Now that I’m over three months into starting More Sweet Than Bitter, I did a little self-interrogation to ask myself - am I meeting what I set out to do? My intention with this blog was to 1) document more of the Gents, knowing that you all won’t be able to physically see them as often as you'd like or have been used to and 2) share updates on our day-to-day life so the distance doesn’t feel so far.
Being committed to MSTB I initially thought about a content calendar so I could get ahead of posts, but every week brings a new experience and I often don’t know what I’m going to write about until it happens. As you know, it’s been a cultural whirlwind since we arrived in Riyadh. I’ve been excited to share it all with you and flattered to hear some really lovely feedback. Thank you for that!
Saudi life is definitely interesting and makes for good content, but where I think I’m falling short on MSTB is sharing more of our family life. Communicating via text, video chat, etc. from afar has been a much harder than I imagined. The time change alone makes it difficult to catch people live, not to mention the the Saudi weekend is Friday-Saturday, plus factoring in the small window we have in the afternoons/evening to video chat while the Gents are awake. Now that we’re completely settled into KSA life I’m busier than I ever was in Virginia. Now that it’s Fall and everyone is back in Riyadh for the school year it seems like there is something going on every day or evening. It’s a balancing act of family, work, workouts, our collective social life, and getting all of the operational stuff done at home. I’m grateful I can still carve out the time to post here at least once a week. Maybe I’m being a little hard on myself, but I think I can do better keeping everyone in the loop.
That being said, I’m going to devote more time to sharing more of the day-to-day events, especially C&R’s everyday accomplishments. They’re amazing little beings. I’m impressed with their resilience in coming here. They haven’t regressed at all and have only grown stronger, developing more and more every week. I’m so proud of the adjectives of compliments they get from people – "they’re so chill", "sweet boys", "well behaved", "social", "little angels". This may only last for so long, so I’ll revel in it NOW!
They’ve grown so much this summer. On top of them finally being right in the middle or higher of the growth chart, developmentally they are doing great as well. They’re both practically walking up and down stairs, waving and saying “hi” and “bye”. Now that the heat is a much more bearable, and all the kids are back, they just started going to the weekly toddler playgroup at the Embassy. Even though they have each other, the socialization is great for them. I think they do prefer hanging with the older kids though, namely my favorite other twinset – the fun and sweet, almost 4 year-old, boy-girl twins I wrote about previously. I don’t blame the Gents for wanting to be around them. C&R are already learning from them E&E so I can only imagine what the coming months will bring!
Also I’m very proud to announce that J was recently elected by the Embassy community to the board of the recreation association at the US Embassy and will be able to put that Finance background to use again was he was also appointed Treasurer. We and our group of friends are already talking about some improvements that could be made . It will be a new challenge for him, but hopefully a fun one where he can positively impact the community during our time here.
And I’m still plugging away at Arabic. I wish I could say I was more confident in my language skills, but for only about 10 hours of class time I’m happy I’m able to have a conversational dialogue. Fortunately, my colleagues don’t mind me working from home on the days I have class, which has been really nice to have more time with the Gents during the work week. And they seem impressed with what I can speak, so I’ve that going for me. Work is going well. Everyone I work with is smart and great to work with. I’m so grateful it's all worked out as it has
With that I got a great idea from D, my leadership coach. When I was speaking with her last week she picked up on my gratitude with this whole experience so far. And she asked me if I was keeping a gratitude journal. I never thought of that, but what a wonderful idea! So I’m go to start that and will share it as well.
Thanks for bearing with me and being along for the ride while I’m trying to figure this all out! xo