lisa and Ginny and I want to send all our love in his and MamaJean’s direction today.

We open the post with a picture of  GrandDaddy a few years ago…. OK, QUITE a few years ago…  on his commission as a Navy officer and aviator.  Since this pic was taken, he fought a world war, opened and operated his own business for a while, married a true Southern Belle, and sired my favorite person in the whole world, my wife Lisa.   There are no pictures of Tom and Ginny together yet, but we’ll correct that in January; for now, they’ll have to be happy with being together in the same blogpost.   Here’s Ginny with a big smile for GrandDaddy on his birthday!

A Smile for GrandDaddy

Happy Birthday, Tom, and I hope you have many many more!
We’re looking forward to seeing everybody in January; we’ve finally got approval at work for Lisa’s leave, and we’re working out details now to see everybody we can; we’ll be in touch to let you know where we’ll be and when.
We had a pretty big weekend here; one of the highlights of the year on US Embassies around the world is the annual Marine Corps Birthday Ball, held as close to November 10th as possible.  This year’s was Friday the 6th, at the fancy Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City here in the Manila Metro area.  I told a little about the ceremony last year, with the cake, and the youngest Marine in the Philippines, and the oldest… well, I guess last year’s oldest shipped back out, cuz this year’s oldest was a relatively young 60 year old, and the youngest was one of our Guard Detachment Marines again.  We stuck around long enough to taste the cake this year; it wasn’t quite as pretty as last year’s, but the party was a Hoot! (Shout out to all my Wisconsin friends, for the word Hoot as something other than the noise an owl makes).  I’ve mentioned time and again what a treat it is to get Lisa on the dance floor on those rare occaisions she’s willing to humor me; this year it was her idea at least half of the time, and we had a blast!!
I have pictures of the Marine Ball, of course, but a weird thing happened, and I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera after uploading some more pictures of Ginny.  Well, no problem, the camera has a little bit of on-board memory for just such emergencies… but since I always use the card, and I snatch the pictures off by removing the card from the camera and reading it in a reader on the PC (faster that way), I can’t figure out where I’ve hidden the proprietary cord that connects the camera to the PC.   So when I find it, I’ll post some pictures of happy people in party clothes!
In the meantime, Peace, Love, and Happiness to all y’all, and one more Big Happy Birthday to GrandDaddy Tom!

Three Months Old

Little Ginny Bean turned 3 months old today, and to celebrate we went into Rockwell (an area of Makati, which is itself a subset of Metropolitan Manila) to visit Dra. Pia Lorenzo, her paediatrician.  Final verdict is Ginny is very healthy and happy, and nearly on the money development-wise; we got her weight immediately up to the 50th percentile after the admonition of “too skinny” way back in September, and she’s hewing right to the 50th P line ever since.  She’s a little taller than average, at 25 inches today, and she’s got a big ol’ head, like her Daddy.  Hopefully, she’ll grow in to it.  It’s a beautiful head though, as evidenced here:

BigHead Ginny

We got some homework from the doctor; developmentally, she’s doing well, but she doesn’t get enough head, neck, and back exercise – “Tummy Time” is the key to that development, so she’s gotta have more tummy time, which she and most babies appear to like almost as much as I like liver and onions.  Which isn’t much.  But she and Daddy are now on a workout program, ten minutes at least 4 times a day.  There is some screaming involved, but she’ll get used to it, and soon she’ll be sitting up!!

We FINALLY got our leave dates approved from Lisa’s work, so we’re cementing details on a trip home to the US roughly Jan 9 to 29.   We’ll be barnstorming a bit, having to hit Atlanta, Jackson MS, and the DC-MD area, but we’ll get an itinerary to those who care, maybe you can come find us in one of those places.   David and Katie, this means you two, specifically   You’re not morally obligated to visit your uncle Steve, but you are obligated to visit your mothers… I just think you should do it when your Uncle Steve happens to be in town…

On an interesting but unrelated note, I’ve got some additional news… I told some of y’all when I was home in June that I had been scheduled to take the Foreign Service Officer Test that week; well, I missed it of course, but they re-tested in Manila in October, and I’ve passed!   That’s only step 1, of course; I now have to write a series of essays to indicate that my resume isn’t a pack of lies, then if that goes OK I’ll be invited to attend an Oral Assessment and Review.  That happens in the US, so I’ll get to make one more trip home before next September!! Exciting!

