Traffic in Sao Paulo

This just about sums up my experience of driving in Brazil! It is never simple to go anywhere. There are one way roads everywhere, you can't turn right on red and more often than not, you can't turn left across a main road. Which means you really need to know exactly where you're going! If you are not in the correct lane, who knows where you'll end up! We've done a lot of driving since we've been back, and I will illustrate a few interesting situations we've found ourselves in.

On our way to our prospective apartment, we were using David's iPhone's GPS to direct us when we noticed that to turn left, we first had to turn right, left and left again, thus allowing us to cross the road, rather than just turn left. In my diagram, the red shows where we wanted to go and the blue represents how we actually did it! Notice that the first right turn takes us onto a "one way" road that in effect has us driving on the left side of the road. And this is not the first road I've seen in Brazil like this!
As we were returning from the ministry center (about an hour and a half away), we were driving back on one of the main highways, which has been under heavy construction and development in the past year or so. Being away for three months, our usual exit strategy didn't work. We were in the process of changing lanes to get over to the right to take an exit, but instead found ourselves on an overpass taking us where we didn't want to go. Thankfully we had our handy GPS and used it to navigate through some back streets to avoid the increasingly heavy rush hour traffic on the main drags. The red shows where we wanted to go, the blue shows where we ended up!

And if this isn't enough, Sao Paulo has a weird system called Rodizio. It means cars with license plates starting with a certain number can't drive in the center of the city from 7:00 to 10:00am and 5:00 to 8:00pm (i.e rush hour) on a specific day. So on Wednesday our car is out of commission for those hours.
Of course, this just makes life that much more interesting, and I still love to drive! So if you ever find yourself behind the wheel in Sao Paulo, don't forget your GPS!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

No excuses

So, my last attempt to blog from my iPad and include an image didn't really work; I was forced to spend $2.99 to purchase an app to be able to do what I want to. Now, let's see if the money spent will help me blog; after all, I've got to make it worth it, right? I've got no more excuses!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Experimental post

I've had a few blog posts running around in my head these past few days, and haven't exactly kept to my "just do it" plan! One of my big reasons (i.e excuses) is that I can't upload photos into my blog posts from my iPad. So, procrastinator extraordinaire that I am, I've been searching for an iPad app that gives me that option! So this is my test post from the Monarch app. Its a free app that I'm trying out. I always try to get away with using a freebie, but I wonder if I bought one, if that would help my inspiration?

Here is painting I found when searching in google for an image to add to this post. I only got a little distracted by reading the article that it came from! Hmmm, distraction is a good theme to blog about in relation to procrastination now, isn't it?

Procrastinator extraordinaire!

Yup, that's me. After all, this post was supposed to happen sometime in January - actually close to the beginning of the month. You know, the one where you write about all the resolutions you're going to keep this year... Well, I wanted to blog more...but it hasn't really worked out so far, but here I go and really, it's only February!

I'm sitting in bed, the kids are asleep and I'm wondering why it has taken me so long to get down to blogging, I mean it's not that hard, right? In fact, it's taken me a good 10 minutes to convince myself that I should just start writing, with my brain coming up with all sorts of random excuses such as; it's getting late, it's hard to type on an iPad, I really need to cut my nails (yes, a super lame excuse) and so on.

This has made me think about other areas of my life and how we can get into habits of procrastinating that seem to build up until it really becomes a problem. You know the things I'm talking about - leaving the dishes overnight, not taking the extra 5 seconds to put your clothes away, checking facebook just once more before settling down to do a task. The more we allow ourselves to "get away with" putting something off, the more we are robbing ourselves of a productive and satisfying life. The days when I am busiest are usually the ones that are the most satisfying.

The other issue I think I have with blogging, for example, is that I think about it too much and build up a huge expectation in my mind - maybe I am a perfectionist too! So when I sit down to write and it doesn't come out the way I have imagined it, I just give up. And again am left with nothing! I see this in other areas of my life, but more on that later,...maybe.

So, procrastinator and perfectionist that I am, this year I will strive to embody the Nike slogan, "just do it" and stop thinking and planning so much.

