Too Hot to Handle

(or more lovingly subtitled: The four hours in which I curse the 4 to possibly 5 males in my home for their sweetness.)

I don't sleep well right now: allergies + heat + pregnancy = no bueno.
So even though I only had about 4 hours of sleep the previous night and fought off the evil nap demon courageously and victoriously during the course of the next 19 hours of semi-comatose "awakeness," despite going to bed around 11 pm, I found myself tossing and turning around 1:30 am.

Zsa-man: 
Well, I tossed and turned myself face to face with a specter.
Enter Zsa-zsa, my cute little recently birthday-ed 5 year old.
"Mommy, I had a bad dream."

This seems to be somewhat a theme of the past three nights and I am sure that when I am again coherent enough to remember what a nice mommy is, I will try and see if I can help him deal with bad dreams.  But for the moment, he just started my struggling-to-sleep body into full alertness.

Fortunately, years of dealing with the repercussions of "horrible middle of the night responses" that have given my older children PTSD from waking up the sleeping momma bear have helped condition me to temper my responses.  It has actually been quite a while since I have gotten up angry.  Well, it wasn't the last time this fateful evening.

Staring blearily into the beautiful cow-like brown eyes of my Zsa-man, I found myself grumbling something about: "go potty first then you can snuggle with me."

Fast forward 2-45 minutes and once again I turn over--again, semi-comatose--and am once again startled into full wakefulness by the 5 year old specter haunting the side of my bed. I stifle my grumbling marginally successfully this time as I lovingly pick him up to set him between Quinn and I.
And then I feel the moisture.  My darling little bed-wetter has soaked through his pull-up once again and the process becomes infinitely more complicated.

The evil, sleep-deprived mom monster is beginning to make itself more asserted as I gently extract him from the bed before spreading anything to my own bed and say somewhat gruffly, "You need to change before you can sleep with us.  Back to the bathroom to change."
He and I go across the hall, bearing new jammies and wipes and he sweetly proceeds to dress, apologizing a few times, bless his heart. I assure him groggily that he is a sweet boy as I try to convince myself to keep the bear in the cage, knowing he is sweetly innocent and just needs a little magic mommy snuggle to scare away the nightmares.

We stumble back through the darkness into the night of my very own room and face the bed.

Enter the baby and Q-dawg's moment to "shine":
I face the bed that despite providing no real deep sleep supplies infinite comfort for my pregnant body. I consider the size of Zsa-man's body. I consider the space left by my husband's sweetly intended snuggling approach to beyond the middle of our queen size bed in his sleep.  I consider the space required for my over-large "pioneer stock" pregnant body to lay down. I whisper Quinn's name a couple times to no avail.  I gently push-encourage his body to return to "his side" of the bed. I lay Zsa-man down right next to his father. I squeeze myself sideways onto the remaining strip of luxury bedding.   For five minutes.  I change my position so my head is at the foot of the bed and my overly large tummy has room beneath the space left by Zsa-man's short body.  I am not left to only grumbling over my (possible) little infant son's ability to emanate large waves of heat and the continual block and flow of my allergy induced mucus in my head.  So grateful to be pregnant...just not appreciating the extra heat of having the snuggling inside and without at the moment.

Fast forward two hours--Spooner's turn!
I wake up to heat.  Lots of heat.  Zsa-man has snuggled away from his father and is making his way down to my end of the bed. I bless the Benadryl I took during my last bout of awakeness that allowed me a blessed few more hours of sleep. I hear quiet little kid breathing behind me.  All mothers know this sound.  The sound of a child waiting watchfully over their parent, eagerly awaiting their wakefulness in a semi-quiet state: quiet enough to indicate they are trying to be quiet to let the parent sleep and noisy enough to not allow that slumber.  Apparently, that is not enough for sweet little Spooner as he crawls onto the bed next to me, snuggling.

Going through my head is how sweet this moment should be, how it is truly special that my 7 year old is so tender-hearted and loving...as he gives me little kisses and puts his arm over and back and over and back and over and back off of my shoulder to snuggle.
Then, he gets the blanket.

I begin to feel the temperature escalate exponentially as he gently lays down a blanket over my pretending-to-sleep-overheating body.  Tucking it up under my chin, draping it carefully over my body and even making sure my toes are under, I hear a happy sigh and  whispered, "I love you, Mommy" as he then gets back onto the bed to snuggle against my back again.

That does it.  After a huge moment of self-restraint to savor the pure sweetness of the moment, I heave the blanket off my body, whisper what is the best "thanks" I can offer at this moment of sleep-deprived raging heat to my darling little boy and stumble into the bathroom, whipping the door closed behind me.  Glancing at the clock I see: 5:26 am.  Super.  Grumbling about "no way I am getting any more sleep tonight!" I deal with an awake momma bear.
The shower beckons.

Enter the final player, Chugger-dude:
As I turn the shower on, I remember a conversation I had with my sweet fifteen year old son just a regretfully short hours before as we both prepared for bed.  He commented on how since he started taking cold showers, doing the Polar Bear Plunge on Jan 1st into Lake Ontario hasn't been as hard.

Inspired, I thought about how refreshing that sounded considering my over-warm, heat-generating current condition, pulled on the shower and stepped in.  "This is horrible!" I exclaimed as I struggled to catch my breath.
Yes, he didn't force me in.
Yes, he would have probably encouraged me not to.
But somehow it was a very fitting "end" to my "night" that I should be cursing Chugger-dude, as I had all the other males in my home...

...and all because they are so sweet.

Pregnancy reality check

Pregnancy is definitely an example of blessings that bear their fruit at the end and requires some enduring. We are all very excited for a new little one and feel the excitement as Daddy and the little ones daily pray that the baby will be safe and grow well in our prayers.  It just takes its toll on this old body.
For instance, I begin at the pregnancy with a list of potential foods to satisfy the nausea.  By this time, around three months, I have about exhausted what I can tolerate and am down to oatmeal, cranberry juice, and nuts.  Now, this doesn't mean I don't try things out of a desire to reclaim the delights of pleasures past (just picture "Ratatouille" and lots of delightful explosions going off in my body when I eat food).  Just the other night, we made homemade *cream puffs and pudding--an old family favorite--and I enjoyed a few bites before my body decidedly protested.  Shucks.

So far, milk, white flour in any variety, most sugars, cold cereal, most meat, sandwiches, and any non-whole grain product simply are not options.  While Thanksgiving may not be as enjoyable as usual, I am banking on enjoying some traditional Christmas treats.

The baby is worth it :).

Another fact of pregnancy with my older body is that by 6 or 7 pm, I am simply done.  My eyes get glazed and my body automatically finds the most comfortable resting position it can (ideally on a bed, but sometimes on the cold, hard floor) and I start to go to sleep.  Poor kids!  One night Lek asked me if I could help him review his debate argument that he had been working on diligently for weeks..."tonight."  Oh, dear.

I tried. I really did.  After falling asleep during scriptures and family reading, I awoke long enough to reassure him I would give him the best I had to give.  I then headed to bed.  He smiled teasingly at me and said, "Really?"

I loftily informed him that I must be comfortable and would stay awake as long as I could but the only way he was going to get his mother that night was while she was laying down in bed. :)  He is such a sweetie.  We actually got through quite a bit, if not all of it.

