She Laughs at the Days

The Birth of Dek*

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:25:00 +0000

*Child in Thai

The night before Dek was born, Sean arrived with his 3 oldest kids in tow, two 6 year olds and a 3 year old, and his new intern, Brady, who is a recent high school graduate, and going to the village for a month or more to help him and learn from him. (This is what Sean does here.)

"How are you?" He asked.

"Still pregnant." I replied, gesturing at my huge belly.

"That's why I called before," he said. "I figured if you were in labor I probably shouldn't come.

"Yeah, that would be an interesting situation." I agreed.

I had had a little more mucus making an appearance the past few days, as we drove to Burma and back. But I had that before and thought I was starting something and that turned out to be totally wrong.

I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night we got back from the border, and between that, and a whole day in the car, my feet were ginormous. I was feeling a little worried about how swollen they had become and that they hadn't gone down at all during the night as they usually do.

So right after dinner I told Aaron that I was going to take a walk to try and get some blood circulating and see if the swelling wouldn't go down. There were some moments during the walk when I felt like I might be having contractions. There was some pressure on my cervix that wasn't exactly like a baby head just kicking, and my uterus felt hard when I touched it. But they were so mild that I told myself that I was just finally having some Braxton Hicks warm up action and they would stop once I sat down to rest.

Which they did. By the time I went to bed there were no contractions and I fell asleep very easily.

But, when I had my shower there had been a tiny bit of mucus that was a different color and I started to think that maybe, maybe, we were getting near the end, finally, and this baby would come soon. So I asked Aaron to work on my feet for me, both because he can always get the swelling to subside a lot, and because he's really good with pressure points that strengthen contractions and I thought it would be worth a try to get some pressure point action in to keep things from subsiding again into nothing. Aaron promised to do so when he came to bed. He had a late conference call with someone back in the US, and then he and Sean had plans to hang out and talk before he came into bed.

Sometime in the night I woke up and Aaron was rubbing my feet, as promised. He said it was after 2am later on. Whenever he hit a pressure point I started having a really strong contraction, which was awesome, because I hadn't had any before then. So he kept up the pressure point work for a while longer. Just as I was falling asleep again, Bam Bam woke up and needed things. Mostly he needed to pee, but it still takes him a while to figure that part out and he asks for other things in the meantime.

When I took him to the bathroom, I went too, because I was needing to pee very frequently at this point and I was thinking, "That head is even lower than usual."

I think the rest of my mucus plug came out that time on the toilet, but it didn't quite register because I was so tired by that point.

I thought, "I'd better call the midwife first thing in the morning, it looks like it could be tomorrow."

But it took another half hour or more to get Bam Bam back to sleep after that, and so sometime around 4 in the morning, while I waited for him to settle, I quickly emailed my parents and Aaron's to let them know that maybe tomorrow something might happen. I was having mild, intermittent, contractions.

Then I tried to go back to sleep. Which I managed for the most part, except for these contractions that would wake me up from time to time and were strong enough that I had to quietly breath through them and occasionally put my hand against my back. But I was determined to get some sleep, since I needed to rest if I was going to be in labor in the morning, so I lay as still as possible and fell deeply asleep in between each contraction as it came. I have no idea how many there were, it didn't feel like they were all that frequent.

Toward sunrise, I started to feel hungry at the end of each contraction, but didn't want to get up yet, but worried that if I didn't eat something soon I'd end up nauseous. So I ignored the hungry feeling as long as I could, and slept as much as I could, until the feeling that I needed to vomit, now, had me jumping out of bed and running to get a bowl.

I went all out this year for a father's day present.

I grabbed a bowl on the back porch, chugged all the water in my bottle and braced myself to throw up. Only, I didn't throw up. Instead, one contraction after another started to happen and they weren't gentle anymore. I paced back and forth through them, trying to figure out what to do. There was a house full of people, some on the couch, little kids just waking, my room was pretty untidy and I still needed to bleach the birth pool.

Still not realizing how close I actually was, I did realize that I was not going to be able to prepare everything as I had hoped to, and had thought I would have the time to do.

Then I had to go the bathroom, like now, number 2. I decided I really didn't like having contractions on the toilet.

Then my face was so sweaty all I could think of was getting my hair up and off of it and my neck. I took my puke bowl and water with me and moved to the bedroom, where, in between killer contractions I pulled my hair up. This is when Aaron woke up and I told him I was having contractions.

My nausea had turned out to be hunger. So I asked Aaron to get me some muesli while I texted the midwife. I have a clunker of a phone for Thai phone calls, so texting takes longer than usual. It took at least 5 contractions, alternating between eating as fast as I could between them and trying to write a text.

I started out trying to say, "Contractions, not super close together but getting strong," and realized as I typed that that wasn't true so I concluded it with, "NVM that was pretty close. I wonder if you'll make it?"

She texted back to say it would take her about 4 hours. I wasn't sure I had that long. These texts were at 6:20 and she called to ask if I needed her to try and get on the 7:55 plane. By this time part of me was finally cluing in that this was going way too fast for that, and I said I thought it would be too late. She listened to me as I went through yet another contraction and said, "That was really strong. I think you're right, I'm not going to make it. What are you going to do?"

Just last week a friend had put me in touch with D, who is a midwife in training, who asked if she could observe my home birth while she's in Thailand, because it's part of her course requirements. I was to be the second home birth she'd ever attended. She's staying nearby so I said I'd call her.

"Ok. I'll keep my phone close. Call if you need me to talk you through anything." Then she hung up and I called D.

"I think I'm doing this one solo," I told her. "If you'd like to come you should get here now, it's going to be super fast."

"I'm on my way", she said and hung up.

This whole time Aaron was trying to get the birth pool ready. He washed it and bleached it and was clearing a corner of our room to set it up. I was obsessing about things being put away properly and was telling him where it all went.

After hanging up with D, I realized that I'd been standing and pacing through every single contraction since waking up and I thought to myself, "If I lie down these may slow down again, and I'll get a bit of a break."

So I lay down.

As soon as the next contraction hit I realized that I had an urge to push and heard myself grunting, as one does when pushing. I thought, "No, not yet, not on Prang's bed. I'm not ready! I need the pool."

But there's not much you can do to stop yourself from pushing once the urge hits, though I tried, and a second later I told Aaron, "My water just broke, hand me that towel."

He laughed in disbelief. I tucked the towel under me as well as I could to catch everything and braced myself for the next contraction, because the contraction after your water breaks is usually a lot harder.

Except, instead of a regular contraction I had to push again, hard!

"I'm pushing!" I announced. "And I'm pooping! I don't know where to go."

By this point the birth pool was just not happening, but it took three more contractions, and pushes, for me to decide what to do. I didn't want to be on the bed and get blood and poo all over it. I didn't want to kneel on the floor either. I kept thinking, "I can't push a baby out, I'm still wearing underwear."

Fortunately, I had put a pad on in the middle of the night after I saw the mucus plug loosening, so some of the fluid and all of the poo was at least contained.

"Help me get to the shower." I decided.

And in the space between contractions we got to the bathroom, I stripped down and knelt on the tile floor, holding onto Aaron for support. Next contraction, as I bore down I realized a huge problem. I had no traction. My knees were slipping. And it hurt to try and stabilize with my leg muscles as I knelt there. There were no towels in the bathroom, Aaron couldn't leave because I needed him for support. The only other people awake in the house were little kids, and maybe Brady. How was I going to get something stable to kneel on?

That's when I heard D's voice asking where I was.

"I'm in the bathroom. I'm pushing. Please bring me a towel."

And she did. And then she brought everything else as we needed it as well. Which was awesome.

For some reason I felt the need to narrate this one as it was happening. Maybe because I needed others to know how fast it was going too. So as D came in I announced, "Ring of fire, already to ring of fire."

She of course could see pretty well, she's attended at least 70 births since her training started, so she didn't really need me to tell her on the next contraction when I reached down that there was already a head between my legs and he was crowning. But I told her anyway.

I don't remember exactly, but it seems like it was 8-10 contractions between getting to the shower and delivering his head. In between I was telling D where to find the stack of sterile towels and the rest of the birth kit, which was somewhat less organized than it had once been since I tossed much of it in a bag to take along to Burma with us. Just in case.

I had my hand under his head, I didn't want him landing on the floor, and it felt very long waiting for his body to turn and deliver the rest of the way. Especially because he kicked out and squirmed twice while halfway out, and that was uncomfortable, to say the least. But then his body eased out and he was all blue and floppy and that's when D was really, really amazing.

I was too dazed those first few seconds to really notice his condition much and she, very calmly, suggested I stimulate him.

I started to, but not very aggressively, as he made little tiny noises, and then she came into the shower, gently trading places with Aaron, and rubbed his body until his color started to turn pink and he started to cry in earnest, and take deep breaths. She said something about not being able to suction him and I remembered I had a bulb syringe in the kit too, so she found that and suctioned him as well.

And then I tried to get comfortable on the floor as we waited for the cord to stop pulsing and the placenta to deliver. Our kids had heard him crying, and they each peeked a head in to look for a moment while we waited. Except Bam Bam, he stayed sleeping until the end.

I was really uncomfortable on that floor very quickly, and tired, and so we got started on figuring out what to do about the cord.

With a lot of help from D, we tied it off with some clean thread, used rubbing alcohol to sterilize the site, and Aaron's super sharp knife. Aaron cut the cord and he and I were separate. Aaron wrapped him in a clean towel and took him out while I knelt again to push out the placenta. It came right away and I realized that part of why I was so uncomfortable was that it was sitting there on my perineum waiting to come out.

Then I showered, and D stayed with me to make sure I was ok. It had gone so quickly that I wasn't nearly as shaky standing as I have been in the past. In keeping with the OCD tendencies I had been displaying for the last hour or so, I not only showered but rinsed out the whole shower and all the blood and poo off the towels "so they would be easier to wash later." Had I the energy I think I would have also cleaned and organized my whole bedroom and swept it out. I may have had some adrenaline coursing through me just then. But by the time I finished showering and walked to the bedroom I was ready to lay down. All the kids were on the bed, which had been cleaned up a bit, and the Boy was holding his new baby brother. So I laid down with them to enjoy our new baby.

By this time the kids had told everyone on the property that our baby was born and Cindy came over to see. She and Adam were great. They fed our kids all day, and watched them for much of it, and Sean watched them when we went into the hospital later. I laid in bed and slept a lot. And updated facebook.

Cindy made him a birthday cake.

D checked his heart rate and vitals, making sure all was well, and then checked me as well, making sure I could pee and that my uterus was contracting properly. She brought me food, and I finally finished breakfast and was lovely and competent the whole time. I'm so glad she asked if she could come and watch. She ended up being very, very helpful.

Birthday party

It was 6:30am when I called D. He was born at 6:56am. I had been fully awake approximately one hour.

Looking back I realize that I had been in active labor since at least 4 am, but had been too much in denial/too tired to realize it. So to me it felt like he was born in less than an hour, though it was more like 3 or 4, which is still super fast, but not as fast as it felt to me.

He's not impressed.

And that's how my two week overdue boy made his lightening fast entrance at 8lbs 13oz, on his great grandpa's birthday.

Road trip to Burma

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:09:00 +0000

We have the kind of visa right now that makes it necessary to leave and reenter the country every 90 days. This is something people assumed I knew and so no one told me until 2 days ago. It will be this way until Aaron's work permit gets properly sorted and such.

On the bridge.

We kind of thought that 90 days would be plenty of time to have a baby, get documents for that baby, and get the Boy a surgery he needs, whole other story, before needing to renew our visas. This was before I knew that renewing our visas involved a 4 hour drive to the nearest border crossing and a short trip to Burma.

However, there is still no baby, the Boy's surgery date is for the 21st, because I kept putting off scheduling it, not wanting to be in labor when he's in the hospital, and our visas expired on the 24th. This is one of those moments when my brain melts down and I think to myself, "There is no way." And then I cry.

You see, even if we have the baby in the next few days, the odds of getting all the documentation for said baby, including a passport, before crossing into Burma, of all places, in less than 10 days are pretty low. Plus there's the part about the Boy recovering from what is pretty major surgery and driving for 4 hours in each direction 3 days after.

It didn't even occur to me that we didn't have to wait until the 24th to go and renew until Aaron said something. So we talked about it and decided the best thing to do was to make a run for it as soon as we could. Which is why yesterday found us once again in a rental car, this time headed for the border.

More than 8 hours back there and they did it without complaining or fighting.

