Best Quote I've Heard in a While

I was listening to an old episode of one of my favorite radio shows, Speaking of Faith, a while back, and heard this pithy and poignant statement of values from progressive Catholic leader Sister Joan Chittister:

We have 10 million babies, as you and I speak, without health insurance in this country. It's wrong. It's immoral. And the whole notion that private sexual morality is the definition of religious life in this country is a cute ploy. It gets our minds off of the sins that are really killing the greatest number of people. I'm not saying that those are also not important values. Of course they are. They define our character as a people and our ability to live within our relationships. But there's a big difference between being pro-life and pro-birth. It's easy to get a baby born. What I want to know is once that baby is born will you feed it and house it and educate it? All I see is that every day we reduce those figures in our national budget more and more. That's the morality and the religion that I'm talking about. And until we care about those things, we cannot, on either spectrum, left or right, call ourselves a religious people, I don't think.

The Perils of Your Children Actually Believing You

Like all parents, we fight an uphill battle to have our kids hew to our values rather than some of the values n society at large. We've gotten off relatively easy on the commercialism question, given that toys and brand names are not as available in Cambodia as they are in the US, and that our kids are still young and they don't see TV commercials. But one battle we do fight is on gender roles. The PC attitudes in the US haven't translated into their preschool, and the kids have learned that pink is a color for girls, not boys, and other social constructions. Being a good feminist, I of course tell them that they can wear whatever color they want.

We also try to communicate a respect for cultural differences, and we talk about the way Cambodians do things vs. our style, Buddhism and other religions vs. Christianity, etc. Sometimes all these abstractions get a little confusing.

So imagine my conundrum when it became clear that Ellie was listening! We were going through her clothes, setting aside ones that were too small for her to give away. The more unisex things we saved for Ben, but I have to admit to putting pink corduroy pants and other really girly things aside to send to friends who have two little girls. Ellie, however, internalized everything I told her and happily grabbed an adorable velvet and red taffeta Christmas dress and said, "We can save this for Ben! Cambodians might think that boys can't wear dresses, but Christians think people can wear whatever they want!"

Happy Birthday, Nathan

Despite his slacker wife--who was so distracted by trying to forestall violence and arrests at the largest political march in five years that she forgot to wish him a happy birthday until noon on April 4--Nathan managed to celebrate his birthday in style. We got him a new set of super-cool home brewing equipment and had a joint birthday party for him (with another embassy friend) at a local bar. Seems like an odd idea, but it was great. The bar--one of the few in Cambodia that's known for modestly clad waitresses who offer you food, drink, a smile, and nothing else--gave us the top floor for a games night. We and the other birthday family provided snacks and cake, and had a cash bar.

Nathan and friend Greg Liddle celebrating their 69th birthday

Ben the Literalist and other stories

A few quick anecdotes:

The other night at bed time, Ben was looking at a dinosaur book upside down. Seeing a whole page of dinosaurs seeming to stand on their head, I said, "Ben, what's wrong with those dinosaurs?"

He thought for a moment before replying, "They're extinct!"

(And then, the next day, when we told this story to adult friends, Ben was apparently concerned that their vocabularies might not be quite as extensive as his, so he clarified for them at the end: "That means they don't exist anymore.")

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Ellie has been having a tough time sleeping through the night recently. She wakes up in the early morning and then wakes one of us up (usually Nathan) to help her move all her things to the sofa, where she stays--often falling asleep again--until the first light of morning. Then she wakes one of us up (usually Jen) at 5:45 or 6:00. We were struggling with this schedule and trying to get her to just stay in her own bed. She explained that because a light in her room had broken recently, she was having bad dreams because there wasn't enough light. So we got the light fixed and hoped for the best.

The first night with her fixed light she revealed some of her true motivation as she asked me, "Mom, tomorrow morning, can you wake me up--just me and not Ben--as soon as you wake up in the morning so we can have cuddles and read stories together?" How can you say no to a request like that?

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Ben is soooo excited about seeing dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum in Washington when we head back to the U.S. Ellie is less thrilled, as she thinks the dinosaur skeletons they have there are scary. We were trying to reassure them both by saying that Ben could be close and Ellie could stand far away. Ben started to cry, confusing us greatly, until he said, "No, they should be naked!"

Poor guy, close and clothes are not the same thing.