I do wish I had more to give that time of "night," but really any time the word "night" comes into the picture, I am pretty much out of the picture :).  I remember fondly the days when my brain worked, when I wasn't focused so "inward" as my mom puts it, and the days when I could push this tired frame to crazy hours of the night.

Now I enjoy the days of napping with my little ones, daydreaming with no aim, and just give in when my body says: "you are done."  I don't really enjoy the nausea, lack of coherent trains of thought, and lack of dependability, but I know this, too, will pass and at the end will be the sweetest reward life has to offer.

We are singing a song in our church ward choir that captures my feelings whenever I welcome a new little one...and really so often as I watch my older ones grow and get ready to leave:

"One small babe in a manger lay
with heavens light all around
all the earth is wholly made
with baby Jesus' found...

Mother Mary watched him sleep
Tonight he was her own
Soon he'd leave her loving arms
And with his life atone."

I feel the weight and glory of each new child as I hold them in my arms. I feel my own imperfections and am faced with them daily.  Doubts of my ability is the only thing that hinders my eagerness to welcome more children into the world through our family. I realized long ago that I really am not as qualified as I "should be" to raise children.  I know this realization hit me hard with my third child, when all of a sudden I didn't even have enough hands to keep them from danger.

While I have felt the marvelous power of God and the amazing capacity of my husband and other mentors for my children along the way compensate for my inadequacies, at the end of the day, I do feel the weight and need of each of my children. I cherish the times we have together and know that soon they will leave and spend their lives in some work of their choosing.  Each one will go out and make a difference for good or for ill.  For now, I enjoy each phase, loving that I can see so many different stages of development, discovery and sometimes I just want to say: "Everyone PAUSE!! Just stay where you are!  I love these phases!"

For now, I just need to get enough sleep and know that after many tomorrows I will get my body and mind back :).

Speaking of discovery, we host a biology class for Avot and Lek at our house every Friday and often have microscopes out.  The younger kids will occasionally take a peek, but this was the first time Spooner tried it.  It took him a few times to realize he was supposed to look through the lenses and not taste them, but he figured it out :).

 Recipes from our treat the other night:

*Cream Puffs
1/2 cup butter
1 cup water
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Bring first three ingredients to a boil.  Remove pan from heat and mix in flour immediately and quickly.  Add eggs one at a time, beating quickly.

Grease a cookie sheet. Drop by large spoonfuls on pan.  Cook at 400 degrees F for 25 min, or until golden brown.

Homemade Vanilla Pudding

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

2 large egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

•  In 2-quart saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute.
• Gradually stir at least half of the hot mixture into egg yolks, then stir back into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla.
• Pour pudding into dessert dishes. Cover and refrigerate about 1 hour or until chilled. Store covered in refrigerator.

These are family favorites from the Buchanan side.  My dad's family had a farm with extra eggs and milk so this was one of their family treats he enjoyed. 

"And I was soooo mad...SOOO mad."

Alright, sometimes I have anger issues.  I'm going to "put this one on the books," so that when I am old and grey and look back on how "perfect" my life was in that joyous oblivion of old age, my kids (who might potentially have days like this as well :)...) will be able to feel that at one point in my life, I understood :)...

Quick note on the title of this post: Q-dawg's sister Niesha always has the most fun songs/rhymes that we learn, and one described how I was feeling yesterday.  It is about this kid whose family is being eaten one at a time by the family pet, who grows larger with each "consumption."  And the kid says: "And I was so mad!  Soooooo mad!" after each disappearance. Adorable song...I just can't remember it's official title.  (It was also from them that I learned "the planet song" as well, another family favorite.  Thanks, Niesh!)

Well, the "chorus" of that song really hits the nail on the head of how I felt yesterday.

You already have my nickname, "The Bomb," which truly is a good nickname for those explosive emotional moments I seem to have, at least monthly. (Hmmmmmm....) Couple that with feeling completely at a loss of what to do with this two weeks overdue situation and my monthly time to be emotionally raw...not the best combination.

Now, add a doctor at Telki whom I have never seen before lecturing me on their policy...not my situation's needs, but his policy.  "It is sooooo important that you be induced (basically) NOW, because we used  to have a policy of two weeks before mandatory induction, and now it is 10 days."  Don't spout "policy" to me!  It was different 15 years ago when I started having children and it will be completely different 15 years from now!  I was so proud of myself.  I patiently told him twice that I was off to see my real doctor and we would look at the situation and make a plan.  I guess my calm exterior made him think I didn't realize how "sooooooo  important" the situation was?

So, fuming a bit, with that previously mentioned short fuse, we head out to Budapest to see my "real" doctor, the one that I have seen twice and with whom we have been keeping in contact about the situation, Dr. Szép, Dr. "Nice" or "Beautiful," is how it translates.  This is another hour adventure, and we get there to his office, on the bottom level of some really old apartments in a place that wouldn't feel out of place in the ghetto of New York City, save there is not so much "cultural diversity." (I know first hand, after two times getting lost in the Bronx :)...)

Dr.  Szép's office hours are 4-7 on Friday (and a couple other random times of the week) and are on a first-come, first-serve basis.  We arrived only to find out, like so many in his erratic profession, he is delivering a baby and won't be there for another 20 minutes. No problem, right?  Just read my Nook and talk to Q-dawg.  A little before he is to arrive, a couple arrives and stands in the entrance of the "office hall."  The people who were already there in front of us went in when the doctor got there, and then, 10-15 minutes later, when the first patients came out, the couple "behind us" rushed into the office ahead of us.  Shocked, Q-dwag and I sat there, wondering how that just happened!  Clearly they were there after us, and I am not one that has an easy time with "injustice."  I fumed, I stormed, and Q-dawg offered to knock on the door and demand an explanation. 

I could see that it really wasn't a big deal, but, when I am already an emotional time bomb, reason has very little sway in this psyche.  In fact, when I can see that I am being illogical and immature, my anger often increases.  So helpful, eh?

By the time the couple came out, I had stormed around the building three times, cried, scared a nice old man walking his dog when I stomped around the corner, my face disfigured with barely surpressed fury, pulled some hair out--literally--, tried reading my book "Ivanhoe" (which didn't help, because I was at a part where people were being narrow-minded bigots and convicting an innocent person based on trumped up charges...did I mention what "injustice" does to my level of frustration?), and learned how to say "stupid woman" in Hungarian. (Fortunately, when I am angry, I have a hard time remembering things, and promptly forgot how to say it after Q-dawg calmly told me how.)  I kept pleading with Q-dawg that we just go home and end this day!  I had even envisioned myself tripping the woman on the way out or having a punching match as she came out the door! (I know, scary and very immature...)

As I sat in the office between one of my laps with Q-dawg, I muttered, "and we even had to have a stupid devotional about 'turning the other cheek' this morning!" (Yes, I used the word "stupid.")  Needless to say, the point of the devotional was not applied as it probably should have been at that point :S.

Finally, I took myself outside, and asked Q-dawg to come and get me when they were gone, putting me a safe distance away from the entrance to save the poor woman from my unpredictable, explosively emotional self.

