night at the beach in seminyak

curious todler+dark sand+brand new handmade white pants= learning how to be a laid back parent!
mama and babe-a feet
sister just 3 months apart
ezra's indo family.
old school casting a net type of fishing by this guy solo.
playing with the beach life. hopefully we're not totally disrupting the ecosystem.

waterbom pics

waterbom is a water park in southern bali. it was way expensive (probably as much as one would pay within the usa). we had so much fun that day. ez really likes the water since we've lived in bali. she gets braver and more into playing each time we are in the pool. it's made shower time a lot easier since she started to enjoy the pools around here. at waterbom, we spent at least an hour going around the lazy river on tubes; ez even fell asleep. a went down a ride "boomerang" which hurls you up a slide and then back down, again. he totally lost his raft and had to scramble to grab it before heading up the boomerang part; talk about adrenaline. i swam, swam, swam then lay on a beach chair soaking up the sun reading a really poorly written book about birth and the history of how people are born just working on my tan. we ate indonesian rice and noodles. then, we took a long walk home...a very long walk home. we were feeling pretty physically fit after a day of swimming and then a 2-3 miles walk home. it will be so much fun to hit up waterparks with ez as she grows up.
welcome to waterbom!
kid's playground
cool pool. there are little bench seats built into the middle island underwater.
cutest ever
brave jumper
learning to swim
under the fountain
happy waterparking family
three "spughy" fountains.

United Airlines Sucks

holding baby pastica in her dada's sling. pastica is the name of her crush in bali. i have mentioned him before; among many other things, he's the driver for the birth center, a very talented and semi-famous wood sculptor and a dad to two kids. he helps new moms get breastfeeding of to a good start should his help be needed in that way. she decided to name her baby after him much to the amusement of all of the birth center staff. they ask me, "where is e?" whenever i come to work during the day without her. then, when she is there, they ask her, "where is baby pastica?" and everyone laughs with her.
walking with her dada.
shake it, zula.
sharing a strawberry soymilk shake with my fave girl.
you will be happy to know that we are safe and only a little sleepy with some serious jet lag. in addition to spending over half a day traveling, it was not the most pleasant experience. i have no idea what time zone my mind thinks it is in right now. e is handling it well and we are just resting when we are tired and pulling the shades tight to create artificial night. i just slept for a good four or five hours and woke to find a gone somewhere in town (without a note! doesn't he know better?) and e asleep next to me. i have a feeling (aka read his last e-mail exchange) i know what he is up to so i am not too worried; actually kinda happy about it all. getting excited about some plans that are in the works. and, proud of a for doing the leg work to get us where we need to be.

our flight was not the best mainly b/c United Airlines is the worst service provider in all of the world. They have the most crowded seats in their economy class and do not like families or children, it seems. More than one person starting with the booking agent and continuing on to almost every person we spoke to was rude to us or could not accommodate us or actually LIED to us! When traveling with a child under two who weighs about 20 pounds, we always ask for a baby bassinet so she can sleep and have here own space since she doesn't have an actual seat. This usually means our seats are the bulkhead seats as the bassinets hook to the wall. And, we even have had the pleasant experience of airline staff reserving an actual seat for her, too by blocking a seat. It's really been a pleasant experience flying with a toddler for the most part. I will spare you all of my complaints but want to not recommend UA to anyone with a toddler. They do not even provide seat belts for the child sitting on my lap! Yes, folks you must stow your luggage but don't worry about your child becoming displaced in the event of intense turbulence or anything worse. Pathetic.

i am full of fantastic secrets and really fun surprises! i will definitely share more with you soon.

flying on

we are flying out tomorrow to an undisclosed location. we're trying to keep things on the down low for a little while before we eventually come back to nc. send us healthy thoughts as e had a fever last night and i threw up today. ugh. this flight is a bit longer than the last two so pray that we would all have patience. our taxi arrives around 4:30am singapore time. better get to bed now!

back to the future in bali

one of my fave pics
ez said this our whole trip to amed. "dada, drive slowly." when trying to balance along a ledge beside the sidewalk, she says, "walk slowly."
rescued turtles to re-populate the fragile turtle population.
even more beautiful in real life.
this was a time when e refused to move from the sidewalk in the middle of a busy strip of party town kuta.dad convinced her that as soon as we got home she would be able to watch signing times and she stood right up. that dad of hers.
i know, wtf?
pathetic, yes.
how they chill in bali.

science museum pics

water play area
where is home, daddy? do we only live in hotels?
the science centre!
checking out lizards, hamsters and mice.
cutest little fountain hair do. we're waiting to get her to her glammy before it's cut!
the "stages" of labor and birth.
pretty cool journey through the babe's in utero development. above the exhibit was a tv showing live childbirth in a hospital setting.
looking out of the tree house. shirt from kuta, bali vegan restaurant.
view from the walk up the tree house stairs in the ecogarden
contrary to popular belief, there is litter in singapore.

where is the granny midwife?

e's first underground subway ride (called MRT here). she rode the tram in australia but it was totally above ground. we rode it from downtown singapore (colonial district) out to the western part of singapore. then, we walked over to the science center. we walked back to the MRT and rode it and a bus out to the Jurong Bird Park.
e wanted me to post this one. she's here helping me chose pics.
flamingos
her favorite part of the bird park was watching the penguins swim.
she loves penguins! she said, "this one is little. and that one is big." as she hugged and kissed all over the little one.
emus are called that b/c it's the sound they make. e loves to say, "emuuu, emuuu."
by the largest artificial waterfall in the world.
turkey like birds perched on either side of the waterfall.
beautiful, glittery bird full of different sheeny colors.
so, watch your back!
ostriches
tall, skinny legged birds
two puffy birds
yesterday, we spent most of the day in little india walking around looking for a hostel or more long term housing. we ate some incredible food at a vegetarian restaurant where ez peed on the bench much to the amusement of our neighbors. We also visited two homeopaths in search of a granny midwife who is lurking little india still attending homebirths. For some reason, i am convinced in both my head and my heart that she exists. I refuse to believe the hype that only OBs attend homebirths in singapore. Now, i know that some of you are glad that at least homebirths are attended my a birth professional of some sort to give women peace about having one. I can see that some women are comfortable with OBs attending them in labor and birth. Personally, I would only want a midwife to attend any homebirth i was having. And, i would never PLAN to go to any hospital to labor or give birth. If there was a medical emergency beyond the scope of midwifery, then of course, we would care for our family in every alternative way possible, which may necessitate a hospital visit. Most likely, we will have the great joy of gentle homebirths for all of our precious ones. The homeopaths both tried to convince me that the hospital is very "homey". But, pregnant people are not sick, i told them. They smiled.

in addition to the unfriendly attitude toward midwifery and homebirth, it's really difficult to find an affordable place to stay for the night or the month. at first, it was so confusing to read the newspaper ads for apartments; the $3.5K- $20K prices were per month and not for an entire year. Whoah! No way we can afford that. In additionally sad news, the doula group never responded to my contact and LLL doesn't meet for another 2 weeks. Things aren't looking so great for us beyond being tourists. We're planning to do a bit more sight seeing today and tomorrow but will probably be leaving Singapore asap.

The city has a great public transport system that we are thrilled to be able to use all day everyday. Ez really enjoys it, even. She did break the posted rules of "no eating or drinking, $500 fine" by nursing to sleep on the MRT (subway) the day before yesterday. Luckily, no one fined us. That would have been an interesting debate for me to have. muwahh, hahaa, hahhaa!