52 Days
We’ll be here . . .
Sort of. We’ll first be on the south side of the island for two nights, but then will move up to the north where this photo was taken (on a *film* camera).
52 days seems like an eternity right now.
TTT – Days 15 – 20
We wrapped up our trip to Thailand doing what we do best – eating, drinking, taking walks, visiting a zoo (seeing the pandas seemed to be Oscar’s second favorite thing on this trip) and swimming. There was some shopping in there, too, mostly for antique bells (from temples and cows from Myanmar), but some things are sacred and should not be photographed.
TTT – Days 11 and 12
Our view Sunday night . . .
Our view Monday morning. . .
The first photo was from Saturday, in fact, after we helped clean the beach outside Phuket with the Ocean Conservancy. The second is from our balcony, which overlooks a beautiful valley outside Chiang Mai. I used to think that in the great ocean vs. beach debate I would always side with ocean, but the area we’re in now might sway me.
A few things happened today. First, we did nothing today. Not a thing. We flew to Chiang Mai last night, and after getting settled into our room, we finally crawled into bed after midnight, but had a very restless night. With almost no sleep, I just thought it might be best for us to hang around the hotel. I also really needed a pedicure, since spending most of my days in the pool really did a number on my last one. Etta chose my color (marooned on the magnificent mile, a good choice) and sat on my lap as Oscar watched Meet the Robinsons in the kids club. Did I mention we had to do my spa appointment in the kids club since my lovelies refuse to be watched by a babysitter? Interesting ambience, but my toes look just fine.
After that, we meandered up to the restaurant, since it was pouring outside and I didn’t want to get soaked. Oscar apparently did want to get soaked, specifically in the pool, and while I tried to reason with him that we could not swim during a monsoon, he managed to throw a tantrum of international proportion. It was spectacular. There was a photo crew there for some sort of shoot (this is the third time we’ve been at a hotel where that was happening), and the photographers shot Oscar while he was screaming. It was that impressive. They also took a lot of pics of Etta, but that is always the case. It took hours to get Oscar calmed down, but what finally did it was a big cookie from room service. The little things.
While we waited for the cookie, Etta stood for the first time. She was holding onto my head (I was bent over the bed and she was standing holding my hair and hitting my head like a drum) and when she let go of my hair, she kept standing for at least five seconds. Even Oscar was excited about it. The other remarkable thing about today was that Oscar kissed Etta at least four times while I was NOT watching. I heard him do it while I was in the closet. He bent over while she was getting ready for a nap and kissed her knees. Could not believe it. Don’t worry, he also pushed her down at least once this morning. That, I could believe.
We took a break from the sun and chlorine and it may have been a mistake. Not for me, since my skin is taking this opportunity to peel like it’s not going to get the chance again. Oscar’s skin has been fantastic since we arrived here. We’ve been battling a serious case of eczema, dermatitis, or some such thing. since last December and I have not had to use his medication once since we arrived in Thailand. I had thought it was the humidity that cleared things up, but I suspect it might have been the combination of the humidity, sun and chlorine, since his skin flared today like I haven”t seen before. I might throw him into the pool in the morning just to see if my theory holds.
Oh, and you’ll never guess what else happened today. Oscar ate Thai food. For real. It was the blandest Thai food ever prepared, some sort of noodle and chicken dish, but it still counts. I was so proud.
That was our big excitement for the day. Tomorrow’s excitement should have something to do with the fact that we need to find formula and diapers somewhere. Check back tomorrow to see if we were successful.
TTT – Day 3
Maybe our approach to curing our jet lag isn’t all that stupid. When last I left you, we were about to try to get some sleep at about 1:00 AM after we had slept the day away. We tumbled into our beds and awoke around 3:00 AM when Etta couldn’t rest. I tried to coax her back to bed by hauling her into the big bed with Oscar and me. I gave her some milk and then Oscar decided it was time to have some fun. Somehow I got them both calmed down enough to almost sleep and then it happened. Etta sat up and blew formula all over me towards Oscar. It came out of nowhere, and after she had managed to get it out of her mouth, she sat back and laughed. Oscar, however, was not so cool, yelling “wet, wet” over and over. I called housekeeping and got all three of us into the shower, and within minutes we could have been back in bed, fast asleep. You know that didn’t happen, though, didn’t you?
