I had a horrible day yesterday. It started well enough. In the morning I found out that a mother of Big Munchkin's best school friend is teaching a ballet class for 3 to 5 year olds in a church close to our house. Half of Big Munchkin's class mates go there. I arranged a free trial class for her. Then, things went downhill.

I decided to take Little Munchkin for his drop in music class. Just as we walked into the class room and Little Munchkin geared up to play, I received a call from Big Munchkin's school saying that she is not feeling well and I need to pick her up. I turned and went back to the car. Little Munchkin was appalled at this turn of events. He went into a complete meltdown. Ten minutes later I picked up Big Munchkin from school. Apparently, she told them she is having a headache, made herself a little bed out of a blanket and refused to get up. She told me that she bumped into another boy at school and hurt her head, and then they were playing 'patient' with her friends. As soon as I explained to her that 'not feeling well' means no gymnastics, no play date and no ballet class, the headache has disappeared. She was fine five minutes after coming back from school.

Little Munchkin was furious for missing his music class. He was cross for the rest of the day and threw tantrum at every opportunity. It made the trip to gymnastics very difficult. By then he wanted to sleep as well. Normally, he would be playing in a soft play area while Big Munchkin goes to her gymnastics class. Yesterday he was just screaming on and off. He fell asleep on the way home.

He got up as soon as we got home and went into another meltdown. He kept screaming all the time while I dressed Big Munchkin up for her ballet class. Just as I smalled the door on my way to the ballet class, I realized that I locked myself out of the house. I could get to the garage and the car but not to the house itself. I dropped Big Munchkin off I began to frantically trying to get in touch with my DH and two other families who have keys to our house. My DH was in a meeting, one of the people with the keys was not picking up the phone at all, and the other one was still at work. I also found that my phone is running out of charge. At the end, after I picked up Big Munchkin from her ballet class, kids of our neighbours and their childminder invited us for a cup of tea to wait till their mother comes home from work and finds the spare set of keys for our house. She came back by 6 p.m. and I managed to get back home. Fortunately, my DH came home early as by that point I had all I could handle.

Today I had a spot of minor surgery - I have a few moles removed. They were not cancerous or anything - my hair just kept tangling around them. The anaesthetic is wearing off now and it hurts. My DH took a day off so I can go to the hospital. It was a first time he could take Big Munchkin to school. She was quite thrilled about it.

We have two playdates planned this week. I think I am going to give Big Munchkin part of her Christmas present earlier. I bought three 'princess' dresses for her. But with all the playdates coming up I think I will give them to her tomorrow. She has enough things left to find under the Christmas tree.

A couple of days ago we went for a playdate. Big Munchkin and the little girl she was playing with went upstairs. Few seconds later I've heard a piercing scream.
- Mummy, there is a PANTHER!!!
It was a black cat. She got the color and shape right. She just got the size wrong. It was very funny.

Nothing exciting happened this weekend. We went swimming. Went to check out the ice rink - it is far and very shabby, but it is the closest ice rink for us. Although we are quite keen to give Big Munchkin some 'Canadian' experiences, I am not certain that it is worth an hour drive each way. I am still trying to make up my mind about signing her up for an ice skating class.

We went swimming at a gym in the evening. On Sunday we went to our friends for lunch and swimming afterwards.

I have been looking for a nursery for Little Munchkin. The one I liked gave me an offer of a place, and I think I am not going to take it. The problem is that I don't have a problem keeping Little Munchkin at home. He is quiet and independent. I quite like his company. Big Munchkin went to daycare mainly because I could not handle having her around 24/7. I don't have this problem with Little Munchkin. I also don't like the idea of paying over 400 pounds per month for two days a week of daycare. So, I also found couple of playgroups that would take him next September - two or three days a week for 3 or 4 hours a day. I think I can live with it.

I also finally solved the problem of a Chinese class, specifically what to do with Little Munchkin while Big Munchkin is in her Chinese language class. The solution is simple - a portable DVD player. I brought it with me and we sat very nicely in a cafe where I had a chat with other mums and a coffee. Little Munchkin sat on my lap like a good boy watching Brainy Baby DVD. I should have though of it months ago.

Lately, I've been taking Little Munchkin to the shopping centre nearby. I get a coffee and he gets a muffin. Yesterday, I went there and I was not planning on having a coffee. Little Munchkin had a different idea. Straight from the elevator he went to the coffee shop, looked at the display window, walked to 'our' table, pulled himself a chair, climbed up, sat down and looked at me with this expression: 'OK mum, I am here. Now get me my muffin'. He was not amused when I told him that there will be no muffin today. At the end, I had to tie him up into a stroller kicking and screaming. Poor little guy.

No new words today. Though he is trying to say vowels from Malayalam alphabet, and, I think, he is trying to say 'no'.

Little Munchkin has a new word. Two words to be precise, but I don't think he understands it. I am also not sure if I sould be happy or sad about this new word. He is obviously copying me. The new word is 'stop it'. With Big Munchkin around he must have heard it often enough to remember. On a positive note, he did use it correctly. First time, when Big Munchkin pushed him away from the toy he was playing with, and the second time, when I put him in a stroller after the playgroup that he did not want to leave.

Last weekend we went out. I mean, it is a first time in Munchkins' lives we took them to a party in the evening. They slept in the car on the way there. After they finished crying and whinging after being waken up on arrival, they actually had a good time.

On Sunday, Big Munchkin had another trip to the theatre. This time she went to see Monster Hits. She (and her daddy) had a good time. They will be going to see another play in two weeks and two more plays in December.