You don't need any paperwork to take an unborn baby across borders, after all.

I really like getting out of the city and driving through Thailand. It's beautiful, and interesting, and Aaron and I used to spend hours together in a car during our courtship/early married days and I still really like doing that with him. We go into full on adventure mode.

The kids were great, despite being crowded in to a small little backseat together, and we had a memorable day.

Looking at Burma from the Thai side.

The border between the 2 countries at the northern most point of Thailand is marked by a narrow, muddy, little river. There's a street market on both sides of this river, in what looks like a big network of back alleys that cross under the "Friendship Bridge". You have to cross the bridge to get to Burma and back. Buildings cling to the river bank and pile up several stories high on both sides, and you could play a decent game of catch with someone on the other side from your apartment balcony to theirs, as long as you never missed.

We haven't gone very many places yet, all of us together, since we got here. After all, given the option of taking all 4 kids to the store withe me or going alone, what sane mama is going to vote for taking all 4? I've usually taken one child along with me in turns so they can have some one on one time and get a chance to get out of the muban and see some things, just not all together. Whenever we do go somewhere though we are a spectacle. People count out loud as we all parade past, culminating in a dramatic exclamation of 5! as they see my belly, usually bringing up the rear. (Five in Thai sounds like Hah, as in hahaha. So that's always fun to hear.)

See? Spectacle. Look at that giant belly.

They point, they giggle, they wave. They reach out to try and touch BamBam, who usually grins at them slyly and tries to hide behind me, or swings a fist out at them, which they think is funny. Some people ask me if they can take a family photo. Some people don't bother asking, they just point and shoot and then come and stand beside us, or one of the kids, regardless of what they are doing and smile and wave for their friends to take a picture. The Girl and Boy are mostly safe from people trying to touch them, they are old enough it seems to be seen as autonomous persons. But Little, well, she's so tiny people think she's very young, and they always want to make friends with her, and often want to hug her, and this makes her pretty uncomfortable sometimes.

They are super cute.

To cross, first we went into Thai immigration and they removed our old visas. We had to fill out some papers and Bam Bam played with the fountain and I think 100 or more photos of myself and the kids now live on 10 different people's cell phones.

Then we walked across the bridge, and I smelled something delicious from a food cart that I went back for later, and went into Burmese immigration. Here's where things got weird.

Imagine if you will a very smoky little office, filled with a bunch of guys in bright white polyester uniforms, with all sorts of medals and stuff on them. A rather portly man, also in uniform, waved us inside from the chair he sits on facing the street. The kids all found chairs and sat quietly, they are getting good at this government office stuff. BamBam was his regular charming 2 year old self, not so quiet, but adored by everyone he saw. Aaron brought US currency, because the last time he crossed this border they charged him US dollars to enter. Yes, you pay a fee to enter Burma. They wanted Thai baht, but we didn't have enough on us to cover the cost in baht. Finally they let us pay them in US dollars. Meantime, everyone smiled and laughed at the kids, one man made bird sounds with his mouth, they all said hello and did the regular trying to make friends with my kids who shrank back and clustered close to me as a result.

I was doing something for BamBam when I heard, "Mama!" and looked up to see that one of the men in the white uniforms had come out from behind his desk, picked up Little and was sitting with her in his lap. Talk about disconcerting. Fortunately, Little is a bit Thai in the way she will smile and laugh when she's uncomfortable and get a little silly as a way to get out of it. Suppressing my initial urge to stand up and scoop her out of this strange soldier's lap and run away, which would teach her to be afraid and not go over well in this strange place, I instead smiled and said, "I think he wants to be friends with you."

She reached for my hand giggling, and he tried to hold her close, all very friendly I might add, not sinister on his part, and somehow she and I managed to reach hands and make it silly that she wriggled away from him and over beside me as quickly as she possibly could.

Then he tried to make friends with Bam Bam, who was his usual self and rebuffed all advances with his usual good humor. We were almost done and Bam Bam tripped over the door step and fell on his face on the floor, setting up a nice loud wail. When they saw me trying to help him by putting my, not really cold anymore, water bottle against his cheek, one of the officers brought over a cold can of mango juice and gave it to him to drink and hold. It was really very kind. Though Bam Bam kept yelling until we left the office, and then finally wanted to try and drink his juice while hugging it to his chest and walking.

So we left our passports with them and entered into Burma. I know!!! They keep your passports and give you a card with your photo on it instead, and you pick up your passports on your way back out. So not comfortable.

There were way fewer people smiling on the Burmese side than the Thai side. I've gotten used to the always smiling Thai greeting, and by contrast many of the Burmese looked downright surly, or sad, or both. But they still pointed at us, and counted, and laughed at BamBam as he walked by and looked right back at all of them.

At the tea house.

We stopped at a tea house, just a block away from the bridge. Aaron and his brother spent all night in the exact same one 3 years ago when they went to Burma together. As soon as you sit down they put an assortment of food in front of you, and hot pots of tea. You pay for what you eat/open. Burmese milk tea is very tasty.

The bathrooms were, well, Thai bathrooms look palatial in comparison. And the flush/rinse water was the same color as the muddy river we had just crossed. Poor Little actually slipped and fell right on top of the toilet she had just finished peeing in. Poor girl. We cleaned her up as well as we could. I always carry toilet paper so I could wipe her muddy legs, and found some cleaner water a bit later to rinse her off.

After that we were eager to get back to the Thai side and begin the long drive home again. It was already much later than we had planned, and we had 4 hours of driving still ahead.

But that didn't stop us from buying some Burmese pastries on the bridge, and these amazing sort of breaded fried onion cakes, kind of like a Burmese onion ring, as well as giant grapes, lychees, shoes for Bam Bam, and Chinese Oolong tea.

The night air was warm, but cool enough to have the windows down, and we stared at the limestone mountains with their crazy shapes as the sun went down behind them.

The dinner stop was in Chiang Rai, at bed time, in the food court of a big, beautiful mall, and all rejoiced to be back in civilization again, with clean toilets, and soap, and well, clean everything.

We've gone full Asian tourist. Look at us, at a mall!

Daddy, it's covered in light up flowers! You're the best!

And then we drove for hours and hours and got home without incident just after midnight, except for a very low gas gauge at one point and passing many stations that were closed before we found one we could fill up at. That caused some nervousness. They close up at night here in northern Thailand. Things really shut down.

It was actually a really fun day, though exhausting, and we have another 90 days before we have to do that again, even if this baby is the latest baby ever in the history of the whole world, that should give us enough time to figure out the passport and stuff. And still, no labor yet.

Patience

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 04:22:00 +0000

Move to Thailand - Check

Buy a truck -

Have a baby -

Find a place to live -

Get to work -

So, one out of 5 isn't bad, right?

We found a truck, at a great price, because it needed some work. But work here is cheap, and usually done decently, so it seemed a good trade off. Here though, they don't start the work unless you pay them first. So they give you a work order, saying what they will do, ask you to pay, and then they get to work.

Well, we've been told the delay was because they were trying to find a part. Then they said they found the part, and charged us for it. Then they said it would be ready to test drive this past Saturday. But when Aaron arrived to do so, no one was there, and the engine was still laying in pieces all over the garage. A less than promising sign.

Have a baby. Well, that isn't going so well either. I'm now 9 days past due, and no sign of anything changing anytime soon. I am so not in control of that one, without seeking invasive medical intervention, so I'm just going to have to wait to check that one off the list.

Find a place to live. We thought we had. But then the owners of the house came back after we agreed on a price and asked for more money. Aaron has no intention of any further dealings with someone who will say one thing and then change their mind, even if we could afford the higher price. So we're back at square one again in that regard also.

Get to work. Aaron has some somewhat urgent business to attend to up on the mountain at the orphanage. He's waiting for this baby to come so he can go and take care of things there without being at risk of being a several hour ride away when I go into labor. There are many things to do here, online, and with meetings and stuff, but it does feel substantially stalled, this forced confinement in Chaing Mai.

The lesson of Thailand so far seems to be patience. And then more patience. And then just a little more after that, for good measure.

This is the longest I've ever been pregnant.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 17:42:00 +0000

For the first time ever, in 6 pregnancies, I am still pregnant on my due date. I am so not thrilled about this. It's hot here, and the 5 things that I brought that are most comfortable in this heat are getting very boring to wear. Plus I miss my toes. And my feet keep retaining water. I waddle everywhere, the baby stretches and it pinches a nerve to my legs, which is really not comfortable, and I'm really super tired.

Did I mention the heat?

I keep telling myself exactly what I would tell another mom in my situation when I was a doula. Baby will come when baby is ready. Don't worry about it. Keep busy. Rest as much as you can. Enjoy these last days with your family this size before you add another person. I know these things. But really I feel a little crazy with the waiting.


Totally thought I was near labor a week and a half ago and got everything ready.		False alarm.

This week we rented a car, (we're also waiting for the vehicles we just purchased to get back from the mechanics from the various tuning up and repairs we wanted done on them before driving them around), and drove to Pai. It was a bit crazy, but I needed to get out and do something besides wait.

Pai is a 3 hour drive away through the mountains on bumpy, extremely windy roads that go high enough that pine trees can grow, and I figured that if anything would send me into labor, the extreme altitude changes plus the hair pin turns would do it. We had an excuse to go. The lovely Rae has been scouting for houses for us up there, since that is where we want to live once we have this baby, and there were houses for rent for us to look at.

So we drove. It's a beautiful, gorgeous drive, and now we know for certain that BamBam is prone to motion sickness, and spent the night with her family. She's amazingly hospitable. "Sure you can come and crash at my house with less than 24 hours notice, shall I cook for you?" I love her.

We looked at houses. We're pretty sure one of them will be just what we need. Then we drove back to Chiang Mai to get the rental car back in time to not have to pay for another day.

You would think that would bring on labor. But nothing. Not a single contraction. The baby was very excited about the driving though, kicked all over the place.

At least now I know what our house is going to look like, and I can start to furnish it in my head, and figure out what we need to get to make it home.

(In most places here you actually have to provide your whole kitchen. As in, the kitchen is a room, it might have a sink in it already, and you have to get your own stove and counters and storage, etc. Ours has a little fridge though and a rickety looking sink on a metal cart, so you can tell it's the kitchen.)

Today I missed my scheduled C-section appointment. I tried to call yesterday and ask to talk to the doctor, but no one understood me and they said someone would call back who spoke English. Today someone with better English called and asked why I missed my appointment and if I wanted to reschedule and I told her I wanted to talk to the doctor first, who is now supposed to be calling me sometime.

I was going to tell her I wasn't going to come in. I was going to tell her that I had done some research and found that in 2010, 3 out of every 1000 C-sections performed in Thailand ended as fatalities. That's an insanely high number, and I'm not comfortable with that. Especially compared to the fact that the number of women who died in a VBAC the same year, out of 100,000 was 3.8. So basically, I'm 100 times more likely to die if I go under the knife here than if I have this baby naturally. (For all those who think I'm being reckless, just think about those numbers for a minute. Three in every 1000 women died. That's just plain terrifying.)

I've been having fun thinking about my own mortality and stuff. Can't you tell?

I realized we don't have many pregnant photos with the kids in them this time. I feel as tired as I look in this.

I was going to ask her if the hospital even had any of my blood type on hand in case I needed it, since hospitals here don't stock RH negative blood types. Less than 0.5% of the population here is RH negative so anyone who needs a negative blood type usually needs to get people to donate it for them in advance. I have learned that there is an expat donor list, and you can call them to get blood donated if you need it and have an unusual blood type. I was going to ask her if she had blood on hand in case of emergency, or if I should ask for donations. I was going to tell her that given all these things I was afraid to come in for surgery, and that my husband is against it. (Which he is, it's just an easy line to use in a male dominated culture.) I was going to stall, in other words. It turns out the language barrier has saved me most of that problem. Until she actually calls me that is. Then we will have whatever conversation we will have.

Goofiness. Look we're still pregnant.

It would be nice to just have the baby already and then have a conversation when I go in with short person number 5, (or 6 if you count Shiloh, but I don't usually, since I only actually HAVE 4, please let it be 5 very soon.)

So we wait again. And I waddle, and nap a lot, an try to make myself take an interest in projects that I should do, but that I just don't want to do. I want to push a baby out, and paint my toenails, and move on to the hundred other things we've pushed off doing but need to get done this coming month, because we didn't want to schedule an appointment when I would most likely be having a baby that week. Only I haven't, so it's time to make some appointments and just let the chips fall where they will. Things like consulate visits and immigration check ins don't wait for babies to be born. They have to be done when they have to be done. Which, of course, will probably be when I finally go into labor. C'est la vie.