While Etta and I dozed for a few minutes after 6′ish, Oscar has been up since 3:00. We didn’t let that hold us back today, though. we got out of the room around 8:30 and by 9:00 had a cab for the day and were headed towards the reclining Buddha. Oscar loved it here. Every room we entered evoked audible oohs and aahs (literally). He loves statues of Buddha, and when he saw the reclining Buddha, he about lost it.
After adoring his Buddha and running around like a wild man, Oscar went to Buddha’s backside where there were a series of 108 buckets aligned for visitors to place coins. The coins are donated to the temple, and the thought behind this is that you drop a coin into a bucket, make a wish and it will be granted. I bought coins for him to place in each bucket, but Oscar had his own ideas (naturally). First, he ran around, saying “money, money, money,” then he threw a few coins in one bucket, ran to another down the row and did it again and finally dropped a bunch of coins on the floor. A number of Swedish women came to his rescue, picking up the coins for him, while their husbands captured the moment on film. When I went to collect Oscar, their faces crashed, and I realized that I had probably ruined the moment for them. I think they had imagined that they had been helping a little Thai boy, and instead, they had only assisted an American. I’ll be more careful in the future.
Oscar oohing and aahing
When we went to Wat Arun, Oscar had had enough site-seeing. Who could blame him? It was a million degrees, he was sweating and he likely wanted to get some sleep. Instead of visiting the Wat, Oscar decided to become a peeping tom at the local dance academy. Unfortunately, that is not where it ended. On our return, Oscar escaped me to actually JOIN the class, where he ran around the room for a while after he had jumped into the middle of the girls who were dancing. His dance moves did not seem to be very well appreciated, so I grabbed him, apologized profusely and we left. He also made a friend on the streets, although this pic only captures the moment before they began their muay thai boxing moves.
You may be noticing that Etta is not featured in these photos. Sadly, she spent the day in the carrier because of the crowds. You see, Etta is a bit of a superstar here in Thailand. People rush her to take their photo with her. I am not joking. They come up to her by the dozen, not simply snapping pics, but asking to either hold her or to be in a photo with her. I get that she’s beautiful, but is this more because she’s African? I imagine there could be more white Americans and Europeans here than people of African heritage I asked our tour guide about it at the Royal Palace, and her take was that Etta is just so beautiful and happy that people want to be with her. Who knows. Just know that her radiance was documented for many happy tourists today.
I’ll add photos of our trip to the National Palace in our next post, since I’m starting to worry that the bandwidth here won’t be able to load this post as it is.
TTT – Days 1 and 2
After a brief 24 hour period, we made it to our hotel in Bangkok. How was flying across the Pacific with an eleven month old and a three year old? A lot easier than I had anticipated, actually. I think a lot of that can be attributed to a couple of things. First, this SAHM gig gives me a bunch more flexibility in terms of travel prep. Usually I would be running around the house like a mad woman up to the moment I was supposed to leave for the airport. Here, I was packed and ready the night before our trip. I also had the time to organize our carry-on bags so we had tons of stuff to play with on the flight, so I felt like I was ahead of the game even before we left. Second, my kids seem to be pretty good travelers.
We had a few trying moments on the journey, obviously. Oscar has no fear, it seems, when it comes to his running around in public. This typically comes into play when we are in confined spaces, where running around is simply not appropriate, like, you know, airport security lines. Before going through security, while I was holding Etta and trying to get all of our belongings sorted into baskets and breaking down the stroller, Oscar decided to crawl onto the metal table that the buckets go onto before they go into the scanner. I hauled him off, and he discovered that there was another shelf under the table, so he jumped onto that and crawled to the front of the line. I ran and got him, pulled him back and walked us through the scanner, which he touched. The TSA lady tried to get him to walk through it alone. Big mistake, but once all three of us got through it (without him touching the sides (this took three attempts)), we got to the point where I collected all of the stuff in the buckets and the TSA man checked to make sure the baby’s milk was not some sort of explosive device. This, my friends, is where airport security jumps the shark. What mother of two has the freaking time to plot the take down of an airliner? C’mon. Anyway, while I’m standing there with Etta, waiting for the milk to be cleared and the flight declared safe for all and simultaneously trying to get my crap pulled together, Oscar bolts. Yeah, seriously. Runs, looking back at me like he wants to play chase. There are somewhere close to one million people at the terminal, I’m being told to wait, while my child is about to run the length of the international terminal, so there, at the airport, I discovered my “don’t screw with me, kid” Mom Voice. It’s been in development for a couple of years now, but I had the opportunity to roll it out then and there. Thankfully, it worked, and although I had to use it once more (at the same point at the Seoul airport), I’m hoping it won’t make any additional appearances this trip.