Ah – further explanation, or lack thereof – neither Lisa nor I can remember exactly when or why we started calling Ginny “the bean” but we did, and it’s kinda stuck.  I also call her GinnyBinny on occaision, and her YaYa (nanny, in Tagalog) can’t seem to grasp the phonetic difference between Ginny and Jenny, so calls her the latter.  This same YaYa, Ednalyn, also meows and sings “here kittykittykitty” to calm “Jenny” down when she cries.  She’s a little strange, but she’s great with the Bean, and loves spending time with her, and dressing her up and showing her off to the other compound YaYas.  And for that reason, I got a little schoolin’ from Ednalyn this morning when it was time to take Ginny to see Dra. Pia.  I fed Ginny her 9 am bottle, shared an invigorating belching session with her, and changed her diaper, then picked out something for her to wear to the doctor, a pretty little pink onesie with the words “Little Girl” on the front.  I thought with the ongoing lack-of-hair situation, it was only fair to give people a little hint.   So I’ve got her all dressed, and up comes Ednalyn, to make sure I’ve not forgotten anything, or done anything stupid (she knows her job very well).  The scene played out like this:

EDNALYN (Sees Ginny, adopts a troubled expression): That what she going to wear, sir?

ME:   Yes, isn’t it nice?  (sees troubled expression) it’s clean!!   (expression persists) Is it OK?

EDNALYN (In a tone of voice one might use to address a retarded child):  No Sir.  Something Nice.  She going out.

At which point Ginny was whisked from my arms, and quickly redressed in a beautiful pink dress with flowery bloomers and a print of Pooh and Piglet on the front.  Of course, you know everybody who saw her at the doctor’s office commented on how beautiful she was, and what a nice outfit she had on.  That lady’s worth her weight in gold.

Well, I could write all night, but I’ll save some for later… we’ve topped the One Thousand mark on pictures of Ginny, and I’ve shared a hunk of  ‘em, but she changes nearly every day still, so I’m always taking more.  I send a packet of new ones to Pop every once in a while; if anyone’s jealous and wants prints, lemme know.

Peace!

19.5 degrees North x 99 degrees West; AKA Ciudad de Mexico!

We’ve been given our Forward Assignment!!  I know, yes, it’s quite early – we have another year here in Manila, they just do the assignments a year in advance of your exit – so for Junior Officers, who do 2-year tours, you learn at the halfway point where you’re going next.  Anyway -

  The picture above is Ciudad de Mexico, or Mexico City, or the Federal District of Mexico.  It’s known as “DF,” short for Federal District Backwards and In Spanish, in State-Department-speak.
It’s stop #2 on the New World Tour, announced last week via an e-mail from the Department of State.  It’s a gigantic city, nearly 9 million in the city, 19 million in the Metro area, compared to 1.6 city, 12 million metro for Manila.  The complaint we’ve heard that DF is crowded though rings a little hollow – according to WikiPedia, Manila’s population density is 111,500 people per square mile, whereas the DF is “only” 6500 per square mile. By comparison, LA is 8200/sq. mile, NYC is 27,000, and Atlanta is 4018/sq. mile inside the city.

It’s tropical, it’s Latin, it’s rich in history, and sometime around May or June of 2011, it’ll be Home!

Typhoon Headed North

Just a quick note to say that Typhoon Parma/Pepeng is now forecast to hit the extreme northern end of Luzon (that’s the big island that Manila is on the southern part of) and we shouldn’t get anything too bad. It’s been overcast and a little rainy this morning, but nothing serious.

And Success!

We managed to get back to the Picture Company a week or so after Lisa’s disappointed post entitled “Thwarted.”  This time Ginny was a little more receptive, and the photographer, Abu, managed to get some nice ones.  Here’s a montage we got from them.

If you click on the photo, you’ll get a monstrous-big version so you can look at the individual photos that made up the montage.  Lisa’s hands making the heart and Ginny holding my thumb were Abu’s creative contributions to the thing, and he was very patient and easygoing with her; I was pleased with both the experience and the results, which were far better than I expected on both counts.

