why must so many of my life stories involve poop?

will it always be that way, or is it just because I have small children? or is it because I live in asia? I know not the reason, but it sure seems to be true. My life has a constant supply of poop stories.

The first recent one is kind of interesting. Last week, emma had been having some loose stools, so of course, me and my chatty house helper tried to devise various solutions over our daily lunches. After some serious thought, she finally told me she had a great idea and would tell me about it tomorrow. Day 2, she comes back with a sack full of grass and sticks. I looked at her, a little bewildered, wondering why she was presenting me with such a, um, thoughtful gift.

"It's my solution for emma," she said.

"Oh, right," I convincingly agreed.

She proceeded to BOIL the grass in water...and then fill it up in a little basin (which, of course had winnie the pooh on it). Then, emma got her first little foot massage! She told me that "grass has properties in it that can help firm up the stool and just simply massaging your feet in it can bring a lot of help." Hmmmm, is that so?

Well, at any rate, emma really enjoyed her little foot bath. At first the water was terrifyingly hot to her, and would bravely dip her big toe in and then pull back. Finally, as she got used to it, she put her feet all the way in, and then a few minutes later would tell our friend that she wanted more hot water in.

If you want more hot water in, the procedure is that the massagee puts their feet on the outer rim of the bowl while the new water is beign added. That works great for kids who get their feet washed every night ( as I found out, is a very common custom here). But for emma, who had never had this relaxing experience, she found that putting her feet on the side of the bowl could cause a spill of catastrophic proportions!

My other poop story came last week when the girls and I went to josh's school for show-and-tell day. (Emma and Samantha were the show and tell!) Of course, everyone wanted the girls to stay late so they could talk, hold, touch, pinch, etc, etc, etc...but samantha was starting to get a little grouchy that all these curious people were intruding on her nap time, so I decided to take her home early while emma stayed with josh - which of course, she loved...getting to sit in daddy's desk at school, meeting daddy's teachers, and so on.

So as I'm walking home, samantha drifts off to sleep in a rather uncomfortable position in my arms, but our house isn't really so far from josh's school, so I just keep going. Then, I feel this sudden plop of wetness on my forearm and sandaled foot.

Nas-ty. A bird. Pooped. On me.

Gross.

Ok, so samantha, my fabulous pooper, managed to escape mention in both of today's poop stories. Instead, I'll just leave you with these cute pics of her:

Her first tooth on bright display! She has another one coming in, this guy's little neighbor:

And oh, how she loves to stand! She's probably happy too because we just finished having dinner at pizza hut. Not that she got to eat any of it, but oh well...