Page 40

Take your child to work

This year Adam’s school came to the Embassy for Take your Child to Work Day. It’s usually only older children who are invited but I decided to take matters into my own hands and convince everyone at the Embassy to let Amerikids join. It was a pretty easy argument since all the parents work at the Embassy.

The kids loved it! We were waiting for them at the Embassy when their bus pulled up.

Randy was so excited to see Randy and insisted on holding his hand the entire time.

The children even got to meet the President!

Not sure what Adam is happier about, sitting at daddy’s desk or the chocolates Randy gave him.

Adam even got to sit in the Ambassador’s car, of course he was sitting next to his friend Victoria instead of the Ambassador but still pretty impressive feat at three.

If only Adam could come to work with us every day!

Our House

After our sister trip to Thailand Daphne had one day with the boys. Luckily this house came just in time. It was a present from the boys Grandpa and boy do they love it! It was a great treat for Daphne’s last day in Manila and has been a staple in our house ever since. It is always so amazing when we have visitors in Manila. It is a small bit of home in our far away one and makes living so far away a little easier. We are so lucky to have people travel so far to see us and we appreciate it so much. And just think, when you come visit you can have this house all for yourself!

And just like that our time with Aunt Das came to an end. I managed to hold back the end of time with family member tears (well most of them) since we’re going to see Aunt Das in just two short months in New York!

Here are Daphne’s top three about her trip (besides seeing the boys of course!)

1. Snorkeling off Apo island with sea turtles

(seeing another part of the Philippines)

2. First #twosisters trip in 10 years!!

3. Dinner with you guys at that steak place-had been too long!

We love you Aunt Das!

Bangkok sightseeing

Just in case you were all worried that all Daphne and I did in Bankgok was eat and get massages let me reassure you, we did sightsee.

We woke up early and after stuffing our faces at the breakfast buffet we headed out for a day of sightseeing that we had fully planned. Of course, like most well laid plans ours were thwarted.

Let’s start with the cab drivers in Bangkok who were probably my least favorite thing there. Every time we got into one they immediately tried to swindle us to pay a higher flat rate as opposed to the cheap meter and every time I had to fight back until the meter was turned on. Saavy travelers that we are, they always turn it on in the end but the unnecessary back and forth gets very old. Well this fine morning we should have known something was up when we got into the cab from the hotel and the driver was super pleasant. He turned the meter right on and seemed happy to take us all the way to the Golden Buddha. Then a block away he starts suggesting that he could take us on a half day sightseeing trip outside of the city. We of course said no (deep breathes MJ!). Then he suggested taking us to a ferry terminal instead of right to the center where the temples and palace are due to heavy traffic. We agreed. We had wanted to take the ferry originally but laziness stopped us so we took this as a sign. Except the cabbie took us to the wrong ferry terminal and immediately took off. This left us with a 20 minute walk to get to the right ferry terminal to wait for the right ferry ride to take us to the start of our sighseeing …to get the full picture it was at least 98 degrees out and we had alot of sightseeing so we were conserving energy. Anyways, we eventually did get on the right ferry soon enough (luckily the Theodoraki girls know how to navigate) and the ferry was actually easy and quick.

Our first stop was the Big Buddha and Temples at Wat Pho. I had been here 7 years ago with Randy but I had forgotten how beautiful this temple and the giant reclining Buddha are.

When in the temples you have to cover your arms and legs. We brough pants and a scarf becuase it was waaaay too hot to wear these all day. Our next stop was the Grand Palace and we were told our scarves were not sufficient. Our options were to rent lime green mumus that many, many other people had sweat in or pay 10 bucks at the gift shop for matching T-shirts. We of course opted to match.

Next time we’ll plan ahead and wear this.

Even though it was VERY hot, we managed to walk all around the palace grounds and take in all the beautiful buildings, temples and statues.

We were never so happy to sit in this shady cafe and have a water on our way out!

You may be thinking, wow! You two saw A LOT! I’m sure after all that you went home. Nope, we saw in the guidebook that right next to the Palace is an area called Banglamphu. The description was leafy lanes, antique shophouses, buzzing wet markets quaint postcard picture of the city that used to be. Leafy lanes, antiquo shops, we were sold. Well, we arrived and the first thing we saw was this. Clearly in the wrong part of Banglamphu.

After a bit of walking we did manage to find a slightly better area with some leafy trees but the antique shops remain a mystery.

After this we decided we deserved a treat. Lunch by the St. Regis pool, yes please! The perfect way to end our trip.

