Holdenisms!

As he gets older his cute little sayings are becoming fewer. It makes me sad as it is a sure sign he is growing up. Here are a few of the latest gems:

Coming home from school with an envelope decorated with flowers and sunshine and a long string taped to each side: "Look Mom, I made you a purse because I know you can never have too many, and tomorrow I am going to make dad a Man-Bag." He SO gets his parents. My closet is jam full and Nate has been searching for the perfect man-bag for ages. Bless his little fashionable heart!

Walking home from the swimming pool we were all joking about something and he says, "I see that coy smile mom."

After we got back from our vacation to Bali: "This was the best vacation, it SO helped me."

About a local French bakery here: "If you go into this restaurant it will change your life forever because the food is so good!"

About a band on disney: "These guys have mad skills. They really know how to throw a party."

"Holden you are doing so well" says Dad at t-ball. "No, my team is doing well."

My heart swells with this kid. He is so full of love.

Bangkok

What started out as a quick get-away for Spring Break ended badly. Very very badly. Truth be told, it didn't even start out well! Before we left Manila, we were all feeling a bit under the weather with minor sniffles and colds. On the way to the airport I had a feeling that maybe we should just skip the trip. I had horrible stomach cramps thanks to no food and a few too many "Berry Nices" at a friends house before we left. After checking in, Nate and the kids grabbed some pizza while I lay down on the floor trying to convince myself to get over the pain and get on the plane! Pain subsiding, we paid our $45 to leave the country (WHERE in the world else do they make you pay to leave?) and headed to the gate. Kids are all well and fine until about 30 minutes into the flight when all hell breaks loose.

We were on a local carrier. The planes have enough leg room for children. It's a late night flight and Finnley is overtired and will not or cannot settle down, he just carried on screaming and crying and kicking until his little body wore out. This is where being on a plane filled with Filipinos is a blessing. They are VERY understanding people. Smiles and nods of understanding as opposed to annoying looks and snide comments so common elsewhere. I kid you not, just as Finnley has fallen asleep out of nowhere Holden....golden child....perfect traveller starts screaming that he has a headache. He is in pain and tears and carrying-on ensue for another 30 minutes. Nate and I look at each other in misery, each with a child stretched out across us. Nervous to even more lest we wake the beasts. Oh good only 3 more hours to go!

We get to our hotel just off of Sukhumvit Road and find out upon check-in that they haven't put a baby cot in our room and they don't know where one is. By now, it is past 1am and regardless of how tired we are there is no way we are all sleeping in one bed. An hour later, they bring up a single bed and we crash hard. Sleeping in was not on Finnley's agenda so we were up early for breakfast and then back to bed for a nap. We had several days so we wanted to make this vacation relaxing. "No rush, plenty of time to see everything!" was our mantra. That day we bummed around the city, and went to the suan lum night market and tried the various street food stalls of green curry and pad thai. Finnley was out of sorts not eating much so I knew something was wrong. The next morning we were up and out to the chatuchak weekend dirt market. As Holden said, "you're a mom that likes to shop." It was hot and stuffy and crowded but nothing that we couldn't normally handle. We cut the visit short because Finnley was still not eating. When we got back to the hotel that afternoon and gave Finn a cool bath to cool him down, but I just knew we needed to go to the hospital. Finnley is go go go, so to see him lethargic is an instant clue that something is wrong. His fingers and toes were blue like he wasn't getting enough oxygen and he had rapid breathing.

