Sending our love to Helen

Helen is our helper, or maid as they call it here.  I know she looks Indian but she is Malaysian (her family came from India generations ago).  There is a sizable minority group of Indians here in Malaysia. 

Here is Joseph with his best buddy.  He loves Helen.

When I first met her I was surprised that she introduced her name as Helen, because she didn't look like a Helen to me!  I have since learned her real name is Ailantham Poonusamy.

When we first got here I felt really bad hiring help since as an American that is really strange.  The funny thing is that EVERYONE here has a maid since they are so cheap so people thought I was crazy for not jumping on the bandwagon.  When we realized Mike would be traveling so much we tentatively hired Helen for a week and she was so helpful that we asked her to stay full time.  

I still feel a bit guilty having help (shouldn't I be able to I handle two kids on my own?), but hey, living in a foreign country is hard (okay here's my complaining for the day--to get anything done takes two times as long and usually involves a breakdown and/or much crying and frustration on my part--I cry probably weekly).

You can tell from how much I have typed already that I still feel guilty for having a helper.  I guess one good thing is that we provide employment.  Looking at it from an economic standpoint (you know Mike, he is always the analytical/economics-obsessed Univ of Chicago grad), essentially we are redistributing wealth, right?

Anyway, here is my note to Helen:

Helen, we absolutely adore you.  Thank you for working for our family.  

Thank you for doing so many things for the boys, including, but not limited to, finely chopping heaps of vegetables to sneak into the boys' food, making Joseph his favorite staple of stir fry noodles, and scouring the wet markets for the best organic chickens (called "kampung chicken" which means village chicken).  

You help us stay sane with such a busy schedule, especially when Mike has to travel so much.  

As I write here from KL, Mike is currently suffering from jet lag in Baltimore after a few days of board meetings in Paris.  He will be back here on Thursday morning (he gets back Thanksgiving day--hooray).

Turning 30 - in Bali

 

For my birthday weekend we went to Bali.

  Mike and I are trying to be smart with our money.  However since this is a REALLY BIG YEAR for me birthday-wise I really wanted to take a weekend getaway even if it was just a cheap shoestring trip.

It is very hard for me to psychologically wrap my mind around having to turn the big 3-0,

plus I also wanted Mike to celebrate with me how hard I have been working lately and how much Andrew is improving.  I needed a weekend when I didn't have to stay up at night thinking about autism spectrum and glutathione levels and applied behavior analysis.  I am so emotionally drained.  So we used Mike's hotel points and found cheap airfare to the pretty little island in Indonesia.  

And as I was on the phone to my mom telling her about our budget trip, it dawned on me: What alternate reality do I live in that a cheap shoestring trip is going to BALI?  I mean seriously.

This is the Bali airport.  Right outside the little terminal is this temple structure

This is a better shot because you can see the Bali airport terminal is old and tiled, but then you look through the window and you see that cool temple thing,

I was so excited to be in Bali that I was taking all these airport pictures before we even got to immigration, but Mike was stressing out.  Whenever he flies to Indonesia he gets nervous since someone at Mike's company was shaken down by Jakarta airport officials in a room for an hour for a bribe.  So Mike didn't really relax until after we got out of the airport into our hotel shuttle.

I am showing you my Visa for Indonesia which is "paid upon arrival" which basically means you get off the plane and stand in line to pay the airport officials $25 each in (shamelessly) US Dollars.  They don't even want it in their local Rupia.  Then you have to pay AGAIN at departure ($20 USD) to leave the country.

Mike waiting for our bags.  I am just having so much fun taking pictures of this strange new country and you can tell Mike is stressed and just wants to get out of the airport as soon as possible.

Yey we made it out of the airport with no incident and into the hotel shuttle.  We are now on the way to the hotel.  At this point we called home to check in on Helen and the boys who were happily playing on the playground at home.  They love Helen so much I don't even think they noticed we were gone.  Joseph kept giving us kisses through the phone though.

The next few pictures are taken from the car window.  I was so excited to see what Indonesia looks like.  I know Bali isn't quite the real hard core Indonesia, but it was still cool to see.

Our new BFF, Mr. Goat, in the back of the pickup truck in front of us.  As you can tell he was very excited to welcome us to Bali.

Mommy and daughter.  I am getting more accustomed to seeing babies carried on scooters, but it still scares me.

When we got to the hotel before we could walk inside we had to go through a security gate/metal detector.  When we arrived they these gorgeous Balinese dancers do this dance for us and present us with flowers.  I was charmed until I realized the dancers were probably just hired by the hotel to distract us from the inconvenience of the metal detector.

See I told you!  See the metal detector on the left.  This is what you walk through upon entering the hotel.  It was inconvenient, but I kept reminding myself that at least it shows the hotel is secure!

Happy birthday cake.

After arriving we set off to explore the hotel grounds.  There was this cool temple that looked old (but I am sure the hotel built it new to look old--a la Disneyland's Indiana Jones ride).  The highlight of the temple was a sign that no menstruating women could enter the temple.

