Out and About in Chiang Mai

Leaving on a Jet Plane. . .

Here the children are at the Lincang Airport saying good-bye to daddy for the longest amount of time in their lives - 14 days!  They were so excited about the adventures ahead that they were not too sad.  I was actually the only one shedding tears.  Manon did ask at one point within the next 24 hours (before we met our friend Alex who would be helping me with the children), "Mommy, when the baby is born and we need to cross a busy street, how are we going to do it if all children must hold a grown-up's hand?"  I realized at that point that she did not expect Monty to ever join us so we looked at the calendar and went back over the upcoming schedules.  I am thankful that it worked out for Monty to stay behind - the children did fabulous, baby is late as usual and Monty was able to wrap up things and finish well at the many tasks he had to complete.  But, now that we are together again as a family I am so grateful.  It is hard being a single mom - even with a wonderful girlfriend to help out.  

The Chiang Mai Zoo

Manon and the Meer Cats.  Manon has decided that her dream life would have been to be the wife of "Shem" (one of Noah's sons - Gen. 6) and help take care of all the animals on Noah's ark. As we walked through the zoo she kept pondering and questioning how in the world all the animals fit on the ark and how they took such good care of them so that none would die and become extinct forever.  

Henna is feeding carrots to the elephant!  

Here is Judah at the Seal Show.  He was not in the show but you would have thought so at the hundreds of photos being taken of him.  He was really hamming it up so I figured I better get a picture too.  He really likes the Thai people and the attention they give little ones his age.  He likes his cheeks pinched and has began pinching other children's cheeks upon first meeting them (he is sure that is the proper etiquette).  People still notice Manon and Henna but they prefer the toddlers.  With Monty's absence, Judah was really affectionate to men who smiled at him or wanted to shake hands.  He would jump in their arms and start a game.  They loved it and Judah appreciated the "guy time" even if it was with a stranger.  

Here we are with our wonderful friend Alex and her daughter Eden.  They were so kind to travel with us from China to Thailand and help around the house, with the children or whatever.  Alex took care of all of the cooking, cleaning and lots of babysitting - she is amazing!  I actually did not realize how much she did until after she left and I kept wondering why the dishes did not magically disappear after meals and where are the meals anyway????  The girls and Eden got along great and they miss her often as well as all of the fun songs and games Auntie Alex played with them.  I learned lots about parenting from her (she is a mother of 7) just watching her interact with the children was inspiring.  

Henna on the Pony.  She was not so sure at first and would have gotten down had I let her.  

Manon on the pony - she named it and had grand conversations with it on their walk together.  She was pretending she was Aravis from "The Horse and His Boy."  Yes, she has all 7 of the Chronicles of  Narnia memorized.  

Pampering!!!!

Alex, being such a good friend sent the girls and I out to "Nice Nails Salon."  What a treat! I sometimes get my nails done in China but never to this standard.  They scrubbed my feet, got all the dead skin off, worked on my toes for at least an hour and then did my fingers.  It was so nice.  I just read and relaxed.  Manon and Henna also did their nails.  

The Beautiful Pool!

The friends house we are staying in has an amazing pool for the neighborhood.  We were able to sign up for a monthly membership and it has been worth every baht.  

Manon, Judah and I enjoying the warm water.  Manon has began swimming laps up and down the pool.  There is an Australian family who tend to visit the pool about the same time of day as we do.  They have two older girls (7 and 10) and two younger boys (1 and 4).  I did not tell our children their children's ages, so Manon just assumed that she is about the age of the big sister - since she is the big sister for our family.  She would watch things this "big girl" was doing and try to copy, like swimming laps.  Now when we get to the pool Manon begins with a few laps up and down and does beautifully!  Henna saw the little sister swimming and soon was swimming on her own.  I have been teaching them swimming techniques and we do a swim lesson each time (I follow step by step from an Usborne Book about teaching your child to swim).  But, I think the biggest motivation is seeing other children doing the things I am asking of them.  Judah is also doing great.  He now jumps and likes to go underwater completely.  He is learning to kick.  He is not as fishy as our girls were at his age but I think part of it is that when the girls were little I took them swimming at least once a month if not more.  For Judah I think he gets to go about once every 6 months.  Being in Thailand has made me miss the nice pools we had access to but there are other things more important than having a nice pool down the road. . .right:)?

