Thursday, March 28, 2013

Change in Sleep Patterns

I guess an unflattering picture of me while pregnant can work under the title "Change in Sleep Patterns."  Technically my sleep patterns changed back in the Fall when I first became pregnant and started getting up 3-5 times a night for bathroom runs yet slept like the dead everywhere in between.  Maybe the "Change in Sleep Patterns" is a prediction (guarantee) of what will happen in 2ish months.  Maybe I just stuck this picture here because I did not want to dedicate an entire post to just me and my belly yet wanted to satisfy those who were wanting to know what I looked like.  
 
Anyways, we head to beautiful warm Thailand tomorrow for a 1.5 week trip and I am sure we will be able to manage some family pictures of me in all my pregnant glory to at various beautiful locations to further satisfy those who want to see just how big I am.  Right now I am halfway to what I weighed when I delivered DB.  However, I am almost certain our two upcoming trips to Thailand will help me accomplish a similar weight gain.  I love Thailand.
 
 
I am writing the explanation to these pictures in the form of questions because I posted them in the wrong order. 
 
 
Why you might ask did I put my daughter to bed with a dirty face?

 
Also, you might ask why she is sleeping with a dirty face while in my bed?

 
The two-part question requires a two-part answer:
 
First -  In the picture below you are looking at my bedside table.  In case you cannot figure it out, that is a baby monitor screen, a pack of tissues, various lotions, some lanolin (which I use as chap stick) and my chocolate.  Why you might ask is chocolate on my bedside table?  Well, that day during my nap time I wanted chocolate and I ate some just before going to sleep.  I might even well deserve future cavities to show for it one day, but on that day, I was happy about eating my imported dark chocolate before my nap time and falling blissfully a sleep while still tasting its wonderful flavor.
 
So, back to the pictures of AB with a dirty face.  Basically she ate my imported dark chocolate...sniffle sniffle.  When I asked her about it the next day she said, "mommy I did not eat it, I tasted it."  Ahhh, she is learning early to blur the lines that fool us all into believing things like "size 12 is really the new size 8."


 
Second: Why was AB in my bed?  In preparation of baby #3, we have decided to attempt AB and DB sleeping together in the same bed - AB's bed pulls out to create a king size bed.  Below is a picture from our inaugural evening.  It is our hope that DB and AB can sleep in the same room so we do not have to convert the office to another bedroom.  The office functions as an office, language study room, exercise room, sometimes guest bedroom and future home school room.  Life would be easier if it could stay that way.
 
Because AB does not immediately go to sleep in the evenings and enjoys passing her time reading books, we have let her hang out in our bed with her books while DB goes to sleep.  Eventually we quietly move AB to the bed beside DB...very quietly because if he wakes up, everyone will be awake till at least 11:30 - so we have learned.  
 
 
Don't they look so ready to fall into peaceful slumber?  Believe it or not, the evening of this photo it was a bit of a disaster : )

 
This was hours after we DB fell asleep and we put AB in bed with him.

I am happy to say after about 3 weeks of the kids sleeping together, it has gradually gotten better and better.  They no longer wake each other up at 5:30am and even made it to 7:45 one Saturday morning before tackling each other (second favorite way to wake each other up - the first is to hit the other with a hard toy).

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Birthdays

AB and DB both had birthdays in January.  AB's birthday was a bit odd since we left the US the evening before her birthday and landed here at 11:30pm on her birthday.  I am glad dates are not all that important to her yet, because she pretty much missed her birthday.  However the flight attendants were really nice on our flight and brought her a sundae made with first class ice cream to celebrate her birthday.  Ironically this is the second time we left the US the day before her birthday and landed late on the evening of her birthday, but thankfully this time she did not get deported to Hong Kong because of a visa issue 2 hours after we landed. 
 
Because we essentially flew past (get it...we literally flew past/through it) her birthday and DB's birthday is just 2 weeks later, we decided to wait and have them open their presents at the same time.  At this point they really do not know the difference, and I think it was fun for them. 
 
Feel free to make fun of the bag I used for DB, but if you saw the selection of gift bags available here, you too would have picked out the bear bag with the bow glued on it for your 2 year old little boy.  
 



Because of the time of the year of AB and DB's birthdays, and because all of our kid's friends live on the four corners of this city, and because to see each other we all have to haul our families to the side of the road and wait an undetermined amount of time in the freezing cold to hopefully hail a taxi to ride 30 minutes to an hour across the city, I decided to combine their birthday celebrations and further combine them to a time when everyone was going to be at our apartment anyways.  We celebrated a full month after AB's birthday.

Here is AB's cake.  As expected the very yellow butter did make my purple a little grey/brownish.  I also gave up on trying to make her a princess cake.  I have learned that dots are pretty fool-proof, and I imagine future cakes will be covered in them. 
 
DB had a cookie cake.  I made it pretty late in the evening  and was extremely grateful for the friend who gave me these little race car sugar decals.  I apparently ran out of energy and those little things saved me from putting dots all over his cake too.
 


 
Not to confuse them or anything, but I made cupcakes for them while we were in the US and celebrated their birthday's with both sides of the family.  They really made out well on the birthday celebrations this year.  



Friday, March 8, 2013

DO NOT BRING THE PETINTO

More random pictures from around town.
 

Sunday, March 3, 2013

steam heat

My husband has been telling me for weeks that he is posting pictures that need explanations on our blog.  He said he is doing this to serve me since becoming pregnant my blog time became nap time.  He also told me I should really explain some pictures, otherwise they will not make sense to most people.  Fortunately today my tutor canceled and my kids are outside playing like they do on all non-polluted days - which occurs about once every 2-3 weeks.  I thought I would take the opportunity to do a little explaining.
 
 
We live in a cold part of the world.  Therefore we hand over a large chunk of money every October to our city in order to get steam heat pumped into our apartment.  The heat is very effective.  We have gone without heat before, and it is not something we are willing to do again.  Anyways, every year the steam heat starts around the first of November, and usually there are some bumps along the way, namely clogs in the pipes.  
 
Although our heat is awesome, for some reason it does not reach our bedroom.  Of all the rooms in our apartment, our bedroom probably needs the heat the least since my husband is his own heater and we can snuggle under our flannel sheets and down comforter.  However, it is still cold and whenever I an not taking a nap, I would really like for it be above 50 degrees in there.  Thus the heat guy made his annual trip to our apartment to try to "fix" it.  After 3-4 separate attempts they finally said the system was too weak to reach all the way to our bedroom.  Along the way they attempted to clean out our system a couple of times resulting in this nasty black water mess (in the pictures below) he emptied from our radiator in the bathroom floor.
 
Thankfully most people in this country shower without a stall or care as to where they get water in the bathroom so they build the bathrooms to get completely soaked from ceiling to every inch of the floor - there are 3 drains the water can choose from, and the bathrooms are built slightly sunken in from the rest of the apartment.  Therefore, he was able to try to clear the clog to his heart's content.  They never found a clog.  At least he tried.