Birthday dinner.

The next day we went on a bike ride along the beach boardwalk.

Here is Mike wearing his new beach hat.  Just kidding.

A view of the our beach (Nusa Dua) in Bali.

This is my favorite picture of the trip.  Actually I was too scared to follow Mike on my rickety beach cruiser onto the jetty's narrow cobblestone pat,h so I just stood back and took pictures.

Another "old" temple that I am sure was just built by a hotel.  It was really cool nonetheless.

Here is our private evening dinner setup.  Yeah right.  It was for some other couple that paid $$$ to have a private candlelit dinner on the beach.

Here was another dinner on the beach.  It was really pretty how they set it all up.  I was kind of embarrassed for being a total tourist and taking pictures of them but the party setup was just so darn pretty.  There were a lot of ads in the hotel for beach weddings and stuff.

Really I don't even think I need a caption for this photo.

Your last and final picture of our trip is a photo of Mike next to a pile of dirty pool towels.  He asked, "Why are you making me stand next to this pile of towels?" And I replied, "I don't know, I like the stripy towels!"

Well the good news is I had a good birthday, and we DID make it back to KL without being bombed, so I'd say all things considered it was a successful trip.

Ta ta for now.

E

Andrew's 3rd birthday part two

Family photo time

After Andrew woke up from his nap, it started to rain.  Dadda tried to get some of Andrew's getting some energy out indoors -- jumping jumping jumping

Dadda and his first born

Andrew wanted an Elmo cake.  I had already made a big robins-egg-blue "A" cake for Andrew's school celebration, so for our at home cake we went simple.  I had Mike print off a picture of Elmo, I laminated it, and we stuck it on the cake.  I know, shameless right?  All you moms out there are way better than me because I see the gorgeous frosted cakes you all make!  But the frosting is this amazing healthy (dairy and trans fat free) homemade frosting made out of blended cashews, lemon, and vanilla.  Who knew frosting could be so healthy and delicious at the same time?

Birthday cake time!  Andrew refused his cake on his 1st and 2nd birthday, but this year he at least tried it.

We gave the boys each a piece and then as an activity, "decorated" the cake with fresh organic berries.  Joseph really loved it. BTW, you don't even want to know how expensive blueberries and strawberries are here.   It was such a splurge.

Present time:

Thank you Grandma Marianne for the red car and the books!  As you can see, Andrew was so excited to open your package.

Wow a talking Winnie the Pooh book from Gug and Bumps.  Thank you Gug and Bumps!  Andrew loves hearing your recorded voices reading the story.  He reads it so much sometimes I have to take it away to give the book a break.

Thank you Grandma Jillair for the organic cotton PJs! 
No antimony or nasty chemicals in these pjs! (Andrew's testing shows he is high in antimony, a flame retardant chemical they put in kids clothes and mattresses-- it is a toxin that messes with his neurotransmitters and impairs his ability to methylate).
  Andrew loves the PJs and they look so cute on him.  And since Grandma Jillair sent two, I let Joseph open up the second pair so he could have something to open.

After presents the rain stopped so we all went downstairs for a swim, since it is really nice and warm this time of year.  What a fun birthday.  Thanks to everyone who wished Andrew happy birthday and sent presents.  We are so grateful you remember us so far away.

T-H-R-E-E

 Happy Birthday to Andrew

Today he turns three!

 Below are pictures of Andrew's morning at school.  He had to dress up in a cultural outfit from the country he is from.  As you can see, I couldn't think of anything to put him in but a suit.  (Alas a cowboy outfit would have been cute, but where would I get a cowboy outfit here?)

Here are all the ABA therapists waiting to greet their kids.  They loved seeing Andrew dressed up.

Weng is reading Andrew a book here at "table time."  Andrew has four therapists.  Today was a team meeting so the other three therapists are all watching.

We practiced playing "duck duck goose," a game that Andrew has been learning all week.

Next up, time for Andrew's birthday party!  Adam (to Andrew's left) birthday was also celebrated.

Here we are singing happy birthday to Andrew with three lit candles!  Andrew was really scared of the lit candles so he wanted me to blow them out.  There was so much pressure since everyone in the room was cheering for Andrew to blow them out.

Here I am trying my best to keep son #2 from smearing his hands all over the cake.

These are all the kids watching.  Every one of them is on the autism spectrum.

Andrew gets to cut his cake.  They have been reading Andrew a "social story" (a book they made up just for Andrew) for weeks now about his birthday, and how there will be balloons, and he will get to blow out the candles and cut the cake.  He has it memorized.

Andrew actually ate a bite of cake, but Joseph was the one that was excited to eat it.  Keep in mind I made it is GFCF and it surprisingly is was really good.

Andrew wanted to play with the candles on Adam's cake.

We had a fun morning at school.  At 12:30 it was finally time to go home.  Here is a video of the drive home.