Talent Show

Last Friday night we participated in a church wide talent show. Timothy recited Psalm 133. Gabrielle sang a song in Spanish. Raimy did one in English. They all did a fine job. After the whole show was done the Washington’s got up and did a few songs together as the grand finale. We did all the actions and had a great time. Tyler stayed at home. But in the next few days he tried out some talents. We are sure that cooking is not one of them. Pepper in the sugar? No thanks. Maybe he should just stick to the technical lean like his father. After all he is not even two yet and he knows how to run the DVD player.

Enjoy the slide show!

Memoirs

Have you ever wanted to write your memoirs? The thought has crossed my mind once or twice. What would be the title of the book by you about how you spent your days? That is the idea presented by Tiffani on her blog. She asked me to write a six word title of my memoirs. Sounded like fun.

Here goes:

“The Vapors of Her Shared Existence”

If you want to you can do it too.

Saved by the Tag

Friends are the greatest! I have been avoiding a real live post due to just some really hard things I am going through so my friends keep on saving me with great posts to recommend and games to play. My old standby for avoidance is also to blog about my kids. So now the secret is out. But sometimes when you are going through stuff (or growing through stuff) it is hard to put in words the whole of it until you have completed the majority if the process. And it is just so all consuming that it is all you talk about when you really talk. If that was too mysterious for you I do apologize. I hope you still like me and continue to read my blog. :-) I will get a real post up eventually.

My friend Becky tagged me. She goes by Rebecca now. We met in high school at which time we all called her Becky. Now she is a published author (no joke folks, I know a famous person) and so she goes by the illustrious name of Rebecca J. Gomez. She and her husband Jake - oops, um Jacob :-) - have three wonderful children. I was SOOOO happy to be able to spend some time with them last year on our furlough trip. We went to a pond in a park to feed the ducks and there was a huge water rat swimming around stealing all the pieces of bread we threw to the ducks. Oh yeah, and there were turtles too! Aside from the wildlife it was so great to just spend the day with my friend. That would be really great right now. I miss her very very much. Ok - tears in the eyes not good for typing - I will get on with the game. I love you Becky!

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five(ish) people and post a comment to the blogger who tagged you.

"The Divine Conspiracy"

They find themselves beyond the limits of human acceptability. This is a fact about them, regardless of how silly it may seem. To say, "How silly of you!" is not exactly to bring Jesus' good news of the kingdom to them

I tag all people who want to play or who need to avoid real post. :-)

Doing What They Do

My ten year old trying her hand at oils for the first time. She is an artist. Her preferred style of expression is pencil drawing. But anything pertaining to creative arts is her outlet. She loves dance, music, painting, crafts, clay, sewing, drama, making books and whatever else she can do to create.


My eight year old doing a word find. These or sudukos are his choice these days. Anything that is building or constructing he enjoys as well. I am amazed at what he can do with his legos and other building sets. He is a thinker.


My six year old doing her lessons in school. She is a worker. She says to me, "Mama, I want to work hard in school today." Her undaunted approach to tackling problems is inspiring. I am wondering what God is going to do with her life. It will be amazing to see, I am sure.


My eighteen month old licking a book. So far he has tasted: deodorant, hand lotion, crayons, bubbles, all the furniture in the house, door handles, books, and seat belts. I can't complain because this flows over into his eating of actual food too. He will eat anything!

This was a glimpse at what my kids like doing. What did you do today that was YOU?

Oil

So while a sweet gal from the church watches my kids and cleans the bathrooms for me this afternoon I head out to get the oil changed on the truck. Little errands like these are fun for me. Mainly because I get out of the house and see new things.

As I am driving up to the car place I see a paint store. “Perfect,” I think to myself, “Raimy needs to have some of that stuff that you rinse your brush out with when you use oil paints for an art project she wants to do.” I tell the guys at the shop everything he needs to know about the truck and head out the door. It is a beautiful day and the little walk is very nice. I passed: a couple fruit stands, a bread shop, some other oil change places, some corner markets, some car parts shops, some bicycle repair shops and a place that sells lawn sculptures. Then I come to the paint store.

