Paro

This week paro (strikes) started in Colombia.  There are several groups protesting different things against the government.  Health workers are protesting recent health reforms passed by congress, coffee farmers are protesting that subsidies from the government to compensate for international falling prices have not reached them,  truckers are protesting high gas prices ($4.82 a gallon),  university teachers are striking because their demands from their last strike have not been met, miners are continuing their strike from the last month about the destruction of mining equipment, rice growers are protesting that the government is not listening to them, sugar cane cutters don't want to be contractors, and Putumayo peasants because they are not allowed to grow coca (you know what that is :).  Then some foster care workers also joined in having to do with insurance stuff.
The strikes started Monday.  Yesterday was the worst day.  About 40,000 people were striking all over the city.  Schools were canceled and Brian came home from work early because there is a big university near the embassy and you know how college students are.  Their strikes usually get violent.
The area that we live in is really safe so we were not really affected by it.  But our housekeeper lives outside of the city and could not get home Wednesday night due to the lack of transportation and could not get in today because of it.  It did get violent in Simon Bolivar park yesterday but we live about 30 blocks from there.  We just watched on the news.  In other cities like Medellin it was bad, dairy farmers were spilling 500 liters of milk on the streets.
Today things seem to be under control in the city.  Caleb's school is open, although some others are still closed.  But he had a huge meltdown going in.  He started out having a rough morning.  So I think that is what set him off.  But August is the month of wind in Colombia, so the school is going to the park for the day to celebrate the wind.  His teacher showed me these colorful plastic streamers they were going to play with and they are having a picnic.  We made cookies last night to bring in and he was excited about it then.  So he should have a good day.  But lately he has been asking me when preschool is over.  I don't know if he just needs a time to know or what.  When I ask him if he likes school he says "yes" and if he has fun he says "yes".  But I worry he is getting overwhelmed with all the Spanish.  I ran into a dad that is going to the park later to spy a bit and he asked if I wanted to come along and get coffee.  So we might go.  I mean it is not spying if we are getting coffee right?!

Empleada

Tomorrow our empleada (housekeeper) is starting.  It is extremely common here to have help.  Most people have an empleada, nanny, and driver.  One day at the park I was talking to some Colombian ladies and when I mentioned I did not have one their response was "Que horror!". Haha!  I get asked a lot if all three boys are mine.  When I say yes, the next question is either if Elias and Oliver are twins (I seriously get asked this like 5 times a day!  How can an 8 month old and 2 year old be twins???)  or, do you do it alone?  As in why don't you have a nanny?  Which I have also been asked!  So when in Rome, or Bogota :). It is seen as helping out the empleada by giving them a job, plus you get help too! When you employ them you help them by paying their pension, transportation if they don't live in, and severance.

We knew we would look for help when we came.  I admit I cannot do it all, raise 3 kids under the age of 5 and have a clean house.  But to be completely honest with you I am a terrible housekeeper.  I can manage to keep myself and the boys mostly clean and we always have clean clothes, but beyond that I am terrible.  My parents really tried with me.  They made me clean my room growing up and every Saturday I was given chores to do.  My brothers and I also had to trade off weeks doing the dishes.  My mom even tried complimenting how well I would clean the bathroom.  My love language is definitely words of affirmation.  And I think she figured that out quickly, it was a good way to get me to do things.  But alas, I am still quite messy.  Brian is the neat one and gets quite annoyed with my shoes, piles, and overall disorganization.

The embassy puts out a weekly newsletter and people leaving post will recommend their housekeeper and nannies.  You can get live in or live out.  We decided since I stay at home and this is our first experience we wanted live out.  So we interviewed 2 ladies and chose the one that we thought would be the best fit.

So she starts tomorrow!  There is a 3 week trial period which if either party is unhappy it is fine to bow out.  She will come 4 days a week.
I am nervous!  As an American I feel like I should not need one.  I mean shouldn't I be able to do it all myself?  Isn't that what we are taught.  You can do it all if you try hard enough!  Plus will it be weird to have her here cleaning while I am not?
But, I am looking forward to a clean apartment!  I hope she likes us!