After she left and I came back in, Q-dawg explained that he had approached them as they were leaving, and the couple that had "barged in" before us had actually come at 3:30 pm.   The nurse had told them that the doctor was going to be gone for another hour (at that point) and that they should come back later, and would be seen at once.

Awesome.  Confirmation: I was being emotionally irrational...and for no reason, after all.

Needless to say, when the doctor asked how I was, all I could do was give him a blank stare and say it had not been a very good day.  When he asked if I wanted to talk to him about it, I just looked at him and flatly said, "I'd rather not talk about it." 

What would you have said :)?

p.s.  Dr. Szép is going to induce me Sunday morning at 8, if the little tyke "hasn't come by then"...the standing family "joke" at this point for those in good humor enough to laugh at it :).  He estimates the baby is about 7 1/4 pounds by now, and everything looks great.  My doctor is a delightfully religious, down-to-earth man and commented yesterday (in his deliciously thick Hungarian accent) after pointing heavenward, "God knows ven the baby needs to come, and it vill come!"

Sunday...D-day.

Alright, baby...

I realized today that Avot was also overdue...by 5 days.  No problem, right?

According to my Hungarian due date, I am only one day over (story on that...later?), so, perhaps, for sanity's sake, I will go by that one.

According to my American due date, I am 5 days over, and they only let me go a week over, here in Hungary...which makes sense, I guess.

So...I consoled myself by spending two hours in the freezing afternoon with the kids at the park, eating most of a Milka candy bar by myself (I have won 4 free ones so far, and just one my fifth today), and, well, not doing much of anything else.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Maybe it is good that the baby is still inside.  Just today, one of the kids said that, if the baby was born tomorrow, they could use it as a football.  Then one said, they could use the baby in SPUD (where you throw the ball way up in the air straight up and try to catch it), and they all agreed that wouldn't be such a good idea.

Really?  Who says that?

Q-dawg says that if the baby is born on Thanksgiving we could call the baby "Gib"...you know, short for "Gibblets."

Still no pie tins.  There is actually no word for "pie" in Hungarian, because it is so foreign. 

Miss making pie at home with my mom, and the warmth, smells, and hustle of Wednesday night prep...letting the kids "veg" while we make messes and clean them up in the kitchen, making 20+ pies that we will slowly savor over the next few days....

I went to the store last night to get some turkey and came home with 4 kg of turkey...thighs?  Crazy.  It was the only thing that said "pulyka" in the butcher's department, and Q-dawg had seen a bunch of turkey breasts the last time he came, so I figured those were they...just...well, darker?  Fortunately, I picked up some chicken breasts to go with it, so we can have dark and light meat, turkey and chicken.  Sigh.  At least it will be Thanksgiving-ish.

I think of the gathering up in Oregon with so many of our family there, and my heart is there, too.  Holidays are definitely family time, and I miss them.

The "last stage of pregnancy"...

...what does that exactly mean?

Is it the point when a woman just resigns herself to the fact that she cannot know when the baby is going to come, so she goes through the pointless process of trying to convince herself it doesn't matter when, although deep down she is torn between "bring it on--just get it over with," "woohoo for a new baby!" and "I think it is easier to have the baby inside than outside, so we can wait"?

That's where I am at.

Today is the official due date, according to my American midwife. (My Hungarian doctor, based on one examination at 35 weeks, guesses closer to the 20 of November, so we'll see.  Apparently, they don't do many exams here, so I have no idea if I'm dilated or anything.)  The kids come in first thing in the morning to see if I am still here. Liliputian, the Goob, and Lek are the most persistent at asking "is the baby coming yet?" although today I got an unexpected question from Chugger-dude: "Hey mom, I really want to see the baby be born.  Can I come?"

Ahhhhhh...hmmmmm....well.....I don't think he knows what he is asking, but super sweet!

Q-dawg had a little more time today, so he had the troop out raking up all the leaves in the yard in prep for the neighborhood yard garbage pick-up the city sponsors tomorrow.  I was able to talk to our new pediatrician, who is fabulous...born and raised in the US, lived there until 9 years ago, came over and helped start this Rosakert private clinic, speaks perfect English, and gave me her personal number to call in case I needed her to "fight battles" with the hospital over policy or questions or concerns.    That was great news.

The Goob, Avot and Lek ran sprints today for their exercise, and it was fun to see them go out together as excited friends, even if they came back quarreling.  The little girls have been chasing each other, screaming delightedly as they slide around corners in their socks, around the house for most of today.  Papaya somehow lost her diaper between naptime and dinner, and, since I was in the middle of crying over the onions I was chopping up for dinner, Lek and Avot team-tackled the challenge of the puddle she left and the mess she was from not having it on.  Whew!

We got the washing machine...it looks beautiful, and we will hopefully be hooking it up tomorrow.  Apparently, the load that I had "drying" in the cellar was lovingly hung by the Goob and Chugger-dude, who don't (apparently) realize that clothes need space between them to dry.  Sigh.  At least some of them are dry-er. :)  We'll just need to figure out how to get some rope and hang up more lines to accommodate all our loads, I think.

Science today?  Taking out the "ice" cubes of cherry syrup (it's big over here...you mix the syrup in carbonated water to make your own soda), putting them in water, and watching it melt to show the change from solid to liquid of water more dramatically...and drinking it afterwards.  Unfortunately, brilliant pregnant mind over here didn't think about the fact that "cherry concentrate syrup" has about a bazillion times the amount of food coloring than usual artificially colored foods and one innocent touch of one little cube leaves a bright red mark on anything it comes into contact with.  Now times that by 60 little cubes and 6 pairs of hands eagerly putting the cubes in water.  Not one of my more brilliant moments, and I think the lesson was lost with the fact that the cubes tasted slightly like jolly ranchers when licked--which was completely distracting.  Papaya, of course, followed the suit of her siblings in trying to fish out the ice cubes with her fingers and licking it.  It was a rather nervous "experiment" so I quickly moved on to "invisible ink" art with lemon juice...a much safer brand of scholastic fun :).

Must confess, I'm kind of grumpy...must be my time of the month :), but the family has been sweet.  They even all told me how delicious the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were that I forgot about and turned into blackened crunchy things.  Crazy.  Liliputian cleaned up more of dinner than usual, while I sat on my blood-red cushion on the floor and just stared into space for a while after dinner. 

As my mom puts it, "I'm focusing inward."  At least, that is my excuse :).

End note: on our date/walk tonight, Q-dawg and I were talking about pregnancy (imagine that) and I said something like, "I've been pregnant enough...I should just be used to this by now.  After all, I've been pregnant for 90 months of my life."  He paused, thinking..."How many years is that?"  He figured it has been 7 1/2 years total that I've been pregnant, I am 37 right now, so I have been pregnant almost 1/5 of my life to date.  Crazy.  Who does that?  The kids are super cute, though, so it must be worth it :)....even if they crawl all over each other during scripture and prayer, and some days feel like an endless stream of tattling, followed by the question, "Is that tattling?  Because if it is, I don't want to say it..."  Nice. :)

We're heeeeee--eerrrrre...

That's for Q-dawg...from a movie I've never seen, but know about from my darling husband :)...