7 Quick Takes - On Giving Kids the Space to Grow Up and Make Choices

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:19:00 +0000

It's been a while since I did a 7 quick takes post. But I've had several interesting things I've been reading, probably all linked to by friends on facebook, up on my laptop for a week or two now and it seemed time to just share them all at once and close those tabs. Many of these are variations on a theme.

1. Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids Basically, this article talks about the problems inherent in not allowing children to take any risks, and rescuing them too soon from the consequences of their actions, their own mistakes, and work they find challenging.

2. A Nation of Wimps From Psychology Today, exploring why overprotective parenting is causing kids to be weaker, not stronger. (I told you there was a theme to my reading. ;)

3. Safety Second, (Or Maybe Even Third) I loved how they address the issue of physical safety in this article. I have lost count of the number of times a fellow parent tells me they are amazed at how well my kids can navigate playground equipment without getting hurt, and how physically confident they are, only to, in the next breath, yell at their kids to "Come down from there. It's too dangerous. You can't do that."

Kids become safer as they gain experience using their bodies. Say yes to tree climbing, wall walking and stick playing. Show kids how to fall properly (rolling) and avoid real dangers (cliffs; busy streets).

4. The Neuro Science of Calming a Baby A brief little article explaining from a scientific perspective how normal it is for a crying baby to want to be picked up, how all mammals are soothed by being picked up and carried my their mothers, and why this works. Encouragement for every mama who just doesn't want to pick up the crying baby again, already, why won't they just sleep?

5. India may have created an inexpensive, about $1, rotavirus vaccine. Since rotavirus kills an estimated 450, 000 children every year, this is spectacular. India's Deadly Diarrhea Problem

6. And this one, which is likely to be controversial. Sloppy Seconds Sex Ed I was fortunate growing up to be given real and good information on how my body worked, and good and real reasons why I should respect and take care of it, and guard my sexuality. So this article just makes sense to me. My mind is boggled that there are people who really think it's better to keep their kids ignorant as to how their bodies work, and just tell them not to do anything with them. And that's not to mention the message that if you do make any mistakes your value as a person is somehow diminished because of it.

7. Because some of you will ask... What should we teach our kids about sex? My kids already pretty much know the basics of anatomy and reproduction, in an age appropriate way. It's a conversation that we have had, and will continue to have over and over as they get older. We present it as something amazing that our bodies are able to do. Just like hearts, and eyes, and our nervous system, and immune system, etc. All amazingly designed and miraculous.

When we talk to them about having sex, and where and when and with who that happens, we will tell them the truth. We will tell them that this amazing miraculous thing is precious, that it goes deep inside them, and what they choose to do with it will affect their lives. It can be amazing and wonderful and life giving. We will also tell them that just like we don't want them to put their lips in a meat grinder, because it's harmful and disfiguring, we don't want them to experience the heartbreak of being intimate with people who won't treasure them, commit to them, or be there for them when they need it. We've seen first hand, over and over again, how much pain this causes people and families, and often children conceived in these situations. We want them to live free of that. Just like we want them to drive sober and not go into a crazy amount of debt in college. We definitely won't tell them that no one will ever want them again if things don't go as we hope they will. Because that's just plain useless. Fear isn't a very good motivator when it comes to making good choices, not to mention the damage it causes on the way.

What it's like to be pregnant in Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:38:00 +0000

So you want to know what it's like to be pregnant in Thailand.

Where do I begin?

Let's start with wanting to buy a cotton nightshirt to sleep in. They have cotton night shirts. Just none made to go over pregnant bellies. I could buy 3 of the teeny tiny things they do sell and sew them all together to fit over me. That was one option I considered. But since I have to sew, I just went and bought fabric and hopefully in a few days I will just make the thing and be able to wear it while breastfeeding a baby also. An enterprising business person could probably make a bundle if they had maternity clothes tailored and sold here in a boutique. Women here just make do with what they can find.

Today I realized that not one of the many babies in the hospital waiting room was strapped into a car seat, or stroller, or any other sort of carrying device. They were all held. You know how in the US they won't even let you carry a baby around in the hospital in case you drop it, and they won't let you leave with your baby unless it's in a car seat? Yeah, that doesn't happen here. They carry babies, and they are so sweet with them.

Obstetric Practices

Just put yourself about 30 years ago in terms of common obstetrical practice in the US and you have Thailand. They put your feet in stirrups when it's time to push the baby out, many hospitals don't let your husband go in the room with you, and they believe VBACS are the most risky thing you can possibly attempt. Even if you've already had 3 of them.

Today I tried to keep a straight face while a young Thai doctor s earnestly informed me that my chances of uterine rupture are so much higher now, 11 years after my original C-section, than they were the first 3 times I had a VBAC because my uterus is old and stretched thin and just a very high risk. She then reassured me that C-sections and natural births in Thailand cost almost the same. She understands that you would want a VBAC in the US to keep the cost down, but here, where it is the same, why take the risk? She also told me that it doesn't hurt that much after the first day or two and that they will give me a lot of morphine. I kept a straight face through this piece of bullshit also.

(I had a C-section once. I know how long it takes to heal and feel normal after. Don't tell me I'll feel fine in a couple of days and that it won't be hard to take care of my other 4 children or not be able to lift my toddler when he's sad or even do the regular wrestling that is the bedtime routine with the little squirmer.)

There is one doctor in Chiang Mai who will perform VBACs, at a private hospital. They only allow her to because she has seniority. Only she leaves the country on Wednesday and doesn't return until after my due date. When I asked her what I could do she told me I needed to go to Bangkok. I wouldn't find any doctors here in town who would let me just labor and deliver. (I have no idea how she expects me to get there. I'm too pregnant to fly and it's a 12 hour trip by bus that would likely send me into labor on the way.)

So I tried another hospital, and an OB that my friend Cindy really liked for her 2 births. He was kind, and funny, a tiny old man who took my entire birth history in stride. At the end of the appointment he informed me that he is 64 and no longer actually attends births because he can't be up all night any more, so he would write me a letter to refer me to another doctor at another hospital where I could try for a "natural birth".

Except I had already seen that doctor, and she's leaving the country for 3 weeks.

So today I scheduled myself for a C-section, with the doctor who earnestly believes my old tired uterus is about to explode into a bloody pulp at the very first contraction. I got her to agree not to schedule it before my due date, which is fine because I've never gone all the way to my due date, (famous last words), and also didn't disagree with her too much when she told me that the placenta would dry up and shrivel and stop feeding my baby very soon afterward if I didn't do it then. I lied through my teeth when I promised to call her immediately if I started labor before then.

And then I paid almost $400US for them to advance order me some Rogham. In the US it's usually around $100. But RH negative blood types are rare in Asia, and it's harder to get here. (Plus, at about $15US for a Dr. appointment, they aren't making much money on patient care. Apparently most hospitals over charge for, and over prescribe, drugs because they get a cut from the sales and make some money that way.) I sat for an hour while they called hospital after hospital to locate some. This of course is why I'm pretending to schedule a C-section. I need to be registered at a hospital in order for them to advance order that Rogham in case the baby is born with an RH positive blood type.

(The good news about my blood type is that I'm a universal donor. I can give anyone blood. But it's kind of a pain in the butt when it comes to managing it during pregnancy.)

I also need to have a doctor on record who can vouch for the fact that I was actually pregnant, and did actually recently give birth to the child I will be bringing into the hospital with me after it's born. I need this in order to get paperwork from that doctor to take to the community head in order to get another paper to take to the embassy in order to get my kid an American birth abroad certificate so they can leave the country some day. Got that?

Of course, anyone who has been reading here for a while knows that I have no intention of going anywhere near a hospital until after I've already delivered this baby. They just can't know that. It has to look like an accident for the sake of paperwork.

I have found a lovely midwife here, ex-pat, who delivered her own twins at home, and will fly up from Bangkok when I call her to attend my labor.

Since I usually have some advance notice, this should work out just fine. It's only an hour flight.

Since it turns out that I'm going to be essentially lying through my teeth anyway, to not get my baby cut out of me when I'm perfectly capable of pushing it out myself, something I started out trying not to do, I realize I should have just lied through my teeth to begin with and completely omitted the bit about having a C-section. It's not like their record keeping is all that thorough to begin with.

Now I have to figure out when I'm going to call the doctor and tell her I'm having contractions. I think after the baby is born, followed by another call half an hour later telling her I'm not going anywhere I'm already pushing. I'll meet her at the hospital with the baby.

Now we can just settle in and wait for this baby to be born. Oh, and I have to figure out some names.

A Word on Asian Bathrooms

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:32:00 +0000

I have concluded that either, Thais are immune to foot fungus of any kind, or they just consider it something normal to live with. This is the only possible explanation for the eternally wet state of their bathroom floors.

You see, you don't wear shoes in a Thai house. But the bathrooms are one big room with a drain somewhere in the floor, and there might be a shower attachment on the wall, and maybe a sink, or toilet, but essentially, it's all one big wet floor with a drain. This may seem awesome, because to clean it all you have to do is hose everything down and it all just goes down the drain. It's simple, no one has to plan these bathrooms with any forethought, other than, "Is there a drain and a way to spray water? Awesome, we have a bathroom." But in practical reality it is significantly less awesome than it sounds.

First there is the pesky bit of trickery that is figuring out where to put your towel, and clothing so they remain dry while you are spraying yourself off in a curtainless shower. Not to mention trying to keep the toilet paper roll from getting soaked in the process. An adult could manage this, but factor in 4 children giving themselves showers and what you end up with is a soggy roll of toilet paper, sopping wet towels, and water in the medicine cabinet. If you are fortunate enough to have a medicine cabinet that is.

Then there is the part where the floor is always wet. Imagine an eager 2 year old running to go potty and encountering this wet floor. I have seen, and failed to catch, Bam Bam's feet slip straight out from under him as he lands on the back of his head on the hard tile floor at least 4 times in the past month.

Imagine a pregnant woman going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, where, in spite of her many strategically placed mats, some late night showerer has once again made the floor soaking wet and she barely keeps herself from going down in the dark.

Then there's the foot fungus. If you have ever had athletes foot to any degree or another you know that all it takes is a bit of water between the toes and the itching and burning and every thing get going full force almost immediately. Now imagine getting water between the toes every time you need to pee because you are always barefoot. Just for fun, imagine you have to pee as often as a women who is more than 8 months pregnant and has a baby head sitting pretty darn low.

Imagine how hard it is to reach down and treat said toes repeatedly all day long with a belly in the way.

And these are just the bathrooms in houses. At a rest stop on the way to Pai I watched little old lady clean the bathroom stalls by running the little tap that is in each stall for flushing and washing into the bucket filled with soap until it overflowed and the stall was at least half a foot deep with water. Then she pushed a mop around in the soapy water, thoroughly dousing the squat potties with the suds and then the sides and floors before turning the water off and letting it just drain. Squat potties are hard enough when you're not used to them, without the added complications of a soaking wet floor to slip on while you're doing it, oh, and an 8 month pregnant belly to balance at the same time. I've seen very few roadside restrooms that weren't dripping wet. Some smelled clean, some not so much.

I realize I'm a totally displaced westerner, with my own preconceived cultural ideas and all, but that western invention of a shower curtain, and a drain that contains the water behind said shower curtain, instead of it running all over the floor, that's a cultural innovation I applaud wholeheartedly.

I am for dry bathroom floors, however they are achieved.

Wish me luck house hunting.

(The bathrooms at Sean and Prang's house are actually not that bad. They have the shower in a separate little room from the toilet, and the sink in the main bathroom, and there is a wall between the shower side of the room and the rest of the room in the bathroom I use, but the floor still manages to be wet all the time anyway.)

***** UPDATED**********

So I have been informed that there are bathroom flip flops, which I assume are just regular old flip flops of some sort, and that Thai people keep them outside their bathroom door in their houses and wear them into the bathroom, and then take them off again when they leave the bathroom. This is useful information. Not quite as ideal as dry floors might be, but at least some level of protection from the wetness. I shall have to find some for myself.

On Weathering Storms

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:54:00 +0000

The lights flicker for a second while I'm in the shower, and I quickly duck my head under the water again in case they go out completely. Our water comes from a well here, and is pumped into the house. No electricity = no pump = no water. It's almost an instinct, now that the power flickers threateningly several times an evening, and sometimes during the day.