Happy 8 months to Oliver

Today Oliver is 8 months!  It seems like he has been here so much longer than 8 months.  I will start at the beginning.

I came home from Australia pregnant with Oliver.  I thought when arrived that I was about to finish my first trimester.  Brian and I had talked about having another child, but we had not come to a conclusion and then we found out I was pregnant!  So the decision was made for us!  I had to take fertility drugs to get pregnant with both Caleb and Elias, so getting pregnant naturally was a shock!
When I was 18 weeks Brian and I went in for a regular ultrasound and found out we were having another boy and that I was actually 22 weeks!  I was more upset about losing a month than having a third boy! It was a very emotional pregnancy for me.  I knew this was God's plan for us, but we had so much transition going on!  An international move, a new job for me which included a new school, a class I had never taught before and a changing curriculum for the class I had experience with, adjusting the boys back to the States, Caleb starting pre-school, Brian travelling, and preparing for another international move!  Luckily, physically it was a good pregnancy, no pre-term labor like with Caleb and Elias.

My water broke at 11:45pm on December 22.  I woke up Brian and called the doctor.  My favorite question is always "Are you sure your water broke?"  If you have experienced it, you know!!
Oliver was born at 3:01am on December 23.  He was a repeat c-section.  I was scheduled for one on December 28, obviously he was ready before, and was born 11 days early overall.  He was 6lb 12 oz and 20 in.  We named him, Oliver Gene, Oliver for my maternal grandmother Olive and Gene for Brian's paternal grandmother Jeanne, maternal grandfather Gene.  I had a good recovery and for the first month he was a normal infant.  He nursed very well and did the normal sleepy newborn stuff.
But after the first month the issues began.  I have always said we are "blessed" with difficult infants
and Oliver has been the most difficult.  He developed reflux, which the two also had, so this was no surprise.  He has been on previcid since I think 3 months.  He also has a lot of food allergies.  At first I just thought it was dairy, like the other two.  But when his sleep did not improve after I eliminated dairy I realized there was something more.  His pediatrician referred us to a pediatric GI who informed us that his reflux was secondary to his allergies.  I eventually had to eliminate dairy, soy, egg, and wheat.

Even with the restricted diet, Ollie has never been a good sleeper.  He had to be held during the day for the first 4 months.  Then after sleep training he would sleep in his crib, but not consistently or well.  At around 4 months I noticed he was not using his arms correctly on his tummy.  He would swim, as in keep his arms behind him.  The pediatrician and I thought it was from all the swaddling, so we stopped swaddling and just tried to let nature take it's course.  But after a month he was still not using his arms on his tummy. So we started physically therapy.  The therapist was wonderful and gave us a lot of exercises to do.  It really helped.  She said his arm issues were due to his reflux, since he arched his back so much due to reflux pain.

I don't know why, but I thought everything would get better once we moved.  But he has had the toughest transition.  He was really affected by the altitude and after a month seems to just now be adjusting.  It is also very difficult to stay on my diet here.  I am staying away from wheat and that seems to be sort of working.  I took him to the embassy pediatrician this week and she thinks he is having issues with the allergens in the air.  So we have ordered a humidifier.  We also bought a noise machine which seems to help him sleep as well, since it cuts out noise from his brothers and the city.  But with all that a normal night with Ollie includes 12:30am, 3am, 4am, 5:30am, and 6:30am wake ups. I feed at 4am.  If we are lucky he will go right back to sleep once we re-insert the paci.  But on the bad nights he ends up in bed with us.  You can probably tell from the previously mentioned sleep training, we are not co-sleepers.  I can understand why some families like it, but we all like to have our own space and I never sleep well when he is in bed with us.  I am always afraid I will roll on him in my sleep.

The wonderful thing about Ollie is when he is awake he is so happy!  He loves his brothers!  He is constantly smiling and developmentally right on track.  His arm issues are completely gone as he started crawling this week.  He is babbling, saying"ba ba ba"and "da da da" and he loves to blow raspberries.  He loves to give kisses and hugs.  He loves all attention and will smile at everyone when we are out!  He still nurses really well and eats 2-3 servings of solids a day.

