mommapalooza

it's been a great two years

This past Wednesday, I took my camera with me when I dropped Madeline off at preschool, just like I did on her first day in August 2007. Wednesday was her last day of preschool. I snapped photos of Madeline swinging on the swings in the schoolyard, marveling that she doesn't need a grown-up to push her anymore, and feeling quite nostalgic and sad. Madeline's preschool has been such a constant part of our life here in the suburbs of BKK. Both she and I met the majority of our friends in that schoolyard, and though we'll see them across the courtyard in the kindergarten wing of big international school, I don't think that it will feel the same as this tiny little Reggio preschool down the soi with all of the stray dogs and the insanely smelly garbage trucks that take up 1.5 lanes on the narrow road. This is where my little girl learned to pump her legs to swing all by herself, where she learned to write the alphabet and spell her name (which she thinks is overly long, with eight letters), learned to read me books about a funny British kid named Kipper, made me laugh two years in a row while watching her on stage in her class plays. 

There is something that I am really looking forward to about kindergarten though: uniforms.

i am the birthday party grinch

There are many reasons why I would rather take my daughter to Disneyland in Hong Kong again for her birthday, but my dear Madeline really wants to celebrate with her friends this year. It totally sucks. We're playing the waiting game with the invited guests. Are they coming? Are they not coming? Why hasn't anyone RSVPed? My kid went to their kids' birthday parties. Can they not at least reciprocate???

Quotable Madeline: the Prune Edition

This evening, me and the kiddos were having dinner in the kitchen. Madeline and I were munching on homemade pizza, and I had Sadie in her bumbo seat on the counter, where I was passing her cereal-loaded spoons, which she is actually pretty good at getting into her mouth. Madeline came over and helped Sadie with a spoonful and asked, "Mama, what is Sadie eating?"

"Oatmeal with stewed prunes," I replied.

"No fair!" my little helper pouted. "Why does Sadie get DESSERT first????" 

Hmm. Maybe that was funnier in real-time ... 

Pho, Uncle Ho, and traveling with my kids in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

We booked a trip to Vietnam about a month ago, for the week of the Songkran holiday here in Thailand, and I spent much of the days leading up to our holiday fretting. Would we get Sadie's restricted passport in time? We did. Would we have time to get our visas to visit Vietnam? We did, $300 later ... Would we actually be able to book a flight from Hanoi to Danang on a day's notice? We did, but we had to use a travel agent because booking with an infant is a PITA on Vietnam Airlines ... Would my children perish after being hit by a crazy motorcylist? Didn't happen either, thankfully, but we had some close calls ...

As usual, at least half of my concern was unnecessary, and Vietnam was an okay place to take the kids for a vacation ... 

The Good Stuff

- Madeline discovered that Hanoi is home to some very delicious ice cream, chocolates, and pastries. Vive le Francais. 

- the climate in Hanoi was several degrees cooler than that of Bangkok, so we actually did some leisurely stuff outdoors, like walk around the big lake in the old quarter.

- I brought the Beco carrier for Sadie, and it was really useful as we did a lot of walking. I wasn't sure if it wouldn't be too hot to use it ...

- The Embassy of Thailand in Hanoi was able to process Sadie's non-immigrant visa in less than thirty-six hours, which made bringing her back into the country she was born in a lot less complicated.

- We stayed at the Nam Hai resort in Hoi An for a few days, and they offered us carseats for the kids, had highchairs and cots in good condition, and had a children's menu

- That same resort had grass, and it was lovely put Sadie down on actual grass for the first time ever (we don't have actual grass where we live).

- Madeline saw a water puppet show (literally, the puppeteers were up to their waists in water and their puppets floated on the surface of the water), which is kind of an novel idea, and has some lovely souvenir lanterns to decorate her bedroom with. 

The Not-Exactly-Good Stuff

- our room at the Nam Hai resort was a serious hazard. In the center of the room there was a raised platform for the bed, a desk, a sitting area, and bathtub, and if Sadie had fallen off the platform, it would have been a drop of about two feet. We were fortunate that she wasn't fully crawling. It was also hard to see the steps leading down from the platform as everything was dark stone. I nearly fell carrying Sadie because I had misjudged where the steps here.

