Photos of the boys

 

 

Happy Wesak Day

Since Malaysia is such a mixing pot of cultures and religions, there a lot of holidays.  AND Malaysians get work off.  Imagine having like 20 holidays off work in the US.  How cool would that be. 

This past month we celebrated Wesak Day.

You are probably asking yourself what is Wesak Day?

Wesak day is the major buddhist holiday celebrating buddha.

It actually encompasses the birth, enlightenment (Nirvana), and passing away (Parinirvana) of Gautama Buddha.

 

We went to Brickfields (the famous Indian neighborhood in KL) for the big celebration.  There were so many people and so much incense.  There was also free food (vegetarian of course).

 They also sell these cute pink lotus flower candles everywhere.

 Everyone was lined up here to go in to pay their respect to the big gold buddha statue inside this building below.

Here is a pic of the boys and I.  You can tell from their faces that the boys were really thrilled about being out in the hot humid sun with people thronging them.

 We picked up some vegetarian fried rice and noodles.  It actually wasn't that flavorful.  Meat definitely makes a dish a little tastier.  But I think it is really cool that those who are religious vegetarians stick to their diet!  Way to go buddhists.

Moving in

"After nine months of my parents dragging me around the world, I finally have a home." Joseph says.

 

We finally signed a lease and got to move in to our new place.  We shuttled our stuff over from the temp housing in SHOPPING CARTS.  How glamorous is that.  That's how we roll in Malaysia. 

At least I think Joseph enjoyed it.

The first night we moved in to our new place we had a small amount of our stuff (toys, etc) but no major furniture.  Here we are eating dinner on the train table.  Another glamorous moment in the life of the Featherstones.

When the toys came it was better than Christmas.  The boys were occupied for hours discovering new things to play with.

The day the movers came with our big stuff was amazing.  Below is the pic where they are starting to bring things up.  They filled up our lift lobby with boxes, and then opened them and brought them in.

 

 Then they had me check off when I received the box to make sure we weren't missing anything.

 

Then the next shipment was the rug we purchased here and the new toy storage.

 I love the below picture because this is our life.  Andrew playing intently with a toy (not caring about Joseph) and Joseph just dying to play with what Andrew has (not caring about any of the other millions of toys).  He usually tries to take it so many times until Andrew finally gives up, hands it over, and runs off to play with another toy.  Then Joseph finally has the toy he wanted to begin with, but doesn't want it any more because Andrew is not playing with it.  And so it goes.

Unpacking boxes in the wet kitchen.  Total chaos.

P.S. Joseph is totally cruising now, as evidenced by the below picture.

The place is still pretty empty since we are still waiting on more furniture.  In the mean time the store we bought our table from is going to have to make new chairs so they lent us some ugly ones to use in the mean time.

 Despite all the drama of having to live for days without our furniture, having ugly chairs, unpacking, not having internet, our intercom being broken, etc., I am so happy to deal with all of it because it means finally we have a home!  Hooray for our new home sweet home.

Just for fun

More shopping!  I am holding Joseph and my friend Kerry's daugher in this pic.

Did we mention we love the food here?  This is a place I will be taking you if you ever come to visit us.

The Mommy Warrior

Why haven't I posted in so long?  Why haven't I responded to anyone's emails (BTW I apologize profusely)?  First we have no internet (still) and won't get it until June 30th.  Are you kidding me? you ask.  No I wish I were.  Secondly, I have been in Mommy Warrior mode working overtime to recover our two year old from progressing into Autism.

Here is the update on Andrew:

We have now officially come out of the denial phase of Andrew's autism spectrum stuff, and we are now are in full blown "autism recovery" mode, which means:

1) I am doing a ton of research (US research books are hard to get here so I just got a kindle so I can download them), I highly recommend: Healing the New Childhood Epidemics (Dr. Bock author)

2) We put him in ABA school half a day (thanks to Dosie for the recommendation)--it is a Wisconsin based program that has a satellite office here, a total miracle that we found it

3) We put Andrew on the gluten free casein free diet and things have really changed.  He will now sit for an ENTIRE 10 minute session of singing time and isn't such a spacy kid.  Can you believe that he actually sits on the chair the whole time?  It is a miracle.  He does the "wheels on the bus" actions and everything.  He does not request "gock" all the time either.  It turns out he is accutely allergic to milk so he was in a cycle of addiction.  We still have much to work on but he is doing so much better.  THE GF/CF is so the key with him. 

Andrew at his first doctor's appointment in Singapore.  There are so many nurses!  They entertain Andrew while we are talking to the doctor.

4) We are doing "biomed" which is the new thing in America for treatment of autism basically means (in addition to ABA and GF/CF) testing him for all of the things that are commonly wrong internally with autistic kids (bowel dysfunction, heavy metals burden, vitamin deficiency), and working step by step to fix the problems.  Our DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor is in Singapore but we have to send Andrew's urine, stool, hair and blood samples to labs either in Australia or US to get good testing done.  Can you believe that I FedEX poop overnight from Malaysia to America.  Yes, I am a dedicated mom.  We have him on probiotics and enzymes now and we will be adding things after my second appointment with the doctor on Friday.  Get this--to meet with the doctor, I am flying in by myself in the morning to Singapore, meeting with the doctor at 11am, then flying back to be home at night to breastfeed Joseph and put the boys to bed.  Mike is taking the day off to watch the kids. 

