Lawrence's Second Birthday

 So while I was away from the computer, Lawrence turned TWO!  Such a big boy!  I am both sad and glad about this - sad because he was such a cute ONE, so happy and adventurous, and so much different than this time last year.  Mike and I marvel again at how the transition from ZERO to ONE takes you from small lump to big lump, but the transition from ONE to TWO takes you from lump to real live person!  I hate to leave ONE behind.  But I am also glad because TWO will bring lots more changes, such as potty training (well, it better bring this change, or else!), starting preschool, and skills like being able to put on your own shoes.  We've already had a few doses of TWOs behavior, too - ugh.  But hey, if he didn't act that way, we would think there was something terribly wrong.  So yay for healthy TWOs behavior; I hope he and I both live through it. 

Lawn mower from Uncle William is STILL a favorite!  Thanks, Uncle William!

The day of Lawrence's birthday, we went to Ras Tanura to the beach.  We walked on the beach path, played on the beach, and then went to the snack bar for lunch.  It was gorgeous!  And everyone had a great time.  

Walking (and scooting) up the beach path

The Persian Gulf

I'm going to make a onsie like this for Catherine that says "1/12th"

All my boys

Tuckered out

Also tuckered out.  The "I'm full" dribble of spit up indicates that she is in a Food Coma.  Also notice the Arabic Sprite (pronounced /sup-right/).

I've noticed that when you take pictures of Arabic women, it's hard to tell if they are approaching or receding, since their entire heads are covered.  After careful study, I think these women are receding.  There should be a Doppler Effect law for them.  Perhaps the red head scarf indicates they are redshifted?  I will work on that an equation for that.

Back home after dinner, we ate cake!

Presents were after bath.  The boys wanted to wear their matching glow-in-the-dark rocket ship jammies.  Everett is an enthusiastic helper when it comes to opening presents for someone else! 

Lawrence's two big presents were a monogrammed armchair (yay, embroidery machine!!) and a sand and water table.  Everett decided he needed to sit with Lawrence and hold him in his lap in the new chair...

and read him a story.  Up close. 

The next morning, the sand and water table became a sand and water seat. 

Happy birthday, Buppy!  We love you!

My Return to the Land Of The Living

Hello again from Saudi Arabia!  I am finally back online after a month of ignoring everything but the bare essentials.  Even though we are still overwhelmed and sleep deprived, I have finally decided that it's time to claw my way back to the Land Of The Living and get back in touch with all of our devoted friends and family - if nothing else so that you can see pictures of how much Baby Catherine has grown!

So much, yet so little, has gone on in the past month.  Baby Catherine has gained about 2 pounds over her birth weight (I say "about" because at her one month checkup - which was the first time she had been back to the doctor - they don't do all the 5 day, 7 day, 14 day etc. well baby visits here (!!) - they did not take off her clothes or diaper for the big weigh-in.  She had gained 0.995 kg, which subtracting out a guesstimate about her clothes and her full diaper, comes out to about 2 pounds.) At her low point, she was about 6 pounds at 10 days (we weighed her with a luggage scale), so she gained about 3 pounds in 3 weeks.  Go, me!  She has lost all her wrinkles and has gained some fat rolls, and she has lost that curled up newborn look.  She is just starting to smile, and she coos at us, too.  She is a very good baby - happy and sweet - but she likes to eat every hour or two.  (Hence the weight gain.) (Straight from my hips to your lips, babe.)  Can't wait until she can stretch a little longer between feedings, though. 

Everett and Lawrence presented Baby Catherine with toy after toy while she was lying on the blanket.  Before she knew it, she was surrounded with their favorites!  A Boeing stuffed 747, an alphabet spider, the twinkle twinkle musical star, a pirate bear, Thumper from Bambi, and a raccoon.  Sweet brothers! 

Yeah!  I have so many things to play with!

Gramama and I like to dress her up.  Mike says she is a doll who happens to be alive.  He's right!

This was my dress when I was a baby.

In other news, Lawrence had his second birthday in the middle of the month.  My baby boy is two!  I had a party with 30 people here for the event.  Yes, a huge birthday party 2 weeks after having a baby.  It was fun, but admittedly hard to prepare for.  I will post a blog entry and some pictures tomorrow about his party.

We've had 5 weeks of visitors so far; Gramama and Granpapa were here, and Gramama just left.  We had a wonderful time and were very sorry to see them go.  While they were here, we toured downtown Khobar and did some shopping, showed them the town where Mike grew up and his old house in Ras Tanura, went to the beach two times, and tromped them all over the compound here.  It was busy, but not.  Lots of chores to do around the house, lots of entertaining the children, but most of our time was spent in the house quietly, and only a couple of hours per week outside camp doing errands or trips.  That's pretty normal for us, so they got to see what life is really like here.  Our adventures in the last 5 weeks will be another blog post soon. 

Next up, Grandma and Grandpa are coming on Friday, and we are ready!  We can't wait for them to come!

So now that I've resurfaced in the real world, I will do my best to get back to posting on a regular basis.  I miss everyone that I have not been in touch with for the past month (which means EVERYONE, as I have not talked to anyone at all!) so hugs to you all and bear with me as I try to get back to a normal schedule.

PS Got 3 consecutive hours of sleep last night - hooray!!  Luckily, the sleep deprivation we've been experiencing from having Catherine here is hardly more than an annoyance this time around.   I remember thinking I was going to DIE if I had to wake up again one night after Everett was born.  This time, I think we were already so sleep deprived from moving and having two little ones already that it hasn't thrown us for as much of a loop as I was expecting.  Still, I am looking forward to the day when I actually get 8 hours in a row.  Hopefully not long now! 

