The Clements Family Life: 5/31/09

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Wednesday Night - Girls Get Together

During the week, our dear friend Nicola visited for literally only 24 hours. She's a great friend who used to live here with here husband. While living here, their first daughter, Hannah, was born. After only a short couple of years and lots and lots of fun, they had to relocate (boo hoo). This is the expat life...

The reason for her short return was to check in on her apartment in town. She had a tenant that recently moved out and wanted to check in on what work needed to be done to it before renting it out again in September. Lucky for us she's letting Curt's nephew, Stephen and his buddy, live their rent free for the summer. I guess it all works out as we've had a lot of her stuff in storage in our warehouse rent-free. What comes around, goes around.

So, she left her 2 babies (her second one was born a year after she returned to England) behind with the nanny and came over to Budapest for work and fun.

During the evening we decided to hit one of our favorite squares - St Istvan Basilica. It's where the big church is where all 3 of our babies got christened. The square and setting are just beautiful. There are a few bar / cafes where you can sit out and take in the incredible European scenery that I love so much.

Nicky and I had planned to meet up with our friend, Kim Cooper, and got to the restaurant first. Within 2 minutes of sitting down and ordering our bottle of champagne, someone walked up to me and half shouted, "Erika!". I looked up to find my dear old friend Kim Maly who moved away from Budapest in 2002 to return to her Australian roots. I knew she was in town and Curt and I had already made plans to see her tonight (Saturday). On Wednesday, when we ran into each other, she had plans to meet up with another friend, Karin, for her birthday. Since she got their first and was alone I insisted she join in on our champagne to begin the birthday celebration.

Well, one drink turned into two and before we knew it they invited us to join them at Cafe Kor (one of my favorite restaurants in town) for dinner.

It turned out to be a fantastic night and even the the 2 friends I came with and the 2 friends I ran into didn't know each other, we all had a great time! They, of course, realized they knew of each other and as expat life goes had one or two degrees of separation.

Here are some of the snaps from the evening. It was chillier than usual and very windy as you can tell from the photos.

Left: Kim C, Nicky and me. Right: Kim M and me

Nicky with a cut out from the paper. She got it for her Scottish hubby who drives but has yet to get his license! Right now he's working in Ukraine where it's illegal for him to drive as a foreigner so he has a car with a chauffeur that was part of his employment package. This is very common in many parts of the world.

The 5 of us and me with Nicky

Dinner at Kor. Nothing but delicious every time.

Gabor, the owner, who knows all of us too well as we are all frequent customers. He became extra popular at the end of the evening as he insisted on paying for all of our drinks throughout the evening.

Not wanting the evening to end. Since 3 of us had babies to wake up to in the am, we headed home. The other 2 continued on from the restaurant. Crazy girls!

Friday, June 5, 2009

One More Ball Photo

I just received this and it is far better than my blurry shot of the ball's committee members. I'm the one on the right (if you can't tell).

Monday, June 1, 2009

T's First Big Mac

Terence is now 8 years old (as of 2 months ago) and he is starting to have a teenager's appetite. He can really eat! Some days I feel like he's going to eat us out of the home. There are definitely certain foods he won't eat like chocolate and green beans but he does now try just about everything and he's discovering that he is liking more and more foods every day. He still absolutely loves fish and sushi. He's discovered his love for prawns and yesterday had some really spicy ones at a restaurant which he never would have even tried about 8 months ago.

Lately, he's been begging us to let him try a Big Mac. We honestly didn't think he'd manage to eat the entire thing so I've been putting it off. Finally, last week I got him one. We didn't have time to eat in the McDonald's so we brought it home. I told him to keep it in the box as it was messy. When we got home he quickly unwrapped it and dug in. He loved it and thought it wasn't big at all. His exact words were, "Mom, this is only about 5 cm. It's not big at all!" He ate the entire thing in about 10 mins! I got this snap to prove it.

Mia's Photography

Mia recently borrowed my digital camera to take pictures through her eyes. It was actually really funny going through the approximately 150 photos to see what she thought was photo-worthy. Many of them were just of the neighborhood, plants, signs, etc. But, these actually made me smile.

The first 4 are from her bedroom's balcony. I absolutely love this first snap of the geraniums growing from her window box.

