April- the Anti-Goal Month

I know, it's not really the end of April yet, but I kind of wish it were. This month has been a tough one for us, and my 2008 goals have really suffered.

Here's a perfect example:

Dinner was hours ago and yet Pedro's highchair is still nasty. (I am supposed to be cleaning it right after he eats but that's obviously not happening)

Neither's picking up all my clothes, or learning Excel (I'm starting to wonder whey I ever wanted to learn Excel in the first place, it's been 4 months and I haven't had a need for it. Maybe we'll scratch that one)

I am still hugging my kids and playing piano occasionally and exercising fairly regularly so I guess that's good.

April's been a full month:

• Guapo's dengue
• Julio's strep
• Juan Carlos's birthday party
• Two book club meetings
• Too many books to read
• Musical maids
• Pedro's mysterious arm injury
• A visit from Guapo's folks
• Broken refrigerator
• Broken kitchen pipes
• Other various house problems

But, the main thing that has happened is that aliens have taken my sweet, mild-mannered baby Pedro and replaced him with a identical monster baby!!!

Suddenly he's arching his back,

he's climbing up stuff,

he's banging his head on the floor in protest,

he's screaming and crying when I tell him "no",

he's obsessing with a capital "O" over getting his hands on anything with buttons,

he's pulling my hair and pinching my nose and laughing about it.

Tell me - WHERE DID MY SWEET PEDRO GO???

We had to hide the water cooler in Margarita's bedroom after he flooded the upstairs. Now he stands at her door and cries. It's only a matter of days before he learns how to open the door.


(that's a rubber lizard just in case you were wondering)

I know, I know, this is normal stuff-I had just kind of blocked this phase out of my mind and am stunned because it came on so suddenly.

I was not prepared for this and now I'm paying the price.

March Wrap Up

It's the end of March? I can't believe it.

This months been a little tough in the goal department because of my maid's accident. I haven't had as much time to pursue my goals since I've been busy cooking and cleaning and doing laundry and fun stuff like that. I am actually much happier being at home by myself, but the cleaning does get a little old after a while.

Vanessa took two weeks off, got her cast off (really just some ace bandages) and came back for two days. She obviously wasn't better because she couldn't walk so I told her to go back to the doctor. There's a serious problem here with dengue right now, so the hospitals are full of sick people making things like hurt legs not so important in the public hospitals. So, I paid for her to go to a private doctor (only $15.00) and they told her foot was, in fact, broken (the first doctor at the public hospital told her it was just bruised). So, now she has one of those boot things on and won't be working for the next 35 days. At least. So, I'm playing musical muchachas with her mom and cousin a couple of days a week.

Anyway, on to my goals:

1) Exercise: I think I was 19 for 25 days again. I made improvements over February because I started adding some long runs in prep for my 1/2 marathon in June. I think I upped my mileage a little too fast because 2 days after my 70 minute run last week, while I was out on a jog, my ankle started hurting and swelled up. I had to take a cab home from my run. :( It's feeling better now, but I'm going to give it a few more days to heal.

2)Pick up after myself: My clothes are picked up for the most part, and now Pedro's highchair tray is usually clean. So, I am going to add keeping clutter out of my bedroom this month. I hate piles of "stuff", especially in my bedroom.

3) Laundry: going fine, I'm getting it done earlier in the day and that makes my nights more relaxing. I don't think I'll report on this goal again. GOAL ACCOMPLISHED.

4) Hug my Kids: Sadly, I've found that doing all of the housework makes me grouchier towards my kids, especially when they add to my workload (which is like every.single.second they are awake). I better learn how to be nice to my kids even though I have to clean; we're not going to live this life forever!

5) Learn Excel: Huh??? No time in March for this goal. Sorry Excel, I still think you're cool, but you're not too useful at cleaning potties.

6) Portuguese: Slowly improving. Guapo and I had to give talks in church a couple of weeks ago in Portuguese, that's always an adventure. And I feel like my English and Spanish are getting worse and worse, so that's a good sign, I guess...

7) Primary songs: Just one: "We'll Bring the World His Truth" which our primary president prefers to "Called to Serve" for the primary program.