The best of Bangkok

The last trip Daphne and I took together alone was ten years ago! I was in law school and Daphne was studying in London for a semester in undergrad. I was newly post breakup (my last breakup before I started dating Randy 🙂 and I decided to go visit Daphne over spring break. I arrived in London and we spent two nights staying out way too late. Oh and we decided to bake a whole chicken for dinner as a special treat. After three hours the chicken was still raw, we gave up and had McDonalds. I’m still not sure if the oven was at fault or we were.

Then we were off for three days to Madrid and Barcelona. We were two students traveling on a budget so all our flights on this trip left at 5am meaning we left for the airport at 2 am. In Barcelona we were staying at a hostel (remember broke students) whcih was less than ideal. There was cement everywhere and we were sharing a room with loads of people and a bathroom with even more people. We spent as much time as possible outdoors. This would be ideal except that Daphne packed her bathing suit and not much else. When Spain was surprisingly chilly in April she had to wear the one sweater I had packed the entire time. She’s smaller than me so I took one for the team and shivered the whole trip. We went out, drank at an Irish pub, hiked up to Parc Guell and sort of went to La Sagrada. By the time we go to Madrid we were so happy to be in a clean hotel that Daphne wanted to stay and watch 80 movies in bed the whole time, but I forced her out for a bit of sightseeing.

Back to London for a night and then off to Scotland on another 5am flight. We arrived about 5 hours earlier than check in to the hostel was allowed. This hostel was nicer but we shared a room with 10 other people and there were some snorers. I actually have zero recollection of what we did in Edinborough…I’m assuming we made it to the castle and some pubs. My only vivid recollection of this trip is waiting hours to check in at the smoky hostel bar while talking to some semi permanent guest there who had zero teeth, who was traveling with his mother after a lawsuit (maybe teeth related?) and who fought Daphne on how many states the U.S. has. The only meal I remember eating the whole time, besides McDonalds, was paella in Barcelona at a place Randy recommended. Daphne made me pick out every piece of seafood from hers 🙂

I hunted down one photo of the trip but it’s an actual photo and my lack of computer skills are preventing me from sharing. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

The trip may not have been the fanciest but it was ours and the first times we traveled without our parents or relatives and was all ours.

This time we luckily did not stay in a hostel and upgraded big time to the St. Regis!

Hello Bangkok!

What do two Theodoraki sisters do for three days in Bangkok with no kids and no husbands you ask? I have three words for you- eat, shop, massages. We actually had so many massages that we reached our limit! Yes, that is possible. With all that’s going on in our lives it was such a treat to get to spend three days straight with Daphne. Maybe for our next trip we can relive our Spain trip!

Post Eating

Post Massage

Post shopping

Here was what we ate for lunch every day! Ha, just kidding. While the street food in Bangkok is hailed as one of the best, we opted to treat ourselvest to fancier meals.

Like this place- Quince, which is decorated like my dream house.

Why yes we did have soup dumplings and Daphne even ate the seafood!

Or my personal fave for the trip, breakfast at our hotel. Coudl I have this juice fridge in my house please!

And these jams…

And this dessert table! The whole time I was at this breakfast I thought how much Adam and Malcolm would have loved it! Don’t worry boys, mommy ate lots of donuts for you!

Here is what our table looked like every morning.

Lunch by the pool- yes please!

Two salads for the two sisteres please 🙂 And a thai iced tea for the win.

Pre-dinner champagne, ok twist my arm. Daphne, let’s start planning out next sister trip and lets not wait ten years!

Dressed for dinner in Dumaguete

Everyone knows how much I love a posed photo shoot. Did you all really think I would let Daphne come and not participate! For your viewing pleasure, a whole bunch of pictures of us (and cute babies!)

PS- in case you’re wondering yes we did bribe Adam with a candy necklace to join our photo shoot. Whatever works people!

First up Aunt Das and the willing participant. Negotiations were underway off camera with the unwilling participants for said candy necklace.

Candy bribery success!

Can you tell the candy bribe had worn off by this point. Who can blame him, we took a lot of pictures.

Why sisters are the best!

1) They let you take approximately 1 million selfies even though each and every one is blurry. They also teach you to look at the camera when taking a selfie so you’re looking in the right direction (still not mastered as made clear below). They will not agree to buy a selfie stick though. Work in progress people.

2) They let you take approximately one million selfies in the mirror waiting for the elevator in a hotel. Who knows Daf maybe we can turn into a book like Kim Kardashian! “Selfish in the hotel mirror”

3) They even love taking selfies with your children. Malcolm clearly needs some practice looking at the camera phone.

4) They love your children as much as you do and will carry around a pretty heavy and hot 17 month old who fell asleep by the pool in scorching high noon heat.

