Inside voices, Evey.

Something interesting is happening to my child on this trip.
She is becoming remarkably more confident.
It could be developmental: she is learning new things like crawling, walking, talking. She is developing her personality.
But we’re seeing the changes in public. Our baby who was once selective about who she graced with a smile, now searches each stranger’s face for a welcome smile.
The troubling part is that with her confidence in public, she has found her voice. And, oh, she has found it!
When we go for breakfast,  she spends the meals ‘chatting’ with the waitresses in shrieks.
When parents come in with their children: forget about having them sit near us, because Evey will scream their head off.
We ‘shhh’ her. We try to distract her. We even cover her mouth occasionally,  when the shrieks are especially loud.
We try to explain ‘inside voices’, but to no avail.
At these times, she is happy and ‘talking’ is her way of showing it.
She loves to hear her own voice (ahem — I don’t know where she got that from).
With these 2 months in Thailand, we are so rarely in a place that she can be loud. Hotel room: someone might be sleeping. Restaurant: people are trying to enjoy a meal. Taxi: the driver has the right not to be shrieked at or distracted.
I feel badly for my developing girl. I don’t want her to be stifled, taught to be silent, only speak when spoken to. But isn’t there some happy medium?

Tomorrow we’ll go to the beach. And we’ll chat. We’ll scream. We’ll let out all that energy over the rush of the waves. And I think I’ll stop caring so much what others think in public places. My child is gaining her voice, she is exceedingly happy, and that’s what babies do.

Phromthep Cape, Phuket Province, Thailand

Today we visited what is apparently Phuket province’s most renowned landscape: Phromthep Cape. It is the southern-most tip of Phuket, with beautiful views of the sea.
Apparently the best time to go is at sunset, so hundreds of tourists flock to the area at that time to photograph it. We opted out of the heavy tourist time and went around 10am, when the weather wouldn’t be too hot yet. Even at this time, the place was busy with bus tours and selfie – sticks galore.

We took a taxi up from Rawai, maybe a 5 minute ride. We didnt take the stroller, but took Evey in the carrier. This turned out to be a great idea, as there were a couple of tall staircases to reach the viewpoint.
We’ve been lucky to have some cooler days lately due to rain at night, so the carrier hasn’t been too hot. Still, we’ve also started freezing water bottles for Evey to carry and suck on to help cool her down. It really helps prevent overheating, which we think might have explained all of her exhaustion the first week of our trip (beyond regular jet lag, I think).

Phromthep Cape viewing area isn’t huge, and you can do as much or as little walking as you wish (after the stairs, of course). It seemed that one could walk beyond the concrete onto the cape itself, and some people did this to get an alternate viewpoint. I decided not to do this as the footing looked questionable, and I knew carrying my 20 lb sack of potatoes up and down the cape only looked easy.

We finally went to find a spot in the shade to sit and take Evey out of the carrier for a bit. At this point it is 11am and starting to get pretty warm. The moment we get her out, we are bombarded by a large group of maybe 15 or more people who would like to hold and take photos with our baby.

We obliged because Evey doesn’t seem to mind. They are well meaning and just adore her. However, after a few minutes I stole Evey back and made a joke about charging them $5/ photo, and everyone eventually left. It was actually pretty overwhelming! As we were leaving, another bus load of people arrived and started fawning over her, so we had to make a run for it.
We went to a gift shop across the street, and they called a taxi-van for us.

My hope for you

I hope you’ve gotten your Dad’s patience
And just a touch of my stubbornness.
I hope you learn to be kind
To people, animals, the planet and, most importantly, yourself.
May you laugh often.
May you cry freely.
May you understand struggle, but never have to truly struggle.
I’m hopeful that you’ve inherited my outgoingness
And tons of your dad’s creativity.
I wish for you to love yourself.
And I wish that you love life
For it’s beauty, and it’s pain.
For it’s quirky and it’s plain.

Most of all, I hope that you are happy.

