Normal life is taking all my time
“What have you been up to this morning?” Mikes asked me via Skype from Bangkok. “I didn’t even get online until 10:45 today,” I told him, still stunned. “I’ve been changing diapers and emptying trash cans and replacing toilet rolls and tidying up rooms and making beds and cooking breakfast and doing laundry and hanging out laundry and … normal life is taking all my time!” “There’s a post title,” Mike said. (Apparently, not only is normal life taking all my time but the events of the past months have taken all of my creative energy, so Mike has started to point out...
Read MoreWaterfalls, tails, and other baby adventures
We spent the day at a waterfall yesterday. Between you and me I wanted to spend a nice relaxing Sunday sitting in front of the television and eating Thai biscuits filled with squishy strawberry sugar paste, but Mama informed me in no uncertain terms that I’m not going to get everything that I want in life exactly when I want it. If that’s true, I’m devastated. But then again, Mama tells me that dirt and snails are yucky and not to be eaten, so she’s clearly not infallible. She also told me that the mandarin oranges were “all finished” tonight when I know...
Read MoreMumps and other re-entry bumps
The day we landed in Laos I came down with a cold, and two days later my ears started to hurt so badly I could hardly see straight. The minute Mike came home from work we put Dominic in the stroller and set out for the doctor who runs an after-hours clinic out of her house at the end of our street. We got almost to the end of the dirt road outside our house before a familiar tawny shape gamboled past. Zulu has taken to slipping out the gate whenever anyone goes in or out of our compound. Normally this isn’t a big problem – he darts around the neighborhood for a while, wild with excitement...
Read MoreWhat will you be grateful for today?
I chatted to Mike over breakfast for a good 45 minutes this morning. In one respect, at least, this three-hour time difference serves us well. Mike can get up at 6am (or, often, before) and make coffee and get breakfast. I am up at 9am having just finished mine, and we both at the same level of “awakedness” and being ready to embrace the day. Consequently, we have much more substantial conversations over a virtual breakfast table when we’re separated by the equator than we do when we’re living in the same house. At home our morning routine for the past six months has involved Mike...
Read MoreThe pursuit of happiness (Part 1)
Yesterday I was dragged away from my work by a positive storm of barking. Zulu might only be two dogs long and one dog high, but when he puts his mind to it he has the bark of a German Shepherd on steroids. Yesterday he was clearly very unhappy about something. “What’s going on?” I asked, as I reached the front of our house and found my neighbor, Barbara, already there. “Oh,” she said, laughing. “It’s a big, scary, toad. He’s not the world’s bravest dog, is he?” She was right about the big part – the toad was enormous; it could barely heave its bulk along the pavement....
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