You know you are in Africa...

When you ride home from work with your husband and 2 year old on the roof rack with your baby in your arms as you drive until you move him to the passenger seat so your 4 year old can take over driving.

When heat rash overtakes your family. It's on all three boys (Kenan the worst) and all over my arms (thanks to holding and feeding Silas). Thankfully, it is getting cooler and is starting to go away...at least a little. 

Several spots of Silas' rash got infected. That's one of the big spots on his back.

The “easy” meal of spaghetti is ruined on two different occasions when you are having 11+ adults over for dinner. The first time- it was a can of tomato paste that was spoiled and ruined the whole pot of spaghetti sauce. Had to sift out the meat, rinse it and try to make it again. (It was really watery but edible). And yesterday- came home from the hospital to find that the sauce looked weird. Asked my house guy and he had put the raw meat in the sauce (because I was using the crock pot, he thought it would cook over time).  So we had to pull it all out and cook it in the stove then retry to make it again. This time it was too thick. But such is life. I didn’t know it was possible to mess up spaghetti sauce like that- two times. And why, I must add, does it have to happen when guests are coming over? Why can’t it be when it’s just our family? And the other annoying thing is that you can’t buy meat during the day, only early in the morning here and then you have to cut it up and grind it. So it’s not like you can say- oops, messed that up, let’s just start completely over, I’ll run to the store and get some more meat and premade sauce while I’m at it. You HAVE to use the meat that is in the sauce. So what do people cook when you are having a lot of people over for dinner? I’m done with spaghetti.

I must say, though, that despite the mishap with the spaghetti sauce, we had a great time last night. The Ellenbergers, who live in Bamako, came down to bring a visiting doctor. They brought their whole family (3 boys- 7^th grader, high schooler, and one who just finished his freshman year in college) and another couple who lives in Bamako. Our boys were THRILLED! We had visited them when we took my mom back to fly out. Their boys played with ours so well. It was sweet to see. Dawson loved Penguin and Joker, as he had named them. As soon as I mentioned they were coming, Dawson got on his Batman outfit, made Kenan put his Superman on, and put his hands on K’s face and said, “Kenan, the  Joker and Penguin are coming. They are good. And mommy, (he pensively looks at me) she is nothing.” He went to his room and made a cave, showed me the secret door and told me I had to tell the boys when they got here where it was. I told them too early, though, because it was about 11 am. I told them the boys would be coming after rest time. Dawson asked if he could have his rest time right then.  J I know our boys had fun last night, but I think it’s fair to say the older boys did too. They were putting on the hero outfits (as best as they could) and playing with the trains and just having a blast. It was so loud in our house that Silas was screaming for quite awhile, and I could never hear it. It just showed me that older boys are just as rambunctious and destructive as the little ones! J Truly, it brought joy to my heart to see them playing with our boys and loving on them even though they were little. Thank you Ellenberger boys!! I want my boys to be like that- not too cool that they can’t play with little kids, but genuinely kind and willing to get on the floor and play with others.