Battambang: Better Than You'd Expect

We just got back from a lovely weekend in Battambang, Cambodia's second-largest city, located about 4-5 hours west of Phnom Penh. We travelled with our friends the Garveys, and thoroughly enjoyed our long weekend (thank you International Women's Day!) seeing a city most expat residents--and probably 99% of tourists--pass up.

First stop was a memorable tour of the floating village of Kampong Loung, in Pursat province on the way to Battambang. For the kids, the adventure started when Daddy brought home some life jackets. (We knew the chances of the boats having kid-sized life jackets were zero, so figured we better bring our own.) Conjuring up memories of the Christmas they got bike helmets, they loved the jackets, didn't want to be separated from them and had to be convinced not to sleep wearing them. Of course, wearing the jackets on an actual boat was even cooler.



The floating village itself was really cool. I've been to the floating village in Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat--which I hear now charges a $20 admission fee!) before, but this one was neater. It was a whole little town laid out in a grid--complete with a gas station, police station, karaoke bars, restaurants, and mobile phone shops.

If you want to get around, you gotta paddle...

Check out the "streets"! And if you look closely at the building on the left, you can see they even have potted plants. This is one established place.

A vegetable seller navigates down past a Christian church. That took us by surprise--maybe it's Catholic since the community here is largely ethnic Vietnamese?

Here's a floating restaurant. You can see her thermoses of tea and hot water and other drinks, and I bet she's got some food under those cloths. Your lunch comes to you!

We took a lunch break at a floating restaurant and snapped a pic of all the kids in their way cool life jackets. L to R: Declan (20 months), Ellie (4 1/2), Kieran (3 1/2), Ben (3).

We got a promising start the next day with an absolutely fabulous sunrise we could see from our veranda.

Then we climbed up to see Phnom Banan, some Angkor-era ruins a little ways outside Battambang.

Too cute! Here are all the kids taking a rest from the hike up to the ruins. L to R: Ben, Kieran, Declan, Ellie. (Of course, I don't know why Ben's tired...he was not excited about walking so Nathan and I had to carry him most of the way...)


Here we are in front of one of five prasats, or big temple thingies.

That afternoon, we capped off our adventure with a way cool and utterly unique Battambang experience: riding on the bamboo train. There used to be commercial train service out around Battambang in the 1920s and 30s under French colonial rule, but as the French left and the rails degraded, the commercial service stopped. Those ingenious Khmers figured out a great way to still use the existing rails. They developed bamboo trains--really just bamboo platforms powered by a motorcycle engine and rested on top of military tank axles. They're so simple as to be brilliant. We took a ride on the bamboo train, which at top speeds of 20 or 30 mph and over wavy railroad tracks felt a bit like a flat rollercoaster through the rice fields connecting villages outside Battambang.

Here you can get a good glimpse of the Garveys (mom Stephanie, dad Liam, and kids Kieran and Declan) as they sit on the bamboo train with Nathan, Ben, and Ellie.

And here's what happens if you meet a train going the other way: The train with the lightest load (in this case us, since the other train had two motorcycles) gets taken off the tracks and put back on. Similarly, to turn around, you just pick up the bamboo platform, turn it around, swap the axles, and go the other way.


It was a great weekend and we're delighted that we got to see a little bit more of Cambodia before we leave in a few months...and happy to have had so much fun without shelling out for pricey plane tickets for the whole family.

Long on Book Smarts, Short on Commonsense

OK, Ben is making this a very blogworthy weekend. This morning, Ben and Nathan were chatting and playing with another expat family that was visiting our church. They were very friendly, and in fact the dad told Nathan that he grew up wanting to be a diplomat. His parents were missionaries, and he grew up overseas thinking that his two career choices were missionary or diplomat.

They came from the very conservative Assemblies of God congregation, and while they seemed comfortable enough during the service, when their ten month old son discovered the church's plastic dinosaurs in the cry room we found the ensuing conversation amusing...

Visiting mom: Wow, Ian's really having a great time playing with all the new toys here!
Visiting dad: (Looking more closely) Yes, he's playing with the...the...animals. We don't have animals like that at our church.
Ben: Look, he has a T-rex! My favorite is the Stenopterygius!

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But before all of you aunts, uncles, and grandparents swell too much with pride, I should let you in on what I overheard Nathan say last night, when Ben was running around naked and refusing to get dressed.

Nathan: Ben, what are you doing? No, the chip clip does not go on your penis!

Ouch.

Mulitple Choice Test

OK, this is way too cute not to share immediately...

