Big Mango Baby

Halloween

2009-11-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here's Paul Bunyan. Poor kid has a teacher mom so he's stuck being a literary figure instead of a monster. This was a pretty cheap costume. He needed some boots anyway, and he already had a jeans. And you can never have enough black and red flannel lumberjack shirts! Sawyer had a lot of fun trick or treating. He got the hang of it quickly, but once he walked up to a house and announced, "I'm Sawyer Anderson!" I like how he says Ander-SONE." I think he looked pretty much like a lumber jack, and a few people actually recognized him as Paul Bunyan. A lot of people would open their doors and say, "Ooooh, scary ax man!!!" I didn't correct them at first, but after a few houses I decided to start schooling them. We didn't hit too many houses, but we collected enough candy to fill his spider bag and have to periodically empty the candy into an extra grocery bag. Note to self: Next year, have Pat hold the extra bag of candy so that big creeps don't toss some smarties into the bag and tell me, "Here ya go, sweetie!" I wasn't even wearing a costume. A couple times I answered, "Thanks! I'm the mommy!"

This is what happens when Sawyer finds orange crackers and has 20 seconds to himself. Days. DAYS to get rid of the crumbs. This look on his face, it's the "I'm doing something bad and I know it and it's funny anyway and you're probably going to laugh at me even though you're not supposed to" look.

Here are some pics from a pumpkin patch with Pat's parents.

A video of Sawyer dancing to the Dora theme song. Don't worry, though, he requested ZZ Top in the car yesterday, so we're keeping him well-rounded! This is a really crazy dance. He's usually doing a bit more bopping and less swinging. Since VIOS allows us to upload so quickly, I'll definitely be putting videos up more often.

A million pictures

2009-10-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

Maybe not a million. Many pictures. In no particular order. Our new life. It makes me sad putting up the captions knowing how distant and weird this new life is compared to where we were only months ago, compared to the life of our new friends in Bangkok.

My new car. It's a Honda Pilot. Marianne, if you thought our old car was big! Just doing our part to keep America clean...ahem. Oh, and Sawyer desperately wants to get in and drive. He thinks he can drive.

Olivia! Sawyer has always had 2 Olivias in his life.

Riding at the Fall Festival at Homestead Gardens. The 17 year old driving the tractor did not seem to understand that even though he felt like he was driving slowly, the little carts he was towing seemed to be flying at warp speed.

A birthday party for our little friend, Luke. Does he ever not make "the face"? No.

Distraught and resentful on the way to school.

One of my first days at work. Pat took Sawyer to the park by the airport.

See our cat, Autumn, up by the wine rack? She watches us from up there, probably planning our demise. Sawyer scolds her. "Autumn! Why are you up there, Autumn? Autuuuumn. Get down right now!"

Playing hide and seek with Olivia means they hide in the bathroom and you jump in to find them. Over. And over. And over. And it's hysterically funny every single time.

I took Sawyer to Gorc Park near our house on a beautiful day. This was taken with my iPhone, on no special setting. It turned out really neato. Pat was at a Redskins game.

I dare you to tell me I look tired. You're *%^& right I look tired. And now I always look this way!

Again with the face. On Uncle Jimmy's tractor in Beaver Falls, PA. We had a fun, but all too short visit to see Pat's grandma and Aunt and Uncle.

My favorite boys after eating our favorite hot dogs from Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe and our favorite ice cream from J&T's in Beaver Falls.

Pat took this while driving (yeah, yeah, I know) on the way to Beaver Falls. See the windmills, Eva? See them?

This one is our very last picture we took in Bangkok. It's the cabinet in our hotel. This was all Sawyer had left for toys at that point since we'd packed out. Before bed, Sawyer used to put all his cars to sleep. His idea, not ours. So there they are "sleeping."

Just a sweet picture.

Alright already.

2009-06-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a lovely picture from Patrick. This was taken from the skywalk between 2 BTS stations. On the left is CentralWorld, an enormous mall. The lighted photos on the bottom are part of an underwater photography display. The picture of Sawyer with the stick below was taken the same day down on the sidewalk by the fountain.

This is a statue in Lumpini Park.

This is from the Sunday brunch at Trader Vic's at the Marriott on the Chao Phraya river. I really can't describe how elaborate this brunch is. It's a buffet with everything under the sun. The desserts are great: ice cream bar, snow cone bar, cakes, a million kinds of chocolates, a chocolate fountain, fruit... We're not going to be in Bangkok much longer, I'll miss this stuff, I really don't want to talk about it anymore.

A nice random picture from way back in January when Pat's parents, aunt, and brother were visiting. This was at one of the many temples in Ayutthaya, what used to be the capitol of Thailand. Sawyer learned the word "Buddha" at these very Buddhas. He now says, "Hi Buddha!" whenever he sees one. If we're in a taxi, he loves pointing out the "tiny Buddha" on the dashboard which is somewhat amusing to the drivers.

In case you're wondering.........THREE MORE WEEKS Woohooooo!!!

Ava plug

2009-06-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked out the Ava and Dylan blog on the left, you need to. The most recent post (at least as I'm typing this now) is a song Ava sings for her brother. Unbelievably cute. Here is a picture of my very own cutie looking oh so serious.

The Happiest Place on Earth

2009-05-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

Also known as Funarium. Massive, air-conditioned, western-designed (in other words, pretty safe). This place is unbelievable. It is a huge blessing for mommies in Bangkok. They've thought of everything. There is food, bathrooms with changing tables and tiny kid-sized toilets and sinks, a big art room with volunteers ready to help your kid with a craft, a giant climbing structure, smaller toddler structure, bike track, basketball cage. There are giant slides just like the ones at carnivals, the ones where you actually get some air. In the US we'd be asking, "How long until this place is overrun with teenagers and the guy working the slide tries to sell 5-year-olds weed?" That stuff doesn't seem to happen much here. Oh my gosh it is so much fun. I get way too excited when we're on our way to funarium.

Here is Sawyer on the kiddie slide in the toddler section. The tongue comes out when he concentrates.

Sawyer: "Even if there's a little bit of swine flu on this red ball, it's so much fun it's worth it!"

