my my

The first real week of school is almost over. We've had a graduation dinner and I've run around like never before. Apparently it is a great way to lose weight since everybody is commenting on me looking thinner. Maybe i need to keep this level of stress up but I' rather spend some time planning my lessons properly and going home on time.

Since going home on time is my goal for the day, I do keep this short. I've lots of work to correct though and I might even get around to switching on the laptop later. In that case, I might be tempted to write something more than just an update note here....

A snake in the back yard

Yesterday when I arrived home Xenne ran outside to tell me the news.. we had a snake in the garden. 

Apparently it came via the mango tree from the garden next door. That house had been empty for a while and the garden hadn't been maintained well even before  that.

KK killed it eventually but he said it hadn't been easy. The snake was fast and he said it was of the poisonous kind. Mmm, glad I wasn't there. I did see it this morning though; a long, thin, green-and-white snake.

This morning, the mango tree lost several of its branches, especially the big one that reached our roof. I hope that after the huge black ants who also came from that mango tree, and now the snake, the mango tree will host no more guests who we rather do without.

Too busy

School has started at least for the teachers. Students will come on Wednesday. It seems like everybody wants a slice of my time. So, updating this si not a high priority.

But, we have bought a secondhand Wii this weekend. Better for teh kdis since the rainy season is still in full swing.

We also have two young cats (about 6 months old). We were at another branch of  our favorite teashop and Xenne saw a big orange tomcat he wanted to take home. I said jokingly he had to ask the owner of the shop. This man we usually see at our own place so Xenne knew him. He went straight there and asked for a cat. The owner said 'yes' and before I knew it one of the boys brought 2 cats. Which one Xenne wanted? eventually we decided to come back the next day since we had no box or anything to put the cat or cats in.

The next morning we got ourselves 2 cats (Xenne wanted them both) and in the taxi he named one 'Candy' and the other "Jinger' (Ginger). When I left this morning, the ladies were buttonholed next to the Buddha upstairs...

Finally, working internet but no time to post

Internet has been terribly slow of late. I did try to log on yesterday from home but it was an exercise in futility.

Now, internet is working but i have been running around for most of the day at school. Catching up on so many things that needed to be done. Especially since the computers and server were cleaned and therefore were unavailable for use at the end of last week.

It is almost half past 4 in the afternoon and I've just had a chace to check my email. I'll post this, then go shopping. We're out of diapers, wet wipes, and milk.

frustration

The internet has been slower than slow these last days. You can get a cup of coffee, wait for it to cool enough to drink, drink, and go for a second round.. By that time of course the connection has timed out...   I spend my time playing Spider Solitaire just to keep frustration at bay long enough to try and read my mail and maybe, maybe post this...

'New' shopping mall

We're at the shopping mall that is close to our house. We can walk here in about 15 minutes (Xenne's pace and stroller dictated). The place has been here for 4-5 years already but we never really visited. They didn't have a supermarket and somehow we forgot about it.

Since it is 'summer' holiday (more like rainy season holiday but at school we western teachers still refer to it as summer holiday) we decided to walk over and have a look around. We hadn't been for quite some time and someone told us it now  had a supermarket and even a playground.

It turns out that that is all true. Even better, the playground is much bigger than the one at Ocean where we usually go. Ok, this one is $1,20 to get inside but you do have a fair bit of space to run around in, climb over, swing, and more. The supermarket is there too though it doesn't look terribly big. We;ll have a look around there a little later.

But best of all, there is also a small bookstore (with a few english titles in photocopy form but heck they cost next to nothing) and a good myanmar selection. Next to the bookstore is an internet cafe. And all that is on the same floor, just around the corner of the playground.

So now we have everything we want very close to our house. The walk here is also interesting and it is a walk through small streets. We encountered 2 bicycles and 1 car. So very easy to do with Xenne and Eaindra.

Conspiracy!

The last time I had a night of uninterrupted sleep must have been way before Eaindra was born. She turned 1 last week.

Of course one knows that sleep is a treasured commodity when you have a baby. It is also common knowledge that the weeks before a baby is due, mama gets very little sleep since it is terribly difficult to be comfortable with such a huge baby-tummy. 

Our little one hasn’t mastered the art of sleeping through the night yet. In December she was well on her way with waking me up only once or twice a night. Then she got a cold and all bets were off.

Ever since that time, something will happen to make sure I will not get even 5 hours of continuous sleep. If it isn’t Eaindra than someone else or even something else will make sure I’m awoken before those precious hours have past. Like the last couple of days. Eaindra was doing well and I seemed to be on my way of getting a few hours of real sleep when something woke me. Xenne had sju-sju-ed in his bed so up we got and changed his bedding. He was asleep again real fast.  Great.  Unfortunately  Eaindra was wide awake by that time. It took me another 2 hours to get her back to sleep well enough so I could put her down. She has the habit of sensing exactly when I let her go and usually wakes up right there and then and I can start all over again.

The next night Xenne was trashing around in his bed and eventually crawled into ours. Of course, that woke me up but I wasn’t sleeping much anyway because of his continuous moving about. I got him back to sleep, checked on EAindra and found she had followed her big brother’s example: she was all wet. Luckily the bed wasn’t really so we didn’t need to change everything this time. For me, the interruptions weren’t over because KK decided to snore loudly that night. Horror!

The evening after the power was cut at 7 pm. This happens sometimes and normally we have power again shortly after and it is rare that it lasts a couple of hours. Xenne and Eaindra went to bad easily so my hopes were up. At 9 pm we had a flicker of light but the power stayed off. Again at somewhere just after 10 pm. Shortly after I decided to go to bed. I thought I’d switched off all the lights but at about half past one I woke up because of a light I’d forgotten and the aircon switching on. I closed the windows that I had opened earlier and went back to sleep. At about 12, Eaindra had put in an appearance for a bottle already so I didn’t have to worry about that. At somewhere between 3 and 4 I woke up again because I was hot. The power was off again and I realized that it was easier to turn off the aircon and open the windows again. All stayed quiet untl 6 am when the kids woke up….

The last 2 days I’ve had  only had a night-time bottle for  Eaindra at around 1 am, a quick check when either one of them is uneasy in their sleep (they seem to alternate this between the two of them) and the 6 o’clock waking up of either Xenne or Eaindra. It looks like we’re slowly getting back to a more normal sleep pattern.

Needless to say that KK sleeps through  most of this and usually only wakes up when called upon urgently or shaken awake.