Candy Party

Our daughter's birthday isn't until mid-June, but that's when all the non-working spouses and children return to the home country for the summer while the working spouse remains in Indonesia.  If we wanted to have a party her friends could attend, we needed to do it this month.  May 17th was a holiday in Jakarta (Ascencion of Christ), so we chose the afternoon of the day before.

When we asked her what kind of a party she wanted, she said a "Candy Party".  We imported boxes of candy from the US, decorated our house like peppermint sticks and lollipops, and hired a cotton candy and popcorn machine.  The same company also offered several different types of games that we hired, too.

One of the more interesting events was one of our daughter's friends asking to perform a magic show at the party.  We agreed and it was pretty good!  We also let our son invite his friends so the party doubled as a farewell party for the kids, too.

 

 

A 2nd Birthday

Our son turned two this month and we celebrated in typical Indonesian style - with a huge party!  The kids always love the Gymboree party, so we invited everyone from his class, scheduled the Gymboree and let them take it from there.  As I said in a prior post, he's very excited about trains these days, so the cake fit the occasion.  I've never seen a kid so happy than when I brought out his cake.  It's good he was tethered to his chair.

 

 

 

 

 

Missing people, broken bones and no power.

If I told you I spent last week Friday, 14 May, worrying about missing people, helping someone with a fractured elbow, and dealing with a power outage, you would probably assume I was traveling through the American Midwest when the tornadoes hit.  It would be a good guess....but you'd be wrong.  That was my daughter's fifth birthday party.

My wife is a very brave woman.  Our daughter will turn five while we are in Singapore and my wife wanted to have a party in Jakarta before we left so we could invite her friends.  But not just any party.  Not for a fifth birthday.  My wife wanted to host a slumber party.  Like I said, my wife is a very brave woman.

My wife and my cousin spent the morning and early afternoon preparing - decorating, coloring posters, last minute shopping, preparing the goodie bags.  For a slumber party theme, we were giving all the girls a goodie bag with a flashlight, wash cloth with their names embroidered on them, toothbrush....the basic necessities a girl needs when preparing for the night.  We also decorated our living room like a night sky; purple drapes hung from the ceiling with silver stars on them.

As the 4 PM start time approached, my wife received a text from the mother of one of the girls saying she wasn't going to come to the party because the girl wanted to play with a different friend instead.  Not sure what we can do with a washcloth embroidered with "Norico" on it.  The party hasn't started and we're already down a casualty.  Our daughter was disappointed, but we worked through it.

Most of the girls, ranging in age from 3-5, arrived by 4 PM.  A few who left home late fought rain-worsened traffic all the way here and didn't arrive until 6 PM.  By then, we already had a broken bone.  All of the girls were running around the living room, chasing each other as young girls do.  One happened to step on the dress of another and when the girl wearing the dress took off, the girl standing on it slipped and fell hard onto the marble floor.  She screamed in pain and cried inconsolably for nearly twenty minutes.  She refused to do anything but sit on the couch but she also didn't want to leave.  We eventually made contact with her mother and recommended she take her to a doctor.  The brave little girl cried even louder when her mom pulled her from the party - she did not want to leave.  Good thing she did, though.  She had two fractures near her elbow.  They took her to Singapore the next day for treatment.  If that happens at a party for girls, I think I'm going to use a padded room when my son turns five.

Once the majority of the girls arrived, we started the games.  The first was to find stuffed kittens hidden around the house.  When they arrived, we gave every girl a unique barrette for her hair.  Their task was to find the kitten with the matching barrette - another gift for them to take home.  After they found the kittens, we moved to the next game.  Each of them selected a clue about a Disney princess.  For example:  "I flew on a magic carpet."  In our kiddie pool, which we fill with plastic balls, we taped a picture of the princesses to one of the balls.  Their job was to find the princess that matched their clue.  The next game was "pin the crown on the princess" (not to be confused with a game I often see at work:  Pin the Blame on the Jackass).  Only one of the girls actually got it on the paper - the rest ended up on the wall somewhere.  The final activity before the cake was to decorate their own princess crown (the only activity the girl who broke her elbow wanted to do).

After the activities we served dinner and then cake.  We were so wrapped up in preparing for the kids and the nannies we didn't have any food for ourselves.  I made a (less than) quick trip to the nearby Indian restaurant and nearly missed the cutting of the cake.  Good thing I made it back in time, though, as my daughter needed a little assistance with the candles.

The final activity of the night was to watch a movie purchases especially for the occasion.  We even sprung for an original, not one of the copies they sell for 70 cents, because the copies often pause or have faults that you're willing to accept when you've paid 70 cents, but you want to avoid when you're hoping to entertain ten five-year-olds until they fall asleep.

Fifteen minutes into the movie, as my wife, cousin and I had just settled down to eat our dinner, the power went out.  We remained without power for an hour.  It's a good thing the goodie bags came with flashlights.  The girls entertained themselves with the flashlights while I setup my laptop to play the movie "Up".  They watched "Up" until the power returned, then finished watching the original, princess movie.

