In Search of Contentment

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Esmé's Mommy here.

I know what it is to be in need and what it is to have more than enough. I have learned this secret, so that anywhere, at any time, I am content, whether I am full or hungry, whether I have too much or too little. I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me. Philippians 4:12-13

I was in the middle of writing a Thursday 13 post on things that make me feel content when I realized that blogging is not one of them.

There are always more posts to write, always better ways to write them. There are always more comments to check out and emails to respond to - down to 303 right now after a week of feverishly trying to catch up on a month's worth of them. There are always more posts in my Google Reader - 483 at the moment. There are awards to pass on and memes to play. There are links to check out and stories to follow up on. And there are meandering blogging trails to follow.

A blogger's work is never done.

I don't stress out over how much I have in the way of material possessions. I think I can relate to Paul's observation above in that regard. But I'm not always so content with how much time I have. I want MORE time. I want to accomplish MORE. Just look at last Thursday's post and you'll see what I mean.

So I'm taking a quick break. I'm going to focus on the things that make me content. And maybe find a way to be content with my blogging status, regardless of how "behind" I am.

I'll be back. Soon, I hope. Because blogging does give me a feeling of fulfillment. And I love catching up on all your lives and spending time wandering through the bloggy world.

In the meantime, I'm off to drink my hot chocolate/chikree/soy milk mix, read a good book, read some blogs without stressing over "catching up," and spend time with this cute little face and her Daddy.

WFMW - "M" Crafts

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We have had a most marvelous time during "M" week! Here are the crafts that worked for this 17-month-old baby this week.

Me. This was by far my favorite activity of the week. Mommy had me lie down on wrapping paper and traced around me. Then she cut out the shape and taped "me" on the wall for me to color.

My very favorite part was being traced! I insisted that we trace my doll, too. And every time we went into the craft room, I pulled out the wrapping paper and lay down on it so Mommy could trace me!

Moon. I have a great sense of order! Mommy cut out a moon and some stars out of yellow paper and put double-sided tape on them. Then she gave them to me to stick onto a black sheet of paper.

I started out like Mommy showed me, but that disorderly arrangement of stars really got to me! So I pulled off all the stars and then carefully stacked them one on top of the other on the moon. Much more organized, don't you think?

(Mommy's worried that I'm trying to improve on God's design of the universe. Not really, but I don't think He'd have a problem with me straightening up my own little corner, would He?

Monkeys. I have LOTS of stuffed monkeys! We organized most of them on my bed, and Mommy encouraged me to lie down with them so we could play "Where is Esmé?" I wasn't too excited by that - I am much smarter than a monkey, but I DO like playing with my monkeys and feeding them and making them kiss.

Maraca. OK, this is more fun than it looks. We tried at first to make a paper plate maraca by painting and folding a plate in half, putting DRY beans in it, and then stapling it shut. Only we didn't have paper, so we used a plastic plate, and the staples didn't hold.

So we took a plastic vitamin bottle, painted it, and filled it with beans. (Once again - DRY - the cooked ones don't work! Mommy said so!) Then I got to shake it around to make cool sounds! We played lots of "M" songs while I shook my maraca.

Moses. One day we did Moses stuff. I colored pictures about Moses, and we sang songs about Moses. Here I am pretending to be Moses in a basket in the bulrushes. Only I wanted my dolls and Woolly in with me, too!

We made a lamb (to represent Moses' shepherding years) from a craft kit with pipe cleaners and pom poms, etc. Except mainly Mommy made it and I tore it apart over and over. Bad idea. No matter how cute those craft kits are, they don't work so well with kids my age . . .

Money. We practiced counting with money! I like money! Especially US dollar bills. For some reason the colorful South African and Mozambican bills with animals on them just aren't as much fun!

Mitten. Mommy cut out a giant mitten from wrapping paper and taped it on the wall. Then I made hand prints on the wrapping paper with tempera paint - putting my hand "inside" the mitten!

Macaroni Art. To do this one, you put some tempera paint into an egg carton - a different color in each egg spot. Then you put some dry macaroni in each spot and mix it around with a paint brush to get the macaroni covered with paint. That's lots of fun.

It's even more fun to take the macaroni out of the paint and put it onto a piece of paper to dry. Cuz that's when you get paint all over your hands.

Then finally when the paint is dry, you cover your art surface (we used the inside of a small box) with glue. And you carefully put each macaroni piece into the box. This requires Mommy's help when you get too distracted to finish it.

Oh yeah - that concern of Mommy's that I'd try to eat the macaroni? Not a problem. Macaroni looks too much like real food. I'd rather eat things like buttons or google eyes.

Macaroni. Speaking of macaroni, I do eat the cooked stuff! Here I am eating chili macaroni. Yummy!

Mangoes. We have lots of baby mangoes falling off the trees in our yard, so I have been practicing my counting with them.

And I LOVE eating them. Here I am eating frozen pieces of mangoes - just like that. Nothing added or mixed in with them. Yummy!

So there you have it! Now we're trying to figure out "N" ideas that don't involve cutting off your nose or choking with a necktie. Any ideas out there?
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Wordless(ful) Wednesday

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Warmer Weather Means . . .

