Daily Life

I've been busy with school work and life, and so I've only been writing blogs about big trips and holidays.  The little daily moments don't seem big enough for a whole blog, but when you start to add up the little moments, they get big fast.  One of my main reasons for doing this blog is so that the girls will have a record of this part of their childhood, and so this entry is about their daily lives.

First of all, no record of Vivian's life would be complete without mentioning the day she came home with her two front teeth in a bag.

Apparently, one was loose, but she wasn't expecting the second one to fall out as well.  She said that she got hit in the mouth with a jump rope during recess and both teeth just came out.  We're figuring this is okay, and grownup teeth will grow in, but I was pretty traumatized when she first came home and showed me.  She seems to have taken the whole thing in stride and is fine with her gap.

One of the main Vivian/Mommy activities lately has been Girl Scouts.  Vivian REALLY wanted to do Girl Scouts last year, but I missed the sign up at the beginning of the year.  That guilt, combined with the fact that two of our neighbors (and the moms of two of Vivian's best friends) run the Girl Scouts here in Bangkok, convinced me to volunteer to be a troop leader.  Yes, I have teaching experience, but with middle school, not second grade.  Luckily, the troop is just seven girls, so even when they get crazy, which they do every week, it's still fun.  Of course, I find myself spending time doing things like cutting out almost a hundred little keys, so that they can each have their own Girl Scout Law key chain.

But seeing Vivi's smile and her pride in being a Brownie, make it all worth it.

Last weekend was the Girl Scout Lock-In at the school, the epitome of awesome for them and semi-painful for me.  Luckily, it was really well organized.  The girls rotated through stations on arts and crafts, rope tying, first aid, and using a compass.  We were sleeping on the floor in the gym, so my co-leader and I pulled down some gym mats to put under all our sleeping bags and tried to get comfortable.  Vivian, of course, was in heaven at this super sized slumber party.

Since I'm not a super picky sleeper, I did manage to get in a few hours.  Of course, if the girls were awake, I was awake, and I did wake up one time in the middle of the night facing away from the girls and had a half asleep panicked moment where I thought I'd lost them all.  I was barely coherent the next day, but the girls were all happy, so again, worth it.

Jeff puts in his parenting time too.  He likes to keep his hair short as much as possible, so he and Vivian have discovered a fun activity for them is to go to our unisex salon here in Nichada.  Jeff can get his hair cut, and Vivian can get braids.  Elena has also gotten into the hairstyle thing.  She sees that Vivian and I usually have pony tails, and so she has begun demanding a pony tail of her own.  This is challenging, to say the least, but Young and I have managed to mass together enough hair for a pony tail or two that usually last about ten minutes.

Elena's vocabulary grows daily, as does her insistence on not being left out of things.  She sees that Vivian wears goggles, so she tries to put some on herself, achieving more of a flapper look as a result.

Not only is she a flapper, but she's also a Duplo architect.  She loves to build towers and then knock them down.

She has also taken to hovering in the kitchen during cooking time.

The other day, I ended up giving her a bowl with some flour and water in it just to get a moment's peace.

When she's the only one at home, she also insists that all her "friends" sit on the sofa with her to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, her favorite show.

All of these are hand-me-down toys from Vivian, so it's nice to see them getting a second life.  One new thing we did invest in was a chair for Elena.  She gets demoted to that when Jeff comes home and wants to watch some HGTV instead of Mickey.  We have a Kindle Fire if Elena really insists on Mickey, but it's not as though she's uncomfortable.

She also has regular play dates with her two January club buddies, and we rotate houses and try different locations to make sure that they're getting out and about.  Elena takes full advantage of the opportunities presented by new toys.

She is much more of a climber than Vivian was, a fact that simultaneously makes me proud and terrified.  I'm super proud though of the fact that she can count to ten already and she recognizes the letters that start her family and friends' names.  I think a lot of her rapid vocabulary acquisition has to do with trying to catch up to Vivi.  Elena absolutely worships Vivian and wants to do whatever she sees big sister do.

When Jeff is traveling and it's just the Goerss Girls at home, we try to have fun with it.

No day is ever perfect, but I feel like, overall, their childhood is wonderful, and I hope they will remember it as such.