The big slide. The red flame indicates the fast lane. I didn't know that at first. The far right is the slow lane. I still have a burn on my arm from that thing. They must have greased it up last Saturday. Haven't had problems since then.

The ball pit in the big blue structure. This takes some explaining. The big purple cylinder has a red button. Push the red button and air shoots out of the holes, causing the balls to hover in the air. It's not meant for giant kids to sit on it and air out their sweaty shirts. Maybe they should put a sign up as a reminder.

In this ball pit is another button. This causes the overhead machine to turn into a vacuum. You can send the balls flying through the two tubes on the sides. They collect in the section above you. This machine is on an automatic timer and when it turns off, all the balls fall out on your head. Sawyer liked to just lay down and wait for the avalanche. Yahoooooo!!!

Spongebob Anderson

2009-05-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

One night in Bangkok...

2009-05-16T11:50:00.001-07:00

So it's 2am in Bangkok and here's why I'm loving it and not wanting to leave.

We listened to someone totally butcher "No Woman No Cry" in a bar called Country Road (singular, not plural). And it was funny. And really painful.

In this same bar a roach crawled up Pat's ankle, decided it just wasn't worth it, and crawled under me and toward the other table. Awesome.

The nachos on Soi 8. This time they weren't made with Doritos which would make for an awful disappointment. But somehow, they were still the best. Okay, who am I kidding. It was the Thai whiskey that made them great. But by then I was drinking water.

Some Australian guy bought us shots of Thai whiskey. It smelled like molasses and tasted like your worst nightmare. I pretended to do it and drank half. It was half of my worst nightmare.

The dj in the place on Soi 8 played some Le Chic and had an afro that appropriately matched the song. He is too cool for school. I've always wanted an afro. How did this Thai guy, who should have stick-straight hair, get a slammin' afro? I never asked, but next time I will.

Sawyer went to bed under the safe supervision of our fantastic Arlyn.

One band tonight played John Denver. They also played a Beatles medley. All of these were with thick Thai accents. It doesn't matter how much or how little talent you have, the accent makes it entertaining.

I will miss these fun nights! Time to sleep it off, reread this post, and feel kind of silly for actually putting these thoughts into words.

My Hands Are Really Cold Right Now

2009-05-08T07:19:00.000-07:00

This will be a long one.

I just finished eating my second dinner. The first was leftover rice and chicken stir-fry. Healthy. The second was 2 slices of Pizza Company pizza. Not even close to healthy. Remember in Tommy Boy when David Spade says, "I can actually hear you getting fatter." That's echoed through my head about 10 times in the last few minutes. Talk about a bad inner dialogue.

Re-run Warning: For those of you who have heard my mold story a bazillion times, skip this here paragraph.

You see that gorgeous pool down there in the video? Well we can't go there anymore. We no longer live in Four Wings Mansion. Well our mansion had some problems. I can no longer say I live in a mansion. Long story short (haha that's funny right?): The wood floor in Sawyer's room started to buckle and develop hills. I started to get dizzy walking in because it felt like the room was bouncing around me. Turns out, I was bouncing on the floor. We had the handy dandy less-is-more maintenance guys come up. They said the a/c was probably leaking. They fixed it. Or they sat in there making noise for an hour and left. They came back the next day and pulled up all the floor. Not before using little pieces of masking tape to label every single 2 inch by 5 inch piece. When they pulled it up, the floor and the bottoms of the wood pieces were a few different colors. The black and green colors are what stand out in my mind. It immediately smelled like a wet basement. The concrete floor was damp. Our handy dandy less-is-more maintenance guys trucked the wood outside our apartment and proceeded to scrape the mold off. After that I'm sure they were planning on putting it all back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. This is not all the wood, however. Some of it was still in Sawyer's room untouched and un-lifted. It looked flat and dry enough to the guys, why mess with it, right? There's som tam and tom yum to be eaten. Mai pen rai. No problem. Oh, and this is in a room where we didn't already know the a/c was leaking. It's been leaking in our bedroom for a year, but there's a carpet down in there and a bed covering most of the floor near the a/c. Who knows what's growing there. The housing people from the embassy come out, smell the room, make faces and say that they'll make sure this problem is taken care of properly. This worried me a bit. We only had 3 months left at that point and I wondered if they would give us a bandaid and call it a day. A few days (and no nagging later) they tell us to move out. So within a couple days we packed up the essentials and moved into a 3 bedroom extended stay Marriott. For those of you who aren't living in Thailand, this is a prime example of the way things work here. The a/c breaks, they roll it out and roll in one just as old. It works a while and then breaks. These things have to be as old as Bob Barker and instead of fixing this problem, the root of the problem, they just ride it out. They ride it out with all the labor it takes to maintain them. They ride it out as they have to fix the flooring. They ride it out while people move out. So Thai. And if you think I sound cynical, come live here a while. And if you have lived here a while and still think that, then put on some regular sunglasses because the rosy ones don't work so well. There are some things about this place that irritate me a bit (just like in the US) and cutting corners is one of them. It's not charming. It's not such a cute and beautiful way to live. It's stupid. Anyway, now the rest of our stuff is at the apartment and will be packed out to be shipped to the US on Friday. Enough of the rant, maybe more later.

Funny story. So Thai.
They have the same types of drive-through car washes at the gas stations here in Bangkok as they have in the US. The kind with the arch that sprays water and soap and who knows what else on your car and moves back and forth around you while your car is in park? Pat and Sawyer and I love to drive through them. Sometimes I like to blast music in there. Sometimes I just like to listen to the sounds of the car wash. Sawyer used to enjoy them, then started to get a little scared of them. He's gotten to like them again. A few months ago, we decided to use the same one we'd used a few times in the past. The Thai guys were outside the car wash and did a preliminary wipe down of the car. They were much more thorough this time for a reason unbeknownst to us at the time. After the wipe down, we realized they were trying to tell us something. Here's my thought process:

- Ahhh okay the car wash is broken. See he's saying it doesn't work, we should just leave.
- No wait, he says go ahead. Okay... (we drive in)
- Hang on, the thing - the thing that moves back and forth with the water isn't moving back and forth.
- It's supposed to come back to us right...? Should we drive forward more? Are we in all the way?
- What's he saying?
- Oh....My....I have to put this on the blog. This is awesome.