We made it.  We moved in last Saturday, after leaving our "lord of the land" (thanks, Julie, for that phrase :)!) in Pécel with an incredibly clean house and yard.  "Oh, you didn't have to do all that..." was incongruously spoken with "I don't have to give you all this money back, but I will." 

Thank goodness it's over.  When I told a little to a lady in church (who works in the LDS mission home here in Budapest), she said that that is just way landlords are here in Hungary, dropping in on you, over-solicitous one moment, and all fired-up angry at you the next.    Awesome :).  She said once they came to their office (with all their electronic equipment and money), and the door was wide open.  The neighbor had wandered in and around, and the landlord didn't hear the neighbor or the missionaries coming into the office as he (the landlord) was working in another room.  Fortunately, Q-dawg made it a part of our new contract that our landlady needs to call and give us 24 hours before coming.  Hopefully she honors that.  She did drive by earlier tonight and tell us that the side-porch light was on and we should turn it off to save on money.  So helpful, and so particular.

Actually, the more I thought about this whole landlord thing (because I am a woman and I am the way I am, I do that...think about things more :)...), the more I really wonder how much of this attitude is from living under communism for so many years.  I mean, it was over 30 years of repressive, "tattle-tale" living, with men in black cloaks literally dropping in whenever, and taking away people for no apparent reason.  They have only been out of that for a little over 20 years now.  That has to do something to a person!  I can't wait until I can speak more Hungarian and really get a feel of what they went through, if I ever have the opportunity to do so.  Maybe that is something so private, so vulnerable, that it is not much discussed, but I do wonder how it changes their outlook in the world.

One thing that strikes me is the antiquity of so many of the buildings, many of which are run-down in a cool, "historical" kind of way.   (I have wondered more than a few times what the buildings would have looked like if they had not been taken back into communism in 1956 and they had been allowed to develop the way they are now.)  However, going back to the buildings, I love all the color...the flower pots in the windows full of geraniums, the splashes of color on the cinder block fences, the little touches that show pride and beautification of what they do have.  Do our landlords feel the same pride in things that I see as already run-down?  That their belongings are something they do have, something they can own, and even to displace their piles of rubbage is to violate something that is theirs?  I don't know, but I do know that Q-dawg was amazing until the end of our interaction with the landlord in Pécel, civil in the face of statements like "I don't know how it is in America, but here in Hungary, we don't just let our kids do whatever they want..."  Sigh.  Interestingly enough, the tenants upstairs were sad to part (we got pictures I will post later :)...) and the lady next door actually had tears in her eyes as she told us in her pretty good English, "I will miss you and having the kids playing outside."  She was a sweetie!

Now, in Biatorbagy, we will be attending a new ward, a ward that is entirely in Hungarian.  The kids are open to it, so we are going to try and do it.  Our old bishop said that with international people, they can "choose" here in Hungary to go to the international ward (the ward we were in), but Hungarians just go to the ward in their boundaries.  Q-dawg and I both feel that it is important to do the same...especially since we will be here for so much longer.  [In the US, we kept our records in my parent's ward while living in Q-dawg's parent's house because we knew (or planned) that we would only be there for a few months.]  The cost will be much less to go to church, too, just a train ride away, and Q-dawg already knows a few of the members,...one of them is a lady he baptized and another is a gentleman he served under in a branch presidency while here on his mission. (That man is the current Stake President of the area.)

Next week is Stake Conference, so that will be what we were already planning on, and then the next week we should start.  I use the term "we" but will probably have the baby before then, so it will probably be Q-dawg and the kids...woohoo! :)

Speaking of baby, I am so grateful for all the faith and prayers of those who helped pray that things would go well with the move and (more selfishly for me) that the baby would not be born last weekend.  I must admit that Friday was a little worrisome for me, because I had been up all the night before with contractions, and I knew I still had a few bags to pack, the house to clean-up, and Q-dawg ended up having to go to our new house to get the internet set up for work and do his work there, since our upstairs neighbors in Pécel didn't pay their internet one of the months before (we had paid half of it for the month we were sharing), and they had turned it off on Thursday, so he couldn't do work there.

So, there I was, in Pécel by myself with 8 kids and a potential time-bomb in my tummy, and no way to reach my husband (our cell phone cannot call our computer, and the internet didn't work, so I couldn't keep the computer to call Q-dawg on it from Pécel).  Q-dawg would call periodically to make sure all was well, but I am so glad I didn't have to make my own way to the hospital in labor, not knowing much Hungarian and which buses to take.  It was a long and nervous day for me, but I was blessed with few contractions and saintly children that helped inside and played outside well for me while I cleaned and packed. 

The kids really were amazing on Friday.  The older two would take the others on walks, play games outside, and come and help when I needed it.  By the end of the day, I had a batch of palacsintak (crepes) going, and would pass out a couple at a time, rolled up with powdered sugar inside and cut into thirds, for the masses to descend upon in between rounds of tag, hide-and-seek, and then mixed-up fairy tale plays.  It was amazing.  They didn't ask once for their "screen time" (it is on Fridays usually, but we didn't have our computers at that apartment anymore) or complain.  They just came up with imaginative games, read, or explored.  I was so grateful!

Back to the move...

Q-dawg had reserved a truck on Friday and brought it back with him from his day of working.  It is a huge beast of a thing that held our few possessions and our kids, all in one trip.  Woohoo!  We got to the new house, and the landlady was waiting.  I was in tears by the time she left.  Her over-solicitous-ness was too much for me, from the "don't take your shoes off--the floor is too cold!" when we first arrived to "okay, now take your shoes off, the house is warm enough and we don't want mud through the house" to "Mary (this from Q-dawg) hurry and get the kids socks and coats on...the landlady is getting upset that the kids are going to get too cold."   I think I lost it to tears when she came into a room I was unpacking in and urgently indicated something to Papaya and Q-dawg translated that I needed to hurry and wipe her nose.  Ah, me.  I will never take for granted the blessing of having our own house and space again :).

Other than that, though, really, this house is amazing.  I love the furniture--big sturdy book shelves with enough room for all our clothes and books (and other random supplies) and to spare, a kitchen that is a dream-size kitchen and dining room to match, compared with the other place, and a palatial feel...again, compared :)....

It reminds me of another of my personal children's book classics, "No Room for a Sneeze."  In the couple complains to a wise man that their house is not big enough, and, little by little, the wise hermit tells them to bring more and more of their farm animals into their house...and finally, the beggar from the street.  When the man who first complained about no space stands speechless before the wise man at the end, the beggar having driven he and his wife out of their bed after eating all the supper, the wise man tells the man that he (the wise man) has found another home for the beggar and all the animals may leave the house.  The man goes home and the family blissfully rejoices in their roomy and spacious house.  Love it.

It also reminds me of the story of the townspeople lounging on their porches on a road into their town, who are asked by the travelers about their town.  "Is it a friendly town?" asked one traveler.  "How was it in your old town?" the townspeople inquire. "Oh, they were all stingy and cold," came the reply.  "Well, it's pretty much the same here," they told the traveler, and the traveler goes on. 

The same question put forth by another traveler is greeted, again, by the same inquiry, only this time, the traveler's reply is different.  "Oh, the people were wonderful!  Welcoming and warm."  Again, the townspeople said, "Well, it's pretty much the same here."

