guest hosting...papa eggroll--on traditions

I'm honored to be able to guest host on this, on of the most popular blogs that I know of.

I recently attended a seminar. The seminar was about how to give lectures on certain topics like dating, 'it' before marriage, what is real love, how to be a complete person, and parenting. Parenting seminars are always interesting to me because I feel like there is so much to learn from other parents--both parents who have had children for 30 years as well as those who have just had children. There are things they do that I've just never thought of, or they do things and put it into words like I never have been able to. So, although the word "traditions" has not been in my or mamaeggroll's vocabulary to describe things we do, it now has entered. Traditions create memories; traditions build closer relationships; traditions gives accountability to being the parent we know we are supposed to be by giving us pressure to do things we know we are supposed to do with our children--spend time with them, undivided attention focused solely on them. And now that "traditions" has entered, he have become more intentional about seeking out traditions.

One recent tradition that we have decided to start is that every Friday afternoon during the summer time after the girls wake up from their nap, we are going to take the girls to a pool at one of the local hotels and swim. After swimming we enjoy one of the hotel bakery's delicious donuts with chocolate icing.

We both have lots of great memories of going swimming as a kid. I remember coming back from playing baseball all day in a hot summer day when my dad was coaching our team, and we would come back home to the in-ground pool. It was easy to look forward to the pool at that time.

So, yesterday began our new tradition. We set off for the hotel by taxi, taking along orange giraffe, which is the only floaty toy that we have. Everyone asked us on the way, "where are you going?" And we would answer, "going swimming!!" We arrived at the hotel, made our way to the counter where you buy the entry card and realized there was a special going on--if we bought 20 times of entry, they would give us ten for free. Since each time we go, we use two (one for me and one for mamaeggroll; the girls are free until they are older), that means we get fifteen entries instead of the original ten (20 divided by two); not bad for the price we paid to use a five-star hotels private indoor pool.

The girls had a great time, well, sort of. Emma is definitely going to take her sweet time getting used to the pool. I don't know what it is, but she's not exactly pool crazy. But we have hopes she will be willing to float in the water soon all by herself. Samantha had a good time as well. The pool was a little cold and took some getting used to, but in light of the fact it was about 100F yesterday, the pool felt nice.

We then ventured downstairs and to our surprise, the bakery still had some chocolate covered donuts. Why to our surprise you ask? You can't bank on anything being consistent in this country (is that a bit of foreshadowing...?). The donuts were great; the hotel uses good quality chocolate, so it's definitely worth it. It was getting late, so we started to head home.

We stepped out in front of the hotel to hail a taxi. As we were waiting another couple got in front of us and got the next taxi. We weren't in any rush, so no worries. As that taxi drove off, I couldn't help but comment for the 1,452,874 time in this first year of living hear on how crappy the taxis are here. I mean, they aren't clean (maybe 5% of driver's actually clean their taxis), they are usually older so the seats are totally uncomfortable, and if they ever have a minor accident, they don't repair it but just take the money from the insurance company or other party and pocket it. I am sure that some of the taxis here (1) are fake taxis in the sense that the person doesn't have the license from the gov't to be a taxi, and (2) some of the drivers don't have real licenses (you can get anything fake here, even a Harvard Ph.D. diploma). I've yet to be in another city in this grand land with taxis as crappy as ours. So, I commented again, making it 1,452,875. And then a taxi pulled up...a crappy taxi.

We got in; the chap was friendly as most taxi drivers are here. That is one bonus about the crappy taxi, at least it's a friendly person driving it. He asked where we were going and we told him. Off we went, returning home from our first day of a new tradition. We were near our apartment building but still a little ways off when he began to look down at the floor when we were stopped at a stop light. I thought maybe he had dropped some money and was trying to get it. Oh no, it was not money, but instead...the gas pedal was stuck to the floor and wouldn't release and come back up so he could push it so the car would go (it was stuck to the floor but the car wouldn't move, which I'm thankful it wouldn't move versus wouldn't stop! :) . So, there we are stuck in the middle of the road at an intersection, and so what would any good-hearted, country boy do? That's right. Get out and start pushing. (People here love to honk their horn although it's illegal, and boy, were we getting' honked at). So, I got out, started pushing and was able to push the guy over to an entrance out of the way of traffic. He didn't want to take any cab fare but because we were so close, I made him take some.

So, we walked the rest of the way home because it was close enough and commented on how today was a great day of starting a new tradition of going swimming on Friday's and eating a donut. We'll see if the crappy taxi becomes part of our tradition as well.