Chronically Sleep Deprived

Things that make me laugh

2011-09-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

I know, I missed last Friday, and today is Wednesday, but whatever.

Things that have made me laugh lately:

Adia referring to McDonald's as "Old McDonald's" - as in, the guy with the farm. Oh honey, if there were a closer connection between ANY farm and MickeyD's you might get to go there more often. . .

Trea giving Adia advice on the way home from school:

Trea: Adia, why won't you let me be your preschool teacher?
Adia: I don't need a teacher. Mommy's teaching me.
Trea: You won't learn anything from her, she's too busy. You should let me handle it. I know Chinese.

And Dylan, when we sing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam," jumps so hard that he usually loses his balance and falls over. But he pops right back up!

Mailaya mostly makes me laugh by giving me the biggest, cheesiest grins ever.

And finally, happy anniversary to my sweet husband! Nine years, four kids, and seven moves later, I'm still glad I married you!

Just cause it's Friday

2011-09-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've decided Friday is my day to blog, even if I have nothing to say. Today was rough (Mailaya has decided afternoon naps are not required, I disagree) and I'm exhausted. So, just a quick update for tonight.

Trea has started her Chinese immersion program. It's through the local school district, part of a regular elementary school. She has Mandarin Chinese in the morning and English in the afternoon. On the way home from school on the second day she told us that every kid has a behavior chart, and her entire class stayed on "green" the whole day. And Adia exclaimed "Even YOU, Trea?"

She is very frustrated with me, though, because I still can't count to ten in Mandarin. She thinks I'm kinda slow, since she can count to 100. She sings "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to the babies in Mandarin, and tries to teach Adia too.

Her school is twenty minutes away, which is NOT convenient, but we feel like it's worth it. She's so much happier this year than she was last year, so excited about everything she's learning.

The things we do for our kids. . . .

Preparing

2011-09-09T20:13:00.001-07:00

My mom died on July 15th. She'd had cancer for about a year, and been through chemo and surgery. It spread anyway, and she decided to discontinue treatment - well, I don't know exactly when she decided, I found out on July 5th.

After she died, a friend of mine was expressing his condolences and I mentioned that we had time, we knew it was coming. And he said,"How do you prepare for something like that?"

I've been thinking about that ever since. How do you prepare to lose your mom? So this is my experience.

You tell her thank you for the things she taught you. You reassure her that she did an amazing job as a mom, that her efforts to teach you about faith, honesty, kindness, and forgiveness worked. You tell her you'll be ok, that she doesn't need to worry because you are as strong as she raised you to be. You thank her for as many things as you can remember, knowing you'll forget some but hoping it will kind of count.

And then you start praying. First, for a confirmation that this really is the Lord's will. You pray to be reconciled to it. You pray for comfort, for peace, to know how to comfort and help her. You pray for strength to endure, and for her to have the same.

All this so when the time comes that she asks you to pray for the end to come quickly, you can. Even though the very last thing you want to pray for is your mother's death, she taught you to have faith, that death is not the end. And you know that if YOUR mother, with her almost limitless capacity to endure, has reached her limit, then, well, she also taught you to be compassionate.

You pray and you pray, and when the phone rings, you know she's gone.

And that's how you prepare for something like that.

What makes you think that?

2011-05-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

We walked to school again today to get Trea. Beautiful day!

As I was leaving the school with Trea, Adia, two of the neighbor kids (who are 5 and 3) and the babies in the double stroller, the crossing guard asked me if I was running a daycare.

No, no I am not. You couldn't pay me enough!

Open Letters

2011-05-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Universe,

Bad things come in threes. You are over your quota. BACK OFF!

Me

Dear Dylan,

Just because you CAN open the oven and CAN scale every piece of furniture in the house doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Your loving mother

Dear Trea and Adia,

Just because I choose to ignore much of the noise in this house, doesn't mean I'm deaf. When you are laughing and shrieking when you are supposed to be asleep, I CAN HEAR YOU! Knock it off and get some sleep.

Mom

Dear Insurance Company,

If my house happens to burn to the ground when no one's home, and all our really important keepsakes just happen to be in storage, does that look suspicious? Not that I'm trying to get out of cleaning it or anything. . .

Me

I speak Spanish too!

2011-04-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

So, for those that may not know, I am secretary of the women's organization in our church, hereafter RS. We have a president, two counselors, and me. We met last Thursday for a meeting, and as we were scheduling our next meeting, had the following conversation:

President: How about next Wednesday, May 4th?
Counselor: That's probably good. When is Cinco de Mayo this year?
Pres: Um . . . it's on the cinco? You know, the fifth?
Counselor: OH! Cinco de Mayo means the fifth of May? I NEVER made that connection!
Me: Did you take Spanish? (I wasn't being snarky, I was just really curious)
Counselor: Well, yeah, but I don't remember DISCUSSING that Cinco de Mayo was the fifth of May!
Other Counselor: I always thought Cinco meant May! You know, because May is the fifth month!

I swear we really are a reasonably intelligent group. . .

Pictures

2011-04-07T08:28:00.001-07:00

Because 1) I haven't posted pictures in a while and 2) I have nothing interesting to say right now.

Mailaya:

Dylan:

Adia:

Trea:

I'm never bored!

One cool cat

2011-03-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is actually a story from a few months ago, but it needs to be recorded for the sake of posterity.

Adia and I were playing cat and tiger. This is one of her favorite games. She pretends to be a cat, and I pretend to be a tiger. I swipe at her with my claws, growl, and tickle her. She giggles alot.

So, we are playing, and she says "Mom! Pretend to eat me!"

And I nuzzle her tummy.

"Did you eat me?"

"Um. . .yeah."

"Okay, now I'm dead."

Lays still for five seconds, before springing up and shouting:

"And now JESUS CAT makes us all alive again!"

Um. . .Jesus Cat?

Apparently, Adia was under the impression that each species has its own savior. There's a Jesus for the dogs, for the birds, for the cats, etc. I'm not sure how specific this gets (do finches and hawks share? Wouldn't that be complicated?) but she was sure there was a Jesus cat.

Who turns water into milk, probably.

She's in!

2011-03-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Trea has been accepted into the dual immersion program for next year!

We are so lucky to get a spot - it's done by lottery, and there's a lot of demand. She'll be learning Mandarin Chinese, spending roughly half of every day in the "target language." They have a summer camp, too. Right now, the program is in 1st and 2nd grade, but the plan is to expand it by a grade every year. And in jr high/high school, they plan to have both subject and advanced language classes available to kids who have completed the elementary level program. Now that she's in, her siblings get priority placement, too.

It means a 20-minute drive each way to her new school, but. . .she'll be able to read, write, and speak CHINESE! How cool is that?

Did you know I do magic tricks?

2011-03-12T10:09:00.001-08:00

At least according to John and the kids, I do.

I conjure tasty food at a moment's notice. I untie knots. I wrangle dolls (and real babies, too) into impossible clothes. I find long-lost shoes; I can always find clean socks. I can get the computer to suddenly start working. I know all the words and actions to dozens of songs.

John, although impressed by all of the above, has even higher expectations. Like, expecting me to keep four kids, six and under, alive and well for twelve hours a day while he's earning a paycheck. And making that paycheck cover all the essentials, including the medical bills for the four children mentioned above.

I can see why they have these expectations. One, I have produced entire human beings from scratch in the past, and proceeded to magically produce their food. And I've been doing all of the above, so they seem to think it's easy.

Now excuse me while I go pull a rabbit out of hat (after I find the hat).

Mailaya's birth

2011-02-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted since I was first pregnant with Mailaya! Sheesh. You'd think I'd been tired and busy and feeling like crap for the last nine months. . .oh wait, I was/did!

But, I'm not pregnant anymore!

This is mostly for me, because this blog is as close to keeping a journal as I come these days. And I though Mailaya deserved her own post. :)

Mailaya was born Jan 22, at 2:30 am. On Jan 21, I had an appointment with Pete the midwife, and asked him to strip my membranes. I was 3 cm dilated and 50-60% effaced (I had been using Evening Primrose Oil like crazy, trying to dilate enough to be a candidate for membrane stripping. It worked!) I'm not usually so desparate for my babies to come (see Adia and Dylan's birth stories, 16 and 11 days late, respectively) but I was up against a wall this time. Tax season was already starting, so John could take one week, and one week only, and sooner rather than later. My mom was unable to come out because of her chemo. I really, really needed baby #4 to come somewhat on time, so John could help me that first week.

Lucky for me, stripping my membranes worked. I had contractions on and off all day. We were joking about how to determine when, exactly, active labor started, because they were so irregular for so long. At 9:25 pm, I was walking on the treadmill, and John said something (I don't remember what) and I told him to shut up. And he threw his hands in the air and said, "It's official! You really ARE in labor!"

Apparently I only tell him to shut up when I am in labor. Huh.

Even after that, the contractions just weren't that strong, and weren't getting closer together, although they were getting more and more regular. Finally, around 11 o'clock, I went upstairs and told John that I felt like it was time to go, even though the contractions were still 7 minutes apart. They weren't that close together but I felt shaky and nauseated. John took one look at me and said, "It's time." I took a shower, and had three contractions spaced 6 minutes apart. We got in the car, and in the 30 minutes it took us to get the hospital, the contractions went from 4 minutes apart to 3 to 2 and a half. We got to the hospital at 12:30. I was five cm upon admission. My midwife arrived at 1:30, and broke my water at 1:45; I was seven cm at that point.

The next part seemed to take forever. Based on past births, I figured breaking my water at seven cm would throw me into a quick transition, I'd push for a few minutes, and BAM! baby. Instead, even though I dilated almost completely very quickly, I didn't feel any urge to push. There was a tiny lip on the cervix that wouldn't resolve. I moved from the bed to the rocking chair to the bed again. At one point I looked at John (it was a few minutes before two) and said, "This will all be over by 2:30," and he agreed. I was trying to gear myself up for a set amount of time. At 2:15 I STILL didn't feel like pushing, and I thought about how I was wrong about the time.

Shortly after that, I sat on the bed, looked at Pete, and said that I really didn't think I could do it much longer.

I didn't notice at the time, but Pete told me later that he and Amy, the nurse, looked at each other; then he pulled on his gloves and uncovered the table with all the birthing supplies. Good thing, because I started to push with the next contraction, and Mailaya was born at 2:26 am.

Pete says when a woman who's birthing without meds says she can't do it any longer, it usually means it's time to have a baby.

So even though it FELT like forever, it was only 45 minutes from hitting 7 cm to holding Mailaya in my arms. She is beautiful (full lips, lots of dark hair, long fingers) and opinionated. Dylan was the most laid-back baby ever. Mailaya has less patience, but that's probably a good thing. Being the fourth, if she DIDN'T stick up for herself she might never get mom's attention!

Do you know what the definition of insanity is?

2010-07-21T10:02:00.001-07:00

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Want proof that I'm certifiable?

I'm pregnant. AGAIN.

I'm three months along (due Jan 21, 2011).
Dylan is almost 8 months old.
They'll be fourteen months apart, if this baby is a few days late.
Yes, we know what causes this.
Yes, we own a TV.
No, we don't have cable.

Anything else?

Why I'm not sure Adia is my child

2010-05-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

John had all of last week off. It was his second week of paternity leave, which he had to use before Dylan reached six months or lose.

It was great to have him home all week. It was especially great because I ~~demanded~~ suggested he menu plan and cook for the week, and he agreed. Monday, he and his dad became embroiled in a project (which is another post altogether) but Tuesday through Sunday, he cooked. The menu for the week:

Tuesday: buttered noodles with parmesan cheese
Wednesday: Cheeseburgers
Thursday: Sloppy Joes
Friday: Fajitas
Saturday: pan-seared salmon with rice pilaf and salad
Sunday: Shepherd's pie

Noodles and cheeseburgers are always popular around here, so they went over big. Trea, adventerous as always, ate EVERYTHING with minimal hesitation and no complaints. Adia ate the shepherd's pie, downed the salmon (and ate the leftovers for lunch), ate the fajitas minus the peppers, and. . . would.not.touch. the Sloppy Joes, no matter what.

Strange kid.

It’s all about the delivery

2010-04-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

Trea had her pre-kindergarten check up today (and the pediatrician, who has seen Trea off and on since she was two weeks old, was as aghast as I was). She got FIVE shots, and didn’t shed a single tear. She was rewarded with coupons to a local fast-food place to get a hamburger and an ice-cream cone. Since John was planning to work late, we went out.

Now the problem, every time we go to a fastfood establishment with a play area of any kind, is leaving. They are wonderful kids while we’re there; they play well with others, eat their food, and generally behave themselves. Come time to leave though, and it’s almost always a fight.

So we talked, thoroughly, about my expectations. That when it was time to go there would be nothing less than complete cooperation. When the time came, Trea was fabulous and Adia resistant. Still, she didn’t melt down, so this was an improvement. We got in the car and the litany of complaints began.

“I’m tired.”
“I’m thirsty.”“I really wanted to play some more.”
“My shirt has ice cream on it.”

I reminded the girls that is a TREAT to go to one of these places, and weren’t they so lucky to get to go? Adia told me AGAIN that her shirt had ice cream on it, the dismay in her voice rivaling the tone most people use for discussing natural disasters or government action of any kind.

I talked about being positive and looking at the bright side. Adia repeated herself, louder, in case I just hadn’t understood that immediate action was called for (what did she want me to do while driving the minivan?)

When that didn’t work, I told them in no uncertain terms that I was not in a mood to hear complaints, or whining, and only wanted to hear happy voices the rest of the way home.

At which point Adia said, in the cheeriest possible voice, “Mom, my shirt has ice cream on it!”

Which, I guess, technically, was just a statement of fact.

I took them home, stripped off their clothes, and threw them in the bath, from which they emerged 30 minutes later clean, relaxed, and tired: The bedtime trifecta.

And I'm still laughing at Adia.

Pete

2010-04-13T22:19:00.000-07:00

My brother-in-law died today. He was 34, and he leaves behind a wife and four kids between the ages of 17 and 6.

It wasn't expected. He had a sudden, massive infection in January. They replaced the mechanical heart valve he'd had for years; he suffered several strokes. The prognosis changed hour by hour: he might not live, if he lived he'd be in a nursing home, he'd be able to come home but need round-the-clock care. . . . he went through intensive rehab, made incredible progress, and came home March 30. He was great, he was fine; I made him cream-cheese frosted brownies last week - the one thing I knew he liked - and he told me he couldn't wait to get going with more therapy, he was raring to go.

Yesterday he had a routine exam, they did an echo this morning and discovered the replacement valve wasn't working. He made it to the hospital, but not the OR. They don't know what happened, but it was fast.

I can't believe he's gone. He was THREE YEARS older than John. My sister-in-law is five years older than I am - and she's a widow.

And now I need to figure out how to explain death to little kids, after all.

Blatant Theft

2010-04-12T20:14:00.001-07:00

Stole this from Shoeless Joel (only I am not as cool as he is, and couldn't figure out how to embed it.) Parts of it give me Mousetrap flashbacks, and the rest reminds me of a Baby Einstein video for adults. Cool though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

Reasons versus Excuses

2010-04-10T21:20:00.000-07:00

A co-worker lost her three-year-old grandson early Wednesday morning. Brain cancer. They'd known for a long time that it was terminal, and Tuesday night she told us he was dying. We got her a card, of course, and many of the students and staff made cash donations to help out the family, and I think the school sent flowers. The funeral was today. I didn't go.

I didn't go because John was working, and the idea of packing up three kids to attend a funeral was daunting. The idea of sitting through the funeral with three kids wasn't so tempting either. And I didn't think Trea would handle it well - or rather, I didn't want to have to explain to Trea (or Adia) why these things happen. Mostly because I don't know.

And the real reason I didn't go was because I could. not. stand. the idea of seeing a three-year-old laid out in a casket, and then coming home to take care of my kids who are 5, 3, and 4 months.

I didn't go because I am a wuss.

Easter Egg Fun

2010-04-03T12:53:00.000-07:00

We dyed eggs today. As I was getting the dye ready, I noticed the box listed nine colors: red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, pink, spring green, teal, and denim.

Denim? Does "denim" say Easter to you? (It's pretty ugly, by the way; I ended up mixing it with the blue).

The package also listed three options for making the dye. You could use vinegar for "ultra-vibrant" colors, lemon juice for traditional colors, or water for pastels.