The fans come to a standstill, and suddenly the frogs and crickets and cicadas and birds and all the other night time critters sound like a gigantic chorus swelling outside the window.

The wind starts blowing in the late afternoon, sometimes the evening, and the clouds roll in and the lightening flashes across the darkening sky. The kids count the seconds until they hear the thunder roll. Things not tied down in the neighborhood start to crash and fall.

I love it.

I love the wild wind whipping at the curtains, the echo of the thunder, and the way everything outside starts crashing around. I especially love the rain, how it comes in and soaks everything down and the air cools, and it smells fresh and clean and the trees let out these amazing aromas.

I grew up in storm country, a small town in a wide, wide prairie and we could watch the clouds build for miles. I walked home under a darkening green sky, wind tugging at my clothes and hair, knowing a tornado was just around the corner.

My brother and I used to chase lightening storms on our bikes, searching for the best place to see it all, as close as we could get. And when the rain came, and the sultry heat dissipated in the huge drops battering the ground all around us we would run out in our clothes, reveling in it.

I feel alive again when the rains come, exhilarated.

Little thinks it all pretty scary, so we have science lessons at bedtime where I remind her that it's just hot air crashing into cold air, and electricity finding it's way back to the earth.

I love it when it's still raining in the morning, still nice and cool, and that sound, and that grey overhead, makes me feel cozy, and at home, and ready for a cup of tea, and a good book or project to sit down to.

A few days ago I had a moment, a stark moment, where I realized that, while there were many interesting, strange, bothersome, and beautiful things I could comment on about being here in Thailand, I had found nothing to love yet. This really felt like a horrible and depressing realization that made me feel like I was doomed to always find it difficult here.

I emailed my lovely wise friend Rae, who knows a thing or two about transplanting your whole family to a completely foreign country, while pregnant. She reminded me that loving a place comes with familiarity and memories that we attach to things, and familiarity comes with time. I haven't been here long enough to find anything familiar, but she assured me it would come.

Then the storms came, and the stories I told the kids about my childhood chasing them, so they wouldn't be afraid. And I realized that here was something familiar. This feels like home to me.

It was so unexpected, to find something so quickly that I just love, but here it was. I'm not a fan of the power going out, but even that, it happened all the time when I was little. We had oil lanterns in the dining room that we actually used often when the storms blew the power out. Now I go to the kitchen and fill a big pot full of water when the lights start to flicker, just to have some on hand if needed when the pump stops working. Maybe I should find a lantern too.

Of all things here, I didn't expect the weather to be something I'm thankful for. But here I am, grateful for small mercies, and big storms, and the rainy season is only beginning.

Making Home

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:21:00 +0000

It's sinking in now, that this is home. Aaron is here at last, and now we go about having this baby and making a home here, along with all the work we need to be doing.

It's not really home yet though. Not like you might imagine. It's a house shared with another large family and their often stopping in extended family as well. It's a very big comfortable house, with lots of room, so it's not as crowded as that sounds. It is kind of chaotic though at times.

They are so gracious, and kind and welcoming. They have made space for us in their space, and allowed for us to be bumping up against their routines and we are so blessed to have this time to find our way through this strange country, and this strange time in such a welcoming and safe place. There are children everywhere and my kids think it's awesome to have so many playmates so near at hand.

I have been alone with my kids in our little house for 2 years. The presence of other people presses against me. Almost like a physical sensation. I even felt it when Aaron would come home from the road, his presence like a slight pressure at the back of my neck.

The people who come and go, they press at my back, like a weight I am bearing up somehow. It makes no sense probably, except to introverts.

There were so many people here, for so long, that when briefly everyone left for a week or so I felt like my shoulders just dropped themselves down several inches, and I took a deep breath and looked around at just us, just my family together, and realized, "This is going to be so easy once we're on our own again."

It was so quiet.

This house is so big I have to yell all the time to keep my kids corralled. There are so many places they can wander to, usually before they have finished school or chores of course, and I am constantly calling them back. That may be one reason it was such a relief to have just us here. They had fewer reasons or distractions to run off to. And they could hear me more easily when I called.

We went to visit Pai the other day, where we think we are going to choose to live for the next few years here. Rachel and her kids greeted us with open arms, after the 3 hour curvy ride that took us there. Rae and I have lived together before. She's one of those people I lived so closely with that for a long time I felt incomplete without her around. So it was different there, even with 9 children bumping around each other the whole time. It was lovely to be with her, and lovely to watch our kids learn how to be friends with each other. The nights are considerably cooler also, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Rae gave me the most comfortable sleep I have had since getting to Thailand.

The boys hanging out in the kitchen.

breakfast

My shoulders dropped right down again to where they belong. I'm excited to find a house and to finally move into our own space again, even though the kids will probably find it a mournful event as they say goodbye to so many new friends, and their cousins.

We got home 2 nights before Aaron's arrival. Which we were very excited for, and the kids made plans for celebrating his birthday as soon as he got off the plane, since he was flying on his birthday. He made it through the whole day, the party, the swimming pool, the walk back from the cake shop. And then he slept like a dead man, for a very long time.

In the 4 days since we got back, one child here, Aaron's nephew, fell out of bed and had to be rushed to the hospital for 9 stitches. One of the trucks broke down. The power has gone out 3 times. Bam Bam decided to try and follow some of the other kids on a walk and got almost to the main gate to this neighborhood before he was found, while I was out getting groceries. Little tried to carry a giant wok full of steaming hot curry to the table all by herself, dropped it halfway there, and burned her foot. We continue to battle with the staph infection that BamBam got from a bug bite and is all over his neck, and face, and bottom. Plus it's a pretty full house.

I leave it to you to guess the state of my shoulders today.

PHFR - First month in Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:23:00 +0000

Pretty

So Thailand is a pretty place.


This is a national forest preserve, and a lovely place to swim.

The street we live on right now. But way down at the end of it from here.

Check out the trash cans made from recycled tires.

Even the noodles from the grocery store are pretty.

Happy

BamBam was overjoyed to discover I packed his trains.

baby gecko

Stopping at the little neighborhood shop to buy ice cream

It rained! Everything cools off when it rains.

Funny

I don't actually have any pictures for funny.

Real

A touch of heat stroke last week.

A gas station bathroom.

How we all all these kids around. Totally not as safe as back home.

Bitey bugs and mystery rashes.

100 Millions Bits of Kindness

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 15:42:00 +0000

Sometimes the kids and I get into these conversations about why we're here and what our job is while we are. (I'm not talking about Thailand, but about the larger cosmic issues of existence and meaning, etc. Which does eventually tie into why we came to Thailand, but anyway.)

We teach them, because we firmly believe that it's true, that the purpose for which humanity was created is the completion of the creation. We were placed here, made in the very image of the creator himself, to carry out the work of completion, to bring the creation to it's greatest height and achievement. We're designed to create ourselves, each of us in the way we are given the ability to do, to bring order out of chaos, beauty out of brokenness, to participate in redemption. We were given a great deal of power in order to accomplish this mission, real power that can be used for good or ill.

(If you've ever wondered why it is that people are capable of hurting each other so and why would God allow that, just remember that people are also capable of loving and healing and building and doing incredibly great, selfless, things and they wouldn't have the power to do those incredibly good things if they didn't also have the power to use it to harm as well. You get to choose what you do with your power. You get to decide if the words you say to a child will destroy or build him stronger. You get to decide if your hands will be used to gently encourage and build up, or harm and hurt, damage and destroy. We teach our children this as well, knowing that every choice is building habits and inclinations, in one direction or another. Choose to be kind now, it will be even easier to do it again. Choose to indulge your desire to get back at someone today, tomorrow it will be an even stronger urge and harder to choose not to.)

So I asked the kids, "How do you think we finish creation, what can we do?"

I think we accomplish our mission in a myriad of different ways, like choosing forgiveness instead of hate, to pass through suffering with grace, choosing gratitude rather than self pity and complaining, to care for others rather than ourselves, to give instead of take, to love and serve instead of expecting to be served. We do this by unselfishly giving our lives for others, in grand gestures that cost us the rest of our time here on earth, and in the ongoing sacrifice of living every day more for others than ourselves. (Mothers know a lot about this one, so do fathers, and husbands and wives and teachers and all sorts of people who choose to give what they have to others.) I am convinced that daily we all hold in our power a portion of creation and it is affected by what we do with it. There is always something, right now, to be done to bring peace, life, light, and love to the world around us. (Even if the world around us is a house covered in toy trains and a poopy toddler. Or especially there. Who knows what that child will grow up to do and be.)

They thought about it for a little while and then the Girl answered, "Maybe if we say and do 100 million kind things we can get the job done."

I woke up last week to see that while we slept here on the other side of the world, someone had intentionally targeted civilians at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Very soon after I saw a report that a US bomb had accidentally landed on a wedding party in Pakistan, killing 35 people. And after that there was an explosion, and a manhunt for terrorists, and people rejoicing over the death of one and the capture of another, and someone posted on facebook how disappointing it was that the attempt on the president's life failed. And then I read about the Central African Republic, what is largely a Christian nation, where now Muslim radical groups and the new rebel government are daily bombing Christian homes and churches and killing the children of pastors while they are out and my screen was filled with images of death, and dismemberment and destruction. I don't want to see any more pictures of blood and blown off limbs, and dead children, of bodies twisted and mangled and burned and destroyed.

And I thought, "How far we have to go! How deeply we have gone off course in our mission as humanity."

For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. (Romans 8:19-22 NET)

Newsflash, by the way, that's us. We're supposed to have God's spirit in us and be continuing the work of reconciliation that Jesus began. This healing thing is our job now people.

But as I caught up on all the coverage, there was a lot more being said about the people who ran to help. Just as with every tragedy in recent memory, there are stories of heroes, and people who put themselves in harms way to save someone else. There is a generosity of spirit and unselfish giving of resources and care in so many different ways. If we could only focus on continuing to do that, rather than the blaming and finger pointing we inevitably shift to, maybe we could keep this healing thing on track.

I think the Girl may be on to something. One hundred million kind things, deliberately unselfish words and actions, (including politicians and tyrants and people who direct multinational corporations and generals, imagine if those people did deliberately kind things in their daily decision making,) that may be how we all finish this thing called creation, and make it a worthy place for all of us to live.

It's a start anyway.

Who knows what kindness your single act may inspire another to do for someone else.

Some days...

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:49:00 +0000

Some days being a mother is standing in the kitchen on tired legs making dessert for children who have asked for it.

Some days it's not reading a bedtime story and instead helping them see all the things they should have seen earlier, when they were supposed to be cleaning up while you made that dessert. It's holding your tone as even as you're able, knowing that it's not as even as you want it to be.

It's mopping the floor while they shower, to get the stickiness off before the ants find it.

Some days it's looking wryly at your feet and ankles, swollen to twice their normal size, when they ask you to rub their feet when you are tucking them into bed for the night, and then doing it, wishing you had someone around to ask to rub yours.

Some days it's counting days to when you are no longer parenting solo and thinking of all the moms you know who have no end in of solo parenting in sight.

It's reminding a son, again, to get ready for bed when he's distracted, and saying "Because I told you to," for at least the hundredth time since breakfast.

It's picking up toys with a toddler, all over again.

It's firmly putting the pajamas on a wriggly two year old boy, lacking the energy to make it a game this time, just setting the jaw and getting it done. And then doing it all over again because he has to take them off to go pee. It's apologizing for not making the teeth brushing fun tonight, as you hold his head and just do it. It's all you have left in you to do.

It's telling a 6 year old to get back in bed, as she complains about something silly, and practically hollering it over the screams of the toddler, still angry because you held him down and cleaned his teeth.

It's calming the toddler down, and getting him to lay still in bed looking at books, only to have it all undone by someone turning on a movie just as he's near to sleep and spending the next half hour in the bedroom with him, saying no, as he wails again and again and again, "Pwease watch movie mama."

It's letting tears of frustration fall as you simply remain at his side, and refuse to give in.

It's hauling your heavily pregnant body all the way back upstairs on those hurting swollen feet to keep a promise to little girls that you would return when you were done getting the toddler to sleep. It's gently rubbing their foreheads so they wake up just enough to know you were there, and then, hopefully, have no reason to wake at night and need you again.

It's walking back downstairs with 6 water cups and a misplaced pot in hand, past the able bodied people on the couch watching a movie, and into the kitchen that looks just as it did when you left it after cooking dinner and dessert for everyone.

