Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to all . . .

We’ve been in the kitchen since the early morning hours, of course. Thanksgiving has officially started here at the Del Bueno’s because I have burned myself on the stove, and it’s not Thanksgiving until someone cuts themselves or gets burned.

The Holidays have also officially started since, as usual, the Kimler/Del Bueno curse has landed firmly on Steve and Vicki. Their car died yesterday in the parking lot of Lowe’s Midlothian, 15 minutes before all auto repair places closed for a four day weekend. My most trusted mechanic will repair it for them Monday, but they will be forced to extend their stay in lovely Richmond, Virginia for some extra days. They are being very good-natured about it.

I have a few moments before the 17 pound bird goes in the oven, and before I have to clean myself up in the shower, so I figured I’d blog and also put a post out here from Sally, my fearless cousin who has left Saurimo and is now in Mozambique and sounds much happier. I finally found out what MSF stands for - “Doctors Without Borders” in French. I am not even going to TRY to spell it in French, so whenever she says MSF, just read “DWB”.

Lily has 8 teeth now and is very vocal and extremely active. Her latest way to communicate wants/needs is to screech at the top of her lungs. We are trying to break of her this very annoying (and ear splitting) habit. She usually does it when on my dad’s shoulder, right into his hearing aid. I’m surprised his head has not exploded due to the extreme loudness of my child.

Kaitlin has spent her vacation helping Lily learn to walk. She’s taken a few steps and definitely wants to do it - she just doesn’t know how. Mike, dad, Steve and Voz are all golfing this morning - they were wise to get out of the house. Women on Thanksgiving tend to be a little, well, bitchy. We are no exception. I’ve already kicked the dog twice because she is sharking around the kitchen licking up every tiny scrap of food that drops. It’s very annoying.

I hope all of you out there are having a great day and filling up on food. Instead of watching the parade, I’d like to tune into the dog show in the hopes they have a Great Dane featured - my desired pet of the week - and since there are no men around to force football on us, I might actually get to do this.

Enjoy Sally’s posting and drop us a line if you are bored.

Oh…Hello there.
I have made it to Mozambique with no problems and I have been at my new site for about 24 hours. It is a huge change from Saurimo and I am so glad I took this assignment. I am in Beira, the second largest city, following Maputo, the capital. Mozambique is quite nice and of course they speak Portuguese, so hopefully I will be fluent when I leave, because they probably speak a better Portuguese than Angola. For right now, use this e-mail at the end of this message and just put my name in the subject line, although these probably won’t be as personal as I had in Saurimo. I still have a lot to learn about the workings here and I am only here for 8 weeks. I have a thousand questions but I can tell you a bit about this rather exciting project. So I left Saurimo on very short notice, only to wait in Luanda for my flight to Mozambique. Starting on the 11th of December, we will be doing a 2 dose oral cholera vaccine campaign which is part of a study being conducted by Epicentre in Paris, the MSF epidemiological department. Someone has been here since July doing the groundwork and me and the logistician just arrived yesterday. We are 4, a field coordinator from Switzerland, a log from France and another American nurse from Arizona. We seem to be a good team. We will get a Peruvian epidemiologist soon and many, many visitors from headquarters, Maputo and France. There are many partners actually involved in this like the WHO, the University of Lisbon, MSF, Ministerio da Saude de Mocambique, Epicentre etc. I guess they have tried to do this campaign for 4 times before this but only now is it actually happening. I could go on and on but maybe this is boring you, but certainly not me. So basically I have to help hire 215 people tomorrow, train them next week and do the vaccines the week after, with the big guys all here. The chiefs from Maputo and Geneva. I live in this excellent big house with a nice fridge and stove and garden with a tv and furniture with the waves just some meters away, although I have yet to see the beach. In fact I have only seen the office, which is not my house, unlike in Saurimo, thank goodness for that. This is just a quick e-mail to tell you I am here and am very fine. I have a million things going through my head and I feel like a little girl on Christmas day. Oh, Happy Thanksgiving. All my love from Mozi…Sally

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Thank you
MSF Beira team

Ah, the holidays. How they bring out the best in everyone. Including Ukrops shoppers, who are ready to beat the heck out of the next person in line at the meat counter. Even I got snippy with the meat manager. Well, only a month to go. We can all survive.

Lily’s birthday was great - the food was terrific, we all had a good time, drank and ate too much, and made far too much noise. Lily refused to sleep that entire afternoon due to her excitement level. She got far too many things and is still working her way through them, trying to figure out what to play with next. When everyone leaves, I’m going to have one cranky child - she’s been played with non-stop, and loved endlessly.

I’m off to pick up the turkey I got into a fight with the meat manager about - so Ho Ho Ho and Happy Thanksgiving.