I think you really get what you are looking for...you can look for the good and miraculous, or you can look for the reasons to complain :).  I do a little of both. Q-dawg is more in the category of the latter, and I love him for it! :)

Alright, long post, but it has been a few days.

Baby check today again at Telki,...all is good.  I am still losing a little weight each time, but I am okay with that, and the baby is healthy.  Maybe it is because I have been under a little stress :). (Or maybe it is all the Swiss chocolate I am eating...I go through one or two of those Alpine milk chocolate bars a week.  A dollar's worth of indulgence for a happy pregnant woman is not too much to ask, right :)?  I even share sometimes :)...)

The kids are awesome.  The boys all sleep in one room with Papaya, after winning the "debate" over who was going to get her. (They all wanted her in their room, crazy enough...and that after sleeping with her in the same room for a month and hearing how much she can wake up and cry.  I don't pretend to understand it, but love that they love her so much!)  The girls get the big main room with the hide-away couch that is always pulled out into a bed (the landlady's request, as her couch-bed is very old). 

Last Saturday, after hurriedly unpacking a bunch and after the land lady left, Q-dawg and I hurried to grab some grub for the kids, since it was 2 pm and we hadn't really had anything since yogurt and pastry/bread from the bread store that morning.  We got pizzas, as a treat, and the kids enjoyed them, but the pizzas were different: the pepperoni pizzas all have corn on them, and the cheese pizzas had different kids of cheese on them, but the ham pizzas were a hit, even with the peppers.  As Q-dawg said when we bought them, "Welcome to Hungary :)..." I guess corn on the pizza has been here since he was here.  Better than the mixed vegetables he had on his first pizza, right :)?

After we left the kids here with food and a lock, we took off to find Ikea and the Auchan grocery/department store to stock up.  Super warm blankets (woohoo!), sheets, drying racks, garbage cans, dishes...you name it, we got it.  Fortunately, you can get so many of those things pretty inexpensively at the Ikea, so it wasn't too bad.  We also had that big truck, so we didn't have to carry things on a bus and walk with them, which was awesome.  The only bad part was Ikea is like the Ikea in America--a pain for me to figure out where everything is :), so we didn't find a table for the kitchen, nor a washing machine (which I wasn't sure if they even carried...).  So, other than those two things, we are set :).  It is nice having our own things and not having to worry about other people's things so much.

Today, on the way back from the doctors, we had a find: as store with umbrellas (finally!), tights for the girls and their tendency to dress for summer, and warm fuzzy house slippers for the whole family.  Woohoo!  After a couple days walking on our cold tile, and then trying to move the rugs from Ikea around so I could stand on them, we thought it would work better to get slippers for everyone than to try and pay the exorbitant amount of cranking up the heat for kids who like it cold anyway :).  So, we got a great deal on all those things, and Avot even got some new Sunday shoes/dress boots.  Q-dawg had to rush home to finish up some work while we were there, so I got to finish up the transaction with my broken Hungarian and my handy-dandy pocket English/Hungarian dictionary I got last week.  Thank goodness it was packed in my backpack!

Speaking of my backpack, it has been packed and ready to go to the hospital for a few days now :).  My favorite parts?  My Nook, the video camera, and a cute little baby outfit for our little one to come home in :).  I thought of my mom with that last thing, since that is something she always does for us, so, mom, that was for you :)!

Funny Hava moment (I'm trying to "catch up" :)...):  I sang a song the other day, and it has a line in it, "Tell me the reason only birds can fly..."  I kept singing, but in the middle of the next stanza she blurted out, "Butterflies can fly."  A couple lines later, she said, matter-of-factly again, "Bees can fly."  Smartie pants.  Like Q-dawg said, everything she says lately is funny :).  I love this age. 

We found some awesome grand pianos...most of them for around $200...crazy, eh?  Avot and I are drooling over them, but even our awesome van we rented for $40 to move in wasn't big enough for them, so we would have to figure that out :).   Maybe for Christmas or summertime next year.  We already have the perfect place picked out for it in our house :).

Well, I have a bunch more I should probably write, but I am tired, and this is enough :).  We are moved safely in, the baby is not born yet, we are happy and eager to see what this new place has in store, and I am loving having a place where I probably won't have to move from for a couple of years...a nice change after four moves in less than a year :).  I love having all my books, my friends, out on the shelves; I love that my kids are reading all these awesome classics (there aren't a lot of options) and filling their minds with amazing things; I love to see them be responsible, flexible with change, and develop their relationships with each other more, just like my friend Karen said happened to her family when they moved to a different country as a young family when she was a little girl.  I love having Q-dawg with us all the time, whether out with us or in the room working.  I realized how much I have come to depend upon his presence that day he was away and I felt so vulnerable.  He is a good man to have around and I am grateful that his presence is part of the package of coming here to Hungary.

Oh!  One thing more...last Sunday, I said a prayer in Relief Society in Hungarian.  I have been practicing in my prayers for months now, and even had some things I was going to say but didn't.  When I got up there and started praying, I said about two things and then felt overwhelmed by the Spirit.  I stood there, quietly trying to contain the rush of emotion and tears that were sweeping through me, as I am sure everyone in the room was thinking, "Oh no...poor dear is up there and doesn't know what to say :)."  My prayer was simple, with a few things of thanks, and one "request", before finishing, and then I sat down, still filled with emotion.  As I sat there, trying to puzzle out what had just happened, I wondered if it was a couple things.  Well, first, I'm pregnant, so that is a big thing right there :).  But then, I thought, maybe it is because it is the first time I have been able to share anything church-related since I have come here, to the Hungarian people.  I yearn to communicate, and I was doing it!  The other thing I thought was maybe it was just Heavenly Father being so happy for me...maybe, just maybe :).  Whatever it was, it was powerful, it was amazing, and it made me want to learn Hungarian all the more :).

"Seeking what's Good"

Okay, before you read the following, listen to the first part of the following song at the following link (or at least the part with the young man talking):

Seeking what's Good"

Now, the news...

We are moving out of our apartment.

Our kids are too hard on the owner's backyard, he feels,.. his garden.  We feel for him, and he is very angry.  The hardest part for me is that he yelled at my Quinn...who never deserves that.

The landlord called on the phone Friday evening, speaking loudly and rapidly, so Q-dawg didn't understand a lot of his complaints.  The landlord finished the call by saying he would come over the next day to finish up talking it out.  He said on the phone he wants us to leave, not even wanting to imagine the destruction our kids would work on his house upstairs.   His words, not mine...

After the shock set in and we got home after getting the call, we looked around the yard, and, other than not completely filling up the holes, a small border fence Q-dawg was able to put back up in a few minutes, and some extra wear on the grass, we cannot really see anything.  After his visit yesterday, there was nothing really more than that.  Perhaps the problem stems from the fact that he always drops in unannounced, so sees us in the middle of life and projects, and not when we have just finished our cleaning at the beginning of each day.  I cannot think of anyone that maintains cleanliness in every phase of their life, at all times of their day...except maybe Shara :).

This doesn't invalidate the man's concerns, so we honor that, and I would rather not live somewhere that we are a problem.  Those who know me well, know that one of my deepest concerns is to be a burden or make things hard for others because of me or my many children.  And Q-dawg, of course, is incredibly responsible and just wants it to be made "right."