Whatever mechanism that makes that arch move back and forth around your car was taking the day off. The arch wasn't moving. It was only spraying water. So he asked us to drive back in the little car wash building and forth over and over so that the water would hit all parts of the car. So we did. This was one of the funniest things I've ever done. It's like tightening a screw in a chair by holding the screwdriver still and spinning the lawnmower around and around. Pat was actually behind the wheel so he had the best job. We had to give these guys a big tip. They made my day.

The smaller pics on the left are from our Photo Booth feature on the imac. It is one sure way to make Pat and I laugh hysterically.

Rainy Day

2009-04-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

Not a whole lot going on for us today so we thought we'd give karaoke a try. After teaching Sawyer the "testing 1, 2, 3" thing, he pretty much just counted in the microphone. If you listen closely you'll hear him start singing the birthday song. Every so often I'll let him watch a little American Idol and he absolutely loves it. He sings the words he can pick out and dances. His golf club has been his "mackaphone" lately and he runs for it the moment he sees singing on t.v.

Jumping

2009-04-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

There are a few kids who seem to be in our pool all the time. Sammy is one of them. After the cold snap this winter, Sawyer was feeling less confident about jumping in the pool. Sammy jumping in and doing flips brought back Sawyer's adventurous side. What a good sport Sammy is. Sawyer must have ordered him to jump in 20 times. This was one of our hottest, brightest days.

Yahoo...I'll be 2!

2009-03-23T02:28:00.000-07:00

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.

My Eating Grapes Faces

2009-03-05T19:54:00.001-08:00

These weren't sour grapes, Sawyer just makes some goofy faces when he's chewing.

A Whatchootalkinboutwillis face with lots of attitude, however it's still just him eating grapes.

Scattered Thoughts

2009-03-01T23:19:00.000-08:00

Sadly, my grandpa passed away last week. I have to check back, but I think it was almost exactly one year after my grandma passed away. We're sad about it and this seems to be a little more of a jolt than with my grandma. We had less time to prepare ourselves and now that both are gone I feel like it's more of an ending, like a closed chapter. Like with grandma, I have some silly or strange memories that I figured I'd share. Also, I tried to add a picture with grandpa and Sawyer but our pictures have gotten all mixed up on iphoto somehow and so it will be a while until I can find one.

~ As long as I can remember, grandpa had big cars. His cars were luxury cars, town cars, the kind that glide smoothly along the road. However, grandpa's driving wasn't so smooth and he seemed to pump the brakes a lot all the way down the street so that your head bobbed forward and back a lot. This was funny to me, but in combination with windows rolled up and a lot of second-hand smoke, it was often nauseating. Once Michael and I scrounged up change from our couches and some dollar bills and asked grandpa to drive us to the Wendy's on Davie. For some reason, this was a big deal to us. Will we have enough money? We'd never asked him to take us, will he take us? We showed grandpa that we had enough money and so he drove us to Wendy's. It was a blistering day, you could see the heat rising up from the street making everything look like it was melting. I don't remember what we ordered, but I remember giggling in the backseat with Michael. We wanted to both sit in the backseat making poor grandpa our chauffeur. He blasted jazz music. It was so loud. We could do nothing but laugh at how loud the music was. Michael went in to order the food and I stayed in the car with grandpa. Mike was laughing as he came back out with the food. What the heck was so funny? What a silly day.

~ Grandpa seemed to always be playing the saxaphone. Anyone who knew him knew he was a musician and played sax, clarinet, piano, other instruments too. He was a professional and played with some of the greats. I was remembering yesterday how he would sit on the couch (or anywhere really) with his leg pumping to a beat you couldn't hear and if you watched his hands, they were covering keyholes you couldn't see. He'd make sounds with his mouth pushing out silent notes. I always cringed when grandpa talked to my band teachers. He was pretty positive that the young kids don't know how to swing and sometimes he'd share this. I worried too much about what my band teachers thought. Now as a teacher looking back, I know he was the least of any of my band teachers' worries and that they were probably amused and glad to talk to grandpa. I have the clarinet he gave me, "That's wood, not ebonite!" It has a very rich, organic sound.

~ A joke from grandpa, you haven't heard this one, have you?
What's that up there in the road? A head?

~ Grandpa sent money to us after Sawyer was born. He said he wanted us to buy a teddy bear but didn't buy it on his own because he wasn't sure about kid's toys. It was enough money to buy quite a nice bear so we went to Build-A-Bear Workshop. You choose the type of bear and stuff it yourself. Sawyer's bear is named Bill.

~ Grandpa took us camping a few times. He and grandma went a lot and it was treat to go with them. They would buy us the variety pack of cereal, in the small boxes. Did they have any idea how big of a deal that was for us? Mom and Dad never bought those! Matt and Chris Cerone from next door came both trips and we always found fun stuff to do. Once we were eating dinner with the Cerones and were all talking. I think I said something, someone asked why, and I said, "Well because grandpa's a grump." Everyone stopped talking. My face burned hot and my heart stopped. They were all looking at me shocked and this was more attention than I'd ever wanted. I think Mrs. Cerone said, "That's not a very nice thing to say!" Of course, I felt bad instantly, but was also confused. I'd always thought this was common knowledge. Aren't all grandpas grumpy? The grandpa in Cocoon, he was grumpy! I'd never meant any harm but I apologized and grandpa said it was okay. Grandpa was pretty grumpy, but sometimes I think the privelage of having some years behind you is being able to say things like you mean it. And that just comes out grumpy sometimes. I find myself griping about the same things he griped about.