This trip was full of so many small mercies one of which was a call to the US embassy to find an English speaking hospital where someone actually answered the phone on a Sunday! (Manila has the WORST embassy ever, they only answer between 2-4 pm and even then are the least helpful people I have ever dealt with) the hospital as someone has described it since, was like a 5 star hotel and happened to be across the street. Yet another miracle with all the protesting in Bangkok, it could have taken hours to get there had it been located elsewhere. We headed to the pediatric wing, signed in and didn't have to wait more than 2 minutes to see the doctor. Find out Finnley had lost a kilo (ended up losing 3 kilos before the week was through) and had a temperature of 40 degrees celcius! After a blood test and a chest xray they determined he had bacterial pneumonia. Poor little guy was admitted to the hospital for 3 days. He was much better once they had him hooked up with fluid and antibiotics in him but was absolutely miserable with that iv in his arm and having to be on a nebulizer every 2 hours. The hospital and doctors and nurses were top notch. It was efficient and organized from the beginning to the end, but not quite the vacation we had hoped for! Holden and Nate came to the hospital in the mornings and spent the day with us and headed back to the hotel at night. We literally were released a half a day before our flight back to Manila, just in time to see a few sights around Bangkok, but thanks to the protesting we couldn't get anywhere else in the city. It was like we went just for medical tourism!

The flight back to Manila was uneventful (thank heavens!) and we have NEVER been more happy to be home. Finnley is back to his ever-going 16 month old self and nothing makes us more happy than to see one of those tantrums!

Two things

Two things have happened in the past week that make me feel we are somehow succeeding in the raising of our boys outside of their native country. They are simple but have quite some depth to me!

The other day while eating dinner Holden said, "Mom, do you like it in the Philippines?" I said, "Of course, what about you?" His answer. "I love it here, I don't think we should ever leave." This means so much because for the first year we were here, Holden really struggled, I mean REALLY struggled. Every time he went to bed or stubbed his toe or didn't get his way he was in tears and wanted to go home to Utah! It hit us really hard, because we adjusted so well and had expectations that he would as well. It almost made us reconsider our decision and was a regular guilt-inducing moment. He has been adjusted for quite some time now, after all it has been 3.5 years but to hear him say that he loves it. Music to my ears. I can't promise him that we will never leave but I know that he is truly happy.

Finnley let us know he is making it ok in the only country he has known as home by insisting on feeding himself. Vigilantly demanding to feed himself is more like it. We had fears that he would become a pampered boy like so many are here with nannies following them around to feed them and sitting in strollers way past the age of 4 but he has proven to be the complete opposite with an independent spirit. Even though the mess is unbearable, he is learning all on his own!

It's hard to gauge parenting, so simple things make all the difference!

Whale Sharks

What an experience! So many of our friends here had done this trip in years past as well as this year and all had expressed how amazing and awe-struck they were by the sheer size of the sharks so we were prepared and in a way I was fearful of the overtold stories in that it wouldn't be as amazing as everyone had described. It lived up to the tales and more!

We hopped on the early morning flight to Legaspi at 6am and were landing a quick 50 minutes later to the view of Mt Mayon. This volcano is active and had threatened to erupt just a few short months ago. It's a beautiful sight.

After a little negotiating at the airport exit we found ourselves a van for 900php (600 less than most people pay, thanks greenhills for teaching me the power of bargaining and thanks to Carol for insisting on an even better deal!) and we were headed to the resort a mere hour of motion-sickness inducing twists and turns and hills away! After arriving at our resort (the Elysia, the only one with a pool) we were informed that there wouldn't be any electrical power from 9-5. Oh lovely, the tropics without aircon is almost unbearable! Finnley stayed at the resort with Carol (our nanny) fanning him with a plank of cardboard as he napped while Nate, Holden and I set off to find some very large fish!

Just up the street we signed away our rights and claimed ourselves Filipino-American speaking

Tagalog all the while to get the local rate once again! Because there was no electricity on the Island we didn't get a chance to watch the safety video but we found ourselves Henry the boatman who, thinking we could understand Tagalog, told us everything we needed to know...in Tagalog. No worries though, there were pictures to explain everything as well!

Out on the boat we cruised. There was Henry who would swim along with us, the captain of the boat, another boat boy and the spotter. The spotter climbs up high on the boat and scans the water for large shadows moving beneath the water and the tada! Whale Shark.

