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Bump to baby on the beaten expat track

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Nathalie

at the end of the work week – blue crabs for lunch in Kep’s Psar Kdam

23 November 2013 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

It’s always nice when work takes you down to the coast. This is our team’s last trip to assess public health facilities. That we were in Kep was much appreciated! Kep is a small seaside province which has been designated a resort area so it is rapidly developing – see some photos of Kep on our Flickr. The crab market (Psar Kdam) is an especially big attraction. There are all manner of seafood on the grill for sale here. Ten squid on a stick cost 20000Riel (US$5). Whole chicken on the grill is around 30000Riel too. Big fish are around 8000-12000Riel each.

Blue crabs are the signature catch for Kep, so we splurged on these for lunch on our last day. For small crabs we were able to haggle 18000Riel/kg (~US$2/lb). For 35000Riel/kg the crabs are bigger and meatier. We got 6kg (13.2lbs) and had them steamed (1000Riel/kg). While waiting, our team made a yummy dipping sauce by pounding together a mix of garlic, chili, lime and some palm sugar. It was really hard to go back to work that afternoon!

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Filed Under: Life, Travels Tagged With: Blue Crab, Cambodia, crab, Crab Market, Kep, Khmer cuisine, Khmer food, Psar Kdam

a new color scheme

28 July 2012 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

I’ve been separated a week already from my son and I am still shedding the tension from a year and a half of interrupted sleep/sleeplessness. So here’s one way to de-stress – painting! I had to paint the place anyway (the previous tenants had a toddler who marked up the parts of the wall he could reach) and I had help so I figured, why not have fun with the colors! Seeing the vivid colors go up – stark against the white of the previous walls – made me momentarily think I’ve made a mistake. But now they’re up I love it! More pictures later!

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: de-stress, paint, painting

one happy little boy

21 July 2012 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Angkor Wat, Bayon, beach, Cambodia, Siem Reap, Sihanoukville

Tuk-tuk rides: Look, ma, no seatbelt!

26 May 2012 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

This little monkey is a a terror in the tuk-tuk. Thankfully the tuk tuk driver, Rithy, drives fairly slowly and cautiously, occasionally watching the boy from the rearview mirrors to make sure he hadn’t fallen out (which is sadly his only use of these implements that we can determine). But luckily he fell asleep after we let him use the vehicle as a jungle gym for 20 minutes. A sleeping boy makes for a happy Papa!

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Cambodia, expat, expatriate, parenthood, parenting, tuk tuk, tuktuk

Medical consent form – Lost in translation?

25 May 2012 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

This is the English translation of a surgery consent form included in the hospital guidelines. It has the gist, but perhaps it isn’t quite what the writer meant..?

Filed Under: Work Tagged With: Cambodia, consent form, health sector, hospital, patient rights, surgery

the problem with the way we handled attachment parenting

19 May 2012 by Nathalie Leave a Comment

The above image is from the 21 May 2012 issue of TIME magazine. “Are you mom enough?” – That headline just grabs you, doesn’t it, questioning your values and your parenting.

One thing we didn’t anticipate, in all the planning and discussions about attachment parenting, is the difficulties in teaching our son to put himself to sleep, and to soothe himself back to sleep when he twitches awake in the night – without me.

For the past 16 months I was perfectly happy to oblige his every request. I’m quite fortunate to work for an employer who’s flexible to the needs of new mothers. There’s a nursery at the office so you can nurse or pump during the workday, and until the child is a year old s/he and the nanny can be taken on work trips to the provinces.

Plus, the boy is not a cuddler, so the time together -even when he wants to use me as a pacifier for extended periods of time- is precious to me.

Hubby and I just assumed he would eventually begin nursing less at night. But he hasn’t, and now it’s starting to feel like a chain. We’ve tried all the “gentle” ways to teach our son to sleep (we bought all the Pantley books). And after trying for six months, none of the recommendations worked. We’d like to once in a while have a quiet night in, watching a movie after he falls asleep. Instead, every night starting around seven (I get home from work around 530-6pm), we begin his bedtime routine and he falls asleep anywhere between 2-3 hours later!, nursing!

So today is Day One of detachment parenting, where I’ll sleep at our neighbor’s every night until our son can (hopefully!) put himself to sleep with just Papa in the house. There’ll be a lot of crying and temper tantrums from this high-need little baby, but hopefully there’s sanity at the end of the tunnel. This isn’t to say we don’t recommend attachment parenting, just that we’d probably attack the sleep issue early on and not let it become a problem.

Filed Under: Life Tagged With: Are you mom enough?, attachment parenting, baby, expat, expatriate, motherhood, parenthood, parenting, TIME

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Those little feet pitter-pattering about rule our lives lately. But on the occasional free moment I get to tap out scatterbrained bursts of consciousness about raising toddlers in Cambodia, traveling with them and working abroad. These posts are my personal updates to friends and family. But since you’re here, have a look around. Thanks for stopping by…

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