5) They will appreciate the pastries at the hotel breakfast buffet as much as you and not judge you when you eat donuts for breakfast. In fact, they will join you!

6) They will go sightseeing with you but qre more than happy to call it a day by 1p.m. and head back to the hotel to lay by the pool for four hours.

7) They will buy matching t-shirts to sight see so that all your pictures are color coordinated 🙂 ha, just kidding. But they will agree that paying 10 bucks for an ugly grey t-shirt is better than putting on used sweaty robes to get into temples. Added bonus we have matching grey t-shirts for our mirror selfies! One more for our book.

8) They love your children so much they are willing to play with them for hours!

9) They bring awesome presents for your kids (and you!). 23 Candy necklaces = Check!

10) They travel to the Philippines on two weeks notice to see you and your family even though it means going home jetlagged to start a brand new job two days later.

We miss you Aunt Das!!

Vacationing with friends

Is there anything better than vacationing with friends? I think not.

We had made plans a couple of month ago to head to Dumaguete, an island in the Philippines, for the weekend with two other families who have children the same ages as Adam and Malcolm. It was the first time we planned a trip with other families and I am a convert! When Aunt Das decided to come visit the timing was perfect, she bought a ticket and came with us! We haven’t traveled in the Philippines for a long time and we’ve always wanted to go to Dumaguete so we were excited.

The plane ride was pretty good. Aunt Das was tasked with amusing Malcolm. Malcolm kindly fixed her hat about 50 times and read her the newest Star.

Our friends Jenny and Joe and their two girls were right behind us both ways which was great. Malcolm and Adam spent large chunks of the flight talking, sharing snacks and toys with Vivian and Penelope.

Parents and Aunt Das were able to sneak away for two boat trips while we were in Dumaguete!

The first day the adults took a boat trip to Apo island. It is home to magnificent sea turtles and a reef. We snorkeled, had lunch, chatted and had a great sun filled day.

We got back and took all our little ones in the pool. What does that look like you ask? Something like this-

The next day we had another boat trip planned for the adults. This one was to swim with the whale sharks. We were all excited as we headed on our way. We had a 30 minute car ride, then a 30 minute ferry ride, then another 30 minute car ride. The whole time I was thankful the boys were at home playing with their friends and not on this long trip with us. The hotel had a teacher come in for the morning for them to do arts and crafts and play and we had brought Maria, our trusted nanny, so I knew they were in good hands.

Once we arrived at the whale sharks we were all a bit taken back. There must have been 300 people on the beach waiting to get on these little boats that went out about 15 feet.

The whale sharks were basically trained and just went back and forth being fed and led. We were 2 hours of travel in and had already paid for this so we decided to go for it. Our guide from the hotel was a miracle worker and got us on a boat in about 10 minutes. As we headed out I still wasn’t sure I was going to get in and snorkel. But once we were out there I decided I should and it was definitely worth it! From the surface the whale sharks don’t look that big but once you jump in and look through your mask it’s amazing. These animals are so huge. You can also tell they are sharks and not whales when they are swimming gracefully through the water. If I was out in the wide open sea and one of these sidled up next to me I would not be able to keep my cool. Even in this controlled (or contrived perhaps is better word) environment when the whale sharks got a little close I found myself scurrying back towards the boat as fast as I could. It was definitely an experience that I will not forget anytime soon.

Both nights we had big dinners with all 6 kids, which to quote Daphne was the craziest thing she had ever seen. But all the kids headed off to bed by 8 and the adults got to stay up talking and drinking wine.

It was great to spend time with our friends, for Adam and Malcolm to spend time with their friends and for us all to spend time with Aunt Das.

Aunt Das comes to town!

So..I had written a long post (ok it was mostly me rambling) but of course I then saved over it. Curse you Blogger! You may be wondering where all the updates are recently. Well there are two good reasons I have become a less prolific updated. 1) I realized that my computer streams netflix much faster than our ancient DVD player 2) I discovered Call the Midwife and while I normally would be looking for ways to amuse myself with Randy on a work trip I now have hours and hours of amazing PBS period drama.

But a visit from Aunt Das trumps even Call the Midwife. This visit was extra special. With a job change in the works Daphne was able to sneak in some time to come to Manila to visit us last minute which made it all the better. Usually I have to wait months and months for the visit but this time from booking to arrival was only a few weeks!

Daphne flew in on a Tuesday and like all flights to Manila from the US landed at 10, which for two old parents whose babies refuse to sleep past 6 might as well be 3am. Here’s where Daphne’s trip took a turn for the better right from the start. She flew into Terminal 3( (thank you Delta for finally moving) which is an hour in traffic closer than Terminal 1 and even better her flight landed 40 minutes early. She texted me at 9:20 and Randy and I had to run to get our shoes on and get out of the house- one of the perks of a live in nanny is we can both go pick people from the airport.

