Brazilian Baptism and Ambiente Brasileiro

The other weekend we attended a baptism of Jeff's coworkers' new baby girl, Clara. The dad, Adriano is from Brazil and the mom is Czech. Both are beautiful people and Clara is no exception. She's a sweet doll of a baby, just 2 months old.

The Godparents also brought their new baby girl, only 3 weeks older than Clara.

The baptism was done in the small, adjoining chapel of St. Tomas church, a landmark in downtown Prague.

The mix of cultures and language made it more fun. Luckily for us, as is often the case, English was the common language between us all coming from Brazil, Czech Republic and India and of course, the US & Canada.

After the baptism, much of the crowd headed to Ambiente Brasileiro, a well-known Brazilian steakhouse. A Brazilian steakhouse is where waiters continually visit your table, offering 6-8 varieties of meat, all you can eat. This, plus a salad bar with seafood and sushi made for a big meal and a funny experience for Ella.

(Note to her grandparents on the Canadian coast, Ella tried her first raw oyster. Ah, no. She has much to learn)

With six kids at 3 years or less, it was never boring.

A classic picture: Ella with Clara's dad, Adriano, both hamming it up for the camera.

Grammy's Here!

With her flight arriving today at 2pm, Jeff's mom is here for the holidays.  Ella is pretty happy to have someone here much less strict than her parents.  ;)

love to all,

-jeff

And Yet Another...Health Update

(or "Another Verbose Entry by Maylia")

So where are we now? Well, last week I was actually all psyched up to write an entry about how everyone was healthy again. I had finished a second round of antibiotics and was feeling fine. (Yes, I decided to go back  to the doctor and was sent to a respiratory specialist for an xray and to receive treatment for the ongoing bronchitis.) Ella had finished her antibiotics and was finally allowed to resume regular activities last week.  Mattias, too, stopped coughing last week. And Jeff, well, he's been doing well for awhile now. So for about 5-7 days we were all healthy. It was great. We had friends over Monday morning, Ella went to skolka Tuesday-Thursday mornings, and we went to visit Ali, Dylan, and Bailey Friday. So much fun! Everyone was healthy over the weekend, too. But, I didn't get the "good news" blog entry done on time, because things changed Monday.

Ella and Mattias have colds. Again, nothing serious, but we are just so sick of being sick.  We've now been sick for Hallowe'en, American Thanksgiving, and it's looking like Christmas. Sure hope we clear up for the new year. Mattias has a very plugged nose and I felt like I spent half of my day cleaning it today! I took Ella to the doctor yesterday morning because I felt she was sounding out of breath.  Our regular pediatrician (who is fairly laid-back) sent us for an xray as he feared bronchitis or bronchio-pneumonia. That was worrisome! But miraculously, the xray showed her to be ok. Now both kids are just taking a homepathic, over-the-counter expectorant. Going into the weekend/holiday week, we are really hoping neither one takes a turn for the worse. Really don't want to make hospital stays a Christmas tradition!

But I must share more of the story of Ella's xray. The doctor that we see is in Zizkov, which is really nowhere near where we live, in Bubenec. But I continue to travel to see him because I like the fact that he doesn't automatically dish out antibiotics. He is a medical and homeopathic doctor and will try other treatments first - which we've had a lot of luck with. He also has patience with my poor Czech and enough English knowledge that he can bail me out if I get really stuck. It's about a 45 minute trip for us to get there. It used to be shorter but they are working on the tram lines by our place so I have to switch trams now. Getting on and off the trams with 2 kids is not always easy, especially when they are sick. A trip to the doctor is not something I do just for fun. But yesterday morning, I made the snap decision that Ella needed to see a doctor and started scurrying around to get us ready to go. We finally made it out the door around 9am, which got us to the doctor about 9:45.  Luckily, we were able to get right in. When you have sick kids here, you don't typically make an appointment. You just show up and it's first-come first-serve. Doctors sometimes have certain hours when they see healthy kids for check-ups by appointment only. Or they may have separate rooms for sick kids to wait and healthy kids to wait. An important thing to know is that our doctor has interesting hours:

Monday 8- 11am and 3-4pm

Tuesday 8-11am

Wednesday 8-11am

Thursday 8-11am and 3-4pm

Friday 8-11am  

So, as already stated, he sent us for an xray. Now the place where we go for an xray is tram stop away, or about a 5-10 minute walk. Ella was walking, so more like 10 minutes for us. We were on our way there at 10am and needed to get the results and bring them back to our doctor. As you see from his hours, he was leaving at 11am. He informed me that he REALLY had to leave because his daughter broke her leg the day before and he had to go pick her up at school. So, if I didn't get back before 11am, I would have to come back between 3 and 4pm.  With the journey we have to make, this was not a good option for us.