I am currently occupied by looking for X-mas presents. I am trying to get the whole X-mas shopping done well in advance. We have quite a few friends with kids now and I can not forget to give them a present. So far most of the gift I bought are for Big Munchkin. I got her three dress up outfits, a tea set and a play food set. I still can't decide what to get for Little Munchkin - he likes cars and construction things. But there are not too many things in either of those categories that can be safely given to a baby who is still chewing everything. My DH said he would buy something for a little guy when he goes to New York, but I am not sure he is going to have the time for shopping.

Little Munchkin finally said one more word - 'baby'. I have been looking for a nursery for him. I finally found the one I like. They also don't do half days, so it would have to be a full day. I put him of a waiting list for two days a week for after January. I'll see how I would feel about sending him there in two months time. Right now, I feel that going to the nursery might be beneficial for his development. Not sure how I would feel later.

Yesterday we had a nice visit to the emergency room. Again. This time courtesy of Big Munchkin. What possessed her to chew and swallow a part of a plastic pen? I am sure I will never know. It was a sharp crunchy plastic - the body of a pen. I should have realised that it was something uneatable, but she'd never done anything like this before. I only realised it when I saw her taking a bite out of the pen and starting to crunch. At that point I realised that about an inch of the pen is already missing. She happily told me that she ate it. At that moment I lost it, called my DH and told him to come back from work, and went straight to the emergency room. Fortunately, we did not spent too much time there. The doctor told us that there is nothing they can do. The clear plastic does not show on x-ray. Since she was not showing any signs of discomfort we were sent home. Big Munchkin seem to be fine so far.

One of the things that I miss in Britain is the partying. And I don't mean going out to a pub and getting drunk with mates. This is very British kind of partying. I am talking about good family fun partying - Thanksgiving, Easter, Halloween. Good family fun kind of partying. Brits don't have Thanksgiving since they don't have anything to be thankful for. They do have Guy Fawkes night with its brilliant fireworks and they do have Christmas. But they really don't do a proper Halloween. Here Halloween is all about fear - witches, devils, vampires, skeletons. It is not about fun. No one dresses up here as Thomas or Mickey Mouse. Trick-o-treating is looked upon as begging. Often people would give money instead of candy. It is not a funny and joyous evening. I miss good Canadian Halloween. We did sent the kids trick-o-treating. Little Munchkin reused Big Munchkin's old pumpkin outfit and Big Munchkin dresses up as a Blue Princess. They teamed up with the neighbours kids and when to a few houses nearby. That was all Halloween. Next year I might try to organize a party myself. Maybe.

Bangkok was great. I loved it before and I loved it this time. The energy, the drive, the excitement, the enthusiasm of this place is just overwhelming. We stayed in the same area as before. We went back to our old favourite street food places, our old massage place, our old favourite food courts. We had a great time. Bangkok was cheap and entertaining. The new airport is excessively big, but well organized. The new highway is impressive. There is a new underground system that works in conjunction with the old overground train system. Numerous new shopping malls have sprang up since we came to Bangkok.

One negative thing about the city it its remarkable unfriendliness towards children. Going through the centre of Bangkok with a stroller is impossible. Even to cross a street you have to walk via overground pedestrian crossing with lots of stairs and no lift. New shopping malls are more child-friendly but the rest of the city is not.

One of the highlights of the trip (other then shopping) was a visit to Aquarium. In best Asian tradition it is located inside a shopping mall. The Aquarium was very impressive. In many ways better and bigger that London Aquarium. Big Munchkin loved the penguins, sea turtles, murenas, sting rays, sharks, gigantic trout, and deep sea fishes.

Little Munchkin was obsessed with escalators. He would run for every escalator he would see, and there were plenty of them inside every shopping mall. He would also go into a complete meltdown if not allowed to run an escalator. With Big Munchkin refusing to walk, I sorely missed our second stroller. My DH ended up having to carry one of them nearly all the time.

Little Munchkin began to talk a bit. He started saying Mama. Consistently that is. He is also saying up and down. He actually thinks that it is one work and is saying it that way 'Updown'. He jumps up and down while saying it, or lifts his hands.

Big Munchkin produced another linguistic gem. Imagine, in the middle of the night:
- Mommy, are you asleep?
- Yes, I am.
- Then, why are you talking?
What can you possibly say to this child?

I already said that Phuket is a touristic place. The good proportion of those tourists are Russian. It actually feels quite strange to hear Russian speech everywhere. The reviews of our hotel were repeatedly mentioning the presence of chain-smoking Russians, and it was true. There were Russian tour guides, Russian restaurants, Russian manager in a hotel, etc ...

The trip to Thailand was great. It started at 7 a.m. with a drive to the airport. After twelve and a half hour flight, two hour stop over and another hour flight we reached Phuket. Another 45 minutes and we were finally at the hotel. It actually was not that bad. We had something positive to look forward to. The hotel was exactly as the reviews suggested. It is old-fashioned, dated, and in need of modernisation. Food was average and heavily over-priced. The beach was fantastic, and so was the sea. The weather mostly cooperated. Even though it was still a monsoon, we only had two days of rain out of six.

I grew up near the sea. There weren't many swimming pools in my childhood either. So, I love the sea, waves, sand, the beach. Well, my kids grew up in a swimming pool. They haven't seen a sea much, and they had never swam in one. So, when they actually got to the sea - they were terrified. They were quite keen on sand-castle building, but not on swimming in the sea. They loved the pools though. The hotel had a system of swimming pools. Both Munchkins loved it.

The hotel also had a Penguin club - a creche for 3 to 12 year olds. We were not comfortable leaving Big Munchkin there, so most of the time one of us (mostly my DH) stayed there with both Munchkins while the other one went for massage or shopping.

I did not like Phuket much. I am sure it has great nature, but we could not do any adventure travel with two small kids. We were very close to Patong. The place is very touristic. It is very expensive. It felt very fake.

Tomorrow - Bangkok