a12 is home again today. yesterday i sort of wondered to myself, “how long should i wait to take her to the doctor?” looks like four days is the answer.
we don’t actually make a doctors appointment here – we just go to hospital and tell ‘em what’s wrong. then they send us off in the right direction. today that was pediatrics. a doctor sees us pretty quickly. takes a peek at her throat, her ears, listens to her breathing and says strep throat. she reads me off a list of the medications she is prescribing and sends us in the direction of the cashier. only problem, i know strep throat. i’ve had it. i know how it makes you feel and a12 isn’t feeling that way. i’m pretty sure it’s not strep throat, but the medications all sounded familiar and not specific to strep.
while waiting to check out the nurse comes and finds us. she says that upon further examination the doctor has changed her mind. further examination of what i don’t know since a12 was with me, not with the doctor. she says what a12 really has is acute ph….. she actually said a word, but i couldn’t make it out. figured i’d just check the medical report and it would be good. and there’s a whole other list of medications. one of which tends to cause allergic reactions so keep an eye on a12 after she takes it. as we’re leaving the hospital i happen to scan the medical report. it says she has acute phgobbiltygoop. can’t read it. i figure that’s okay, i wouldn’t know what it meant even if i could read it. and am still somewhat curious about the change in diagnosis.
we get home. i pull up dr. google, who which is brilliant, thinking maybe i’ll get lucky and stumble upon the answer. and sure enough, pay dirt! google has that nifty i’m-gonna-try-to-guess-what-you’re-typing-as-you-type-it-feature and all it took was me entering acute ph and it told me the rest. she has acute pharyngitis. which seems to be a much broader diagnosis, because turns out strep is a type of pharyngitis.
love a good face mask
out of nablopomo desperation i bring you a true tale from ten years ago.
you know how when you’re at the end of your rope and you’re tempted to say just about anything just to get your kids to leave you alone for just one moment? well, i wish i could say that’s the reason i told c15 – way back when he was only c5 – that a sitting in a hot tub would cook his liver.
there was some family in town (by some family i mean people we are actually related to, not some family i can’t remember the name of) and we’d been invited to join them for an afternoon of swimming. we spent several hours frolicking in the sun – swimming, lounging, eating – and, as it got towards evening, people headed for the hot tub. the hot tub that was clearly posted “no one under the age of 15 allowed”. c5 really wanted to get in. i told him what the sign said and for a moment, a very short moment he was okay with that. but then he wanted to know why no one under the age of 15 could get in. he said that just doesn’t make sense. and please could he get in. please!
i had a vague recollection that hot tubs were dangerous for kids. though i couldn’t exactly remember why. (i mean why i recollected that, not why they’re dangerous.) and, since i was looking for an easy answer, i took my vague recollection and created this one. “it takes 15 years for the human liver to fully develop. until then it can easily be cooked.” he accepted that answer. end of discussion. i patted myself on the back and returned to my back float.
a wee while later (maybe a day, maybe a week – it’s been 10 years, i don’t exactly remember) we were over at my grandparent’s house. c5 had sat down in my grandmother’s chair to watch some cartoons. i was reading a book. everyone was content. suddenly i hear some quiet crying from c6. he’s watching cartoons, not exactly tear jerking. so i ask him what’s wrong. he stands up, walks towards me, points back to the chair he’d been sitting in – where there also happens to be a turned on heating pad – and says, “i just cooked my liver. it’s all over.”
of course, i fixed it. explained that momma’s such a kidder, what a jokester she is and that livers don’t bake, they boil. oh, i kid!
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it’s 9p on nov. 10 and i have to post something because of noboplomo. so here’s nothing something.
today all three kids were home sick. two – a12 and s10 – stayed home and the nurse called to ask me to pick up the the other – c15 – before i’d made it off the school campus. i think a12’s is sinus related. c15’s is maybe tired related and s10? i think it’s best if you hear read it in his own words.
i have a stomach ache and my head hurts. but it’s definitely not a food thing because i ate breakfast and it’s stayin’ down.
i didn’t let it alter my plans. still did coffee, ran to the store and went to the orthodontist. and only had 4 calls to “report” the happenings at the house. of course, i was only gone 2 hours.