We arrived at the xray place about 10:10. I was confused because I understood the receptionist to say it would be a long wait, but we got right in. But then we had to wait and wait and wait. At 10:40 I realized it was looking unlikely that we were going to make it. I asked the receptionist if there was some problem with my insurance that was causing the delay. She responded that the delay was because they only had one doctor there to look at all the xrays. (Keep in mind that all this communication is happening in Czech. I am speaking in very broken Czech and then listening for enough words that I recognize to piece together what they're trying to tell me.) I decide that we will have to come back to the doctor in the afternoon, but arrange a babysitter for the kids in hopes that I can simply bring the xray results to him, since he's already seen Ella. 

At about 10:50, after rehearsing what I should say, I phone my doctor to find out if I can indeed come back without Ella. As soon as he picks up the phone, the receptionist brings me the results! I'm completely flustered and start sputtering in horrific Czech about how I just got the results and should I come there now, will he wait?, or must I return in the afternoon. In my flustered state it takes me awhile to understand that he is asking me to read the results to him over the phone. Now this is funny! My conversational Czech is not great...but reading Czech?!?!...And reading medical Czech?!?!  I stumbled horrifically through the first three words before realizing this just wasn't going to work. "Moment! Moment!" I exclaimed as I ran to reception and begged (in broken Czech) for the technician to read the results to my doctor. With raised eyebrows, he agreed, read the results, and handed the phone back to me. And the doctor informed me, in his broken English, "I am very happy. Results are good. No bronchitis. Just take Hedelix." YAY! Another great success in stumbling my way through our life in Prague. And with that we went home. 

There are other things I could write about. We went to a Czech-Brazilian baptism and celebratory lunch on Sunday. Jeff and I went to the beautiful National Theater for the first time and saw the premier of a very Czech opera, Vec Makropulos last night. Grammy arrives tomorrow. But this may have to wait for another entry. I'm gonna chill out and have a beer now.

Goings On

Been a while since our last post, so a few little stories to write about.

The 5th here is St. Mikulas day.  Mikulas, is sort of like Father Christmas, but with two sidekicks, an angel and a devil.  The devil and angel ask the child if they've "been naughty or nice."  If you've been judged bad, the devil may put you in his sack and take you away.  Kids know to sing a song for the devil to calm him down.  Meanwhile kids hope for the angel, who carries a basket of candy, to handout their share.  Everyone really enjoys playing it up.  In a way, it's a cross between Christmas and Halloween, but with only 3 costumes.  People, mostly teenagers and young adults, dress the part.  The pic below has two devils, the favorite of the 3 costumes.

Ella sang to most devils, or in the case of one special devil, she gave him a drawing she prepared.   I think her extra step confused this young Mikulas.

On the weekend after that, Ella and daddy went on a boat ride.  A promise for a couple weeks, Ella finally had her first boat ride on the Vltava, the river running through Prague.  Picture is of Ella's pirate face with the Charles bridge behind her.

When we finished our tour up and down the Vltava, we walked to Old Town Square to see the Christmas markets.  We listened to a visiting choir sing (ours was from the UK), ate a sausage and drank juice (Ella) and mulled wine (daddy) and watched the tourists shop.

Old Town Square also sports a petting zoo during the holidays.  Pic of Ella reaching in for the mama goat.

Another big event for us - getting our Christmas tree.  With some helpful guidance, Ella selected our tree.  Here's us walking to the local street vendor near Letna. 

And us bringing it home to mom

And it's up!

Oh, one more thing...while mommy and Mattias were out grocery shopping...daddy introduced Ella to a very special treat: fluff.  Yes, daddy discovered a jar of fluff in a store a few weeks back - quite a shock to daddy!!  He had been waiting for just the right time to bring it out.

So, Ella and daddy made themselves each a "fluffanutter" sandwich, peanut butter and marshmallow fluff.  Mmm, mmm, good.

Picture of Ella waiting oh so patiently for daddy to take this picture.

Some people say Mattias looks like Maylia's Dad...

...don't know where they get that idea!