So, the "talk" with the landlord was kind of awkward, Q-dawg said. (I played the part of coward, since I would have just sat there the whole time, not understanding what was being said and feeling frustrated, and went food shopping on my own with four of the kids.)  The landlord had brought the real estate agent that had connected the two of us, "to witness the destruction" Q-dawg thinks, and the real estate agent didn't really see a problem.  Q-dawg told the landlord we already had a place pretty much lined up, and we were going to look into it on Monday. (I refuse to be here and stress out--or stress the kids out--with surprise inspections and conflicting feelings of what's "okay," and asked Q-dawg to call a house we had looked at previously and was still available.)  The landlord was surprised and said something like, "well, you have six months..."  Really? After yelling into the phone that he didn't want us in his house anymore?  Hmmmm....

The mood I was in Saturday morning, you could have given me a truck, an "okay"  on that house that was still available, and I would have been out of here yesterday.

"And the sun rises..."

To bring this post full circle, Friday night, so much of what was on my mind was seeking understanding, seeking to see what good could come from it, knowing it had to be there somewhere.

There are a lot of possibilities--more friends for the kids maybe, no steep climb to our house :), things like that, but, honestly, it is pretty hard to really see it right now.

When I woke up Saturday morning, my soul still a garble of emotion, I turned on the lds.org youth music, and that was the first song that came on.

Tender mercies.  We are praying that it will be resolved peacefully and things will go well.

The irony of the whole thing was how earlier on Friday, Q-dawg and I had been talking about how awesome it was that we were able to do this amazing thing, going to Hungary with our family, and all the good we were enjoying.

"We can even have chickens until we're old!" I exclaimed, euphoric with the options we all really do have with our lives, to choose, and try out new things, or keep to the old comfortable things that we love and sustain us. (He liked the phrase and said it should be the title of some chapter in a book someday.)  It seems our freedom can be limited by our actions and the choices of others (a truth I knew, but have it now reaffirmed :S....), but we will see where the path goes from here...and seek for what's good, right?

************************************************

The good news?  Went to the doctor yesterday, and the baby is doing well :).  The hospital is beautiful and wonderful, and we had fun with Liliputian, Chugger-dude and Pipalicious as our traveling buddies, even if we missed our train stop that night and went too far.

Funny side of that?  When I nudged Q-dawg awake from his doze on the train and said, "I don't recognize this stop.  Did we miss our stop?", he affirmed it, and we all hurried and got off at the next stop.  The stop was completely abandoned and barely looked like a stop at all.  There was no ticket selling location there, and reminded me of the time I was with some fellow college students on our way to the Washington D.C. temple...and we got a flat in the Bronx at 5 am.  Scary.  This place looked equally nerve-wracking at first.

Fortunately, the train did stop a half an hour later going the other direction (after multiple games of "20 questions" and "I spy"), we were able to get on, and, when we explained to the ticket-checker on the train what had happened, preparing to pay our fare at that point, he asked if we were from America, and entered into a very animated conversation with Q-dawg, and insisted we didn't need to worry about paying.  What a nice guy, and what a nice thing to happen when our world had been yanked out from underneath our feet...

Doctor/hospital visit

After leaving the house at 6:45 this morning, picking up some yogurt for breakfast, and catching an earlier train than we were planning on, Q-dawg and I were off to the hospital Szent Margits in Buda.  The kids sleepily bid us a good-bye (and were absolutely fabulous while we were gone for the next 6 hours, thank goodness :)...).

We got off the villamos/trolley and started walking in a zig-zag direction to find Szent Margits.  Unfortunately, the streets that were on the mapquest were off the edges of Q-dawg's official Budapest City map guide, so we winged it.  After about 20 minutes of walking in the wrong direction, up a hill of 12% grade at the end (it had a sign...yes, it is about as steep as the one to our house :)...), Q-dawg found someone who directed us back the way we had come.  Oh well :).  It was great exercise, right?

We got to the clinic in the hospital just a few moments late (thank goodness we caught that earlier bus!), and had a time trying to find it.  The hospital was old, cobwebby on the stairs, with broken glass in front of the fire extinguisher cases, but I guess it was nice enough.  Our doctor who met us there, assured us it was a good hospital.  Awesome :).  We were whisked right in to get the baby's heart tested and everything was fabulous.  Yeah!  Healthy baby!

The doctor then took us in his Cadillac to the hospital that is actually covered by our insurance, Telki Hospital.  We drove around for about half an hour, taking all sorts of cool, bumpy side-streets (for anyone who has been 8 months pregnant with lots of Braxton-hicks (sp?) the "bumpy" is significant) and making some awesome u-turns.  We got to see where the honorable doctor lives, even.  What service! 

As he was making one of his cool u-turn moves, he pointed out that, even though u-turns weren't technically legal at that place, he, like all Hungarians, disregarded rules when they didn't feel like they applied to them.  Interesting :).  Maybe too many years of communist rules?

One good side to this "rule-policy" is that Dr. Szép said that hospitals don't have any rules against younger siblings visiting, because they know that people will just break them.  I am so excited to be able to have the kids visit us in the hospital.  Daddy is going to go and get them and bring them to visit.  They will have a cell-phone to keep in contact, and we'll have all sorts of perks available to keep them happy, in the absence of Grandmothers (so sad :(!  We will miss you both!)

After a beautiful drive through a forested area, we came to Telki Hospital...and it is amazing!  There is a wing specifically set aside for a laboring woman coming in to be admitted.  It looks like all the rooms I am going to describe are for one person at a time, too!

After she goes to a private room to be checked, she is taken to a "laboring room" that has all sorts of things to help with labor: jacuzzi/bathtub, large bed, birthing ball, rocking chair, and...a huge knotted rope hanging from the ceiling?  That made Q-dawg and I raise our eyebrows.  Who knew?

Anyway, then, there is a room for delivery right across the hallway, and then a room next to it for recovery, complete with a separate bed for the father, and all the monitoring stuff for the baby in a little alcove to the side, so the baby can be in the room the entire time with the parents.  So cool!

The facility is clean, nestled snugly in a little forested valley with hills on either side, and seems heavenly.  The cost of this building, although significantly more than the other hospitals in Budapest, is still far less expensive than in the United States.  Let me put it this way, the bill for per day stay after delivery is $250 a day.  Crazy!  And that is before the insurance coverage that we have!  What a blessing.

Q-dawg already has the route planned out for the way there, with the option of a taxi if it is an emergency.  My last few deliveries have taken their time, so I am not worried.  The key, I guess, is to recognize real labor, which I haven't been able to do so well so far.  I know, you'd think the woman has done it 9 times before, she might know the real thing when she has it!  Goes to show, experience doesn't amount to much in the area of child delivery...except to know how much you don't know and how different it can be each time :).