The rest below are her views from her balcony. From top left in clockwise order: Terence's tudor, Rafael's car parked out in front of our house; my flower garden; the jacuzzi

And, it's never complete without a self portrait of her feet / shoes!

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Out of Touch

Sorry we've been so out of touch lately. I have not been in blog mode...

Life has been busy. Mia is getting ready for her big dance performance on June 7th. She'll be on stage and it'll be a fun day that she's been preparing hard for it. We are really looking forward to it!

On June 6th, Terence has a big football (aka soccer) tournament. He plays for the French league and will be playing the Brits, the Americans and the German in an all day tournament up at the American International School of Budapest. We'll be there cheering him on!

At the same time, I'm filling out the thousands of pages (or so it seems) of school registration documents to get all 3 signed up for 2009 / 2010. That's right - all 3! Even Ali will go to the French school next year.

Must run now. We have a three day weekend in Budapest and are going to meet some friends for Sunday brunch in 30 minutes.

Love to you all... More photos and details coming soon. I promise.

.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:

Today, July 1 2010 while driving through McD's drive through Terence and I got to talking about what a job at McD's would be like. I told him that my brother worked there and that was one of his first jobs. I explained how he was in charge of the french fries and used to come home with lots of grease burns. T told me that if he ever worked at McD's he wouldn't be able to work on the Big Mac assemblies as they would all end up disappearing. The Big Mac is his favorite!! He's not a french fry kind of guy, just a burger boy!

June 10, 2010. Ali has been a bit curious about dying lately. Fortunately, she doesn't remember anyone close to us that has died but she hears Mia and T sometimes talking about it. The other day, she came up to me very sad and said, "Mama, I don't want you to die." I told her that I don't want to die either and this is why I have to exercise and take care of myself so that I can stay alive and healthy longer. She nodded in agreement and then, while playing with my pink wallet on the table, she followed up with, "Mama, if you DO die, can I please have your wallet?" Glad she jumped back so quickly...

Today, May 24 2010, is a public holiday (Pentecost). Ali woke up - only at 9am - and since she had no idea of the time I reminded her that there was no school today. She smiled and said, "Yeah! I'm going to stay in my pjs ALL day". Later she asked me about the cat's birthday. I told her I did not know. She then asked me when Blue, our border collie's bday is. I told her it was in August. She smiled and said, "Let's have a birthday party for him. What kind of cake do you think we should make for his party?" We decided to make him a dog food cake! However, she is now trying to figure out if it is better to give him a cake with or without candles...

This Saturday morning (April 17, 2010) I am at home with Ali while Curt is doing the dance and football taxi service. My main responsibility is to work on our US visit travel schedule (flights, rental cars, hotels, etc.) It always takes a lot of coordination but it's all worth it as we love our summer returns to the US. Anyhow, I was telling Ali what I was doing and she asked me to remind her who we were going to see again. The main people I mentioned were Nana, Papa, Aunt Sally and Uncle Mike as these are the first people we will visit. I asked her what we should take to Nana for her birthday present. She thought for a second. Then, her eyes grew wide as she thought of a great idea. Her animated answer (she always uses lots of hand motions when talking - is that from me?) was, 'A nice hat, a scarf and if you have a dress that you out grow then we can take it for her!'. Funny little monkey... Don't worry Nana, I won't be bringing you any hand-me-downs! x o x o

Yesterday (Feb 24, 2010), while Ali went to visit her old nursery school, I took Terence and Mia for lunch before picking up T's new passport at the US embassy. There is this little cafe that I really love and they have great wraps, onion rings (I have a weakness for good onion rings), burgers, salads, smoothies, coffees, etc. Terence decided on a plain burger with onion rings and Mia decided on a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings. I got a smoothie and hoped for some bites of both of theirs... When the burgers arrived, they both lifted off the top bun and frowned. T grunted, "I asked for a plain burger. Not a burger with this sauce!" The sauce was sort of a 1000 island dressing type of tangy sauce. Mia pouted about this matter, too. I immediately got upset with them and told them not to judge it until they tried it. Then, I followed with, "you both need to become more adaptable." After a second of silence, Mia told me she was going to tell dad. I asked her to clarify and she told me that she was going to tell dad what I had said. Again, I asked her to clarify as I hadn't said anything rude or even a bad word (I sometimes have trouble with the latter). She then told me very angrily, "I'm going to tell dad that you want us to be adopted!" Adapted ... Adopted ... Pretty close!

