the week in review

It's Saturday here and in the Sayo-Niedzwiecki household that means some grocery-shoppin', some egg-eatin', and some sleepin'-in. But in reverse order. Today the weather in Delhi was drop dead gorgeous. We're talking warm in the sun, cool in the shade, breezy at the park, and dry as melba toast. It was so lovely. Unfortunately, the turn towards warmth means that the HOT season is just around the corner, but for the next three weeks, Delhi will be at its best with flowers blooming and everyone out enjoying strolling around without a scarf (but also without the feeling of being about-to-pass-out that will shortly accompany any unairconditioned travel in the outdoors).

Speaking of air conditioning, I'm pretty psyched to let you know that we're getting a new vehicle. Yes indeedy, anyone who braves the "hospitalized for two weeks for a kidney infection" terror that may now run rampant among our friends and relatives and who actually comes to see us, well you brave soul(s) will get to enjoy our brand spanking new Toyota Innova. I hear it's going to be champagne coloured. Perhaps we'll have to call it Cristal or something. Anyways, it's a bit of a bigger car, kind of like a Volvo-ey sort of thing, not really a mini-van - at least certainly not in the North American sense - but higher than our current car. John (our driver) had us enthralled today as he described the three banks of air conditioning that the new car will feature. Ohh, ahhhh! We try not to spend too much time in our car, but when we are in it I'm sure we'll appreciate all the comfort and plushitude. And y'all are surely welcome to join us in our suave ride.

But this was supposed to be a retrospective, not a, um, prospective. So let's go back to Monday.

On Monday, Ji stayed home from school. Again. The doctor suggested keeping him home extra long so that he wouldn't get exposed to another illness right away when he was still a bit under the weather. I don't think that I wrote about Ji's recent sickness that much, but it was a doozy. He was sick for a week with a bad belly ache and flu and then ok for two days and then got sent home with a low fever which spiked into a high and on-going fever and that kept him laid up and fully S-I-C-K sick for another week. When we finally got him to the doctor she suggested it might be...typhoid. YIKES. Luckily, he responded to the antibiotics and made a recovery, but damn it was scary. He was like a skeleton when the fever finally broke. Mind you, almost everyone at school was sick as well. Somehow the Middle School teachers plowed through, but one day there were 11 teachers out of the High School and there were kids involved in fisticuffs due to the weird situation. Last week Phet, Seung Yi, and I all were also sick, but with a milder fluey sort of a cold which I worked through - sleeping, like, 16 hours at night - and Phet actually took a full week off, which means he was on death's door.

During the week school was good but busy busy. I'm working on the yearbook, and it is great fun, but of course takes up lots of time and thought. My robotics classes are excellent. The kids spent some time this week making their own posters based on the 50s B Movies we watched recently and came up with some great stuff like, "Orrbot Comes To Conquer Iowa," and "Robotics Class Fantasma...No one knew they were there, until they ATTACKED."

Things are good at home. Laree was sick last week and got a terrible cold sore kind of thing on her wee under-nose spot after having been ill. We packed her and Iaimon off to the doctor post haste and it cleared up in a couple of days. Iaimon is good. There's still a stand off between her and Irene, our house cleaner. Iaimon introduced Irene to us and they got along well at first, but then something happened that made them really mad at each other. It boils down to Iaimon says it's Irene's fault and Irene says it's Iaimon's fault. We basically took the opinion that they're both doing a good job, so they should both stay, so now they just don't talk to each other. Which isn't great, because it'd be nice if they worked together and if Irene could take care of the girls as well. We let it go for January, but we're hoping to sit down and have a talk at some point. We just have to get someone to help us translate since Irene doesn't speak English. We're also kind of pondering whether we should just have Iaimon take up the cleaning again once the girls start going to playschool. Who knows. Any advice, please pass it on.

Seung Yi is just a little beautiful dumpling of a girl these days. She likes to say "MAMA!" But even better than that she has learned to snuggle on purpose. If I lift her up for a hug, she'll actually fling her arms around my neck and then lean back and grin. If I ask her if she wants a hug, she'll let me pick her up and then she'll tuck her arms down by her tummy and tuck her head under my neck. In the morning she lifts up her floofy head and immediately goes to have her pee and then when she's all drained out, she clambers up on our bed and angrily makes sure she gets her own pillow and then sweetly flops down, demands the blankie, and then snuggles. It's a joy that won't last that long, I know, but getting a chubby, ruddy-cheeked baby nuzzling up to me and kissing me on the cheek while I snuggle in bed is pretty much up there in the Top All Time Greatest And Most Wonderful Moments In Life.

Thursday was Valentine's Day as some of you may have noticed. Middle School Valentine's Day is pretty cute. I got cookies from two kids! And one was in a valentine shape. And the other one was homemade soft and perfect chocolate chip. Mmmm. I also got those sweet heart candies with messages on them from the Admin. I gave most to the kids but ate all the "Kiss Me" ones myself. When I got home from school Ji and Phet weren't around, but they got home about 15 minutes later and had gone to get not only a dozen roses but a huge arrangement of flowers and spangly things in a box. Like, spangly florist thingies. It was so sweet. Here's me, basking in the happiness of my lovely children on Valentine's Day:

Dig how small Ji's head is! And check out his rad new 80s style long-bangs hair cut. And aren't his big brown eyes handsome?

Look how happy Seung Yi is! And check out how her hair is waving a little around the edges. Awww... I cut her hair the other night when she was asleep and somehow it nevertheless turned out to be fairly even. She's killing herself laughing because I was hanging onto her hands and pulling her up to "climb" my legs. So. Much. Fun. We had big plans to go out for dinner on Thursday but ended up just having South Indian since most of the restaurants only opened at 7:30 pm - what a stupid time for families with kids who eat at, oh say, 5:30 - and the fancy Chinese restaurant at the hotel was completely full and would not let us in for Peking Duck.

On Friday we had a PD day and I spent the whole day on the computer. Productive, but yecch, I'm glad I don't have a desk job. I like getting to hop up and run around and yap all the time in the classroom.

Today we spent the morning chatting to family back in Canada. We're all very worried about Phet's Gramma because she hasn't been well recently and has just been put through a huge battery of tests. I thought she seemed, well, not her usual cheery self at Christmastime. She just didn't seem as chipper and as engaged as usual. Aunts got quite concerned about her recently and had her in to see the doctors and they think there might be some issue with her liver. Poor aunt has had to take 10 days off work to drive Gramma to the doctors and hospitals and meanwhile Gramma is plum worn out and doesn't want to eat and has no energy. So send some good thoughts her way, and let's hope that the piles of snow melt so that it's easier for aunt to drive her to her appointments.

For lunch we headed over to Khan Market to meet up with an old colleague of Phet's named Atsushi. (Ji: "I sure hope he's bringing along his brothers Atedamame, Atseaweed, and Attea." Har.) We went to sup at Chokolat and Phet nearly keeled over after ingesting their insanely rich cold chocolate, half of my ridiculously rich hot choclate, and a full plate of eggs benedict. Finally, for our afternoon fun, we went to a birthday party for a little girl who lives her in Golf Links named Analise. She and her nanny drop by here to play with Seung Yi and Laree almost every day and she is a wee doll of a girl. Plus, we like her folks.

And that's about it for our week. Hope yours was good.

[Delhi-16-February-2008