Not such a productive month, but what with Pedro's and Margarita's birthdays, no maid, Easter, and our little trip, all and all I'm satisfied.

thanks for humoring me, I know these posts about my goals are boring...

February Wrap Up

My plan is to report on my 2008 goals at the end of each month to keep me from forgetting what they were. So:

1) Exercise: It was an ok month until I took my little shopping trip. As much as I had hoped shopping 8 hours a day for 3 days would count as exercise, I'm afraid it didn't (I did buy new running shoes, so that should count for something, right?). I came home and felt like I was starting from square one again.

Of the 25 possible exercise days in February, I worked out 19.

2) Pick Up After Myself: I focused on picking up my clothes instead of leaving them in a heap; I made improvements in this area. My room is looking better. Now I am trying to form the habit of cleaning Pedro's highchair up as soon as he's done eating, instead of what I normally do which is to clean it up right before his next meal (all the while cursing myself for having left it).

3) Execute New Laundry Strategy: It's going ok-I have to get better about doing the laundry in the morning and not leaving it for the afternoon which quickly turns into me doing it after the kids are in bed. Not fun.

4) Hug My Kids More: Going well. Lots of hugging here.

5) Learn Excel: Humph. I bought a book in Houston. I haven't looked at it yet.

6) Portuguese: I didn't start my lessons back up when the kids went back to school. We started receiving a local newspaper everyday and I was reading it with my dictionary in hand every night. It was helping-and then they must have figured out we didn't order it because it stopped coming. :(

7) Primary Songs: This month I learned Tell Me the Stories of Jesus, If the Savior Stood Besides Me, and I Love to See the Temple. I played in Primary last week-a lot less stressful than sacrament meeting, but still slightly nerve-wracking. Sunday, to introduce the kids to "If the Savior Stood Besides Me" I am playing and Margarita is going to sing a solo! That should be fun.

New Year's Resolutions

January 30th. Hmmmm, obviously one of my resolutions isn't about procrastination. Maybe next year.

First a few thanks. Thanks to my real life friend here in Brazil whom I'll call "Ballerina Girl" because she used to be a professional ballerina; she's taking a course on flower arrangements (see "What Expat Women Do All Day" #2) and today when I got back from my run with Pedro the guard had these for me:



Nice, huh? And very professional looking. I told the guard they were from my boyfriend and not to tell Guapo. I shouldn't try to be funny in Portuguese, I don't think he got it. Oh well.

And thanks to bloggy friends Maine Mom and Marina for my blogger awards. I am so bad about making updates to my sidebar but now I will have an incentive! (my mom called me last week and reminded me to change Julio's age-she got it wrong on all of her Christmas cards because she used my blog to "double-check" the kids' ages and I hadn't updated it. He is 7 and has been for several months now. Sorry Julio.)

Ok, on to my resolutions. I contemplated for a while whether or not to blog about them and I've decided I will post the ones that aren't too personal. I'm a big believer in writing down goals and having to report on them. Nettie did that last year and I loved reading about how she accomplished her goals. So, I'm going to post them now and hopefully report on how I'm doing every now and then (read: when I can't think of anything clever to write about).

New Year's Resolution #1- Weight

Does anyone NOT have this as a resolution? I really am ok with my weight-I'm probably only carrying a couple of extra baby pounds and those can be found in my still-nursing chest region. But, what I want to work on is my attitude towards exercise. From the time Margarita was around 6 months up until I got pregnant with Pedro, I had a good attitude towards exercise. I expected myself to workout at least 4 times a week. With Juan Carlos's pregnancy I made sure my heart rate was up at least 2 1/2 hours a week throughout the pregnancy and then I ran a half marathon when he was just under 3 months old (ok, so not the smartest thing I've ever done-but I still had another kid so I guess it didn't do too much damage),

Then I got pregnant with Pedro and I fell apart in that department (and several others). I was so sick at the beginning and middle of my pregnancy and then by the time I felt OK I was so big I just felt like, "what's the point?" After his birth I suffered from PPD and just couldn't get it together enough to ever work out more than once or twice a week.