So, if I make the red with water for pastel, and the pink with lemon juice for traditional, will it be the same color?

I'm almost tempted to go buy another package just to find out. Maybe when they're on clearance next week. . .

Out of the mouths of babes, right?

2010-03-31T20:33:00.000-07:00

Talking to Adia on Sunday about what she learned in nursery (Sunday school for the 3 and under set):

Me: Adia, what did you learn about today?
Adia: Jesus DIED! (giggles)
Me: Oh. . .and then what happened?
Adia: They put him in a CAVE!
Me: Oh really?
Adia: And then they put a big rock in front of it. . .and then angels came, and Jesus was ALL GONE! (here her eyes go wide and she raises both hands, palms up, to emphasize the mystery).
Me: What happened next?
Adia: Jesus came back to life, and everyone was SO HAPPY!

There you go. Easter story in a nutshell.

(And yes, she really does use caps and exclamation points that often; trust me).

Maybe it's just me and my uptight Mormon thriftiness. . .

2010-03-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

So, a while back I was browsing Craigslist, and there was a posting selling miscellaneous items. One of those "virtual garage sale" kind of listings.

This woman listed a pair of high heels that she described as having "never been walked in." I thought, Huh, that's odd; usually I see things described as "never been worn." She described them as black, with tall, narrow heels, ribbon ties. . . and mentioned that they had cost $50 at a local shop known for, um, intimate apparel and accessories.

So, "never been walked in" but NOT never been worn means . . . . OH. (Yeah, I'm quick, I know.)

First of all, ew. Second hand shoes? Maybe, depending on many factors. Second hand ANYTHING involved in that particular, um, activity? Ew.

And second. . .fifty bucks? Seriously? For THAT?

Okay. . .

2010-03-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Adia just came to me with her doll.

"Mom, my doll is hungry."
"Ok, why don't you feed her?"
Adia, yanking up her shirt and pointing to her chest,"I don't have any milk. See? No milk!"

I am NOT breastfeeding a doll.

(She decided to "feed" the doll anyway. . .she put the doll's face to her chest for two seconds and declared the doll full. If only, sweetheart, if only.)

Why don't you blog more?

2010-02-05T06:13:00.000-08:00

You know, a couple of people I know have commented on my lack of blogging. I know, I suck lately. In my defense, I'll post a blog I wrote three weeks ago, detailing a Thursday:

Woke up at 6 am and nursed Dylan, who thankfully went back to sleep.

Over the course of the next several hours, I exercised (only for twenty minutes, but still), read my scriptures, showered and dressed, fixed breakfast for Adia and Trea and got them dressed, nursed Dylan, unloaded the dishwasher, washed the breakfast dishes and a few miscellaneous others, chatted with the neighbor who stopped by to pick up the moving boxes I offered her yesterday, washed, dried, and folded/hung up/put away three loads of laundry, nursed and changed Dylan, drew a horse for Adia, scheduled a doctor’s appointment for Dylan, called a lady about buying some cloth diapers, talked to my sister-in-law about plans for Sunday dinner, reorganized part of my kitchen, made Thai-style stir-fry for lunch and washed the dishes, put frozen lasagna roll-ups in the crockpot for John and the girls to eat for dinner, boxed up some empty glass jars and put them in the car to take to the recycling drop off, and nursed Dylan again.

Then I changed clothes, dropped Trea and Adia off at a babysitter's house around 4 and went to work.

At work, I prepared two-hour lesson plans for eight individual learning groups, wrote eight notes to the tutors, nursed Dylan again before John picked him up at 5:30, had a staff meeting, found a sub for the group whose tutor called out at the last minute, did a couple of intakes, pumped for Dylan, administered a test to gauge a student’s learning progress, and observed two groups.

Classes ended at 9, after which I prepared my lessons for next Tuesday and straightened up a little. I left around 10. I was going to stop at the store on the way home for a couple of things, but decided against it.

I got home at 10:30, cleared the remnants of dinner off the table, put the crock pot in the sink to soak, loaded the dishwasher, and started it.

Went to bed around 11. Dylan woke up an hour later and needed to nurse. Put him in bed with me so I could sleep while nursing.

And the reason I haven't posted this, even though I wrote it three weeks ago, is because it wasn't an especially busy day!

I do have a bunch of things rattling around in my head to blog about though, so I'll try to be more on top of it.

Answers to Questions

2009-12-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

A couple of people posted questions in the comments section of the last post, and I never know what to do about that. . .should I answer them in the comments? Will they check back?

So I'll answer them here.

Question 1: Is my midwife a guy?

Yes. His name is Pete. This caused a few double-takes on John's part, because we have a brother-in-law named Pete. It would throw him for a second when he came home from work and I'd tell him that Pete said my cervix was such-and-such. Pete is a great midwife though, very hands-off and not at all into interventions. I had to ask for my water to be broken, and scheduling the induction (that never happened) was my idea.

I did joke that ONCE AGAIN I had a healthcare provider who has never given birth - neither the female midwife who delivered Trea nor the female OB resident who delivered Adia had had children. And, since I had a male L & D nurse with Trea, and the nurse who assisted at Adia's birth did not have children, I was the only one in the room who had given birth. It irritated me a bit when they said, "You can do this!" I wanted to ask them how the &!#&! they would know, having never done it themselves! (I asked my L & D nurse this time around if she had kids, and she has one, and then I explained that at my first couple of births no one else did, and how I felt about it - and of course Pete chose that moment to grin and say, "You can do this!" I shot him the Look of Death.)

I originally had a female midwife, but she moved her practice to Park City about three months ago. She wanted me to follow her there. Ha! She was great and all, but are you kidding me? I'm not driving to Park City once a week for a month, and I'm DEFINITELY not driving to Park City while in labor - I HATE doing contractions in the car, you can't move around at all. Besides, as things turned out, if I'd had to drive another half an hour we would have really been cutting it close.

Question 2: What is SPD?

SPD is Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction. Basically, the body produces too much relaxin, and the hip joints start to separate. It hurts. A lot. Rolling over in bed was excrutiating, worse than all but the hardest contractions. Towards the end of my pregnancy, John would wince when I rolled over at night - because he could hear my hips grind and pop! Fortunately it has gotten a little bettter every day, and should be gone in the next month or so. It was one of the reasons I was considering the induction - it was painful to walk, to lay down, to get up, to roll over. I couldn't sleep at all, and I was just getting to the point where I wondered if I was even going to be able to cope with labor. . .SO GLAD that pregnancy is over!

Dylan is cute, though.

He's here!

2009-11-30T23:34:00.000-08:00

And he's now a week old, almost to the minute, as I post this.

I know it's pathetic that it's taken me this long to post, but I wanted to post a picture with it, and at first we didn't have access to a computer, then we'd forgotten the cable to connect the digital camera to the computer, then we left the camera at my in-laws' house. . .basically we're really unorganized.

Anyhow. This is a birth post, so skip it if you're squeamish or just bored by the details.

On Monday, Nov. 23, I went in for my last midwife appointment. I was four centimeters dilated, so I asked to have my membranes stripped. And, even though I am scared to death of being induced, we tentatively scheduled an induction for the next day. Even though the schedule was super busy - lots of women trying to have babies before the holiday - I had priority because I was a "medical" induction, being "sooo late" and all that. I wasn't even two weeks past my due date! They really would have flipped with Adia. . .

We went home, called John's dad, and asked him if he and Lorraine could take the girls for a few days. Luckily one of them was off work for each of the days we needed (my in-laws are both of retirement age, but continue to work because they get bored easily). We sent the girls off to Orem about 5 ish. Then we hung out and waited. I was having irregular, painless contractions off and on. Active labor kicked in at 10 pm, when I hopped on the treadmill for 10 minutes. I went upstairs and told John I was pretty sure I was in labor, and I was going to take a shower. I got in the shower at 10:20, and when I got out at 10:40 I told John to get ready to go. We left for the hospital at 11 and arrived at 11:30. At that time of night, security has to buzz you in. I walked in and the security guard greeted me and asked me where I was headed. I smiled and said "Guess!" He just laughed.

I get back to L & D, and start checking in when the receptionist recognizes my name. "But. . .you're on the schedule for tomorrow!" she says. Um, ok, but I'm in labor NOW. I explain that I had my membranes stripped and it worked, apparently. She comments that she "doesn't know WHY they do that, it hurts." And possibly having an induction with Pitocin would feel better than the 20 seconds it took to have my membranes stripped? Whatever.

So, I get a room, get changed into a gown, and the nurse checks me. I'm almost 8 centimeters. Good, I think, I'm probably in transition (I'm shaky and nauseated) or pretty close to it. They call my midwife and tell him to come in. For the next 45 minutes, I sit in a rocking chair trying to breath through contractions and occasionally throwing out smart aleck remarks (I distinctly remember asking my midwife if he knew any good urologists. He said yes, did I need one? I jerked my head towards John and said "HE needs a vasectomy!" My midwife calmly says,"Would you like to do that now?")

At some point a guy comes in and starts talking about a blood draw. I was having HARD contractions 3 minutes apart, and this guy wants to draw MY blood? I believe my exact words were, "No FREAKING way!" I must have said it rather, um, emphatically, because John later told me that the guy and the two ladies behind him (no idea what they were doing) all stopped short and backed out of the room. Seriously, I realize there's hospital policy and all but that was NOT a good time.

At 12:15 I decide I am really tired of the hard contractions, and discouraged because I don't feel like pushing at all. So I ask the midwife to break my water. He checks me, and I'm almost 9 centimeters. Then he breaks my water. He mentions that I could probably push if I want to, and I say no. The nurse tries to encourage me to push, and I tell her no. Then another contraction hits, and suddenly I'm thinking maybe I DO want to push. John helped me get into a kneeling/hands and knees position, and within a few minutes I'm really feeling like I need to push. Baby was born at 12:40 am, less than three hours after my first "real" contractions and about 15 minutes after I first started pushing. I had one small tear that needed a couple of stitches but nothing else. The placenta, interestly enough, did not look at all post-dates; according the midwife it was a very healthy placenta.

Dylan Xavier was 8 lbs, 4 oz, and 21.5 inches long. He came out protesting loudly, but is really a sweet baby. Trea and Adia LOVE him (for now. . .wait until the novelty wears off). He has nursed really well from the beginning.

I still have some symptoms from the SPD I had during pregnancy, but other than that I feel fine. I still say I would repeat any of the three labors multiple times if I could just skip the first half of the pregnancy.

I am so glad Dylan is HERE, and so glad not to be pregnant anymore!

Don't get all excited

2009-11-04T21:04:00.000-08:00

I haven't had the baby boy yet.

But, five years ago today, I gave birth to Trea. And I just want to say, she still amazes me. She's so smart, and fun, and observant, and headstrong. She made me sick as a dog for months on end and put me through 12.5 hours of labor, but she was so totally worth it.

Happy Birthday Trea!

Birthdays

2009-09-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my sister Erin!

Today is also the birthday of Edina, a lady who lives in our apartment complex and attends our congregation. She's 102 today. She's one of those people who makes getting old seem completely doable - she's still independent and able to drive, she goes dancing, she's sharp mentally. She jokes that she robbed the cradle when she married her current husband - he's her fourth or fifth (she was widowed each time, no divorces) and still in his 90s.

Funny story about her - she was single when we lived here before going to Thailand, then when we moved back I noticed she was always with this guy. So I asked a friend for the scoop. Apparently they met, dated, and got married in very short order (like a few months). When they announced their engagement, their children (who are all in their 60s and 70s) expressed some concern over the rushed timeline. Edina's response? "We don't have time to waste!"

And really, at that age, if you like being around him, what's the big deal? It's not like you need to worry about his ability to provide, or his parenting philosophy, or how great the chemistry is. If he's good company and does his share of the dishes, you're good.

So happy birthday to Edina too!

BYU Wins!

2009-09-05T23:44:00.000-07:00

Did you see that game??? Who would have guessed. . .the funniest part was right after the game ended, when one of the announcers, in mild shock, said, "Gosh. . .or whatever they say in Provo."

The phrase you are looking for is "Oh my heck!"

It's okay, tell me what you REALLY think. . .

2009-09-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, we went out to dinner with Ashely and Erin and their families. I decided to put a little effort into my appearance for the occasion. I flat-ironed my hair, put on makeup, my best maternity shirt, the whole bit. . .

Trea watched all this preparation with great interest, then looked up with wide eyes and said, "Wow, Mommy, you look almost pretty!"

I'll take what I can get.

I haven't really dropped off the face of the earth. . .

2009-08-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have been a really bad blogger. So let me hit some important points really quick:

1. We are having a boy. The doctor who did the ultrasound said he looked "perfect." I was very happy to hear that; I didn't really have any concrete reason to worry, but I was not taking vitamins or eating especially healthy when I conceived this kid, so it was nice that he managed to develop anyway. I'm only throwing up every two-three weeks now, too!

2. John's job is going well. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but he was assigned to be the eco-care person in his office a while back; it's his job to coordinate/spearhead environmental awareness and iniatives in his office. He has become just a tad obsessive. I used to be the one harping on recycling and whatnot, now he is bringing home trash from family gatherings to make sure it gets recycled. He can't wait to have a house with a yard so he can compost and garden.

3. Speaking of which. . .we may be homeowners by this time next month. It all depends on the whims of the probate court in Utah, the efficiency of the sellers and sellers' agent involved, and whether Saturn aligns with Mars. I'll keep you updated.

We have had a restful but unexciting summer. That's mostly my fault, because I just haven't felt like dealing with heat or travel or anything else requiring a lot of energy. That's all right though, we'll make up for it next summer.

I am tired of. . .

2009-05-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

being exhausted all the time, and having zero energy
evaluating every food on 1) the likelihood it will make me gag 2) how bad it will be coming up
feeling like a load of laundry is a monumental task
the abdominal pain that feels nearly constant
telling my kids "sorry, not today" when they want to play outside
feeling like everything - the house, my calling at church, my job, my kids - gets less of me than they need

Basically, I'm tired of being pregnant. It'll pass . . . in about six months.

Remember the last time. . .

2009-04-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

I took a really long break from blogging? Back when I was first pregnant with Adia?

Remember what I said in my last post? (Go ahead, scroll down and cheat. . .second paragraph of the post before this one.)

Yep.

Due November 13th. Trea is convinced of three things: I'm having twins, they are boys, and we should name them Jacob and . . . Tarzan.

If I spent half the time posting as I do reading. . .

2009-03-06T20:28:00.001-08:00

I'd blog a WHOLE lot more.

I've been sick. The kids have been sick. We were supposed to go to North Carolina this week, but Trea managed to catch the flu (and distinguish herself as the first patient the doctor had seen, who managed to get the A strain of influenza despite receiving a flu vaccine). We cancelled the trip, and I'm relieved because they would have been miserable. Might as well be miserable at home.

Work has been crazy, not because of the actual work, but because our office is apparently cursed. My boss and one of my co-workers have both been diagnosed with serious medical conditions - one curable, the other chronic but treatable. I'm afraid I'm going to develop a brain tumor, or get pregnant or something. (I think I'd rather have the brain tumor, frankly; being pregnant with Adia was the most miserable experience of my life. The tumor can be cut out, usually, and no one expects me to be happy about having it.)

Sorry, I'm in a bad mood. I shouldn't post when I'm in a bad mood. Writing the above is a guaranteed to result in my being pregnant and feeling guilty about what I wrote. Watch and see.

Ok, good news . . . well, I've gotten good news from family members but it's theirs to announce, not mine.

Ah, I know! Silvia. Silvia is the student I posted about a few months ago, whose husband had been deported. She has been desperately holding her family together, providing childcare to five small children to pay the bills, caring for her two school-aged children, and coming to class twice a week. She downloaded all the questions on to MP3 player, and listened to it every chance she got. She carried flashcards around with her. She basically lived and breathed the test 24/7.

On Feb. 20, she took her citizenship test - wearing a locket engraved with her husband's name and their wedding date - and she PASSED!

I got to go with her, and watch, and she didn't miss a question. She totally rocked it. She had studied SO incredibly hard. I was so proud of her. I didn't dare even congratulate her in the test, because the examiner had made me swear to be quiet, but once we left the test she gave me a huge, long hug. She was shaking, she'd been so nervous. It's incredibly good news for her family though - now she can apply to sponsor her husband. She can get her family back in one piece. Her sons were so thrilled and proud of her - they made her promise to come to school and tell them. She walked into the classroom, and her son shot her the "Well?" look; she nodded, and he went said "Really?" "Yes."