The guy is helping another customer at the counter. I go up and explain to him that I need the stuff you use to wash out brushes when you are using oil based paint. This is not an art supply store, just lots of big paint buckets and big brushes around. So he gives me the normal response, “We don’t have any of that.” Knowing that was not true I explained once again. This time he said, “We don’t have that. But we do have…” And now I am going to phonetically write what he said: TEE nair.

One strategy I have developed in understanding Spanish is that sometimes the brand names and the newer technical terms keep their English spelling and are just pronounced in Spanish. So I listen to the way they say the word, picture how that would be spelled in Spanish and then read that word in my head in English. So this would be the Spanish spelling for the word he pronounced: Tiner. The letter ‘h’ is silent in Spanish. So I make the connection and understand he is referring to: thinner! He has paint thinner! Perfect for my little daughter in her first attempts at an oil painting.

So I ask how they sell it. They come in half liter or one liter. How much is the half liter? Six Bolivianos, the equivalent of about 90 cents. I’ll take it. He walks over to some large plastic jugs with screw tops down behind me. He crouches down and begins filling a personal size empty Sprite Zero bottle with thinner. He screws the lid on and hands me the bottle. I give him the money and chuckle as I walk away. I am carrying paint thinner in a half liter Sprite Zero bottle! That is just funny to me.

Tagged by Jackie

This is a tag prompted by Jackie.

I usually don't do tags. But Jackie is a new friend - so in the spirit of good sportsmanship I decided to play along. :-)

How to play:
1. Go to http://www.photobucket.com/
2. Type your answers to the questions in the “search” box.
3. Use only the first page.
4. Insert the pictures into your Blog.

1. What is your current relationship stat? (Married)

2. What is your current mood? (blasé)

3. What is your favorite band/singer? (none - meaning I don't have one)

4. What is your favorite movie? (Far and Away)

5. Where do you live? (Cochabamba, Bolivia)

6. Where do you work? (At home, mostly)

7. What do you drive? (Our friend’s truck – yeah!)

8. What do you look like? (smiley)

9. What is your favorite TV channel? (I don’t watch T.V. much)

10. Describe yourself. (wife, mama, missionary)

11. What are you doing today? (Church, lunch, rest, church)

12. What did you do last night? (watch a movie)

13. What is your name? (Angie Washington)



You can play if you want.

Killing Taste Buds

A theory that I have been testing was proven last night by my eight-year-old son when he said, “Mom, it’s just that the food is too tasty,” as an explanation as to why he was unable to eat his dinner.

Here is my theory: one of the purposes of parenthood is to successfully kill as many taste buds as possible.

This task should be completed before the child reaches the age that he or she can completely embarrass the parents in the presence of guests or hosts with a rude squishing up of the nose, the disgusted shudder, the eyes widened by terror and the phrase of doom, “Ew! What is that? I don’t like it!” Followed by a reddened face, a nervous giggle and the strained smile on the part of the parent as he or she says to the child with a flash of a death threat and then back to the clenched, forced grin, “How do you know you don’t like it if you haven’t even tried it?” The sing-songy fakey tone that the parent has employed confuses the child at first and then they quickly realize that no command has been given and the game has begun. This is nothing more than a fun test of wits like in checkers or battleship. A retort is given; unchecked. Child 2, parent 0. The counterattack is a sharp squeeze to the thigh of the child from the parent under the table as a plea for silence. Usually the issue is dropped at this point and another person at the table excuses the child and changes the subject. The parent tries to regain composure and wonders where they went wrong.

All disciplinary discussions aside the problem lies in the fact that these parents did not kill enough of their child’s taste buds when they had the chance. It is a scientific fact that a newborn baby has taste buds covering the whole inside of their mouth: the tongue, the roof, and the sides; everywhere. As the child grows little by little the buds slough off. It is also a fact that our taste buds can die and lose the ability to sense a taste. Once that bud dies there is no regeneration. That is why when you burn your mouth on a cup of hot drink it takes the whole day, if not two days to get complete feeling back to your tongue. They are sensitive little buds. (These facts also lead me to believe the reason Starbucks is so successful is that they are strategically killing their client’s taste buds so there is no diminishing return factor to deal with, but that is another post.)

