auntie tanya

i must say that my little julian really wore me out this morning. exasperation. i guess my payback was him taking a 3 hour nap this afternoon. that was insane. i thought something was wrong.

anyway, during hour 3 of his nap, my doorbell rang. it was my upstairs neighbor, mimaha (spelling?). she told me that she and several other housewives (oh yeah, that's me!) meet at the "piscine" to get together sometimes in the afternoon and that i should come and join them. "just check to see if we are there and come join us." once julian woke up, we headed over.

since their names are unfamiliar to me, i can't remember them. this could take a while. they LOVE julian and his chubby cheeks. he, however, was far more interested in the children playing behind the tennis court in the makeshift play area. (our complex sounds a lot ritzier than it is - the tennis court has no net and due to the diligence of our super, bits of garbage that have blown out of the containers are on the lawn where the kids play. lovely!)

mimaha got her daughter to get some of her friends and i brought julian over to the kids. most of the kids who were outside are from egypt, so i'm hoping the arabic rubs off, although we're going to be learning middle eastern arabic. i don't know how different they are. all of the little girls were in love with julian (he's like a big live doll, as daniel and ursula say, as their youngest, samantha, considers julian the same) and he had a ball "playing" with them. loved the slide and chasing the 3-4 year olds who were on their bikes. 

the kids asked me my name, and then they said, "okay, auntie tanya." and then they'd just call me "auntie". nice.

so we've been invited upstairs for tea, but i think the scheduling might be a problem. they thought it strange that julian goes to bed at 7:30 - 8:00 and we between 10 and 11! that's super early, apparently. we're going to try to schedule a rendez-vous for thursday. 

now if only i could remember everyone else's names!