I had to go to work the next day but Adam played hookie from school and spend the day with Malcolm and Aunt Das. Aunt Das headed out to the Mind Museum but it ended up being closed and because Aunt Das loves her nephews very much she took them to the playground across the street. This is no small feat in Manila summer where you start sweating the second you walk out the door. A trip to Wildflour after for some shakes and sweets was well deserved.

That night we put the boys to bed and headed to our favorite new spot, Stockton Place. A bit of foreshadowing but this meal was voted by Aunt Das as her favorite of the trip!

The next day I was able to stay home from work and we spent the day lounging by the pool and shopping.

Aunt Das amused the masses while I packed for our upcoming trip to Dumaguete. When I peeked in on them these cuties were playing I Spy. Ok, Malcolm was more interested in ripping apart my greeting card collection but they were entertained. Then onto a tickelfest. A pretty perfect start on all accounts.

Top 5

As Malcolm gets older his strong litle personality is really coming out. I love seeing what his interests are and what he likes. He loves toys! He’s saying more and more words. His current favorite “do” for dog.

Here are Malcolm’s top 5 top loves at the moment:

1) Sweeping! Oh boy does this little boy like to sweep! All my sweeping photos of Malcolm are blurry because that boys sweeps with gusto! So here’s one of him in the ball pit which is another fan favorite!

2) Remember the old purple stroller? It is back in full force and still a fan favorite. Every kid who comes over wants to push that purple stroller. While Adam liked his stroller empty or maybe at most a ball inside, Malcolm loves his stuffed animals and even straps them in to keep them safe.

Maybe those strapping skills need a litte bit of work.

3) Stuffed animals! Malcolm loves them! Thank goodness because we have LOTS and Adam was never that big of a fan. If I line up the animals anywhere in the house Malcolm will find them and invite himself to join then. It’s like a ready made party of his friends that he is NOT willing to miss.

4) Copying his big brother! These two are like two peas in a pod. Where one is the other is usually not far behind. If Adam and I head off to another room in the house and we don’t wait for Malcolm he gets so upset! He’ll follow Adam around wherever he goes and likes to play right next to him. Even in the big old bath he wants to sit right next to Adam so they end up in the same half of the bath. Thankfully so far Adam doesn’t mind sharing. In fact, Adam even shared half of his cookie yesterday! That was for sure a first in our house!

5) Hiding things! He loves tucking his toys away, in the couch, under his butt, under the dressr, in the cabinets. At least once a day I open a cabinet and smile because right next to the pots will be a plastic pear, or a train or a half eaten cracker.

We are pretty lucky to have this sweet, funny little boy. He loves his family so much and always has a big smile to give you!

Saying Goodbye at the Door

Lately when Randy and I leave for work, poor little Malcolm goes through such a range of emotions. He first gets his little shoes and happily waddles to the door. He adorably assumes he’s coming with us and is so happy to be on his way. Then when I say goodbye and give him a hug and a kiss he looks at me for a minute trying to decide if I am trying to get him to wave or say his new work ‘Ba’ for bye. Then denial, he squares his little chin and marches for the door, determined to come with us and get out. Then the poor little guys realizes he’s being left behind. It’s pretty heart wrenching. His little face puckers up and the tears start.

With Malcolm being my second rodeo, I know that this stage is just that, a stage and soon enough he will run off with his friends barely waving goodbye like his older brother. In fact, today I knelt down to give Adam a hug goodbye when I dropped him at school and his reply was “I’m busy doing my work mom”, ok my little teenager.

I just recently came across this wonderful photo series. This photographer took a series of photos of his parents who always walk him to the door or car to say goodbye, and when his dad passed away his mom keep the goodbye tradition going- http://angelomerendino.com/goodbye-at-the-door/

It made me think about how quickly the day will come when Malcolm is walking out the door and we will be the ones left behind. He will ask to borrow the car, grab the keys, maybe if I’m lucky throw me a wave and head out to meet his friends, not remembering there was a time his little heart would break when his mommy was out of sight. Sigh. So I will take all the moments when I want to eat my breakfast and Malcolm insists on sitting on my lap or when both Adam and Malcolm want to sit on my lap and get mad at each other that they have to share, or when Malcolm wants to be picked up and gets crayons, mango or snots or all three all over my work clothes and I will treasure every moment and know that they are fleeting and soon enough I won’t be the one they want to spend their days with and I will have to work for little moments of attention in between teenager surliness and girlfriends and jobs and sports and whatever else having boys means is coming my way.