Two Cents Worth of Updates

As Steve noted, we’re back, and it seemed timely to add my two cents to the blog.

- We never really posted anything about the first nanny search. I wanted a nanny with experience rather than a maid who babysat while the ex-pat wife went out (these types of maids are abundant). Steve found a website and came across an American living in Israel. She had great nanny experience and was conveniently close (i.e. cheap to fly her in for an interview and to simply bring her here). But it turns out the Qatar government doesn’t recognize “nanny” as an occupation to give someone a business visa. All nannies come into the country as “maids” and apparently, Americans are not an approved nationality to be a “maid”. So we never really got the visa thing entirely sorted out but it seemed futile to continue once we found she was leaving anyway so she bought a 1-month tourist visa instead.

- So, we have a nanny, for now. We found out in March that she had a Jordanian boyfriend who she was semi-serious with and she asked if he could come too. Qatar has strict laws against unmarried couples living together and besides he would have needed a job here – so we said no. So, when we left the issue she was checking if he could get a job here and live separately from her. If not, she said she might break up with him. But on the way home from the U.S., we finally checked our email to discover that our nanny is now A) pregnant (!) and B) married. And apparently in that order, wink-wink. She was originally thinking of bringing her husband here, but to make a long, convoluted story short, she can’t and will be leaving us at the end of the month. She’s going back to the states to have the baby. It’s too bad because the three of us seem to really like her. The upshot of all that is we’re trying to replace her or find another way!

- Yep, still looking at buying a vacation house in Kentucky. Rough River Lake (where we stayed for 2 weeks) was beautiful and conveniently located between my sister and Steve’s parents. Seemed like a nice place to take Wynne for the summers or holidays and I’ve always wanted a house by the water. We’ll see. Like Steve said, there are financial considerations to be made.

- I made baby food. Yep, all by myself. We can buy it here- not much selection and not much for brands I recognize though. I’m not sure how long I’ll continue this for. It was fun-ish and Wynne now has a stash of peas, green beans, bananas, carrots and pumpkin. Now we’ll just have to get around to starting her on solids. I figured we’d wait until 5 months (just 2 weeks), but Steve visited the doctor and she said to wait until 6 months. I don’t feel strongly about it and Steve votes with the doctors most of the time. In fact, probably all of the time. If it wasn’t for Steve, I would’ve walked out of half of my prenatal appointments (the wait always drove me crazy). We’ll keep you posted on Wynne vs. solids.

- I also made rhubarb pie. Not as good as Grandma Soldatke’s of course. I never once made rhubarb pie in the states, but here, I do it about once a year when they first get rhubarb in. I can seldom find peaches but rhubarb I can find about 4 months out of the year. Crazy.

- Erin