Happy First Birthday Elena!

This Thursday was Elena's official birthday.  We had the party for grown ups and big kids a couple weeks ago when my family was still here, but I wanted to do something on her actual birthday as well, so I invited over all the one year olds we know for a morning play date.  Of the six I invited, three had nap times that fit with Elena's, so that's who showed up.  I think it was a good number.

I got Elena dressed up, and she even let me put a little bow in her hair, but when I tried to take a picture she zoomed away.  She thought it was a hilarious game we were playing.

I finally bribed her with a bowl of snacks to get her to stay still.  I wasn't sure how long the bow was going to last, but it made it through the whole party.  Vivian used to pull them out, but Elena doesn't seem to mind.

When the other kids started to show up and play with her toys, Elena wasn't quite sure what was going on.

Luckily, we have so many toys, that there were hardly any issues.  The only one that caused a bit of a fuss was the elephant,

but snacks saved the day again.

I had put out the colored bowls and some of Elena's favorite snacks, and sure enough they were a hit with the little people.  Young had made spring rolls, wontons, som tam, and mango sticky rice for the adults, so we were all happy too.  Two of the guests brought their nannies along, so there were enough adults for everyone to be able to relax and snack a bit.

Elena is the youngest in the bunch, and all the other kids are walking already.  She's getting close, but she still needs some hand holding.  The funniest part is that she often leads with her stomach, so she juts out her stomach, and then brings her feet forward under it.  You could tell she wanted to walk like everyone else, because she kept demanding hand holding help.  Young and I took turns to save our backs.

After the kids had played and the moms had snacked for a while, I brought out the cupcakes.  I made yellow cake with no frosting in an attempt to keep things simple.  Elena had not really been interested in her chocolate birthday cake at the last party, so I thought it would be good to try another flavor.

We did a quick happy birthday song, but I didn't want to do the candle thing, so I had Elena kiss her cupcake for her wish.  She wasn't sure about that, and licked her lips to see what just hit her.  The adults unwrapped the cupcakes and put them in the snack bowls for the kids to attack.

Young coaxed Elena into eating a little of hers, but Elena wasn't really interested.  She seems to like sour things a lot better than sweet things.  Maybe next year I'll make her a lime cake ;-)

Elena usually has her afternoon nap around 1pm, and I guess the other kids were on the same schedule, because around 12:45 everyone started getting fussy.  By 1pm, everyone had left, and I was putting Elena down for a nap while Young made all evidence of the party disappear.  

As one year old birthday parties go, I think it was a success.  Everyone seemed to have fun, and I got to meet a new neighbor with a daughter about the same age.  I think it's good for Elena to "play" (as much as one year olds do) with other kids, and it's definitely fun for me to hang out and compare notes with other moms.

"Regular" Week

I haven't posted anything in a week, partly because I've been frantically doing school work and partly because I felt like, for the most part, it was just a regular week.  Then I took a moment to think about my new definition of regular and realized I need to capture some of it, because this is not what regular looks like to most people, and it will only be my regular for a while.

The most "regular" special thing we did was last Saturday Vivian and I went to the Mother Daughter Sock Hop, sponsored by the local Girl Scout troops.  I got Viv a more traditional poodle skirt, but figured it wasn't worth spending money on one for me, so I just tried to dress time-period appropriately.

Lots of her friends were there, so she spent most of the time hanging out with them.  That was fine with me, since her friends' moms are my friends, so I hung out with them.  We had a lot of fun watching the girls dance creatively.

There was a mother daughter dance off, so Vivi and I did dance together for a while.  Some of our friends even made it to the final round, so we cheered them on.  

After that, there was a bubble blowing contest.  Vivian wasn't going to participate in the kid one, but one of the bigger kids told her she should, since even if she didn't know how to blow a bubble she'd still get a free piece of gum.  Vivian has a lot of respect for big kids, so that's probably why she didn't point out that not only does she not know how to blow bubbles, but she's also never chewed gum.  They gave her a big piece of what looked like Bubblicious gum.  She had it in her mouth for just a few seconds before her expression changed to panicked revulsion.  "I'm not supposed to swallow it right?" she asked me frantically.  I found her a piece of paper and she spit the gum into it.  So much for the free piece of gum.

Her personal feelings about gum didn't stop her from begging me to be in the parent portion of the contest.  She was thrilled that I got into the finals, but instead of watching me blow bubbles, she went to play hula hoops with her friends.  Six year olds are fickle.  It's okay though, because one of my friends took pictures of us blowing bubbles and our facial expressions (concentration and puffed out cheeks) were absolutely ridiculous.  