- none of the vehicles we rode in (a variety from luxury sedans to commuter vans) had manually locking lap/shoulder belts, so locking clips are necessary to properly secure carseats. Actually, the commuter van did not have any seatbelts ... 

- Sadie figured out crawling, leading to a couple of fat lips when she'd accidently face-plant. And she did sustain a few random head whacks as well ...

- Sadie's two top incisors were coming in, and a teething baby made for more co-sleeping and nursing than I'd really envisioned our holiday having. 

- random strangers in Hoi An seemed to think that I needed them to shout "Madame, baby too hot!" at me, like I wasn't already aware that we were all getting too much sun, let alone the baby. The unsolicited breastfeeding advice from a waitress was also rather weird. 

I'm glad to be home, and also glad that our holiday in Vietnam with an infant and a preschooler exceeded my expectations. 

not quite delicious

As mightily as I wish it were otherwise, the shelves at the grocery store are bare of any sort of baby teething biscuit or rusk. I've tried out both the recipes for Oats 'n Nanner Drops and the Eggless Baby Cereal Cookies from wholesomebabyfood.com, and the recipes have either not turned out right or me, or they're producing a much softer final product than I am expecting. Bah. I miss the Baby Mum Mums that I would buy in Canada for Madeline, though it is kind of fun to bake things for Sadie. Thank goodness that bananas are really inexpensive here!

down on the farm

Yesterday, we did one of those things that often appears on lists of what to do with small children in Bangkok - take a day-trip out to Chokchai Farm. It's a dairy farm that is open to the public. The drive ought to be between 1.5-2 hours from our apartment, but it took more like 2.5-3 as a section of highway was closed (due to protesters, we gather) and we had to take a detour. 

The first thing we did upon arrival at Chokchai Farm was get lunch - their burgers are excellent. They truly look just like they do in the pictures advertising the burgers at Chokchai Farm. Lunch was definitely a highlight, though Madeline wasn't overly keen on eating the hotdog she's ordered, but that's just because she was being Madeline. The second thing we did was sign up for the tour. 

The tour is where things started to get interesting. There are no English-language tours, but one of the staff managed to tell us that there would be English subtitles for parts of it.

The first stop on the tour was about the history of the farm (the DVD shown did have subtitles), and we left that thinking that the tour was 40-60 minutes long. 

Madeline, I think, spent the entire tour waiting for ice cream, which we'd promised at the end of the tour. So, she sat through that rather graphic DVD in the Artificial Insemination Center on how little cows are made (considering what the subtitles read, I was glad that the presentation was in Thai) and patiently waited while our tour stopped at the milking parlour. Madeline was a little excited to see how cows are milked, but since I am breastfeeding Sadie, the place made me a little uncomfortable. The next stop on the tour was a building where the milk is pasteurized and ice cream is made. After walking across the hot pavement a few times, it was nice to sit somewhere that was chilly. We'd been following along for about forty minutes at this point, so I was surprised to be herded out of the pasteurization facility and into carts drawn by large tractors. 

The tractors took us around to see some cows in actual fields. It also stopped by a large field of sunflowers, which was very pretty, and Madeline grudgingly posed so that we could snap a few photos. Sadie merely chewed on the Chokchai farm souvenir pouch that was a freebie on the tour. So ... we were finished up now, right? Sadie was getting progressively more hungry.

No! There's more! Our tractor pulled us over to another set of buildings, with a playground, a place to buy drinks/ice cream/souvenirs, Old West-style carnival games, pony rides, and a cowboy show. After about forty minutes to an hour, we were back on the tractors, heading back.

But wait. There's more - we were stopped at another venue. There was a farm history museum (really, a collection of antique fans, record players, radios, and telephones), and a stage for a show featuring dogs doing things that dogs don't normally do, like jumping rope. I groaned when I saw the petting zoo, but Madeline had a great time feeding bunnies and small deer beans, carrots, and leeks. The sheep, however, were not as cute. The mangy things must not get a lot of petting zoo attention because anytime anyone came near them with a carrot there were trying to leap out of their pen. And I cannot comment on why there were camels at a petting zoo. Thankfully, there was a place to wash hands on site. 

At least three hours must have elapsed by the time the animals show was over. We were all really tired and sticky. Thankfully, the next time the tractor and it's carts stopped, we were back at the beginning, where our car was parked. Three-and-half hours, one detour, and one stop to feed a hysterical baby later, we were home.