More trips to the ocean.

More sticky popsicles melting in the heat.

The promise of ripe mangoes fragrant in the yard.

Using up the last of the frozen mangoes in creamy smoothies.

Necessary alertness to the skies above to make sure no coconuts drop on your head.

Cold drink breaks on a walk through town.

A pool that looks refreshing rather than just cold.

And more fun in the pool!

Tiny Talk Tuesday

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Being woken up to nurse a baby in the middle of the night gets kind of old after 17 months.

But Esmé's figured out the secret to making her Mommy smile anyway. How can you help but smile when instead of hearing crying, you hear the insistent words from the baby's mouth: "Baba eat, baba eat?"

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This Mommy is not a very good swimmer. Ear infections meant childhood years of sitting on the sidelines while others swam. I have no problem getting on a whitewater raft with the possibility of landing in the water, but I have no desire to simply jump in the water for the joy of it.

Yet. We're working on it. So Daddy was encouraging me to dive into the pool, with me showing all the trepidation usually reserved for bungee jumping or sky diving (which I don't think would scare me in the least, by the way, provided there is no water at the bottom).

Along comes little miss Esmé, shouting "Dive! Dive! Dive!" while pointing into the pool in front of my feet. And she tried to get Groban into the act, too, shouting the same thing at him. Good thing he knows the rules about no dogs in the pool . . .

I never got the dive right. But Esmé has no inhibitions and is happy to step into the water, as long as she's holding Daddy's hand. If she can do it, so can I. Some day.

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Never underestimate the reasoning powers of a toddler. Esmé was fascinated with my body cream container, so I showed her how you dab a little bit on your fingers and rub it into your feet. She happily started rubbing it into my feet. Ahhh!

Along comes Daddy, who sees the state of my feet and tells Esmé, "Don't touch Mommy's feet! They're dirty!" (No embarrassment here, folks. TIA - This is Africa!)

She immediately walks over to the bathtub, pulls down a wet washcloth, and begins to wipe my dirty feet! What a girl!

And if you think MY feet are dirty, folks, here's a photo of Esmé's feet today.
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Those wonderful words, "more" and "mine," continue in full force, sadly. Here is Esmé insisting that the camera is "mine." Should I give it to her?

Woof and Moo

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Grandpa and Grandma had to go to the border to renew their visas, so we made a day of it and drove through Kruger National Park - the Crocodile gate is about 15 minutes from the border. Wow - all those animals were cool! Plus I got to eat potato chips and drink guava juice from a snap up bottle. Oh, and I swiped the lemon cream out of the lemon cream cookies.

So here are some of the animals we saw:

Cape Buffalo. We saw LOTS of Cape buffalo - one of the big five. On our way back just before sunset, we ran into a HUGE herd of them and stayed a respectful distance away while they ALL crossed the road. I called them "cow" and "moo."

Rhinoceroses. We also saw rhinoceroses twice - two each time - and two plus two equals four. Yes, we worked on math on this trip.

Elephants. Lots and lots and lots of elephants. At one rest stop, there was an elephant walking right by the parking area. If my arms were just a little longer I could have touched it. I can say "eleph," or something like that.

Lions. We got stuck in a traffic grid, so we knew there was something major everyone was looking at. Sure enough, lounging right by the main road were a bunch of female lions and a few young ones. Mommy says she doesn't like posting animal photos since there are so many better ones available by professional photographers online, but we have to post this one just to prove that we saw them. Later on we saw a male lion by himself on a less-beaten path. I'm not so sure what the excitement is. They just sit around and don't do anything.

Leopard. To complete the big five, we got to see a big kitty in a tree. This is the hardest of the five to find, Mommy says, but I don't see what was so exciting. It wasn't very close, and it hardly moved. Grandpa says it could have been a stuffed cat with a mechanical tail, like my Hakuna Matata lion.

Giraffes. "Raffs" were one of my favorite animals! They are so tall and you have to look up so high to see them, plus they have very funny long tongues.

Monkeys. I LOVE monkeys! I kept saying "mon-kee, mon-kee, mon-kee" when they were playing around the car.

Baboons. We saw a baboon tree. The tree was filled with baboons in the branches. I think that's where they grow.

Warthogs. I called these "dogs" and "woofs." They do look a lot like ugly dogs, don't they? Don't you see it? (Maybe Groban needs to work on his image a little.)

Hippopotamuses. We saw lots of hippos lounging around or in the water. I seem to have lost my ability to say "hippo." Now it is just "po." Mommy got the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" stuck in her head, so I had to listen to that all day . . .

Impalas, Kudu, Waterbuck, Duikers. We saw lots of antelope - zillions of impalas. As far as I'm concerned, they are "dogs" and "woofs," too. Here's a photo of my favorite, the duiker. We saw about four of these. They are so cute and little, just my size, and I like to visit them at the mini-zoo by my house.

Birds. There were tons of birds: brilliantly-colored rollers, stunning starlings, comical hornbills. And a bunch of weavers helping themselves to breakfast at Lower Sabie.