Most of the girls fell asleep watching the princess movie.  The next morning, they were up at the late, late hour of 6 AM and we made everyone pancakes.  By 10 AM, all but one of the girls were gone - the straggler remained until noon.  After we finished cleaning up, my wife took a four hour nap.  No lie.

A few other items on the party:

1)  My wife, who had been battling a cold for several weeks, lost her voice before the party, leaving me and my cousin to handle the directorial duties.
2)  Our daughter, probably from all the excitement and sugar, came down with a fever during the party.  We treated it and she was fine and continued on.
3)  One of the girls woke in the middle of the night with an asthma attack.  Her nanny had left, so it was a good thing we had both of ours stay the night.  They were able to help her through the attack.
4)  I told my wife that when I was in high school and dreamed of being the only male at a party of twenty females, having the females be five-year-olds and their Muslim nannies was definitely not what I had envisioned.  My son seemed to really enjoy it, though.

Quite the adventure.  Most importantly, our daughter had a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Embassies and Birthdays

In preparation for our June trip to Europe, I needed to add more Visa pages to my passport.  All the traveling back and forth to Singapore over the last year had used up all but two pages.  This meant a visit to yet another US Embassy to utilize consular services.

Using the US Embassy's Jakarta location's website, I booked the first appointment of the morning - 7:45 AM.  The website indicated I would be in and out in less than an hour.  With light traffic, we arrived at the embassy much earlier than I had intended - 7 AM.  The embassy had no place to park, so my driver dropped me at the concrete barriers in front of the entrance.  At that hour, there was already a long line of Indonesians waiting to obtain a travel visa or other foreign services. 

Knowing I had the first appointment, and not knowing the purpose for the line, I walked up to the security guard, showed him my appointment card, and was granted access to the Embassy grounds.  A short walk across the basketball court and I was at the entrance to the Embassy.  Here they told me it did not open until 7:30, and I would have to wait.

When they did open, an overzealous security guard asked all of us to queue against the wall.  He wanted this queue to be very efficient and I found myself wedged in a corner behind a cross, corpulent American and a hand sanitizer to my left.  If I was twenty pounds heavier, I would not have fit.

After clearing security, I walked to the consular services building and waited....and waited....and waited.  Punctuality is not a well known attribute of Indonesia.  Bad traffic means everyone is late for parties and appointments and reservations.  The shows at amusement parks start anywhere from 15-45 minutes after their advertised start time.  Even meetings at the office tend to start 5-10 minutes late.  Even though I had a 7:45 AM appointment, none of the windows even opened until 8:10.  The window I needed to use didn't open until closer to 8:30, which begs the question why they have a 7:45 AM appointment.

Once I provided my passport, they added the pages and had it back to me in less than 10 minutes.  My wife and daughter will need to go through this same exercise in the next few weeks.  We'll try to book them an afternoon appointment.

On Saturday, we had a birthday party to attend, so we did not have our typical family outing.  Instead, in the morning I went swimming with our daughter while my wife took our son to Gymboree.  In the afternoon, we went to the birthday party for our daughter's 3-year-old friend.

Birthday parties here are always interesting.  They are also much less stressful on the adults than they are in the states.  The party host hires entertainment.  In this case, Gymboree and a group that provided a big air-blown jumper with a slide.  These two groups are responsible for entertaining the kids.  The children arrive with both parents and nannies in tow.  The nannies are responsible for keeping an eye on the kids and making sure they are participating and/or behaving.  This affords the parents the opportunity to drink wine and beer and to socialize.

Birthday parties are also a United Nations affair.  This particular party was hosted by friends who hail from Ukraine (the wife) and Switzerland (the husband).  We met people who hailed from Spain, Germany, Alaska, Sweden, United Kingdom and Indonesia.  Conversations took place in German, Indonesian, Spanish and English.

These parties are always great opportunities to discuss the expat experience (we're always the newbies to expat living, but not always the newbies to Jakarta).  This is how we learn where to go in Jakarta, what doctors to see, and where to vacation.  We received some good advice on Barcelona and Paris from the woman we met from Spain who grew up in Madrid and lived in Paris for several years before moving to Jakarta.

When the entertainment is over, it's a mass exodus.  No one wants the responsibility for entertaining the kids!  So, we thanked our hosts and left with the masses.

Next week, we will return to our Saturday outings.  There is an interesting facility outside of Jakarta where we can fish and pick local fruit.  Should be interesting.

Last month's pictures

Pictures of some of the events I described over the last few weeks.

When I bowled in the company Olympics, we discovered that Spin City had the lane rails necessary for our daughter to play and decided we would go back. We did, and taught her the "between the legs" stance for bowling. She did pretty well.




Because my wife and daughter are moving to Singapore, we had to make on last trip to Hacienda before they left.