~ Despite the above, grandpa amazed me with his patience for his model airplanes. He built huge, wonderful radio controlled planes. They were made of balsa wood and plastic that shrinks around the plane's frame when you heat it. These things were really something. More than once I saw grandpa fly one of his masterpieces (who knows how long in the making) and then crash one of these masterpieces. I'd watch, perfectly still, ready for the blaspheming to begin. Dad would always say, "Why did you name me Bob if you always call me Jesus?" So anyway, after a crash, grandpa would just laugh and shrug it off. That was mind-boggling to me. Sometimes he'd let Andy and I come to the park to watch him fly planes with all the other guys who would meet up and fly. It was so neat, but didn't hold our interest for too long. If I could go watch now, I'd bring a lounge chair and just chill out watching the planes, hoping for a good crash. The crashes are pretty cool.

Maybe I'll remember more later. Sawyer is waking up from a nap. Mr. Sawyer can count to 13 now. Last week he put his cow in time-out (don't ask my why) and he counted straight up to 13. I asked, "Did you just count to 13?" and he said, "Fourteen!" Well okay then! This wasn't something we actively taught him, so my dad reminds me that there are plenty of other things we aren't actively teaching him that he may pick up on...ie watch your mouth! And I still have to work on that. He's peeing on the potty all the time, but only because we say, "Wanna go pee?" or "Wanna say bye bye to the pee?" And he thinks this is fun to go take off the diaper and pee. However, if his diaper is on, he's peeing or pooping in it.

Today he told me, "Bless you," when I sneezed. That's kind of nice. His word for water drops is water crumbs. Makes perfect sense, really. Yesterday he went on a kissing rampage. He kissed 3 cabinets, a drawer, the closet, and the air conditioner.

The "toots" are becoming a politeness issue. At dinner with friends over, he pushed himself up on his booster seat by pushing down on the armrests and, well, tooted. He did a few more like that, some where he just leaned sideways. It was a little embarrassing since we haven't taught him that. It was also funny because we haven't taught him that. How are boys born so crude? That boy is really awake now, gotta run!

January

2009-02-06T04:41:00.000-08:00

The picture? No, not a calender. It's Krabi. Poda Island, to be exact. That's how we roll! One of those longtails was the boat we took over from the mainland, about a 20 min. ride.

There's lots to blab about. Some important, some not important. The important stuff is that the Steelers won the Super Bowl. Even more important is so many babies have been born! My friend, Denise, had her first son. His name is Dylan and Ava (whose website is on the left) is a wonderful big sister. My friend, Marianne, had her second son. His name is Jacob and he's the little brother of Sawyer's pal, Caleb. My friend, Eva, had her second daughter, Faye. Faye is little sister to Olivia, who likes to beat up Sawyer on occasion and then kiss him. Finally, David and Rachel (whose blogs are on the left) had their fourth baby, Elijah. He's one of three boys. Daisy must be happy to know she can keep her princess title a little longer.

I'm just now emerging from a bit of a fog that began with the holidays...then Pat's family came for two and a half weeks of sightseeing and beaches...then the diarrhea came... If you talk to Sawyer on the phone, ask him what Aunt Nana had. He will tell you, "Aunt Nana diarrhea." Sawyer was the only one who had to deal with it for so long. Two whole weeks. Actually, the poops still aren't perfect but at least they no longer drip out of his diaper and down his leg. TMI? I was so tired of changing those diapers. Each little present was messy, required about 15 wipes, and the smell was almost debilitating. One morning we woke up to a poop disaster in Sawyer's crib. Almost lost my cookies.

On the brighter side, we had so much fun with the family! Pat and I saw more of Bangkok and surrounding areas that few weeks than we have our entire trip. I'll put together a flickr album with some of the hundreds of pictures we took. One of the coolest places we saw was Lopburi. Lopburi is just a typical city, but it's the invaders of Lopburi we wanted to see. The city is besieged by monkeys. Our van parked in an empty lot and the driver pointed to a small stone temple. Once we crossed the street headed toward the temple, we saw monkeys on the overhangs over the shops, on the power lines, dashing across the streets, lounging on the sidewalk eating handouts, or perhaps stolen food. They were hilarious. Of course, the city did smell like the zoo. The temple was crawling with monkeys. It became clear very quickly that they were in charge. We tried hard not to interact with them and to only take pictures and keep our distance. At times, we'd hear someone shriek and look over to see a monkey swinging around a Thai's neck trying to grap at food. My favorite part was the squealing car breaks on the street when monkeys would run out in front of a car. We think Pat's family had a good time and we were really glad Sawyer warmed up to everyone so quickly. He was a good sport with so many new people and I wouldn't have blamed him for being crabby since it was a big change.

Sawyer is no longer doing swim classes at Bangkok Dolphins. It wasn't that he didn't like it. He loved it and I think the water is where he's most comfortable with himself. But after taking him to a birthday party and a trial class at The Little Gym, I noticed he tends to shy away from big groups quite a bit. He doesn't mind doing what the other kids are doing, he just doesn't want to do it with them. That's fine, he's not even 2 yet and I know there's nothing wrong with being shy. But I did think it might be a good idea to get him more used to big groups of kids since he'll be in daycare the end of this summer. So far it's going okay. He has some good days and not so good days. Sometimes he is eager to try things, do somersauls and swing on the uneven bars. Other days he's just hiding and being whiny until it's bubble time and then stamp time when the teacher puts about 8 stamps all over his body, including his tummy. The instructers are so patient and really encourage you to NOT encourage the kids too much for fear they'll just rebel. So I spend a lot of time singing, "Da wheels on da bus a go around around..." (Thai instructer) on my own, waiting for Sawyer to see my giant forced smile and hope he joins Mommy. I'll get some pictures from class, it's actually a lot of fun.

We're sort of in home-mode. Every time I talk to my friends, especially Beth, I start getting my mind ready for the changes coming. That's not for another 6 months, but it seems like such a big change that I just have to get mentally prepared. Oh, speaking of change (hee hee), the other day I walked into the US Embassy for a meeting and saw the picture of the president. In the foyer of the building is always a large framed picture of the president. This time I walked in and it was a new president. I just about stopped in my tracks. It was pretty dramatic to see that face. During the elections I'd walk by and wonder, "Who will be looking back at me in a few months?" It's crazy to think that it's official. They still have to put up the VP's pic. I have to say, Dick Cheney staring back at you can be a tad frightening. I don't know the guy personally, not as well as I know George W. Bush, haha. I'm sure Cheney's a nice guy. But if they ever need someone to play Satan in a movie, they really should call him up. He's totally scary looking.

