Hi, I know its been a while but would y'all be able to post the contacts of the shipping companies y'all used. I too need to ship stuff to houston. Would really appreciate it. :)
My son used to do the pinky thing too. He was usually this cranky when he started cutting a new tooth. Also, we got him a stuffed lion and he started sucking on its tail instead. Yucky I know, but beats hovering over the cot till he calms. Also made him a bit more self reliant in terms of putting himself back to sleep.
For my son's second birthday, I invited about twelve of the neighborhood kids (around 5-7 yrs of age) as he was not in school yet. All of them showed up with siblings. Plus one of the mothers was watching eight other older kids (around 12 yrs I think) and she brought them all and dropped them off. I was 9 months pregnant (DD was born 20 days later) and was literally going cuckoo trying to keep the older kids from ruining the cake. No maid, no husband, no family. Needless to say, it was a mad house. Swore to myself, never again. Been doing cake and goodies at school since then. I think discreetly mentioning "siblings only" is a great idea and though I can understand the cultural differences, it stands to reason that you are "from" a different culture (not local) and hence have different expectations from people.
How about olive oil? I'm not expert but I've heard some of the best olive oil comes from Lebanon and as its hard to export directly from there, it is generally sent to other middle eastern countries and exported from there. Very lucrative if you can make the right connections.