And now I'm off to cut my nails, because it really is hard to type on an iPad with long nails!

Traveling with Tots

I love traveling, and especially, flying, at least I used to....now I have two kids to fly with and it's definitely not as much fun as it used to be. Of course, all the hassle associated with flying and security doesn't help either! We just made a cross-continental flight from Sao Paulo to Calgary, through Chicago.

After we had checked in and gotten rid of our checked luggage we still had a stroller, car seat, diaper bag, purse, David's carry on, Lucas' backpack - oh yeah, and the two kids as well. It was quite a feat to get ourselves moving through the airport, and I was devastated to find out we had to dismantle the car seat from the stroller, remove Elena from her sling and Lucas from the stroller, collapse the stroller, and put the whole lot through the scanner (not the babies :)). Then, of course, Lucas was free to run - and run he did! Let's just say we were very glad to get onto the plane and strap Lucas into his seat! Since we were able to board early, Lucas and David had a chance to get into the cockpit to meet the pilot (doesn't happen very much anymore!)

It was a very long flight to Chicago - Lucas didn't stay strapped into his seat for very long - he would much rather be roaming about the airplane and saying hello to everyone who wasn't sleeping on the overnight flight. We had decided to wait until everyone else de-planed before we even started getting our stuff - we had a long enough layover that we could take our time. Thankfully we got through customs and immigration very easily and went through the whole security process again with only a little fuss over the can of coke I had leftover from the previous flight and Lucas' obviously suspicious looking sippy cup which had to be tested before we were allowed to keep it. Once we were in the right terminal and departure hall for our next flight we got some breakfast and let Lucas run around for a while. Eventually he crashed and slept on the seats by our gate for a while. David and I were very thankful for a small respite!

Unfortunately, that respite meant that Lucas was awake and energized for the whole of the three hour flight from Chicago to Calgary. Now we know why some parents want to drug their kids on planes!

One other thing I love about flying is my Flight Log Book. This is a tradition in our family that my dad started for all of us kids. We each have a Flight Log Book and on every flight, we get the pilot to sign our book with the flight details - mine goes back all the way to 1988 and logs over 240 flights and almost 300,000 nautical miles. It's always fun to see the reaction from the pilots when they see my book.

Now Lucas has his own book, and Elena will get one soon so they can start logging their own flights. Even with all of the craziness of trying to keep a toddler occupied for hours on end and caring for an infant at the same time, I still love the hustle and bustle of the airports and how we can be transported across the world.

Of course, it may be some time before we attempt another long-haul flight with two young ones :)

A Full House

Imagine living with your in-laws. And their parents. Under the same roof. Oh, and  did I forget the kids? Right, you also have two kids. With the exception of a crazy pet, it sounds like a recipe for one of those crazy family torture/comedy movies, yet this has been our reality for the past year and a half. Well, Elena (baby 2) has only been around a few months, but still, it's a full house! For many cultures around the world this is a completely normal situation, but not for us. We've got generation gaps, language barriers and cultural differences that make for an interesting mix.

It's very easy to see life solely through your own eyes, as though you are the main character in a movie. Everyone else has one supporting role - in relation to you; your mother, brother, husband etc. But of course, everyone else also stars in their own story, so we all have many roles to play as we interact with those around us. So although this apartment is home to eight people, we have six parents, four grandparents, two great-grandparents and six "kids". Try to discipline a toddler with four extra sets of parenting eyes on you! I am a mother, wife, daughter-in-law and granddaughter-in-law all the time. Maybe it is this "being everything to everyone" that makes it difficult to maintain for a long time, and yet this recognition of all these roles also allows us to coexist peacefully as we each adjust our actions and attitudes to accommodate each other.

Of course, there are things that are frustrating, things that are annoying and a lot of things that are just funny (although they don't always seems as such at the time!) We have tried to make the apartment as baby proof as possible without changing too much, but an energetic toddler is hard to contain! We have lots of medicines to keep him away from, and all of the precious crystal and breakables have been slowly moving up higher and higher on the shelves. Right now the biggest challenge is keeping Lucas, our toddler, away from the table, that grandma loves to set hours in advance.   