I have gone back and forth a lot on whether to give up nursing because of his allergies.  Everyday, and depending on the night, I have different feelings.  I truly love nursing, but I don't want to hurt my baby!

So that is the short (actually very long) of it!  He is the sweetest and happiest baby when he is awake!  I keep praying his sleep issues will resolve soon!  So happy 8 months Ollie G!  I love your cute and sweet personality and I can't wait to watch you grow!!  I am so blessed to be your Mommy and that God gave you to us as a precious gift!!

8 months!

Our early Christmas gift!

It's been a day. .

You know you just have one of those days where you wish you could just start over.  This was one for us today.

It started off ok.  Oliver had an ok night.  Which means he only woke once at 12:30am before feeding at 4am and then was up at 5:30am, and then 6:30am when I brought him to bed with me to get a little more sleep while Brian was getting ready.  I will blog about all of Oliver's issues another time.  

The big boys were mostly cooperative while getting ready and the walk to school for Caleb was fine.  We stopped at the store on the way home to get a few things and the store had them, which was a success.  The grocery stores here are hit and miss.  Then Ollie took his morning nap and Elias and I had some time together.

I had arranged to meet another mom and her girls at a park after Ollie's nap.  We got there before them and Elias was playing.  This park has big slides with ladders, the old fashioned kind, think back to when you were a kid.  He had gone up the ladder on his own 4 times without help.  The 5th time he fell  off the ladder.  He hit his head pretty bad and was bleeding everywhere.  Another mom stopped to help us and gave me some toilet paper to help stop the bleeding and strapped Oliver back in the stroller so I did not have to worry about him while I was trying to calm down Elias.  I eventually did stop the bleeding and got a band-aid on, luckily it looks like he does not need a stitch.  The rest of the time at the park was fine, Elias played with the girls and I talked with the mom.

Then when I went to pick up Caleb from preschool, his teacher came out with him.  You know it is not a good sign when the teacher comes out with the kid!  But it was not too bad, she just said he is getting hungry before snack time(ie, he needs more breakfast).  We will have to work on this since he is not a big breakfast eater.  Also that he refuses to go to music because it is too noisy.  She was very sweet about it though and said that she takes him out and spends time with him and in time he will be ready to go.

Ollie fell asleep on the walk home and made the transfer to his crib, but he decided an hour nap was sufficient.  I disagreed and he cried for about 45 minutes before he decided to go back to sleep.  I have to re-sleep train him since the move.  More on this later.  

We had another play date after naps.  So we made some trail mix and headed to another park.  At this park, Elias and Caleb were swinging side by side.  Caleb got off the swing and walked in front of Elias, who was still swinging and got kicked in the face.  So now he as a bruise under his eye.

I decided to pick up dinner on the way home.  Ollie had his third nap and when he woke up, I came back to the dining room holding Ollie and Elias was crying and his 2 front teeth were bleeding.  I am still not sure how that happened.  But he was wearing the football helmet, so maybe he somehow bumped into the mouth guard?  Caleb said something about him falling out of his chair.  But Caleb has had some issues with telling the truth lately, so I don't know if his story is accurate either.  Also because he said "I didn't do anything to him!"  hmmmm.  .  . 

Brian has had to work late a few days every week and this was one of them.  So I had to shower the big boys on my own.  But Ollie was not happy that I put him down, so he screamed while I was getting the boys ready for bed.  Luckily Brian came home while I was dressing them and held Ollie.

I know everyone has days like this, but wow, it was rough!!!

Here are some pictures from the week!

Elias wants to be in a package! 

It's a good scary face!

 Elias had fallen out of bed last week and gotten a black eye.  So that is still healing.  I have a friend who recently blogged about needing to wrap her son in bubble wrap.  I might need to join her!!

Now a black eye and busted forehead!

Oliver decided to start crawling this week.