The rest of the week was "normal", but our normal consists of regular trips around the neighborhood in our gas powered red golf cart which we can double park, because if it's in someone's way, they'll just put it in neutral and push it to the side.  A normal week involves my housekeeper asking what I want her to make for dinner and then going in a golf cart with a friend of hers to the fruit and vegetable stands outside our gated community to buy what she needs.  Normal is my daughter going to a gymnastics class taught by a former member of the Thai national gymnastics team in one of the school gyms that is solely dedicated to gymnastics and has a huge pit full of foam bricks for students to fall in when they practice hanging and flipping moves.   Normal is our whole family going to the pool at the Nichada Club on a Saturday in January and hanging out with four different families we know who all live nearby.  The life we have here in Thailand is a gift, and I need to remember not to take a single day for granted.

Grade One Take Two and Goodbye Family

After a three week break, I wasn't sure how Vivian was going to handle getting back in the school routine.  It didn't help that we got back from the airport around midnight.  I decided the best plan was to let her sleep in and go to school a bit later.  I emailed her teacher who agreed.  Of course, since this is Vivian, she was up by 7:30 and at school by 8:30, so she didn't miss much.  She had one of her spontaneous bouts of shyness and wasn't sure she wanted to go in the classroom, but her teacher helped her through it, and by the time I picked her up again at the end of the day she was her usual bouncy self.

We went to the playground to hang out, and while we were there another mom told me about a really good piano teacher who had some openings for the new semester.  Vivian has been talking about wanting to learn how to play the piano for quite a while now, so I met with the teacher and Vivian had her first lesson Tuesday.  She really liked it, and the teacher seems great, so we're both excited for next Tuesday.  Gotta love the playground.

On Monday, my parents and my sister went to Kanchanaburi for the night.  They made sure not to get back too late on Tuesday though, because we had sky bar plans.  Our super sky bar friends helped me share the experience with my family.  We all went downtown to try out Above 11, which is above Soi 11 off of Sukhumvit.  It was on the 33rd floor, so it wasn't our highest, but it had a really cool vibe and the food was delicious.

The only strange thing was our drinks.  We all ordered two rounds of drinks, and our second drinks looked totally different from our first drinks.  For example, mine had rum in it, and the first time they must have used clear rum, but the second they used dark rum, so my two drinks were different colors.  Less easy to explain was my mom's mango smoothie which was orange for the first one and yellow for the second one.  We got past the color of our drinks pretty quickly though and just enjoyed the view and the company.

Wednesday was my family's last day in Thailand, and I finally got them to take it easy.  The day's only adventure was a golf cart ride to the mall to get cash and pay bills.  My mom, my sister, and I went for our second round of massages in the afternoon.  I was so worn out, I fell asleep during my massage.

In the afternoon we had an early birthday party for Elena which also served as a goodbye for my family.  One of my friends is fabulous at making cakes, and she has two boys, so she was excited about making a girl birthday cake.  I told her to do whatever made her happy.  The end result made me super happy too.

I felt like a cake that big and beautiful should have an audience, so we invited over a bunch of our neighbors to help us enjoy it.  It was a lot of fun, and it was nice for my family to get to know some more people who are a part of our lives now.

Thursday morning my family had a 7:00am flight.  Just to be on the safe side, I arranged a cab for them at 4:00am.  By 4:10, when the cab hadn't shown up and the driver wasn't answering his phone, I figured we needed to move to plan B.  The problem is, the only way to get a taxi here is to ask the guard at the gate to call one for you.  He then calls the main gate guard who sends out a guy on a motorcycle to find a taxi.  I wasn't sure what my chances were of this panning out at four in the morning.  I went to the guard shack anyway, figuring it was worth a try.  He said he had a friend with a taxi right there, and sure enough, there was a blue taxi right around the corner.  I got all excited, but then the taxi driver kept trying to start the car and it just made this sad vroom noise, but didn't actually kick in.  I gave him a few minutes to try while I envisioned my family stranded on the highway halfway to the airport.  Finally, I decided I should just drive them myself.

It turns out that early morning is the best time to learn to drive to the airport.  It's a pretty straight shot on two highways, and there's no traffic at that time, which came in handy when I tried to use my easy pass and discovered it was out of money.  Since there was no traffic, I could back up from the toll booth onto the highway and cut across four lanes to the one open cash booth.  Driving around here is never dull.  

Other than the tollbooth mishap, I got to the airport and back smoothly.  I got home just in time to have a cup of coffee before Vivi got up for school.  Jeff, who had been waiting for me, took the car and drove it back downtown to work.  I got Viv on the school bus, handed Elena off to Young, and crashed for almost four hours of much needed sleep.

I had told Vivian in the morning that she should take the bus home that afternoon.  After school I got a call from one of my friends asking if Vivian was supposed to be on the bus.  Apparently Viv was walking around the first grade quad seeing if anyone wanted her to come over for a play date.  Luckily my friend was able to get my little social butterfly on the bus before it left.

