mommapalooza

hungry and motivated

Hey Internets! It's happened again! Last night I tucked Sadie into bed, turned on her crib aquarium and her Sleep Sheep,  and said "goodnight". Today, she's sitting in the Tripp Trapp, saying and signing "More!" because I am obviously not handing her spoons loaded with (homemade) fried rice fast enough! 

Why is it only my kids who wake up smarter in the morning? I just seem to get more absent-minded ...

second guesser

Behold the imitation replica PBK Cameron shelving unit that we had made from Mother Goose. I think it's really cute and am indescribably pleased that Sadie's books and toys are no longer permanently living on the floor of her bedroom. I wish that there was space in her room for an entire wall full of Cameron shelving units. 

However. 

I am not sure that I made a good choice with the finish. I was aiming for something that matched the finish on her DIKTAD changing table/chest of drawers, a colour that IKEA describes as “Antique”. The colours are pretty similar.

However. 

Well, the colour looks appropriately rustic on the changing table/chest of drawers, but on this shelving unit, it kind of looks like the old mahogany cabinets that my parents tore out of their kitchen about ten years ago. Argh.

Chris hasn't yet seen Sadie's new furniture, but I am anticipating that he won't be won over. He's gone sour on Madeline's bedroom furniture, not liking the finish that I chose for it. I think that this piece will be the same story. I had to admit that I am trying to envision it painted red or white or navy instead ...

sometimes you don't feel like smiling

IMG_2876
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

This really neat carved stone wheel is at the park that runs alongside the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok. We were there this past Saturday for the purpose of taking Sadie's official one-year photos, with the side agenda of getting a nice shot of the four of us and perhaps one of the girls together. 

I am not sure that photography brings out the best in our family; this year there were a couple of injured psyches by the time we were done, and last year, well there was some bad luck thrown into the mix ...

A year ago, our aim was to have a family photo taken to include in our holiday cards, and I think that our appointment and photo session were only about five days apart. It happened very fast! Sadie was not quite one month old, and suffering from freakishly severe baby acne and eczema. Chris and I both wanted haircuts, but I didn't manage to get that done (four weeks post-partum, you know) and was rather unhappy about my appearance. The photographer suggested that Sadie be photographed naked, which suits my aesthetics in concept, but in practice it was a dangerous decision because I was peed on three times, pooed on once, and the sleepy newborn also managed to pee on her sister once. The worst thing was that halfway through the photo session the photographer realized that her camera had malfunctioned, and the majority of the photos that she had taken at the beginning of the shoot were lost!  Those happened to be the photos of Sadie's little tiny hands/feet/ears/etc. that I was looking to seeing the most. I am still upset about that, and wish that the photographer had suggested re-doing those shots. Or that I had thought of it to suggest. Grr. 

Maybe for 2010 I will just have to learn how to take better photographs myself. At least, the mistakes won't be so expensive. 

Kratong by Madeline, Age 5

Kratong by Madeline, Age 5
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

It's a festive day in Thailand today - Loy Kratong. For the third year in a row, Madeline has made a kratong at school. It's the arrangement of flowers with the candle and incense sticks in it, in the photos. It has a slice of banana tree in it's core, and is covered with artfully folded banana leaves. I volunteered to help out with this activity, which was a treat. Her teacher said that usually the Thai parents take care of everything for the Loy Kratong celebrations at the school, but this year, they only had one volunteer, so I got to have an insider's view.

I really liked the little speech that one of Madeline's classmate's father gave about why Loy Kratong is celebrated (and I learned that it's celebrated in slightly different ways around the country, customized to each region). Here, in the BKK area, at Loy Kratong, people say "thank you" and "I'm sorry" to the river. I didn't quite catch why the "I'm sorry" is there completely, but it sounded like it was to apologise for the negative impact people have on the waterway.

hello november

We kicked off November with a day that was pretty much devoid of highlights, but there was one thing that happened that made me laugh. The girls and I were sitting on the floor and Madeline became upset about something, so I told her to come over to me for a hug. She did. And then Sadie toddled over with her arms outstretched to join in - which had not ever happened before! It was terrifically cute!

Also, this year again I am thankful that Thailand does not participate in Daylight Savings. The sun rises and sets at about the same time every single day of the year, and it makes bedtimes and waking-up times fairly smooth!

mirror mirror

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Originally uploaded by goingdomestic.

Have I mentioned before that one of the things that I was looking forward to, while we were packing up to move to Thailand, was not having to make a fuss over Halloween? Ha. This is now our third 31st of October here in BKK, and it's all that Madeline could talk about for most of the month.

This year, she wanted to dress up as Snow White, but since we didn't have any luck finding a Snow White dress in the department stores or Toys R Us, Chris suggested that I take Madeline to a dress-maker. It seemed like a really terrific suggestion, until Madeline and I were at the shop and the seamstress pulled out a card with the fabric swatches to show me what kind of fabric she envisioned the dress in.

Instead of admiring the weave or the feel, Madeline immediately pointed to the purple swatch and said, "Oh, I want this colour for the skirt!" And then her finger landed on another square of fabric. "And this pink for the top!" The re-invention of Snow White's dress wasn't completed until Madeline had decided to swap the red for teal.

This all left me in a bit of a pickle. Should I have gently reminded Madeline that we were there to have a copy of the Snow White dress made so we needed the original colours, which was what her dad was expecting? Should I have just let Madeline made her own decision about her Halloween costume? She doesn't get to decide a lot of things for herself, really. In the end, I decided that colour was not a particularly big deal. It was just kind of fun to see my little girl's excitement over a poofy new dress.