It's washing dishes, and choosing not to feel sorry for yourself, today you will just get it done rather than delegate.

And finally, a few hours later than you had hoped, it's sitting down with some chocolate, and maybe something enjoyable to read, just for a few minutes, before getting ready to go to sleep yourself.

Some days motherhood feels only like sacrifice, and you realize that's ok, because you are stronger for it, and it's not always like this.

Tomorrow you'll make someone else clean the kitchen.

A Few Notes About Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:21:00 +0000

So we've been in Thailand for more than 2 weeks now. As expected, hot season is super hot and people speak a different language here and it's a very different sort of place.

This was at 9:30 in the evening. Still 90F.

But for those who find this sort of thing interesting, I've been compiling a list of sorts of the particularly unusual, to me as a westerner, things I've discovered.

First, to understand how a lot of things work in Thailand just take yourself back about 15 years in terms of technology. For instance, you can get cash from ATMs every where, but you can't pay with debit or credit at the check out counter in most places. Your receipt at the grocery store will print very slowly on an old school printer, the kind that has the tear away paper with the holes in it on the sides. Oh and a friend discovered you can't buy alcohol except between 11-2 or after 5pm, unless you buy it in quantities larger than 10 liters. This is supposedly to keep people from drinking all afternoon instead of only at lunch and dinner. I hear it doesn't work very well.

Also at the grocery store, which isn't that much different price wise from the US, though some local things are way cheaper, and because it's Chiang Mai you can get a ton of western items, they have these weighing counters at the meat and produce sections. So once you've selected your fruit you take it to the weighing station and they weigh it and put a little sticker on it with a bar code that says it's price for the people at the check out. It's basically like a deli counter, only for all of your fruits and vegetables, and another for your raw meat, which lies open in giant bins and you just put the cuts you want in plastic bags to be weighed. I've twice forgotten to weigh my produce before going to check out and had to turn around and go back to get it done. It's a good job for any kids you take with you to the store though. Then you can keep shopping while they stand in line waiting for things to be weighed.

Here's a really weird one. People park their cars behind the regular parking spaces in parking garages, which is perfectly legal, as long as they leave it in neutral with the parking brake off so their cars can be pushed aside when someone needs to leave their space. There are even garage attendants who push the cars around for people so they can get their own car out. I can't even imagine anyone in the US being comfortable with leaving their car in the hands of someone else to push it around while they are gone.

You have to carry toilet paper with you in Thailand. In some places, they will have water beside the toilet for you to wash yourself with, often in the form of a little spray hose. It's a country full of bidets. Other times there will be nothing at all in the bathroom but a toilet and a trash can. Unless there is a sign saying otherwise, the toilet paper has to go in the trash. But I have always wondered what women do about the wetness situation after using the water to wash themselves. Aaron tells me you just get wet, but that seemed unlikely. Since he's a man, he would only need avail himself of the water part of the toilet routine once or twice a day. We women on the other hand, we know just how often we would be walking around very wet and uncomfortable if water was our only option. I figured that this could work in India, with the more traditional clothes, very low crotched pants, or skirts, etc, but the Thai women are very stylish, and wear pants and fitted clothes and I've never seen one of them walking out of the bathroom with a wet crotch. So I finally asked Prang how they managed that, and she told me they all carry toilet paper to dry themselves off with. Mystery solved! Also, every time one of the women living here goes out I see her stuff a roll of TP in her purse, and I've started doing the same. Sort of like camping, only not.

Here in the middle of hot season it's also burning season. People burn their fields to prepare them for the coming rainy season and new crops, and people also just burn wild fields, because that makes mushrooms grow and they go back in a few months and pick them. Add to that the exhaust from vehicles, and that Chiang Mai is in a valley, and the air quality is pretty poor. It smells like forest fire almost all the time. So people drive around with their faces covered. There are these nifty sun hats that have a bit that goes across your nose and down over your mouth and neck that everyone wears to keep from inhaling as much of the air. I've even seen people with cloths wrapped across their faces over respirators. So basically half the people you see outside look like terrorists. And you just get used to it.

Everyone is waiting for the rain, which will wash away all the smoke and make it so we can see the mountains and take away some of the heat. The Thai new year, Songkran, started yesterday. It's basically a three day long country wide water fight. I think it has something to do with looking forward to the rainy season. But everyone gets everyone wet. Driving down the road there are people on the side with buckets and hoses and they will spray you down. This is awesome, especially when it's so hot. Though I've been told that you never know where the water came from, and some people get sick. The kids loved it when they got wet in the back of the truck driving around.

You also see what look like gangs, roaming the streets, packed into the back of open pickup trucks, with giant barrels of water that they keep filling up water guns and buckets from to throw on people. Sometimes several trucks will just keep pulling up beside each other as they drive down the road, just for a chance to get each other wet again. It makes for interesting driving.

I went out by myself in a friend's truck during Songkran, and watched the truck action as I went. It's not that hard to drive here. As long as you can wrap your brain around the fact that you are on the wrong side of the road, you turn into what feels like it should be oncoming traffic, you are on the wrong side of the vehicle, and you are using the wrong hand to shift and operate the signal light. Once you get comfortable with all that, you just have to remember that lanes are more of a guideline than anything else, there are hundreds of people on motor scooters coming up on both sides of you, and that people stop and park in random places that you have to drive around all the time, and you have driving in Thailand figured out. I'm hoping to get my Thai driver's license in a few weeks. So far, no one has died on any of my driving attempts. I'm planning to keep it that way.

Thailand has this interesting cultural phenomenon called lady boys. Basically, cross dressers. Guys who look like girls. I walked into the store beside 7/11 one day, because I thought it was the door to the 7/11, and realized quickly that all the young ladies dressed in the red polo shirts who tried to understand what I was asking for were not ladies at all. But their eyebrows were impeccably drawn. They even have their own polite designation. At the end of each sentence in Thai, to be polite, men say "krap" women say "kaa", which is basically "yes". And ladies boys? They say "ha-a" and it sounds exactly like you would imagine it would, if some gay guy in New York said "holla" with his hands in the air and ended it with girlfriend.

But the weirdest thing to get used to of all of them is the internet. You can get relatively fast internet connection here, but you get different pages. I guess I thought the internet was the same worldwide, except for places like China and the middle east, but it's not. Google bumps me to their international products page, which is not the same as their products in the US, same with skype, and many other sites that I just thought would look the same here as they do back home. Of all the different things to adjust to, this, in the end, was the one that made me cry a few days ago in frustration, because it just doesn't work the way you expect it to, and you just can't see or do the same things from here as you can from the US. Which is telling I suppose. I guess I live more of my life online than I thought if the difference in website pages made me more upset than the difference in languages. It's expectations I suppose. I thought that if I had wi fi, I would have everything I needed at my finger tips, and that's not true, not for everything. So I don't have a google voice number like I planned, because you have to set that up in the US and attach it to a US number. They don't let you do it here.

But overall, it's a way easier place to adjust to being in than some I could think of. For one thing, the food is amazing! My kids don't always agree, and would prefer to just eat bread and peanut butter, especially BamBam, but it is amazing, trust me. So much yumminess. I'm trying to figure out what the ingredients are, especially the vegetables, so I can make more dishes. And like everyone else, I'm looking forward to the rain and the end of hot season. They say it's coming soon. Until then, I'll be sitting here under a fan, wiping my dripping face with the hanky I bought for just that purpose at the store today.

Hello from Chiang Mai

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 04:46:00 +0000

So we made it. It was pretty uneventful. No children were lost in transit, or bags, so it was a pretty successful trip.

We had a travel buddy system to keep everyone from getting lost.

Which was good because they couldn't seat us all in the same row.

Of course, that's never the whole story, because every trip has it's happenings, but it's a good place to start.

For instance, Little, who inherited my hypoglycemia, didn't eat any of the food she was given the morning of our departure because her tummy was already in knots, so she ended up vomiting on herself in the car on the way to the airport. So there was that, a wardrobe change as soon as we arrived. Plus, we had a ton of luggage, and it seemed every elevator at LAX was closed for maintenance. We ended up in a completely different terminal just to get to the right level before walking back to the terminal we were supposed to be in. That was fun.

What followed was a lot of waiting. Which was the same everywhere. A group our size, with as much stuff as we had, meant we stood for what felt like a very long time while 3 or more people from the airline rushed around behind the counter and processed everything for us, or the immigration person processed our paper work, etc. I wasn't about to rush them. Better to let them figure it all out and make sure there were no mistakes so everything made it on the plane. Even if that meant asking the manager several questions at a time. I signed many waivers regarding my condition and flying.

A car seat for a toddler is a very good thing on a 14 hour flight.
He was content to stay still when tied down in it.

The stewardesses on our first flight to Shanghai gave me slippers and eye mask and toothbrush once they noticed I was pregnant. I was really grateful for the slippers. I was also glad to be close to the galley because they didn't give me nearly enough water at first and I got some very painful muscle cramps so I resorted to helping myself and filling up my bottle whenever it was empty. I must have finished at least 15 bottles of water on that flight. But, no more cramping. Also, it was a handy place to stretch out and move around.

mainland China

Shanghai was a horribly depressing airport, with cigarette smoke from the wide open smoking lounge door filling the gate where we waited. The flight wasn't much better, with rude passengers, lazy stewardesses and the heat on full blast for 4 straight hours. I don't recommend Shanghai Air.

Some people slept anyway.

And then we walked out into the wall of hot humid air in Bangkok, at 12:30am local time, and for the first time I thought to myself, "Good God, what have I done?"

Of course, we were all a little sleep deprived by then.

But the Bangkok airport, especially after Shanghai, makes capitalism look really, really good. Bright, clean, beautiful and huge. Not bad for a place that is a borderline 3rd world country still.

I was surprised by how some people had no problem budding in line in front of us going through immigration. They weren't Thai, but I'm used to the US and the way people at least pretend to be polite like that in such situations. I had to get vigilant about our spot.

I was also surprised, forgetting I suppose that it was 2:30 in the morning, by the guy at the airport food court, which was an amazing place full of good food for really cheap, who told me he wouldn't serve me because he was taking a nap. He was just sitting leaning on a mini fridge sleeping with the stall wide open. SO not something that would happen in the US.

swollen ankles

Then I cried because my kids refused to lie down and try to sleep during the early morning hours before we boarded our 8am flight to Chiang Mai and I didn't feel like I could lay down and rest until they did. But then I had a sane moment, an hour or 2 later, after I looked in a bathroom mirror and saw my ankles had swelled to the size of grapefruits, when I remembered that I had 2 fabulous helpers on this trip, who had actually slept on the last flight from Shanghai, and laid down on a bench and slept anyway and let them watch my kids. It was way better than nothing.

Bangkok Airways was a lovely way to conclude our air travel, with the biggest seats of the whole trip, and an nearly empty plane and stewardesses who spent all their time smiling at BamBam and entertaining him. Every kid got a window seat, Little finally got to sit next to me and was adorable the entire trip and we were there.

obligatory tourist shot

I was expecting to see Adam, and Cindy and Prang, or some variation thereof when we landed. But JourneyMama standing there with her baby was a wonderful surprise and I for sure cried, and just barely avoided a huge ugly cry. She's had 2 babies since I saw her last, that's how long it's been, and she made the 3 hour trip from where she lives into Chiang Mai in order to be there to greet us.

the gate

Sean and Prang's house, and our place of residence until after the baby is born.

It's been hot, but not horribly so. The nights get cool. The kids have woken around 4 am each day and taken a long time to go back to sleep thanks to jet lag, but they are adapting amazingly well. They are such good travelers. I was surprised how well they handled everything, and with what good spirits.

This was a very welcome sight.

We really are blessed to have the loveliest place to land, with family and friends and a comfortable house to stay in. I started making Prang let me help and do things because I need to find my way around her kitchen before she goes back up to the village next week. But I'm letting her cook, for now, (I say that like I have a choice about it) because her cooking is amazing, and the style and ingredients so different from what I'm used to that I really don't know what to do with a lot of the food in the fridge. I haven't recognized at least half of the vegetables that show up in our meals every day.

It's been 4 years since Little and Abby saw each other last.
They have been inseparable.

This is Prang. We went exploring in the muban. (That means neighborhood.)

Some of you may be interested to learn that breakfast is just another meal. This morning it was chicken, rice, a green squash like vegetable stir fried with tomatoes and egg, and a chili sauce with fish in it. All very tasty, and totally more like dinner to me. Often it is just leftover dinner for breakfast. We breakfast on the porch while it is still cool outside, and by noon all the kids go inside because it's so hot.