Caleb in his gym uniform.  Why Colombians think white is an appropriate color for gym is beyond me.  He comes home absolutely filthy and his gym uniform is never white after school!!

He has to wear the sweatpants and fleece over the uniform.  But when it is warm enough he can play in just the uniform for the rest of the day.  I think I will be buying bleach soon!!

 

Apartment living

Bogota is a very large city!  It has about 8 million people!  So everyone lives in apartments.  This is our second time living in an apartment as a family.  When Brian and I lived in Manhattan we were also in an apartment.  The apartment here is much different.  Our apartment in NYC was great for our family at the time, it was just the 2 of us.  It was a 1 bedroom with a den.  It suited our needs perfectly.  We lived on 57th and 11th.  It had a shuttle to Columbus Circle and was walking distance to the Hell's Kitchen area that had great food!

In Bogota we live in Chico.  It is a busy area of town and a booming area of town too!  There is construction everywhere!  We walk past 2 sites taking Caleb to school with is only 5 blocks away.

This apartment is 4 bedrooms, and a den.  Each bedroom has it's own bathroom and there is a half bath off the entrance, that makes 5 bathrooms!  It has a galley kitchen and an open dining room/living room.  We are walking distance to 3 parks.  One being Parque 93, which has a play area for kids, a large green space, and lots of cafes and restaurants.  Here are some pictures of our place!

Bathing in a pool!

 One downfall to this place, is there is no bathtub!  So Ollie is bathing in  a pool and the big boys take showers.  I thought they would not like it, but they love it!

decorating Caleb's room!

 We bought decals before we left the States to decorate their rooms.  Caleb chose pirates, Elias chose balls and I chose dinosaurs for Ollie.

 Eventually we will move Caleb into Elias' room and make Caleb's room the guest room.  But for now we can't fit his bed through the door and we don't have tools to take the bed apart.  When the rest of our stuff comes we will have some people come out and take away furniture we don't want and rearrange a bit for us.

We turned the den into the playroom.  Now that we have our air freight we have toys!  We had 750 pounds in our air freight and  I think 4 of the 6 boxes were toys!  We definitely have too many!!

So many toys!!

Our best view is actually from our bathroom!  Mountain living!

The Preschool Process

Brian and I knew one of the biggest challenges we would have in this post as compared to Australia is having a school aged child.  We left Australia right before Caleb started preschool.  He and Elias did go to a drop in center that had some preschool activities that I really liked.  But Caleb's first true preschool was in Olney.  He had a wonderful year there! I loved his teachers and he easily made friends with the other children in his class.
When we first learned of our housing assignment the first thing we did was see what preschools were close.  The embassy puts out a list of schools that other embassy members have used.  We found about 3 that were close so I emailed them to see if there was space.  There was in each school.  So I felt good about it!  Then 3 weeks before the move and 1 week before pack out we were assigned different housing.  The new apartment was 27 streets south of our old apartment.  So all of the schools I had contacted now we could not go to.
I really want to walk Cakeb to school this year.  The English speaking elementary schools are all far and he will have to take a bus.  So for this year I really wanted to walk.
I found 3 schools that were close to walk.  But I could only get in contact with one of them and they said there was space, phew!  So I filled out the application and was feeling ok.
Ok, about preschools here.  They are called "jardin"(garden).  They are all Spanish speaking.  They all start at 18 months of age and go through age 5.  They are all 5 days a week.  Some are half days some are full.  They are all very different!
When we arrived, I called the school that had space to go see it.  I hired a driver since it had 2 locations and the closer location was being renovated.  The boys and I took the tour and at the end the lady said, "I will call you next week to tell you if we have space."  I was pretty upset.  If there was no space than why did I take the tour?  Also what was the point of me filling out the application?
So the search began for a new preschool.  1 week before school started I called the 2 other preschools.  One was a creative arts school and the other followed the Reggio Emilio model, which the kids learn through projects.  It was a tough decision, we knew an American girl that would be in Caleb's class at the arts school, but the class size was really big, 20 kids to 2 teachers, it was a pretty far walk, and I just did not think it was the best fit for Caleb.  So we decided on the Reggio Emilio school.  It is just a 10 minute walk.  For now it is half day, but when he is adjusted, his Spanish improves, and we think he is ready he will do 8:30-2:30.  He will be able to go swimming every Tuesday, gym twice a week, art twice a week, and music once a week.
Today was his first day and I think it went well.  I prepped him with a few key phrases, "puedo ir al bano" (can i go to the bathroom), "ayudame por favor" (help me please), his teacher's name, and "gracias".  There were no tears on his end.  I got a little teary as I left.  His teacher said he did well.  He said he was nervous at first, but thenwas ok.  He talked about playing outside and when I asked if he wanted to go back tomorrow he said "yes"