"TEACHER! TEACHER! My mama passed her test! She is a citizen!"

Yes, she is. And she totally earned it.

So, one more thing, to end on a funny note. Trea was watching Star Wars III with John the other day. As John has noted, watching dramatic movies with a four-year-old instantly transforms them into comedies. Unintentional humor, to be sure, but humor nonetheless. So, they're watching a light saber battle, and Trea says, "I need one of those, so I can fight the bad guys."

Um, ok.

Then, she's watching Jedi knights, and observes to John, "I think it's Halloween there."

Finally, during the last scene of the movie, when the Jedis are dropping off Luke Skywalker with his aunt and uncle in the desert, she gets all excited and tells John, "Look, she's pretending to be Mary and he's pretending to be Joseph!"

They do look a lot like a nativity scene, you know.

A Book Review

2009-02-08T00:27:00.000-08:00

I've never done a book review on my blog before; that may be because, even though I LOVE to read, I rarely have time to read much these days. But, this one is worth it. It's The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John Mcwhorter, and it's awesome. Like languages? Looking for a little intellectual stimulation? (Amy, I'm smiling at you here!) This is your book. The author is amazing, I wish I knew half what he does about language and how it works, and he uses all these cool obscure languages as examples of how gender works and what classifiers do. It's taken me a long time to read it (I keep having to re-read things to follow) but that doesn't mean it would be as hard for someone more intelligent or less sleep deprived. Totally worth the effort though. I'm not even done and already I'm endorsing it!

For you non-language geeks. . .um, I got nothing for ya. Maybe next month?

Stuff and more stuff

2009-02-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

Have you seen The Story of Stuff? If not, it's worth the 20 minutes. It's a little preachy at times (I don't buy into the whole "the GOVERNMENT is supposed to protect us! It's not our fault we were deceived! thing), but also very thought provoking.

Warning: it may completely ruin Wal-mart for you forever. I haven't set foot in Wal-mart since I watched it two months ago.

Proof the new Naturalization test is too hard

2009-01-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

Last week, one of my tutors was out sick. Happens all the time, sometimes I combine groups and sometimes I can get a sub. This group, though, is studying for the citizenship test, and one of the students has a test date next month so I really wanted her to have all the instructional time she could possibly have. As luck would have it, several of my students weren't able to come and that freed up one of my other tutors. Dan just happens to be a professor of political science. Could you ask for a more perfect tutor for a citizenship group? I think not.

Only he didn't know all the answers to the questions. He guessed wrong on more than one.

So. . .how many of you could pass the U.S. citizenship test? Here are some questions students have to know:

What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
How many amendments does the Constitution have?
What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence?
What is the economic system in the United States?
What is the rule of law?
Who is one of your state's U.S. Senators now?
The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
Name your U.S. representative.
What does the President's Cabinet do?
Who is the Chief Justice of the United States now?
What is one power of the federal government?
What is one power of the states?
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
Name three of the 13 original states.
When was the Constitution written?
Name one writer of the Federalist Papers.
Who was President during World War I?
Name one state that borders Canada.
Name one state that borders Mexico.

Ok, so it's really not THAT hard. There's 100 questions to study, they are asked ten of them, they have to get six right. There's also a reading and writing test, and they have to speak English well enough to answer all the questions posed to them about their family, personal and work history, etc. (and that can get very complicated if you're a refugee and have no idea where members of your family are, or if they're even alive, and have been bounced around several different countries).

Still, I think some of these are a bit nitpicky. So tell me, how many can you answer - without Googling?

You might live in Utah if. . .

2009-01-10T20:53:00.001-08:00

You go to your company's (or, in my case, my spouse's company's) rather posh Christmas party, held in a venue with a beautiful view, and the open bar runs out of . . . . Sprite.

We have lousy carma

2008-12-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

We made it six years. We've really tried to avoid this, but it's inevitable. Six years of marriage, and all the juggling, hand-wringing, and long discussions to work things out, and we can't avoid it any longer.

We're getting a car payment.

John totalled our car on the way to work day after Christmas. The roads were bad; he took his usual exit off the freeway and the car in front of him fishtailed, then stopped. He'd left a lot of distance between them but it wasn't enough considering she just stopped suddenly. We actually had the body shop do an estimate on the repairs. $7,998 - and he stressed that that was by no means final, since there was a lot of damage and he couldn't see parts of the engine clearly. Definitely a total loss.

I tried to convince John to go car-free for a while. I thought it would be an interesting social experiment, not to mention that it would save us over $400 a month (including a car payment, gas, insurance, maintenance, registration, etc.) I tried to bribe him with a new camera; no go. I don't know that I could really go without a car for 6-9 months - it would be really inconvenient - but it would have been interesting to try. I suppose I could just see how long I can go without driving, but I'm not really motivated to inconvenience myself without the reward of saving money.

So.

We bought a car today. It should be a good car, and I think we got a fair deal. The loan has a low interest rate. I HATE knowing that I am paying interest on something that is depreciating in value, but I like having a stereo and power locks that work.

And since we're fairly convinced that our other car was cursed, it's just as well that it's gone.

Right? Right.

Funny Odds and Ends

2008-12-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

#1
Last night at work, my more advanced students read an adapted version of the O. Henry story, "The Gift of the Magi." As you may recall, it's the story of a young, poor couple, Della and Jim, who each sell their most prized possession to buy a Christmas present for the other person. They discover in the end that their gifts are useless, as he sold his watch to buy combs for her hair and she sold her hair to buy a chain for his watch.

So, my students are reading along, and the tutor asked John (my forty-something Korean student) to read the characters' dialogue. John starts reading, and he used this very high, very dainty voice for Della and a very deep, manly voice for Jim. It was very, very funny to hear "Oh, Jim, you still like me, don't you? I'm still me, aren't I?" coming from a Korean man reading in a girly voice with a thick Korean accent. The other students were nearly rolling on the floor. I so wish I'd had a tape recorder.

#2
I'm trimming chicken Thursday morning, getting ready to stick it in the freezer, when Trea drags over a kitchen chair and climbs up to supervise. She observes me cutting chicken fat off the breasts with my shears for several moments, then comments, "Girl, you're fast!"

Why thank you.

#3

This actually happened a while back, but it was pretty funny. We've decided to start giving Trea a tiny allowance and teaching her about tithing. So, Sunday morning comes, and I give her ten dimes. Then I explain that we are going to take one dime and give it the bishop of our church so that he can help people. And she says, "Mommy, you can give all my dimes to the bishop to help people." I'm getting all misty-eyed and choked up over how adorable and generous she is, when John walks over and ruins it. "Trea," he says, "that's money. You can use it to buy stuff."

"Oh," Trea responds as she pulls back her dimes. "Well, I need it to buy a Barbie Dream Castle."

#4

Talked to the detective in charge of the Case of the Stolen Car the other day. He got a fingerprint and has a suspect he is looking for. The guy's name is Justice.

John has long had a theory that giving your child a "virtue" name - Hope, Charity, etc. - guarantees they will be the exact opposite. Which is why he won't ever let me name a baby Chastity. Or Justice.

#5
Adia is very funny, but it's not the type of thing that translates well into writing. We are endlessly amused by her attempts to sing, to boss Trea, and to generally make her wishes known. I often get the feeling that she is using language just to see if it works (if I say drink, they get me water! That's cool! Wonder if it will happen again. . . .it did! Wow. I'll have to remember that next time I'm actually thirsty).

I also get the feeling that she is certain she has been talking for months, and the tall idiots in the house have finally started to acquire language.

I have a brilliant idea

2008-12-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

Outsourcing is a problem for our economy, right? So, let's start saving the U.S. government and the states some money with outsourcing. We can start with prisons. Anyone committed of a crime with a sentence of, oh, more than 2 years (subject to a cost-benefit analysis, but I think that is a long enough sentence to offset the cost of the plane ticket) gets sent to prison in a developing country. Thailand comes to mind. We'll pay them slightly more than the cost of actually maintaining the prisons; given what I've heard about Thai prisons, and the much lower cost of labor and food, we'll still save boatloads of cash. Maybe we can arrange some prisons in Spanish-speaking countries, or African nations. The prisoners would come back bilingual! Maybe we'll make it so they only have to spend a couple of years there, and then they can apply to finish their sentences here and take advantage of educational and vocational training programs, since I do think that is important. Still, it's a win-win. We'll save money and the host countries will make money.

And honestly, I think most American prisons are a little too comfortable. This program, though, will be reserved for multiple offenders, or those convicted of truly heinous crimes (rapists, pedophiles, murderers, etc.)

I think I should write my representatives. Who's with me?

What Happened

2008-11-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

So, Saturday night I got home around 6. Made dinner, put the kids to bed, decided I was too exhausted to go to the work-related function I'd planned to attend (Saturday was crazy busy). John and I watched some TV and went to bed.

Sunday, we headed out the door to go to Church, which starts at one, and the car was gone. Trea noticed first - she turned around and asked John where the car was. He thought she was joking. Then we looked up and realized it was not in our parking space. We filed a police report and still made it to part of church. The detective who took the report said all we could was wait; most cars turned up in a few days, sometimes wrecked, sometimes not.

We only carry liability insurance on the car, so there wasn't any help coming from that direction (the car's old and paid for, it would be ridiculous to pay for comprehensive). We never really made an effort to lock it, because the automatic locks are broken, we are lazy, and for real, who steals a 12-year-old car with no stereo?

Sunday morning at 1:15 am, I get a call that they've found the car. Thing is, they want me to go meet the police officers right then. Um, ok, we only have one car, the busses aren't running all that frequently at that hour (if at all? I'm still not sure) and if I don't go get it, the car gets towed and impounded. Which means I'd have to pay a whole lot of money to get it back. Turns out, it's only a little over a mile away, so I walked. I was almost there when a cop pulled up and gave me a ride the rest of the way (which is how I ended up in the backseat of a police car at 1:30 am. It is really, really cramped back there. I feel sorry for tall criminals.) When we got there, there were no less than four cops just sitting around - why one of them couldn't have picked me up, I'll never know.

So, the funny thing is, the car wasn't really abandoned - at least it didn't look like they intentionally abandoned it. A security guard for the apartment complex had noticed it idling (yes, they left it running, and the cops didn't even think to turn it off). He checked with the resident who was assigned that space, who said the car wasn't his, and then he called the cops. It was a good thing too, because I think they were leaving town, and we'd never have gotten it back. There was a Gatorade bottle in the cupholder, a woman's bag in the back seat, and two suitcases in the trunk. The bag and the suitcases were stuffed - there were even prescription bottles. They dusted for prints and took the suitcases and stuff back to the crime lab hoping to get a print. The cops think the people who stole it probably just stopped to get something from an apartment and then were taking off. I haven't heard anything from them yet but I really, really hope they catch someone. I'm not normally a vindictive or revengeful person but this time I would love to see someone pay. They took the kids' carseats - which sucked because they are not cheap to replace - but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the look on Trea's face when I told her the carseat was gone (it came up and I couldn't avoid telling her); I think she just had this moment where she realized Mom and Dad didn't have control over this. Not that I think she's traumatized or anything, but she was genuinely upset and it made me really angry that at 4, she had to experience that.

So, car's back, we have new carseats, and all is well.

I have a very exciting story. . .

2008-11-24T01:38:00.000-08:00

and it involves me in the back of a police car at 1:30 am, but right now I'm exhausted so it will have to wait.

This is my one hundredth post

2008-11-16T23:59:00.000-08:00

So I should probably say something profound.

Hmm, I got nothing.

So. Saturday night we splurged and ordered Thai take-out from the place up the street. The guy who owns it is SO nice, very friendly, he's Thai and his wife is Cambodian, and their food is awesome. I was eating Massaman curry when Adia walked over and made her "um, um" sounds, which means "I want a bite." I told her it was hot. She insisted. I gave her a teeny bit of curry with some rice, and waited for her to spit it out.

Nope. She ate it. And asked for more.

Adia loves spice. She won't eat ground beef without some taco seasoning on it. She won't eat bland scrambled eggs. I wonder if the flavor of food a pregnant woman eats affects the amniotic fluid? Hmmm.

Trea, on the other hand, does not even like black pepper. But, aside from an aversion to spicy foods, she's a really good eater. She'll try almost anything, and she eats most of the things I cook on a regular basis.

I'm not sure how I got lucky with good eaters, since I was the world's pickiest child. I outgrew it, though.

We're getting portraits done tomorrow. I need Trea and Adia to cooperate, look at the camera, and smile at the same time. Wish me luck.

Everything but the kitchen sink

2008-11-10T20:59:00.001-08:00

I always mean to post, then I get busy, then I try to post in a logical, organized way. . .and it's just too hard. I do NOT have time to live my life and record it in an orderly fashion. So, here's the latest.

The Kids

Adia is just a little over 20 lbs. She talks CONSTANTLY (she knows somewhere around 50 words). She learned to say "trick or treat" REALLY fast. I think she, like Trea last year, thought we had been holding out on her. All you have to do is knock and say "trick or treat" and you get candy??? She is most definitely a toddler - we hear "no" a lot. She's part monkey, and gets in to everything. My house is always a mess and it's mostly her fault. She's also super cute when she is being affectionate, and tonight she said "I love you" to me without any prompting at all. Her favorite song is "I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee." She tries to sing along.

Trea is cute, and a drama queen. No idea where she got that. She says a lot of very funny things. The other day, we got off the bus, and the bus driver lowered it for us. It makes a hissing sound, and Trea turns to me to announce "Mom, the bus has GAS!" I don't think the bus driver heard her. She also has her very own special version of "Called to Serve." It goes something like this:

Called to serve him, every king of glory
Joseph, Mary, something something name

She loves to sing, even if she has to make up the words. She loves going to the library for storytime, and she loves her once-a-week swim lesson with her cousin.

Work

My forty-something Korean student, John, who is very serious looking, told me the other night that he is "down with that." He's been learning English from his 15-year-old again. It totally cracked me up.

One of my tutors gave me the nicest compliment a week ago. She told me that she thought I was much better than my predecessor. To be fair, the previous specialist was balancing two jobs and single motherhood, but it still made me feel good. I told my tutor that it really meant a lot to me; I have only a bachelor's and the other teacher has a master's, so I was intimidated by taking over for her. And then the tutor said "It's not the degree, it's the commitment." And I almost teared up. I'm just really glad it shows, you know? Because I really put a lot into my lessons, and try new things, and even if they don't always work the way I planned, the effort is there. And I'm glad she can tell. She said it made her feel like trying more, too.

That said, work occasionally drives me a little batty. The problem with volunteers is that you have to be really careful with how you correct them. So when they ignore your carefully planned lesson and do what they THINK you want done, instead of reading the instructions, it can be frustrating. But you can't just rip into them about READING THE FREAKIN' LESSON PLAN. You have to be nice, and tactful. And then come vent on the blog.

Other

John has a new calling - he's assistant ward clerk over finances. It's perfect for him - a few hours a week, no need to organize other people. His work is planning layoffs. Only 2-3%, but still. We're hoping that his lack of seniority will actually help, since it's much cheaper to keep him than some of the other people who have been there a long time. If they go strictly by seniority then we may have to find him a new job. I think we'll be ok with our savings, food storage, my job, and whatever severance or unemployment he's able to get.

So that's it.

I think the word I am looking for is "memorable"

2008-11-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

Happy birthday to Trea! She's four, and so cute and fun (most of the time). We had a pretty normal day but the fun started when Dad got home from work. She decorated her own cake and unwrapped her gifts, and generally had a good time. I'll post pictures tomorrow.

And the election! Wow. Did you see Obama's speech? Did you notice the call-and-response type moments? Interesting. I'm excited that he won - I also have a little bit of an "what have we DONE?" feeling. He's unproven. I hope he can deliver.

Very exciting day.

53 weeks later

2008-10-20T20:13:00.001-07:00

So, a week AFTER the one-year anniversary of us coming home, I'm finally getting around to blogging about it. There are days when I have to remind myself that I really did live in a foreign country for nearly 18 months; it seems so long ago. There are days when a certain smell or sound will bring back a crush of memories, and I wish I were still in Khon Kaen, lying in a huge bed, cuddling with Adia, Trea, and John, while listening to the rain pounding the roof. There are still times, mostly when I'm doing the dishes, when I feel a profound gratitude for things like air conditioning and hot, clean water. I still get giddy about my dishwasher and four-burner stove (with an OVEN!) and the shiny new energy-efficient washer/dryer. I'm grateful for all the modern conveniences and grateful that I know I can live without them (not without some whining, but still, I can cope).