Early morning view from the porch.

The one thing I miss is tea. I know it's available, I just can't find any in Prang's kitchen. Tonight she is going to show me the market and I will start to find my way around town.

Before I drive anywhere I need to get used to the fact that everything is backwards, and get a driver's license, though they tell me no one here cares if I have one or not. They drive on the left side of the road here, and the driver's seat is on the right, and all the way back from the airport I couldn't shake the feeling that Cindy was turning into the wrong lane.

So the adventure continues. But after the momentous effort of just getting here, the rest seems pretty doable right now.

Thanks for all your prayers and love as we made our journey.

Leaving, on a Jet Plane

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:00:00 +0000

So I woke up this morning with a pounding headache and stuffed sinuses. Now I know why BamBam spent a good 2 hours last night crying and yelling and stuff. We are all sick again. Just in time for a 24 hour international flight, plus 7 hours in the Bangkok airport waiting to board the final flight to Chiangmai.

The timing is spectacular.

But we're almost there, we've almost crossed the finish line. Final packing details wait today, weighing luggage once again, and making our travel buddy plan. I'm so grateful to have Alex and Nicole flying with me to help kid wrangle.

look, Visas!

Right now the Boy and Little are making German Pancakes with their auntie, my MIL has taken over organizing the kids stuff, and the kids have been soaking up as much fun as they can.

One last trip to the beach with Auntie Ana and Uncle Alex

BamBam discovered a new mode of transportation at a friends house.

At a picnic to say goodbye to Aaron's grandparents

I've been doing things like wondering if I should buy extra socks, and what we'll do in a country almost entirely devoid of toilet paper and the part where we're arriving at the height of hot season as Chiangmai lays under a blanket of smoke from all the field burning.

Also sorting through a mountain of paperwork and documents to decide what needs to come and what can stay

But, in less than 24 hours this part will all be over and we'll be waiting to board.

packing bins

I plan to tell stories again on the other side.

I'm working really hard today to not think about all the goodbyes I don't have time left to say. I'm going to miss so many people.

So this is it friends. Signing off. Catch you on the other side.

Thank you for all your support on this journey.

Oh, and here's a belly photo just because.

Grace, never in short supply.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 08:12:00 +0000

Well, we moved out of our house last week. And by we I mean the kids and I, and a ton of amazing friends and family, packed up our stuff and moved it to storage or donation bins over the course of 2 or 3 weeks and then cleaned up everything and stuff while Aaron spent 2 weeks in Florida working. Yeah, he was actually working, and got home a day after everything was already finished.

But he did, after a long series of flight delays that had him actually walking in the door to his parents house around 6am, go with me directly to the walk through with the landlords, which was the kind of story so unreal I have to tell it another time all in itself. In summary, we were their first ever tenants, they have very unrealistic expectations, and their interpretation of the legal requirements for tenants was somewhat extreme. Like, "You are going to have to clean those tiny dots around the recessed light wells caused by flies or we'll have to charge you to have it done." It remains to be seen what they will return of our damage deposit and whether or not we will have to go to arbitration to get the rest back.

Obviously they are going to have to hire someone to get this place move in ready.

It's such a pigsty.

Too bad we are such negligent tenants.

This room needs to be vacuumed again.

And of course something needs to be done about all the refuse in this yard. It has to be cleaned.

(It's hard to stay away from the sarcasm you guys. It was really ridiculous.)

But then Aaron stayed behind and cleaned up said light wells and other things while I left and napped, then went into work for a few hours, went to a really fun going away party that our friends put on for us, and finally actually slept 36 hours after he had woken up Friday morning in Florida.

My MIL kicked me out of my house sometime around 8pm moving day and made me go and rest, because, "Your baby is more important than all this." She and my sisters in law, and Ashley, and a few of my brothers in law as well, stayed behind and finished the clean up, and carted whatever was left back to her house later that night. They are awesome. Truly.

It doesn't seem to matter how long you pack ahead of time, or how many boxes you ship to storage, or how many bags of stuff and pieces of furniture you arrange to give away, when the final day actually comes, and everything gets emptied and carried out of your house, it is shocking how much stuff you didn't know you still had to deal with.

For the first 2 days after moving out of the house, I spent hours just going through boxes again and realizing I didn't want or need any of it anymore. But you have to go through them, because something important might be in there somewhere.

I have most things sorted and packed in storage now. Not counting a guest room stacked horrifyingly high with laundry, and boxes of paper work I need to finish actually working with before I can store them.

We are adjusting to the next few weeks with my in-laws, how that affects our daily rhythm, and I am trying to convince my weary body to going back to working at night after the kids are in bed, but that seem harder here, or I'm just more tired than I have been up to this point, because I keep having involuntary naps that leave me feeling leaden and more tired when I try to get up than I was before. Tonight, I am taking a break from going cross eyed looking at receipts and spreadsheets for the reporting I need to finish before I get on a plane with the excuse that I haven't blogged in way too long and I owe you an update.

Let me tell you about my friend Suzy, who threw this going away party for us.

Showing Bam Bam her turtles.

I'm always convicted/inspired/encouraged by the way this friend of mine serves her kids, and mine. They kept talking to her about what sorts of food they thought should be at "their going away party" and to my surprise she had all of those foods there for them. She also had a slip n slide and wading pool because it was a hot day. Her kids had a bucket list of things they wanted to be able to do with my kids before we left, so we did all those things, and it was awesome, and so, so sweet. The boys chopped wood, and they all rode down the hill in a go-cart, and played and wrestled, and when the day was over she thanked ME for coming and giving her family this day, which was a perfect gift to us as well. I tell you, inspiring and humbling at the same time.

They put together this little approximation of a bamboo hut for the girls .

This hen thought it was for her.

Aaron posing in the Go Cart, I missed getting pictures of the kids.
our host and his son built it together.

It was lovely to see everyone who came and have a little bit of time to talk and say goodbye and all of those things. We are so blessed and rich in our friends and community here and the goodbyes are a little hard.

So after a weekend of goodbyes, and send offs, I am now back to work, and sorting through the final piles of take, keep, and giveaway, adjusting to bandwidth limitations that are almost as bad as dial up, (it took almost half an hour to load the photos in this post that's how slow it is) while trying to keep track of a very adventurous 2 year old on 2 1/2 acres of property with dogs who have a tendency to fight with each other for affection from humans, even when the humans are caught in the middle, the possibility of snakes in the tall grass down in the lower field, ticks, and my dear MIL who is vey concerned about all of these things, and basically never being able to sit down and get any work done while he is awake because there are at least 10 doors out of which he can escape at any moment and take off straight for said field, dogs, snakes, etc.

Truthfully, it's more exhausting than moving, which may explain the sudden need to sleep all the time. Anyway, I'm sure it's all easier than the coming transition, so I am trying to suck it up and deal. Which doesn't mean I haven't labelled certain things in the fridge "Don't use this or the pregnant woman will cry when she finds it gone." Because I do. Blood sugar lows, plus hormones, plus transitions make the loss of the hummus you just bought, when you hadn't eaten any yet, a tear inducing event. Hi, I'm Carrien, I like my own space, and the addition of 4 grown up human bodies, plus the bodies of all 4 kids, all in the kitchen doing different things at the exact same time I am trying to finish dinner makes me feel a little crazy. Especially if there is shrieking. Nothing like a good dose of a lot of people to remind a girl just how introverted she really is. Good thing I really like all those people.

I'm choosing to believe that this time is a gift that will get us primed for the next phase of living with even more people for a time, in even more challenging circumstances. (Remind me again why I thought this was a good idea?)

Two weeks plus 3 days until we get on a plane.

So in summary, people are awesome, at least, my people are, and helped in amazing ways and did such thoughtful loving things for us, and, I am having a hard time adjusting to being around people. How's that for a walking contradiction?

Confessions of a Recovering Control Freak - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 07:09:00 +0000

Part 1

I said once I was going to write about learning not to be afraid, but finding my way through where to start on such a big theme in my life was more than I could manage then.

I used to have to literally sit on my hands, to keep myself from doing anything that was a fear based controlling reaction. I didn't know what to do that wasn't me trying to escape the fear by doing something to give myself the illusion that I could protect myself with some sort of inane action, however unrelated. To this day, if I am having an uncomfortable conversation, or I'm worried about something, I will find something to scrub, or a crevice to clean the dirt out of, and focus on that the whole time we're talking, just like my grandmother. This is not to be confused with all the times I deep clean something just for the satisfaction of seeing it clean. I'm sometimes a little OCD like that. You would think my house would be more tidy than it is with that tendency, but it's not.

The truth is, the antidote to fear is choosing to trust. I would sit on my hands, not knowing what else to do, and remind myself, "I trust God. I trust God. I trust God. I choose to trust God. I believe God is good."

I didn't tell myself that God was in control of everything, because, my friends, I don't believe it's true. And if it were true, it's more terrifying than if it isn't. If God is in control of everything than the little girls who are right now being raped by their dads, or an uncle, or a John, are suffering because he made it happen. I don't accept that. I don't even try to make that make sense with a God who is good, and who loves, because it's a waste of time and energy. It's just not something that can coexist in the same being. Either he is good, and he loves, or he's in control, and he's the terrifying orchestrator of evil.

Now you know why it was so hard to figure out how to write about this, because I just plunged down the theological rabbit hole with that last paragraph, and it's a long way to the bottom before I finish explaining what I mean. How do I put a neat little bow on this post now?

Here's the short way out of the tunnel, maybe.

For some reason God saw fit to entrust us with a lot of power, to affect our own lives, and to affect the lives of others. This may have a lot to do with the fact that when He made us it was so we could rule over the earth and take care of it and stuff. We made a mess of that and all. But we still have this free will, and this power to change things and make things happen with our choices. For some reason God didn't take that away from us once we turned away from Him. I suspect it's because he is still fighting to get things back to the way he planned for them to be, us knowing him and taking care of the earth with him.

But the key word there is fighting. Because we have this power and God doesn't take it away and control us, and there are lots of people, and other agencies perhaps, choosing not to obey him. Not to mention all the people who say they are obeying him, and maybe even think it's true, and who are still doing harm to the earth and each other anyway. All of which means God's will isn't being done, and we are in the middle of a war zone, and God isn't in control. But you know, he doesn't have to be. Because he's really good at redemption, at making things right out of wrong, beauty out of ashes, joy out of mourning. In the end I believe he'll win. He'll get what he wants, which is all of humanity choosing to obey and use the power he gave us to do the good he intended from the start.

So I once sat on my hands and reminded myself that I chose to trust in God's goodness, that he is with me, that he will redeem all things.

Eventually I stopped having to sit on my hands most of the time. I learned how to deal with how big and scary and unpredictable the world really is, and to let go of the illusion of safety in order to embrace the good that was always there, even in the bad. I learned to laugh at the days. (Now you know.)

So this week, as I often find myself needing a quiet place to sit on my hands and chose not to be enveloped by the rising panic and the sheer number of overwhelming things, perhaps I'm writing about this to remind myself of what is true. I lose sight of it so often. I know I'm not the only one.

I should probably do more than joke about that support group.
Fearful People's Anonymous meeting today. Sign up below. We can remind each other to let go of our illusions.

Confessions of Recovering Control Freak

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 07:08:00 +0000

Want to know how to make me fall apart?

Give me a bunch of things I can't do all by myself, that have to be done in a set amount of time, thereby forcing me to ask other people for help, and rely on them and work around their schedules, to get those things done. Add in a husband who is out of town while all this is going on, so the list of things I have to ask other people to do for me doubles because he's not there to do them. Add to that 4 children who keep making messes, and unpacking things that are already packed, and basically going along behind me undoing everything I get done, while at the same time asking me if I can take them to do fun things, and read this book to them, and come and play, and I will fall apart eventually. Throw in pregnant hormones and a pesky cough that won't go away and strains my bladder to the breaking point, just for added bonus kicks. Oh, and throw some brand new, urgent, must do before I go, project at me as well, on an almost daily basis, right when I was starting to feel like I might be on top of things. Might as well.

Today I fell apart because while I was in the shower the girls played with water outside and BamBam, who was already dressed, in his last pair of clean pants of course, decided to join in, got his pants soaking wet and stripped down to nothing.

