Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve and I am all alone in bed utterly exhausted after spending all day chasing last minute Christmas food and gifts and the ever elusive wrapping paper so I could sit up all night wrapping all of Santa's gifts for the kids.  Marcus is off at the work Christmas party something I am not at all happy with. It may sound selfish but I am upset that the kids and I have to spend tonight alone in a foreign country with no friends or family around to enjoy this special time with.  I don't see why the party had to be held on Christmas eve other than the Director is a bachelor who has no family here and no idea whats its like to be away from those he loves.  This man is not in my good books lately for reasons that I wont go into on my Blog as they involve Marcus and its not my place to comment openly.  To top off my discomfort our next door neighbours have been away for 3 weeks and their maid has been house minding during the day and today she discovered that either last night or early this morning someone has broken into the house, not stolen anything, but locked the bathroom door from which he entered through from the inside so that possibly he could return with help and a bigger truck, who knows.  But the simple fact that he has been sneaking around only meters from my bedroom window breaking into their house (our houses are really really close) has got my shackles up and I am very nervous about being home alone.  I have already checked on the kids and double checked all the windows and left all of my outdoor lights on but I cannot rest so I may as well just wait up until Marcus gets home from his party in Bangkok.

Also I thought I may have had to take Lillie to the hospital this afternoon, she was trying to follow Judd into the bathroom and he shut the door and accidentally jammed her thumb in it.  Now Lillie is a real tough cookie, she fell off the bed the other day and collected the side table and then hit the floor and only cried for minutes but today she screamed and screamed and kept holding her poor little hand, I was almost certain it was broken and that we would be spending Christmas eve in the Bangkok Pattaya hospital.  But thankfully after dinner and a bottle of milk she calmed down and started to play again so I figure that it just must be bruised and sore rather than broken.  If it was really broken she wouldn't have used her hand to grab and play with her toys (I hope).

On the up side of today I asked Judd if he would like to go through his toys and pick a few that he would like to donate to the local orphanage here in Pattaya, the Father Ray Foundation.  He was so good he went through all of his toys and gave me plenty to give away, he even tried to give away his Toy Story collection of toys, but I had to say no as they were gifts and he should really keep them.  We ended up with 4 bags of toys, clothes, shoes and baby blankets.  He came with me to the orphanage and spoke to the ladies there and carried the bags in.  I really think he understood what we were doing and how the other children were going to benefit from his toys.  I hope to be able to do this with the kids every year for Christmas and birthdays just teach them about charity and to also help them value their gifts more.

Also I gave our nanny/driver some days off to go up to her home town up in north Thailand to visit her parents and her children, so I am now doing my own laundry, ironing and cleaning for the next 2 weeks.  This will come as a shock to the system because I haven't done any serious cleaning since we got here.  I will enjoy it though, sometimes I feel like my job has been taken from me, but the plus side of having some help around the house is that I have more time to play with the kids and to give them the Grade A attention that they always deserve.

So we had our ups and downs today but as I go to sleep tonight I have that tired feeling that only comes with a busy but productive day and I look forward to the looks on the kids faces when they realise that Santa came while they were tucked up warm in their little beds.