Friday's adventure was gymnastics.  A lot of Vivian's friends do Girl Scouts and gymnastics, so she's been begging me to sign her up for both.  It's too late in the year to join a Girl Scout troop, but beginner gymnastics started their second semester class this week.  When I told Vivian I had signed her up, she was super excited.  We didn't have a uniform, but a lot of the new kids didn't have one either so Vivian was fine with that.

Parents aren't allowed in the gym, but there is an outdoor balcony with windows that look into the gym, so several of the moms and I went up there to peak in on the kids and see how they were doing.  The class started with stretching, and I could see Vivian getting frustrated since flexibility and coordination are not really her things.  One of the teachers saw that she was floundering and started working with her one-on-one.  I was hoping that would solve it, but then I saw her wiping at her eyes, which I knew meant tears.  Sure enough, the teacher walked her out, and I rushed downstairs to check on her.  She was in full meltdown mode with tears and spluttering.  Crap.  My mom friends were really helpful and encouraging, but it took one of the coaches giving her a pep talk and telling her I could come in to watch to get her to go back in the gym.  The coach put her in a group with girls who were also beginners.  They were bouncing on a trampoline type strip.  Then the teacher helped them flip over a pole.  After that they climbed a little ladder to hang from an even higher pole and drop into a pool of foam cubes.  No surprise, Vivian cheered right up, and I slipped out of the gym and back up to the mom viewing station.

The second half of the class flew by.  Vivian's group worked through several other, equally fun little courses.  Every so often she would look up at the mom window to wave and smile.  At the end she got to somersault into the foam pool.  She came bounding out of the gym with a huge grin on her face saying that gymnastics was SO much fun.  The lady who sells the uniforms was there then, and one of Vivian's other friends was getting a uniform, so Vivian wanted one too.  She did look cute in it, even if I put it on backwards the first time, and some nice girls in the changing room had to help us out.

She was so proud of her new uniform that she refused to take it off and wore it to play around the neighborhood.  I finally convinced her to change for Secret Garden which was Friday night this month even though it's usually on a Saturday.  Jeff was worn out from work, and I was worn out from the roller coaster that is Vivian, so we didn't stay too late.  Overall, I think Vivian had a good first week back.  She doesn't seem tired, but I'm exhausted.

Siem Reap - Day Four

The tooth fairy came in the night and gave Vivian a 10 baht coin.  I guess she knew that, even though we were in Cambodia, Vivian wanted a coin to feed the fish back home in Bangkok.

We only had three day passes for the historic sites in Siem Reap, so we changed up the itinerary for our fourth day.  We took a drive to Kompong Kleang, a "floating" village.  Part of the road was barely wide enough for our bus, with quite a drop on either side, so that was a bit harrowing.

Once we got to our destination, we had to walk out to the boat dock.  Since this is the dry season, the water was much lower than it would usually be, so they had a temporary walk set up over all the mud.

Then we got into a boat which felt luxuriously large after our experiences with the longtail boats in Thailand where you're basically sitting on the bottom of the boat.  This one had seats, and material to pull down on the sides to protect you from the sun.

We sailed along and took in the houses on stilts.

Their height keeps them above the water during most of the rainy season.  Some of the scaffolding looked precarious, but it seems to work.  After a while we came to a village that was truly floating.

It was a Sunday, and it seems like on the weekends, the kids ride around in boats for fun.  We saw more of them when we got out onto the big lake.

Vivian and Elena both really enjoyed the boat ride.  I think they were just so excited to be in the shade with a cool breeze.

We had lunch in one of the houses on stilts.

On our way back to the dock, we went under this drawbridge.

Then it was back on the bus and back to town.  On the way, we pulled over to the side of the road, because my parents wanted to try bamboo sticky rice.  The rice, sugar, and roasted nuts are stuffed inside a bamboo stick, and then it's roasted over coals.  You buy it still in the stick, and then peel back the bamboo to get to the yummy inside.

We checked out of the hotel, but our flight didn't leave until 9:45pm, so we decided to go back to Pub Street and find a fun restaurant for dinner.  Our guide recommended The Red Piano, which is apparently Angelina Jolie's favorite restaurant.  Angelina Jolie is a big deal in Siem Reap because she was there to film Tomb Raider, and she adopted a Cambodian boy.  I decided to go with it, and got the Tomb Raider Cocktail.

It was actually quite good, as was the food.  We also liked the decor which of course included a red piano

and a replica of the four faced columns from the day before.

We decided that Angelina Jolie has pretty good taste in restaurants.  Vivi is the one who suggested eating upstairs rather than on street level, and it turned out to be a really good call.  Elena also enjoyed herself, because we had discovered the day before that she liked limes, so everyone with non alcoholic beverages gave her the limes from their glasses.

