The Craft of Learning

A week off and what can be done to keep Kiddo busy?  Well, turns out, not much needs to be done.  She’s taken to playing school with her friends.  Today’s lesson was about “transport”.  As you can see, she is an amazing teacher.  After this, I found out that Pengi and Pink needed to go with “Mr. Dada” and do math learning.  The rest of the class got to stay with “Miss Kiddo” and help get snacks ready.  She pulled out her colored popsicle sticks and those were fruit sticks for the friends.  Needless to say, a lot of learning happened.  

Other than that, we’ve just been having fun, doing crafts, and hanging out.  Yesterday, I was out and doing some work on a few things and J was crafting with Kiddo.  She got a pic of her concentrating and really focused on her work.  

As an aside to this, we are an Apple family.  I write this on our MacBook Air, J and I are both on the iPhone.  We both have AirPod Pros, so messages will read to us in our headphones, if we want.  I have the feature on.  So, yesterday, I got the alert, “Message from J - Sent an image.”  And then, “Also from J - Kiddo hard at work and concentrating.”  I froze myself and took a selfie at that point.  Well, we now know where she gets that from.  :P. HAHAHA

We also went out the other day to get something to eat as well.  Kiddo wanted to bring coloring stuff.  And she wanted to get a root beer.  She has mastered the art of coloring while drinking.  It is a skill I still struggle with, but look at the form…. The straw placement….. The mastery of the work being done.  J and I have talked about it and we never got to this point of being five.  I mean, we were both five once, but we obviously didn’t practice hard enough at it, because we combined couldn’t touch this level of being five.  Besides that, self made crown and swinging; Can you touch this level of cool?  I know we can't!

In non-Kiddo related news, we got a warehouse store open near us now.  Right across from the mall.  The deals aren’t as good as in the States, but they still have some good stuff.  One of the things that we’ve struggled with here in the last year is peanut butter.  It’s not common, so we could only find small jars and they were a little pricy.  300g for about 220 baht.  So, 2/3rds a pound for about $6.50.  We found this bad boy and it was 407 baht.  So, about 6 times the amount for less than half more.  This one jar offset the cost of membership itself.  Meat and booze isn’t that good of a deal either, TP isn’t needed as it’s provided by our condo on cleaning days, and we don’t have the space to really get things like paper towels or some of the larger things, but those aren’t really needed.  Besides that, Kirkland brand stuff!  PB Pretzel nugs!!!!!!!  So, it’s a little touch of home.  Oh, and this mofo is HUGE!  If you’ve been to a Costco before, this place will make it look small.  I’m not joking.

The Costco we frequented in Cali was big, but when I worked with the boats and did the yacht work, I went to Costcos from time to time to acquire items, and a few times, that meant going to LA for work.  Actually, we were probably in LA about 5-10 days a month.  There is a Costco in LA that is the third largest in America.  The Tops Club (the name of the warehouse store here) is TWICE that size!!!!! So, it’s huge and J and I got to go and spend an hour just bumping around and browsing.  It was fun.  J and I have always had a good time just walking stores together.  It’s one of those couple things.  We just know what will amuse the other, we know what the other will want to see or explore, so we know when to slow down or pull aside for looks.  That and we can just walk and talk and be.

It’s things like this that J and I joke about sometimes.  Like, “You know, if we ever divorced, I don’t know if I could ever find someone to just walk thru Costco with and have fun for an hour.”  Or, yesterday in the kitchen, I had a knife and a pot of pasta boiling.  I can call “hot” or “sharp” or “need clear” and J and I will move or act accordingly.  It’s the little couple stuff and shorthand stuff that we’ve learned about each other over the last 15 years that is the good stuff.  The simple stuff.

Kiddo and J did go to get a coffee and pink milk the other day.  Too cute!!!!!

Let’s go, Kiddo… We still have a few days off.  Let’s teach those friends, make some crafts, and have some laughs.  Love you, my lil giggle girl.  You too, Mumma Giggle Lady!