As I was trying to get the kids ready for bed, Ben went downstairs to get a specific book for bedtime. He came back happily with a Cars book from Pete and Melissa:

Ben: Guess when I got this book! Your choice is...Christmas.

Me: Umm....Christmas?

Ben: Yes!

and he ran off so excited that I had guessed correctly.

Babies, Babies Everywhere!

I just got back from a lovely two weeks in the US. I had to attend leadership training in Washington, which was probably the best State Dept training course I've been to thus far. And I also pushed hard to get to spend both weekends (before and after) in the US. It was well worth the push!

The first weekend, I stopped in Minnesota and got to see my new nephew Simon! Oh, and his mom and dad were there too. I was so excited to see him I got all choked up when I spotted him in the airport in his daddy's arms. Here's the newest member of the Pleuss family:

Simon and Andy

Simon and Jess

I know that people only see the cute photos of kids, and Simon seems to be a pretty good-natured kid most of the time, but here's proof that Jess and Andy are earning their parenting stripes just like the rest of us!

Wail

From freezing Minnesota to ice storm Washington, I went to class, worked on the computer at all hours due to jet lag (hmm...sort of like now...) and caught up with Scott and Michelle. They were the only DC friends I even told I was coming to town, because with just a few nights in town and a crazy schedule of training and State Dept meetings I just didn't have time to see many people. Hope you two feel special! Oddly, I found out later that my sister Liz and I had both been in DC at the same time but hadn't realized it as neither expected the other to be there. She was visiting her boyfriend, and the only night we overlapped was Valentine's Day, so maybe that wouldn't have been the best night to get together anyway!

After training, I stopped in California on the way back and caught up with some old grad school friends. I hadn't seen Gene in four years, but here he is, now doing the urban dad thing with Max:

Gene and Max

And here's the whole family, Max (celebrating his first birthday), Gwen, and Gene

Then it was off to see more grad school friends--Erin and Bryan and their not-so-new addition, Liam. Liam will be two in a few months, but I haven't seen Erin and Bryan in six years (wow!) so we hadn't met before.

Smiley Liam out for a walk

The whole family enjoying ice cream

The energy level of our kids

So while Jen is away, I don't have a still camera. I do, however, have a video camera. Thanks to Jess and Andy's posting of video of Simon (that is a fantastically cute kid!) I realized that I can break some new Immingpool ground and try some video footage. So, here goes. Let me know what you think of it, if the quality is decent, this could become a more frequent event!

For those of you who don't know, the kids playing with Ben and Ellie are Srey Lea and Natalie, Sinen and Somany's kids.

Random cute kid photos

After all the recent event-related photos, it seemed to be time for some random kid cuteness. So, here we go.

In the midst of a "mural" painting. Note that things start with a blurry Ellie...

...continue with a blurry Ben...

...and end up with a blue naked Ben.

Just in case his technique wasn't immediately obvious, we have documentation.

The kids both decided to take ballet lessons this year.

Ben gets some help with his positions. He loves this class!

Friends visting from Shanghai

Today we said goodbye to our friends Josefine, Chris, and their toddler Karel. These are the same folks we visited in Shanghai in September, and we had such a great time then and now that we greatly regretted waiting so long to get together again.


While they were here, we had a birthday celebration. Ben's birthday isn't until Friday, but Jen will be back in the US then, so we decided it would be best to celebrate a bit early. It was also Chris' birthday, but we celebrated differently for him.

Hunting for tiny toy dinosaurs in the yard with Ethan, Lucca, parents and siblings.

The cake (not cupcakes!) eagerly awaited by Ellie, Karel and Shelby.

For Chris we did things differently. His primary goals were seeing interesting things and eating good Khmer food. We took him to two of our favorite Khmer restaurants and ordered in from a third. The food taken care of, we went to Udong together and saw the stupas there. Ben and I had a bit of a rough time with the heat and climbing.

But the rest of the gang fared a bit better. In the end we all had fun, and were happy to have gone, though exhausted.

Wedding of the year

One of the interesting things that comes with Jen's job is contact with high-level government officials. Although in Cambodia there are certainly some reasons to be troubled by some officials, one of her most important contacts, the Minister of Commerce, has turned out to be a wonderful host and lovely man. After Jen went to a boat race in Kep at his invitation (work thing) he invited all of us (Jen, me, kids, and my parents) to his house for a Christmas party. We went, had a lovely time, and were very impressed by how friendly and gracious he was. Huge party, loud music, lots of food, but he had a table reserved for us, seated near people Jen knew, two tables from him, and both he and his wife came over to make sure we were having fun during it. Lovely.

