Wanted: A Dog/Human Trainer in BKK

My mom has 8 dogs. Yes, she has a big house, but most people will agree that 8 is a bit excessive, especially when none of them are properly trained. She has one that pees on everything and another one that has severe food aggression. There are also three bored puppies under the age of 8 months. I'm a dog lover, but living here is making me a bit stressed. And stress sure wasn't a part of the plan for our long awaited vacation. I have brought this up with both my parents and sister, and either they have been living with them for so long and think that the bad behaviors, like stealing whatever that is within their reach right in front of you and MARKING (!!!), are normal or they have already given up. I have been working with the three puppies and know that they will make someone excellent pets. My parents and sister simply do not have the time or energy to work with them and it's frustrating the hell out of me to see them keep taking in strays and letting them have the run of the house. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I really can't wait for Wil to get here so we can start our traveling. After a week of waking up to pee smell and seeing a dog sitting on a table and snapping at everyone who tries to get it to come down, I'm just ready for a break. I need a break from my break.

My saving grace is, of course, my amazing daughter. Chase started sleeping her usual 12-hour night on the fourth night after our arrival and has adjusted to everything, minus the heat that no one should be accustomed to anyway, beautifully. She's in love with our tropical fruits and can probably live off of the GOOD mangoes (not the giant Mexican ones) alone for the duration of our trip. I had planned on taking it easy this week to give her time to adjust and wait for Wil's arrival but am getting bored and disturbed. Think we might go work out some of our frustration at the mall tomorrow.

The First 24 Hours in Thailand

I don't have much time and will keep this short. The flight over went as smoothly as a mother of any one-year-old (!!!) could have hoped for. In fact, to say that Chase was an angel on the 10-hour flight is an understatement. She never really cried, only voiced her complaints a couple of times when I tried to put her down in her bassinet instead of cradling her in my arms, ate most of my food AND loved it leaving me very hungry, and just flirted with the guy sitting 2 seats down from us the whole way. Upon seeing us coming out from custom and to the meeting point at the airport, the grandparents immediately went to gawk over their first grandbaby and completely forgot that I, too, was there for about 5 minutes. Chase had already sampled many local cuisines and liked most of them, although she's not eating as much as her usual hungry-man portion. I think the heat has a lot to do with her decreased appetite, so today I went to a supermarket and got her one of her favorite meals: liverwurst and toast. Shall see how that goes tomorrow.

We're having lunch with my mom's college buddies, whom I love, tomorrow, and I'm really excited for them to meet Chase, although I think my mom is far more excited about finally being able to show off and brag about her gorgeous granddaughter. Chase is handling all the crazies around her like a champ. She's usually bright red and sticky hot but always has a bright smile on her face and loves to wave to strangers. She calls all of my mom's crazy 7 dogs "Bbbooooo." Brutus should be so proud. I'm doing well, in spite of the fact that my dad still wakes me up at 7 a.m. this morning (2 a.m. Germany time) by flipping on the light switch and makes extremely unpleasant loud noises in my room. He tried to wake me up earlier but I just threw a cover over my head and played dead. I'm going to see a whole lot of grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins this weekend and can not be more thrilled, although it does involve a bit more traveling. I just wish that Wil could be here with me right at this very moment. I thought being around family would keep me so busy that the next two weeks would not be so empty without him. Not so. Like I told him in my email today, he is home to me.

So I Cried in the Food Court Today

No, I wasn't freaking out about the trip or the bad food I was ordering. I had just picked up some prints from a local photo lab and they were absolutely horrendous. I had gotten a low resolution warning while I was uploading them to the store's website but chose to ignore it and ordered the prints anyway. As far as I knew, there was no reason why the pictures should have had low resolution. I always try to shoot in the highest quality settings the camera would allow, but seeing a whole stack of pixelated pictures freaked me out. It made me think that I somehow accidentally set the camera to a low resolution setting. I went through it over and over again in my head how and when that could have happened. Thinking that half a year of the kids' pictures were all but lost (except for on the computer) just upset me so much that I was starting to cry right when I was in line for Taco Bell. I just wanted to run home from Ramstein to check all the pictures on my computer to see what the deal was. So far, everything on my end checked out just fine. I'm going back to the photo lab tomorrow to find out what the heck is going on and prayyyyyyyy that it's something funky on their end. If it weren't, then I would really be crying on my flight over. The whole 11 hours of it. "See" you on the other side of the world!

It's Been a Good Picture Day

A Nutty Week

After Chase's birthday party, we had to really gear up for Thailand. That meant a lot of appointments, check ups, picking up things we needed, and generally being very very busy. I was beginning to get really sad about having to leave the boys for over a month. I know they will be fine and well-taken care of, but it's still very hard. I've always been the one constant parent. They know Wil comes and goes all the time, but at least there's still Momma, who knows exactly how to get Brutus to eat and how to get Paddy to take his meds. I have never left them for longer than 10 days in their entire lives, I think. Anyhow, by Friday, all of our running around was done and we were finally free to hang out. The fields are blooming with beautiful yellow flowers (I'm pretty positive it's mustard) and I was finally able to get some good pictures of all the kids to take with me. I'm praying that the weather holds and I find my tripod this weekend, so we'll actually have a picture of the five of us together for a frame.

Gotta go get ready for a Derby party this afternoon. Should be more pictures coming your way. For now, here's The Steinhauer Five enjoying spring time in Germany: