Changes Afoot

I have moved my blog to our own webpage which we set up about a month ago (mainly so that Nick can have fun playing around and designing our own webpage). It did somehow seem to make sense to have all our blogs, our newsletters, our photos, etc, in one central place. I hope its going to be easier for you to access. But for me its actually quite sad and I am feeling quite morbid about it all. I am not sure why, but I am going to miss my little blog ...

Oh well, you can't stop progress and Nick assures me this is progress! You'll probably agree when you see our fancy new webpage.

If you want to subscribe to my new blog you can click on a small blue button "RSS" once you get to the "Trish's Travels" section of our webpage, and then you will get a notification everytime I update my blog. Quite "with it" I think!!! Anyway, here is the new site:

http://web.me.com/nbekker

Playing Shop

(Jonty and Emily engaging in cheaper pursuits)

Yesterday Jonty and Emily played shop, using Monopoly money. The game worked like this:

Emily was the shopkeeper. She had no money, but was told she could sell anything in our room. Jonty had about a milllion rand/baht/dollars/whatever-currency-monopoly-money-is.
Jonty would ask how much something cost e.g. a book.
Emily would quote her best price.
Jonty would negotiate her down ... the things our kids learn living in Thailand!
Emily would happily agree to Jonty's price no matter how low it was (e.g.he got a t-shirt for 1 baht).
Jonty would pay her in a huge denomination and then demand his change.
As mentioned, Emily had no money so Jonty would suggest she give him one of her sweets in lieu of cash.
Emily would eagerly hand over her sweets - which, just by the way, she had earned for her progress in swimming - and Jonty would eagerly gobble them up.
Jonty would then demand his money back (because it was his money afterall) and leave the shop.
A few minutes later Jonty would return to the shop to buy more of Emily's wares.
The game continued until Em's sweeties were finished.

Halfway through this game I asked Em if she was enjoying herself. "Its so much fun!" she proclaimed, full of delight.

Obviously handing over all her hard-earned sweets was a small price to pay for the joy of playing with her big brother, but if I were her, I'd have demanded some change!

Finding Yourself

My all time favourite poet is e.e. cummings and I think one of my very favourite of his poems is this one:

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

***

Isn't that last line so true? We DO discover ourselves at the sea. Late afternoon today we went down to the beach. Jonty was jumping around in the waves, Emily was killing sea monsters, Nina was dancing around bobbing and weaving, splashing, shrieking with laughter. Nick found a starfish and a hermit crab, and I was simply watching them with a grin from ear to ear, just loving being there, loving my children, loving my handsome husband...

I love being at the sea.

Some children's mothers!

We are lazing the days away here at the OMF guesthouse on the eastern coast of Thailand.

Over the past few I have been watching one of the other mothers. I've noticed that she always arrives at breakfast well AFTER her 2 boys have eaten theirs. I've noticed that she reads a lot. She goes for long solitary walks on the beach, meandering along, picking up shells and other treasures. At lunch and dinner she talks to adults, not her children, and has intelligent conversations. One morning she disappeared after breakfast and did not surface again until lunch time.

Her kids are none the worse for this ... dad is around and they just get on with their games, their TV watching, their swimming, their sand-castle building, etc.

In between noticing all of this, I am responding to shouts of "Mom, I need you." "Mom, I need to poo." "Mom, please may I have more toast?" "Mom, Jonty is not letting me have a turn" "Mom, I'm starving" ... and of course rushing around like a maniac trying to keep Nina out of the dog's food, and away from the sea, remove her from the drinks fridge, hide the orchids she "picked", etc, etc, etc.

Yesterday afternoon this other mother took a comfy reclining chair, put it up in the shade of one of the giant pine trees - just a few metres from the sea - and did some embroidery. Embroidery!!!! I would have had a closer look except that MY three children were howling for snacks and drinks.

But something struck me as I saw her there - I actually felt a little sorry for her. She seemed a little lonely. Even sad.

I made a kind of a vow that I would enjoy the fact that my three want me around and in fact love having me around 24 a day, 7 days a week.... because in a few short years time Jonty will be 12 and Em will be 10 and Nina will be 8 and they will be off on their own, not wanting old mom hanging around embarrassing them and spoiling all their fun, and I'll probably have to take up embroidery!

Oh, sorry, didn't I mention that this mom's children are 9 and 12 years old???

Go Figure!!!

So there we were on a tropical island. Stunning. Beautiful. Idyllic. Seriously amazing island. And what was I doing? Fretting about my figure.

Day 2... sitting on this palm-lined beach watching the kids frolic in the tiny little waves I looked around: do you know that there was not one single person with no fat, and no one had a perfect figure. No one. There were mommies and grannies and kiddies - all different shapes and sizes. It struck me that their bodies were almost like books - each one told a story, their imperfections were part of their history and they weren't really imperfections at all. Just who they were!

And what's more, they were all oblivious of me checking them out, they were just having a good time. Then there was me - mother of 3 so, yes, a round tummy, heavier thighs - that's my story, my history showing. Certainly not perfect, but not all that bad, yet there I was stressing about what I looked like. Covered up. No benefical rays of Vitamin D could reach me. What a waste of a tropical island holiday!

So. I did something very impulsive. I left Nick with the kids, and walked 200 m to the closest vendor and bought an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bikini. My bravest move in 5 years - braver than moving to Thailand, braver than having 3 kids within 3 and a half year, braver than moving to Lampang to start up something so new that not even we know what we're doing....

No, wait, my bravest move was actually wearing the bikini (and it wasn't really so itsy bitsy!). And you know not a single person looked twice. Maybe some would have been devastated by that, but on Koh Chang last week it thrilled me. It meant I did not look like a freak. It meant I fitted in and looked quite normal. I won't be posting any photos of me wearing it, and I won't be wearing it at OMF conferences, but for a perfect island holiday, it just felt perfect!

Go figure.