Updates...
Sawyer has a cold. For the last 2 weeks he's had trouble napping and would wake up at night crying. Pat has been able to get him to go back to sleep at night, he has a knack for that sort of thing. At the very sight of me, Sawyer's night fits would turn that much more wild and so I just stay out. Anyway, I thought this stuff in combination with a lot of ear-pulling might mean an ear infection. Turns out it's probably due to his last molars cutting through, and taking their dear sweet time about it, too. This weekend the sneezing and running nose started. He doesn't seem to have a fever and who knows if it's from teething or if it's just a real cold. Analyzing these things gets old after a while so I've stopped.
Pat's work has been very busy and he's been putting in a lot of hours. I miss him but at least he's able to come home at night and isn't sent on lots of business trips.
Last Friday Pat and I went to a birthday party for a Thai guy he works with. This was not really so much of a party as just a get-together at a restaurant. However, the restaurant was a real Thai back-soi outdoor place. Plastic chairs, card tables, mosquitos, and good food. We had pork and chicken. I don't know how the meat was cooked, but they were served with three different sauces. One was sweet chili sauce that you can get at the grocery store back home. One was a darker, spicier sauce. One had a lot of fish sauce in it.
A note on fish sauce. If there's one thing I can't stand about this place and will not miss one bit, it's fish sauce. It reeks. It smells like fish flakes not worthy of feeding to an already side-ways-swimming goldfish. I smell it walking by food stalls on the street. I smell it in restaurants, in grocery stores. It's in some really great Thai dishes. They would be some of my favorite foods if they didn't include this nasty stuff. It gives any dish a hint of...smelly pier.
Our friend, Marc, decided to buy some bugs from the bug cart that was passing buy. He got one bag of grasshoppers and one bag of grubs. I guess I should tell you they were fried and that they wee for eating. Marc ate the grasshoppers much like someone would eat Doritos. He just chomped through the bag and kept saying, "Man these things things are so GOOD!" I decided that it would be awful to leave Thailand without enjoying one fried bug. They handed me one and I looked at it. And looked at it. Pat warned me that I was examining it much too long. He was right. I had to put that one back. They gave me another one, much smaller. I tried not to stare too long at its smiling face. Wonder what he was thinking when he got dropped into the fryer... It was crunchy and mostly hollow. No real distinct taste. I chewed it trying to identify the one taste I could point out but it was no use. Not something I'll eat again but it was by no means horrible. That was the beginning of my night.
I will say that with our social lives cranking back into full gear after the holidays and visitors, I'm truly beginning to get a sense of what will be so missed when we leave. And with this, I'm also finally able to identify (if only a teensy weensy bit) with those who are in the foreign service for long periods of time by choice. The idea of hopping from one country to another will little time spent in the States is not as absolutely insane as I'd thought. Missing being close to our family will never fade away and will always keep us closer to home. However, meeting these people and being in the same crazy boat with them is kind of fun. The longer we're here, the more we're able to relax and understand what living in another country is all about. What is it about? I still don't think I can put it into words. There is a sense of satisfaction with that moment you look around you and realize you have actually made a home in this crazy foreign place that you swore would never be home. New people come and you find yourself holding back all your information for fear of overwhelming them. And you understand why all that information that was given to you in the beginning was worthless - you just weren't ready to hear it and you were to busy hating it!
With that, there are still moments I can't wait to go home. Like when I spend my entire shower trying to get the stupid water to just be warm and not burn my face off and not leave me shivering. And then I get out of the shower to a completely wet floor. A second grader could have designed these bathrooms better. Another time I can't wait to go home is when people raise eyebrows at me because my maid ONLY works 8 hours a day and not 10. Don't get me started. Or when I find out there are 2 friends in my building who are expecting in the fall and that if we'd only extended another year, I could be pregnant and due in the fall and could have actually had people to bond with in my building. Maybe this should be a list for another day.
Sawyer's birthday party is this coming Saturday. We tried to keep the list small. I have a few new friends who I'd absolutely love to invite, but as it is we'll have a madhouse. Not as crazy as last year, though. That will occupy a lot of my free time this week - cake, goody bags, snacks... I'm excited to make a cookie monster cake and cupcakes. Sawyer is excited because he knows there will be cake and the Happy Birthday song (a new favorite). We'll be sure to post lots of pictures soon and some videos.
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