So as parents we must bombard our children’s tongues with as many different flavors and varieties of foods as we possibly can. Don’t be so fanatical in this venture that you damage the child’s mouth. But do put forth the energy to make your children eat their food. Do not settle for a graham cracker and cheerio diet. No! You have some taste buds to kill!

Funny Fruit - Granada

“Look my tongue is purple!” Raimy greeted me at the gate of her friends’ house where they had passed the afternoon. Promptly she went on to explain that they had been sucking on ‘granada’ fruit. The English term for this historic fruit is pomegranate. The boughs of this full bushy tree growing beside their house were decorated with dozens of pinkish colored balls of fruit. There are hundreds of bright red seed pods inside this fruit. You scoop up a bunch and put them in your mouth. Squishing them around the seed pods burst open and you swallow the tart juice then spit out the tiny cream colored ‘pepa’. And your mouth is tinted purple. Pomegranates are common trees to have in your yard here in Cochabamba.

For an interesting history of this word click here: pomegranate etymology

Feeding Frenzy

When I was in high school there was a commercial for some taco joint where the family was loaded up in the mini van and they chanted, “Feeding frenzy, feeding frenzy…” Well here at the house we have some members of our family that communicate their need to be fed in rather ingenious ways.

First our beloved poodle Shep sets his bowls just so on the step next to his house so that the vast emptiness therein (both his tummy and dishes) may be clearly seen from the second floor kitchen window.

Our guinea pigs peer out from their cage and squeal in desperation. The nibbling on the little bars is supposed to be some kind of guilt trip; it works every time.

And finally, last but not least, comes our tiny Tyler. If signing “food”, “drink” and “more” doesn’t get our attention he lets is voice be heard in another way.

Note: Inspiration and expert photography for this blog come from the one and only DaRonn Washington, my dear and faithful husband.

My Eight Year Old Boy

Yesterday I took the kids up on a mountain for our first Fun Friday field trip. I let them take pictures and we will be posting their slide shows on our family site. I got some great pictures of Timothy while we were up there. I think that eight year old boys are some of my most favorite people in the world.

Peeps!

I feel so loved! My friend sent me three packages of Valentines Peeps. Peeps are my favorite sweet and they happen to be seasonal (Valentines day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas). This first pack was finished in the first 15 minutes that they hit the house. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Daryl!!!

Feathery Fun Friday

This fun short from Pixar shows how vital perspective is in interpersonal relationships. Which bird have you felt like before and why? hmmm... :-)

EDIT: the video was not working for a bit, hopefully it will now...

Yapa

The “yapa” is like the bakers dozen; a little extra of something from the vender for your business. This year the resolutionists have a yapa of an extra day to get done what you have resolved to do. Have at it my ambitious beaver-like friends.


Happy New Year!!!

Silly Saturday Morning...

A Bloggity Blog

Today marks the one year anniversary of my very first blog post.
Ta dah!
You may all give me a solemn golf clap.
Why, thankye kindly y’all!

The fun loving wife of Noah was the inspiration for my first post. Click here to re-live the joy of that very first post.

I have these blogs:

@ngie (on Xanga and Blogger)
Missionaries Who Blog (a handy link page)
We Are Family (with my husband, kids, parents, siblings, brother-in-law, and nieces)
Existencia Compartida (Spanish for: Shared Existence)

Fun facts...

I joined Xanga and waited 40 days before posting my first entry
I post 3 times a week, on an average
If people ask me what my hobby is I tell them it is blogging
There have been about 3,500 hits to all my blogs combined these 365 days
If someone gave me a (cool) T-shirt about blogging then I would wear it

Things I have gained from Blogging…

A better understanding about the internet
Better typing skills
A closer relationship with friends and family
New friends
Tons of confidence boosters by way of comments

Since this is a bloggity blog then I am going to go ahead and play along with my friend Rebecca who tagged me after being tagged for the very first time.

5 random things about myself:

1. I have earned 90 points for a lay in scrabble, but I don’t remember what the word was.
2. I have climbed Ayers Rock (a.k.a. Uluru) in the middle of Australia.
3. I have white water rafted on the Zambezi River.
4. I have a Bohemian heritage
5. I have a kaleidoscope collection
   

“Happy Bloggityday to you!
Happy Bloggityday to you!
Happy Bloggityday dear @ngie!
Happy Bloggityday to you!”

