me: whats up
M: yo you on skype?
me: nah, I’m at work
M: you suck!
me: next time we skype you’ll freak out though
M: i want to see the baby!!!!!!!!
me: mina can talk now
M: and the max!!!!!!!!
wtf
me: not with words but with cooing and gurgling
M: are you serious?
me: yeah she’s a trip
i just dropped off max at school
i just realized that we sent him to school a lot earlier than they do in the states
M: um YEAH
me: but there was nothing really that rushed about it
he was bored of being with us all day
i even stopped teaching extra classes to be with him all the time
but it had the opposite effect
he’s not even very outgoing; he just needs different stimulation all the time
M: i cant wait to take him to chuck e cheese
me: I’m going to enroll him in the preschool on my uni’s campus from april
he will be three minutes walk away from my office
M: that will be cool…you can go visit him on breaks
me: haha you’D never guess how disruptive parent visits are
they either cry because they miss you or becuase they don’t wnt you to go again
M: well, you can go spy on him then
me: yeah thats more like it
he’s picked up so many habits from his classmates tho
M: does he cuss?
me: now he talks nonstop when hes in the mood
M: bite?
hahah
me: no he doesnt cuss yet and i’m trying to watch my mouth around hm
M: good luck with that
me: he doesn’t bite anymore but he has power in his slaps now
M: i wish they were here sooooooo bad
me: thats what they do all day i guess is slap each other and take away toys from each other and stuff
M: yeah, sounds like little kids
me: the thing is, nam won’t spank him very hard so he thinks its a game when she says no and tries to punish him
its kinda funny… she slaps his hand or something and he gets this crazed look in his eyes like IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?
M: damn dude
and then you have to step in?
are you good cop or bad cop?
me: and then i have to spank him or talk to him in an angry voice and he melts and wants mommy and the tears start flowing…
me and nam?
what do you think?
the thing is, good cop bad cop doesn’t really work with kids that well in the long run
M: yeah are you the good one or the bad
me: well with max im bad cop
for sure
maybe with mina it will be opposite
the thing is, good cop bad cop doesn’t work unless you use bad cop first… but with kids, the parent closest is the first to go, so set roles are impractical
M: true
i think you will be different with mina too
me: yeah nam is already kind of irritated when i hold her so much and whatnot
“she’ll expect to be held all the time” and whatnot
and actually, that already happened so… my bad, i guess
who knew i would be good at good cop
bad at good cop?
M: well shes
a cutie pie, i dont blame you
me: she gets so angry when you lay her down
she wants to sit up, but she can’t support herself sitting upright yet
M: she’s feisty i like it
me: i prop her up on the sofa and she slides down into a reclined position, clawing at the air furiously with all four limbs to upright herself,
M: awwwww
Category: Chillin’
It is inexplicably raining right now*
It’s not rainy season, the big monkey in the sky has no reason to piss on us, and it’s doubtful that I triggered the clouds with Yo Gabba Gabba dancing earlier today.
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*It rained last week, too, and it even got cool for a few days, which was really nice, but also weird for this time of year. Weird is good sometimes.
Jack Bauer on the Farmington Galactica
WARNING: 24 spoiler alert
I must say, season 8 is kicking off a lot better than last season. I don’t know why I hated season 7 so much, but I have absolutely no desire to see it again so I can remember why. I liked seeing David Aceveda and Kara Thrace on TV again, but I feel their new characters are empty and shallow (and, oh yeah, already dead).
Chloe and Kim totally ganged up on poor Jack and now he’s on the path to dodge 10,000 hollowpoints and kick terrorist bootie yet again… Here’s to a kickass season and hoping that President David Palmer comes back from the dead to run the country better than the sissy cowards that succeeded him.
Last Post for 2009
There is a horrible show/channel we get on true visions satellite TV service here. It’s called Lin Ping Reality/The Panda Channel.
It’s not that I particularly hate pandas, just that I think they’re boring as hell. Why do they deserve their own channel/reality show for xmasman’s sake?
One good thing has come of this, though. I now know what color a panda’s bunghole is:
This is just one handy fact I learned this year – here’s to even greater discoveries in the year to come.
Excited
I ran around doing errands all day after waking up fairly late – Nam got up early to do something and she’s off doing something again. I’d protest that it’s better for her to lay around and get rest, but everybody deals with this kind of stress in different ways. We are excited, and happy, and anxious.
Tomorrow is a big day.
The C-section is scheduled for 9 am. I plan to watch. Max will be with his babysitter, and later at grandma’s house with his aunt. I will be caregiver for a week or so, in between teaching what few classes I have this week (there are holidays on Monday and Thursday).
34 hours and counting
We are officially scheduled to arrive at the private hospital behind SermThai department store at 8:00 on Sunday morning. We went to check out everything in person tonight and take over some documents from Nam’s OBGYN. I have been informed that I can watch the caesarian if I so desire… I’m still thinking about that one.
A small mountain of luggage has been prepared for the few days to a week stay we are planning on; I’ll load it in the car tomorrow.
We went to the clinic today for a final checkup and it seems the baby may be a big one… If head size is any indication, perhaps even four kilograms!
We are in a unique state of being anxiously busy yet trying to relax…
Thais are freezing
It is currently 14.6°C (58.64°F). The news is reporting that many people have died in their beds overnight because they were unprepared for the cold.
Max Damage
Max and I have an ever-evolving game of kickball that we play inside the house at night. It’s evolving so well, in fact, that last night I kicked the ball off the wall and it smacked directly into a tempered glass bowl sitting on the counter on its rebound, which of course slid off and broke on the kitchen tile in a hundred little pieces (luckily, it was tempered, so it wasn’t a thousand little pieces). And of course, I did this in full view of my wife, who was too angry for words, but also (luckily for me) too pregnant to get up and slap me silly… Max thought this was all just hilarious, which made Nam even more apoplectic.
I am a bad role model, and I really suck at soccer.
At least I’m reasonably good at breaking things, otherwise I’d be a total failure!
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On a side note, I’ve gotten in several arguments with various people, mostly at work, all this week, so I need to chill a bit, maybe. Sometimes it’s just hard when you feel like your true calling in life is being a mushroom cloud-laying m0th3rfuck3r, m0th3rfuck3r.