Finally, I'll get you up to date on Mr. Sawyer. He's a bit less patient lately. Mommy doesn't cut his meat fast enough. Mommy is too quick to put on the pajamas and doesn't give enough naked time. You know how it goes. He now stands on the BTS holding on to the pole like a grown-up. My city boy. Sawyer loves the aquarium and his favorite part lately has been the jellyfish. He calls them Debbiefish. I think Debbie will like that. What she might not like is that he's discovered an interesting resemblance of his penis to a Debbiefish. So aside from "wee wee" or "peenins," as he used to call it, it's now a Debbiefish. Sawyer counts to four. Sometimes he'll count to four, skip five, then do six, seven, eight, nine. His ABC's are still just ABCD, but he can identify most letters most of the time. Don't worry, I don't play school with him and duct tape him to a tiny desk or anything. It's just some of the stuff we do to pass time.

And speaking of time, it's time for me to read my book. My third book in the Twilight saga. If I haven't called or emailed enough, this is why. I'm obsessed and probably will need psychiatric help once I've completed the fourth and final book. The idea of this coming to an end is already gnawing at me. It's crazy because I hate vampires. I really would never pick up a vampire book, especially not intended for young adults. However, I've joined the bazillions of girls, young adults, and grown women who are caught up in this story. What a nerd.

I'll leave you with a picture of Sawyer doing his best impression of Thomas Magnum from Magnum PI. He's on his way to the pool with Daddy. So he can go potty in the pool...diarrhea. Daddy sits in the pool while Mommy scoops Sawyer out and tries not to look too suspicious. And then Daddy asks Mommy, "So, do you... you wanna take him back and clean him up?....and I'll just see you later?...or?" And then Mommy shoots Daddy a very evil look. And then we all go back to the hotel room to hose down.

Do I have to make a title for every blog entry?

2009-01-07T08:37:00.001-08:00

Blog picture feature is only just a LITTLE ticking me off right now. No pics now, sorry.

I should be sleeping, but I'm too excited since Pat is gone now to pick up by brother (in-law) Ryan and Aunt Jan from the airport. Flights to BKK always seem to be around midnight, so they probably won't be here until around 1:30am. Tomorrow night Pat's parents arrive and this will be one full house...a full crazy fun house. We're all ready for them, rooms are set up. Sawyer's sleeping in our room while our guests are here. Even though he's in his crib and I can't snuggle up next to him, this is still nice because I can open my eyes and see him sleeping whenever I want. Not the most cuddly guy, he's independent and needs his space for serious sleeping.

New Year's Eve was interesting. We decided not to do the big downtown area and went to an American restaurant with lots of Embassy people. Dinner was on the second floor but we moved up to the third floor for the party part. Okay, small room, beat-up red couches, a small bar, lighting straight from Spencer's in the mall...and music? You down with OPP? I'm a material girl. Every little step I take... if you didn't go to elementary school or middle school with me, then you might not know what I'm talking about. Here's how it goes with this type of music. We get up there, maybe a glass of wine with dinner settling into our bloodstream, and say, "HAAA this is hilarious! Do you remember this song? Wow, this is some funny stuff!" After a little more C&C Music Factory, we call out (we call out because it's louder now), "Do you think the DJ takes requests? This music is awful!" Then, after a few more vodka tonics or gin and tonics since they were interchangeable according to the bartender, we're all dancing. When I say we, this is Pat and I and a few friends from his work. Pat did his usual dances. I probably did my usual dances, and one of those includes the Carlton. Yikes. It was a silly night.

Tonight was my friend's baby shower. Eva is due in a few weeks, but we think she might go a bit early. I made some baby rattle cupcakes for the shower and was pleased enough to take pictures. Lots of people do food blogging, but don't worry, I won't bore you with my amature creations very often. While I can't take credit for the idea which I got on the internet, I will take credit for not crying when 5 of these babies fell on the floor before I walked out the door to the shower. The tears were there but I held them back.

Another friend here had her baby boy this last Saturday. His name is Dylan and from what I see in pictures, he's a gorgeous little boy. Another friend is due in a few weeks, Marianne, and isn't Rachel G. due soon? It's funny...I can really look back and laugh because doesn't it seem like just last week that I had a blog pity party being the only one who is not pregnant? And now these gals are popping or ready to pop! And my friend Angie is just beginning the journey! But really I laugh because here I am, still here, still awash with love from our little boy. Number 2 will come soon enough. Speaking of number 2...

Guess what Number 1 said tonight to daddy? Well, first he had a little gas, toot, whatever you call it. Actually, I hear this was a big toot. And since daddy has really been hands-on with the vocabulary building, Sawyer was quick to say, "Biiiiig fart!!!" Nice huh?

Holidays

2008-12-26T00:42:00.000-08:00

A few weekends ago we had a Christmas cocktail party. (Pictures from that didn't turn out so great). Pat's ice bar was a success. He used blue led lights and lined them up behind the bottles of fun. He also scattered fake snow along the bar and printed out recipes for some drinks so that our guests would actually mix drinks instead of only go for the beer. Pat also downloaded a fire video complete with crackling sounds. This turned our t.v. into a cozy fire that Pat could walk up to and poke every so often. We had around 20 friends over and we really enjoyed being with everyone for some grown up time. Sawyer went to bed right before guests arrived and we used an air cleaner in his room, and outside his closed door in the hallway to create tons of white noise. Periodically, I would walk to his door and put my ear up to it. I was so surprised that he didn't wake up through all of that noise from the party. What a relief that I didn't have to spend the evening wondering, "What was I thinking have a party and expecting him to sleep?!" Bright and early the next morning, the 3 of us went to a church somewhat nearby and enjoyed the Christmas cantata. Sawyer really liked the song performed by the younger children and tried very hard to do the hand motions. The graphics on the giant screen onstage included the north star and that made for some loud interruptions..."STAR!!!" He also threw in some "MOON!!!"s since it's in the same category.