The boys playing in the hotel room in Singapore

I have truly become a "mommy warrior."  I am 100% dedicated to helping Andrew recover no matter what it takes.  I am sure it will be a long road so I am trying to gear up.

Anyway, enough about that. Joseph is doing really well.  He eats a ton and is quite a celebrity here.  He is waving and cruising and playing peekaboo.  Oh what a doll.

I hope all is well with you all and I will post all of our fun Malaysian adventures again soon.  Love to all.

E

Getting to know KL

We don't have internet in our new place (that takes FOUR weeks to set up--seriously I thought they were kidding).  To do anything web-related I have to go downstairs to our building's "Book Club" room that has free wi-fi.  This room is partially open to the outside--this makes it hot--and has no AC so I hope you appreciate me sitting in the heat swatting mosquitoes to bring to you this post.

Here are a few more photos of the last few weeks.  These are all still taken in our old place.

 I had to take a family photo with the boys because I actually curled my hair (that is a big deal since it is so hot and humid here).  

I SO appreciate Asian hair now since they can wear their hair down and it looks fabulous in this humid heat.  Courtney I am SO jealous of you.

Next up: eating adventures!

 I have been trying to get to know the REAL KL (I call where we live the fake KL since it is so nice and full of expats).   Janah (Helen's friend, pictured above) lives on this adorable street off Jalan Ipoh (very REAL Malaysia complete with wandering dogs, streetside wet markets, and a KFC--they are everywhere).  Janah has lived in the same house forever so she knows everyone.  This past week she took us to her favorite eatery in her neighborhood (pictured above with striped awning and blue tarp).

This is the street the eating stand is on (look for the blue tarp to the left of the silver car).

She picked out her favorite food for us.

Here we are back at home--Helen and Janah set out quite the spread for me.  Side note: Janah calls me "madam" which I think is so funny.

I started eating with my fork and knife but then noticed I was not doing it right--they were eating with their hand!  So then they explained you have to eat Malaysian food with your right hand (your left hand is for potty).

 

Then at the end of the meal you pour a few drips of water on your plate.  You are not supposed to leave your plate dry because wet plate means you will always have food.

Next up: shopping for an Indian punjabi suit!

Helen is on the left and Janah on the right with Andrew.   The grey car is our rental car (a Nissan X-Trail--not a very glamorous car and it is ridiculously expensive--maybe at least $1,000 USD per month).  We are getting rid of it as soon as we buy a car here.

So I want to get a punjabi suit (there are so many Indians here and everyone wears them).  They are different from a sari.  Helen and Janah took me to this row of shops that would have some good ones.

Here we are walking to the shop.

Option #1.  Bright orange

That was the best one I tried on, but I didn't buy it because I didn't like the way the fabric felt.  Anyways as we were walking out of the shop emptyhanded the sales ladies were being so rude and mean because I did not make a purchase.  It made me feel really bad.  Helen says that is normal for Malaysia so not to take it too personally.

Then Janah treated us to some fruit.  They cut it up and sell it in little baggies.  Joseph couldn't wait to get his hands on it (see below).

Here is Joseph enjoying being in the driver seat.

Helen made up a new game to play with Andrew.  He loves it.

As we have been driving around the city I have taken some pictures.  Here they are. 

Side note: I keep taking these pics so everyone back home can see what KL looks like.  However I am not a photographer, and I don't have a digital SLR, so the pics aren't perfect.  All of you have the most perfect pictures on their blogs (ahem glamorous Annie Reynolds) so just take them for what they are--crooked, awkward pics snapped from the window while driving on the left side of the road in a foreign country.

The high courts (below):

Petaling Street (aka Chinatown):

Since our shipment of belongings has taken so long to get here, Joseph has once again grown out of all his clothes.  I bought him some cheap Asian baby clothes (below).  Mike can't believe I put Joseph in a muscle shirt but I think it's funny.  It doesn't seem to keep people away from wanting to touch, hold and take pictures of him.

We took an excursion to the Central Market which sells all sorts of handmade artisan type items.  Here we are outside.

Before we could even walk into the market we were spotted by a group of Indonesian tourists.

After a hundred pictures we made it to the front of the central market.  As you can see it is a very architecturally striking turquoise art deco-style building.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the market's floor tiles.

Here I am in one of the shops buying a pashmina scarf for 15 MYR ($5).

Here is the shop owner and I--all buddy buddy.

On the way out I took some more shots of cool buildings I found.

Alright, well that is all for today.  I have more pics to post, including those of our new house since we are finally moved in.  I will post them soon.
I am sure you were wondering if I am now covered in sweat.  The answer is yes.  Enjoy.