Thankfully after my horrendous day on Monday my week improved. Tuesday I took Judd and Lillie to a play group in Pattaya called Wiggle Town. It was great. There were about 10 mums from all over the world. There were Germans, Russian, British, Australian and a couple of others I couldn't place. All the kids played really well together and surprisingly Judd joined in straight away. As usual a couple of the little girls wouldn't share and it breaks my heart to see the look on Judd's face when kids reject him. It is so hard to just sit by and not step in and tell the kids off, but I know this happens all the time in play grounds and Judd needs to learn to brush it off and play with nicer kids. In the end he will have way more fun than the bullies will. He actually handled it really well and made a couple of new friends. Lillie of course just cruised around playing with everything and it was so nice to take her somewhere where she couldn't get herself into trouble and I can just sit back and watch. She is turning into a little climbing monkey, at one point she fell into the ball pit and got stuck, but she just laughed at me and sunk even deeper until I had to pull her out. It is good to see her relaxed again, I was worried when we first got here she was so sad all the time, but now she is happy and back to her good old self again.
I met a couple of the mums. Something which doesn't come naturally to me, I am quite shy around strangers (unless I have a couple of wines) and it galls me that I cannot walk up to someone and start a conversation. I mean kids are the best ice breakers, all else fails you just talk about your children, but even that is hard for me. If it wasn't for the lady who runs the program introducing me, I don't think I would have worked up the courage to speak to anyone, apart from the polite "hello".
Anyhow, I got a bit more advice on where to shop and on some good kindergartens. They are all expats who are here with their husbands on contracts, and a few of them have chosen to extend their stay indefinitely. A couple even had new born babies with them. It was good to talk to other women, apart from the cleaning ladies who only speak broken English, I don't get to talk to anyone most days. They all spoke about their nannies and maids helping with the kids and how they fill their days with Yoga and shopping and other lovely things.
I took one ladies advice and found a huge shopping center called Central Festival on Beach Rd. WOW! It is huge, I was in heaven. Apart from arriving at 10:15am, normal time for most countries, we were told the center doesn't open until 11:00am. I had driven 30mins to get there, Lillie was hungry and tired and Judd was bored so I decided to wait it out. Unfortunately we were asked to wait on a bench right in front of the Toys R Us store. Not good, Judd nagged me the whole time "mama is it open yet? mama is it open yet?" So naturally once it opened we had to go in, but it didn't last long, once I did the currency conversion and realised that all the toys were almost double the price they would be back in Aust. I quickly got the kids out of there before he set his eyes onto something. This of course brought on a tantrum, but I am getting good at dispelling these before they get going, I promised him KFC if he was a good boy.
Since we wasted most the morning driving and then waiting, we had to leave but I decided I would be back without the kids, I could do some serious shopping in this place.
Today we are going house hunting. I am so excited, I almost want to have a glass of wine to celebrate. Speaking of wine, pretty much all of it is imported here, so when I would usually spend $6.00 on a lovely sauvignon blanc back home, it cost me more than double that here. But it was worth it, I am sick of drinking those sugar vodka drinks or barcardi breezers, I have been thirsty for a wine for weeks. I had a lovely glass last night and Marcus turned to me and said "Al I think we should watch the football and get drunk of Friday". How funny.
But not a bad idea though, we have been fighting alot lately. Judd's behaviour (which is acceptable considering what he has been through lately) has been a sore topic between us. We disagree on how to discipline him. We don't like to smack, I don't believe it works, but how many times can you ask a kid not to do something and get ignored? I am on edge alot too, being stuck inside, no friends and then when Marcus gets home it is crazy hour. The kids need to be bathed, fed and put to bed and somewhere in all that we need to find time to talk to each other. And because the roosters have me up a dawn I am ready to crash myself. I think alot of it is boredom. We watch way too much TV and movies and since there is no playground or back yard to play in we are all a little bit crazy by the time Marcus gets home. It will all probably get crazy again when we move house as everything will be new and different again and take some time to get used to. But I know with time, we will all settle down, find a new routine, one with less stress and way more fun and we will hopefully start to see the benefits of moving all this way. We have also been recommended a driver from a friends colleague. It is a lady, so she may be able to help me with the kids and shopping and stuff which will be a big help, otherwise I will get a maid/nanny to come and help out. I may as well make the most of living here.
When talking to friends about our trip before we left Melbourne, I said we will either come back more in love or divorced. At the moment I can understand the stress that big changes like this can bring to a marriage and how difficult it can be to talk it out, but I guess that is all part of the challenge, if we can survive this move I think our marriage stands a pretty good chance of making the distance.
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