That week we had the Embassy Christmas party (picture above). It was an outdoor potluck and the food was fantastic. Santa came and we tried to let him sit on Santa's lap on his own this year. Once you see the look on your kid's face after plopping them down, you realize what a strange tradition it is. WHY are you putting my on this guy's lap? WHY is he so hairy? And WHY are you smiling at me like that? Pat was able to cut out of work and meet Sawyer and I there, which was really nice since he's been working so hard lately and deserved a break.

Christmas Eve was a late, but fun night. We went to our friends' house with some other friends for a traditional Christmas Eve dinner: pizza :) It's so great to sometimes just take the pressure off and ignore traditions. We had a lot of fun just hanging out. Bonnie was thoughtful enough to bake some Christmas sugar cookies and set up icing and sprinkles for the kids so that they could decorate cookies for Santa. On the left is Sawyer's cookie. He wanted to eat all of the m&ms and called them beans. "More geen beans."

Christmas was a lot of fun. The grandparents spoiled Sawyer with presents...something Pat and I anticipated which is why he only got a couple presents from us. Below he's stopped chewing his cereal to pose. I now understand why Christmas morning present opening IS actually fun for adults. As a kid I felt so bad for grown-ups since they didn't get as many gifts as the kids. But helping Sawyer open presents is so much fun that I didn't feel like I was left out. Well, I wasn't really left out anyway since Pat got me a very nice, very sharp, professional chef knife. So far we've only cut an orange with it, but it was pretty scary to feel it glide through like you were cutting cream cheese. Below is Sawyer's workbench from me and Pat. I bought this for a huge discount at the Thai housewares fair in April. It's made in Thailand so, along with other stuff made here, it went to the housewares fair before being exported and sold for twice what you can pay here. It's the only time you can get cheap toys here since toys have a 300% luxury tax. No kidding - 300%.

Christmas dinner was beautiful, and we expected this since it was at Bart and Eva's just like last year. They made spaghetti and meatballs for the kids so that we could do an early kid dinner. After that, Sawyer had the privilege of taking a bath in a giant sunken tub with his friend, Olivia. Then we put the kids to bed and started on our dinner. Several courses, all explained before we ate them. The starter was made by Eva: foi gras, a date with brie, a slice of tomato in a cilantro viniagrete. The next course was a black truffle soup. Then we had a chili sesame noodle dish with raw tuna. Then a sorbet in champaine. Finally, lamb marinated in miso with baby bok choy and white asparagus. Everything tasted amazing and made Pat and I wonder, "Why don't we ever cook fancy stuff at home?" What was more amazing was how smoothly everything came out. Somehow they'd done enough prep work ahead of time to allow them to calmly enjoy all the company and not run around stressing over the food. Once it was time to eat, they just brought all the food out. That's not easy with 10 guests. After dinner we had the dessert which I'd made: gingerbread with spiced whipped cream and a vanilla cheesecake with a kahlua chocolate sauce. We had a gift exchange and one last glass of wine. That's the one that made me feel icky today, I think.

The holidays have flown by so quickly. There are too many people we didn't get to call in the little window where we weren't at someone else's house and when people at home would actually be awake. I really miss everyone and while we've been having fun these last few weeks, I'm still so looking forward to coming home. Pat's mom, dad, brother, and aunt are coming to visit in less than 2 weeks and we are so completely excited about that. Sawyer is more fun than we ever imagined. I'm realizing that people weren't insane when they talked about how much "joy" he would bring us. When he was a few weeks old I was so tired of hearing about the joy, the joy, where the heck is my joy? Okay, I get it now.

So.....Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and see you soon!

Why so serious?

2008-12-08T06:14:00.000-08:00

Pat is watching Iron Man. I opted out and he seemed so disappointed to have to watch it himself. I took a bath. A bath is something I do when the a/c makes me cold. A hot bath sounds so good. I run the bath and pour in my cheap bubble bath that makes about 4 bubbles. Then I get in the bath and it's too hot. Our faucet only runs on two settings: cold and melt your skin off. So I freeze while reading a book next to the tub waiting for the water to cool down. Try again, and if it's cool enough I get in. But the water is not hot enough and after a few minutes I get out. Or, the water is still very hot and my forehead drips sweat. And then I get out. The idea of a hot bubble bath is 10 times more satisfying than the actual bath.

Sawyer is all boy. We know this because he looks like a boy, has a penis, and injures himself daily. On Thursday, he did a header into the edge of a cabinet door that was open. Lots of blood. The mouth bleeds so much. It doesn't really scare me though. I've probably said this before, but I DO sweat the small stuff and the advantage for me is that somehow I don't sweat the big stuff. So blood gushing out of my son's mouth is no reason for me to panic. Fortunately, he doesn't look like Sugar Ray Leonard and only has a big flap of skin coming out of the inside of his cheek where he bit it. He has a couple other scrapes on his face, but little people heal so fast. In the middle of his crying, while sitting on the kitchen counter getting cleaned up, he saw cupcakes and stopped to calmly point and say, "Kook." Then he went back to crying. Drama king.

Another way we know Sawyer is a boy is that he loves cars. He now wakes up in the morning saying, "Cars, cars..." and then has to bounce over to wherever he left them the night before. Tonight I told him, "Bedtime, say night night to your cars." So he lined them up on a shelf and turned them all sideways to sleep. "Night! Bye-cya! Adios!" Adios sounds more like "avos." I always wondered how cars slept and now know they sleep on their sides. Duh.

Our Christmas tree is up and we're trying to get the house decorated for our Christmas Bangkoktail party. Our hopes are that Sawyer will sleep soundly in our back bedroom and not hear a thing out of all of the guests. If that doesn't work out, well, it will just have to work out. Pat and I are sort of at odds on how to decorate. He wants to go with an ice theme for our bar and put blue and silver all over and have dry ice. I am going for a retro-Christmas look but can't find anything here that really says, "Brady Bunch Christmas." Maybe that's a good thing.