We startedout later in the day (about 930) when ideally 6am would be the better time to see more sharks but luckily came across one quite quickly. There were tons of other people in the water despite the one boat one whale rule. After a few kicks to the head from someone elses flippers we were awestruck by this 4 meter long beast. It was huge. So big you can't get the entire thing in a viewfinder for a photo. Amazed by this but hoping to see one all by ourselves without the multitude of boats around we set off further out to sea. Not 30 minutes later Henry yells, "lets go, lets go!" and we pile to the side of the boat with our gear on. We pushed off and

were right in the path of a 19 foot whale shark coming straight at us.


Because the water is so full of plankton (the reason the whale sharks are there) it is a little cloudy and you don't see the behemoth of a shark until it's right in front of you. Scary indeed.

We let is pass just a few feet beneath us and the swam super fast for about 15 minutes to keep up with it until it went so deep down we couldn't see it. Henry kept up our pace and I couldn't figure out why we kept swimming after it was gone but all of a sudden right underneath us it's giant head re-emerged and we swam again down it's long body for another 15 minutes or so.

I can't continue to re-use the word amazing, but that is what is was. A once in a lifetime experience to see and be so near this whale shark in it's natural habitat. The rest of our day and the next morning was spent lounging in the pool with Carol and Finnley.

I continue to be humbled by so many things we are able to do and see in Asia. Things I would never have even imagined. I hope that I can capture these memories for our boys. Hoping that Holden, at least, will remember them and realize in the future just how lucky he is that we lived here!

for Heidi

SOME people have made it clear to me that I have been neglectful of the blog. Truth. I admit it, I have been and I have a renewed commitment to keep up from now on. As for now a little back-up posting is in order.



Last October, we had an amazing trip to Singapore and Bali. From Manila there is no direct flight to Bali, so Singapore started as a means to an end but was slightly thrilling in itself. Always fun to get two birds with one stone!

As always we were in a frenzy to catch our early morning flight. Nate offering to do whatever needs to be done is assigned the grab the baby bottles and fill them with hot water. At the airport as we make it through our 2nd round of security scans (with one more to go) I notice that the diaper bag is soaked and there is no water in the bottles. Come to find out he has forgotten to put the silicone insert in which make the bottles airtight and leak proof. Oh joy, three hours on a plane with a baby and NO bottles and what better, not too much breast milk left either! (The reason I tell this part of the story is to prove how amazing my husband is and what a fool I am.) I am SO angry with him. SO VERY ANGRY and I am mean and he feels bad enough as it is. But we survive surely as we always do and arrive in Singapore unscathed.

Singapore is clean and orderly and HOT and sterile and I love it. The taxi drivers are kind and smart and well-spoken and really act as tourguides for their city. We stayed at a great hotel off Orchard Road, ate fabulous food in Chinatown and spent time at a Hindu ritual in Little India. Took in the city at night while on the Singapore Flyer (the worlds largest observation wheel) which is a giant ferris wheel with enclosed capsules. We saw the iconic Merlion and did some shopping on Orchard Road and had a Singapore Sling at the Longbar at the Raffles Hotel its originating home.






All in, it was what I had planned for the day and a half before our flight to Bali or was it supposed to be our day and a half after our trip to Bali...

We arrived at the airport in Singapore with plenty of time to spare to get our flight to Indonesia. Looking at the boards for where we check in we notice that our flight is not listed. Strange because I am sure they would have emailed or called us if the flight had been changed, right? Nate pulls out the itinerary and (here I need to mention that I do all of our travel planning and booking) low and behold our flight was YESTERDAY. Seriously. I wanted to die. Well first I wanted to throw-up and then die. I went to the customer service desk. Yep, sure enough we had missed the flight and of course we are at fault so there is NOTHING they can do about it. Luckily (I use that term lightly) there is a flight leaving in an hour to Bali and it just happens to have 4 seats and I can buy them right there for a whopping last minute rate. Frantically I am looking online and calling the airline to see if we can get a better deal but no...the sales have already been closed as the flight is happening in 30 minutes. What better, because I had messed up on the flight booking on one end I had messed it up on the other end as well and my flight dates and hotel dates didn't match up and I got to spend the money for all new flights one way and extending the flights back to Singapore on the return flight. Now this whole time my lovely husband whom I have been so angry at just a few short days ago for something as stupid as a bottle is calm and cool and kind and not angry and if he is, he isn't showing me that. He is being nice and loving and soothing and telling me it could happen to anyone. (Hang head in shame here) Note to self: try to be more like Nate.