And I really, really miss my friends. Nit Noi, Nok, Ged, and Earn, who made going to church worthwhile. They always made an effort to talk to me - at first they just said hi, and then, as they got brave enough to speak English, we got to be friends. Nit Noi has a son who will turn two this month, and we used to commandeer one room of the church building and make it the nursery. We spent a lot of Sundays sitting on the floor of that room, nursing and talking. Nok always held Adia for me. Ged was sweet and friendly and, once she got over being scared, spoke English much better than she gave herself credit for. Earn spoke the least amount of English but never let it stop her from participating in any conversation. It was Earn who told us patiently explained to us how to catch the lizard we knew was in our kitchen (the big one that kept pooping on the counter); we never did see him, but I will never forget hearing Earn explain that she already had one lizard skinned and frozen in the freezer at the church . . . There's only ice in our church freezer now.

I miss our neighbors too. The old lady next door, who was soooo friendly and nosy too :). Teacher Jaw, our neighbor across the street, who babysat Trea and took care of both girls, at different times, while I was teaching. Teacher Jaw was the Thai grandma my girls never had. She and our next-door neighbor used to eat dinner together several times a week, and sometimes Teacher Mam, Teacher Jaw's sister, would come, and other women I didn't know. Teacher Jaw always talked to me (as though if she said it slowly enough I'd get it eventually, and sometimes I caught a word or two. Mostly John interpreted). It's strange that I felt more of a sense of community there, where I couldn't hold a real conversation with anyone, than I do here. I don't even know the names of our neighbors across the hall. I rarely see any of our neighbors, and no one lingers outside on the porch, let alone cooking and eating for hours at a time.

That said, I am glad we came back. They are getting stricter with their immigration regulations, and making it harder for teachers to get licensed. I didn't like having to work under the table, and yet I couldn't get sponsored for a proper license. I don't miss driving in the crazy traffic, and it's kind of nice to be able to talk to people in my own language. This is my country, and my comfort zone, and it's . . . comfortable.

We'll always be glad we went. I don't think I would have my job if I didn't have that experience, and it helps me relate to my students. John doubts he would have gotten his job without going to Thailand - it set him apart, and his boss knew, from her own experiences living abroad, that it takes a certain adaptability and patience.

And it was great fodder for stories. Lots of stories, to tell Trea and Adia, and someday we'll take them back and show them where it all happened.

Totally unexciting

2008-10-13T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today is the one-year anniversary of us coming home from Thailand. I'm too tired to blog effectively about it tonight, but maybe tomorrow.

Watch out for the karma bus, dude

2008-10-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

To the guy who found my purse today, after I dropped it in the Wal-Mart parking lot:

Thank you for turning my wallet into Customer Service. I really do appreciate not having to replace my license, medical insurance cards (for me and the kids), library card, transit pass, and other miscellaneous cards. It's ok that it took you ten hours to turn it in; I'm sure you had to run home and try the credit and debit cards (cancelled them already, sucker!). Oh, and you're welcome to the five dollars and change you took before turning in the wallet.

I do wish you'd turned in the purse as well, of course, but now I get to buy a new one. I hope you enjoy my glasses (although it's a very weak prescription, and they are pretty feminine frames.) There's some lip balm, two pens, and a bunch of receipts. You're welcome to those too. Try to cash either of those checks, though, and I will nail your butt to the proverbial wall.

By the way, the nice elderly lady at the Customer Service desk is totally on to you. She told me you looked guilty.

Have a nice day!

Me

Bet you're jealous

2008-09-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

Want to know what we spent on gas this month?

$84.53

And since we pre-paid for two annual public transit passes last month, we didn't have the usual $40 or so in transit fares.

Can someone just shoot me now?

2008-09-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

Trea had her first dance class tonight. She's been begging for months to dance; I called around to some studios, but it seemed ridiculous to spend $35-40 a month, pay a registration fee, a costume fee, a recital fee, and buy her a bunch of dance clothes. She's three. She changes her mind a lot. I'm not making an investment until I'm sure she really likes it.

So, I found a class in our community learning catalog. Six weeks for $39, no performance, no special clothes. The class description was "basic creative dance steps in a fun, positive, and nurturing environment" and stated that children would learn "creative skills of expression." Excellent. I took dance at Trea's age, and I learned "I'm a little Teapot" and danced around with a scarf. I loved it. She can try it and if she hates it, no big deal.

I told Trea in the morning that we were going to dance class that afternoon. She asked every half hour after that, if it was time for her class. She told everyone who sat by us on the bus, TRAX, and the bus again that she was going to dance class. They were all thrilled to hear it (actually, everyone was very nice to her.) She kept talking about dancing with a boy, and how she HAD to wear a skirt, not pants, because the boys wanted to see her dance in a skirt (I really don't know where that came from, but I kept telling her that her class might be all girls, and she kept insisting that there would be a boy there for her to dance with. Whatever.)

So. We arrive at the high school, and the teacher starts talking. First, it's ten weeks instead of six; oops! Not that big of a deal, except that we were also thinking of doing swim lessons down the line, and her cousin wants to take with her, and I don't want a bunch of classes dictating our lives. But okay. Then, there IS a performance. Ugh. Don't want to deal with that. No reason, I just don't. Then, all the other little girls showed up in little pink leotards. Some even had tights and shoes and little skirts. Some of them had tights but no shoes, which is a bad, bad combo with a wooden dance floor. Trea wanted to wear her black tulle skirt with sequins on it; you're probably wondering why she has such a skirt. It was a gift from Ariana, my old roommate, who whips stuff like this out in her spare time. It was intended for dress-up, and has been frequently used for that purpose. Today it was also used for dance. I paired it with a green t-shirt. I talked her into forgoing the matching cape. I thought she looked cute, but she, um, stood out amidst the sea of pale pink.

Then the class starts. The teacher spends several minutes teaching them first position. And you can tell she really thinks they need to know this, because she keeps drilling it. "What position is this? Remember? It's FIRST POSITION. Can you say that? FIRST POSITION. " She even went around and corrected them. They are THREE. Then she moved on to plies (where's my little accent mark?) and simple movements. She even had them do leaping over a piece of paper on the floor. Some of them can barely hop; running and leaping is a bit much to ask, you know?

Fifteen minutes into the class, a little boy and his mom walk in. Trea had to call out to me, "Mama! Look, it's a boy! This is a boy!"

Yes, sweetheart, I know.

The intro to ballet was followed by a trip to the water fountain, because you know 3 year olds can't last an hour without a drink. The teacher lined them all up, placed their hands on the kid in front of them, and made train noises as they inched towards the door. They almost made it before one little girl slipped and tripped up three girls behind her, and they all came to a halt. A total train wreck. I secretly think the teacher was killing time. I would too.

You know the worst part of it? The music. Would YOU choose the theme from St. Elsewhere for a class for 3-4 year olds? Would you choose it for anything? NO!

I don't get where the fun and creative part of it is. After class I asked the teacher if this was a typical class, and she said it was. I expressed my concerns about it being so structured, and she said, "This is what I do."

Thanks for the reassurance. I don't think you have any clue how to teach preschoolers, by the way.

The teacher approached all the parents after class and admitted that the class was overly full, there were 15 kids and that was too many, and she needed some to switch to Thursday. I obviously can't switch, but I might drop.

Only Trea LOVED it.

Dang it.

Two citizens down and 1,209,480,000 to go

2008-09-17T10:03:00.000-07:00

We have no more openings at my school. Sorry, I know so many of you were eager to work there - but the positions have all been filled. We now have M, a BYU grad who majored in Spanish and has a TESOL cert from the U; I like her, though I wish she'd stop snickering when she hears me attempt Spanish. I know it's probably hard NOT to laugh, but some appreciation of how difficult it is would be appreciated. We also have A, who used to be a tutor for our school way back in the day, and liked it so much she lived in three different countries as an ESL teacher before coming back to the U.S. for her master's. She's partway through a Ph.D program. A little intimidating, all that education, but she's very nice and not at all more-educated-than-thou. I like her.

Rounding out the staff is our lone representative of the male gender, R. R is Iranian by birth and speaks Farsi, Arabic and a little Turkish. He has a master's degree and oodles of experience. He also has a smile reminiscent of Vizzini in "The Princess Bride," the one he's wearing right before he keels over dead. He squints his eyes and smiles, quite literally, ear to ear and reveals both top and bottom teeth. Fortunately he has fine teeth, if Phineas went around smiling like that I might be ill. Phineas is not overly cheery, though, so no worries. (Speaking of Phineas, he's not really my tutor anymore, as B "borrowed" him for one of her students. I think she thinks she is going to give him back - she hasn't put him on her matching sheet and keeps asking me if it's ok for her to use him. As far as I'm concerned, he's not mine anymore - I don't have students for him. He really belongs to her. But I don't think she wants permanent custody. Hmmm.) Back to R - he's really very nice, I think he just tries too hard. You tell him, "This is the copy machine" and he responds "That's great! Fantastic!" So he's a little over-the-top but infinitely preferable to the candidate who flamed out after only one night, totally unable to do the job, and besides that her personality had us all wondering if perhaps she had taken some Valium by mistake.

Also, FANTASTIC news, another one of my students passed her citizenship test yesterday. This is proof that miracles really do happen. I really wonder if it was just pity on the part of the examining officer - her spoken English is marginal, her written English is worse, and she has a horrible time remembering facts. She claims to have dementia but we don't have it documented. She's been with the school five years though, and never made a level gain, so certainly SOMETHING is going on. At any rate she's got her citizenship now, and I am crazy happy for her. I didn't really want to go to work yesterday - I've got a cold, Adia's got a cold, I was tired and congested and achy - but that made my day.

Also, my Somalian student passed HIS citizenship test! I didn't even know he was studying for it. He was super excited yesterday, telling me about his swearing in date, and how he thought coming to class was helping him because he was able to read the test manual on his own. He said he studied all weekend for it. I also asked him if his wife was interested in coming to school. He said yes, but they have two young children and didn't know what to do with them if they both studied. I told him there were a couple of options, and we should at least get her application in and on the wait list for babysitting. He seemed surprised that we provided babysitting, and also really excited. It sounds like she would like to come. I know firsthand how lonely it can be in a foreign country, and I wasn't even home with kids all day. I think there's a community here of Somalians but if we could offer her a little change of pace, and a chance to improve her English, that would be awesome.

The depressing thing is, our waiting list is so freaking long right now. It was 165 students last I checked, and I think we did 5 or 6 intakes last night alone. It's discouraging to feel like we double our capacity and still not serve everyone. I hate telling applicants about the waiting list - they always look sad and discouraged. Blah.

Funny thing that happened last night. . . A is learning to do intakes, and I was observing. M wandered over to chat. It wasn't a good time, really, because we were about to start the intake, but she stayed to watch. Only she must not have realized that we were doing an intake, or what that is, because as soon as A asked a question the applicant couldn't answer, M translated! It wasn't that big of deal - the student was very basic and we knew that - but we had to explain to M that she couldn't translate what is essentially a placement test. It was funny.

More about the girls tomorrow.

And they didn't even make me go through customs!

2008-09-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

In an effort to help Kate recruit teachers to fill all the empty slots at our school, I contacted an old instructor (who remembered me, yeah!) and asked her to send the job announcement to students and new graduates who fit the requirements. She was happy to help. Yesterday, I received an application - which right there tells you that she didn't read very carefully, because the instructions clearly indicated that inquiries and application materials were to be sent to Kate.

In her cover letter, she stated that she is majoring in Geography/Global Studies, with minors in TESOL and International Development. Ok, so far so good. Then she wrote, "I have studied abroad in Hawaii, Country A, Country B, and Foreign City A."

A geography major is claims to have studied abroad in Hawaii. Heck no.

My First Political Post

2008-09-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

I just watched Barack Obama accept the nomination (I know, I'm late, I was at work when it happened and I forgot to record it on the DVR). He made big promises - to get out of Iraq, responsibly; to create five million new jobs; to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans; to end dependence on foreign oil in ten years; to invest 150 million dollars over ten years in clean energy. He addressed healthcare, education, the environment, and the economy. He was inspirational. He looked like a president, someone who could go abroad and not embarass my country. He sounded educated, but not entitled.

I don't know if he can deliver on everything he has promised. It sounds impossible: deliver everything you want, and at a lower price. It sounds too good to be true.

But I have to vote for him. I don't have a choice. McCain is too aggressive in foreign policy. He is too invested in the "trickle-down economics" idea to change. He doesn't know how many houses he owns. He is not the man I want to be president of my country.

So I'm taking a chance on Obama. It's like all the TV shows and movies where they're stuck on an island, and they can stay on the island and be safe, but miserable, until the coconuts run out or the pirates/Others/wild animals get them, or they can make a break for it. They can build a raft and strike out for the ocean, and they might die but it's better than being stuck on the island and doing nothing. Obama is the big gamble. Just like the escape in Castaway, where he plans as best he can, choosing the best time of year and the right tide, and builds the best raft possible, and then goes for broke. Because dying out on the ocean, and knowing you tried, is better than the safety and misery of the island.

In the movie, he gets rescued (although it's not exactly a happy ending). I don't need to be "rescued" but I need to take this chance, so I can tell my kids I tried, I had faith, I took risks.

(I know it's not a great analogy, but it's better than the first one I thought of, where I was mentally comparing voting to ordering in a restaurant, and McCain was the entree you know you can tolerate but don't love, and Obama is the exotic dish that looks great but might be awful. Cause, you know, somebody would be offended by that, and also, eating something so-so for four years would be better than eating something you hated for four years so it kind of comes out in McCain's favor, that one).

Election Day is Trea's fourth birthday. I didn't vote in the last one (I was busy giving birth). I will vote in this one.

Where did that come from?

2008-08-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

My nieces (aka babysitters extradanoire) have gone back to school *sob*. My sister-in-law (their mother) has graciously agreed to watch my kids from the time I leave for work until one of her girls can get home and take over. I think this is partially motivated by a desire to help me out, and partially motivated by the fact that both girls a) owe her money and b) are less likely to borrow even more money in the future if they have a steady income. Enter me and my kids.

So, I loaded the kids up the car yesterday - it's only across the street, but it seemed silly to walk over, drop off the kids, and walk back to get my car - and as I turned the key I noticed the car was nearly on empty.

Me: Oh dang it, the car needs gas.
Trea: Mommy, are you talking to yourself?
Me: Yes.
Trea: You really need to talk to someone about that talking.

What the heck?

Then, I come from work, and John tells me that he noticed a mark on Trea's leg. He asked her where she got it.

Trea: Do you want to know how it happened?
John: Yes.
Trea: Once a upon a time, me and mommy and Adia went shopping. And Adia kicked me. That's how it happened.

Except we haven't been shopping, of late, and Adia (teeny tiny thing that she is) probably couldn't leave a mark even if she did kick Trea.

Work is looking better. The capable, qualified, very nice person Kate hired to work on Mon/Wed has agreed to also work on Tues/Thurs, which means we won't have a gap when my coworker retires at the end of this week. The search is on for a replacement for the girl going to grad school. Kate has received many resumes, and three of them are actually qualified. Woo-hoo!

Drama Drama Drama

2008-08-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

As I may have mentioned before, we have three teachers leaving the school. Kate, so far, has hired one replacement. It's not like she's not trying to hire replacements, it's just not that easy. Apparently there is a dearth of qualified ESL teachers who want to work 17 hours a week, some of it at night, and deal with volunteers not showing, students not showing, never having as much money as we'd like, etc. Go figure. Kate actually hired a teacher who backed out, then hired another teacher who didn't work out for reasons I will not go into. Then, another teacher gave her two-week notice last night. I've been at my job for almost four months, and in a few weeks I will be the third most-senior staff member (including the director) out of a staff of seven. That's a little nuts.

I'm trying to convince Kate that this is a great opportunity, that the experience she's losing in her staff will be compensated for by the enthusiasm of newly hired - and probably newly graduated - teachers. So far it's not working.