That top picture of me and Sawyer is the cheese face that we ask him to make all the time. Pat is responsible for the mohawk and I agree with Rachel: the mohawk amplifies any attitude from your child into "major punk incorrigable attitude." It's funny how that happens. But, alas, Sawyer is mostly a sweetie pie. Today he tried to give kisses to an ant he found on the playground. I hope he is this sweet with all his new kid friends when we get back to the US. And I'm finding that that number is growing every day...

Habits

2008-12-04T06:27:00.000-08:00

A few habits Sawyer used to have that I sadly realized have disappeared:

- Cuddling with me right before it's time to put him in the crib for bed. We've been lucky that bedtime hasn't been a horrible struggle like it sometimes can be for toddlers. We have had rough patches, but for the most part he just goes to sleep. However, Sawyer knows that I'll never turn away a cuddle, so he sometimes hangs on me and nuzzles up to me if he wants a few more minutes of freedom. Well, he used to do that.

- Stuffed animal roll call. When Sawyer's morning singing in his crib turns a little more toward snarling, I peel myself away from my morning email (not perezhilton.com) and go get our day started. He stands up in his crib and hands me his stuffed animals while telling me their names. He has about 15 small animals in his crib at any given time, but his inner circle, the chosen ones, get to come out and play. "Pooh..." Hands me Pooh. "Muuuunny..." Hands me bunny. "Dattay..." Hands me teddy bear. Some mornings, my arms are stuffed because he wants to bring everyone and I can't pick him up out of the crib. The animals still come out, but no roll call anymore.

- Hanging out in the closet. Pile up all toys you can find and then sit ON them in the closet. Sawyer has quite a nesting instinct. It's totally weird.

- Pretending everything bites. This started as a distraction I invented while changing his diaper. Above Sawyer's changing table is a wall hanging and we switch it out with others. Monkey, zebra, elephant... While Sawyer struggles and I try to get a diaper on him or wipe poop, I'd pretend to pet the monkey and then gasp, pulling my hand back horrified that monkey bit me! That would get his attention and we'd have a whole dialoge. "Monkey! No biting! Next time you get a time out. We have to be gentle." Then Sawyer started doing this. His gasps got bigger, and the bites were coming from even more unexpected biters, such as the maintence workers in the building, or a passing truck on the street. He'd hold his arm out and then jerk it back gasping and looking at me surprised. Another weird habit is gone but at least I no longer have to explain what he's doing.

- Stuttering when trying to say, "car." Sawyer used to get really excited about this cheap remote control car we have. He'd say what I thought was "a car" but it would sound like, "Akkaaakaakaaa aa aaa aaakkka." Pat thought I was crazy thinking that it was a stutter. At the 18 month appointment I mentioned it to the pediatrician. I imitated the sound he'd make. Sawyer then started doing it. We figured it would go away and it did. Plus, you usually can't just stutter on command like that if it's really a stutter, right?

- Saying hello in Thai. He's so over it. If a Thai is lucky enough to get a wai out of him, it's more like a hand-clap than the hands together and bowing head. If Sawyer is in the stroller and a Thai approaches (and I mean Thai, with white people it's different), he shakes his head and says "no." He only says thankyou in Thai to taxi drivers (or tries to say thank you).

These probably aren't very entertaining for you, but I felt the need to write these down before I forgot. Also, I could have written about the social unrest here, but it's a little better for the moment and I just don't want to write about it. Check out www.bangkokpost.com for more info on our issues. I'm so thankful Pat got back the day he did from a business trip and not a day later. We know so many people with spouses stuck on business trips or, worse yet, on vacation where there is no free place to stay! Airports are going to be up and running soon and will hopefully stay this way.

Oh yeah, a new habit that cracks me up. I like to call him Sawyer B. He's just started actually saying his name which sounds something like Sawa but lately he's been pointing to himself and saying, "I Sawa B." Since his mommy just might forget his name. It isn't even that clear, but I like that he added the B.

On his way to Wheaties box

2008-11-29T07:22:00.000-08:00

Bangkok Dolphins is a baby pool class and this is Sawyer's first running jump off the "boat."

One more thing...

2008-11-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Okay two more. Here's a picture of Sawyer at dinner time. Or maybe lunch time. A nutritious meal. I'm a model mom. And I love acting non-chalant when I mention that sometimes Sawyer gets to eat food with sugar. It cracks me up. Every once and a while, he probably eats something that has preservatives. So here we have pieces of toast, steamed asparagus, cheese (or pasteurized cheese food product), steamed broccoli, red pepper, ketchup, mustard, bits of hamburger, honey star cereal.

And the final comment: I'm totally stumped on flowers. Sawyer is coming along with his words and it's really so much fun to hear him pick up new words and some phrases. But ever since Sawyer was saying his first words, flowers have had a completely unidentifiable word. It started with ditties. Then it was dattays. Now it's daddies. I have absolutely NO idea why he says this. I don't care that he doesn't say flowers, that's fine, he's only 1. But I can't figure out why he's so adament that they are not flowers. We look through a book and he points to flowers and says, "Daddies!" I say, "That's right, flowers!" He continues to say daddies. And I say, "Hey Sawyer, can you flower?" But he tells me, "NO, daddies." Does anyone know what word he might be trying to say? So weird.

Loy Krathong and more catching up

2008-11-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

Last week was Loy Krathong, a Thai holiday celebrated on the full moon in November (the 12th month of the lunar calendar). Thais float little boats called krathongs in the klongs, rivers, and in our case, the apartment pool. In the words of Pedro, floating your krathong can make your wildest dreams come true. Or something like that. And we also float these to say, "Oops, sorry river goddess for turning your river into a polluted mess!" I'm sure she says, "No probs babe!" Sawyer's krathong was 150 baht at Villa Market, our grocery store. That's about $4.50. On my way to the store to buy a krathong, I got a picture of the people outside Hilary Bar (or some other bar on that strip) making their own krathongs. Last year we didn't get to float one because all the festitivites were right at bedtime and at that age, it wasn't worth disturbing his sleep cycle. This year was really fun. In addition to official celebration on Loy Krathong, a few weeks ago we went to the embassy to celebrate. There were boat races, Thai dance lessons, food, and krathong floating.