1.) our mâe bâan’s husband has aspirations of being a dog groomer.
s'more's topknot
2.) putting eggs on to boil and then taking a nap does not produce the best results.
over-boiled eggs
3.) s10 and i do not see eye to eye when it comes to after school snacks. okay, so i didn’t just learn this one today – but it was reinforced in a mighty way.
after school snack?
i saw at least 2 other kids order the exact same thing. corn with butter and chocolate sprinkles. maybe their paletes are injured.
it is possible that it only felt like i ran so far away because i had to wake up so very early this morning and i was doing this run without the aid of performance enhancing drugs – you know, like caffeine. really it was only a 3.5 k, which is just over 2 miles.
every year the seventh grade at the kids’ school does a cancer thing. they study terry fox (he’s canadian, not sure how he got picked when it’s an american school my kids go to. but whatever…), they write reports, they can do a fund raiser and they can participate in a cancer run. those last two things they vote on. and the ballot looks something like this…
a) make it easy on our parents*. let’s do nothing extra. no run. no bake sale.
b) make our parents* grumpy. let’s do the run (which translates into our parents* having to get up early, get us up early and get us to the location.) only. no bake sale.
c) make our parents* hot. let’s do the bake sale only (which means our moms have to bake us stuff so we can sell it.) no early morning run.
d) make our parents* miserable! let’s do it all. let’s get our parents* to get up early, then wake up our cheerful little selves and drive us out to the reservoir. on their only sleep in day. and let’s have them bake stuff for us to sell.
their vote was almost unanimous. and parents* weren’t at all polled. so today i got up earlier than i wanted to, woke up 2 girls (one was mine, the other a friend) and managed to locate the reservoir and find a parking space. and i also participated. i figured as long as i was there i might as well…
i would have had a much faster time had i not been distracted…
and when we were done there was breakfast. mmm, mmm good.
the bake sale hasn’t happened, yet. it’s thursday. i’m still waiting for a12 to tell me about it.
*parents = moms. because the dads left the country. the dad in our family is in indonesia. the dad in the family of the mom i walked with is in afghanistan, and the dad of the other girl we took with us today is in burma. these men go to great efforts to avoid getting up early on a saturday!
we did this last year and were mightily disappointed when we heard that it was cancelled this year because of swine flu, but then we heard that it wasn’t cancelled. and we were happy again.
this lantern release takes place on the campus of maejo university. and it is beautiful to watch. last year we released a lantern. this year, a12, s10 and i managed to catch ours on fire so instead of releasing it we stomped on it.
since michael had my camera in indonesia these pictures were taken by a friend.
*yi peng and loy khratong are the same thing. yi peng is what it’s called in northern thailand. which is where i live.
*this is a very non-green festival… all these lanterns have to land somewhere.
i know i’ve mentioned our mâe bâan’s desire to earn a bit more money. times are tough and she’s the major bread winner for her household – with 2 kids and a husband, i’m sure it’s difficult to make ends meet. we’ve done our best to help. we pay her a decent wage and pay her husband to keep up the yard. we also give monetary gifts at christmas and birthdays. and we’re not really sure what else we can do.
last week she came to us and asked for 4 weeks pay in advance. she’s done this before and it makes me nervous. because if she needs all that money right now, what will they live on for the next 4 weeks?? the reason she needed money was because she was joining the many, many, many vendors that lined up with food to sale during loy khratong.
