June 21st

Dear Jones-

I have become a lazy record keeper. We went to Pattaya last week for my birthday vacation and I got out of the habit of writing and into the habit of watching the few English channels on Taa’s TV. Terrible. In a nutshell, we had a splendid time in Pattaya. You had Taa as an almost daily babysitter while dad and I were livin’ it up. There was a carpeted, octagon-shaped room void of any furniture that we transformed into your playroom. It even had air conditioning in it. Pure heaven.

We all went swimming in the warm-watered beaches in Pattaya and you actually smiled while we swam. Normally you just look really intense. Dad and I forgot our swimsuits in Ayuthaya so we had to settle for some poorly constructed replacements at a beach side store in sizes XXL and XXXL. Awesome. We also ate Mexican food in Pattaya (sweet avocados!) as well as many a pizza pie. Taa’s husband, Colin, owns an Irish pub (even though he's English) in Pattaya that we visited a couple of times. The street on which his pub (Rosie O’Grady’s) is located was teeming with “women of the night” (or day, in fact) and they were clamoring to grab your chubby cheeks and sausage fingers as we walked by. I smiled and was friendly, but washed your hands as soon as possible.

Now we are home and melting like sticks of butter in the Ayuthaya heat. I haven’t even taken you on an outing since we’ve back. Perhaps we’ll take a stroll this evening if the temperature drops below 130 degrees. Dad is gone filming out of the city, so its just you, me and the ants. Speaking of dad…yesterday was Father’s Day so we treated ol’ pops as nice as we could and made him feel very special. However, most of my plans to spoil him went awry. On Saturday night we made a long and sweaty trek to the movie theater, and without going into the details, things DID NOT work out with that plan. I also got sick for several hours last night so dad had to take care of you. After about 90 minutes he was begging for your bedtime to come sooner. Ha. You are quite the handful and now dad understands my job as a Baby Wrangler a little better. However, I still owe him a Father’s Day do-over. And I still love being your mom. Now please keep napping so I can put some pictures on the blog.

Love,

Mom

PHOTO DIARY: A Typical Day


Back to life, back to reality. Wash, rinse, sterilize, sweat, repeat.



Where all (if any) cooking happens. Also, daily pot of boiled water for Jones.



View from the kitchen. I'm very into plastic baggies here. They're the only things that keep out our personal colony of ants. When the weather is cool I like to watch the barges pass by on the river.








Checking out Me-eh's food for the day while trying to ignore the heat.



I sit outside and watch Anne and Me-eh play with Jones until I have to retreat upstairs to the air conditioned rooms.




One of Jones' favorite toys that I'm constantly digging out from under the furniture. Weasely little ball.






Play time turns into nap time and so on and so forth.

The End.