The apartment little ones in the front row (from left): Molly, Evie, Kaden, and Sawyer. Evie is Sawyer's nemesis. He hears her playing downstairs at the playground and looks at me with grave urgency, whispering, "Weevy."

Here Sawyer wishes for his very own taxi (his new obsession).

What else is happening? The weather is becoming bearable! Yahoooo! We're enjoying some days that are in the eighties. They don't necessarily stay this way all day, but mornings and evenings are getting pretty beautiful. This means Sawyer and I get out to some of the parks more often. The playgrounds at Lumpini Park are great. Chuvit Park, in the entry below, doesn't have a playground, but I learned that Sawyer's cars now make anyplace a lot more fun. Sawyer enjoyed waving and saying hi to guys sleeping on the benches. There is a lot of grass and I actually had to tell him it was okay to go run on it. He's not around grass on a daily basis.

Every day I walk down the street and laugh (on the inside) at the signs I see. Oh, once I laughed outloud at a guy picking his nose so shamelessly. And then the guy behind him laughed and said, "Funny funny!" Anywho, there is one sign that I don't have a picture of. Down the street is a new beauty salon. It's called "Grace Beauty Saloon."

Here are a couple others, just pretend you don't see me in that one on the right. These aren't nearly as funny as signs get here, but I like "foreiner objects."

It's time to go enjoy the rest of Sawyer's nap. Before I sign off, some more new words from Sawyer. When Pat leaves for work in the morning he gets, "Bye Dada, c-ya!" When Pat walks out of the room at bedtime while I'm putting Sawyer down, it's "Night Dada, c-ya, uvoo." Uvoo is "I love you." He's tired of doing the wai (hands together) and trying to say sawadeekhap, so now anytime a Thai approaches he just shakes his head and says, "No, no, no." Or if he's feeling particularly irritable and sarcastic he says, "No khap." "I see you" is a fun one to do. He can peek through the vents in the bathroom doors while you go to the bathroom and let you know he sees you. For those of you coming to visit, be prepared to lose your privacy! Is this boring stuff? Should I be writing about other stuff? What do you think?

Chuvit Park

2008-11-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow

2008-11-04T21:44:00.000-08:00

Holy cow!

Here are some pictures that have red, white, and blue from the 233rd Annual Marine Ball in keeping with the current CAN YOU BELIEVE IT news.

My dress and Patrick's tux were both custom made here. It's so cheap to do and you don't have to worry about getting a bad fit. Unless, of course, you move back to the US and eat Chipotle and Chick-fil-a and Cold Stone all the time, in which case you're screwed. And this is mere months away for us. Below is a picture with some friends (from left) me, Pat, Sam, Ben, Bonnie, and Ramiro. In case you can't tell, Raj's Fashions were doing the pictures. They make clothes for lots of embassy people. You couldn't miss them at the event, they were the ones with the turbans.

There was a live band and people actually danced, crazy huh? Pat would not dance with me when they played an Earth Wind and Fire song. They played 3 or 4 Bee Gees songs which was fantastic and I said, "All I need is some Earth Wind and Fire and I'll be a happy girl." Thanks Pat. The entertainment also included Thai Elvis, Thai Johnny Cash, and Thai Tom Jones. "Sex Bomb" with a Thai accent: priceless!

Check out Sawyer's new crocs. Arlyn brought them for Mr. S. when she came to babysit during the ball. They're a bit big, but he's really (finally) hitting some major growth spurts and those feet are looking monstrous lately.

More Sawyer news:
The way he says "yellow" makes me want to squish him really bad. He says, "Yallow" so clearly. That's funny to me because he has all sorts of other words that don't make lots of sense, but I know what they are. He loves giving the different colors of the taxis around, but you need to do some decoding:

mink cocky = pink taxi

meek car = big car (usually a bus)

kah money, kah money = he's referring to me saying "Khap kun kah" or thank-you and telling me to pay the taxi driver

Sawyer asked "mama wee wee?" the other day. No, Sawyer, mommy doesn't have one. Today during lunch while we watched Obama's speech, Sawyer started speaking in a very demanding tone looking left and right, I guess making his own speech. I hope he doesn't become a politician.

Halloween

2008-10-31T22:02:00.000-07:00

Sawyer was a lion. A lion with a cold. For about 20 seconds.

After growling at family for a week over the phone in anticipation of being a lion, Sawyer kind of flaked out. I can't blame him since he's had this cold for over a month and the doctor said he's getting ear infections. He's on some medicine now which will hopefully knock it out for good. He's still my sweetie.

We took him to the embassy to trick or treat, which he did without his costume on. Mommy and Daddy still scored plenty of candy. The embassy workers decorated most of the second floor of cubicles and offices so it was kind of like a haunted house. One very tactful man in a bloody mask with a roaring chain saw jumped out of his office and got right in Sawyer's face. Sawyer didn't cry, I think he was in shock that someone would be so insensitive. After that he didn't seem to enjoy himself. There was food and crafts in the cafeteria and that perked him up a bit.

Because of traffic, neither Pat nor I made it home to trick or treat in the apartment building...or maybe I should say "Trick and Treat" which was what it said on the flyers passed out. I was pretty disappointed because this was the first Halloween for our Dutch friends Bart, Eva, and daughter Olivia. They'd never done this before and were supposed to come trick or treat with Sawyer. They still made it over to our place along with other friends Ben and Sam with their daughter Jordan. We ordered some Mexican food and a giant margarita. That's a perk here in Bangkok, they deliver margaritas.

Here are some friends and their costumes. I think Wilma and Bam Bam win first prize from me.

Bonnie and Bryce

Jordan the Bee
Olivia the Bee

First Kisses

2008-10-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

This is a video from almost a year ago. Sawyer was about 8 months old and giving his first sloppy kisses. Today he'll give you kisses but not whenever you ask. His new obsession is forcing you to kiss his boo boos, which he'll milk for as long as he can. He's had what he considers a boo boo on his knee and another on his toe for weeks, just so he can grab you by the hair and push your face to his toe. He knows there's nothing there but I think he's enjoying the whole power trip involved when you ask someone to kiss your toes.