Okay, some funny stories to report. First, today was the second day in Lily’s first year of life that I wanted to quit my job as a mother. 2 days out of nearly 365 isn’t bad, considering my previous life - my “want to quit my day job” ratio was MUCH higher. Like, 170 out of 365. The first day I wanted to quit motherhood (and literally remember saying outloud, “WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING???”) was in week two of Lily’s life, day 9 - nursing was a nightmare. My nipples were cracked and bleeding and I couldn’t get things just right, and I remember it being 4 AM and sitting in the guest room, crying and looking at Lily and saying “Why can’t you do this right???” as if tiny baby like she was could understand, let alone do anything about it. It’s kind of funny in retrospect. For all you breastfeeding mommies out there: you are all my heroes.

So, day two of hating motherhood . . . I helped out at my parent’s today. After I nearly had a stroke because my dad’s computer was messed up yet again, Lily decided to flat out refuse to nap. Not only refuse, but she stood in her pack and play screaming at the top of her lungs. She also entertained me on the 30 minute drive this morning by exercising her lungs, even managing to scream over the top of NPR. I pretended not to hear it.

After nap 1 was a bust, I was hoping for a nice long one this afternoon. All of our stress levels are high - I’m fighting some nasty cough thing and we’re anticipating an active week - so when nap 2 began to go by the wayside, and it was apparent Ms. Lily was not going to sleep, I got creative and went in there. I laid down next to the pack and play and tried to pretend I was sleeping on the floor next to her (it wasn’t all that far from the truth). Next thing I know, I feel something hit my head, and I look up. Lily is peering over the top of the crib and throwing her pacifier, followed by a stuffed animal, directly at my melon. I handed the binky back and pretended to sleep. “TINK.” It hit my head again. I hand it back. “TINK. THUNK.” Binky followed by bear. This went on until round 11, when I decided I had had enough and made haste out of the room.

She screamed all the way home, but you know what? She’s sleeping blissfully, and peacefully, in her crib right now, and the sight of her sweet face (with the big, red puffy eyes) is enough to make me forget my day in “No Nap Hell”.

Oh yeah, and while I was leaving a voice mail for a client who was having an emergency, she simultaneously fell and hit her head while someone rang my doorbell. As I rushed for the doorbell, I pulled the phone off the desk and ripped the receiver off accidentally, then tripped on her cart and fell on my face. I’m going to have a drink now.

The chaos is now fully geared up - I’ve been cleaning the house today instead of working, and buying out the grocery stores . . . I probably won’t write until the weekend is over and some of the family has gone home. If I can just keep mom from getting an ucler, we’ll be good! She gets very worked up about family occasions like this one . . . she’s bouncing off the walls already. I forced her to stay here today because it’s raining torrentially and I figured she’d enjoy making some thank you cards with me - but who knows. It’s another evening of errands. Let’s hope I get some sleep. I have some sort of cough that won’t go away. I sound like I smoke a pack a day or something.

As soon as we get some digitals over the weekend, I will post them . . . I still can’t believe the first year of Lily’s life has gone by as quickly as it has. It literally flew. The first three months took forever - and the last 9 months just disappeared.

We are gearing up for a week-long festival of Lily’s Birthday and National Gain Ten Pounds day - Thanksgiving. I blew off all responsibilities today and made Christmas cards at Wynne’s house (wait, I mean HOLIDAY cards - don’t want to offend the non-christians). I have lists galore.

As I write this, Lily is crawling around in the foyer with two large plastic stars she always holds onto - she now likes to crawl with them and use them to bash whatever is in her way. Currently she is bashing the glass shelves of the etagere and creating an unholy racket. I’m sure our neighbors love us. The banging is interspersed with the sounds of grunting. It’s quite spectacular, I assure you.

Ellen had us over last night for her world famous wings - they were delicious, but Lily did not cooperate and we had to make a hasty exit, still stuffing homemade brownies down our yaws. Is yaw a word? I always use it, but don’t know if it’s real or not. You get the picture. She was just tired, like Mike and I were. We all slept in until 8 AM this morning - unbelievable.

The big news is, we finished the office this weekend. It is officially painted, curtains have been hung, and furniture has been rearranged. We even hung pictures today. I cleaned out my desk and got things back in order . . . it won’t last, but it feels good right now. I ordered another piece of furniture to house the television so it isn’t the focal point of the room, and will keep Lily from pushing the on/off button constantly. She really likes the Wiggles, by the way.

The home equity line came through, so now we will be putting in carpeting through the entire house (except in the areas that have linoleum or hardwood). The kitchen linoleum will be ripped up and we’ll have Pergo in there - cheaper than hardwood and you can wash it with water (or, to quote Mark, the installer, “You can juz SWIVVER it”). Then, paint the fourth bedroom and we’re pretty much done with home upgrades. Sometimes I think we would have been better off to tear the house down and start from scratch!