Monday 5-19-14

Monday 5-19-14

                I woke up on my own luckily, because the alarm on my watch has ceased to work. Jove had a really hard time this morning. First it started with the light hurt his eyes really bad. I figured he was just whining for the sake of whining. I finally got him to get dressed and get in the living room to eat his breakfast and take his medicine. When Joan got here to pick the kids up, I had them make sure to go to the bathroom, get their water, etc. While going to the bathroom Jove lets me know his head hurt. I asked him where, and he told me everywhere, but a lot behind his eyes. Poor little guy might have inherited my aptitude for bad headaches. Worst part was, was that he didn’t even know that is what was going on. All he could say was his eyes hurt. It has been a complaint a lot as of late, and I think I just discovered the cause. So some Tylenol then off to school. Here’s to hoping that helps.

                We went off to school and had to yell at the children many times. Std. 1 just did not want to pay attention today. Everyone appeared very tired. At the point of switching classes, Ayla broke down into tears. I asked her what was wrong. The poor little thing was freaking out because her baby tooth hasn’t come out yet, but the grown up tooth is already coming in. She was scared that the two teeth would fuse together. I let her know it wouldn’t happen and gave her some meds to help with the ache. She seemed to do fine the rest of the morning. Std. 3 desperately needed help with contractions, so we spent the majority of our time with that.

                When Mamaliz and I got home, she heard there were some kids at the swing in the back yard. She does NOT want kids playing here while she is not here. So we took photos of the kids and had Ruth come over to help with translating. We now have their names, their parent’s names, and let them know that if they continued to come back Mamaliz would let their parents know (and parents here will beat their children for such issues). We now have four kids on our “naughty village kids” list.

                We went back to school and into Std.2. I had just a few minutes in there then I pulled a few of the students from std1 that needed extra help in math with addition and subtraction when there is carrying or borrowing. I decided since Ayla was just being introduced to this I would bring her as well. So I had six kids all at the board doing problems like 589 + 345 = or 306 – 189 =. Many of the kids had a very hard time with this. We were in there for two hours, just doing problem after problem. Ayla grasped the concept very quickly. A few of the others even began getting the concept as the problems went on. Two however, Robert and Michael, just could not get it. 11-2 is not 7 or 14 or anything else other than 9. I just could not get them to understand. I began to get very frustrated, but I made it through.

                Samweli came to the market to help us shop since Mamaliz was so tired she fell asleep during std2. We went up and got all the things we needed. Samweli helped us a lot. He went on his way to go home and change his clothes so he could come back to the house to play. On our way home we saw the bananas. I got ripped off, but I didn’t care. Jove so much loves the bananas, so I paid willingly. Thirteen bananas for 2500 tsh. Still works out to only like 12 cents per banana, and this is nothing for me.

                We got back to the house and Mamaliz was still not back. She had to go near the hospital to pay some school fees for some students. It took about a half an hour before she came back, so starting dinner was late. I worked in the kitchen and eventually had a marinara of tomatoes, eggplant, greens, and carrot. I was quite pleased, especially when the kids asked for more veggies because they picked all the veggies out because of how good they were. I was one happy momma.

                After dinner, Ayla asked if I could push her tooth out. So when the time came that she finished her dinner I asked her,” are you ready?” That is when the tears came. She would not trust me to push it out. Instead she tried to push it out herself. All she accomplished was hurting herself. I told her I will not give her that option again, nor will I allow her to push it out on her own. She must now let it get loose all on its own. What a little drama queen.

                After all that, I got her set up in her tote bath. Jove finished his dinner whilst his Bibi read the story “Tikki Tikki Tembo” to him. He has wanted to hear this story for the longest time because his Uncle Cisco told him long ago about how it was a favorite book of his. Mamaliz enjoyed reading to someone that actually understood the English.

                I was going to make an attempt at making peanut butter cookies, but when I finally got up the motivation to do so, I realized that there was no butter that was soft. The only butter we had was in the freezer. So tomorrow we shall have peanut butter cookies, and hopefully it will work since Mamaliz’s oven has no temp setting. We shall see.

                Mamaliz and I came up with a chore list. If the kids are able to go ALL day long without whinning of any kind, they can earn 500 tsh. There is yard clean up, making beds, doing their journal, etc. Hopefully this helps to give me less stress. And lets face it, It is all to give the mama less stress. So now the kids are in bed looking forward to starting their chores tomorrow, and so far it has been quiet.

                The fridge is again not working, so I have to finish all the left over spaghetti, otherwise it will go bad if I put it in the fridge. So, for now, goodnight. I am going to stuff my face while I have fresh wonderful food to stuff my face with.