That’s pretty much it for the trip. We spent a looooooong time on airplanes. Oscar and Etta got into it a couple of times, but mostly that was attributable to Oscar being exhausted and wanting to sleep on me, while Etta was sitting on me. For most of the flight, Oscar sat in his seat watching Cars and dozing once in a short while. The flight to Bangkok was a lot easier, since Etta was mostly in the bassinet. Oh, and since it was less than half as long as the first flight.
The smartest thing I did so far was book the “premium flight service” (thanks, Stace), which meant that once we hit Bangkok, at 11 PM, we had a nice lady waiting for us in an electric cart, which whisked us away, past hundreds of others arriving at the same time, up to the Immigration lines. At first I thought this had been a waste of $70, since the walk didn’t look that long, but it ended up being quite far away, with a huge line of people. The thing that clinched it for me, though, was that the “fast track” customers have their own area, where there really aren’t lines, so when we were almost through immigration and found out that Etta needed a health clearance, it was no big deal to go get one and come back. And, I mean “no big deal” in the timing sense, don’t get me started on the fact that my infant child needed a health clearance based simply on the fact that she has an Ethiopian passport.
Regardless, 25 hours after the car picked us up at home, we were in our lovely hotel room. Wide awake, which leads me to now, almost a day later, at 10 PM, when we’re wide awake again. This is because I broke the first rule of beating jetlag (which is not the same as the first rule of fight club), we slept all day today. I know, I know. But I was not going to ruin my kids’ lives by making them stay up all day today just to reset their clocks. We got up at 5 AM, played, went to breakfast (where Etta charmed everyone by saying “thank you” – even for the guys who came up and said “they say she can talk, can we hear?”) and Oscar put on a dance show for the guests, walked around the hotel, where Oscar oohed and aahed all through the lobby and again, danced for anyone to see. We went back to the room, where I thought we’d wait until the kids club opened, and then it happened. They slept. I tried to wake them a couple of times, but then I gave in. We napped together until 7:30 PM, when we ordered dinner, had our room made up and are now hanging out playing. I’m hoping that they’ll want to crash again in a few hours and that tomorrow we can at least go see the reclining buddha. But, if we don’t, it’s no big deal. I had considered Bangkok simply a stopover so we could fight our jetlag. It’s looking like that might be all we manage, but everyone seems happy, so it looks like we’re okay for now.
Sorry the pics are so lousy, but here you go . . .
In one week
I will either be ripping out my hair, wondering what in the world I’ve gotten myself into, or I will have survived a trans-Pacific trip with two children, somewhat optimistic about our vacation in Thailand. We leave on our first flight (to Seoul) Wednesday afternoon and if we make it through that first leg, will pick up on our connecting flight to Bangkok two hours after we land in Korea, arriving in Bangkok really late on the 16th, just in time to hit our hotel and (hopefully) sleep.
As a traveller, I have totally changed since becoming a mom. I used to not give my trips a second thought. I used to spend my time researching my destinations and figuring out which awesome resorts I’d visit, but that was it. I never worried about anything. Well, if I travelled with someone I would worry about whether they were going to have a good time, which was a huge stresser, so I eliminated that by choosing to travel solo most of the time (one of the best decisions ever, honestly).
I never worried about getting to / through the airport – seriously, how could this be an issue? You want to know how? Well, I travel with one suitcase and a purse, but I’m guessing I’ll need to take stuff for the kids for our 17 night stay in a foreign land. And then I’ll need to carry some stuff onto the flight in order to feed my kids and change diapers, etc. This will result in my needing to get a car service to the airport (since my Mini is not going to be able to cope with the luggage). We’ll take one huge suitcase and another smaller bag (for formula and baby stuff), along with Oscar’s small suitcase (full of nonsense for the flight), my huge diaper bag, possibly Oscar’s backpack and of course the stroller. This means that there will be moments in our trip when I am wearing Etta, pushing Oscar (who will have to carry his Mickey Mouse suitcase), wearing a backpack, carrying a diaper bag and pulling the mega suitcase, which might be dragging the smaller suitcase. We did this on the way back from Oklahoma, but without the small suitcase and the Mickey carry-on. It was tolerable, but not really the easiest thing ever. With the extra stuff? I just hope those luggage carts are easy to find in the airports (since in addition to our flights there and back, we’re flying from Bangkok to Phuket, Phuket to Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai to Bangkok for our return).
