Tones may drive me to the brink.

Day 88:

Kora is not better.  Sad day.  Still pukey and fevery. Right this minute, she is in an exceptionally good mood. She has not quit eating or drinking, but she's not keeping anything down.  She's begging Doug for yogurt and dancing.  She's a crazy fun girl.

This morning I had a bit of a mommy meltdown about all the piles of laundry I have been needing to put away.  I'm 90 percent done now. But in the midst of all the house cleaning and junk, I didn't take any pictures, until lunch. Then when I grabbed my ipod, it said my memory is full and it wouldn't take pictures. I'm sad about this because Kees had taken ALL of my spices out in the kitchen and was pretending to make "Pizza soup with candy in it". 

Doug comandeered my ipod for the afternoon and backed it up. I finally got it back and took some pictures of Kora sleeping and Kees working in the school room.

Kees's favorite book at the moment. It's a lift the flap book, "Arthur Goes to School"

Mega Blocks, we love these so much.  Freedom Fellowship mailed us these blocks our first Christmas here, so thankful for them!

Kees made up a game throwing cubes he made out of letter tiles. He said it was mini golf. At dinner he was asking me how much it costs to pay mini golf in Chiang Mai and if we had enough money to go.  He's so funny.

He was telling me that his black robot was spinning in circles.  Later he stacked the blocks and we were discussing the book "Caps for Sale" and how the man put the hats on his head and sorted them by color.  Have I mentioned I love school, and books, and being a mom.  So fun!  I was feeling very blessed and thankful today. 

Kees was pushing this tote around for his game.  You can see one of the cubes he made in the back right, it's green.  (The tote is storage for the books and activities we rotate in our school room).

The "A is for Apple" stuff Aunt Kristee sent.

I ran over to the house to make myself an iced coffee. Doug was studying and keeping an ear out for this sleeping girl.  He offered to make me a fresh iced coffee, so I got to snuggle her a bit while he made my coffee.  Thanks DOUG!

Kees was working while I was gone.  He matched the little apples with the big apples. He was very eager for me to come back over and see his work.

He was also happy about sitting in this chair.

Doing the apple puzzles. He was so excited!

Using the wooden letter pieces to spell out "apple"

These apple cards have a matching half, we split them up and played a matching game. Similar to "Go fish", but there was no draw pile, thus no fishing, so yeah.

Kees has a Cars 2 memory game. We used the tiles like cars, we each had a pile, we'd turn over a card at the same time and whoever had the "faster" car won both cards...like in "War".  Kees was the one who decided which cards beat what.  He was pretty fair actually! :)

Dinner! Chicken wraps, baby grapes, and apples. Yum, yum, delish.

This evening I've been working on Thai.  I hate tones so much it hurts.  They are so frustrating!  But I am determined to continue trying and praying that someday it finally clicks.  I have definitely seen improvement in this area, but it's just never come easy, at. all.  There's also a ton of tone rules and various other things I'm trying to brush up on as I delve into reading and writing Thai.   I will say I am extremely thankful for my ipod, it has been so useful. It's how I take pictures, keep in touch with my family, listen to my Thai lessons, and study. I took a few screen shots of what I was using today. 

Forgot to mention I struggle with aspiration as well.  I don't hate it nearly as much as tone though.  This at least makes some sense to me.  It's still hard to train my brain and mouth to make different sounds in different ways, but I sort of "get it".

The bane of my existence.

We have a really awesome Thai app, but it was pricey. Worth every penny though, it really breaks everything down, and for each dictionary word you can listen to a Thai speaker saying it as well.  That helps with drilling to make sure I'm using the correct tone.

This next part is strictly for those interested in learning more about the tones I hate.  If you hate them as much as me, don't read anymore.  You have been warned!  There are five tones in Thai: mid, low, high, rising, and falling.  But they aren't even as straight forward as that. For instance the "high" tone, starts high, but goes high....so rising, but it's not rising. Rising starts low and goes high.  And it's not like pitch, it's all relative to your voice range.  So musicality doesn't necessarily help.  Okay, enough, this is making me cranky.  I'm gonna have to just practice writing or drill letters to get this nonsense out of my brain. The last thing I need is to dream about tones.