Shortbus v. the Abominable Momo

Hey everyone. This is Shortbus again.  I'm back at the computer to report on some unfortunate changes here in my domain in Catmandu (the other spelling makes no sense).  My two human pets appear to have brought home a mini-human.  They call her Ryan.  I call her The Abominable Momo.  Her extremities are pale and creased just like a delicious Nepali momo, but she's a terror, just like the Bumble!  She runs everything around here.  When to wake up, when to sleep, when to eat.  And she does each of those things every 37 minutes.  I can hardly get into my pets' laps anymore, as The Abominable Momo is usually there.  Well, as you learned from my previous post, I lead this parade.  So I had to put my feet down, as you can see in the photos below.  Let the conquering begin:

Oh, I'm sorry. Was this your swing Momo? Conquered

Next I conquered Ryan's jungle...thing. That music was driving me nuts.

You ready to talk yet adorable duck?!

Consider yourself conquered Abominable Momo.

3 months!

You just turned 3 months old and wow, what an exciting 3 months it has been.  Your dad has  posted about some of our adventures below, so I'll spare you the recap, but let's just say you're quite the traveler!

You've been a pretty easy baby since day one, for which your dad and I are extremely thankful!  You're quite clear with your cues for being hungry (a lot like woody woodpecker with the head bob and "eh-eh-eh" sounds for the first couple of months) and tired (an incredibly pathetic/adorable yelp).  And thank goodness you came out knowing how to do the breastfeeding thing since I had no clue. I caught on pretty quickly though, so we're rocking and rolling these days.  I'm usually doing the rocking (in our awesome hand-me-down glider thanks to Aunt Cam and Uncle David) and you're doing the rolling, as in, man you're putting on some chunk!  We've started calling you Momo, after the Nepali dumpling since you're all white and doughy and pretty yummy to nibble on, especially your chubby cheeks and your plump thighs!

 In the last few weeks you've started cooing up a storm.  Especially at 5:30 in the morning when you've decided it's time to be awake (not sure where you came up with that one) and for some reason the shadows on the ceiling really crack you up, which in turn cracks me and dad up.  Unless we're ignoring you, since it's 5:30 in the morning! You don't seem to mind.

Once we're all awake, we really enjoy reading to you.  You seem to pay attention and LOVE to kick the books with your feet.  We read good ol' kids books like The Little Engine That Could, Goodnight Moon, Curious George, etc, but I like to throw in America (Jon Stewart) and Freedom of the Hills (climbing bible) every now and then to keep things interesting (to me). You also love standing up on tables (hope this changes before you're in college) and exploring the world around you while we carry you around (this one you can keep doing for the rest of your life, except for the being carried part).  You've just started sucking your thumb, which is pretty cute and seems to help you fall/stay asleep, so more power to ya! I can't wait to see what fun things you do next!

         

It's finally here!

So many things have occurred in the last two weeks since my last blog action, I don't even know where to begin. I always have grand designs on writing in-depth poetic stories about individual enlightening events, like my recent old-fashioned haircut (scissors), shave (straight razor), and head and face massage for 2 dollars. Or my trip to the Last Resort near the border with Tibet.  Don't worry, I didn't do the bungy jump...the 3rd highest in Asia.  But I did take a short hike up the hill (a mountain in the U.S.) where I received this text message from Big Brother:

 I could also post about our trip to the Nepali touristy lake town of Pokhara where my paddle boat was overrun by naked Nepali pirate children.

But how can I make the time for all of that when the BID LIST IS OUT??!!!!!  Yes, the bid list, the Foreign Service Officer's equivalent to an official Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock.  It's all we can think about.  And it is finally here.  Thank you Santa.  What is the Bid List, you ask?  It is only the most exciting thing in existence for a young Foreign Service Officer: a list of every possible post and job for our next tour.  Even though we've only been here for 8 months, the State Department must plan for future tours at least one year in advance.  We received our bid list about a week ago and have attended to little else since, much to the chagrin of my 3-month old daughter.  She's tired of changing her own diapers, but she's a natural. Our bid list is large, with 455 discrete jobs. That is a lot of diplomacy.  How to parse so many options?  With a fancy, high tech spread sheet of course.  Luckily Elyse is a wizard with Excel.  I think she sees the world kind of like Neo in the Matrix...everything is just cells, columns, and rows.  With her Excel wizardry we sliced and diced the list like the Slap-Chop dices an onion. But even once you remove the impossible posts (e.g. too early, too late) or the places you don't want to go (e.g... I can't give a funny example because I'd get in trouble with some country in the future), there are still 50 or 60 left.  After still more discussion and child neglect, we've finally narrowed it down to the requisite 30.  I'm not going to name them all, or tell you the order, but here is a random sampling of cities on our Bid List: Oslo, Istanbul (was Constantinople), Lisbon, Quito, Canberra, Praia, Montevideo, Riga, Bratislava, Brasilia, Baghdad, and Ljubljana.  Ever heard of the last one?  Can you pronounce it?  Neither could we.  But thanks to Wikipedia, it made the cut. Oh, and Baghdad was a joke.  Good one, huh Gale?  I thought so too.  We will submit our list in late June and find out a few weeks later.  We'll keep you posted on where they keep us posted.