My pictures of the earthquake damage didn't turn out very well. This is the best of the bunch and is a picture of the wall outside the bathrooms behind the elevator shafts at the center of the building.



My daughter attended a birthday party for a classmate at school and ballet. We're good friends with the parents, too. The two families spend a lot of time together. At this party, we had the blowup slide, and then the ballet teacher and some of her friends performed ballet for about 20 minutes while all the children (and adults) watched. My daughter commented "They are dancing like me!"






Last but not least, my wife had a birthday on 2 September. This is a picture of the family before we left our daughter at home and went out for a spa treatment and dinner.

Busy Week

What a busy week for the family! The week was full of events - summer school, ballet lessons, birthday parties and a visit to an amusement park. It's amazing we're not all exhausted.

First, a quick trip back to our daughter's birthday. We had celebrated with friends the Saturday before her birthday. The day of - which was a Thursday - we did a private celebration at home and gave her our gift. She absolutely loves the movie "The Wizard of Oz". When I arrived home from work, I took her to the park while mom busied herself with laying down the yellow brick road she had created. It was a path around the house, with a visit with each character along the way, all of whom had a small gift to give. Even the wicked witch got in on the action, though she tried to deceive the birthday girl. The end of the yellow brick road was not Oz, but, instead, her gift from us.



The following Saturday was a birthday party for her friend at Kemang Club Villas (KCV). Like all children's birthday parties here, this one was big. There was a candy hunt around the grounds, a water balloon toss, and they had horse-drawn cart to give everyone rides. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the event.

Our daughter has been out of school for just a few weeks and we noticed she was already getting bored. We have trouble keeping her busy enough to keep her mind and body active. When she is not active, she gets fussy. Speaking with some of the mothers at the birthday party, we decided to enroll her in Summer School at Tutor time. Right now she goes twice per week for a half day, though we are likely to increase this to three times a week. One day, when picking her up from school, my wife learned that some of the other girls were taking a ballet class after school. The school usually offers it, but there isn't enough enrollment during the summers. So the teacher offered to teach it at someone's home if they could get at least a few kids involved. We decided to have our daughter try it, though we were unsure what to expect. As you can see from the pictures, she had a great time.





Saturday was quite the busy day. We had a birthday party to attend in the late afternoon, my wife and I had plans to have dinner with another couple in the evening (without the kids), and we decided to have some family time before the evening activities. We all went to a local miniature golf course. Our daughter started out enthusiastic but got bored after just three holes and from then on asked if the next hole was the last one. At the end she was able to enjoy riding a motorized bike around a little track.





After mini-golf, we prepared for the birthday party. This time it was for a classmate of our daughter's when she attended the Montessori school. Like all parties, this one was lavish. The front yard had a jumper with balls and a slide as well as a portable mini-bowling. They had built the backyard into a spa and all the 3-year-old girls (and the mom's) who were interested received a pedicure and manicure (the father, a Frenchman, works for a cosmetic company). Our daughter enjoyed the pampering very much and, when the therapist was finishing her hands, our daughter made sure she knew to "do my feet next". Finally, the cake was probably the largest we've seen so far.








In the evening, our pembantu came for a rare Saturday work schedule to babysit while my wife and I went to dinner. We didn't go far - just to Toscano's, the small, Italian restaurant near our home. We chuckled to ourselves when we heard they had made reservations. The two times we had been there we either had the place to ourselves or were one of three tables. This time, the place was packed with not a free seat anywhere. We were glad they had the wisdom to make reservations. We met this couple through our kids - they went to the same school. He is a pharmaceuticals distributor. They are both from Geneva, the she is originally from the Ukraine. We have a very global group of friends these days. The meal was good, the conversation was great, and we had a wonderful time. After our last dinner out with our daughter, we decided we would start having nights out alone and with other couples from now on.

For Father's Day, I decided I wanted to take the family to Indonesia's Sea World. Yes, that is the name. No, it has no affiliation. It also isn't nearly as entertaining, though we had a good time. Sea World Indonesia is really just a bunch of aquariums and a few petting pools where you can interact with turtles, rays a few sharks and some eels. It does have a water tunnel to walk through, and the tanks are impressive. There are no shows like one would think of with SeaWorld in the US. Below are two pictures. The first is my daughter and I standing by the largest fresh water ray in the world. My halo is the result of the shiny white cap I received for Father's Day reflecting the light. The second is my wife and daughter by the shark tank.





We finished the day by going to one of the local malls for lunch. I've mentioned before how enormous the malls here are. Below are pictures of two malls. The first is Senayan City, which is one of the newer malls. I believe it has 9 floors with about 40 shops per floor. The bottom two floors are a number of restaurants and a grocery store. It even has a spa with "fish treatment" - the one where little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. The second picture is where we at for Father's Day - Pacific Place. They have decorated the sixth floor like a mini harbor complete with boats, a lighthouse and a sea.