Time is flying by as it has become accustomed to doing; Lisa goes back to work a week from today and we’ll adjust to yet another new reality.  I won’t be flying solo, of course; the “Ya-ya” or Household Helper/Nanny we’ve hired is starting to take more of a role with Ginny these days, and she’ll help out.  Til recently, she’d been taking care of cooking and housework leaving us free to worry about Nothing But The Baby, but now she may do a “put down for nap” or pick up from a nap, so I can take a nap or two myself.  I’m going to try to take the bulk of the overnight responsibility so Lisa can get enough sleep to function at work.  

Ginny is getting about 2/3 of her diet from breastfeeding, the rest supplemented with formula in a bottle; to keep that going Lisa will extract and store milk a couple of times a day at work, and at first at least, Ginny and I will make a run up to the Embassy at lunchtime for a little boobysnack for the baby.   That way we’ll be able to keep the breastmilk percentage up as high as possible, and I’ll get to have lunch with Lisa, which we’ve really come to enjoy doing with her being home these last 7 weeks.

Ginny is healthy and happy and gaining weight at a healthily-fast rate, according to her doctor; we’re at 9 lbs. 12 oz. as of this morning, or two pounds over initial birth weight.  Hard to believe some babies are born this big and even bigger – Ouch!!

We’re starting to think about making a little trip the weekend after Christmas, over the New Year holiday; we think it might be nice to do a touristy thing with Ginny, so we’re going to visit Bangkok for a few days, and tick another country on my “Cool Places I’ve visited that a lot of people haven’t” list.   I might never catch cousin Tony, but I’m going to give it a run.

Also, we’ll be home for a long stay in January of 2010, and should get to see most everybody.  We’re going to land in ATL, visit Mississippi, and finish up in MD/DC/VA on a three-week trip in mid-January.   We’re in the process of what the State Department calls The Bidding Cycle, where they give us a list of available jobs for Lisa to move to for her second tour, we give them around 20 “bids” rated High, Medium, and Low, which indicates our level of desire to work there.  The cynic in me says we then get a letter from the government assigning us to another city altogether, not among our bids, but in reality they try to assign us to a High post, as long as we’re realistic about our High bids.   They’re in the process of revising the list of places we can choose from now; the original list was full of awesome and fascinating places, many of which have already been removed from it, so we’ll have to see what the final chapter is.  We’ll know something very soon, though – it’s very exciting!

That’s enough for now – more pics, and more on the Onward Assignment, in a future post.

One Month Old, and Counting

One Month Old Today

Wow, time flies when you’re sleep-deprived… Ginny is one month old today, and the time has simply whizzed by us.   We got lucky with the pediatrician’s schedule and were able to get our one-month appointment to actually fall on the exact one-month date, today, so we have a good accounting of how things are going.  At our last appointment, 17 days ago, Doctora Pia asked us to increase feedings and try to engender some weight gain, as Ginny was a little too small for her age.  She said we should strive for 2/3 of an ounce a day, and three quarters would be even better.  Well, we over-acheived; today she was 22 ounces heavier than she was 17 days ago, and there don’t seem to be any stomach upsets or other ill effects of too much weight gain, so Dra. was delighted with our progress.  She’s 22.5 inches long now (Ginny, not Dra. Pia; Doctora is about the same size as last time, near as I could tell), and her head has grown an inch and a half in circumference, though I confess I don’t remember the real number.  Suffice it to say she’ll have a big ol’ head like her daddy.   She still has a little ways to go though; see?