More Pictures

I'm back!  I'm typing with one hand as I hold Catherine in the other arm.  She is precious, if I do say so myself, and we are still in that happy honeymoon period when she sleeps all the time.  She is eating well, too, and all digestive systems seem to be up and running - always an important milestone for these teeny-weenies.  I have been having a ball dressing her up in all of her beautiful clothes.  She is so tiny that everything swallows her up, but I'm just as glad because that means that she will not outgrow everything too fast. 

Everett is so wonderful with his new "sissy."  He is patient and kind and loving and gentle.  He knows to be quiet near her and to tickle her toes or stroke her hair softly.  He is very attentive, and it's really gratifying to see how tender he is.  Lawrence wants to be involved, too.  He is very interested, but he doesn't have a good idea of how to act around the baby.  He likes to RUN up to her and get half an inch from her nose and yell, "BABY!"  and then run away cackling.  It's hilarious, and now we know that her Moro reflex works. 

So, let life with three under four begin!  Luckily, I will have lots of help for the next two months because both sets of grandparents will be here.  I am not afraid! (she said naively)

Here are a few more pictures from the hospital.  I will have even more to post soon, including some from yesterday and today, so keep checking back.  The pictures take a long time to upload with our slow internet connection, so I am doing them a few at a time.  Enjoy!

...after 2 days of trying, I am giving up trying to upload pictures to the blog.  It just takes too long.  Here is a link to all our pictures in Picasa Web Albums.  Click on the link below to see our pictures so far!

https://picasaweb.google.com/elisabethbenchich/CatherineBlakely?authkey=Gv1sRgCJS1u9H60f_BSA#

So that link got broken.  Oh well, here are three more pictures.  I will keep trying to upload more. 

Nice try, Saudi.

New Benchich!!!

Guest Blogger Mike here...

It's official!  Another Benchich (this makes 4 total) has been born at the Dhahran Health Center!  Since Elisabeth is stuck in the hospital with no internet access, her lucky husband gets to give the initial update...

Catherine Blakely was born perfectly healthy on March 31 at 3:28am.  She weighed 6lb 13oz and was 19.75 inches long.  Mom did a fantastic job delivering Catherine naturally and is doing very well staying at the hospital for the next couple nights.

Elisabeth's parents arrived in KSA just in time.  I brought them home from the airport at 11pm and we were in the car headed to the maternity ward an hour later.

I'm sure Elisabeth will want to write more when she's back online, but for now enjoy the pics!

What a cutie!

                                         Very happy under the heat lamp.

                                          Proud big brother Everett.

                                          Lawrence was very interested in yelling at the baby.

                                         Dad's happy family.

UPDATE:  We are heading to the hospital...cross your fingers everyone!

First day of 100 degrees

We all knew it was coming...the heat arrived today!  Actually, it's been surprisingly mild so far - mostly 70s and low 80s on the warm days.  And then BOOM - 100 degrees today!  I've been told this is more normal for this time of year;  the winter was unusually warm and the spring has been unusually cool.  (In other words, winter and spring were about the same temperature.)

It really didn't feel like it was going to be that hot, and even when it was during the heat of the day, it was hot but not HOT hot.  Even nine months pregnant, I was not all that uncomfortable.  I didn't realize it was so hot, and I sent my poor husband outside to assemble some of our outdoor furniture.  Dutiful as ever, he happily complied (and then complied again when I was horrified when I realized how hot it was and said come back inside).  It only lasted about an hour at that temperature, and now at 10:30 pm it is already back to 75 degrees.  

I still say BRING IT.  I can take you, heat!  Cold-blooded Elisabeth is not afraid of you!  Ha HA!  

PS  Getting contractions regularly every 5 minutes as I write...Gramama and Grapapa are due in from the airport any minute...now I am "allowed" to have the baby...major things about to happen???  Stay tuned.  I will post again if we go to the hospital.  No extra post means we all got in safe and contractions did not amount to anything, and we all went to sleep.  I'm 39 weeks today. 

Welcome to our newest addition!

No, it's not a baby....well, not a human baby anyway (yet).  Our newest addition is a giant red Chevy Suburban named Rosie.  Welcome, Rosie!

Lawrence shown for scale.

We really got Rosie to be our protection from the scary, horrible traffic outside of camp, and because she is big enough to hold our entire family.  While a beloved vehicle, poor Clyde can only hold two adults and two car seats at a time.  So we had to get something bigger before next week.

Rosie is a comfortable, inviting vehicle.  She is an '07 and was recently shipped in from Houston, so she came with all the familiar bells and whistles, like a speedometer with mph instead of km/hr.  (However, this turns out to be terribly inconvenient, since all the speed limits are in km/h!) Other advantages include the fact that she doesn't care if you go over 120 km/h; Clyde and all other Saudi vehicles ding at you when you go over 120 km/h - ding, ding, ding, like you've left the headlights on - which is really annoying.  I'm glad Rosie won't be doing that.  But the radio only registers odd numbered stations, i.e. 92.3, 92.5, 92.7, etc, and all the stations here are even, i.e. 92.2, 92.4, 92.6.  Argh!  Well, it will be CDs for us then.  Not that we were listening to the radio that much anyway.  Aramco does have a good radio station that we like, but we are usually stuck with Wee Sing or Raffi or Disney.  She's got a sunroof and dual climate control and seats eight people with room to spare.  Sorry, Clyde, you're a camp car now.  Rosie is our go-to-girl from now on. 

Ironically, we are now the proud owners of FOUR, count 'em, FOUR cars, but we only have ONE AND A HALF drivers!  (Mike says I only count as half a driver since I can't drive off-camp.)  Hah!  Time to pare down.  Anyone want to buy a gray 2005 Toyota Matrix?  We'll give you a good deal!