I never worried about how I was going to survive a flight – easy – Ambien, personal video and my book reader. Obviously, Ambien and personal entertainment are not options here.
I never considered whether I would drug a child in order for me to survive a flight – obviously, that idea is certainly under consideration right about now. Especially since our first flight does not include a bassinet for Miss Etta.
I never thought about using the bathroom on a flight – frankly, I just avoid this as much as possible. With a toilet-trained toddler? Not an option. I had thought that I’d be able to get Oscar to use a diaper on our last flight, but instead he just screamed “pee pee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” over and over. I don’t know how I’m going to get the three of us into an airplane toilet.
I never even considered the possibility of not being able to obtain a visa – I rarely needed one and even if I did, it was granted almost without thought. Apparently that response is not automatically generated for infant children of Ethiopian birth. Thankfully, Etta’s visa was finally granted today after much back and forth with the Consulate.
I never thought about sleeping at a hotel – but given Etta’s behavior last week in a strange crib (pack and play, actually), this is now a consideration. I limited the number of hotels we’re visiting, but there is some variety. We’ll see how both of the kids roll, I guess.
I never worried about personal safety – who was going to mess with me? Perhaps a bit reckless in South Africa or certain parts of Russia, but whatever. I’m not worried about this in Thailand, but obviously I have to think about it. Especially because so many people ask “is it safe there”? I’m betting it’s safer than most cities around here.
I never worried about water/food safety – bottled water and room service/awesome restaurants always did the trick. How likely was it that I’d swallow water in the shower? Not likely for me, but Oscar? I’m less worried about the safety issue than I am the question of what Oscar is going to eat while we’re there. I’ve chosen resorts that have a lot of dining options, including western food, but unless they whip up an amazing mac and cheese, I suspect he’s going to be touchy here. Most of the hotels have ice cream/pastry shops, so at least I’ll be able to get some of that into him. I don’t think there’s much of a chance that I’ll find soy milk for him, though, so perhaps my little guy will finally be off his night-time bottle by the end of this trip?
I never even considered how I’d fill a day if there were inclement weather during my trip – so many options, including sleep and reading and indoor activities. Planning this trip, I learned a lot about family friendly hotels. Each of the resorts fortunate enough to have our business has a kids club. While my kids are too young to go there solo (as if they’d allow this anyway), we’ll have somewhere to go play each day, even if it’s rainy.
I never worried how I was going to fill a day with excursions that were safe – I just went and did whatever I wanted. I didn’t need to consider (a) how I was going to swim with two kids (neither of whom actually know how to swim) at once, (b) whether riding elephants would be scary to a toddler and infant (and whether the elephant people would allow three of us to ride together) or (c) whether rafting down a river (with elephants in the water near us) with the same toddler and infant was a ridiculous idea. The answers? (a) floaties and little rafts, with backup from (swimming) babysitters, (b) maybe, but we’re doing it anyway and (c) most likely, jury is out as to whether we’ll be rafting; more likely we’ll avoid the raft and plant rice instead.
After all of this, I can see why people don’t travel with kids. I’m sort of worn out even before I’ve started packing. I’m currently resolved to not let myself fall into this category of parents, but this trip will be a bit of a litmus test. Oddly enough, even with all of the pre-travel issues and concerns, I’m really looking forward to the trip itself (if not the journey). We’ll see whether this is warranted, I guess.
Fun in ‘Homa II
Still not loving Vietnamese food
Loving any food
Walking in the woods with Papa and Cousin J
Apparently the problem was with the swim teacher and not swimming
Fun in ‘Homa
We survived our first flights as a family of three! I considered this trip to see the grandparents to be a bit of a test run for our upcoming trip to Thailand, and from our travel experiences so far, I’m both reassured that we’ll manage fine and also a bit daunted. Oscar managed the trip fairly well, but both he and his sister are proving to be a bit clingy now that we’ve arrived at Grandma’s house (he refers to both Grandma and Papa as “Grandma”).
