Surf's Up

Oh, another bad night for Dashel. I’m just not sure what I eat that throws him off—especially when I try so hard to avoid foods I’m sure are offenders. David woke up this morning and with big bags under his eyes said “6 months. I think he should be weaned at 6 months.” Of course, he says this after a very poor night’s sleep. I guess I’m just used to it, so it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. And I think Dave forgot to wear his earplugs last night, which aggravated his lack of sleep.

So given the lack of sleep, I got to breakfast late and in need of a large cup of coffee. At breakfast some of the Indonesian buffet waitresses gathered around our table to check out the babies. Curious about Samuel, they asked Jenni if he was hers, and then made notice that she was pregnant. She said yes, he was hers and that she was pregnant and one of the waitress made mention that it may be unfair for her to have two babies. Jenni said this probably meant it was unfair for her to have a boy, because boys are really prized here. Girls aren’t. People put their names in at the hospital to adopt boys, but not girls. So the waitress was presumably referring to the “unfairness” of her raising two kids at once. It is just sad to me that in many parts of the world girls are so neglected and undervalued—as if there could even be any more boys WITHOUT girls! I mean, girls give birth to boys!

Another difference in culture here is the lack of boundaries between people. It drives Scott and Jenni crazy. People give unsolicited advice on child rearing all the time. Just random strangers tell them what they are and what they are not doing right. People come up and put their hands in your kids face. And the most annoying is when Samuel is asleep in Jenni's arms and a stranger comes up and just excitedly starts shaking the baby. They mean no ill, just are excited for the baby, but don't understand that baby needs his sleep. It drives Jenni crazy! Luckily no one has done that to us with Dashel, yet. And in this culture kids have many "moms"--meaning lots of people end up raising a kid. So they don't understand boundaries between the mother and father figure, and everyone else. There are lots of examples in this, but I don't have enough time to go through them all. Let's just say that when you are Western and used to boundaries, you get "assaulted" with people with no boundaries at every turn.

We headed over to a mall to find an ATM to get some money, and to get Declan some flip flops, which he still finds complicated and difficult to wear. But I’m convinced he can learn to wear them. And since we only brought one pair of shoes with us, he needed another pair in the event the other got wet, like yesterday’s pond incident that thoroughly wet his shoes.

So after our stint at the mall we walked around outside and realized it was a very hot day and we needed some AC respite and rest time. We’re learning that with kids you just move slower and can’t do as much as you’d like to. They get hot easily, tired easily, and whiney easily. And the flip flop try on had thrown Declan over the edge, so we headed back to the room.

We spent the afternoon at the pool again workin up an appetite. It was “Family Night” –we’re trying to keep us this tradition despite traveling—so we asked Scott and Jenni to join us for dinner and rootbeer floats. Amazingly, there is an AandW next to the hotel—a perfect place for rootbeer floats! So first we hit an unbelievable Thai restaurant for dinner where Declan spilled a glass of water on Scott and broke a plastic table sign holder. We told the server and she just took it away with an unconvincing smile. Scott said that like much of Asia, Bali is a “shame” culture. So people will never do something to bring shame upon someone. They’d never cause someone to “lose face”—or, look foolish or wronged. So, they’d never make us pay for Declan’s breaking the plastic table sign holder, nor would they comment on it—cause that would cause us to “lose face”.

At dinner Scott tells Declan a story about when he was his age how he spilt a glass of wine at a big fancy dinner he attended with his dad in South Africa. Declan listened intently, and asked Scott to tell him the story again, and again. I don’t know if this is a Declan thing, or if all toddlers do this so obsessively.

Anyway, afterwards we get rootbeer floats, we rented a DVD player from the hotel and Dave ran across the street to the video store and bought some DVDs—6 DVDs for $5 US dollars. (Shhh! We won't tell the customs officials if you won't!). So we watched Surf’s Up (super cute movie if you haven't see it) and kept telling Declan that Uncle Scotty will teach him how to surf the next time we return. He'll probably be about 5 1/2 then, which Scott thinks is a good age to teach them how to just get comfortable laying on the board in the water. He kept saying "Uncle Scotty will teach me?" over and over and over again. It was cute. He thinks the world of Scotty. So, bed was later than usual tonight-- about midnight.