Family Update

Ezekiel is now almost 7 months old! He likes to sit up, and can play pretty well without toppling over too easily. He also loves standing in his exersaucer and johnny jump-up. Zeke's little legs are getting quite strong! At his 6 month checkup, Zeke weighed in at 17.6 pounds- a healthy weight and right in the 55th percentile for his age.

Developmentally, Zeke is doing great. He can roll over both ways, but chooses to stay put unless there's a toy or a dog that he really wants to get. He's not crawling yet, but seems anxious for takeoff. We're prepared for it any day now. Still no teeth or hair. Good things come to those who wait!

Yesterday, we bought Zeke a highchair. He's been a great eater at mealtimes, enjoying all sorts of fruits, vegetables, oats, and rice. We're excited for Zeke to become a part of our family dinner table experience.

Tom has been extra busy the past few weeks because his job at school has changed significantly. Due to some movement within our school staff, a position opened up in the middle school, and Tom is now a teacher! He loves teaching 7th and 8th grade English and Math. He's the homeroom teacher for 8th graders so he gets to spend a little extra time with those kids. Each middle and high school teacher is also responsible for teaching an elective class. Tom has enthusiastically been teaching his weightlifting elective every Tuesday and Thursday to a small group of guys. Between his weightlifting class, and running 3 times a week, I think my husband is going to be one of the most fit guys around town pretty soon!

I have been thoroughly enjoying school so far this year too. I've got a really sweet class of 4th graders, and now that it's my 3rd year at our school, I feel like I really understand what I'm doing. I recently acquired a new cookbook from my friend Erin. The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is awesome! A couple nights per week, I've been trying out some new recipes- meatloaf, chicken piccata, and omelets have been some recent hits. It's strange that for the past 4 years, we have tried and tried to make omelets, and never had success. I get this great illustrated cookbook with all sorts of helpful hints, and they turn out wonderfully! I'd recommend this book to anyone.

Ruby will be celebrating her 2 year birthday on August 26. Our goal is to find her the best dog bone in La Ceiba by Wednesday. Our dog has been handling all the transitions in the past few months really well. She had 2 dog/housesitters this summer, a new nanny in the house (and her whole family- but that's a story for later), a baby that has started grabbing at her in glee, and another new nanny. Ruby takes it all in stride. Tom has also been working with her off-leash a bit more. Tom and Ruby sometimes take late-night walks around the neighborhood without a leash. Ruby loves the freedom, and Tom loves that his dog is well-trained enough to not run away.

And the nanny... Some of our readers may have heard about our nanny drama. I'll keep it brief, but the young, enthusiastic girl we hired to care for Zeke turned out to be a different person than we thought she was.
Some of the surprises included: stealing two of Zeke's keepsake baptism gifts from grandparents (one of which she took to her family's home), lying about many things, watching tv all day long while leaving Zeke alone, packing our food in our tupperware containers to give her family members through the gate, inviting her dad in for gourmet lunches in our kitchen, having friends over to watch tv, and inviting her whole family to our house in the daytime to cook up lunch for her whole family. Every day, she would go under my bed, take out my straightening and curling irons, use them and my makeup and lotions.

Because of some carelessness on her part, we started to discover the stealing and lying last Friday. When she came clean and confessed to stealing the keepsakes, crying and begging forgiveness, we decided that maybe this could be a real turning point for a young girl. Everybody makes mistakes, and this could be a real opportunity for change. Except that 3 days later, Tom stopped home in the middle of the school day to find a baby (not ours) wandering around our house in a diaper, the stereo and tv blaring, her mom cooking up a storm in our kitchen (and later taking it all with her) and Zeke all alone in his crib- wide awake. Tom fired her on the spot, for violating one of our biggest house rules- no visitors! She and her family and friends were out of our house within 10 minutes.

Fortunately, thanks to the outpouring of help and suggestions from our friends and coworkers here, we had 5 great leads by the next day. We interviewed 5 women- all with experience and strong recommendations, and we hired a real winner. I think Zeke will be much happier with his new nanny, Belkis. She's an experienced mom who is musical, intelligent, and best of all- has a professional reputation of being honest and trustworthy. She doesn't live with us, but bikes from her own nearby neighborhood. She had her first day on Friday, and we have high hopes this time. And now, for a happy thought- watch this cutie in his new high chair!

As for what's going on here in Honduras politically, things seem pretty normal in La Ceiba. I don't claim to understand all of it, and I don't care to turn this into a political blog. Our own lives here in Honduras have been fairly normal. We're not trying to say that we don't care about people whose lives have been changed and affected by the events. It's just that this blog is about Karine and Tom (and Zeke and Ruby too) in Honduras- our lives and the stuff that happens right here in our little home. We've been a little slow on the blogging this month, but will try to get back on it!