Christmas with the Crankies

Here they are...well the little one was the cranky, the big one was okay. There's another cranky who isn't in this picture. That would be me. Between Sawyer working on his top two teeth and me just being homesick, the holidays sure could have been better. Or maybe it's jsut my attitude that needed an adjustment. I learned from another mom to start decorating immediately after Thanksgiving or else the holiday can get by you pretty quickly. Also, something I learned myself is that efforts to make a Bangkok Christmas feel like a Maryland Christmas are wasted. How is one cup of hot chocolate going to make a 90 degree day here feel just like home? It doesn't. That's okay I'm over it. But thank you Paula Deen for yet another fabulous recipe, one includes sweetened condensed milk! Below is a picture of me making pancakes with my new frying pan which nothing in the universe can stick to. We did have a really fun dinner at our friends' house. They are Dutch and most of their friends are Dutch so that made for an interesting night, not to mention a few people had babies, one was pregnant, so it was a family friendly atmosphere. The group who prepared the appetizer went to great measures to make sure the presentation was a good as the flavors. It was like we were in a gourmet restaurant. Part of it was served in a shot glass, very posh I must say! After dinner we played a white elephant gift exchange sort of game but it was a little different and lasted for hours. Normally I don't like those so much but this one was fun because there were some really silly gifts going around. We made out very well coming home with a Dutch sausage, a box of condoms, a manly t-shirt that says "no guts, no glory", and a picture frame. Sawyer slept in the guest room so Pat and I got to stay long after his bedtime.

New Years was uneventful but nice. A week after Christmas our maid had to leave to get her visa so we didn't have a babysitter. It was nice anyway because we just hung out at home, played in the pool, and didn't create these huge expectations simply because it was a holiday. That was what made it nice. Pat made a New Year's Eve dinner using his new cookbook from J.R. and I made a dinner the next night with recipes from my cookbook courtesy of Beth. The Saturday before, Arlyn watched Sawyer a few hours so that Pat and I could go to Chatuchak Market. We didn't buy anything but had fun looking at all the goods and interesting foods. The market is over 20 acres of anything you want, including endangered species (or so I hear).

Sawyer has been having a blast with all of his new toys. He wants so badly to crawl and that's just one of a number of reasons he's been on the irritable side. His new sound is "ba" and "ap ap ap." He's almost able to get into a sitting position from laying down and is doing better standing on my lap. Wednesday Sawyer and I took a short taxi ride to a small park that I'd heard about through playgroup. The temperature was in the low 80's that day and we got there around 11am, which was perfect. The park isn't huge, but there's lots of grass and trees and sidewalk to run a stroller. Since this was the first time, and I didn't know if there was sidewalk, I just brought Sawyer in the front carrier. We laid out a quilt and sat down with some toys and juice. Sawyer was born to be outdoors. He squints into the breeze with his chubby arms up as if he's in heaven. Once he realized that there's scratchy green stuff beyond the quilt, he dove straight out and started going nuts grabbing as much grass as he could. Eventually I had to pry some blades out of his hands so he didn't eat them. I let him lay on his back and look up at the tree we were under. He swished his little feet in the grass and really seemed relaxed. One of the neatest things I've seen as a parent is Sawyer genuinely enjoying something that has absolutely nothing to do with me. He really is being a good boy, just having a rough time with the teething so we're trying to be patient. I've only developed a couple twitches so far ;)