I usually LOVE Saturdays, weekend wanderings to wherever, usually rest for me, David is off work, etc, etc. I was determined for today to be no different. So I started with special breakfast, a little bit of a feat, trying to feed first breakfasts to Bel and Sof (to be followed up with 'special' stuff). But it wasn't that bad since I got started before they woke up making the Maple syrup and prepped all for the whole grain waffles. Bella woke up, I fed her while the sugar boiled, and mixed up the waffle mix and put the first batch on until Sophia woke up (at 8 a.m. unbelievable). She has been waking up around 7:15 all week.
It was scrumptious! During breakfast Sophia asked me 'how do you say 'yawn' in Chinese? I answered her. She repeated. She then asked how do you say 'hiccup' in Chinese. I answered her. She repeated. Our helper had not arrived yet, I thought she might talk to her about these two things since she just asked me, but she didn't, I really wonder how her brain works. A lot of times she asks me how to say thing when she is trying to communicate with her. But today she just wanted to know I guess.
Later when I was trying to teach Bella how to say 'ball' (in English of course), I kept saying 'ball' and Sophia said: 'teach her to say ping pang qiu (Chinese for ping pong ball)' I laughed and told her that was a little advanced....
Abby came to fill in for David (again), and since it was video day for Sophia she watched her 30 minutes worth while I went on my last run of the week, (while Bella slept). One day I must take a camera on my runs, really. Such cool stuff that becomes dull when I look at it day after day, but when I think about the donkey grazing, or the kids playing the gorde flute, or the Mosque, or the people selling honey, or the Buddhist Pagoda, it is quite a myriad to remember.
When I reread my post about speaking language, it sounded pretty stupid. It wasn't that I was excited about saying something so simple. It was that it flowed off my tongue and that it came out right. This is what surprised Abby. Pray it keeps flowing. This is a hard language, 6 tones, a little sing songy (pretty actually). As a westerner I need to be more emphatic with my tones and sounds, at least early on to make sure I mimic correctly. But a lot of times I am embarrassed to do that. I am really trying to let go all inhibitions this time around and just speak no matter what, right or wrong, keep trying....after the 'flow off the tongue' episode, it stopped flowing, just gurgled really, and came to a stop....that is okay, I am still on the horse....
Girls went down for naps and Bella cried for over 20 minutes, very unlike her. why? because she learned to stand up in her bed just then and didn't like being in there I suppose. What on earth will we do all in one room in Bangkok...who knows, but we need to get used to it, eh?
I promised Sophia we would 'water splash' a little after naps. It is that time of year again. Water Splashing festival. In Thailand it is called Songkran. Usually it is pretty crazy, but because of a serious drought here, the government has called of a lot of the festivities. We will get out our little buckets and water guns and see what we can do.
Speaking of Bangkok. We travel there in two days and things are crazy. State of Emergency. We are checking out our options now.
girls are up, must go load the water guns...