On a separate note, I am outraged with the Criminal Justice system. One of my students is studying Civics (i.e.. preparing for the Citizenship test) as a condition of her probation. I called her PO today to make sure we were meeting the requirements, because she was told to take the class until it was finished. And they referred her to us, an open-entry, open-exit program (therefore, no start, and no finish). Her PO basically told me that he's not sure what the judge wanted, exactly; that she should attend until she's off probation (umm, ok, I don't know what she did but couldn't that be a realllly long time?) and that the judge ordered the class because he saw her immigration status and figured it couldn't hurt. WTH? I don't know her immigration status but I'm thinking she's probably legal or they'd be threatening deportation. So, even though she's (presumably) legal, he saw the brown skin and figured she needed educating? Give me a break. This is ridiculous. I wish I could find out exactly what she did, because she seems very nice and meek and her attendance has been good. I just don't see the lawbreaker.

Rant over.

Attention, London 2012 Olympics

2008-08-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

We have a suggestion for you.

Olympic fencing would be so much more interesting, John says the other night, if it weren't just straight back-and-forth movement in a confined area. So I started thinking, why don't they hold Olympic fencing competitions on movie sets? The qualifying rounds should be held in the room where Inigo Montoya killed the six-fingered count in "The Princess Bride." Semi-finals, in the cave where Captain Jack Sparrow killed Captain Barbosa in the first "Pirates of the Caribean." Medal rounds will take place at the tops of the Cliffs of Insanity.

Who wouldn't want to watch that? Extra points awarded for witty repartee.

Good things all around

2008-08-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

I had a new tutor start on Thursday night. She is wonderful. First off, she showed up, on time. Already she is ahead of the tutor who was supposed to start on Tuesday night, and failed to show (and that tutor is also a member of the board, so that makes things. . . awkward). Second, this new tutor, M., is engaging and flexible (um, hey, I know it's your first night, but could you take two extra students? Really? Thanks!). Third (and this is the absolute icing on the cake) she's a speech pathologist. She is exceptionally skilled at teaching people to make sounds they don't know how to make, thereby improving their pronunciation and allowing them to be understood. Unbelievably useful when you're teaching ESL. I'm hoping to pick up some tips from watching her and talking to her.

Also, one of my students passed her citizenship test on Thursday. It was her second attempt, so if she'd failed, she'd have to start all over. I'm so, so, so happy for her. She's so sweet and really wanted this. I got several huge hugs and a couple of kisses on the cheek from her on Thursday night. If I can just get my other student, who retakes the test in three weeks, to pass, I won't ask for any more miracles this year.

Finally . . . happy birthday Dad! I love you!

Also. . .

2008-07-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that we sold the old washer & dryer for $50 to one of those places that refurbishes/repairs them. So that money counts as a discount on the new one, sort of.

Work

2008-07-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

We do a lot of testing at work. We test students when they first enter our program, to find out what level they are and group them with other students at similar levels. Then we test them every sixty hours to measure their progress. Some students get really nervous about the testing but most take it in stride.

Some of our students have advanced to the point where the test we use doesn't really measure their progress, since it's designed for basic students. For these more advanced students, Kate has started offering the TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education). This is a test commonly used in adult education programs for native speakers. Students are tested in reading and math, and given a score and a grade equivalent. If they get a grade equivalent of 4.5, that's halfway through fourth grade. A 6.1 is the beginning of sixth grade. I'm not sure exactly how they decide what is normal for each grade but I'm assuming it's an average of some kind.

So, several of my students took this test. They all got respectable scores, particularly since none of them had much of a chance to go to school. One student blew us away. She scored a 12.9 in math! And she only went to elementary school in her native Mexico. She told me she gets really frustrated with her co-workers at the restaurant because they are always using calculators for the simplest things. Um, ok, not everyone has a calculator in their head. It makes me wonder what she would have done, had the opportunity been there for her to go to college. I don't think she's unhappy, she seems pretty content with her life, but it makes me wonder all the same.

In other news. . . we have major staff turnover lately. Seventy-one percent, to be exact. That's in the last year, but we have THREE open positions right now, out of a staff of seven. We're trying to figure out why. Kate's been in charge for three years, so I doubt it's her (although she did say that maybe people were just holding out for her to loosen up, and had finally given up hope). Emilie's only been around for a six months or so; I've been around for three. Not sure who to pin this one on. It was kind of fun, though, to throw out that 71% as often as I could throughout the night and watch Kate panic a little each time. Have I mentioned that I'm not very nice?

I have two new tutors this week. I have at least one student scheduled to start next week, and I may be adding as many as five more (I'm hoping to start a new group).

I need to figure out how to prepare students for the citizenship test better. If anyone out there has ever taken the citizenship test, please tell me what helped you the most!

I need to blog more

2008-07-25T21:23:00.001-07:00

Cause I always have a lot of random, unrelated thoughts, and it would really be better if I did a lot of short, frequent posts instead of long rambling ones. Need to work on that.

So. A few months ago, when we moved into this apartment, we bought a used washer/dryer. Just a cheap set. Honestly, I didn't really think too hard about this one, because it was the only set in our price range available when we were moving, and I just went with it. In the future I will never buy a used washer/dryer set from a woman who has five boys.

After getting it into the apartment, and really looking closely at it, it had this gunk on the outside of the tub. And to clean it really well, I'd have to take it apart. So I did. And this is what it looked like:

That stuff all over the inside of it? Yeah, still don't know what it was, but my father-in-law's guess is crank grease. It took a whole lot of 409 and a few scrubbing sponges, but I got it clean. It's a good thing I'm not pregnant, I never would have been able to do it.

After I finished, it looked like this:

So we used it. And both the washer and dryer worked fine, though they were loud and inefficient, until a few weeks ago. I went to put some clothes in the dryer and it wouldn't start. We did some research, and it was going to cost more to fix it than we paid for it. Hmmm.

And in walked Temptation, in the form of Home Depot.

They were having a sale, and a credit card promotion. Between the two, we saved about $200. Plus, with rebates from the gas company, the electric company, and the manufacturer, we saved another $200. And got a Home Depot gift card for $50 and free delivery. Plus, the new washer is Energy Star rated, and the dryer is sooo efficient. It can dry a load of clothes in 40 minutes on medium instead of 80 minutes on high. Medium, people! And there's a tax rebate for buying energy-efficient appliances.

I am excellent at justification and rationalization, can't you tell?

They are so cool though. So shiny and new, and there are so many options! I can wash a small load on delicate with cool/cold water with an extra rinse and an extended tumble. Laundry is (almost) fun.

Wow, I sound like SUCH a housewife. That's enough of that.

Sooooo. . . more later. Not housewife stuff either.

Things I am way too excited about

2008-07-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

1) The Fourth of July! We're going to a pancake breakfast, complete with a "parade" - as in, all the neighborhood kids biking, triking, and walking around dazed. To be followed by cheeseburgers, swimming, and fireworks, the first time we've actually planned ahead since we got married.

2) Bus passes. I work for a charter school and I can get ANNUAL bus passes for $65. They are coming in August, and we plan to use them a lot. If gas continues to climb, we can use them even more.

3) The community garden. John found out that the vacant lot behind our neighborhood library is a community garden. They have community lots with assigned pick days. All the produce you want to pick for free! And it's organic! They also accept compost contributions. I feel so guilty throwing out all the peels and leftover bits of fruit and veggies. It's all going to the community compost now, and that makes me feel so good.

4) The 13 x 9 inch pans I finally went and bought. Already this week we've had pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Next: Baked Oatmeal. Looks delicious, and healthy.

What small things are you ridiculously excited about?

And you thought Primary was boring

2008-06-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

I was getting Trea dressed the other day, and suddenly she starts singing.

Trea (singing): We will, we will, ROCK YOU!
Me: Where did you learn that? (just curious about where my 3 year old is learning Queen.)
Trea: My Primary class. (For you non-LDS people . . . Primary is what we call the kids' Sunday School. I have no idea why Queen would come up in her Primary class).

Tuesday I went into work, and my student Marcos was talking with Dorothea. Dorothea told me that Marcos had misunderstood the certificate he'd received for having 96% attendance; he'd received it at the graduation ceremony, and thought that he had to leave the school. He was so upset he admitted he'd cried on the way home. Ahhh. Note to self: must work on Marcos' literacy skills so he can read the difference between "graduation" and "attendance".

Dorothea also announced on Tuesday that she's retiring. She's worked there for 37 years, since the program started. When I met her, I thought she was in her early sixties. Then I talked to her some more, and found out that she'd worked for the school system for a number of years before coming to our school. So then I thought she might be in her late sixties or even early seventies. Turns out, she's 81! You would never know it to talk to her. She's not retiring for a few months though, and after that she said she'd come back to tutor.

Thursday we had a school potluck picnic. Mark brought his big gas grill and grilled hot dogs, Kate and I bought lots of cheapo prizes at the dollar store for BINGO prizes (paisley picture frame, anyone?), and we had a wide variety of dishes. School potlucks are a blast, we get everything from VERY authentic ethnic (Tibetan, Mexican, etc.) to people who stop by Little Caesar's and pick up a couple of pizzas. I finally got to meet some of my students' families, and we got to just relax and shoot the breeze. Leticia was much more comfortable laughing at my horrible Spanish outside of the classroom setting :). Phurbu made Tibetan mo-mos especially for me.

After the BINGO and clothespin tag, Emilie and Kate started dancing. Emilie is teaching Kate to Latin dance. It was fun to watch Emilie; she's got some moves. And some of our students are amazing. They looked incapable of missing a beat, like it was just as natural to them as walking. Kate was fun to watch as well, but for different reasons.

Now we have two weeks to clean our desks, organize our files, and plan lessons for next year.

Graduation Day

2008-06-20T09:16:00.001-07:00

Last night was Graduation. You can't really "graduate" - we don't offer a diploma - but we have a five-year limit on providing services to any one student; so, instead of just telling students to leave, they "graduate." Sounds much better.

Last night, there should have been four students graduating. One of them was my student Victor. He actually showed up for the first time in several weeks, but when he realized it was graduation - and he'd be called upon to stand up in front of a crowd - he split. He did tell me how much the school had helped him. He told me that when he started, he could hardly speak a word of English. He's made amazing progress - he's one of our highest level students.

Ricardo technically should have graduated last night, but he drives the "bus" - the little van that picks up some of our students who live nearby, and don't have transportation. Finding someone who will reliably come to work a split shift two nights a week isn't easy. Rather than tackle the huge task of replacing him, Kate offered to let him stay. Lucky for us he agreed to hang on for a while.

So, that left Antonio (the husband of my student Gloria) and Eugenio. Antonio graduated first. His tutor must have been really nervous - he kept calling him Ernesto. Then he he started calling him Antonio, and mentioned that he had "two great kids" (ummm, he has three kids. Are you saying only two of them are great??). Antonio kept looking at him like he had two heads.

Then, it was Eugenio's turn. He's been Kate's student the entire five years he's been at school, so she shared five things she loves about Eugenio. Then Eugenio gave the most amazing speech. He'd written it himself, memorized it, and he delivered it perfectly. His pronunciation is incredible. He stood there, dressed in a shirt and tie for the occasion, and talked about "our beloved school," and how it was a lot of work to get "this document," (his certificate that Kate printed off a couple of hours before), and just in general about working hard. Eugenio was 58 years old when he started, and spoke no English. He now tests at a level 4. He doesn't have a car, but his attendance over the past year has been 98%. He'll walk, bike, ride the school bus, ride the public bus - whatever it takes to get to school. His motivation is just amazing. I have such admiration for what my students are doing - starting life over in a new country, learning a new language. I had a small taste of that and I know it's hard.

We're almost done with the school-year; we'll have a two-week break, and restart classes in mid-July. We've got a bunch of new students to place. I'm kinda looking forward to having a bunch of new students. Fresh faces, who don't have anyone to compare me to.

Meme

2008-06-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Kate tagged me on Thursday. I know, some of you are thinking, "when I tagged you, it took you freakin' weeks to get around to it!" I know. But Kate's my boss. So there. I also think this meme (or some form of it) may already be on here, but what the hey.

The rules:

1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning.

2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.

3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.

4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

What were you doing five years ago?

June 2003. . .actually a relatively quiet time in my life. I'd been married about 8 months. I was working as a test development coordinator for an online university; I learned more about project management and test development than I ever thought there was to know. I also took an online class.

What are five things on your to-do list for today?

1. Go to the Farmer's Market
2. Go the Chalk Art Festival at the Gateway.
3. Clean out the car!
4. Go shopping.
5. Get my kids to bed before 9:30! (A challenge lately)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

1. Any kind of chocolate. . .but the darker the better
2. Guacamole and chips
3. Ranch dip (especially my homemade stuff) and veggies
4. Chocolate chip cookies
5. Baked stuff, like brownies and pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. Can you tell I'm not a salty snack kind of person? I don't crave potato chips. Just sugar.

What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

1. Travel the world. Anywhere and everywhere. Maybe not Irag, right now, but just about anywhere else.
2. Go back to Cambodia and do a huge research project to document the Pol Pot regime. It's part of the history of that country, and they don't have the resources to really deal with it. Donate money to Tuol Sleng. Donate lots of money to bring teachers, dentists, doctors and nurses to Cambodia to teach Cambodian university students.
3. Buy an enviromentally-friendly house. Paint all the walls.
4. Buy John a Lexus for Christmas, with a big bow on it (we always joke about those commercials; who buys their spouse a car for Christmas? We don't spend $20 without knowing what budget category it fits into, and our "personal" money is nowhere near enough to buy a Lexus. Ever.)
5. Hire a housecleaning service. Love a clean house, don't care for the cleaning.

What are five of your bad habits?

1. TV. Such a waste of time. (Did you see So You Think You Can Dance? Joshua is so graceful! Will is so talented! Susie would never be allowed to teach my kids!
2. Staying up way too late.
3. Worrying.
4. Eating chocolate.
5. Letting the house get cluttered.

What are five places you have lived?

1. Salt Lake City, Utah
2. Omaha, Nebraska
3. Khon Kaen, Thailand
4. Chiang Mai, Thailand
5. Severna Park, Maryland

What are five jobs you've had?

1. Waittress
2. Test Development Coordinator
3. English as a foreign language teacher
4. Courier
5. House cleaner

Five people I tag: I think most of the people I know have done this already. If you haven't, and you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

Sorry, Miss Brady!

2008-06-10T21:57:00.001-07:00

I keep trying to organize my posts around themes. My junior year of high school, my teacher, Miss Brady, drilled in the fundamentals of good writing. I keep trying to write these well-planned posts with controlling ideas and supporting details. I wonder if that's part of being a former English major, or part of who I am? What came first, the OCD-ish tendencies in my writing or the BA?

Anyway.

I have a tutor - we'll call him Phineas. He tutors at a table set up on the landing in the stairwell at the far end of the building. I never thought I would take to avoiding a stairwell because of one person's body odor, but I have. You can smell him from either floor. I try to keep conversations with him short, and stand upwind. I don't know how his student does it. She must really want to pass her citizenship test!

Went to Wal-mart the other day and tried to buy pajamas for Adia. But all of them had these little appliques on the chest; they were stiff and scratchy on the inside. For real, people! These are kids' pajamas! Soft, not stiff, and definitely not scratchy!

I also had an interesting conversation with a student a couple weeks ago. Somehow the topic of living arrangements came up, and I mentioned that we hope to buy a house in a few years. He was surprised, and made a comment along the lines of, "I don't know what it is, maybe I work hard or something, but you were born in this country and don't have a house, but I have a house."

He's really very nice, but I didn't especially appreciate the implication that I don't work hard (the fact that I am a total slacker notwithstanding). I wanted to point out that they don't issue the deed to a house along with a birth certificate, but I refrained. I've had other students react this way as well. It's a little funny - I thought I left the "the streets are paved with gold" idealistic picture of America behind when I left Thailand. I could understand it there. But a lot of my students seem to think that being a citizen here erases all obstacles. I wish, for their sakes, that learning English and becoming a citizen would be the key to wealth and happiness and all of your dreams coming true. It's not. Sorry about that.

So. Kids are doing great. Trea is starting to understand so many new concepts - the other day she told me she couldn't eat one more bite, because she'd already eaten one bite and if she ate one more that would be two bites. Basic addition! She's a genius. She has a very vivid imagination. It takes some serious work to keep up with where her mind goes.

Adia now says more, down, no, and bird. Ok, she says more than that, but those are the ones I can understand.

Sorry about the disjointedness, Miss Brady. It can't all be perfect.