Crocodiles. There were a couple of crocs hanging out with the "pos" near the river. They were too far away for me to see very well, and Mommy didn't want to take me any closer. That thing about them being the biggest cause of wild animal deaths in Mozambique or something like that. I don't get it - my croc shoes don't seem very dangerous.

Zebras. We were lamenting how we had seen no zebras all day, when we came across two in the final 20 minutes or so in the park. So we got them all!

Me. Now this was the best sighting of the day! Me - in my "raff" shirt, right next to where the elephants walk.

So that's the story of my day. What did you do on Sunday?

Road

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PhotoHunt's theme this week is "road." This is a snapshot of a road near our house here in Mozambique. High fences, people, kids, dogs, streetside vendors, mango trees, and potholes . . .

Animal Kingdom

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Just a quick update on our animal status.

Last week Pepper, one of the bunnies, was missing when we came home from my cousin's house. Either Antonio (the gardener) had forgotten to block off the hole in the cage used for sweeping the cleaning water out, or he had put a wobbly block in front of it that allowed the bunnies to knock it over.

Daddy looked everywhere to no avail, so we surmised that Pepper either got out of the yard into someone's cooking pot or an owl got her. And we resigned ourselves to being a single-bunny household.

But then Grandpa looked outside the window and saw her trying to get back into her cage, all confused because the hole was now blocked off! So we still have two bunnies.

Later this week Ms. Cathrine helped me catch a little bird. Mommy was quite surprised when I brought it in to show her, since she is used to me bringing her grasshoppers, not birds. We put the bird into the cage with the bunnies for a little while. Here it is with Ginger bunny.

And Groban the dog thinks he's Daddy's favorite child. He insists on getting between us all the time and nudges me away whenever he can. Groban likes to hug Daddy by putting his paw on Daddy's shoulder. Here's a photo of Daddy with his two kids . . . Can't you see the resemblances?!

Thursday 13 - More

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Esmé's Mommy here.

Inspired by my daughter's incessant demands for MORE of everything (and my intense desire to give her what she requests), I compiled my own list of things I want more of. Anytime now, God! Here's a list of thirteen:

1. More of God and less of me


2. More time


3. More answers


4. More motivation


5. More stamina


6. More confidence


7. More love


8. More highs and mountaintops and exuberance


9. More wisdom and understanding and creativeness


10. More giggles


11. More sleep


12. More chocolate and less calories


13. More hot water

And here is Esmé, wanting MORE weight and exuding that confidence I want so badly!

Maybe what we want more of isn't necessarily in our best interest? Wishing you all a blessed weekend filled with more of the good stuff of life . . .

WFMW - "L" Crafts

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Lots of laughs for "L" week. These are the crafts that worked for this 17-month-old last week.

Lacy Lines. Mommy put double-sided tape onto strips of lace and let me stick them onto a red scrapbooking sheet. The double-sided tape was awfully sticky and hard to get off my fingers, so she had to help a little. But now she has a nicely decorated scrapbook page just waiting for some photos.

Lickin' Litchi Lollies. We made popsicles with litchi juice. Yummy! I never had popsicles before!

Lacing Beads. This is a perfect lacing activity for little hands like mine. Mommy let me paint four toilet paper rolls and then cut them into 3 pieces each. Then she taped a piece of large ribbon to the floor and let me thread the toilet paper "beads" onto the ribbon. Voila! My own handcrafted necklace!

Letter. Mommy gave me a leaf-imprinted piece of paper to write a letter on. I love writing letters!

Laundry. Mommy set up a clothesline of yarn really low so I could work with it. Then she gave me some clothespins and some napkins to hang up on the line. What fun! I couldn't quite figure out how to pinch the clothespins to open them - I kept trying to shove the wrong end onto the line - so Mommy had to help me open up the pins.

Lion. Just thought I should introduce you to my lion cub this "L" week. He sings "Hakuna Matata" and asks me to be his pal always. Plus he doesn't mind if I ride on his back and slide him on the floor. He skateboards with me, too. Here I am showing him to Grandma.

Leopard. Ms. Cathrine painted spots on my face with markers. Don't I look just like a wild leopard? Maybe she should have put spots on my clothes, too.


Ladybugs. We painted a rock and a bunch of shells red and let them dry. Then I did my famous "dot" painting technique on them with black paint to make beautiful ladybugs!

Leaf Art. Mommy and I collected lots of different kinds of leaves outside. Then I did all kinds of leaf painting. First I painted some leaves. Then I painted a newspaper by using leaves as the "paintbrush." Plus I did leaf imprints by putting a painted leaf on the paper, folding the paper over it and pressing the paper to make two imprints.

Then we made a leaf mobile by punching holes into the leaves and tying them to a branch with yarn.

Lemonade. I helped Mommy squeeze some lemons to make lemonade. Here are Grandma and I enjoying the fresh-squeezed stuff!

We had tons more ideas for "L" week, but we ran out of time, and we have millions of "M" ideas that we don't want to miss this week. So there you have it . . .
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