Enjoying the simple

When asked by one set of grandparents, "What was your favorite present you received at your other grandparents' house?" Micah responded pretty quickly, "The remote-controlled car!" Oh yes, it's quite the sight to see that futuristic car zip and zoom, flashing its multicolored LEDs and flipping its front wheels like an airplane propeller; not the easiest to control, but for wild and crazy tricks not unlike 80's break dancing, it’s a great present for a rambunctious 4-year-old.

 

As the inquisitive grandparents moved on to Grace, my mind flashed back to the present-opening scene. My family had abandoned any attempt at order, giving the kids the green light in tearing open their treasures. And after observing from my rocking chair only a few minutes, it was soon clear that Grace was not keeping pace with the amassed pile of presents taller than herself. In fact, she was showing no progress at all. Instead she was bumbling around the room with toy broom and dust pan still 90% covered in wrapping paper, saying "Seep, seep, seep…" She protested my party-stopping attempts to unwrap her toy broom, which she was obviously already enjoying to its fullest.

 

For the next 10-15 minutes, I and one of Grace's cousins, tried our best to distract her from the broom long enough to get another present or two opened, but without fail she returned for another round of  "tidying up." In the end, the excitement of the broom was won over by a play stove top and plastic veggies Velcro-ed down the middle for easy "cutting." But I'm sure that broom and dust pan will see many more hours of play down the road!

 

I love to watch my kids enjoying rather simple things. The same scene played out at the other grandma's house. Grace had watched Micah open a huge gift bag and among all the goodies inside, she locked her mind on two, a backpack and chapstick. When it was her turn to open her equally large gift bag, her one-track mind was disinterested in anything else until she found her backpack and most importantly, her chapstick. Upon finding it, she jumped to her feet  with her fist in the air, "My chapstick! My chapstick!" Enjoying the simple.

 

The Christmas season is full of extravagance. Fancy decorations, fancy meals, and fancy gifts have taken over the season such that some of our American colleagues working overseas have vowed to never plan a furlough during the Holidays. Andrea and I aren't there. Why? I hope it is that we, like Grace, can look past the extravagance and find enjoyment in the simple things – worshipping on Christmas Eve at our home churches, drinking spiced cider, relaxing in the glow of twinkling lights, watching (ie. refereeing) our kids play with cousins, or rehearsing old family memories and inside jokes over games of pool, darts and cards. To be honest, spending Christmas in warm Gesas isn't all that bad, but it's these "simple" things that we miss most.

 

Two Weeks at Grammas

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa Williamson these past two weeks have lived up the expectations Micah placed in Grace's head. In Micah's first trip to the US in 2012, he encountered a whole new world. A world with electricity that never gets cut off, water that never runs out, cars that seem to glide down the road, people that all speak his language, toys around every corner, and sweets like he had never tasted before. Above all, he experienced wonderland of a grandparent's house. Before we left Ethiopia, we overheard Micah telling Grace about what she would see and hear and taste in America, painting quite the Candyland in her impressionable mind.

Well, two weeks into our time and it seems Grace has not been disappointed by Micah's stories. They ride their wiggle car together in the basement, watch movies on HUGE screen TVs,

make gingerbread houses,

went ice skating,

watching Gramma teach violin lessons, attended the holiday symphony concert,

and took advantage of the little dusting of snow to break out the sleds for the first time.

We even got to go cut down search, cut down, set up and decorate our own Christmas tree.

Despite the lot being pretty well picked over, we still got a tree that puts or Christmas branch of last year to shame.

Today we travel across the pond for act two of the modern opera "spoiled by grandparents"! And believe me, Andrea and I are looking forward to it too!

Good Travelers

Micah was born a good traveler. Sure, he had his moments of explosion in his car seat as the 11-12 hour bumpy trips to and from Gesas push us all just a bit too far some days. But in general, he seems to thrive in an ever-changing environment and traveling from one world to another is no exception. Our second-born, little Miss Gracey didn't get the same good travelling genes that her brother seems to have hogged, but I think the bar was set pretty high for her. I know a handful of adults who would surely rank below her on good traveler charts. I guess practice makes perfect, as I often tell people, "Micah was born a good traveler, Grace didn't really have the choice not to become one."

Travelling in the truck, harnessed into car seats and sitting too low to see out the windows has got to be frustrating, maybe that is what makes train and airplane travel so much more fun. Micah started counting down the "sleeps" until the plane ride to the States way too early, and of course, Grace had no antibodies against such infectious premature excitement. "Go airplane now? Go gamma, papa house now?" Waiting is tough.

As we had learned from earlier mistakes, taking young kids on flights departing at 2am are best tackled by going to the airport while the kids are still awake and letting them crash in the terminal. So that is what we did. Leaving our house at 6:30pm, Micah and Grace were in great spirits as we waited for the check-in counters to open. Finding the only escalators we've seen in Ethiopia and riding up and down them until a security lady yelled at us was definitely a highlight and killed a good 20-30 minutes! Finally checking in and going through immigration, all except me promptly curled up on the terminal benches. Already, my head was spinning with the post-red-eye feeling, not a good sign before take-off on this 24-hour journey.

Letting the kids sleep until the last possible moment, we hurried through final security and were the last to board the Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul. Both kids quickly fell asleep again and despite my best attempts to join them, my long frame fought unsuccessfully for 7 hours to find a position comfortable enough to relax. My mind clouded by the all-nighter, 7 morning hours in the Istanbul airport felt longer than it did last time we flew this same route. That and the little airport playground we remember Micah playing on two years ago has since been removed and replaced with a mosque. We received meal vouchers, but were limited in using them at a second-rate deli restaurant, right across the food court from savory foods like Burger King and Sbarro pizza. The spinach rolls and plastic pizza didn't come close to hitting the spot. On board the 11-hour flight from Istanbul to Chicago, the kids and Andrea were ready for a nap, and all three of them managed to catch it, Micah and Grace sleeping a good 4-5 hours. I wish I had taken a picture of my very pregnant yet versatile wife, curling up on the floor under hers and Grace's seats for a nice snooze. Learning from her good example, I tried the same, yet even without having to manage a beach ball under my shirt, I couldn't get my stork legs curled up enough to keep my head out of the aisle. Sure I could have slept nicely like that, but fear of becoming a doorstop to a 100-pound drink cart kept my eyes from closing. Head hurting and eyes spinning from exhaustion, I couldn't even watch the movies/shows anymore. I just sat counting the minutes until we could enter our "rest!"

 At the final good travelers awards ceremony, Micah and Grace found themselves on the podiums, myself the only Williamson excluded. But I count my blessings. How much worse could those flights have been had God not given me a patient wife and two kids who will likely one day end up in the "good travelers" hall of fame?