Nap with Daddy

Her blood work finally came back for all the potentially bad stuff babies get, and she was negative for everything; she breezed through the one-month milestones test with the doc, and everything’s just as it should be.  Lisa’s concerned that the baby’s too quiet, too calm, doesn’t scream enough, she must be sick.  I’m trying to learn new languages in which too say “Shut Up”, or “Be careful what you wish for…”

Okay, on to the next thing – it’s apparently a very big deal here for everyone to try to determine who the baby favors : does she look more like Mommy, more like Daddy, more like cousin Frank, or does she bear a disturbing resemblance to the Filipino boy who cleans the pool??  And this is mostly a game the girls play, and I think it’s a stacked deck.  They all say the baby looks like Lisa.  I love Lisa, and I love the baby, but I’m danged if she doesn’t look, to me, a lot like Melanie Brown when she was little – and a strong resemblance to my sister at certain angles, too.  So everybody, Hineses, Mooties, Lees, Rainwaters, etc:  have a look, compare to family members and old family fotos, and tell us what you think!! We’re interested to know what people see in her.   All we can see, so far, honestly is this amazing little person we’ve made – the rest doesn’t really stick yet.  So play along, and let us know what you think!  These two fotos are pretty good shots of her face and peronality, what little of it there is so far, so check ‘em out.

Thanks for playing along, and for all the good wishes!!  I’m a few thank-you notes behind, but thanks to everyone who’s sent little treasures – we do treasure each and every one!!   Nadeen, if you’re watching, the next post will have a foto of the Monkey Blanket – it was a LIFESAVER yesterday on our trip to the Embassy, where the air conditioning threatened to hypothermify little GinnyRose. 

More soon, and Big Love to all Ginny’s family and well-wishers.

Aaaaahhh-Choooop!

That’s what you call it when you’re washing the baby, and she sneezes, and a little rocket of poop shoots out her backside onto Mommy’s sweatpants.   The sneeze-poop is surely the single funniest moment of Parenthood so far.

Ginny at 10 days, 14 Aug.

Ginny is thriving, at least as far as we can tell; we’re off to the paediatrician this morning to get her opinion as well. 

Her umbillicus stump fell off yesterday morning, so she can start wearing clothes instead of just the swaddle; she had on grandma’s beautiful jungle-themed jumpsuit for a minute yesterday, but she, um… must have sneezed in her sleep, if you get my meaning.  Anyway, those are getting washed now.

Here’s a nifty picture of her in another cute little suit.

Bouncy-chair baby

So far I’ve been able to refrain from putting her in clothes, taking a picture, changing her clothes, taking more pictures, etc… but I’m afraid the day is coming.  Babies are just plain cute, and of course Ginny is the fairest of them all, in at least one possibly-biased opinion.
OK, back from the doctor.
General opinion is Ginny appears to be thriving, doing very well, great color, hit all her little milestones and even ahead in a few.  But her weight is a little low.  I’m not sure all the scales were synchronized, so I’m not sure how 7 lbs 12 oz at the hospital relates to 7 lbs 2 oz today at the doctor, so we’ve got a “fatten her up” order.  That should be do-able; we’re going to add a little snort (1 – 1.5 oz) of formula at the end of each breast feeding session to get some extra calories in her – Doc wants her to gain most of an ounce a day.
More soon, with more pictures, but Skinny Ginny is a healthy and happy baby.
Peace to all y’all!!

Fatherhood!

I can only say so far that it’s equal parts exhausting, rewarding, and intimidating.

I’m going to post my two favorite (so far) pictures of Little Ginny, here below.  The first one is her at about 5 hours old, the second at one week (that’s today).

She’s was born at a healthy 7 lb 12 oz weight, and lost a bit the first four days; we’re told that’s normal, and she had a little jaundice, which is also normal or at least not uncommon, and that makes the weight loss even more normal… so we weren’t too concerned.  We think we’re back to very near birth weight now, after one week, but all the weights we have come from 3 different scales and are wildly different, so we’ll learn for sure at the doctors office on Friday.

The local treatment method for light birth jaundice is a little early-morning-only sunshine direct on the baby’s skin; before 9 am the danger of a burn is low, and we give her 15 minutes on her back and 15 more on her belly, and I think it’s her favorite time of day already.  She basks like a lizard on a hot rock, and really seems to get all peaceful during what her doctor calls “Boracay Time.”

She’s returning to a more normal pink color nowadays, and we’re spending all our time learning how to make our lives fit with her needs.  She’s a pretty good baby so far from what I’ve heard; cries less than some, sleeps better than many; she’s a little tough to feed, but she eventually gets the job done, as evidenced by the quick weight recovery. 
All in all, one Happy Baby, two tired but Happy Parents!