A really trite, uncreative post. . .but there you go

2008-05-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

Wanna know how much we've spent on car repairs this month?

$4,000. Give or take a few bucks. And it still needs a muffler!

If all of the repairs had happened at once, we probably would have chucked the car and bought a 'new' one. As it happened, they came a few at a time (or at least were discovered a few at a time). The kicker was when the compressor of the air conditioning BLEW UP and shot shrapnel throughout the air conditioning system, causing the whole thing to need to be replaced. Original quote? $2600. We were lucky, we got a deal on parts and labor (long story) and paid less than $2100 for the air conditioning and the power steering rack to be replaced.

The AC's cold, now, too.

And you know, (this is the trite part), it's easy to be bummed about spending all that money on a freakin' car. But then I go to work, and a) I'm so so so glad that I have a job I like, that is actually in the field I studied, and is flexible/part-time so I can still be with my kids a lot and b) I talk to my students. Like E., who spent the eight years when she should have been in middle school and high school in a refugee camp. You know what I did from ages 10-18? Plays, field trips, marching band, dates, dances, etc. I worried about my grades and my friends, and boys. I did not worry about whether I'd be able to get an education or be with my family.

And it's unlikely she'll ever go back to her country, where her mother still lives. Burma doesn't really welcome you back when you leave as a refugee. Her brother and sister are still in the refugee camp in Thailand, and she could technically go see them, I suppose, if she could ever save up the $1,000 plane ticket on her husband's off-and-on income.

Or there's A., who is from Somalia; he's never been to school in his life. He has four little kids, and when you ask him what he likes about living here, he says "there's peace, and a future."

So many of my students left their countries under such hard circumstances. A couple of my students have passed their citizenship tests in the last few weeks, and they are so excited. I love the picture of my student M., who's in her sixties, and the last member of her family to pass her test. She's clutching an American flag, and holding on for dear life.

So I think I need to count my blessings, and not complain about the dang car!

Edited to add: This morning John walked out to go to work, and the car stereo's gone. I'd say we've hit the trifecta of car disasters, but I worry that the car gods are lumping the repairs together and counting us two for three. . .we'd be sure to get into a huge accident.

At least we're not going into debt!

Super busy

2008-05-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts, we've had a lot going on. The new job is going well, I think. I really enjoy using my education and the students and tutors are really cool. I have a student from Burma, she's been in the U.S. a couple of years I think. She spent eight years in Thai refugee camps and speaks a little Thai. We had a short (like two sentence) exchange in Thai, that's about maxing out my abilities! Her mom lost her roof in the cyclone but is otherwise OK.

My parents were here last week and took some pictures of my kids with their awesome camera. How cute are these girls?

I am now employed

2008-04-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

I decided to take the job. I can always quit if it doesn't work out. I'm excited but a little nervous too. This is the first job I've been hired for where I have doubts about my ability to do it. But that's how you grow, right? Right.

My sister-in-law is probably going to take the baby girl I've been babysitting part-time. She lives nearby and wanted another part-time child to watch, so hopefully that will work well.

I hope this works!

Aack!

2008-04-21T22:42:00.001-07:00

I've been offered the job!!! What the heck do I do now? I have to make a decision in less than 24 hours. . .

Also, Sunday I was called as Ward Employment Specialist. I have a list of four people who need help getting jobs ASAP, and all of them are disabled, without transportation, have anger management issues, or all three.

Help!

Should I or shouldn't I. . .

2008-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

In January, I saw a posting on craigslist for the perfect job for me. Part-time, organizing lesson plans for volunteers teaching ESL to refugees and immigrants. It paid reasonably well, and many of the hours were flexible (eight were set, but in the evening). It would be a great professional experience. I applied and interviewed, but didn't get it.

Tonight the woman I interviewed with emailed me and asked if I wanted to be considered for an identical position that is currently open.

I kind of want it. I kind of don't. I have two kids I babysit part-time, different families. One of them I could probably keep, but the other I couldn't, and I know they were having a hard time finding someone. I know they would understand but I would still feel bad.

We don't *need* the money, but there are always things it could be used for. Downpayment on a house, for one.

It's time away from my kids, but not a lot, and it would be very stimulating/challenging/rewarding for me.

On the other hand, we really don't know what John's work schedule is going to be like. He just got assigned e.bay as a client, and he could be very very busy. Do we really need the stress of me trying to work?

I don't know what to do!!!!

You know, I probably won't be offered the job (I know when I interviewed, I was told they really wanted someone with a master's degree. . . makes it easier to get grants) and then I won't have to worry about it anyway.

Good news and bad news

2008-04-15T14:11:00.000-07:00

The good news is it's April 15th, and tax season is over. My husband's boss has told them to leave early the rest of the week. Friday she is taking them to lunch and a movie, on company time.

The bad news is, it's April 15th and it's freakin' SNOWING outside!

In other news, my sister Ashley came over the other day and took my kids outside for over two hours while I cleaned my house. My house got clean, I got a break from hearing "MOM!" every five minutes, and my kids got fresh air and exercise. Thanks Ashley! You're awesome!

I hate tax season

2008-04-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

John worked almost 15 hours yesterday.

I can't wait until April 15th!

Adia the Chatterbox

2008-04-03T14:19:00.000-07:00

Adia has started talking, and is picking up words at an amazing rate. So far, she says:

Grandpa (said more like "anpa" but only to Grandpa Jeffery, so we know it's him)
Mama
Dada
uh-oh (especially when something drops. I'm glad she says this since it's vastly preferable to her repeating some of the other things I say when I drop something)
thank you (or, more accurately, dank you)
bye-bye (she waves too)

and. . .

Dora. Every. Time. the theme music comes on.

She's in the 60th percentile for height and not even on the charts for weight. So much for breastmilk being so calorie dense! We are "powerpacking" her diet now, and hopefully that will help her put on some pounds. The doctor's not worried, and she is very healthy and obviously developing well and not malnourished . . . we'd just like to see a bit more meat on her bones.

They don't make magic wands like they used to. . .

2008-04-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

Trea got a magic wand for Easter. It's just a purple plastic stick with a stuffed fabric heart on the end and a couple of ribbons; I think it was around $2 at Wal-Mart. She was SOOO excited to see it though. She ran in the kitchen and I heard this:

"Abre!"
Pause.

"This magic wand don't work. It's broken."

Well, Trea, it could be that you get what you pay for, or maybe the wand doesn't take commands in Spanish. It hasn't stopped her from casting spells on us so I guess it's ok.

Happy Birthdays!

2008-03-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday today to the love of my life!

And happy belated birthday to Adia, who turned a year old yesterday. Time flies.

Dear Adia,

You turned a year old yesterday. It's been 367 days (it's a Leap Year) since you were born on the floor of a hospital in northeastern Thailand, sixteen days past due. Thinking about the time that's past, quantifying it, started me thinking about numbers. About how I tried to quantify the changes you'd bring to our family.

When I found out you would be joining us, I was shocked. Happy, but shocked. Over the following months I thought a lot about the impact you'd have on our family. I'd have two kids. My time would be divided between the two of you, plus John. The money for clothes and toys and other child items would be doubled - or, more likely, halved, and we'd make it work. Your sister would have half as much of the attention that she was used to. You would have half as much attention as she'd had as a baby. We'd have to subtract some of the time needed to care for a newborn from her usual allottment of play time with mom and dad. I often wondered how I was possibly going to make this work, this dividing and subtracting and halving and dividing again. . .

The thing is, numbers don't work well for defining human relationships. I was wrong about having half as much time for myself - it's even less than that! And I forgot to take into account how our love as a family would multiply with you here to share it. I didn't realize that my love for Trea would grow so much by watching her be a big sister to you. She loves and protects you, and she can do no wrong in your eyes. Your dad adores both his girls, and his girls return the favor. You haven't subtracted from anything, only added to the joy and fun we have as a family. We grow together, everyday, and it works.

Turns out I was right about math in high school - it has nothing to do with real life. Thanks for being a part of our family, Adia. We love you.

Back at last

2008-03-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

So, after yet another long hiatus, a post! I'm getting pretty bad about updating this thing. In my defense, we were experiencing some technical difficulties - our laptop went on the fritz. But, we now have a desktop (thanks to John's massive amounts of overtime) so hopefully I can get back to posting on a somewhat regular basis.

We've also moved and are now living in an apartment in Salt Lake. It's actually the same apartment we lived in last time we lived in Salt Lake, and there are still some people we know (or at least recognize) in the complex. We looked all over Salt Lake but decided this is still the best deal for us. It's got a play area, and a pool, plus it's close enough to the bus line for John to take public transportation to work a couple days a week. It's SOOOO nice to have a car two or three days a week and be able to get errands done. Very very cool.

We're settling in. We're very happy with John's job, and the apartment. It feels good to be home.

And now for a big announcement

2008-01-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

John has a job.

He was actually offered this job almost a week ago, but he didn't get around to posting about it until last night, and I didn't want to steal his thunder. He'll be working for Ernst & Young as a Client Support Specialist. I'm not sure what it is he'll be doing exactly, but he gets to work with the UK and U.S. branches (divisions?) of Yahoo!, as well as Ernst & Young India. It'll be great experience. They are a huge company so there is tons of opportunity, and they are very invested in their employees. The benefits are awesome. It's a better fit for us than we ever hoped to find.

And, since this is my blog and I get to brag, I just want to say that John totally nailed the interview. He researched the company and practiced interviewing, and he looked really hot. . .uh, I mean, professional in his new suit. I was and am really proud of him.

So, now the hunt is on for an apartment. And furniture. And possibly a part-time job for me, but only if I can find something perfect. Perfect meaning flexible, interesting, reasonably well-paid, and either from home or max of 15 hours a week. Even from home I don't want to work more than 20. We'll see if I can find a teaching position somewhere in the fall, perhaps.

Sorry it took so long, Shawn

2008-01-27T14:19:00.000-08:00

A. The Rules are posted at the beginning

B. Each player answers about themselves.

C. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people, posts their names, and goes to their blogs letting them know they've been tagged.

5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago

1. Finishing my last semester of high school

2. Competing in Indoor Guard

3. Picking a college

4. Stressing out about the huge decisions I needed to make

5. Taking AP Psych, AP English, and some fluff classes :)

5 Things On My To-Do List Today

1. Go to church (Adia's sick, didn't go)

2. Make rolls (didn't have enough flour, didn't do that)

3. Hang out with family (done)

4. Play with my kids (done)

5. Blog (almost done)

5 Snacks I Enjoy

1. Guacamole with chips

2. Chocolate chip cookies

3. Pumpkin bread with cream cheese

4. Toast

5. Brownies

5 Things I'd Do if I Were a Billionaire

1. Buy a house for everyone in my family

2. Take my whole family to Thailand

3. Donate a bunch of money to charities I believe in

4. Travel a lot.

5. Go back to school and take tons of classes just to learn and not care about my grades.

3 Bad Habits

1. Staying up too late

2. Snacking.

3. Losing things

5 Jobs I've Had

1. Test Development Coordinator

2. Server

3. ESL teacher

4. Courier

5. Tutor

5 Things People Probably Don't Know About Me

1. I've never broken a bone

2. I went skydiving when I was sixteen

3. I have a yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do

4. I don't like to drive. I just don't enjoy it.

5. I love job interviews. I think that's weird but it's true.

I'm not tagging anybody. Sorry!

My kids are so entertaining

2007-12-08T22:48:00.001-08:00

My kids never fail to entertain me. John's been working for a temp company, and the other day I took him to work after lunch (he's close enough to come home for lunch on this assignment) and went back in the afternoon to pick him up after work. As we were driving over, Trea asked where we were going.

"We're going to pick up Daddy," I said.

Slight pause.

"He fall down?"

She also has been watching a lot of Dora, and she wears this little pink backpack all over the house. She keeps asking me where her map is. I'll have to work on that.

We're really enjoying being around all of our family (I even got to see my parents over Thanksgiving). Trea thinks cousin=instant best friend. Luckily she has nice cousins who indulge her for the most part. She's also doing great at church, going to nursery and making friends.

Adia is thisclose to crawling on all fours, and I will miss the inch worm imitation she has done so well. She has six teeth and is such a sweet, easygoing baby. Our friends just had a baby, and looking at the pictures I got incredibly baby hungry. Which is really messed up, since Adia is all of 8 months old. But he just looked so sweet, and I could almost smell that newborn smell . . .

In other news. . .we bought a car. We got a good deal on it, and it seems like a very reliable vehicle. And it fits two carseats. I sound really old now, don't I?

I think we left Thailand just in time. I was just browsing one of my favorite websites about teaching in Thailand, and apparently there's a new Ministry of Education requirement for teachers to get a license. Now you have to complete a 20-hour course on "Thai culture and professional ethics". From what I can gather (and, true to Thai tradition, it's clear as mud) the course is a crash course in Thai culture, manners, language, art and music, and professional behavior. Most of that is useful, but honestly you don't NEED to know anything about Thai art or music to be a successful EFL teacher. And you don't need a formal course to learn what you need to know about the rest - a few good books, a few nice Thai friends, and you'll learn what you need to know. Not to mention the course is over $200 U.S., and appears to be offered by a university in Bangkok on consecutive weekends. So if you live out in the sticks, like we did, you have to travel to Bangkok on two weekends and spring for travel costs and accommodations there. That's not cheap, and you can bet I would be cranky if John were gone for two solid weekends in a row. Training like that would be nearly impossible for someone like me, who is still breastfeeding an infant. I had my teaching schedule worked around Adia's feeding schedule, and she's never had a bottle. There's no way I could leave her for that long.

After you complete the 20-hour course - which would probably be a great source of entertaining Engrish examples - you get to take a test on what you learned. And then you get to pay $30 U.S. to take an exam on "teaching profession knowledge." If I learned anything in my two years of assessment development, it's that writing a good exam is harder than it looks. A poorly written exam will tell you little to nothing about the knowledge of the exam taker. Who wants to bet that this exam was thrown together at the last minute by a handful of employees? Not a good way to measure anything!

I really do respect the efforts of Thailand to raise the bar where teachers are concerned, but I don't think they are going about it the right way. I hope it doesn't completely backfire on them.

I would still love to live abroad as a family again someday, but only if someone else handles the visas!

I suppose I should post something

2007-11-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

We've been back for a few weeks now. The first two weeks were crazy. No one was sleeping well or often, and we were just coping and trying to get adjusted to the time change. We're doing better now. Trea is loving all of her cousins and nursery friends, and all the other little kids in the neighborhood.

We had a great time traveling with John's parents before returning to the States. It was fun to show them why we love Thailand.

This Halloween was Trea's first time trick-or-treating. She got the hang of it really fast, and kept saying things like "I have lots of candy" and "go get candy? go to houses? go to lots of houses?" I think she thinks we've been holding out on her this entire time. People will give you candy, all you have to do is put on a dress and knock! Who knew?

We are excited to see everyone near us; we'll be in touch with y'all soon.

And, of course, pictures of my beautiful girl in her Halloween costume. Aunt Ashley made it for Lonna last year, and this year it was Trea's turn to be Belle. She turns three tomorrow, and I can hardly believe it.

TIALFTITUS, Part IV (The Conclusion)

2007-10-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

Living in Thailand as a farang has given me a small taste of what it is like to be a minority. I don't claim that it is the same as being a minority in the States, but there are some similarities. It’s odd to not be able to find hair products that work for fine hair (Thai hair is coarse) or a facial product without bleach. It's hard to get a decent haircut, because the techniques are different. All the cosmetics are the wrong colors for my skin. Clothes are too small; only a handful of stores carry my size -I’m a ten in the U.S. - and even then the clothes are cut all wrong for me. If you’re Thai and my size, you’re really fat. The shirts that button comfortably on me are also baggy around my waist, and the pants that fit me through the hips need a belt to stay up. We get stared at wherever we go. Many people assume we are rich and don't speak Thai (which is true for me but not for John, and even I can sometimes understand that you are talking about me).

People have asked us why we are going back to the U.S. The simple answer is that John wants to go to grad school, and we miss our families. Totally true. There's also the fact that there is no long term future for us here. English teachers don't get retirement packages and raises every year, there isn't much upward mobility, and we can't put down roots. We're not allowed to own property or businesses, though it's possible with the right lawyer(s) to set things up. We can't send our kids to public schools, even though we pay taxes, and we can't afford the bilingual private schools. None of the schools in Khon Kaen would prepare our kids for an American college. Even the school where John teaches, even though it's good, would not prepare them, and it's only through sixth grade. There are no bilingual high schools that I know of. It's not important to me that my kids go to college, but it's important to me that they have the opportunity to prepare to be successful in college in case THEY want that.

