How Doug got mud, malt ball, and tinkle on his pants.

Day 44:

Okay, we don't actually call it "tinkle" in our family, but my mother reads this blog and I know there are other more mature audience members that might be offended by the word that rhymes with "bee". So "tinkle" it is.  Happy early Mother's day Vickie. In our family we call it "toot-toot" and that was completely Kees's doing, we were referring to him farting (darn it, I'm talking about farting which my mother will not appreciate, guess I'm back to square one on that Mother's day gift) and somehow he thought we meant going number one, he started telling us he was going toot-toot and then we knew he was ready to potty train.  We still call it toot-toot, a lot of people stare, but oh well.

But anyway, I digress...Doug calls it webbing, I call it unique story-telling.

Our day started at 6 am, we headed to immigration around 6:45, and got there at 7.  There were no parking spots, so Doug dropped me off so I could get in line. That left him with 3 bags and 2 kids.  Last time we were at immigration, 3 months ago, the doors stayed locked until 8, today at 7,  I walked in and the waiting room was already full. I grabbed a number and went outside to find a place to sit. We were number 39, by the time they opened there were 136 numbers, but the numbers we got were only preliminary numbers. At 8 am, they call people up in groups of 10 to ask what their business at immigration is, then they issue a second number that corresponds to the counter you will need to go to. We were number 405, so the 5th number at window 4. Then we waited to hear that number called. I stayed outside and never actually needed to go up to the counter, but if they had wanted to see me, I needed to be available to go up there. They called our number around 10, we handed in all the papers and paid the money, then waited to hear our names called to pick up our passports and get change. All said and done, we left around 11.

During our waiting time, we entertained ourselves with books, toys, and lots of snacks.  I packed crackers, malt ball, apple straws, granola bars, juice, tea, nuts, you name it, it was in there.  Kora was such a handful almost the entire time, at one point I was racking my brain wondering who I could have hired to come with us to entertain her.  She kept sitting for 2 minutes stretches and then arching her back, screaming and pointing to be put down. At one point I walked all around the place with her and she made friends with the Burmese refugees.  People look at us like they have never seen a white baby before, but it's a look of awwww and wonderment mixed with deep appreciation.  The best way to describe it would be like if you saw a unicorn, you'd be excited and surprised, like you weren't quite sure they existed and they are just too beautiful for words.  I know I exaggerate a lot, but it's the best analogy I've come up with thus far.  It never gets old, but I'm not the one being stared at.  Kees does not like the attention, but Kora loves it!

Now here's how all the messes come in, #1 Kora got malt ball (oatmeal powerball) all over the front of Doug's very light khaki pants, #2 Kora tracked mud back from her excursion to visit her fans and stood up on Doug's lap #3, also my favorite of the 3, Doug took Kees to use the bathroom and picked him up to use the urinal, there was a mishap and "tinkle" got fired down rather than in the hole.  Kees came back to where I was sitting and when I asked where Daddy was, he said, "He's cleaning up, he got wet." (My mind was left to wander for about 2 minutes, then Doug filled me in on their bathroom adventure.)

He loves her

Malt ball!

Doug made a thermos of coffee, after only 4 hours of sleep, I may have hoarded it. I made each of us a sweet tea, mine is lemon black tea and Doug had lemon ginseng green tea.

Doug whispering to Kees about a man who looked like Santa

I may have overdone it, I brought 4 bags, 1 each for the kids with distractionary devices, 1 with picture books, and 1 with 3 weeks worth of snacks and my "purse" stuffs.

Sometimes you do what you gotta do.  Kora only wanted me and Doug had to go inside, so I was reading to Kees while standing up with Kora. Then she started fussing so I spent at least 30 minutes doing a hard work out routine in front of 50 perfect strangers trying to get her to sleep.  Which included, but was not limited to: lunges, lifts, swaying, rocking, bouncing, and even jumping. I was finally successful, but I was covered in sweat and my hair was a new kind of frizzy afro the likes of which this world has never seen.

Malt ball round 2.

If I look hot and tired, then you understand me perfectly. But gosh darn it, I won this round of nap wars.

Giant bottle of water...there were many more trips to bathrooms throughout the day, Kees is quite a drinker, I never worry about him dehydrating.

I packed 8 "babies"/little people for Kora in this little bag.  She loved opening and closing the top, but not as much as throwing them on the ground.

He loves what he knows: cars and malt balls.  I packed tons of little things for him, but he mostly did this and ate malt balls.

Daddy's turn to wrangle the princess.

More snacking, I should have just left the toys at home, Kora is most entertained and focused when she is eating.

She found some ants eating our leftovers, then she picked up that funyun and ate it.

Lunch at the mall, Caow Mon Gai Tawt and Thai iced tea.  Kees spilled this drink, I had to get down on the ground and use no less than one hundred 1/2 ply toilet paper squares to clean it up.

When Kora is done at home, she stands up in her stool and waves her hands for the sign language sign, "all done".  Here Doug is saying, "Don't stand up!"

"Kora sit down please" He asked nicely about 3 times and then had to physically remove her.

Sometimes he cooperates for pictures. this by the way is the Mother's Day shirt he "gave" me yesterday.  It's an older shirt, missing a button even. Tonight when he was getting ready for bed I told him thank you for being so good today and he replied, "Momma, thank you for bringing me those malt balls and you looked really pretty in that shirt I gave you for Mother's day."  Love that boy so much!

Kees was playing with his cars in the mall while we were waiting for our movie time, this girl came right over to play with him.  I told Kees, "Wow, that girl really likes cars!" He replied, "Yeah, but she doesn't even know about dinosaurs."   Hmmm....

Went to lunch at the mall food court, then went to see Iron Man 3. Both our kids slept through the movie, when we came outside it was raining. Kees wanted to get home to play in the mud, but it didn't rain long enough.

I'm heading to bed early, hope you all are enjoying your Tuesday!  Here are a few from yesterday that finally synced from Doug's iphone.

Kora found a curled up leaf and wanted to see what it would look like wet.

He's too cute.

Forgot to mention that Auntie Lish played with the kids in the rain.  Kees gave her a mud pedicure.