The whole flight I am just praying that Bali will be so amazing that we won't feel the sting of a twice paid for trip and guess what...it was SO WORTH IT! Rather than stay at a big nice hotel, we booked in a gorgeous resort that had individual villas each with their own pool. We had the bonus of being at a resort with a large pool and the benefits of the spa and room service and restaurant in addition to the feel of being at our own private villa without other tourists. We could have spent all our time lounging around at our pool, but we did a few touristy things as well. Holden enjoyed body surfing at sunset, we did a little shopping around Seminyak and made a trip up to Ubud for some amazing scenery and monkey encounters.

BIG little Deuce

Finn, our chub-a-bub started out as such a little guy and has really grown into our big boy. He is much bigger than Holden was at this age and continues to surprise us with his sheer size! At the ER the other day(another story for another day) he weighed in at a whopping 33 lbs. He eats vegetables and fruit. No one believes me, but he is our little vegetarian feasting on spinach and squash and carrots and peas.

We had a special day the other day, just the three of us while Holden was at school when we went to the pool. It's been quite some time since Finnley joined us poolside. He wasn't exactly thrilled with the water but boy did he look yummy in his speedo.

He has such a fun personality. Full of mischief and spice. He is so shy at first with people and takes quite some time to warm up which is so unlike him when in the confines of our home with our family. It's not a day in our home if Deuce hasn't had a tantrum by 9am and several more throughout the day. We have to laugh as they are quite cute and brought on by the simplest things like not opening the door quickly enough for him, or closing the fridge or taking the broom away or taking more than 10 seconds to change his diaper. He really is a bright light in our family. He adores his brother, truly madly loves him and thinks he is a big kid too. He understand almost everything we say and lights up when we understand what he is gesturing to or babbling about. He is the spitting image of his father but with the fire of his mama. Finnley, our lives were not complete before you graced us with your presence.

I wish someone would have told me that you will love your children differently. There were times I doubted that I had the capacity to love another child the way I love my Holden but everyone said it was possible and true enough, the love expands. But the love I have for Holden and the love I have for Finnley are so different, one is not better or worse it's just a different. I love Hold as my first, as the boy who made me a mother, as the child who stole my heart and made me realize just how deep love can go. Finnley I love as my baby, the boy who made me confident in my ability to be a mother which is the most amazing thing I have ever been called. He has shown me how big love can be. I can barely remember the days and years before these two boys. Having them is a newness of responsibility, a reminder that I am no longer the most important person and that so few things matter outside of them.

A relaxing beach vacation

Those were Nate's exact words for what he wanted after his chaotic 2 weeks at work.

This is what he is getting instead:

A weekend swim with the whale sharks in Donsol. The whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea and range from 18 feet to 40 feet long and lucky for us they feed on plankton. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm a little nervous, but more excited. As for Nate, I doubt this will be too relaxing but he did say beach so I got it half right!

Watch out HOLLYWOOD

"When do I get my own movie?"

are the words that came out of this kids mouth on the way to his photo shoot the other day. WOW. Mr. Ambitious. He shot for this brand a year ago for their store displays and its fun to see how far he has come in a year. Last time the shoot was smiles and fun and this time, they wanted brooding and serious. He complied and when they pulled out the fan and the skate board for action shots, he thought he had hit the big time. They even let him have the board after he asked about a million times for it. Last time he wanted the surf board prop they brought and his leaving comment was, "next time, bring a Ferrari." SERIOUS. Every day I wonder how I can love him more and every day I do.