Just one more thing that was undone, after it was done, when we had to get out the door. I spent the next half hour sobbing quietly as we tried to find Little's other shoe, again, and something else for BamBam to wear and talk to Aaron when he called in the middle of it, from the other side of the continent. It's a good thing I didn't notice until we got home hours later the way BamBam scribbled with marker all over the stone right beside the front door. Thank God for small mercies.

So not what I wanted added to my plate today.

I learned early on in life never to attempt anything that I couldn't finish myself. I learned that other people aren't reliable, don't care as much about things as I do, and that if I have to trust them to get something done it probably won't get done. Every time someone tells me they will do something, and then doesn't do it, it reinforces this basic assumption that I'm all alone in life and that if I want anything done, I have to do it myself.

So perhaps the worse thing, the most powerless feeling ever, is to have to ask someone else to help me to do something that I really need to do, because I can't do it myself. I hate it. Guess what I've been doing, daily, for weeks now?

And then there are the things I need my kids to do, just so we still function together. When they don't do them, when I have to remind them 5, 10, 15 times to do one simple thing... Let's just say my ability to be patient is about as trustworthy as my bladder these days. It could betray me at any moment.

I'm a control freak in recovery. We should have a support group. "My name is Carrien and I have trust issues."

Starting The Charis Project was another step out of only trusting myself all the time. It doesn't work unless others join in. That's been a journey, and I've gotten comfortable asking other people to help me help orphans. The fact that other people do actually help is still sometimes astonishing. I'm still surprised by it.

But asking other people to make multiple trips in a truck loaded with my stuff, in their spare time off from school and all their other daily responsibilities, hoping and praying that people show up when I ask them for help instead of leaving me hanging with boxes too heavy for me to lift, and things I can't move and chaos just waiting at the door? Those things make me panic.

Even though there they were in the rain yesterday, hauling furniture to storage.

The thing is, we have amazing friends, and family. So many people who have already shown up to help, and who have volunteered to show up to help this week. They have been there for me, time and time again. But the lessons learned in childhood are not easily unlearned. It takes a whole lot more to push me over the edge than it used to, but I every so often discover it's still there. I worry, that I'm asking too much, that it won't get done, even though I really have no reason to doubt them.

No logical reason anyway. Just this rising panic that leaks out of my voice when I find all the wood toys I carefully gathered together and put in a box scattered all over the floor once again.

What if I can't do it?

What if it doesn't get done?

What if I screw this whole thing up when I inevitably drop the ball on something, anything? I will drop the ball, I know that, but what if it breaks this time and all is lost?

Today I was still wiping away tears as we drove away from the house, and feared they would spill over again as soon as I talked to anyone.

The girls take a ballet class at a Christian homeschool co-op we're part of. I'm trying to get them there every week before we go so they have time with their friends, even thought it's hard to find the time.

The very first mom I saw said, "We were praying for you this morning in Coffee Connect." (The classes go all day and there is a group of moms that meet in the morning to talk and pray and stuff during the very first class. I've been exactly once, before I realized we didn't have a class that started before 1pm.)

That surprised me. I'm still surprised you see when others care.

Those ladies today got me through. I needed the love, and the commiseration, and the knowledge that people knew I was struggling and were praying me through it. It was lovely to just talk to friends who know exactly how full my plate is, and understand what that actually means, and how many full time jobs I'm juggling at once, just to remember that I'm not crazy, or failing, when I'm overwhelmed by it all. I'm just human.

When we got home and I saw the pen marks next to the front door, I was mostly able to keep the panicky angry tone out of my voice as I asked when that had happened and who did it. Mostly.

I'm a few inches away from the edge again, instead of teetering right over the chasm, and I've remembered that even when it feels like it, I'm not really alone. There are people who have my back.

Part 2 tomorrow, on dealing with fear.

My Husband on Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:43:00 +0000

A while ago Aaron and I were listening to a podcast which was a debate on female roles in the church, and marriage, etc.

Totally not interesting to anyone who isn't trying to fit their lives into the context of the Biblical narrative, I know, but a source of never ending conversation for those who are.

But we were talking about it after, because both sides seemed to be kind of missing the point.

At one point Aaron brought up the directive in the Bible for wives to submit to their husbands, and we started talking about why that might be in there if it wasn't because of X, Y, and Z, all of which seemed to be stupid rationalizations of broken human behavior.

I asked him why he thought it was there then, and he didn't answer right away. About an hour later he walked up to me and announced, out of the blue, "I think it's because women are so much stronger than men."

That made me laugh out loud, certain no one had ever framed the discussion in quite those terms before. Then I told him he ought to write a post about it, because it seemed others might appreciate his perspective as well.

I've been meaning to share the posts he subsequently wrote with you for ages.

Valentine's Day, that day that claims to honor love but is mostly about people buying useless stuff they don't need in order to not feel left out of some sappy romantic feelings, seemed a good day to talk about what real love entails, and requires, and how that looks in marriages.

So I give you Aaron's posts. I think you will enjoy them.

You're Not the Boss of Me

I'm Not the Boss of Me Either

This Boss Idea is Kind of a Load of Crap

I lifted something I wrote in the comments section to his first post and I'm putting it here as well. But you should read his posts first before you read it, I think, for context.

"You see, submitting is something I get to choose to do, or not, of my own autonomy. My husband doesn't get to force me to do it. It's something I choose, and it requires something of me in terms of sacrifice to be able to choose it. Thus the expectation that it takes strength to do so.

I can't force my husband to love me either. By love I am not talking of feelings, but of the actions that consider my welfare and what is good for me in his choices for himself and our family. He gets to choose that, or not.

None of this is about who is in control, because we are only in control of ourselves in the end, if we are lucky, and work on it.

To me submitting to my husband means not trying to get my way all the time or force him to do things my way. It's being honest about what I want and then choosing to trust my husband to make decisions with my welfare in mind.

It takes courage to do this. Fear would have me try to control and manipulate rather than trust, and this would destroy our relationship in the end. No one wants to feel controlled.

The command to submit I believe is the way a woman, should she obey it, has to let go of fear and choose to trust her husband which in turn allows him the freedom to love her and take care of her instead of fight her. It takes the battle out of the relationship.

In other words, to submit in a marriage is enlightened self interest and smart women the world over do it, whether they define it in such terms or not."

What do you think?

My Surprise Indian Baby Shower

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:40:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I went up to L.A. to help Brenda with Bug's Black Kitty birthday party, and to make good on a promise to stay longer the next time I was in town.

At the same time, my friend Mamatha, who used to be a neighbor when we lived in our apartment, is now also living in L.A. and invited me to visit her at her new house. They wanted Aaron to come to but he was on the road again and there was no weekend in January that he could make it, so I figured we would go while we were already in the neighborhood.

So after Bug's party we packed all our stuff into the van and headed north, expecting to have dinner with our friends before driving home again later that night. We headed out a bit late, but not too bad. Traffic was light.

Then I got lost.

And then Linga, Mamatha's husband, was phoning and messaging asking where I was while I tried to not drive all the way to the beach and find a way to turn around and get back to where I needed to be. They live at the junction of three different freeways. I got turned around 3 different times just trying to head home again.

But anyway, we made it eventually, horribly late by this time and pulled up behind the garage.

I still suspected nothing. Not even when Linga told me Mamatha wanted me to go in through the front of the house instead of through the garage and then walked me all the way around while I carried BamBam and my full bladder halfway around the block.

Then there were the people lined up in the living room in brightly colored saris, and my first thought was, "Oh, you had other dinner guests too? I'm so sorry I kept you all waiting."

I didn't notice the banner on the wall. I was looking for the bathroom.

Then Mamatha said, "Welcome to your baby shower."

Then it was all clear. Also, I had to make them wait longer so I could get to the bathroom. Pregnant bladders don't wait.

Mamatha's Shower, a couple of years back.

I was feeling terribly under dressed, but I needn't have worried. I had been Mamatha's baby shower before, and one she hosted for a friend. I forgot that it's traditional to give the expectant mother a new sari. Which she did.

Then we went upstairs and they got me all dolled up for my party. Jewelry, make up, fake hair pieces to lengthen my braid, bangles, sari, the whole nine yards, literally, have you seen how long a sari is?

There was a worrisome moment when the blouse was too small, but thanks to the wonders of Indian tailoring, they provide 3 different size options in the seam allowance, and they are already sewn in. Some emergency seam ripping and it was all good, the transformation was complete.

We were ready for a baby shower.

The girls borrowed some clothes from their friend while they waited for me to get ready.

There are a series of Hindu blessings that you have to do at a baby shower that involve the women sprinkling rice and flowers in my hair, putting bindi powder on my forehead and chin, bangles on my wrists, and feeding me.

I look very fat and white next to all these lovely Indian women.

Then I'm supposed to give them some fruit and gifts in return. There are also some candles and stuff and every time I ask why about all the things they tell me it's just tradition. So I go ahead and bless them according to my tradition too. At least, when I'm not totally caught off guard by such a surprise I have.

The girls had fun goofing off.

Two of the girls performed a dance for me, which was amazing, and there are no pictures of them doing it. They are taking traditional dance classes together and put together a routine for me to watch.

the kids eating

Then it was finally time to eat. The eating arrangements are pretty traditional too at parties like this. The kids get fed, then, because it's a baby shower the ladies go first, and then finally the men. I felt so bad by this point about being an hour or more late. Those guys just waited around and played ping pong forever before feeding their hungry bellies.

This here is amazing, authentic, homemade southern Indian food. So good!
(They also had some fajitas for the kids, in case they didn't like the good stuff.)

Linga's mother was visiting from India. She doesn't speak a word of English, and I don't speak a word of Telegu, but she was so sweet and we got on just fine.

It was so very kind of my friends to go to so much trouble to celebrate me and the baby. The thing is, I didn't know anyone except Mumatha and Linga, and one other person I had met before. They all came because of their friendship with my friends, in order to celebrate with us. It was the most loving thing. Aaron was so sad to have missed it. I texted him when we arrived about the surprise and he almost cried looking at the photos I posted as the night went on.

I can tell you that I felt so very loved by everything they did, and I just wanted to tell you all about it. It was a great night. A baby shower was the last thing on my mind what with all the other things going on around me. I'm glad I have friends who will celebrate important things even when I forget to.

When Reality Doesn't Conform to Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:50:00 +0000

The other night Bam Bam woke up in a mood. You know the kind. He's not hungry, he's not thirsty, he doesn't want to any hugs or kisses he just wants something inane, that only makes sense to his little sleep addled brain.

In this case he wanted me to get out of bed and go sit on the couch so he could sit on my lap there and fall back asleep again. It makes sense, sort of, that's how he fell asleep the first time, before I laid him in his bed.

But at 4:30 in the morning this tired pregnant mama is going to need 2 things, to use the bathroom, again, and to lay in bed and sleep.

So after figuring out that all he wanted was snuggles in different geography I told him no more, we're going back to bed, after I used the bathroom that is.

You who have children like this may well imagine the fit that followed. He was literally trying to pry me out of bed and make me do it his way.

There are moments when you realize your kid is not going to listen to reason, he's just going to fight for something senseless because he's going to fight for it, and you just have to help him deal with it until he can calm himself down.

These are the moments when Aaron or I will scoop him up, hold him close, immobilizing him so he can't keep punching us in the throat or kicking us in the stomach, and hold him until he calms himself down.

I can tell you that nothing feels more like a never ending endurance test than holding a screaming, fighting, kicking and trying to bite toddler for hours on end. Ok, it's usually less than an hour, often longer than half an hour, but it always feels like forever.

He screams "GO, GO!" Which is his way of demanding I let go. I murmur soothing words in his ear, tell him I love him even though he's a giant pain in my butt right now and keeping me from things I'd like to be doing, and practice my slow breathing, while wondering how much longer my arms can hold out since he's fighting super hard and they are starting to ache.

We always give him a way out. "I will let go when you calm yourself down. Or say please."

He refuses to do either, usually for a while.

So I lay there for 20 minutes or more, restraining my child, who was screaming because he wanted me to hold him, just in a different place.

Eventually he stopped fighting and lay still and I asked, in my gentle sympathetic voice, "Are all done?"

"No." He whimpered in response, but he remained still and didn't fight, so I let go, and he sat up.

At that moment I opened my arms wide and asked, "Do you want a hug?"

He threw himself at me, nestled his very sweaty little head right up under my chin, and hiccuped and sighed as he began to relax into sleep again.

He threw himself into the exact same place he had been fighting me so hard to be let out of only moments before. Other than getting up once, very quietly, and asking me to get him water, he spent the rest of the night cuddled beside me, in the exact same spot where I had held him down.