We were then invited to the wedding of his youngest daughter. She was marrying the son of the deputy prime minister, so needless to say this was a big event. Jen and I went, and had a remarkably good time. Jen particularly enjoyed getting up and dancing. The event was outdoors, at night, and enormous (several thousand guests) so it was difficult to photograph well, but we got a few shots of the couple that might be enjoyable.

The bride and groom, with the bride's niece and another
unknown family member. They really seemed thrilled
to be getting married. Seriously.

The bride and the little girls doing a Khmer dance.
Jen and I joined in a few dances after this, and the
cameramen (one of whom is in this shot) loved getting
her up on the Jumbotrons blasting the event to
the full gathering.

Visiting the Essex

One of the cool things that we got to do around Christmas time was welcome a visiting Navy/Marine vessel, the USS Essex. This is an amphibious assault craft, meaning it can take over a country as long as it has a beach. It also carries a bunch of helicopters and jets, just in case some air support is needed. Big ship. Jen and I left the kids at home and spent a night to work the reception on board. Very cool.

A view of the helicopters on deck

The jets (Harriers) from a distance

A sense of the whole beast

A better shot of a Harrier, much closer

Those jets don't need a runway, for the record. That's why they aren't on an aircraft carrier. Some of the 3000 or so Marines on board just jump in, and they take off straight up. Land that way too. Hover if they feel like it.

The inside of the ship also contained a full level 2 trauma center. Very impressive.

Christmas!

I am ashamed to say that we are still so far behind that I haven't put up a single photo of Christmas with Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dick yet. So here we go, the first in what I hope to be a bunch of belated entries tonight.

No Christmas would be complete without some baking, and this year the kids decided to make Surprise Cookies (recipe from Cookie Monster himself) with Mom and Grandma. We will not give out the recipe to anybody who has not come to sample them in person, so don't bother to ask.


Part of our time was spent visiting the beach, in both Kep and Sihanoukville. This fantastic shot was taken in Kep, during a lovely picnic on the shore. Cambodians love their rest, and in a hammock before, during, or after a picnic seems to be the favorite time, so all picnic spots come equipped with at least one hammock.


Aunt Liz made her own gift bags this year, and the kids had a great time finding many different uses for them.

We didn't limit our time away to Kep and Sihanoukville. The shot below was taken on the bridge over the rapids near Kampot. One of many great but simple attractions that we've managed to get to in our time here.


Well, that's at least a few photos for now. More to come!

My first meme

Well, once again we haven't been very regular in blogging. Life has been busy. Nathan's parents were here for Christmas and we travelled to the southern coast, Nathan and I went to a celebrity wedding--the Deputy Prime Minister's son marrying the Commerce Minister's daughter, the kids have been saying cute things, Nathan and I have been working hard for two weekends in a row at going through old papers and getting our office in order, I taught Sunday School a couple times, I briefed FBI Robert Mueller on the drug situation in Cambodia yesterday (he's visiting Cambodia and Vietnam), and I have generally been working long hours.

In a few hours our friends Josefine and Chris from Shanghai will be arriving for the weekend. Yeah! We're having Ben's birthday party tomorrow. And he's chosen today to decide that he's officially done with diapers, not willing to do training pants, and ready for some (already very wet) big boy undies. What timing! It could be a messy weekend.

And I leave for the US on Thursday.

Hopefully, we'll have pictures from some of those things up on the blog sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, I had a really interesting conversation with a colleague about social class, and she told me about a great book, which led me to an interesting blog, with this interesting meme, whatever that is. Anyhow, you're supposed to take a step forward (or in this case, bold) every statement that is true for you to show how many advantages you had in your background. Seemed like an interesting exercise, so here goes:


Father went to college
Father finished college (and law school)
Mother went to college
Mother finished college (and grad school)
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. (Boy, not only is my dad a lawyer, my sister is an adjunct professor!)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers (I would say same, but I never really thought about it then)
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home (Probably. We had lots. Mom/Dad, what do you think?)
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 (Gymnastics, dance, plus t-ball, girl scouts, soccer, etc.)
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18 (sort of--for about 2 months so I could take a SAT achievement test in Chemistry and get in to Rice U. Set it up myself and don't think my parents really got it.)
Family vacations involved staying at hotels (not usually, but once when I remember we went to the Grand Canyon when I was a teenager)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house (usually, except for a year or so in Chicago)
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home (yes, assuming you mean that they had a mortgage, not that they owned it free and clear)
You had your own room as a child (usually, though in Chicago I shared a room with one or both sisters, and when my family lived in TN there was no room for me when I came home from college!)
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (yes--I remember when there was a great airline sale and we got to fly to visit family in WI rather than driving. I was about 10 and it was a huge thrill. I took lots of photos on my little kodak disc camera.)
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (museums yes, art galleries, no)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family (although I also remember having to put things back at the grocery store when we didn't have the money to pay for everything we had chosen)

They Can Fly!

