"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.