Baby jet lag

I may have underestimated Evey’s jet lag in my last post. We’ve been in Thailand for 2 nights. Chris and I have pretty much adjusted to the time, but Evey is still wanting to sleep all day long.
The first day we landed at 4 am local time. We dragged ourselves through immigration, Evey on the verge of a meltdown at every step.
We managed to get through, fetch local currency Baht’s from the ATM, and fetch our luggage. Then we tried to connect our phones with a traveller SIM card. Turns out our phones are locked to foreign SIMs so we may have to purchase a travel phone. Evey started to freak out, so we gave up.
Our hotel transfer didn’t seem to be there, and we had no idea how frequently it came, so we decided to take a cab.
They have a taxi system at the airport where you take a number and then take the cab at the area marked with your number. I wandered around outside with Evey while Chris lined up.
Within 20 minutes we had the cab.
We (shamefully) opted not to bring a carseat on this trip. The locals tend not to, so we figured we wouldn’t either. Needles to say, I white- knuckled it all the way to to hotel (maybe 10 min). Evey had a mini fit in the car while I held her on my lap.
She was fine when we got to the hotel. The concierge asked if he could take a photo of her, and she even managed a big smile. We headed up to our room, showered and went down for breakfast by 7am (8pm in Canada). She was happy through breakfast, even.
When we got back to the room, we all crashed until 4pm local time. We woke up, ordered room service, and went back to bed. Come 3am, we were all up.
Since then, our naps have been on Evey’s schedule. She is awake for an hour or so, then has a total fit and she goes down for another nap. She has slept pretty solidly the last 2 days, and we’ve let her! Her frustrated cries and grunts are not possible to ignore.
At night (which to be fair,  is daytime in Canada), Evey wakes up and wants to play for an hour before she wants to go to sleep. Again we let her. We kind of trade off who watches over her while the other snoozes. Building a fence out of our bodies around her on the bed.
We knew we had done nothing but sleep the last few days when we went down to request more water, coffee and toilet paper from the front desk.
The concierge looked at us and asked: ‘ how long have you been here?’
We responded ‘well, 3 nights, technically. But really, 2’
He said ‘Housekeeping brings those things each day’.
We laughed and said ‘Yes, but we haven’t really left the room long enough for them to come’.
He looked a little confused, but that’s fine. We got this hotel near the airport so that Evey could adjust to local time and so we didn’t feel obliged to sight see these first few days.
We are happy with that decision because Evey is adjusting much more slowly than us. She doesn’t understand why she is so tired all the time!

I fear I may have ruined her great sleep pattern we had going at home. It was so dependable! I’ll keep you posted whether she finds that rhythm again soon.

Life’s Wonder is upon us

As we leave on this new adventure
I’m proud of us today
For creating the world we want
Our little girl to be raised in

While she won’t remember
Specific sights, tastes or sounds
She’ll forever be influenced
By the freedom of it all

2 months we’ll spend focused
On her and us alone
Grasping life’s wonder
And turning it into our own

Hungry Hippo

I live in a home with a hungry hippo.
She’s always there, just one step away.
I spend my life trying to feed the hippo
But the hunger never stops.
Just when I begin to forget the feeding trough, I hear the call again.
That hungry, hungry hippo is driving me insane.

Baby Privileged

I’ve noticed something since being pregnant. Our society values babies. The term ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ has taken on a new meaning for me. It’s always been so, I just hadn’t really noticed before. It seems that most cultures value babies in varying ways, but I wasn’t prepared for it. It’s not one of the perks of parenthood people talk about.

For my husband and I, having a baby was our choice. We did it for ourselves. If we didn’t have input or support from anyone, we were going to do it anyway, fate permitting.

So when I was pregnant, I was surprised by the support from strangers. People stopping to help me, ask questions, or even just smiling at me. I quickly became accustomed to people holding doors for me, giving up their seats for me. I, unknowingly, began to expect this special treatment.

Since having the baby, this special treatment has continued. People will go out of their way to make room for my stroller, sometimes allow me to go ahead of the line because of a fussy baby. Everywhere we go people are complimenting our child. Strangers constantly talk to us now. I expect stores to be easy to peruse with a stroller. I also expect high chairs in restaurants and change tables, too.

What began as a choice that my husband and I made to start a family, has turned into a type of privilege. One that I might have trouble giving up when my child grows up. I suppose that privilege will slowly fade and I will be weaned off of it.

Until then, though, I plan to enjoy this privilege and thank each stranger that insists on lending a helping hand.

Goodbye House

Goodbye house.
Goodbye big blue doors.
Goodbye birds, and Goodbye trees.
Goodbye windows, creek in the kitchen floor, fireplace that I adore.
It’s been nice lawn, street, and that creepy A-frame shack.
Goodbye mural, Goodbye sink.
Adios light fixture, basement ceiling and goodbye garden.
So long stairs and front door.

Goodbye, house.
Thanks for being our home.

Let the Adventures continue!

We have news. We are picking up our lives and moving to a new city. Not around the globe, but a 5 hour drive away. It may as well be the other side of the world with the amount of planning it takes: preparing and selling our home, packing, hiring movers and a storage space (because we are still looking for a house on the other end), looking for a new home and finding temporary housing while we wait.
We’ve also decided to add one more wrench into our plans: we’d like to take the opportunity without a mortgage to take a dream trip.
I’m still baffled at our decision to do this. Throwing caution to the wind, as they say. I thought we’d want to lay low and play safe with a baby. But, it turns out the wanderlust is calling, and we want to answer it with baby in toe!
We figure our expenses are low, we will be temporarily between jobs, and Chris didn’t really get a parental leave, so this gives him a chance to spend real, quality time with Evey while she is so young.
So we will be leaving for Thailand at the end of October, right after the closing of our house (less than a month away, I know!).
Moments of packing are now speckled with trip plans, passport application for baby, and making sure our vaccines are in order. It’s going to be an adventure of a lifetime, and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Here’s to new adventures and capturing moments in life. I can’t wait to spend the next few months with the two loves of my life.