OK, this is too cute not to share. We borrowed a copy of Dumbo from our good friend Susie and tonight, as Nathan and I were finishing dinner and the kids were entertaining themselves, we overheard the following conversation from the foyer, where the kiddos were running in circles:

Ellie: Now you have powers that can make you fly!

Ben: I'm doing what you say and running in circles! I can fly!

Ben: My ears make me fly!

Ellie: My arms can make me fly!

Those Darn Kids

Nathan and I have been talking recently about how difficult it is to parent Ellie when she has the intellect of a 6 year old but the emotional maturity of, well, the 4 year old that she is. She constantly surprises us with what she knows and remembers:

• We were picking out a Bible story the other night and I started near the front, suggesting stories about Moses. She said, "No, I want something from the New Testament." New Testament?? Where did she learn what that was? I asked her what it was and she said, "It's the part about Jesus." Not bad.
• Yesterday our tour books about Chile arrived and Nathan was showing them to the kids. Ellie recognized pictures of Easter Island and said that she had seen similar photos of the statues on the islands at the Natural History Museum in DC over the summer. Wow. Even I don't remember that.
• Ellie just showed me how she hung her animals from the stair railings in our house. She explained to me that they are "bat kids" and they are sleeping upside-down like bats.

Now, the trick though, is that she still acts like a 4 year old. She fights with Ben, sometimes refuses to get dressed, doesn't always share, etc. But she sees right past all the traditional parenting tricks. When we give her two choices, rather than choosing between them, she wants to come up with other options she likes better. When we explain that she can't do something because "that's the rule" she'll say, "But you can take the rule away, Daddy." Argh. I guess we should count ourselves lucky to have such problems!

Ben has become incredibly verbal recently and loves to tell stories and chatter away. Despite the fact that we have no toy guns in the house and don't let Ben play violent games, he still turns mailing tubes into swords and legos into guns. He has this plastic stick--I think from either curtains or a play tent--that he uses as a sword, so one night at bed time I knighted him "Sir Ben" with the sword. Ellie wanted to be knighted as a Queen, but I explained I couldn't knight her into being a queen, though she could be "Lady Ellie." She said she wanted to be a knight like Ben, so I thought "Why not?" and knighted her "Sir Ellie." Then, in the middle of the night, Ben starts calling out for me. I somehow convinced Nathan that he should go check on him instead, but Nathan came back saying that Ben wanted only me. When I got into the room, Ben said, "I don't want to be Sir Ben anymore--I just want to be Ben." Aww. So I de-commissioned him on the spot.

Ben also seems to be fixated on talking about killing people. He tends to be very thorough when he gets angry, and will say something like "I'm going to kill you and put you in jail!" Wow--to have even your corpse imprisoned, that's harsh. He also has picked up the bad habit of calling things "stupid". His teachers tell us that other kids (especially boys) in his class do these things and that is where he is getting it from. So we try to have contests to come up with more creative insults and expressions of anger, like "I'm so angry I'm going to make you take a bath in mud!" He dissolves into laughter when we come up with these. His favorite insult for a long time was "You silly old cinnamon roll" though recently he has fallen back on a variation of a classic--"Silly poohpooh mouth boy". This morning, "You silly old wet noodle" was a hit, and Ben loved his latest creation--"silly poohpooh mouth noodle".

A Few Days in Shanghai

Spandes at a pedestrian mall in downtown Shanghai

We started our R&R from Cambodia with a stop in Shanghai. My Oxford friend, Josefine, is posted there as a German diplomat. We had a great time visiting her in Prague when she lived there, but that had been so long ago (seven years!) that since the last time we had seen her she acquired a husband and son!

Chris, Josefine, and baby Karel (in orange) join us for a great dinner out


The kids loved playing with Karel

We had a great time exploring picturesque Yu Yuan Gardens

Ben has a contemplative moment in front of a battered door

Old meets new in rapidly explanding Shanghai