Body Life

Okay, it seems almost every weekend I am too tired to blog and end up cheating a little. So this post will contain "a day in the life" style posts for 2 days in a row.  Saturday into Sunday is a quick turn around for us and it can feel overwhelming.  We teach English at church on Saturday night and we are at the church for around 3 hours: the first hour I teach the kid's class, the second hour Doug teaches the adult class, and the last hour we eat amazing Thai food.  We usually get home around 8 or 8:30,  the kids go to bed and then we wake up and head right back to church for our regular Sunday service and this week was a bonus because it was the monthly baking class and potluck. Whew! Have you ever had a really full weekend at church, and then heading back to work on Monday felt like a break? Now imagine doing that with no air conditioning, with two little kids...one of which is Kora, and there's no nursery, so you're just running circles around the place, sweating profusely.  Let me tell ya, when we get home on Sunday afternoon... we rest...really well!

Day 41:
Saturday morning we were able to skype with Grandpa Boo (Doug's dad) and Gramee and Glampa (my parents). Kees showed off his birthday presents and read a book to Grandpa Boo.  It's so nice to have various ways of keeping in touch with family back home.  It's still so hard on the grandparents because they are just dying to be able to reach through that screen and steal a snuggle or a kiss. When you pray for us, pray for them.  It was so sweet, but made me a little sad when Kora kept trying to touch their faces and grab their glasses.  There's so much that happens these first two years (of Kora's life) and some days are hard, feeling like we aren't able to fully share that with family.  But we are thankful that our family has been so supportive of our choice to be here, they are amazing!  Oh, and p.s. my dad sang "Happy Birthday" for Kees in an audio message on Voxer, not sure if Kees was very impressed (don't be offended Glampa...he never is), but it made my day! 

Skype chats for Kees's birthday

After skyping, Jam came over and played for a little while.  Doug ran some errands for me and brought lunch back, we had "kaow soy".

Kora saying "bye bye" to Pi Jam and Pa Noi

The kids had a good time playing outside and Kees took his NOISY dinosaurs out there.  Those things are already about to drive me insane and it's only been 2 days.

The dinosaur walked off the step and Kora was so concerned about it. Kees said, "See, he's okay!"

Kora likes helping take care of our fish.  We have to really watch her because I'm almost certain if we didn't, she'd either end up in the tank, or the fish would get shoveled out of there. P.S. The other day Kees was helping scoop out the green growie stuff on top and accidentally got some of the fish in his net, they were flopping around, and I had a slight panic attack.  I had to go inside, and Doug kept saying, "It's okay, Kees, there's nothing to be scared of, just put the net back in the water."  This is further proof that ANYONE could do this.  I have people tell me all the time that they just couldn't do it, um, yeah, neither can I.  That's where God comes in.  I am a city girl, a picky eater, a scaredy cat and one who would absolutely never in a million years live far away from family, but here I am.

I bought this dress for Kora at Big C for 79 baht, that's around $2.65.

Okay, moving on, in the last few days we have become the clinic for sick motor bikes, we are now housing two.  Kora would like them to be her toys. Unfortunately, they do not belong to us, so right after taking this picture, I set a boundary and said no...for real, I'm not always fun and games.

Duck face, or is it a fish face?

Later in the afternoon, we headed to English class.  Not gonna lie, I was dragging my feet a little and had some issues finding my materials...no one's fault, but my own.  I had written out my lesson plans, and I have a box of manipulatives that we use, shapes and colored Popsicle sticks (apparently "Popsicle" has to be capitalized, thank you auto-correct).  Anyway, I let my kids use some of the stuff earlier this week and took the stuff out of the box.  Then when it was time to go to class on Saturday, I grabbed the box, but not all the stuff was inside.  My lesson actually went just fine and as usual, I was over dramatic for no reason.  I love teaching.  It's so funny that I'm always stressed on the way there, but I enjoy it so much.  We sing songs, I act crazy, I get the students involved...a ton.  It took a while for them to get used to me I think. The schools here are more strict than in the states, I'm guessing, I've never actually been. But they showed up expecting to sit and take notes, and I'm not that kind of teacher....Michelle Brown, if you're reading this, I hope you're proud. :)  Each week I cover a new topic, but we spend a good portion of the time reviewing, I have a song for everything, if there isn't one in existence I make one up. I also make up hand gestures and fakey sign language for everything.  My plans basically have bullet points of what I want to review in what order and then I add new stuff towards the end. I try to do a song after each reviewed topic, don't want to get too boring. I've incorporated some of the techniques we've used to learn Thai. It's called TPR, or Total Physical Response.  You have objects, for instance this week I used colored paper clips and I review all the colors, by saying, "Pick up the blue paper clip or point to the red paper clip", there are only a couple different actions that go along with them, but we also used them to review the directions words: "beside, behind, inside, in front of, on top of, and under". Each student also has a small cylinder container (that used to hold toothpicks). Then I give commands, like: "put the pink paper clip inside the cylinder" etc.  We've also covered days of the week, shapes, and body parts. This week we learned the months of the year. After their comprehension is fairly good, I have them tell me what to do and I see if I can understand the way they are speaking.  It's fun. I'm a nerd, I know this.

My students are brilliant!

After my class, Doug teaches the adults.  His style is much different, but it's perfect for the adults who would be mortified if they had to try and do the junk I make my class do.  This week they learned pronouns.

While Doug was teaching Kora was figuring this out, she kept going back to fill her cup up, so she could dump in on herself.

Doug teaching.

Kees getting me ice water, there are some great perks to having a 4 year old. (Parents of mine, please note, Thailand has ice readily available, you may now come and visit me)

While we are teaching are kids are being monitored by the parent not teaching. Some weeks are better than others. Doug had a rough time with Kora this week, but thought quickly on his feet and sent Kees into my class and took her for a walk.  While he was teaching, Kees played with the pastor's daughters and I finally coaxed Kora to sleep, it involved singing and a lot of rocking/bouncing....I got a work out!