Tondo

Here is the link to photos I took on our trip to Tondo last month. It was a moving place to visit and while it was sad it was also very beautiful.


www.picasaweb.google.com/MelissaMayPhotography

Every Mom's dream and other musings in San Francisco

"I am totally going to be a fortune cookie maker when I grow up," is what Holden exclaimed as we were leaving the fortune cookie factory that we found down a tiny alley in the middle of Chinatown. As long as it makes you Happy Hold! I love that in the eyes of child anything and everything is possible. Finding the fortune cookie factory was somewhat paramount for us as 2 years ago in Beijing Holden searched high and low for a fortune cookie, this tradition is clearly an American one so we have come full circle and hopefully someday will have a family business. Maybe Holden could introduce the fortune cookie to the Chinese IN China. :)

Finnley was thrilled in Chinatown he smiled at everyone and was very gregarious and excited as we ate dumplings. Dumplings which for the first time Holden tried. How is it that we have had the best dumplings in their country of origin and yet he waits until Chinatown San Francisco style to decide that yeah, they are alright? As we were parked by the window of the hotel waiting for Nate and Holden to return from a errand Finnley found his yaya! She passed by the window and boy did he holler for her. " YAYA YAYA!" She didn't stop, she didn't hear his cry for help and he was a little crushed as he kept banging at the window with his sippy cup. Ah, someone to rescue me from these people that drag me through the rainy city is what he was thinking I am sure. Heaven help us if we have to leave the Philippines for good.

We bummed around the city today amazed at how much it reminds us of other places all over the world. Enthralled by the things that all tourists are amazed by. Wishing it wasn't raining so that we could play in the park or bike across THE bridge. The jet lag has passed by now (knock on wood) and Finnley slept through the night. Nate has left us today and will again tomorrow for meetings and survive we will as long as we find a toy store soon. "What am I going to do all day today?" I asked him. "I thought you were going to go shopping." he said. "Ok, but what am I going to do tomorrow?" He scoffed "Surely you won't be able to shop two days in a row will you?" Ah, to find a man who knows you so well...bliss

I left my heart in San Francisco and my toothbrush in Manila

San Francisco is our first stop on our homes leave this winter and it's cold oh so cold and rainy. The city seems expansive and open and uncrowded even for having over 800,000 residents. The crisp air is nice, but I find myself longing for the warmth of the tropics.

So far this trip to the States has made me feel like a foreigner in my own country.

I think Asian hotels have officially spoiled us. I packed nothing in the form of toiletries forgetting that hotels in the US don't provide toothbrushes and paste, razors and toiletries for children. When we walked into Starbucks (and there is literally one on every corner in SF) we look like we have never seen a coffee shop before. There are different things on the menu and cooler and on the shelves and we just stand there looking a little shocked. I am sure the barrista assumes we have just fallen off the turnip truck and have never been to a "big city," yet Manila is 10 times the size. I keep waiting for someone to open the darn door for me and I asking where the CR is and saying things like "no need" and "for a while." Maybe I can blame this all on the long flight with a 14 month old.

After a rather uneventful flight (always good when travelling with kids) jet lag officially reared it's ugly head lastnight and I am certain everyone on the 25th floor of the Marriott knows it! Finnley had a rough night but the rest of us were so tired we pretty much slept through his all-night-tantrum. He cried "YayaYaya" throughout the night and to be honest I was kind of hoping one of the hotel staff (hopefully Filipino and understanding of the word) would hear him and come running. No such luck. Luckily everyone slept in and we started our day fairly refreshed.

Rainy weather calls for bowls of soup in fresh sourdough bread bowls so we headed for Fishermans Wharf and Pier 39. The cold rain seemed to have kept most of the sealions away but there were enough for the boys to get the point and we had glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Holden is pretty intrigued by the concept of the prison. Hopefully, for the right reasons! Afterwards we headed to Ghiradelli square for a little persuasion of the chocolate kind.

We still have a few more days here to explore and then off we head to the frozen tundra where at least I know there are fireplaces...and grandparents!