Final Sunday Funday of October

Our weekly vlog, just some bits and pieces of life:

And our last Children's Day party for this year, which was at the trash dump community:

October seems to have had a lot of Sundays. It seems long in general. Probably because I am almost to the final countdown for baby birthing. This brings everything to a crawl. Ana Sofia is spending about 50% of her day in BIG GIRL underwear, which is great. Caid was a bit under the weather this week (when he started shivering, in Brazil, we knew something wasn't right), but seems to be better now--whew--because we can't BOTH be grumpy, sleep-deprived people! I am working on shifting from teaching English to finishing up all the end of the year reports, videos, and newsletters, and drinking three liters of water a day. Yep, that is what they say to do. If I aim for 3, I've been getting about 2...which is much better than 1. 

Reads from the Interwebs: 

1. Developing a Theory of Chaos: I need to do this! And for suffering. I think I basically have, but it is always nice to do this "officially."

2. Seven ways to teach your TCKs to process grief: I need this for me too--and totally need to be able to put this together in a way to share with STMT people and Interns who come to Brazil--processing grief is such an important part of re-entry for anyone! 

3. Wonder for Christmas: this is, of course, beautiful, and I would like to have it someday. But I am looking forward to the couple of ideas that I have (thanks Pinterest!) for our first very small little family Christmas this year--the one where I am still hobbling around from having birthed a baby, and we are still worried about how often she eats and poops (has it been three hours?). 

4. Fundamental Sadness and the Deeper Magic: this connected with me and reminded me of read #2--the one about grief. Making sure it is okay for you (and your family) to talk about the sad stuff, the hard stuff, the ugly stuff. I think I shy away from it more than I should (I've often been called the 'rainbows and unicorns' girl).
5. Millions return to Poverty in Brazil: I read this one in the middle of the night this week (when this little baby starts to dance), and was still a little shocked with the statistics: The poverty level for Brazil is when you make less than USD$44 a month. Poverty level in the USA is around USD$1,000 a month. (https://www.thebalance.com/federal-poverty-level-definition…) There is a difference when we talk about global poverty and North American poverty. Having lived in Brazil since 2004, I have seen the "upswing" of wealth in general, and then lately seen more and more of the struggle: please pray for our brothers and sisters in Brazil.