Exposé of Grossness

(Warning: the content of this post may be considered unnecessarily gross to humans of the non mother persuasion.)

The pediatrician told me that the reason my son’s front is constantly drenched in slobber is that he has an over active salivatory gland that he will grow out of. I swear people, this boy is like a leaky faucet; you just can’t turn him off. The endearing nicknames that he has gained due to his zealot of a gland are: slobber-bot and drool-miester.

And while I am on it, sometimes I feel like my day consists of the meticulous gathering, inspection, categorizing and proper storage of every bodily fluid and excretion ever created. Am I comparing toddler care to the exact study of a scientist? Yes. How else do you think I can endure this demeaning yet all so important work they call care-giving?

How bad can it be? (You so naively ask.) Here comes the grossness! Shall we start south and work our way north? Or should we just do the good ol’ head to foot routine? Going with the latter… There is that orange dandruff like stuff growing under what few hairs they have on their heads that no matter how much you pick at it there is a new crop daily. Eye-boogers are your early morning greeting. Then there is the ear wax that you are not supposed to dig out even though it looks like the child has been attacked by tiny aliens and they are constructing a weird colony in there. We mustn’t forget the rainbow of snot that drains out of not one but two nostrils on an occasional basis. If you do not know the color, consistency and frequency of that slime then don’t even think about calling ask-a-nurse*! Before moving on to the mouth the nose does have one more function. In the unfortunate event that a child begins laughing while drinking milk (why is it always milk?) said milk will reroute itself through the nose expelling itself with such force as to successfully cover all persons present with the physical manifestation of the intangible joy that your child is experiencing. Moving on to the mouth: drool, spit-up, juicy blenching, smelly burps, regurgitated baby food, unswallowed mashed up food, rejected medications, phlegm, goobery tiny pieces of toys that are supposedly “a choking hazard” but are actually a cause of temporary deafness due to the screaming that is invoked from the baby when the extraction takes place and last but not least the infamous, odorous, staining and sickening vomit. Oh, and we haven’t got to the most exciting bits yet folks!

A few words about blood. Blood is meant to stay inside the body; yet almost everywhere on the body can bleed! Band-aids* are a joke. They stick for all of 3 minutes. After that, if the child has not taken it off then it comes off in some kind of water play or it is so full of dirt that you gasp and work as hard as you can to pry the thing off without ripping the tiny hairs out of their follicles. The only things band-aids* are good for are bribes. You bribe the kids to stop wailing by promising them a cute little band-aid*.

So you have your blood that you have to take care of. If you do it right then you won’t have to take care of the pus that accompanies infection. That’s right – do not avoid the blood because the pus is 10 times worse to take care of than the blood. If you see blood do not waste one more minute. Grab that wonder water that make the fun little bubbles when killing infection (technical term: hydrogen peroxide) and douse that wound! Disclaimer for parents: you do not have care for or treat broken bones. Take the kid to a doctor for that. Whoo, load off! Right?

Wrong! We have now reached the pinnacle of grossness. Below that adorable little belly button lies a load of worries. And by load, I mean load! The things that make their way out of your child’s abdomen and into that Mickey Mouse* diaper are unthinkable and unspeakable. Little bit of trivia for you. You will have what color poop when you eat Froot Loops*? If you said bright green then give yourself a gold sticker. Yes, as a parent you have diaper duty. And speaking of “duty”, why is it that we invent funny little names for bodily functions? Pee-pee, poo-poo, doodie, pees, stinkies, uh-oh, tinkle, and any other cutesy name that pops into our heads at the time. Oh, and speaking of heads. You know you have reached the brink of insanity when you see one of those tiny pieces of toy in the diaper all covered in yuck and after your initial panic attack thinking it is some part of the child’s guts that need to be taken to the surgeon so he can put it back where it goes you seriously think to yourself, “Do I dig it out and clean it off?” or an even more demented thought, “Do I call the big kids in and show this to them so they quit leaving their little pieces of toys laying around.” Recognize this as a sign that you are about to go insane and stop. Just fold the diaper up and throw it away. Pretend you didn’t see the object. It doesn’t exist. It was never there. You are still a good mom!