Oscar was, again, a fabulous flyer. He sat in his seat all by himself, without trying to push himself onto my lap, which was nice. He scored window seats after the gate agent noticed that American had reseated the two of us in different rows (geniuses). I was concerned that he would be scared of takeoff, but he loved it – yelling “go go go” to make the plane go faster. When we left Dallas we ran into some weather, and he was a little nervous in the clouds, but when we broke out of them to a point where he could look at the clouds all he could say was “wow” over and over. Very sweet.
Etta loved being the center of attention everywhere we went, with people on our flight from SFO stopping by to tell us how beautiful our little family is. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Oklahoma things changed. My previously “easy” daughter apparently is experiencing separation anxiety and has not allowed a single person other than me to touch her, which isn’t going over well with her cousins, aunt and grandparents, but we still have a few days left here.
Oscar and Etta both experienced their first summer storms (we don’t really have thunder and lightning in No. California, and it only rains between mid-October and March). Etta was clueless, but Oscar seemed to think the lightning and thunder were fun and the fact that it was raining when it was warm was awesome, apparently. He thought the first clap of thunder was “cool,” but the very loud lightning strikes were a bit scary until Papa yelled back at the lightning, which seemed to make everything okay.
Other than that, we’re just hanging out with the family. Oscar loooves his cousins, who seem to think he’s a new pet, chasing him around until he squeals. Grandma just made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies, which I suspect will be demolished by tomorrow morning.
A few pics from our afternoon today . . .
Call me crazy
but guess who’s going to Thailand?
That’s right. This single girl, her three-year old son and eleven month old daughter. Let’s call it my birthday/”sorry my career didn’t work out the way I expected it to” present to myself. I figure that if I were in a relationship I’d get a gift for both of those (and in my circle it’s also customary to give a gift on the arrival of a new child, so hey, let’s add that in, too), so why don’t I treat myself to it? I was going to take the kids on a beach vacation, and two weeks in Thailand is actually cheaper than one in Hawaii (sort of), so I pulled the trigger and bought the tickets today.
Am I insane? Probably, but I’m doing it anyway.
I’ve been in a total funk for the past month. Working for an absolute terror on a deal that is hideous at best. . . finding out (unofficially) that my career is going to top out right about where I am . . . waiting for the official word that that really is the case (which will happen at 1:00 PM Thursday) and getting the details (like whether I’ll still be employed) . . . watching my daughter bond with/attach to the nanny (yes, I saved the best for last) . . . all have lent themselves to making this The BEST Summer EVER.
In response to all this, I found myself spending hours online looking for decent airfare to – anywhere. Anywhere I had not been, anywhere interesting, anywhere else. I actually booked a trip to see my family in Oklahoma. That did not fix the itch, so here we are. I considered taking the kids to Vietnam, but now that I have two kids born in foreign countries, I didn’t want to go that route. I’m rethinking the whole travel to the birth country concept. I don’t want to favor one country over another, so for the time being, we’re going to travel to countries other than those particular two.
So, that’s that, then. I need to get started getting a visa for a little Ethiopian and a more presentable beach body for me.
I’m really going to leave him for a whole week
Ok, technically, we won’t see each other for six days, but it’s close enough to a week. I feel horrible about leaving Oscar. I’m sort of making myself sick over it. I know that taking him around the world in the same amount of time would be a mistake, but I still don’t like leaving him. In an attempt to make myself feel better about the temporary abandonment I’m about to force him to endure, I spent some time today putting together his daily gift bags from me.
The intent behind the gift bags was to give him a little something each day I’m gone, something new to play with, to get him thinking about something other than the fact that his mother was not there. I was going to get things like stickers . . . little things, really. I started well, buying moon sand and those squishy balls, but ended up going a bit further, with six bags filled with a lot of cars and trucks and one special I.C.E. bag. In case of emergency, Nanny Norma or my parents are to resort to giving him the chartreuse bag, which contains an extra special gift (a battery operated James engine with coal car – a train that talks and can pull some of his other trains). To top it off, when Etta arrives, she’ll bestow the biggest gift, his Mustang convertible (thanks for the idea, Kelli). I’m thinking we might keep the bags out on the counter downstairs, to show that when they’re gone I’ll be home, but I’m not sure that he’ll understand that.
Ultimately, this is going to be harder on me than it will be on him, right?
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
