The Tomlinsons: Rationing the Cheese: An Ode to My Mother

Day 9:

Can't remember if it's day 8 or 9... So we'll go with 9.

Today has been a normal Tuesday. No toddler drama this morning, thank you Jesus! We spent most of our morning in the school room. Last night we had company, but I was determined to get the house in tip top shape because Tuesday is my day to really focus on the kids. Doug is gone to his pastors meeting and I don't want to be distracted from mothering (cough, smothering) my babies. So I was up until 1 am folding laundry and listening to my bible app. Since it was technically today when I was folding the laundry, I can truthfully (albeit shadily) say I was up very early this morning doing house work.

Laundry pile, it'll all got folded...still needs to be put away though....any takers?

As we were preparing to head to the school room Kora had a few adventures. I think she must know how much I love Curious George and wants to have a few mishaps (daily) to endear herself to me. While I was showering she found a red pen and uncapped it. Thankfully, as soon as it happened Kees filled me in. I was dripping wet, but managed to wrangle the pen away from her before she marked on anything. Again, thank you Jesus. When we finally made it to the school room, she had a wad of Kees's malt ball in her hand and covering her angelic little face. (notice a hint of sarcarsm?...you should)

Malt ball face.

Got her cleaned up and we read books, played instruments, played with shapes, and built with blocks. I even remembered to take our mini yogurty drinks over there for a snack, which Kora promptly squeezed all over herself and the floor. Seriously? Yep, that happened.

Reading, Kora was reading by herself, but decided to join us and sat right on top of Kees. Poor guy, couldn't see a thing, except the back of his sister's angelic little head.

Reading our ABC books the Youngs gave us before the left. We LOVE these!!!

Instruments

Kees had such a good time.

Shape Shuffle & Mighty Mind

Mega Blocks, we got these our first Christmas in Thailand from Freedom Fellowship in Wisconsin. We've loved having them!

Then we came home for lunch and nap time. Kora is supposed to be the one napping, but Kees refused to eat and if he doesn't eat he loses privileges, so he decided he'd just take a nap too. Guess who woke up first and who slept another 2 hours. I guess maybe I should re-evaluate, the boy child must see sleep as a reward, much like his mother.


Kora's yogurt face, Kees "cleaning" up yogurt (after I took this picture I realized he was putting drops of yogurt on the table on purpose so he could get a paper towel to wipe it up, and finally, at the bottom, can you find the jing jok (jeeng joke) hiding in the kitchen?

Daddy's lunch with his pastor friends! I actually added this picture before Doug even got home because his phone syncs with my ipod, anyway when he got home he was telling me about lunch and I guess his buddies know the owners of the restaurant they were eating at and they were bragging to the owner about how Doug eats everything, unusual for foreigners, and told the owner to get a picture with him. ;)

Yep, I held her ALL of nap time, judge away. She is not a snuggler, but today she wanted me. It's the only room that has air conditioning and I was able to listen to my Thai lessons and edit photos while she slept. Can't beat that!


This boy napped 4 hours! WHAT?!? Probably should have woke him up sooner, but he's a really good sleeper and he'll probably sleep extra tonight, some times he just likes to catch up.

This is one of my favorite progression of pictures ever, start at the top, left to right, then the next row, left to right. She was kissing her baby and playing so sweet until she saw her books, then she quick climbed over her doll, then shoved it out of the way. So I propped her baby up next to her and told her she needed to be sweet to her baby. So funny!

After Kora woke up, we had some Mommy and me time hanging our clothes out to dry and rationing some cheese. We're so Little House on the Prairie, except I do have a washing machine and I didn't milk the cow or make the cheese myself, technicality.

My little laundry helper.

Growing up my mom did a lot of weird things. Like buy cheese in bulk. She only goes grocery shopping twice a month. She makes menus and plans out meals. On the grocery shopping day, twice a month, she goes to like 8 different stores to get all the best deals and compare prices. Okay, 8 stores is an exaggeration. But she goes to Walmart, Sav-a-lot, and then back to Walmart. She dreads shopping day and after all that running around in whatever crazy weather Oklahoma is experiencing at the time, she has to maneuver storing all those groceries. She buys in bulk and then separates into portions and freezes: meat, cheese, even bread. I'm tired just thinking about it. But my mom is great at what she does! She provides relatively healthy meals for her family and we never went hungry. Her budget has been tight at times, but she always knew how to stretch a dollar. As a kid, that's kind of embarassing, at least I thought so. My mom would buy the HUGE bag of cheese at Sam's club and portion it out into ziplock bags, I remember thinking to myself that I would NEVER do that. You can't be saving THAT much money. Well let me tell you something she probably wasn't saving a huge amount of money, but it was something, and now in Thailand, that little mothering trick of the trade saves us a bundle, in fact I'd say it enables us to even buy cheese at all. It's about $6 to buy a bag of cheese that I'd guess has maybe 1 cup worth of cheese and it's kind of weird tasting...like oily. Well I found a huge bag (they actually only sometimes have it) and it's 749 baht for a 5 lb bag. That's about $25, geeze louise, but that's around $1 per cup as opposed to $6 and guess what else? It's from Wisconsin!!! And just like my mom, I don't shop very often and I usually stock up at the beginning of the month. Of course the places I shop, how I get there, and what they sell is quite different, but many of the principles I saw modeled have truly helped me to adjust here and be able to afford to eat cheese. And lets face it, 10 year ago, they didn't have cheese in Thailand, now they do, God knew I was coming and prepared the way. :) I could go on and on about the ways God prepared the way for us, it's truly amazing to see all the tiniest of details and how God has worked them all together. So blessed and so thankful! (That was my good word of the day, just looking at your life and acknowledging God's hand and work and his overwhelming goodness!)

Cheese, precious, precious cheese!

Oh and P.S. While I was bagging up the cheese, Kora found a pepper shaker and poured it on her feet and got some on her face. She's crazy, but I love her!


The pepper, it was on her feet, her pants, the floor, and around her mouth.

Daddy came home and we got a package in the mail! It truly felt like Christmas, we got new spill-proof cups and some yummy girl scout cookies.


LOVE!

Remember that red pen from earlier, well apparently Kora remembered being foiled by me and couldn't let it stand. So when Doug came home with crayons for Kees, Kora got her little paws on them and did this, literally 6 inches from Doug, who was resting on the couch and telling me about his day. It was so funny because Doug noticed it was too quiet and looked down next to him to discover this...

Yep, she's a wild one, runnin free!

Since we were feeling all spoiled with stuff from America, I broke out the powdered mac and cheese. This is the first time Kora has ever had macaroni. She loved it! Kees, not so much, but he's been fighting eating ALL day.