Caleb is ready to go wearing a new shirt from his preschool!

Ready to walk to school!

.
I am feeling optimistic.  But I know it might be a tough transition.  Hopefully he will make some frinds soon and start picking up Spanish! 

tres hijos?!

We have been in Bogota a little over a week now and I thought I would start to write my initial impressions of the city and people.
The first is the reaction we get to having 3 kids.  At first I was not sure if people were so surprised that it was 3 kids or 3 boys, hijos in Spanish means both children and male children.  Every time I leave the apartment with the boys I get at least 3 comments, either to me or about me.  I finally asked a lady the other day and she said that most Colombian women are going back to work, so having more than 2 children is a lot.  It also costs a lot to have children here.  If you want them to have a good education you have to send them to private schools which are hugely expensive.
That being said, after the look of surprise and "tres hijos?!" people (men and women alike) are very sweet about it.  Normally it is followed up with , "preciosos", "carinosos", "bellezas", "lindos", etc.  Colombians love children!  Men and women, love to smile and talk to our kids.
The other weird thing is we always get asked if they are twins.  Which I don't get at all, I think my boys look their age, so how a 4 year old and 2 year old or 2 year old and 7 month old could be twins is beyond me.  But I think it goes back to why would you choose to have 3 separate kids, if you have twins it is by chance.
Anyway, I have often felt like the Duggar family here.  People in the States don't blink at 3 kids.  But here we might as well have 19!  

New beginnings in a new country!

So here I am again in another country trying to navigate a new city.  We were in Maryland for 1 year after Australia.  I will write a post about that later.
We arrived in Bogota last Wednesday after a teary good-bye with our parents.  This time we needed 2 cars to take us to the airport.  The man who checked us in was amazing.  My suitcase was overweight by 20 pounds and we were willing to pay extra but he talked us into re-arrainging, even after we were about 3 pounds over, but he did not charge us.  We had 4 suitcases, 3 duffle bags, a diaper bag, and 3 car seats.  He helped us get all out stuff in order and where it needed to be.
On the first flight to Miami, Caleb got sick and threw up.  I don't remember much else about that flight. Then it was 3.5 hours to Bogota.  That flight went ok, but we found out after we got off that Elias had made a huge mess of his diaper and needed a complete change of outfit.  When we finally arrived we were all exhausted.  The only thing that did not show up was the base of Oliver's car seat.  I have called the airline rep several times and I think it is gone for good.
Luckily this time we went straight from the airport to our apartment.  It is a wonderful apartment, 4 bedrooms, each with it's own bathroom, and a den that we will make into a playroom.  It is in a really nice area of town called chico.  We are in walking distance to 2 parks and a ton of restaurants and cafes.  I will post pictures of the apartment later.
Bogota is situated  in the Andes mountains and is 1.5 miles above sea level.  Ollie and I were hit with altitude sickness.  The day after we arrived I got a migraine and nausea.  Luckily it did not hit until evening so Brian was able to look after the boys.  We were not sure how it hit Ollie, but he refused to sleep in his crib for 2 nights.  He would just scream!  He has had the hardest transition by far.
Once I recovered from the altitude sickness, I really started to enjoy city living.  I love being able to walk to everything.  I am trying to find a preschool for Caleb that is walking distance also.  I will post more on that one later too.
We will be here for 2 years.  I am looking forward to what adventures there are to come here!