Pregnancy/Doctor update

Q-dawg and I took a longer trip into Buda yesterday to meet my doctor that we are going to deliver with.  Apparently, it is a show-up and be seen kind of clinic.  Well, before I go into my impressions of this clinic, let me share my impressions of the first one.  It was nice, orderly, with many well-dressed clients and their husbands, and very comfortable...much like what I am used to in the U.S.   The clinic I went to yesterday?  Well...let me just say, it reminded me of the kind of clinic people would see during the communist regime: a little hole in the wall place with nothing like the obsession of sterility that seems to exude from other medical practices I have been to.  The doctor?  Shows up a little late, dressed in a casual, old polo shirt (complete with a couple holes in it), and looks like a white-haired version of the Russian in R.E.D. (for those who have seen that movie). 
Fortunately, he spoke English, took plenty of time to answer our questions, and was eager to help us.  He gave us all sorts of useful information for the weeks ahead, and is even going to take us to visit the hospital where we will deliver in his personal car next Wednesday after going to a clinic to get an EKG (I think he said) for the baby's heart beat.  He did an ultrasound there at the office, and it was good to see the little baby within me again.  I never get tired of seeing that, you know?  I love these little ones, as Charles Dickens puts it, and it is no small thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. (Thanks, Niesha R., for blessing my life with that quote!)
So, feelings?  People have been having babies since the dawn of time, right?  It's mostly me, and I have been reviewing my hypnobirthing that made Pipalicious's delivery one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.  I might be able to leave the hospital as early as one day after delivery, depending upon how the baby and I are doing (of course) and if we can secure our pediatrician by then, which we are working on.  There are a few different procedures here--the PKU is taken 4 days after, and all Hungarian babies are required to get a TB shot.  I need to look into that latter one...

Other than that, my feelings are, well...he's certainly nice enough, and seems to be competent.  At least he seems to know all the answers to my questions about bonding with the baby afterwards (they let me keep the baby with me :)!), hospital procedures, and labor practices (they'll let me walk, sit, wander, sit on a birthing ball,...whatever, apparently).  And, hey!  His name is Dr. Nice or Dr. Beautiful, is how his name translates.  It can't be that bad, right :)?

Q-dawg and I enjoyed a light dinner on the way home, courtesy of the local ABC market--yogurt, rolls, and an Alpine milk chocolate bar.  Sweet.

We made it to the train station in plenty of time to catch one that was leaving soon for Pécel.  We decided to walk further down the train to one of the first cars to make it less of a walk home when we got to Pécel, so we headed to the front end of the train.  However, when we saw crowds of people doing the same--about half way down the train--, we went ahead and got on the next car, figuring our chances would be better at getting a seat then.

It was a good thing we had walked as far as we did!  We got off the train in Pécel, expecting to have people walking past us to the town (which lays further down the tracks) and saw no one.  We were on the last car!  If we had gotten onto any of the other cars before that one that we chose to, we would have still been sitting at the train station or going somewhere else!  We still don't know how that happened, but are grateful we decided to walk as far as we did, and will be careful to check for things like that next time :)!

The contractions are coming more and more often, harder and harder, but it seems that it is like this more and more towards the end with the more babies I have.  I really like what the hypnobirthing book says about fear being the enemy...it really is.  It is amazing how much easier the contractions are to bear when I let go of any fear about pain and just imagine trusting my body.  They really do become easy to deal with.  Nice book :).

Enjoying the Romans and ladybugs...and other stuff

We studied the end of the Roman empire yesterday, in our kid's school time machine and in our "high school class" with Avot and Lek.  It feels so great to be doing it again...even if I ended up doing it in the late afternoon and evening. :)  The younger kids made sugar cookie "Roman walls" and ate them in true barbarian style.  We had tin foil dinners (in the oven...our little firepit in the back was inadequate) as we pretended to be roman soldiers up in Gaul, but I am afraid my patience was wearing a little thin by that point in the day.   It was dark and cooler outside at that point, so most of the kids were inside,...and hungry!  Avot was playing the violin in the other room, and I was feeling a little crowded with my big tummy and a horde of little natives all around me, clamoring to make theirs.  There is only room on the table for four at a time, so I allowed myself to get a little frustrated.  Oh dear.  Way to ruin a moment :S.   However, the kids seemed to work it out, and maybe we can just pretend that I was an angry officer getting after the troops :)?  Lek was a life-saver and had the veggies almost all cut up by the time I got home from the grocery store. 

I ordered bread on my own yesterday!  Of course, after practicing the phrase with Q-dawg and to myself several times, I still missed some words, but! I walked out of the bakery with what I wanted :).  Liliputian and I also went grocery shopping (without bags of our own, but fortunately it was just enough that we could carry it without having to buy another bag on our own...no bags are free here in the grocery stores).  We are both trying to learn the food words in Hungarian, so it was a fun little date, although we drew some curious stares.

The Amazing Ladybug Infestation is getting better.  They used to come in for more hours of the day, but now it is just in the evening.  Our wall outside was covered with them a few days ago.  They would work their way in the cracks of the window frames.  The Goob and Chugger-dude liked whacking at them with their swords in the air outside...boys.

At least it is lady bugs that make their way in daily during the warm hours into our house, and not something more disgusting.  Chugger-dude has adopted several as pets, since I won't let Pipalicious and Liliputian adopt the black puppy from next door as a pet. (The black puppy has found a way to get into our yard, so it is almost as good as a pet when mom doesn't notice and have Lek go and put the barrier back up :).)

Hava just put her hand on my shoulder, dramatically, and said, "Mom, I love you."  She is a sweetie.  She is thrilled that Avot is making waffles for breakfast this morning.  She has just informed me:  we are not in Hungary...we are in a house;  the baby kicked her off my shrinking lap; and the baby will be coming after Pipalicious's birthday.  All said with the authority of a know-everything four year old :).

I am in a chapter of my hypnobirthing book called, "Fear, the Enemy of the Birthing Room."  With that kind of title, maybe Lek and the Goob would enjoy it :).  I am getting more and more excited to see this very active baby, but am very content to wait until we move upstairs.  Wouldn't that be the icing on the cake of our little one-room adventure...a new baby in the middle :)! I hope Heavenly Father doesn't have that much of a sense of humor in this case :).  We go to see the newest hopeful doctor today. 

I had a nightmare last night that we had traveled back to the U.S. for some weird reason and were trying to make it back to Hungary, but four of us would be stuck in San Francisco, so we had to find a hotel for those four, but I couldn't find online which four of us it was!  I was frantic.  I also dreamed I had it out with an over-zealous member of the local stake leadership (didn't actually recognize the man in my dream) about letting my kids play basketball in gym of the old church we went to in West Jordan, and how it was way to distracting to anyone else in the building, we had no right to be there, and he was going to penalize my mom for letting us use her keys by taking them away.

I must be pregnant.  Dreams are so crazy!

First doctor's visit

What a great day!

We woke up to a misty, moisty morning.  A delicious rainfall had started during the night, completely soaking our fresh laundry.  I really didn't mind, because rain, combined with fresh sunshine, makes the most delicious smelling clothes :). (I found this out from the few times our dryer went out in America.)

We headed out for my doctor's appointment in Budapest: Q-dawg, me, Pipalicious, Hava, and Papaya.  (If we take three kids, it is cheaper...especially if they are all younger than 7 and we don't have to pay for them :)...).  We were a little late, so we ran down our street, which is fortunately steeply downhill on the way out to places...when we are usually running late :)...I don't really like thinking about the trek up the hill on the way back home :).  It is good exercise.  It's pretty steep.  We'll have Avot and Lek figure it out using geometry later today, since I think it is about 30% from my pregnant perspective, and Q-dawg laughingly disagreed, estimating more of an 11% grade.  He's probably right as usual :). 