Love to see Kees playing, they don't speak much English and he doesn't speak much Thai, but they still get along great. He held the front of the jump rope, and she held the back and followed behind him.

They were talking on the phone.

When both classes are done, we get to eat.  This week we had an omelet and stir fried veggies.  The veggies were so good, I ate a lot.

Love how everyone is included with helping. Kees and Nala were putting silverware with the plates.

Nala helped carry the rice plates to the table.

After we left, I realized I need powdered sugar for the baking class so Doug drove me to the import store to buy some. There are always some interesting things there. First I saw this....

Salmon

Then I saw this...

FUNYUNS!

Can you guess which one I bought???


Day 42:

This morning, the kids got to skype with Grandma Sheryl!  I didn't get a picture, but it was a great chat too!

Sundays have been a mixed bag for me. When we first moved here, I cried on Sundays, a lot, and often went home feeling defeated.  The expectations for little ones are not the same here.  Thai people have a phrase, "Mae pin lie" which roughly translated means, "don't worry about it", or "do what you want", "it's up to you".  Our Thai friends in our neighborhood who speak some English often say in English, "Up to you" in place of it.  Well, that phrase applies to kids too.  The kids go in and out of the worship area, play outside, walk around the worship area, eat snacks, drink things.  It's very much a community atmosphere, so if a child is near you, you help out, entertain them, wipe their nose.  It's not just the parents who care for the children, it's everybody.  This is one of the many reasons I love it here.  I know that if Kora wanders over to another adult or even teenager, they will look out for her, pick her up, walk her around etc.  When we first moved here, it was hard to figure out what boundaries I wanted to set up for my kids, well it was just Kees back them.  Here's what we came up with,  we usually sit in the back, Kees is allowed to play with toys or eat snacks, read books, but he has to be quiet and for the most part he stays right by us.  If he wanted to walk around he could do that behind us, but he was not allowed to leave the building. So the exit was his boundary and going in front of us. Once we settled on that and helped him understand our expectations, things got easier, but still difficult occassionally.  I'd say our whole first year was a real challenge on Sundays. When we came back, my outlook on life was much better and Sunday became one of my favorite days.  In the last few weeks, we've been meeting outside and Kora has been much more busy, making Momma's life difficult, that plus Kees's on again off again clingyness too me, and some days we just don't make it.  Last week I ended up going home early, I just couldn't keep up with both kids.  This week I made a point to re-establish with Kees what our expectations were and things went much better. Also, the service was moved back inside, and that helps...a lot!!

After church, we ate lunch, which was awesome and included some sort of green fern type vegetable...so yummy. We brought chicken since it was a potluck this week, we only do potluck once a month, on the first Sunday which is also the baking class day. Kees and I fill the cups every week. That's our "job".  Kora has recently discovered the water dispenser and she knows how to use it. Wow! We're all in big trouble now!  At one point today, I was taking a picture of Kees because I thought it was so funny that he was the LAST one eating. Right after I took the picture I realized I hadn't seen Kora in a while (keep in mind I knew someone else probably had her).  And, when I found her she was in the sink "helping" with dishes.  HILARIOUS! Did I mention, I love it? People are so kind and take such good care of us.

Me and my boy

Doing our job

Waiting her turn.

She would do this all day...

This girl loves to eat, like her Momma

Silly boys!

Yummy green stuff.

Picture of Kees with Kora in the sink WAY in the background, she is the orange dot.

This is how I found her, I lover her expression and Nala's.

Such excitement!

Today for baking class, we made "Black Magic Cake" which has coffee in it! We also made butter cream frosting.  My mishap of the day was forgetting the baking powder, but the church supply of cooking stuff was also out of vanilla, so it kind of worked out. Doug just had to run home to pick up the baking powder I had left behind and grabbed our vanilla so we'd have enough for the cake and frosting.  At this point, Kora had been moved from the kitchen sink to a large tub they filled with water for her.  She was entertained for quite some time, they finally took her out because they were worried she might be too cold.  This always makes me laugh because it's a million degrees and my kids are hot boxes and almost always sweating.  I kept telling Kees he could get in the water, but he didn't want to.  He wanted to help with cake.  He loves cooking, maybe he'll be a chef!

This cup is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Everyone helps!

Sweet boy

It's a family project!

Kora is the taster, she demanded several tastes of frosting just to be sure it was to her liking.

Once the cake was done, I decided to put the candle I still had from Friday into the cake so we could celebrate Kees's birthday with our church family. Bad idea. Terrible idea. Epic parenting fail. Should have known better. Kees cried and cried. Later when we got home I asked him what made him so upset and he said, "I just really wanted to snuggle you."

Sorry Kees, I'm a terrible mother.  Please don't tell your therapist.

Kora took a long nap this afternoon and Kees and I spent time in the school room.  We read books and Kees built with his letter tiles.  He made a road for his cars.  Some things never change.  This boy loves cars, he's interested in dinosaurs now too, but his first love will always be cars I think.

Working hard.

This evening Alicia came over for our chicken nacho tradition and we watched the first Iron Man movie.  Tomorrow night we're watching the second one, and then on Tuesday after we go to immigration, we are going to go see the third one! Tomorrow is another Thai holiday, so no language sessions for us, but I have a lot of planning to catch up on and listening to do.  And I know Kees will want to study too. :)  I keep having to re-do my laundry because about 3 loads got rained on while we were out last night. (They were hanging to dry, if you didn't figure that out. :)

Oh, exciting news regarding immigration, we got our one year visa! Such an answer to prayer!