And then there's the visas. We've already had a visa saga. A couple weeks ago Jick, John's boss, went with some of the other teachers to Immigration for visa renewals. They told her the laws are changing and getting dependent visas (which is what Trea and I have) now takes a substantial amount of money in the bank. I've researched it and as near as I can tell, that's only true of retirement visas. For a retirement visa you need a pension of roughly $2,000 a month U.S. or nearly $23,000 sitting in a bank account, either one will qualify you for a retirement visa if you are over 50. I'm not sure if it is true for dependents of work permit holders. The thing is, if it is true, we could never afford it - we don't have anything near $23,000. If it's not true, we'd still be in trouble because this immigration official adamantly believed it to be true, and wouldn't renew our visas, and we'd end up hightailing it to Laos with two small kids and then, since Adia had left the country, she'd need a visa too. It gets expensive.

Immigration status is a tricky thing. John's work permit and visa are tied to his job. If he were to change jobs, it would totally mess with his visa, and Trea's and mine as well. We're lucky his job turned out to be a decent situation because it's nearly impossible to change jobs without leaving the country, from what I've heard, especially now that they've changed the laws again. As for me, I'm in the country legally but I'm not supposed to work. My visa doesn't prohibit working, but I don't have a work permit. I thought the school would get one for me (they have to sponsor it) but they didn't want to spend the time and money when I didn't need it for a visa. Now I only want to work part-time, and it's near impossible to find a school that will get you a work permit for part-time employment (many, many schools will hire you part-time, just not get the work permit). Working illegally gives you no rights. One of my employers didn't pay me all semester. The paperwork got lost and all that. They did pay eventually, but if they hadn't, what was I going to do? Nothing. I couldn't report them without getting arrested and/or deported. I don't like the feeling of being on the wrong side of the law, or of being helpless. I don't want to work full time right now, I want to be with my kids. So, until Thailand figures out whether it really wants farang teachers or not, I'm going home.

Five years!

2007-09-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. That's crazy.

We went out and did a little shopping and had a nice dinner to celebrate. I wonder if in 20 years, I'll still feel like I just got married?

Things Change

2007-09-26T19:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a woman tell me I look 19. She wanted to know how old I actually am; I guess I threw her for a loop talking about my (almost) three-year-old.

I get a lot of these oh-you-look-so-young kind of comments. I used to hate it, especially when I was working full time. I hated that how I looked might make people perceive me as less professional or less competent, and I had more than one supervisor/co-worker try to treat me like their child. One of my bosses actually sat John down at an office party and gave him the third degree about his future work plans. It was funny, in a way, and also weird. John resisted the urge to tell him that 1) he wasn't my father and 2) we were already married, so it was too late to change my mind.

The comment yesterday didn't bother me a bit. Somehow the fact that I'm almost 28 with two kids is making me more receptive to being perceived as young. Funny how things change.

TIALFTITUS, Part III

2007-09-26T01:27:00.000-07:00

I’m a fairly independent person. Not extremely independent, but I’m certainly capable of doing things on my own. At least in the U.S. I am. Here, I am not as independent, and what independence I have involves far more effort. This is all because of the language barrier. My last post notwithstanding, my Thai is extremely limited. I can have an entire conversation about my kids, because I've heard it all many times, but outside of that topic I'm pretty useless. And my pronunciation, while improved, is still not that good.

I didn’t realize how limiting not speaking the language would be until I was on study abroad here as a student in 2001. I had already been to Guatemala at that point, but at least in Guatemala I spoke a little of the language (though not as well as you might think after four years of studying it. . .I did get proposed to so I must have said something interesting!) It is VERY limiting to not speak the language here. If I can’t find an item I’m looking for in a store, I can’t ask where it is. I can’t ask if they are just out of stock or if they never carry it at all. I want to go buy some fabric but it’s too difficult to explain what I want and how much, unless John can come with me. I also need to get some pants hemmed, but John will have to do that for me as well.

I have to be careful about where I go by myself. If I get lost, I can’t stop and ask for directions. I have never seen a decent map of Khon Kaen, and definitely not one in English, so I don’t just take off and go places. I get really good directions first (and I have to get these from an actual person, instead of just using Mapquest like I do in the States). I try to take the cell phone and I stick to the places I’ve been to before.

It’s strange not to be able to ask simple questions either. I can’t talk to the daycare teachers who take care of Trea and Adia. Normally I’d make small talk at least, but here I just smile. If I really need something, I’ll get John to translate for me, but just for routine things (did she take a good nap? Did she eat a good lunch?) it’s not worth it.

I should say that Adia’s teachers (who used to teach Trea, and live nearby) do talk to me a fair bit, and I to them, and sometimes we even understand each other. As I’ve said before, they are used to toddler gibberish so they’re patient with my attempts to speak Thai!

Worse even than the spoken language is the fact that I’m functionally illiterate. I used to volunteer as a literacy tutor; I worked with a 21-year-old guy who read at a first-grade level (and had passed the Maryland reading exam to graduate from high school, on the first try, but that’s a separate rant). Anything below fifth grade is considered functionally illiterate. Now I know what that’s like. Menus? Can’t read them. Directions for using a cleaning product? I guess, or ask John. Signs listing services and prices? No good to me.

John forgets sometimes what language he’s reading in, and it’s kind of funny. We were walking through the mall a couple months ago and passed a pizza restaurant. He turned to me and said, “We’ve gotta do that soon.” “Do what?” I said. “That pizza deal, the two-for-one special.” It was in Thai, so I had no idea. There are lots of those types of things. You don’t notice until you can’t read.

I also really miss reading for pleasure. I LOVE to read. I was an English major! I can’t wait for libraries. Libraries full of free books in a language I understand. What an incredible resource we have in libraries, and I’ve always taken it for granted. I've been lucky that other farangs here have lent me books, and my mom has sent me some as well. And luckily, we've got Internet and I read a lot of random blogs and forums.

(And in case anyone is wondering why I don't read Thai. . .it's not like I didn't try. There are 44 consonants alone, each a different sound/tone combo, and then there are subconsonants and vowels. There are no spaces between words and no punctuation except periods. It looks like this if you want to see it).

And miracles shall never cease. . .

2007-09-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

The impossible has happened.

I have been complimented on my Thai.

Not once, but FOUR times!

The first time, it was a total stranger. He stopped to admire Adia (totally cute baby that she is), and said, in English, "Lady or. . . .?"

So I responded in Thai, "Girl."
He said, "Where are you going?"
I said, "The university."
And he said, "Oh you speak Thai really well."

As I have said before, it doesn't take much to impress Thais with your efforts to speak their language.

The second time, I was asking my neighbor if I could buy some water (she gets it delivered in bulk, and we buy it from her). Her daughter, who speaks fluent English, was very impressed that I had learned how to say "buy water" since she had last visited.

The third time, Jick complimented me on my pronunciation when I said "we're going home."

The fourth time, Earn told John I was starting to understand a lot more.

So, you see, give me fourteen months in a country and even I can make noticable progress.

Makes me sad to go home now.

Adia

2007-09-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

We finally blessed Adia last Sunday. We had a dress made for her from Thai silk (which sounds extravagant but cost less then I would have spent making it in the States). It actually isn't exactly what I described but it's still really cute. I would have done the sewing myself, but I don't have a machine and they don't sell patterns here.

Also, she cut her first tooth. Bottom front, others shortly to follow I'm sure.

TIALFTITUS, Part II

2007-09-03T04:52:00.001-07:00

I cooked a lot this weekend. I made chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner Sunday night, plus I made two no-bake cheesecakes (not the cheesecakes my friend Ariana referred to in a comment, but still very tasty). I miss having a real kitchen. I miss having an oven, and all the things you can do with an oven - roast, broil, bake. I miss counter space, and cabinets. I miss having a real, full-size refrigerator and freezer (my refrigerator is shorter than I am, and has a little freezer compartment). It makes it hard to keep an adequate supply of food on hand.

Most of all, I miss having an enclosed kitchen that is really part of the house. Our kitchen, as I believe I have mentioned before, is an afterthought. You go out the back door into the little lean-to type room that is my kitchen. It's tiny. There's open space between the top of the outside wall and the roof. We have a loose wire grill over the open space now, which keeps out the birds, frogs, etc. (which keeps them from pooping on my counter, that was driving me nuts). But bugs can still get in. There are a lot of ants and spiders, and it doesn't matter how clean the kitchen is, they still come. Occasionally a flying insect will land in the food as I am cooking it, and I can't help but think "Flaming DEATH!" (Trea's been watching "A Bug's Life"). It's kind of like camping, without the natural surroundings.

Thing is, I'm not a big fan of camping, so I'm looking forward to a "real" kitchen soon.

Things I am looking forward to in the U.S., Part I

2007-08-31T20:14:00.000-07:00

I think this will be a new (and short-lived) series for my blog. It will probably sound like I don't like it here, which is not true. I do like Thailand. Sometimes I love Thailand and wish we weren't going home. And at other times, I wish we were leaving tomorrow.

One of the things I am really, really looking forward to in the U.S. is hot water. We have a little electric hot water heater in the upstairs shower, but that's the only hot water in the house. And unless it's a warm day, the water doesn't get that hot. In the cool season, the water barely gets past lukewarm, and the house is 60 degrees. Not fun, especially for little kids. I'm really looking forward to a long hot shower on a chilly evening, or soaking in a tub full of hot water.

And then there's the hot water from the tap. The only time I wash dishes in hot water is when I boil it on the stove. It's going to be so nice to just turn on a tap and get hot water to wash dishes. (Even better, we might have a dishwasher!) And then there's the laundry. Most things can be washed in cold just fine, but there are a few things I really prefer to wash on warm or hot. I've resorted to boiling certain items of clothing on top of the stove to get them really clean. I'm also looking forward to being able to toss a load of laundry in the dryer, and have it come out ready to wear. It's a pain to have to line-dry everything, especially during the rainy season. It can rain for days on end, and nothing dries very quickly even in the house.

Small things but I'm still excited!

College in Thailand

2007-08-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'm almost done with my first (and, for the immediate future, last) semester of teaching college. I like it. It suits me far better than teaching kindergarten. I am fascinated by the English language, and the process of learning language, and I love the challenge of trying to help others master it. Or at least learn to pronounce words ending in "l."

I have realized that there is an entirely different expectation of college students here. I felt, as a college student, that I was an adult, and most of my instructors treated me as one. College students here are still treated like children most of the time. My boss addresses the students as "children" even though I have several students in their early 20s. They don't schedule their own classes; you pick a major, and the university tells you what you will take and when. They don't get homework, unless it's reading, because they "won't do it anyway." It's frustrating to be trying to finish material and run out of time, only to spend the next class period watching them complete a writing assignment they could do at home.

Teachers are accorded a tremendous amount of respect here. Students wai me in the halls (even if they're not my students, they know I'm a teacher because farangs do not just randomly wander the campus). They wai as they enter the classroom, they wai when they leave, they wai before accepting an assignment and they wai after turning in an assignment. It sometimes feels more obsequious than respectful, but that's probably because I'm farang.

At the more traditional of the two universities, the students all stand at the beginning of class and say "Good morning teacher, how are you today?" Then, at the end of the class, they all stand again and say "Thank you teacher, see you again next time." The students are also responsible for unlocking and locking the classroom and erasing the board. This university is very traditional, we don't even wear shoes in the classroom. One of my classes at KKU also does this, but the other two have stopped. I think they can tell it makes me a little uncomfortable.

Universities here also have a lot of control over their students' lives. Students aren't supposed to get married or have kids. I have a student who is married and has a daughter. If I wanted to "turn him in," I could get him kicked out of school just for that. I personally find this ridiculous, and I think a lot of Thais do too.

College students also wear uniforms to class. The boys wear pants, shirts and ties. The women wear skirts and blouses. You couldn't have paid me enough to wear a skirt and dress shoes everyday in college! But they do it, and they don't seem too bothered by it.

You know, I went to a school that told me I could only live in approved housing, and couldn't do a lot of things (drink, smoke, etc) and had a dress code. The thing is, I could choose to go to BYU or I could go to one of a million other schools where no one would care about my life beyond academics. These are government schools that control their students' lives, there isn't an alternative if you want an education.

I have a seperate rant about the curriculum I'm teaching but that will have to wait.

I've been tagged!

2007-08-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

My sister Erin tagged me. . .so here goes.

4 Jobs I've Had
Server
Executive Assistant
Test Development Coordinator
English teacher

4 Movies I Love:
Armageddon
What Dreams May Come
The Princess Bride
Beauty and the Beast

4 Places I've Lived:
Maryland
Provo, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Thailand

4 TV Shows I Love:
Grey's Anatomy
The West Wing (we've been watching it on DVD)
Lost
House

4 Things that Make Me Happy:
My family
Good books
Baking
Traveling

4 Books I Love:
The Shadow of the Wind
Ender's Game
The Bonesetter's Daughter
Harry Potter

4 Foods I Love
cheesecake
chocolate chip cookies
chicken fettucine alfredo
baked ziti

4 Vacations I Love:
The Beach
Visiting Family
anywhere I can get a massage
anywhere Trea has fun

I'd Rather Be:
sleeping

2 People to tag:
Ariana
John

It's Official

2007-08-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

We're coming home in October. We have tickets and today John told his boss. We wanted to give plenty of notice, since it's not easy finding farang teachers. I will tell my boss this afternoon. I'm a little overwhelmed by the idea of having to totally re-establish a household, but excited too. John's parents are coming and we are going to travel with them for ten days before heading back to the U.S. We will be staying with them for the holidays, and using that time to figure out where we want to settle. I'm going to try to blog a lot in the next couple of months so I can get in all my thoughts about Thailand, but I doubt I'll be able to get it all down.

Also, check out John's blog for a link to our family snapshots online. Lots of cute ones!

Growing up

2007-08-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

Trea is pretty much potty trained. I say "pretty much" because she's had one accident (in the middle of a tirade) in the last week or so, and she wears underwear all day. She's still wearing a pull up for naps and at night, mostly because we co-sleep and can't deal with the idea of nighttime accidents getting all four of us up!

She's growing up so fast. . . .

I know it's shocking, but. . .

2007-07-31T23:15:00.000-07:00

Dear Student,

Cheating is not allowed in my class. It's wrong, it's unfair, it circumvents the learning process. . . it's just a bad thing to do. Plagiarism, copying, getting answers in advance of a quiz, these are all forms of cheating. Please don't do them.

If you are going to cheat, please be subtle about it. Passing your quiz paper to your friend across the aisle from you WHILE I AM LOOKING AT YOU is not subtle. Coming into a listening quiz that's half over and scoring a 9/10 on the first half of the quiz - the part you DIDN'T HEAR - is not subtle (and no, I don't believe you are just a lucky guesser and you're still not getting the points). When I give you a writing assignment for homework, don't plagiarize the encyclopedia. Since you can't normally conjugate the past tense (of any verb), it's pretty obvious you copied when you start using words like "undulating" and "topography." It's also not a good idea to use the first website that pops up - chances are I've seen it too.

Again, please don't cheat. If you must cheat, be subtle (look up "plausible" in the dictionary - it might help). It's still wrong, but I'm less likely to be really annoyed by it.

Thanks,
Ajarn Kristen

Bravely Conquering the Open Roads

2007-07-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

Or, more accurately, “cautiously navigating the narrow and crowded sois.” But “conquering the open roads” sounds better.

I’ve learned to drive in Thailand. It’s strange, with the whole driving-on-the-left thing. Also because I think traffic laws in Thailand are a lot like the pirate’s code in Pirates of the Caribbean – they’re more like guidelines than actual rules. Consider the following:

- If you are turning right, you yield the right-of-way to oncoming traffic. Unless you can jump the light faster than the oncoming traffic. Or unless there’s a gap of at least one meter, and you can intimidate oncoming traffic into stopping. Then you and the five cars behind you can all turn right.
- Traffic in a traffic circle moves clockwise. Unless you are a motorcycle, or you don’t see any traffic coming, or you see traffic coming but *think* you can make it in and out of the traffic circle without a collision.
- Turn signals and headlights are primarily for decoration. Especially headlights, although high beams are useful for signaling to other vehicles that they should not pull out in front of you.
- Tapping the brakes is a sign of weakness. Do not tap on the brakes (I am considering disabling the brake lights while I break myself of this bad habit).
- At a four-way stop, the person with the biggest car goes first. Or the person with the most guts. Or whoever can intimidate everyone else into stopping. If you’re a motorcycle, just sail on through without looking around – the cars will mostly likely stop for you. If you aren’t the type to take risks, inch your way out until other vehicles have no choice but to stop for you.
- You know that scene in “Footloose” where they play chicken in the tractors? Yeah, that. On the roads. Every day.

