Normalcy vs My Life

So a good friend of mine started a blog, and I love it.  I love her, and you know what they say, copying is the best form of flattery.  Or do they only say that to older siblings when younger ones are relentlessly shadowing them?  Anyhow.  I decided that I wanted to spend more time on this blog.  Maybe someone will read it and find it interesting, this life of mine, here in the jungle.

I've been thinking a lot about my last post.  About how raising a child here is so much different from being in the States.  It's a battle sometimes, I won't lie.  It's excruciating even.  Simple things that most of my friends and family know to be true and sound when it comes to child rearing is simply not so here.

The latest of these is the bottle.  Like, OK, I know it isn't the end of the world if Asher keeps his bottle till he's two.  But I am ready for this stage to be over, and I want to protect his teeth.  You all should see the teeth on some kids here.  Most of them have rotted out front teeth from the bottle, or soda, or soda in the bottle.  It's gotta hurt, right?  I mean, I know when I have a cavity, it's not a joyous thing to eat or drink.  So I really want to avoid that whole thing.  Locals on the other hand, have the opinion that these baby teeth will just fall out anyway, so why worry about them being rotten?  I mean, most adults walk around with betel nut stained teeth that are half missing, so why should it matter that the kids have the same, uh, condition?

Well it matters to me.  And that's all that should matter.  I want to give my kid the best in life and him having a tooth decay problem is not a reflection of me giving him the best.  The battle comes in the form of my husband and the grandmother who watches Asher.  I try to give him a sippy cup and when he won't take it, it's immediately to the bottle.  I know that if I only offer him the sippy he's bound to take it at some point.  Every day, twice a day, I meet this and we fight.  And he usually wins, because, at the end of the day, I am so tired of fighting for everything else, what's another fucking bottle?  Then, we get up, we start again.  And again, and again.  I may one day win.  Or I may just give in.

I recently went back to the states.  Just got back last week actually.  It was blissful.  It was better than I thought it would be.  To have my kid in a car, and me, driving around, to places.  Wow, heaven on earth I tell ya.  We went to the beach, we saw all my family and friends that I love so much and who love me and Asher, we swam, we swung, we slid, we read books at the library, we went out to eat, we ate, ate, ate.  We even saw the Great Wall of China with my cousin and her son.  That moment was so special.  We shopped, a lot.  I got a babysitter (thanks Mom!) and saw a movie, in a movie theater.  It was fabulous, every last second of it.  Except for one huge thing.  My husband was missing.  My other half, my partner, the one who I can fight with every day about a bottle and still go to bed smiling with.  I really love this man and to not have him with me for a month was pretty hard.

So now I am back here, to the monotony.  The job I don't enjoy, the heat, the rice, the poverty, the trash, the noise.  It's like a heavy weight that I carry and I want to get rid of it, but how?  How do I shed the hatred I have of this place?  I want to go back to when it was magical, when I saw people walking down the street with big buckets on their head and I smiled, instead of feeling so jaded about it all.  I guess I can't go back in time.  Those days are over and I've moved on to even greater ones... just how to reconcile the joy with the displeasure?

Amon and I are talking about some day moving back to the States.  Some day is a long ways off though.  I don't know if I've mentioned so much about him, his history, but his family is here.  His only family is his father and he is elderly.  Still strong as a horse mind you, just needs some extra help that only Amon can provide.  I can't ask him to leave his father.  He won't leave his family.  Speaks volumes of the kind of person he is and the kind I am, eh?

So for now, I will sit with this place, these people, enjoy my son, swim in the river, drive a motorbike and eat Thai food.  It's all I can do until I can't anymore.