During our ski trip to Schladming, Ali and I often spent some time together in the afternoon (after her morning ski school) drinking hot chocolate at the top in one of the restaurants. One afternoon she made a funny observation. Actually, she made 2 observations that went like this: "Ma!" she began. After I responded "yes", she asked me, "why are there some teenagers working here?" Before I had time to answer, she asked me another question. "And, why are there so many teenagers kissing?!" I looked around and there were 2 young couples nearby kissing... on the mouth! She was very interested. I answered to her that many teenagers worked when they were on break from school and regarding the teenagers that are kissing, they must love each other. She took this in and thought for a while. I told her that I'd like it if she also worked when she became a teenager and asked her what she thinks she'd like to do. The response has had us giggling for a few days. With little hesitation, she answered that she wanted to be a penguin when she was a teenager. I asked her where she would work as a teenager and who would pay her money. She thought for only a second and then answered, "the Four Seasons Hotel. They will pay me and I'll work there." I bit my tongue and asked her what she would do in the Four Seasons dressed as a penguin. She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Ma! I would swim!" She said this with a slight roll of her eyes like I was born yesterday. What else would a penguin in the Four Seasons be doing???

Just yesterday (Sept 18, 2009) I heard Ali saying to Mia, "drink me". I had to turn around and see what they were talking about. Mia was holding Ali's cup while she sipped out of it. Ali must have thought 'drink me' was the way to ask to be fed (?) a drink. We do say 'feed me' but what do we say if it's a drink item and not a food item?

The other day (early June 2009) the girls were taking a bath together and Mia blurted out "Oh Man" about something. Ali thought she was referring to her as a 'man' and shouted back at Mia, "Me not a MAN, me a LADY!" For obvious reasons I have never called her a 'lady' but she's somehow picked the word up. Loved how she defended herself as being a lady...

Yesterday, March 31st 2009, Terence, Ali and I were sitting at the table and talking. Terence made a joke about going to jail. After Ali laughed, I asked her if she knew what 'jail' was. She answered 'yes'. So, I asked her if jail was a place for good guys or bad guys. She correctly answered 'bad guys'. Then, I asked her, "How does Brigi call 'jail'"? I know this is correct but this is the way Ali would understand me asking how would she say 'jail' in Hungarian. Brigi, by the way, is her Hungarian nursery school teacher who she has a very close relationship with. Her answer to my question, "How does Brigi call jail?" was "with a telephone".... Very clever she is...

This afternoon (Jan 28, 2009) Ali pulled out a DVD and asked, 'we watch this when dada come home?' I looked at it and said, 'Ali, that's not a good one for you. It's a little scary.' (it was Men in Black II). She had recognized it and was ready with her quick reply: 'Don't worry (pronounced woowwee) Mama. Me cover my one eye with a pillow (piwwow).'

On Ali's birthday (Jan 24, 2009) while we were driving to Aquaworld, I turned around and offered the kids a stick of gum. I guess normally I / we say a 'piece' of gum. Curt then followed up with a joke asking if any of them wanted a 'stick of dynamite'. The girls were a bit confused but T, without missing a beat, said 'we can't buy dynamite, only people like miners can buy sticks of dynamite.' This is something he got out of one of his books that he loves to read. I believe it's the Richard Scarry What do People do All Day book that he has practically memorized and still goes to bed reading it and examining all the detailed pictures every night.

This morning (Jan 27, 2009) when we were hunting for Ali's shoes for school she looked outside and said, 'Mama, it's raining'. I turned to look out the window she was looking out and replied, 'Ali, I don't see rain'. She then followed up with something in Hungarian that I didn't understand. When I asked her to repeat it she looked at me, switched back to English and said 'It starts snowing after Halloween'. Not sure what this meant, why she said it, how she even remembered what Halloween was as that was ages ago in her little lifetime. Very sweet.