Since I enjoy irony as much as I do I couldn't help but laugh at the stupidity of the whole encounter. I, after all, hadn't changed. I was still laying in bed, still holding him in my arms, kissing his head, and whispering calming things in his ear. What changed was him. He gave up fighting to get my comfort and care on his own terms, and instead accepted the love that was always offered, surrendering, and relaxing into it, instead of pushing against it.

Which makes me wonder about us, as grown ups, and how much of the misery we experience in our lives is because we are fighting against the love, and good that is held out in front of us, because it's not exactly the way we want it. We are so attached to our idea of how we ought to be loved, what we ought to have, or where we ought to have arrived at already, that we fight against, instead of accept, that what we NEED is prepared already.

How many times has your unhappiness stemmed from the disparity between the idea you carry in your brain of what will make you happy, and the actual reality you face? How much joy do you and I miss because of this comparison?

What are the chances we are exactly like a 2 year old fighting against the person who loves us and holds us and comforts us no matter how much we fight against him? What if we are the ones who are demanding it happen our way, instead of receiving joyfully what we do in fact have, and what we are, in fact, given?

How much contentment could we find if we stopped fighting against our present circumstance, and instead chose to embrace it, to give thanks for what is there, rather than fighting for the idea in our head of how it ought to be?

Just a thought for the day.

What do you think?

Pregnancy - It's not that simple this time around.

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:10:00 +0000

Every so often someone asks me if I'm excited about the baby, or gets excited for me and asks related questions and it leads to some awkwardness in my head.

It's not that simple this time. For one thing I just have no time to be pregnant. This baby is a deadline, a reason to get everything done and our move to Thailand accomplished in time for him/her to arrive. I am lost in a flurry of activity, with 2 months fewer than I expected to have originally in order to not be on a plane a month before I'm due.

In this context the baby is more of a challenge, a problem to be solved and worked around, than something to be excited about.

But then there are other things. My dear, dear friend Chantelle who got pregnant at exactly the same time, and has lost many babies, unlike me, lost this baby too, right at 3 months. She has now buried 4 children who didn't make it to term, out of 5 pregnancies, and my heart is so tied to her and her loss that I feel a huge hesitation inside about blithely celebrating this baby with her loss so recent. I find myself keeping the baby talk to a minimum in social forums. I know firsthand how hard it is to watch other women have normal healthy pregnancies, and see their babies, when the loss of your own is so fresh. I can't change what happened, or how unfair it seems, but I feel guarded about celebrating a fifth birth too loudly when I know she is there listening. I don't want to post pictures of my expanding belly for her to see on facebook, it feels like rubbing salt in the wound. This is all me. We've talked about it before and I know she would never ask me to be less than joyful because of her. But I am nonetheless. I am still grieving her loss along with her.

I don't even know if that makes sense. But joy is tempered by grief for my friend this round, and it's just there.

BamBam still seems so little to have to move over and make room for a baby. I'm sad about weaning him so early. I hadn't planned to. He's fine, and he will be fine, and he adores babies. I'm sad, a little, about rushing him into being a big kid this fast, and weary, because the last 2 months of transition have been a lot of work. In my heart, for 2 whole years, he has been my last baby. I really didn't expect to be pregnant again. It doesn't make any sense, really, I just felt done.

So here we are, pregnancy number 6, baby number 5 apparently alive and well, and every kick is startling, a shocking reminder that in the midst of all this there is a baby in here, very much alive and very much on the way.

Sometimes I really forget.

I know that once we get to Chiang Mai, and the packing and planning and visa worries are over, not to mention all the doctor's appointments for the kids, that I will probably have the breathing space to let my heart catch up to the reality of this child who will soon arrive. I know that once he/she is born I will fall instantly in love, and not be able to imagine our family any other way. I know that our lives will be richer and better for the added blessing of a child we didn't expect or look for.

Until then, I'm just working on keeping my head down and making it through. February is going to be a crazy month my friends. Pray for us?

Thailand Move, Progress Report

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 08:53:00 +0000

I am neck deep in year end receipts and reporting dear friends. It's as fun as it sounds.

I have several posts half written, or with scribbled outlines, but no time to finish them.

So here is a quick update on how the move is going instead.

The good news is that this is the last year I have to do year end reporting or any of that stuff. I resigned as CFO of The Charis Project in November. I was very excited to do so. It's one less thing on my teetering plate as we make this big move. So after bringing 1012 to a close I will no longer have to do this. Everyone say YAY! My replacement is awesome, and very qualified. You can find out more about him here.

Other news. We had someone donate enough airmiles to pay for 4 plane tickets!!!! We are now hoping that we can get the remaining 80,000 miles donated as well to cover the cost of all the plane tickets. It makes it a lot easier to buy them together. If you collect United Mileage Plus Airmiles and would like to help out please contact me at carrienblue at thecharisproject.org

The baby, tentatively nicknamed peanut button, is doing well. I don't really have time to think about the fact that I'm pregnant. I actually find it's best not to think at all about how crazy it is that I'm trying to finish so many things in so little time including have a baby, so I don't. But he/she move around every day and reminds me to say hello every so often. I will have time to think about having a baby after we get there. Until then... there's just too much else to do.

My nativity scene is still up on the mantle and there's a wreath on my door. I have put nothing away. I keep thinking about emptying, so storage seems a waste of time.

Aaron is building a storage shed at his parent's house this weekend. So I can start putting away the things I plan to keep. That will help with the packing, which I intend to begin in earnest in February. I also intend to finish all the urgent Charis work by the end of January but it's already the 21st and 10 days may just not be enough.

I try to think of what else to write at this point and the only thing that happens is my brain starts ticking through my to do list again. Which is probably a sign that I should wrap this up here before I bore you all to tears, or stress out about the sheer volume of stuff on that list.

Oh, except, I am happy to report that BamBam is weaned now, and no longer upset about it, and the sleep at night is getting better again. I usually spend at least part of the night with him strangling me with his arms/body wrapped around my neck/draped across my chest, but he wakes up in the morning and grins at me before burrowing back into my neck and falling asleep again that it's very hard to get up, what with how heavy he is, and how much I like sleep, and how much I enjoy his little snuggles, even when I can't breath so well.

Sleep is amazing though. I slept in my own bed after 2 days of adventures and gallivanting, which I may or may not get time enough to tell you about, and it was lovely, so very lovely. I'm going to turn in early tonight and do it again. Well, it's 12:52am now, so it was early for me until I started to write this.

Good night.

Narnia Party!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:23:00 +0000

So the girls changed their minds several times about a party theme this year. They couldn't agree on anything you see. So 8 days before the weekend I had invited all their guests we were split down the middle between the Girl wanting it to be a Brave themed party, mostly because the shocking lack of any archery at the Boy's Hobbit party was extremely disappointing to her, most of the boys being more into sword fighting. For her the most important part was that we had bows and arrows to shoot. Sophia was not so sure about about a Brave theme, she just wanted a cake and to have all her friends come and play hopscotch with her. So I was planning a mix of both, to make them happy.

Five days before their party was to happen they both came running to me with great urgency. "We want a Narnia party!" They both yelled it, so excited were they. "That would be so cool."

My Little Lucy at Beaver's Dam

It was a great idea. A little short notice, but a great idea. I of course tweeted about it and one friend started telling me all about the Narnia party she had for her son a few years back with some really great ideas. If only I actually had time to put it all together.

Check out the cape my friend Suzy made for her daughter with a table cloth and duct tape.

Well, as luck would have it the girls had been horribly sick with fevers and coughs and congestion and they just weren't getting better, at least not fast enough to not infect all their friends, and then BamBam started showing symptoms. So I made an executive decision. We postponed their party 2 weeks, until after Christmas, when their daddy and big brother would be back from Thailand, and we would have time to do a party properly.

I have to start by saying that there is no way these parties this year could have happened without my in laws. Their property is perfect for staging epic adventure parties, not to mention all the work they do with setting up and making the party work, and clean up afterwards. They are the best.

The Girl as Jill Pole, tramping through Ettinsmoor

So, with time to think about it, a plan started to come together. We would have bows and arrows, obviously. Aaron found this youtube channel where this guy make bows and arrows out of PVC pipe. Down here, where fresh springy branches for wood bows are kind of in short supply, this was going to be our best building material. My little brother in law Alex, figured out how to make the bows and arrows so they actually worked. Which was awesome. Now we needed to fit them into the story somehow.

The rest was easy. A scavenger hunt, in the form of a quest. We borrowed from any of the books that suited our purpose, and we just looked around the property for things that already existed that could become places in a story.

The girl's drew lions onto fabric for Narnia standards.

Then I constructed a quest and put the 6 different clues in a fancy font that my SIL Ana then printed and made to look like antique scrolls.

Thanks Karen for this photo. I forgot to get one.

The Wardrobe
(An old dresser with the back taken out and a rod put in. Told ya my in laws are awesome.)

King Tirian's Watchtower
(Aaron built this climbing tower for his little brother's and sisters many years ago.)

King Tirian of course was Alex, and he taught all the kids to make bows and arrows.

While they were busy doing that Haven, aka the White Witch, tempted away as many children as she could, especially the small ones, with candy, and coloring, and she had them make crowns and promised they could all be queen's like her if they stayed with her. She was very convincing.

This set the rest of the children on a quest to become strong enough to defeat the White Witch and get their siblings back. Along the way they had to practice their archery, follow the signs that Puddleglum gave them, find the sword of Aslan and then confront her with it.

Our good friends Landis and Suzy brought a few of their real bows and taught the kids to shoot them at Aslan's How.

There was a stop for refreshments at Dryad's Hollow.

Next, to Puddleglum's hut in the Marshes. Where they received 4 signs that would guide them to the sword of Aslan. Auntie Ana called dibs on playing PuddleGlum. You can see her later on with the kids when they confront the White Witch.

The cleverly hidden sword of Aslan.

The White Witch tried to bargain with them. But she was defeated.

And then the celebrating began. I was so glad Brenda was taking pictures. Because hers are usually better than mine, and she got things I would have missed. Most of the rest of these, and a few prior are hers.

I remembered to take pictures of the food this time, but Brenda's turned out better.

I did not get as much food prep done as I wanted to before the party started. Thank God for friends who jump in and help get it all out to the "starving masses" before they grow too restless. Brenda says she loved this part with all the bustle and the maidens carrying food to the castle.

I was so glad this little guy came as a beaver.

Kids feasting in Beaver's Dam

The birthday girls sit in state at Cair Paravel.

Lemon cake with cream cheese icing and blackberries.

They were a little eager to try the cake.

I should have made more. Of everything.

I'll give Bug cake anytime. She makes it look delicious.

Her character banished, the Auntie returns for snuggles.

BamBam was there of course

and the boys back from Thailand.
Aaron's eardrum ruptured while he was there. That's why he's sporting a cotton ball in one ear.

This one looks happy about the whole affair.
Oh yeah, and I sewed the girls those capes the night before.
I bought the fabric for $3 at goodwill ages ago thinking about capes, and finally used it.

It was a lot of fun to do. I think the kids had fun too. One little girl had so much fun she told her mom, "This is the best birthday party I have ever been to." Misson accomplished. Fun had. Quest fulfilled.

PHFR - January is eventful already

noreply@blogger.com (Carrien) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:35:00 +0000

Pretty

Sun shower and rainbows.

Decorations for the girl's Narnia party. It was a great party.

Happy

The Girl got her braces off this week. She's so excited not to have to wear them when we're in Thailand.

The Boy came home, and found it very, very cold. I'm not sure he's happy. He really liked Thailand, but I'm really happy to have him home again.

Funny

This Girl, she cracks me up. This is her explaining compound words.

This boy, he still thinks that he can hide by shutting his eyes up tight and covering his ears. He was kind enough to open his eyes and become visible long enough for me to take this photo.

Real

This hot chocolate is the consolation prize after spending hours in the Doctor's office waiting for the first round of immunizations. Three out of four kids cried. The 4th winced and made the funniest faces and then all of a sudden said, "Oh, that was all?"

We have to go back next week, on 2 separate days, because our pediatrician's office, in spite of the hundreds of children they see every day, refuses to see more that 2 children per family on a single day, which is about the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. As if I'm not going to have to bring all 4 with me each day anyway, and sit in that little room with them all waiting for the doctor to come in.

Also real? It's just beginning to sink in that I have less than 8 weeks to pack up or dispose of everything I own and be ready to get on a plane. I'm so not ready.