I'm feeling much better now and need to get back to it. I want to do something physical every day of the week except Sunday. Activities may include: running, walking, biking, swimming. To motivate myself I am planning to do a half marathon in June when I get back to the States with my mom who is my exercise idol.

Resolution #2: Pick Up After Myself

Do you ever see something in your kids that makes you go, "oh boy-that came from me."? That happened recently to me watching Margarita pig up her room. Drawers and closets open, clothes and shoes flung everywhere. Guess where she gets it from? Yep. I can finally admit it came from me. I always justified my messiness by telling myself I was the one who picked it up, so what did it mattered when I did it? But, it really is annoying. And I can't very well ask her to do something that I'm not doing.

So, I am making a conscious effort to put my clothes in the correct place ever time I change. And close the closet doors. And the drawers. . .

Resolution #3: Execute New Laundry Strategy

I loathe laundry. So I have, in the past, done lots of loads two days a week so as not to think about it the other five days of the week. However, doing laundry here in Brazil is even less fun than doing laundry in other places because their dryers are totally inefficient. Just to give you a clue as to how inefficient, you can set the time knob for up to THREE HOURS (that's not normal, right???):



And that's about how long it takes to dry a normal load. So, instead of wasting all the time and electricity, you have to hang up each load and let it partially dry and then stick it in the dryer for a hour or so to finish the job (did you want to see my running bra? Good. I thought so.).



This makes it impossible to do my two days of 3 or 4 loads. So, I am changing to 1 or 2 loads 6 days a week. I'm not happy about it, but it's necessary for now.

(are you wondering why I do laundry since I have a maid? Hmmmm. Well, that's a post for another day, but, long story short: 1) I have control issues, and 2) my maid's not the best cleaner in the world (she is however, good at other things))

Resolution #4: Hug my Kids More

I loved President Hinckley's message found in December's Ensign about how we treat our kids. Since he passed away this week it's even more special to me as it was his last written message. Not Mormon? Don't be afraid, this short article isn't too "Mormon-y" and it was just so uplifting to me as a mom. The part that stuck in my head was the following:

"There once was a commonly seen bumper sticker that asked the question, “Have you hugged your child today?” How fortunate, how blessed is the child who feels the affection of his or her parents. That warmth, that love will bear sweet fruit in the years that follow. In large measure, the harshness that characterizes so much of our society is an outgrowth of harshness imposed on children years ago"

I am affectionate with my kids, but now that I have 4 I think sometimes I give the majority of my hugs and kisses to the baby and Juan Carlos. I need to remember that it is just as important for Margarita and Julio. So I am printing out something that says, "Have you hugged your child today?" and putting it on my bathroom mirror.

Resolution #5: Learn Excel

I need to learn this program. I sick of having to ask Guapo, "Now, how do you make the numbers add up again?" I have been elected (ok, not really; the lady who was rightfully elected abandoned her post) to be the book buyer for my book club (it's as if they know how much I like to buy stuff) and must keep a updated file for the president (sounds important, doesn't it?).

(See "What Expat Women Do All Day" #2 and #6)

Resolution #6: Portuguese???

Still undecided if I want to put the effort in and REALLY learn it or skate by and try to preserve what remains of my now-sorry Spanish. I'll be sure to keep you updated.

Resolution #7: Learn to Play the Primary Presentation Songs

I just about killed myself learning to play the piano in Small Town, Mexico. There was no one who could play in our branch so I practiced and practiced so I could play on Sundays. I learned around 75 hymns. But, when I am not required to play, I don't practice and I really don't want to lose all of my earlier efforts. So, I am going to learn the Primary songs for the Sacrament meeting presentation this year, just in case I am needed. Those would be:

• I am a Child of God (already know it)
• Tell Me the Stories of Jesus
• If the Savior Stood Beside Me
• We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet (already know it)
• Home
• I Love to See the Temple
• Called to Serve (have crashed and burned on this one several times)
• When Jesus Christ Was Baptized

That's it. Well, and a few more personal goals, but you don't want to hear about those!

Tchau!