just a few of the vendors
we went to her food stall everyday and purchased the lôok chín she’d made. lôok chín are meatballs. made from all types of meat – chicken, pork, fish, etc… then they are deep fried. everytime we went by her stall there was no one buying – only us. every night i did a bit of an eyeball comparison to measure how much had been sold. and i was getting the sinking feeling that the answer was not much. when we saw how late the festivities were going we gave her two paid days off. wednesday was the first day this week she was supposed to work, but she wasn’t feeling well so her husband came. he brought with him all the beverages (cokes and bottled water) they had purchased to sell at their stall and asked if we would by them. which we did. but he also brought several bags of lôok chín. we offered to pay for them, but he wouldn’t let us. and now i’m feeling worried for them.
i’m certain they lost money on this venture and they’ve got 3 more weeks before they are due any money from us. what will they do? and what is our responsibility? where does the guilt i’m feeling come from?
it seems like we just did this. oh, that’s because we did just do this – 12 months ago. it’s sort of like when we were first married and i thought that a lease coming up meant we just had to move. but it was easy then. one bedroom apartments can be moved with very little effort. but 4 bedroom houses with an office – that’s a bit more daunting.
a year ago we moved because we found a better location. no more 40 minute drives into school in the morning. now we could walk! but, turns out this house is hot. hot, hot, hot. we hit 111 degrees about once a week. and there’s just no recovering from that.
the new house – it’s not so hot. and it has a huge yard. and it’s even closer to the school. and it’s much easier to get to. and it’s not so hot. oh, i almost forgot. it also has 8 bathrooms on the property that are not accessible from inside the house. so, bonus – maybe. it also comes with a 2 year lease. a nice little guarantee that we’ll be staying put.
ginormous yard
an aviary - i'm not feeling it
there are 6 potties in this building. all squatty.
last night was loy khratong yài. and it was certainly yài-er than lék. there were more fireworks, more kom loy, more people and more noise. so, of course, we went. c15 got a bit unnerved by the loud firework that went off right at his feet. a12 was a bit distraught by the painful firework that landed on her hip and s10 just enjoyed – not the pain his siblings were feeling, but the all around fun of the bigger, better and louder.
i took in the parade. they’d had it the two previous nights, but last night i just happened to be at the right place at the right time. the rest of the fam find parades to be a bit of a drag. and, in all fairness, the parades here do tend to go on and on. i finally gave up on waiting for the parade to come to me and, instead, went looking for the end of the parade myself. because i was tired.
here’s a parade guessing game. boys or girls??
oh, i’m too tired for games. i’ll just tell you, they’re all boys.
and it’s true what they say – everyone loves a parade (except my family…)
the fireworks went pretty nonstop until 7 am. i’ve heard rumor that we shouldn’t be disturbed by them tonight. i don’t believe it.
it’s loy krathong. yesterday, nov. 2, was officially the day, but why limit it to just one day when you can start a week early and end it who knows when?? officially they spread it out over two days. yesterday was the loy khratong lék (lék = little). tonight is loy khratong yài(yài = big) i’m a little concerned because if last night was lék, i can’t fathom what yài will be.
for the past week the crackles and booms of fireworks have kept us up late into the night. the past two nights they’ve kept us up until the wee hours of the morning. the last one i heard was at 4:30 this am. that’s when i passed out. but when the alarm went of at 6a – the first thing i heard was pop. only louder. we’ve roamed down to the river to enjoy the fun. we’ve shot off a few fireworks ourselves. and we’ve witnessed the kom loys bumping into peoples heads when they’ve been released too soon. (luckily it only left a bit of singed hair, it could have been much, much worse.) it is quite the celebration. huge, loud, overwhelming and dangerous. we’ll head out again tonight. hopefully, i’ll get some better pics. for now, here’s some pics from the past few nights. and the lyrics to the official loy krathong song.
Loy Krathong’s lyrics
November full moon shines,
Loi Krathong, Loi Krathong,
and the water’s high
in the river and local klong,
Loi Loi Krathong,
Loi Loi Krathong,
Loi Krathong is here and everybody’s full of cheer,
We’re together at the klong,
We’re together at the klong,
Each one with this krathong,
As we push away we pray,
We can see a better day.