Mia's newest line (as of this first week in Sept 2008) is "I'm having the worst day ever". She's also been saying, "I feel like an idiot". She tends to say the latter when she's feeling a bit shy or lost for words. The first one is usually after she falls, stubs her toes, gets hurt or drops something. I have no idea where either lines have come from. Very funny to hear a 5 year old talk like this...

Every summer we take our 3 kids back to the US to re-familiarize (I'm sure this isn't a word...) them with their American roots. They were born in Europe and have only lived in Hungary their entire lives. Terence, our 7 year old, knows he's American. However, sometimes when he's asked 'Are you English?' he answers 'yes'. I think I've finally gotten it through to him that just because he speaks English doesn't mean he is English. In America (and several other countries), English is spoken... He now gets it and corrects people if they guess he's English. You may think that they would recognize his American accent but I think this misunderstanding usually happens when he is speaking Hungarian or French.

Mia, on the other hand, thinks we are Hungarian. When we were talking about Hungary beating America for the gold medal in water polo, she shouted out 'Yeah, we won!'. We had to explain that Hungary won and not America and we are American. She answered something about us living in Hungary which makes us Hungarian. Needless to say, she is a work in progress.

Then there is Ali who is only 2 1/2 and is still trying to not mix up English with Hungarian in her speech so she has no idea where she's from but will in time.

Anyhow, going back to our trips to the US. Curt and I like to give them an all-American cultural experience whenever we are in the US which includes baseball games, summer camp, carnivals, dunking machines, donuts, bagels, catching lightning bugs, looking for Cardinals and Blue Jays, spotting alligators in the lakes in Kiawah and this year a rodeo and a demolition derby. In addition to introducing our American favorite pastimes to them, we also have to teach them how to talk about it. For example, when our plane was landing in Kansas City on July 4th 2008 we had a perfectly clear day and could see everything. Terence looked out the plane's window and in his loud voice shouted to me, "Look at that baseball court mom!" I could hear heads turning wondering why the American accented boy who should be in at least his 3rd or 4th year of little league just called it a baseball 'court'. Well, that was at the beginning of our US summer trip... ;-)

Tonight (July 11, 2008) on our way home from the Sedgwick state fair (hee haw), Ali shouted from the back seat, "Mama, home now! Me tired!" It was about 9:30pm so way past her bedtime. I told her that we were on our way home (or at least Nana and Papa's) and would be there soon. I followed up with something about daddy is driving as fast as he can. Then, she shouted, "Dada, faster!" She is so funny and so expressive. It's funny to hear her bark her commands. And, when she is tired, she tells us....

This morning (June 24, 2008) as Mia was changing from her PJs to her school clothes I noticed her PJs had several holes in them. I mentioned it to Mia and suggested that maybe we just toss them in the garbage as it was so torn and damaged (plus small on her) that it wouldn't be easy to repair. Mia nodded her head in agreement but then asked me to do one favor for her. She asked, "Mama, can you please just toss them after I go to school? If I'm not here, I won't see it and then I can't get sad."

One morning while we were near Notre Dame in Paris (May 29, 2008), a group of school kids walked by where we were sitting. I heard T say to Liam, "Don't they sound like the kids at the French school?" Gee, I wonder why? haha

Two nights ago (around March 27, 2008) while Terence was getting ready for bed he said, "Mama, you know what?" He always begins his stories like this. After I asked 'what?' he proceeded by telling me the sweetest thing. He said, "I really like being a kid". I have no idea where this came from or why it occured to him at this point but I think it was really sweet. I know earlier in the evening his stomach was hurting him a bit and I was nurturing and taking care of him. I think maybe that is why he decided that being a kid and having a mom (and dad) take care of him when he needed it was okay!

Mia woke up crying 2 mornings ago. She was actually whimpering. I gently stroked her back and kissed her face while whispering in her ear "Mia, you're dreaming. Wake up. It's okay. I'm here. It's mama and I'm here". I repeated these soothing words over and over until she half opened her eyes and started mumbling. I leaned in to try and hear her better. I asked her what was upsetting her. She then said a bit more clearly, "The Easter Bunny pulled my hair!" Oh no. Poor Mia. "Why did the Easter Bunny pull your hair?". "He came in through the bedroom door and pulled my hair while I was sleeping in bed!" I reassured her that the Easter Bunny would NEVER do such a thing. I explained how gentle and giving good ole EB is. However, this morning (2 days later) she asked me how many 'night-nights' until Easter. I told her it was 2 weeks away (aka about 14 night-nights away). She then looked relieved and then asked me if she could get her hair cut short!!

