This and that

  We had a couple days of reprieve where Robert awoke around 6:30 a.m., but this morning we were back to the 5:30 a.m. rise.  After he and I were reprimanded by the matron of the house a few days ago for being too loud too early, I've been trying a new strategy of making him play with toys or look at photos on the iPad for a while in his bed and then when he gets tired of that I take an activity out to the balcony outside our room. That way instead of being loud inside and waking up the guests in the house, he can just wake up the whole neighborhood. :)   (Actually, the rooster across the street is so loud and persistent, it's hard to believe anyone within a mile radius can sleep past 6 a.m.)

We didn't have anything on our agenda today, so we did what we often do on slow days – laundry.  Last week when we did laundry, it started to rain right after we had hung up all the clothes on the line outside. We thought, what the heck, that'll just give them another rinse cycle – the one we do in the rinse bucket isn't that great anyway. We left the clothes out overnight to dry, but then in the morning it rained again. That was not the greatest strategy as it led to the onset of Mark's mortal enemy – the smell of mildew.  He's been plugging his nose and valiantly fighting against it ever since.  Today's laundry set-up included a vinegar bucket to try to combat the worst offending apparel. We'll see if it's safe for him to start breathing through his nose again soon.

In other news, Mark took on the heroic task of clipping and filing Robert's fingernails and toenails this afternoon. They had quite a grooming operation set up on the front porch, with Robert sitting calmly and handing Daddy the tools as needed. Robert kept telling him, "Be veeerrry be careful."  When they were finished, we demonstrated how to hold out your hands and show them off, and after that he was as proud as could be – presenting them to whoever would look, including us about 10 more times.

Tonight I made the lentil soup again for the house (except this time it was actually with lentils; last time we couldn’t find them at the store and had to substitute something called brown beans.)  Mark, Robert and two German men who are staying here walked down to the market to get some chapati, avocado and maize, and we all enjoyed a fine feast.

That's the update for today.  We've got some deeper thoughts brewing, but we're tired, and after 12 hours of downloading from iTunes on our sluggish internet connection, we now have three new Parks and Recreation episodes to catch up on. 

Sending you our love from across the world.