We barely made the train--the girls and I were getting on board as Daddy came racing out of the train station with our tickets.

We took the train to the end, the center of Budapest and started walking.  It was only a mile, through the pouring rain, but we had never been on that route before, so we had a couple wrong turns at first. Q-dawg asked about five people which was was the right way to a certain main street, and every one of them was a foreigner like us!  What are the odds! We even "were privileged" to "tour" an underground passage that served as a home for several people.  (Q-dawg said that we could always live there if things don't work out like we hope...funny!)

I was completely drenched by the time we got to the doctors and sat there, dripping in my chair, while we waited to be seen.  I didn't really mind.  After years of droughts and praying for rain in Utah, it is still a blessing :).  It was also neat seeing all the people in the city, feeling the hustle and bustle.  I particularly like seeing people watch the children.  The gruff exterior melts as they see Papaya's happy, sparkling blue eyes, or see Hava's range of emotions.  Pipalicious's cute little voice and mannerisms are also sweet.  At one point, as we got the girls out of the stroller to climb down some stairs, I reached out and took Pipalicious and Papaya by the hand to help them down.  Looking back to make sure Hava was right behind me, I saw that she was also holding someone's hand...a gentleman in his fifties or sixties, I would guess, who had tenderly reached out to help her down the stairs.  It was sweet.  Of course, I kept a close eye on him :), but felt, again, a connection with these beautiful Hungarian people.

After sitting in the waiting room for a little over an hour (with three rambunctious girls, only three bags of fruit snacks, coloring books, and one bag of nuts...far from sufficient for an hour!), we met the doctor, only to find out that he doesn't deliver at the hospitals on our insurance.  Puzzling.  Q-dawg and I couldn't figure out how an OB would be accepted by our insurance that doesn't deliver at the hospital on our plan, but there we were.  He was helpful in getting us going in another direction, though, and gave us some clarifying questions to ask for future doctors we visit.

The rain was still pouring down when we left, drenching us immediately again after leaving.  We were more careful to avoid the large puddles on the side of the road, after getting splashed all over from a car on our way there :).  The girls were troopers, their jackets kept them pretty dry from the waist up, and we raced (or walked fast :)...) to the train station, making it just moments before it pulled away. They only come and go from Pecel about once an hour, so we work very hard not to miss them.  My tummy ligaments told me that they were not at all pleased with the dash I made pushing a stroller for the final stretch, but it was better than trying to entertain the three girls for an hour at the train station, I told myself :).

Once back in Pecel, we went to the bookstore, looking for an Angol/Magyar translating dictionary (and vice-versa) and another adapter...both to no avail, but we were able to get them ordered.  We stopped at the yummy Pekseg (bakery) where Daddy spoiled us with sugar rolls, pudding rolls, and cheese bread.  We also picked up another loaf of dark bread to go with our lentil dinner.  Yumalicious!

My body was tired and wet, but it was a good day.  I am glad for a couple days of just staying here before my next doctor's appointment on Friday.

And, yes, Q-dawg has already checked to make sure that doctor delivers at the hospital on our insurance plan :).

First thoughts in Hungary

We're heeeeeeee-eeeeeeere!

Some matches were made in heaven...some were not.  You can decide which of the following is which:


2 year old + jet lag + single bedroom apartment = no sleep

7 cats + 8 month of pregnancy + severe asthma allergies to cats = no sleep

1 pregnant woman + 8 children + 6 security checks + 1 irrational, ornery stewardess telling her first that her son could not come on with all the carry-ons he was carrying (for all the other tired kids on the last leg of our journey) and then that he wasn't even cleared to come on at all since he has no ticket =....well, words cannot describe what that one equals!

9 people in yellow shirts + 7 hours of layover time in Dublin + blankets + quiet airport gate = blissful sleep for a little while for most of us

At baggage claim in Budapest: 11 50# pieces of luggage + 9 carry-ons + 9 backpacks/bags + 8 jackets + 6 blankets + 3 stuffed animals + one untrustworthy looking, non-English speaking Hungarian trying to move my luggage for me (I am sure he was trying to be nice, but couldn't be sure) - (yes, that is an underlined, emphasized "minus" sign, indicating his absence) Hungarian-speaking husband (important one) + 24 hours of travel= panicky pregnant woman

Finally out of the airport with all our luggage and with Daddy, once again!

Q-dawg had to wait outside an outer set of doors--I could tell he was frantic with not being able to help me!--, not allowed into the baggage area...ahhhh!  I just couldn't figure out if the aforementioned Hungarian was trying to make a quick buck off an unsuspecting American woman, so I felt that I could not accept his offer to help.  I did understand a little of what he was saying, as he did of what I was saying in my broken Hungarian, but it wasn't enough...sigh!  I was just afraid to follow my instincts and rush to my Honey, just in case I wouldn't be allowed back to my kids and luggage...I had had my fill of irrational, over-zealous airport security, and knew better than to rely on any chance of mercy.

Full disclosure of airplane experience based on notes to come :)...

Daddy welcomed us home (in stages...three trips with a rental car to get us all home with our luggage) with a wonderful Hungarian feast:

Papaya looks great for having just endured all those flights!  The sandwiches were a success, and the bread looks like the one we got at a bakery later...all that bread for 50-75 cents, depending upon where you go!

As for here, Q-dawg picked a beautiful home for us to rent.  We just need to wait for a month until it is available, so for now we are enjoying a beautiful one-bedroom basement apartment beneath the future one until it is available on Nov. 10.  For those of you who are interested in numbers, yes...that is 6 days before my due date.

Chicken coop behind the house

Gardens and orchards above

The actual house (once we get to move in)

Is this an avocado plant outside our window?

The front gate--all four sides are fenced, and every other house has at least one loud, barking dog...ours? 7 cats (The kids love it.) Thankfully, they will move out with the renters upstairs.

View from the street

Avot cooking our first Hungarian breakfast

Other view of the kitchen (sorry they're sideways)

Hava--sideways again, sorry!

Walnut from the tree out back

view out the back yard

Papaya sampling the apples from the trees in our yard--delicious, down to the seeds, apparently...                                      just like her uncle Cody :) !

Our pile of luggage again...all moved in now, though!

View from the base of our backyard

The good news is: the flight didn't put me into labor and my cool anti-embolism tights did their work and prevented me from getting any blood clots.

So I am counting my blessings :).

The neighbors upstairs are super nice...Tamas has cooked a delicious meal already (he is a cook at a restaurant).  It was pork cooked in bacon grease (they sell the slabs of fat separate here--specifically for cooking), garlic and onions, with paprika, salt, and marjoram.  It was served over french fries (deep fried) with a cucumber salad (absolutely delicious):

This is for you, Grandma!

Papaya lovin' it....well, the french fries at least :)

Lek said that if this is how Hungarians eat all the time, he is going to love it here!  Avot even liked it :). (We love to tease her about being picky, although she is really pretty great about trying new things these days.)