Elephantastic!

And the little baby....cheeky one he was too.

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig.

Hi I am home.

I returned from the Kingdom of Thailand to the House of Gastro.
Noice.
However, I think the dreaded lurgy has finally fled and home is home again.

I had a wonderful holiday. Just what I needed. Some time away with some lovely people who I could have a decent conversation with, you know where a sentence is actually finished without interruptions. Some time away where I didn't have to plan ahead or think for anyone other than myself. Some time away in a new place, new flavours, new smells, new things to learn. Excellent stuff.

Highlights:

*Jade buddha. He's a beauty.

*Finding Bangers (i can call it that now that I've been there) isn't such the dirty smelly chaotic place as I've been led to believe. And the traffic was relatively sane. But then, I've been to Manilla.

* Sukhothai Heritage. Staying at this place and having it to ourselves on full staff. Bliss. http://www.sukhothaiheritage.com/ Did I say we were the ONLY ones there....five of us. Beautiful sanctuary apparently in the middle of nowhere.

*Finding Teappucino's in Chiang Mai.

*Elephant ride. Of course. It was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. We also met the a couple of baby elephants.

*Learning to cook thai food. Yummo. We made six courses for ourselves, and had to eat each one. And prior to the class we went to the market to learn about all the fresh thai herbs and veges.

* The Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum just out of Kanchanaburi. Very interesting and moving. A worthy place to visit.

* The overnight train trip to Chaing Mai. We had lots of mischief with Natalie and our Spy Classics.

Lowlights:

*Learning to cook thai food. We made six courses for ourselves and had to eat each one.....six courses is a lot of food!

*Not having enough time spent at the Hellfire museum for the sake of a very uninteresting train ride on the death railway.

Characters of the trip:

* Natalie...our lady-man waitress on the overnight train to Chaing Mai. Very entertaining.

*Mr Bang...my very authentic thai reflexologist. He gave me a healing foot massage and correctly diagnosed some of my health issues. He was so very much the authentic thai healer I wanted to bundle him and up bring him home.

*Many brown dog. What can I say...it is asia. No mangy dogs this trip though.

For the shoppers:

I have two words for you....Jim Thompson.

It's a great feeling to achieve something.

Today the whole family tackled the enormous task of cleaning India's room.
A task that would rival sorting through a war zone.
A mammoth task.
But we all got stuck in. Even Esta helped out much to her pleasure as she is not normally allowed into India's room due to it being such a safety hazard.
Tidied, rubbished, dusted, scrubbed, vacuumed, fiddled, wiped. It took hours.
The end result is a nice tidy dust free room.
We are all so proud of ourselves.
Since we were on a role we have put up little memo boards for India.
She loves it. Her little desk area where she does her 'work'...writing, colouring, studying...has a new found attraction and she hasn't left it since we finished cleaning.
It's a great feeling to feel organised.
It's even greater a feeling to have completed a job that we started, something rarely done around here and the one thing that really does my head in.
Now for the rest of the house.
Hopefully Mark and India are motivated enough to do that while I'm away :)
What are my chances?

Yahooooooooooooo!.....I think.

It is three days until I go on holiday. Yes a holiday. Me. By myself.
No little munchkins clinging clinging clinging. *sigh* I really really need this holiday.

I am off to the Kingdom of Thailand with 2 friends. We are going for about 10 days on an Intrepid tour....how nice that for once someone will be organising things for me. It should be lots of fun.
I think.
I mean it will be lots of fun but I already have that aching lost feeling that you get on that blue moon when you might go shopping without the children. That tremulous feeling that something just isn't quite right, like you've lost one of your limbs and haven't quite noticed. I have it already and they are still in the room with me.
I will miss them terribly. Especially my little Esta as she is just way to young to understand why I've suddenly disappeared.
But no, I'm not going to dwell. I'm just going to shove that swirling dark hole of loss into the corner of my heart somewhere and just not look at it. Avoid it, deny it.
And all will be well.
Won't it?

The Teacher Vs The Parent.

Now here is a phenomenon you dont read about it in the parenting books -Teacher vs Parent. Or maybe it is written about, can't say that I've had much time for that kind of reading lately. Perhaps I better drag one out and have a look.

India's only been at school three weeks or so and already my authority is down the toilet, discarded, forgotten, trumped completely by the stiletto wearing Prep teacher. India said to me yesterday
"I don't listen to you anymore Mummy, I just listen to Mrs K".
"Oh really" I said.
"Yes, I don't listen to you or daddy. Just Mrs K" she continued.
"Is that right?" I said restraining myself. As what I really wanted to say was "well Mrs K is just a poo poo head so what would she know?".
And if I was 5 I probably would have said that, lucky I'm not. I'm a grown up now and I know about consequences. And I know that it is highly likely that this 5 yo would return to school and tell Mrs K that Mummy thinks she is a Poo poo Head. And then Mrs K would probably give me a very stern look at drive through pickup (yes drive through, similar to McDonalds, except you pick up a preppie instead of a burger) and send me off to detention.
Oh well. The trials of parenting I suppose. I guess its ok. If she doesn't listen to me anymore then there is no point in reading Alison Lester's Imagine book over and over and over and over anymore. Silver lining...there is always a silver lining. :)


Disclaimer: we actually do love our Prep teacher. Stilettos and all. And if India was going to listen to anyone else instead of me then Mark and I are happy it is her.

Natter.

I have a tiny little bit of peace. India and Mark have gone to a pool party. Party invite number two in just three? weeks of school. And Esta is crawling around the floor. I have probably 5 minutes only before she remembers what fun it is to climb the stairs. Then the peace moment is over.
Oh there she already. Up the stairs. Sitting there negotiating with me.
"Esta, what are you doing?"
"Bah...bah bah"
"No you don't. Come back down"
"Bah...did did bah" Big grin then she disappears up and around the corner.
Bugger.

Little Blue Eyes and Butter sandwiches.

An update: I'm still in the running for the MOTY award. That's the mother of the year award. I've pipped you at the post Kath by sending my daughter to school with a butter sandwich for lunch. Yes, that's right...Butter....on white bread. How's that for nutritional? It seems the teachers just couldn't comprehend a butter sandwich and managed to convince India it was cheese. *giggle* I think it is hysterical. India wasn't too impressed but I was laughing so hard when she told me about it she has finally seen the funny side. And just so you know, it was entirely accidental. I swear I put promite on something, I'm just trying to work out now exactly what I put promite on. I'm yet to find it.

And now onto my other daugther. The gorgeous cheeky smiley chatty loving little nine month old. She is divne. As divine as can be. We all have so much fun with her. At nine months she is zipping around the house at super speeds (still crawling thank goodness), still has a gummy smile no teeth in sight. My favourite things are our cuddles and the big long passionate slobbery globbery kisses that she gives me. She loves riding her little bike, playing on the front deck and listening to music. Music will always put a smile on her face when I turn it on. Her favourites are Parachute Express, Mika and INXS. But she gets down to most things rocking away to anything with a beat. Would you like to see a few pictures?