The Woggle has been a big help with Henna building confidence in the pool.  She floats on her back on it, uses it under her arms to swim laps with Manon and rides it like a horse.  It is not too buoyant, so she still needs to exert effort.  

Here is Judah and his water wings.  He refers to himself as a little monkey in the pool because he clings to me and I actually don't have to hold on to him at all.  When he needs to stay close (maybe after swallowing water or something) he comes to me with his arms out saying "oooeeeeeaaaaahhhh".  

A Trip up North

Here we are taking a break on the drive from Chiang Mai to Mae Sai (our former home of 5+ years).  Our children could not bear to be in Thailand without seeing Mae Sai even if it was a brief visit.  The night before I was praying asking God that if I was too close to my due date then let me know through contractions or whatever if I should stay close to Chiang Mai.  Well, nothing happened until we were about an hour outside of Chiang Mai and I began having contractions every 20 minutes or so.  I hated to turn back and it be false labor because the girls were so looking forward to this trip.  We kept going and thankfully it was false labor.  I am so glad for the time our family got to spend in Mae Sai seeing old friends.  

The night we spent in Mae Sai was great.  We went to our favorite little resort down the road from our old home.  The girls stayed with Momay and her family, so Judah got to pretend to be an only child for an evening.  He loved it.  Although, the first words out of his mouth were "Mamom, Hema, where?"  

A funny story about Judah was that the hotel did not have a baby cot or anything for him to sleep on.  Monty and I are not big fans of rolly polly children in the bed with us so we took the comforter off the bed and made Judah a nice pallet right next to us.  In the middle of the night I got up to check on him and he was gone!  I looked around the room and he was no where to be found.  I kept thinking of all the water outside and if he could have walked out the door but the door was still locked.  As I was beginning to panic I heard Judah talking in his sleep saying, "Ju-dah, Ju-dah." So I knew he was some where close.  He had rolled and rolled and was in the middle of the floor under the bed sleeping soundly dreaming about himself on the hard wood floor.  I had to wake Monty up at this point because I could not shimmy my pregnant body far enough under to reach him.  

The children catching up with Momay.  I had to be the key translator as Manon and Henna kept speaking Chinese to her.  Momay finally asked if they would just speak English because she felt that she had a better chance of actually understanding.  

Henna was so sweet and loving to Momay's baby brother "Bon" which means "ball" in Thai.  I think the name fits him:).  

The Night Safari

We live just down the road from the Chiang Mai Night Safari.  We finally drove over to it yesterday and found they have a nature walk that allows you to see about 30 fabulous animals any time of the day.  It was a great outing.  Now our kids are all napping because they want to be able to stay up super late and ride the trams through the rest of the night safari.  I am so glad we found the nature walk trail.  We were the only people on it and it only cost about $4 for our entire family.  As we were walking along we kept hearing thunder but Manon and Henna did not seem to mind.  They kept running ahead and were so enthusiastic about everything.  Until, Monty was reminiscing about a story from when the night safari first opened and a wolf escaped.  He remembered seeing an add in the paper for a reward if found.  As he finished the story several animals started howling at the same time and then it thundered louder than ever! After that, Manon and Henna never let go of my hand and Monty kept coming up with ideas for how we would fight off wild animals, as a family, that might escape.  Our game plan was for me to take Judah and my purse (with a full water bottle) out of the stroller and I would swing the purse at the animal while Monty folded up the stroller and used it as a club.  Thankfully we did not have to put the plan into practice on this trip:).  

Now our blog is completely updated so I feel peaceful about going into labor at any moment.  Let's just hope baby feels that way too.  We have done all the tasks on my "before labor" to-do list but still no baby.  My friend says that I just have a "slow oven".  Hopefully the next post will be about our new arrival.  

Monty has been wonderful to indulge my busy schedule.  I think I like to plan outings and events to keep me from sitting around and wondering when the baby will arrive.  But, at this point I am not able to carry Judah, hold little girls hands and do much.  I am so glad Monty is able to take some time off and enjoy this maternity vacation.