And there are some things that are just understood, it seems. At least by the Thais. I don’t think I understand any of it. From what I’ve observed, lane usage generally goes like this:
1. The far left lane is for motorcycle parking
2. The next lane over is for car parking
3. The lane next to the car parking lane is for songtaews to stop and pick up/drop off passengers
4. The final lane (the far right lane) is for driving.

You can see how this gets complicated for two- and three-lane roads.

Also, expect more lanes to be used if there is a market in the vicinity, or if it is the end of the line for one or more songtaew routes (they tend to accumulate for some reason). And don’t forget, some markets are day markets and others are night markets, so just because the roads are fairly clear at one time of day does not mean they will be that way all the time.

Road construction can also cause problems. I was driving home from work the other day and suddenly there was oncoming traffic in my lane. Why? Because there was construction up ahead, and they had shoved all the traffic over two lanes. There were no cones or signs to warn about this, I just saw cars headed my way and moved over ASAP.

I’m terrified of getting into a serious accident. There are motorbikes everywhere, and while there’s a helmet law that is generally observed for adults, it doesn’t seem to apply for children. That makes no sense! It is scary to see tiny kids – toddlers and babies – being dropped off at daycare on a motorbike, and not even wearing a helmet. But dad or mom has a helmet on. And car seats are rare here – they’re imported so they’re incredibly expensive, like $250 for a good infant carseat. There doesn’t seem to be any real regulation of drivers, either - there’s a child going to John’s school whose mom has epilepsy, and will drive with her baby on her lap. She doesn’t see anything wrong with it at all.

Oh, and there’s a law on the books here that, in the event of a fatality in a car accident, the surviving party is automatically responsible. It doesn’t matter what the other person was doing at the time. The dead person could have driven into a parked car while drunk, and the owner of the parked car would be responsible. Someone has to be responsible and obviously a dead person cannot assume responsibility so. . .there you go. Thai “logic” in action.

There’s also a whole different parking philosophy here. Most places were built with the idea that the majority of people take public transportation or drive motorcycles. As more people acquire cars, there is a real strain on the parking resources in the city. There is NOWHERE that we go where it is really easy to park. Often, when we go shopping, cars are parked perpendicular to all the cars in parking spaces. You just leave your car in neutral, and the wheels straight. Then, if someone needs to get out, they’ll push all the cars in that row forward/back to make room to get out. Most places also have parking attendants around to help. We also leave the car in neutral when it’s parked in front of the house, and our neighbors push it out of the way as needed.

Crazy. That’s all I have to say.

More about the munchkins

2007-07-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Adia was lying on our bed, and Trea walked over to her and started slapping her hand.

"Trea!" I said. "Don't hit Adia!"

Trea looked at me with these big, innocent eyes and said, "I'm giving Adia high fives."

Oh. Well. In that case, since Adia seems to think it's funny. . . .carry on.

A Generic Update

2007-07-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

Been really busy lately. I'm teaching part-time at two different universities, and really enjoying it most of the time. There's still the occasional student antic that drives me batty, but far fewer than the kindergarteners (who somehow are so much cuter when I say hi to them at school now, than they were when I was with them all day!). John is enjoying teaching kindergarten. Still not his dream job, but a much better fit than the fourth graders from you-know-where that he taught last year.

I'm finding that I really love teaching, and I love the English language. It's fascinating to me that most people master such a complex communication system with minimal effort. I'm not a naturally gifted language teacher, but I'm ok, and I think I could be really good with experience and practice. I teach a variety of majors at KKU, but at Rajamangala I teach English majors. I prefer the English majors as a group, because they're really motivated, but I have some great students in all my classes. And they are endlessly entertaining. One of our first assignments was to write a paragraph introducing yourself to the teacher. One of the students (not mine, another teacher's) included this gem: "Proverb for me is I don't give a ship (sic) about the result." We got a good laugh about that, but where did he learn that???

Trea is also a source of nonstop amusement. Every day we ask "Did you have a good day?" and everyday she replies, "Yep, I hab good day." She's stopped reminding John to "be careful in the bathroom!" (which she did for two months after he broke his arm). When his arm was in the cast she also regularly asked him "Does your elbow hurt? I'll kiss it better." She seemed genuinely surprised that his arm still needed the cast when she had REPEATEDLY kissed it better for him. She talks a mile a minute in Thai, and her English isn't bad either. She's a good big sister and likes to give Adia hugs.

Adia is also growing well. She is a happy baby and has started reaching for toys and other interesting objects. She loves attention!

More soon.

Thoughts for my friend

2007-06-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine recently found out she is expecting her second child. She's excited, and scared, and wondering, I think, how this new little person will fit in her family. It seemed inappropriate to leave a novel as a comment on her blog, but this is MY blog so I can do what I want.

I think all mothers, when they find out they are pregnant with a second child, wonder if they can possibly love this second one like they do their firstborn. Because your firstborn is the only person you've ever felt that incredibly protective, mama-tiger type love for. It's a totally different love than what you feel for your parents, or your spouse, or anyone else. And the truth, for me, is that on the day Adia was born I didn't feel the same about her as I did about Trea. But I was comparing my feelings for a newborn with the relationship I had with my two-and-a-half year old, who talks, and whom I know. Within 24 hours I started to know Adia as well, and within two days I realized that I couldn't imagine not having her.

And it becomes easy to love that baby as much as your firstborn. In fact, if your firstborn is a toddler, there will inevitably be a time when you are cuddling or nursing the baby and the toddler decides that now would be an excellent time to scale the furniture and decorate the walls. . .at which point you will look down at the sweet, innocent baby who is NOT testing your patience, and wonder how you ever could have worried about not loving her.

Not that I've had that happen to me.

Everyone told me I would love my second as much as my first. They were right. What no one mentioned was how incredible it was going to be to watch my kids together. To see Trea try to make sure the baby is covered up (with her blanket), or to watch Trea creep over to a sleeping Adia and tuck her favorite doll under her arm. She wants to feed her (sorry, Trea, Adia cannot eat chocolate-covered pretzels yet) and play with her. She keeps trying to put blocks in Adia's hands, so Adia can play too. And Adia lights up when she hears Trea's voice, and watches her every move. I love that they will have each other. Even after John and I are gone, they will have each other.

To my friend - you're giving your child another person to love, and be loved by. You'll never regret it.

Praew

2007-06-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

A little girl we knew died two months ago. She passed away from leukemia ten days after Adia was born. I saw Praew and her mom at the hospital the day I gave birth to Adia, but John wasn’t with me and I don’t speak Thai, so we just exchanged greetings. I didn’t realize how sick she was. She’d been sick since before we knew her, and we never heard that she was really getting worse. John just came home one day and said she had died. She was nine.

Her mom, Teacher Mam, was one of Trea’s nursery teachers when we moved her, and her sister lives across the street. The two of them have helped us with Trea so many times. Now, they take care of the infants and toddlers. I had to leave Adia for a few hours last week to go teach. Teacher Mam and I were alone in the room, and I was nursing Adia. I asked how she was; she responded, but I didn’t understand it. I caught her daughter’s name but that was the only word I understood. A few minutes later another teacher came, and Teacher Mam repeated what she had said.

“She says to tell you that she misses Praew.”

Teacher Mam tried to smile – that Thai smile they do to cover up grief, or pain – but it didn’t quite work. I tried to smile back, and couldn’t quite do it. I looked down at my nursing baby, so healthy and so sweet, and realized that sometimes, my not knowing what to say has nothing to do with not speaking the language.

Censorship

2007-06-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

Just so all of you bloggers know, your blogs are being blocked in Thailand. We lost access to all blogs hosted by blogspot a couple of weeks ago - couldn't get to them at home, school, nada.

But, John has found a way around the censors. Ha! Take that, oppressive regime! It's weird to think that I live in a country where these things happen but I guess that is life under a military junta.

Pictures of the vacation

2007-05-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

I need a vacation from my vacation. . .

2007-05-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

We are back from our vacation. You know, it's a little ambitious to go on vacation with a toddler and a one-month old. Especially in a developing country. And most especially if one of the parents breaks an arm.

Wait a second, maybe I should back up a little. . .

The trip started out great. The school had one of their drivers take us to the train station in a school van (gotta love the chauffeur service). The train ride was uneventful, enjoyable even. And that's saying a lot for an eight-hour trip with a toddler and a baby. Trea loved riding the train, and loved being able to get up and walk around. There were four kids sitting behind us, all between the ages of 8 and 15, and they entertained Trea much of the way down.

Our first night in Bangkok, we stayed in the Twin Towers Hotel and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Awesome food - nachos, Tuscan chicken salad, and a brownie sundae! All things that are scarce in Khon Kaen, if not non-existent. We even caught the last half-hour of a Law & Order rerun on cable, which is another treat for us.

After we left dinner, we were walking down the street to the mall, and suddenly a huge rat ran off the street and onto the sidewalk. It brushed against Trea's legs before disappearing down an alley. John and I both freaked out; luckily Trea didn't fully realize what had just happened.

Note to self: do not leave small children unattended in Bangkok. Ever. The rats might carry them off.

Wednesday morning things went downhill. Obviously I am not the one with the broken arm, or I wouldn't be typing this much. And it's not actually broken, just fractured. John was getting out of the shower Wednesday morning when he slipped and fell. The hotel called a doctor for us, who recommended he go to the hospital. He came back a few hours later with a half cast and a bunch of meds.

The primary goal of this trip was to get Adia a passport. We had an appointment at the U.S. embassy on the morning of Tuesday, May 8 to fill out the application and submit the necessary documents. Before that, we needed to get the translation of Adia's birth certificate authenticated by the Thai government. The plan, when we left Khon Kaen, was for John to go to the Thai government office the first morning in Bangkok, get the translation authenticated, and then all of us would leave for Hua Hin that afternoon. Since he spent the morning at the hospital, that plan was out. The day before our appointment at the embassy was a national holiday, so no offices would be open. We really had no choice but to get the translation verified before we left Bangkok. Fortunately, we didn't have train tickets to Hua Hin or hotel reservations there. We didn't have hotel reservations in Bangkok either, though.

First we tried to get a room at the hotel where we were staying. We'd booked it through the Internet, and it was a great price. The rate they wanted for a second night, not booked through the Internet, was nearly four times what we had paid. We were simultaneously impressed that we had gotten such a fantastic deal, and bummed that we were not going to stay there another night. We decided to try to make it to Hua Hin after all. So. . .

First, we checked out of the hotel. Took a taxi to the train station, where we stored our luggage. Piled into another taxi to the government office. Got an application to have the translation verified, got copies of our passports made, paid the fee, submitted all our documents, waited. . . .got the translation stamped. Took another taxi to go to eat dinner in Pahurat, the Indian district. Resisted (for the most part) the urge to look at the amazing amount of lace, silk, etc. for sale. Ate Indian food for dinner. Realized at this point that, if we proceeded to Hua Hin, we'd get there very, very late. Took another taxi to the train station, retrieved our luggage, called a hotel. They had room, so we went to find a taxi. One of the taxi drivers tried to tell us that our hotel was full (taxi and tuk-tuk drivers will frequently tell you a hotel or guesthouse is full, so they can take you to a place that will pay them a commission.) John responded, in Thai, that we had just called them and they were NOT full. The driver just laughed, he didn't even look embarrassed.

Note to anyone planning to visit Thailand: don’t believe tuk-tuk and taxi drivers. Some – maybe even most – are honest, but you can’t count on it.

Finally made it to the hotel through a horrific traffic jam, got the kids settled, and crashed. Realized that three months ago would have been a good time to start working out.

The next morning we took a train to Hua Hin. They only had third class seats available, which meant no air con, but with the windows down it was quite nice. The scenery was gorgeous. The rice has already been planted in that area of the country, and rice is the most beautiful, brilliant shade of green I have ever seen. Trea made friends with a boy on the train, and was again generally pretty happy. When we arrived in Hua Hin it was raining. And not just a steady rain. Monsoon rain. John refers to this as raining "elephants and water buffalos" - instead of cats and dogs. The streets were flooded deeply enough that Trea would have trouble crossing, and we’d all get soaked. Luckily Burger King was on the same side of the street as our hotel :). And they had apple pies! The McDonald’s here in Khon Kaen only has corn, taro, or pineapple pies. Corn just doesn’t say “dessert” to me.

Despite the rough start, the next few days were really fun. We spent some time at the beach, which Trea loved. She played in the waves and laughed every time a wave hit her. She played in the sand, and rode a horse with her dad, and had a great time. She loves to swim, at the beach or in the hotel pool, and did so at every opportunity. She made some friends at the beach, but I’m not sure if those kids were really friendly, or just wanted to play with her sand toys.

We also went to a wat (Buddhist temple) where a lot of monkeys live. We got to feed the monkeys corn and bananas and take pictures. Watching the baby monkeys cling to their mothers was really cool. Monkey moms can walk, eat, and climb trees while breastfeeding, because their babies can hold on by themselves. I bet they don’t even wake up to feed their babies. How cool would that be?

See what motherhood does to you? It makes you jealous of monkeys.

Our last full day in Hua Hin, Trea got to feed and ride elephants – or Heffalumps, as she often calls them (she’s been watching Pooh’s Heffalump movie, and now all elephants are Heffalumps). I thought she might be scared so I was really proud of her for riding. For an hour ride, plus a snack and a quick performance by the baby elephants, it was 800 baht for John, 300 for Trea, and 300 for the picture of them both on the elephant. When it came time to pay, John asked how much and the guy said “1500 baht.”

Math has never been my strongest suite (much to my father’s dismay), but he did make sure I know how to add in my head. While John reached for his wallet, I (politely) said, “1500? Isn’t it 1400?”

The guy in charge quickly apologized and said, oh yeah, 1400, oops. Hmmm, wonder how often that’s worked for him? John’s so trusting, he just pays. I’m like my dad – check the receipt, add it up yourself, just to be sure.

Just like with tuk-tuk drivers, most are honest, but you have to watch out. . .but I don’t think it’s really malicious. It’s just that Thais in the tourist industry see farangs spend so much money, they really think it’s no big deal to a farang to part with a little more.

We took a bus back to Bangkok, and the kids slept most of the way. We again spent the night at the Twin Towers, and applied for Adia’s passport the next morning. The American Embassy was nuts – so many people were there, both Thai and American. It’s humbling to realize how many people want to go to America. The embassy in Laos was the same way – lots of people lined up just to apply to for a visa to the U.S.

We took the night train back to Khon Kaen, and Trea thought sleeping on the train was really cool. It helped that she was utterly exhausted, so she slept really soundly.

John and I loved having so much time together as a family. We also loved eating the fantastic fresh seafood, imported farang food, and mangoes and sticky rice. We tried to get Trea to eat the food, but all she wanted was Thai food and ice cream. We shopped in the night market and bought a few things. Most of all we enjoyed showing off our kids, and watching Trea have such an amazing time (I assume Adia was enjoying herself as well, but it’s hard to tell when she still sleeps 18 hours a day).

Too bad Trea won’t remember any of this!

John and I think that The Amazing Race needs to do a REAL family edition. None of this lame stuff about having all-adult teams and staying mostly in the U.S. Travel the world with toddlers! Breastfeed without borders! Detours could include tasks like navigating a busy night market with a stroller while looking for mangoes and sticky rice, and getting a passport picture of a newborn (eyes have to be open, looking straight at the camera, baby can’t be crying. . .timing is everything). It would be entertaining if it wouldn’t be unbelievable unfair to the kids. And it would probably encourage child abuse – not everyone would stop to feed and change their kids with a million dollars on the line.

And John and I are thinking that maybe we should apply for The Amazing Race. After all, if we can do this with two small children and his arm fractured, we could do great under normal circumstances!

All the same, we’re thinking that maybe we’ll save the big vacations for when the kids get a little older. . .at least then they’ll remember it.