I said we were going head to foot. I thought it was some kind of practical joke when I smelled my infant son’s feet and they had the odor of a high-school gym locker room. My girls’ feet never smelled like anything else than baby powder. But my boys’ feet have stunk from day one. Not to mention the toe jam and sweaty, sticky sock fuzz that you gotta scrape off.

My precious gooey children haven’t yet reached the age of puberty. They tell me that the teenage years are so much worse. Frankly I don’t image how it could be worse. It will have to be my next chapter in the exposé on grossness.

People just don’t tell you all this stuff when you are oohing and ahhing over the soft cuddly bundle wrapped up in the stroller of a radiant starry-eyed young mother. It’s all a trick! They are wrapped up so you don’t see all the grossness. And those aren’t stars in her eyes, the poor woman hasn’t slept in days and her eyes are frozen open. But that is for another post.

* The name brands that I mentioned above are probably like protected by copyrights and have a bunch of trademarks. So like somebody buy some of their products and I think that they won’t mind that I mentioned them.

Bowling Champ

Acting upon good advice my husband has recently acquired some pass-times. One of those is bowling. He has formed a bowling team with members of the church and Tuesday nights they all don their team t-shirts and have a blast at the one and only bowling ally in this city.

Each month they break into groups of 3 and have a championship. DaRonn’s was on the winning team this month. They had so much fun! Here are some pictures. You will also notice that DaRonn’s name is on the board for the men’s division of high scores. This is for all the players of the city, mind you!

Click here to see a slide show of the event.

My Man Loves Mii!

At the risk of sounding completely self-centered this post is all about me and Mii. (smile) We are now the proud owners of a Wii gaming system thanks to the man of the house my wonderful husband DaRonn. With the game you can create characters that look just like you to play with. It is quite fun. Here is my Mii standing next to DaRonn's Mii:


In other autobiographical news… I got my hair cut last night. It has been quite a while since I had it this short. I really like it! As I was searching for a before picture I realized that I had my long hair in a pony tail most of the time. So I am glad that I have a style now that is easy to manage and won’t be pulled back all the time. Best of all my man was the one who had the idea; we both like it. (Photos by my 9 year old, Raimy)

Before:


After:

While We Wait

My thoughts are fermenting. When they are ready we will pop the cork and revel in the intoxicating delectability of an aged spirited piece.

Until then… I am on wireless sitting next to the tub watching my water-bug play with his bath toys and splash around. The invigorating smell of soap is in my nostrils. And, since I have nothing else at the moment, I will rely on our good friend Dr. Seuss and share this blogg with you from his inspiring work “The Shape of Me and Other Stuff”.

ABC

Tooling around town today I had so much fun! Baby in the back seat and me at the wheel we went to the post office, Office Max, church, the bank and finally Border’s. And wouldn’t you know it was my favorite kind of weather today: rain! (I am not trying to be sarcastic. I am really having a fun-filled day!)

My original goal in popping into Borders was to find a Willa Cather book. Thanks to the “pleasant, efficient, friendly, quick service with a smile” mentioned in my previous post that mission was accomplished in under 5 minutes. About an hour later I was headed to the check out. Quite honestly I would have stayed longer but the wiggly twenty pounds of drooly goo goo baby that I had on my hip was doing a number on my back. Also in my rush to get behind the wheel I hadn’t eaten all day and I had a hankering for a nice BIG bowl of cereal and milk.

As I was in the section of literature marked “C” my eyes wandered over to the “Bs” and I found a book that I had been meaning to read for quite some time so I picked it up. Then another in the “Cs” caught my eye and a fun idea dawned on me.

I would get 3 classics for me and 3 classics for the kids with authors whose last names start with A, B and C that I had never read before. Rainy days put me in the mood for my favorite genre: classics.

Here is what I ended up walking out of the door with:

(Ladies for me)
Austen, Jane “Pride and Prejudice”
Bronte, Emily “Wuthering Heights”
Cather, Willa “My Antonia”

(Gents for the kiddos)
Andersen, Hans Christian “Fairy Tales”
Barrie, J.M. “Peter Pan”
Carroll, Lewis “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass”

In case you wanted to know, book stores are another one of my favorite things.