We got almost as many comments on her snack choice as we did on her blue eyes and blond hair.

After dinner, we did a quick sweep through the night market for last minute souvenirs, and then it was off to the airport and our flight home.

We had such a wonderful trip, but one of the best parts was feeling like we were really going home.  Bangkok truly is our home now.

Siem Reap - Day Three

Our third day began with an unplanned adventure.  Vivian woke up in the morning to announce that she had lost her first tooth, and she was pretty sure she had swallowed it because she didn't know where it was.  Luckily Judy managed to find it on the floor next to Vivian's bed.  It was really easy to get Vivian to smile for the rest of the trip, because all we had to say was, show us your gap!

When she got back to school and people asked what she did over Winter Break, her response was, I lost my first tooth in Cambodia.

After tooth hunting, we drove to Banteay Srei, also known as the Citadel of Women.  It's made from a pinkish sandstone which is softer than the stone used in many of the other temples, so it has very detailed carvings.  It took about an hour to get there which is why we opted not to go the day before.  It worked out perfectly as a morning trip though, because it meshed with Elena's usual morning nap time.

The temple was worth the trip.  The carvings were beautiful.

The only downside is that it was really hot, and there were not a lot of trees for shade, so both of the girls started to fuss.  Our guide pointed out a shaded area behind the temple, so I took the girls there.  It was really neat, because it was under this big tree and there were little "seats" made of chunks of wood covered in patterned tarp.  We sat there and listened to some music while the rest of the group finished looking through the temple.

We drove back to town and got lunch near Angkor Wat, and then went to Angkor Thom, which means the Great City.  The wall that surrounded it still stands, and our bus had to squeeze through a pretty small gate to get in.  There are lots of interesting sites there, but since the girls were fading, we opted to only spend time at one, Bayon.  It's a temple dedicated to Buddhism that has 54 towers with faces on each side, for a total of 216 smiling faces.

After that, we went back to the hotel to let the girls rest, because we were planning to go downtown for dinner and some shopping at the night market.

My sister was craving pizza, so we decided to try an Italian place that the guidebook recommended called Il Forno.  It was right off of Pub Street, which is the main restaurant street in town.  It was really pretty at night, all lit up, and the restaurants had little alleys between them with outdoor seating.  We invited our guide to join us for dinner, which is a good thing, because we probably wouldn't have been able to find the restaurant without him.  The food was good, and we had a lot of fun hearing about our guide's life story.

After dinner we walked over to the night market area which was one street over.  Everything was lit up and had a party atmosphere.

We didn't buy anything, but we had a lot of fun looking around.

Siem Reap - Day Two

We started the day with breakfast at the hotel, and then got on the bus for the twenty minute ride to Angkor Wat.  There were a few other people there.

But if we avoided the crowds, we could pretend we had it mostly to ourselves.

There is a man made lake surrounding the temple complex, so first we walked across the bridge.  There are several gates to get to the main green area.  The central one was only for kings and queens, but these days it's the one that most of the tourists go through.  We went through the next door down which was for nobility.  The final door was for commoners or people riding horses or elephants, since there were no steps for the animals to go up. 

After going through the gate, we walked across the large green area looking ahead to the main temple.

Angkor Wat is a Hindu temple, so there were statues and carvings of various Hindu gods and goddesses.  There are also carvings showing various kings and their famous battles.  The engravings were incredibly detailed.

Jeff was a trooper and carried Elena.

He did set her down before climbing to the top though.  She hydrated.

Vivian had to go to the bathroom, so she and I broke off from the main group.  Our tour guide told us where to meet up with them outside one of the other gates.  We found some rocks to sit on in the shade and were just relaxing when Vivian cried out, "Mommy, monkey!"  It took me a second to register that there was a monkey headed our way.

There were a bunch of them, and they were clearly used to tourists giving them food.  We didn't have any food and Vivian was kind of freaked out, so I shooed them away.  One intrepid monkey, hopped onto a nearby tuk tuk that the driver had left unattended and found a water bottle.  Vivian was yelling no, no, no at the monkey, but it wasn't listening to her.  It took the water bottle over to a rock and wrestled with it until it got the top off.  There wasn't much in the bottle, but it was quite a show.

We met up with the rest of our group, watched the monkeys for a while, and then went to get some lunch.  After lunch we drove to Ta Prohm, also known as the jungle temple or the Tomb Raider temple, since that's where the Angelina Jolie movie Tomb Raider was filmed.  It ended up being our favorite temple.  The trees just grow up through the temples, and it's so cool.  Jeff did his usual good job with pictures, but it's impossible to capture the atmosphere.

We had a third temple trip planned, but we decided to save it for day three, since we were all pretty worn out by then.  Instead, we went back to the hotel, lounged at the pool, and had dinner at the restaurant again.