The other thing that makes this situation less than ideal for me is that by nature, I am a homemaker. I love moving, decorating, and getting a home set-up. Although I expect a lot more work once we move out, I am looking forward to the challenge of  keeping up a home. I have learned a lot of little tricks from the other women in this household but in some ways we will always do things differently. For example, when we wash dishes, grandma puts them on the drying rack starting on the side closest to the sink, I put them starting on the side farthest from the sink and work my way towards the sink. My mother in law also starts on the farthest side but places the plates the other way around. Usually only one of us is washing dishes at a time, but occasionally we all wash a few and the rack ends up looking something like this:

It has certainly been an interesting year, full of ups and downs and various challenges, but I've learned a lot and come to know and appreciate my in-laws in ways that I never would have otherwise. We have also definitely benefited from the built-in babysitting! Lucas has brought a lot of joy to his grandparents and great-grandparents, and a few worries to his doting great-grandmother. I know once we move, we will be missed and I will appreciate having our own place that much more.  

Worlds Apart

One mother. One boy, one girl. One planned, one surprise. One natural, one induced.

Two lives, two births. Two hospitals, two countries...

Two very different experiences...

Worlds apart...

Every birth is a unique adventure. You never really know how it's going to turn out. As I went through my second pregnancy, I had to laugh at the marked differences between it and my first one. Lucas was born in a fancy hospital in Bangladesh, and Elena was born in a fancy hospital in Brazil. But there the similarities end. What follows are some of my reflections on pregnancy and delivery in these two countries...

I felt a little over-doctored here in Brazil. I saw my doctor every month from the time we found out we were expecting (which was quite early - about 6 weeks in), every two weeks from 32 weeks, and every week from 36 weeks, and twice in the last week. Considering I was almost at 42 weeks when Elena was finally born - I saw a lot of my doctor! With Lucas I managed to get by with a lot fewer appointments.

Every time I saw my doctor, I had an internal exam, and in Bangladesh I had to ask my doctor to do even one, and this in my last three weeks of pregnancy. She said many Bengali women are scared of the pain of even an internal exam and opt for scheduled c-sections (if they can afford it). Interestingly, in Brazil, scheduled c-sections are also very common. I was very determined to have natural births and made it very clear to my doctors.

I had 9 ultrasounds with Elena - all covered by our insurance (thank goodness!) and from the second one we had a guess as to our baby's gender - the doctor said with 80% certainty it was a girl. Each subsequent scan confirmed it. We pushed our doctors in Bangladesh to reveal Lucas' gender to no avail, and only found out when a friend of ours did the ultrasound herself. We had 4 ultrasounds for Lucas and got to see him in 4D, which we didn't get with Elena. 

Before Lucas was born, we went to tour the hospital - meaning we wandered down to the maternity ward after one of my check-ups and asked to get shown around. We saw the labor ward and the delivery rooms. I was pretty happy with what I saw, but didn't really have all my questions answered. Here in São Paulo, we had to call and set up an appointment, and we were part of a big group tour. We got to see the reception, recovery rooms and the hallways. Everything else we saw on a video, which may have answered my questions if I could've understood everything.

In Bangladesh, we rushed to the hospital after my water broke, asked for a wheelchair and made our way straight to the maternity ward. Later David had to go down and officially register me at the emergency desk. This time around we leisurely took a cab to the hospital and sat around in the reception for about an hour while the insurance was called, our information taken and all the official stuff taken care of.

Lucas was probably the only white baby in the hospital in Dhaka. To my recollection he didn't even have an ID tag. In fact, I don't think I had one either. Here I had two tags on my wrist, and Elena had one on each foot and one arm. When the nurses brought her to my room from the nursery, both our tags were scanned with a handheld device to confirm her identity as my daughter.

All in all, each experience was so special because of the wonderful outcome, my beautiful children. It is something I wouldn't change for the world.

Although it would be nice someday to have a kid in a hospital where I can understand everything in my own language! We'll leave the language issues for another post...