I've been wanting to add another funny Mia quote that occurred over our New Year's (Dec 2007/Jan 2008) ski holiday. One night when Mia was having trouble falling asleep she crawled in between Curt and I as we were still awake talking. She explained that she couldn't fall asleep so we told her she could stay in our bed until she did. She closed her eyes for a couple of minutes and then started smacking herself in the head with both hands. I asked her what she was doing and she replied that she couldn't get it to stop. Curt and I were confused and asked her to elaborate. She said, 'I can't get the voices in my head to stop'. It was so funny as I immediately knew it was her thinking that was in her head. Curt asked her what the 'voices' were saying and she said it sounded like 'blah, blah, blah, blah, blah'. Curt couldn't resist by saying that he knew the feeling!

Last week (January 10, 2008) Mia came with me to the Indian Embassy in Budapest to pick up Curt's and my passports with Indian visas. She always makes me laugh as she's full of questions but never discreet. One of those kids that have to announce to an entire room that she has to go to the bathroom - even though she's only talking to me. While at the Indian Embassy she looked around at this new environment taking everything in. She had so many questions, "Mommy, what's that for?" or "Why is that over there?" She then noticed two paintings. At about the same time as she noticed them one of the consulates sat down next to her and said 'hi'. She returned the gesture with a shy 'hi' and then turned back to me to ask me who those people are in that painting. I had no clue and didn't want to embarrass myself in front of this Indian embassy employee. So, I asked him if he could answer my daughter's question. He looked at her and said, "That's our president". So then I showed Mia the map of India and told her that was the country we were going to. She returned her attention to the man and the woman in the painting and asked who the woman was assuming it was the man who was the president (reminder - she's still not 5 years old). The nice man had to explain that it was the woman who was the president and the man was the prime minister. Then Mia had to ask why the president had the red dot on her forehead and the prime minister had the pretty blue scarf (turban) on his head. She then saw a statue of Ghandi and asked me who he was. I knew that answer but had trouble explaining in 5 year old language why he was so famous. On and on and on she went... She had all the employees listening and entertained as not only was she interested but she was extremely complimentary. Many kids would say, 'that's weird or strange' but Mia found it all interesting and beautiful. They loved that she thought the turban was pretty, the red dot looked nice on the president and in another very Indian photo the traditionally dressed Indian woman looked so pretty with her gold bangles, henna covered hands, and gold outfit. Phew, I was on the edge of my seat nervous she would say something that might not be so kind. Instead she left them all with a smile on their faces and a very proud mom!

Yesterday (Nov 23, 2007) Terence came up to me and said, "Mom, I know America is one of the newest countries in the world but which is the oldest?" I said, "I'm not really sure but what do you think?" This kid is too much. He replied, "I'm not sure either but I would guess China." Not sure if this is right or wrong but it amazes me that he can even come up with something that is a really good guess. Will google it tonight for sure! If anyone knows, please send me the answer.

Last night (Oct 19, 2007) Terence asked me the loaded question: Do we come back to earth after we die? We spent a long time after the girls went to bed talking about it. I explained how different people believed different things and what I believe is that we do. He then asked me if we'd still come back as a family. I realized he had tears in his eyes with worry that he'd have to be part of another family so I answered 'yes'.

Terence asked me the other day why so many ants were eating our tree. He asked how they got onto our property when we have a fence all around it.

In first grade Terence is working on days of the week and months of the year. I asked him to recite what he's learned in French. After he said the days of the week perfectly I asked if he knew them in English. He couldn't think of them but suddenly I heard Mia's voice without hesitation say, 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... etc'

Ali's word of the day was purple yesterday. Okay, so it didn't really sound like purple but it did sound like 'poopoa'. We were both wearing purple shirts and I pointed it out to her. That's how she repeated it after me.

The Clements Family Life