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| Little Number 4 at a beach in Indonesia |
For starters, we live in Singapore, and contrary to what the check-in lady at DIA believes, Singapore is not part of China. The Chinese here want to make that clear. The country is off the southern tip of Malaysia, a long ways from China and 1 degree north of the equator. Living here is breathtaking and stifling in many ways.
I have learned to deal with hordes of ants creeping their way across my floor, become grateful for the gecko I know is lurking behind a picture frame and waiting for me to leave so he can eat the ants. I have learned to live with constant rain and ensuing mould. I have learned (most importantly) to add u to many words, see 'mould'.
I have lived through the longest drought in Singapore since the mid 1800's and prayed for rain. I'm done praying now.
I have wondered with the taxi drivers and neighbors where in the world MH370 went and considered that people living somewhere down the street were in that plane and are not found.
I have learned to live very far from home. No more of those neat and clean 12 hour flights to Chicago, no. Now it is a 2-day affair to get home. I have learned to call Singapore, 'home'...much like 600,000 other expats in a city-country overrun with foreigners like me. I have learned to live around white people again, and even learned to understand the Chinese around here, well sometimes, some dialects. The pinyin still bothers me, and the characters confound me.
I have learned how to take kids to the beach and how to have a swimming pool at my disposal. I have learned how to stop and smell the flowers and other amazing scents in the forest behind my house. I've learned to pay exorbitant rent prices and not gulp for air every time. I've learned how to keep things from moulding, but not before I lost a leather purse that I kind of liked and a few other bags and blankets. I've learned babysitters are much more expensive than a full-time maid, so I've learned to train a maid. That is harder than it sounds...we spent some months in utter frustration and confusion, as I'm sure she did too. It's working now though, and I have time to blog again!
We also gave birth to a baby. A family long past baby things, and baby sounds, and baby nights welcomed a baby almost one year ago and he has been good. He has helped us to experience a kinder side of living and taken the edge off our days and shaved some of the sleep off our nights. But he is good. His joy is unstoppable, his adoration unending, and his zeal unquenchable. Here are a few fun pics from life in the (almost) Southern hemisphere.
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| Little Number 5 |
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| Marina Bay Sands, the iconic Singapore resort |
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| Colin loves to explore the jungle in our backyard |
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| An intense sensory experience everywhere I look |
