No Cold Sores...I'm Totally Relaxed...No Cold Sores

Tomorrow Guapo and I are headed to California. Guapo's brother is getting married on Friday and we are going. Sans children. He is marrying a super cool, smart, beautiful girl who actually blogs-so now I have someone in my family to share my blogging hopes and dreams with. If you get a chance, you can wish her well here.


Anyway, it is always crazy to leave the kids. We haven't both left for more than a night since our 10th anniversary a couple of years ago; I was in the depths of pregnancy despair-so I'm thinking this will be a whole lot more fun. The childcare team will include 6 adults-Vanessa our maid (as long as she doesn't show up with a note tomorrow), Vanessa's cousin (a preemptive strike on my part so no notes are needed during the 5 day trip), Sergio the driver, and three nice girls from chuch who are going to take turns spending the night here to help out with the bedtime and morning routines. It feels good to know it takes an entire staff to replace me!

We are going to Disneyland on Wednesday. What kind of parents are we to go without our kids who have never been???

Right about now, I am just trying not to freak out about leaving because if I have too much stress I will get a cold sore, and that wouldn't be too nice for the wedding photos.

...deep cleansing breath...

Amid all of maid issues, (that for the time being, seem to be better), and all of the preparation, there hasn't been a lot of time for blogging. So, here are a few things going on that I don't want to forget.

Julio (almost 8 years) update

He lost his first big front tooth last week. (the glasses are a poor Photoshop attempt to disguise Julio, we don't actually make him wear Harry Potter glasses).

He got a horrific hair cut two weeks ago. Poor kid knew it. He wore a hood to school the first few days. Think Roman-gladiator-helmet-haircut. After he shed the hood he came home and told me the kids were making fun of him. Sadly, I can't really say that I blame them...

Oh well, it will grow, right?

Juan Carlos (5 years) Update

Juan Carlos is fine. Ever my baby. He is learning to read and write which I can't believe. I am finding homemade books and lists of words around the house. So cute.

He loves his swimming class too, now that his teacher knows that he is never, ever going to put on his speedo.


Margarita (10 years) Update

She is currently the smarty-pants of her 5th grade class. Not to brag, but she brings home A+ work all.the.time. We are pretty proud of her hard work.

Stickers are all the rage amongst the 5th grade girls right now. She can't wait for me to get back with a new, cool, American stickers.

She is such a helper with Pedro-I am grateful for her everyday!

Pedro (18 months): The Semi-Functional-Human-Magic-Eight-Ball

Pedro has learned how to say, "Yeah". He says "yeah" to everything. Well, almost. If you ask him if he wants to go to bed he says, "no". But, to everything else he answers, "Yeah". So, the new thing is for the older kids to continually bombard him with senseless questions and hear him answer "yeah".

"Am I your best friend?" Yeah

"Are we going to the zoo on Saturday?" Yeah

"Are you going to marry La La* when you grow up?" Yeah

"Were you kidding before when you said Julio was your best friend?" Yeah

"Do you want to eat a dog?" Yeah

You get the idea. It can go on for hours. (I'm keeping it clean here, folks, for your benefit, lots of the questions have to do with poop.)

*He is into the telletubbies right now. I'm not for sticking my kids in front of the TV, but I will admit it's nice when I need 5 minutes without him destroying something. Vanessa, for religious reasons, does not approve of the Tubbies. Twice now she has swapped out the tubbies video for a more appropriate Veggie Tales video. Which he does not care for. We'll see who wins that battle over the next 5 days.

He is also trying to jump, but he's in that super cute phase where the rest of his body jumps, but his feet don't actually leave the ground; he just kind of lurches forward. I love it.

Oh, and puddles. It's been raining a lot here and he's discovered puddles. They can be very distracting when we are trying to walk. :)

A Moment of Sadness

When I put Pedro down for his nap tomorrow it will be the last time I nurse him. I have been slowly weaning him since we got back from our summer vacation and this trip is the perfect opportunity to finish the job. He's over 18 months now-I've never nursed a baby this long. It makes me really sad to quit, but if I don't do it now I'm afraid I'll end up like my very-Italian-grandma who nursed my Uncle Lee until he was 5. Yes, 5. Sure it was during the Great Depression, but does that make it right? I must not become that woman!

This very well may be the end of my nursing and little baby days.

Ok, I'm crying now.

...deep cleansing breath...deep cleansing breath...deep cleansing breath...

I love you kids!!! Be good!

When School Supplies Offend

So my kids went back to school on Monday. August 4th. So early, don't you think?

July 31st was my last night in the States. Where do you think I was? Spending the last few hours with family, looking out over the beautiful mountain view as we sipped lemonade on my in-laws' porch?

Nope.

I was at Target, frantically shopping, of course. And I'm not too proud to admit that as I was jamming my rental car's teeny trunk full of things I can't possibly live without, I was crying. I just don't know that you can fully appreciate Target without living without it 11 months of the year. Maybe you can.

Anyway, my last trip was dedicated to foodstuffs and school supplies. Margarita's list had on it "4-ring binder". I had only heard of a 3-ring binder, so I figured it was a typo and purchased her the 3-ring binder of her choice at a cost of $5.99.

When she got to class on Monday, it turns out that, sure enough, there is a 4-ring binder and she must have it unless she wants to be punching holes all year. So, we head off to the local papeleria (paper products store) where I purchase 5 dollar roles of scotch tape when I am desperate. She tells me that's where all the kids in her class bought theirs.

The cool one, the one that "everyone" has, costs guess how much? Just take a stab in the dark.

If you said $75.00 USD you are correct!!! (I'll have you know there is nothing special about this notebook-it would cost MAYBE $10.00 in the States. MAYBE.)

The less cool, but still acceptable, 4-ring binder will set you back $60.00 USD.

And then there was a junky plastic one that Margaritia obviously didn't want that cost $10.00 USD.

Guess which one she got?

Yep. The cheap plastic one. I have to give her credit though, she didn't even complain. She's a good girl.

(oh, and one other thing, I bought a stupid toothbrush today for $7.00. Ouch.)

Target withdrawals are painful... (and expensive)

Happy Birthday Margarita!

Here's my little girl 10 years ago. This is one of my all time favorite pictures-because it was the moment when I became a mom.

We didn't find out what we were having (we never do) and we were sure she was a boy. I'll never forget Guapo saying, "It's a girl?!?" when she was born. The wonderful surprise of having a girl made the month of bed rest, two embarrassing false-alarm trips to the hospital (one involving getting "checked" by a handsome ER doc in Moab while Guapo and.my.dad looked on), and the awful delivery, totally worth it.

I remember not wanting to go home from the hospital- I didn't have a clue what to do with a baby! My parents came in for the birth but then had to leave before I left the hospital, so I went home a new mom without my mom or Guapo's mom (Margarita arrived 3 weeks early and she had already purchased her ticket for a week after her due date). Luckily, I got a good one-she was a great baby and has been pretty easy ever since then. I have this, what I am sure is an erroneous idea that "girls are easy, boys are hard" because she has just been a breeze. I know, you're thinking-wait til she's a teenager, and maybe you're right, but for now, she continues to be my good girl.

She is the first grandchild on my family's side



..and she was the second in Guapo's family. Here she is with her older cousin (Guapo made her wear the disgusting Laker jersey):



There are now 11 grand kids on Guapo's side and these two are STILL THE ONLY GIRLS!

You've probably noticed I don't blog about her as much as I do the boys. I feel like I have to protect her privacy-I'm thinking at some point she won't want people having access to her life on the Internet. The boys are still younger and I mostly just blog about funny little things they say or do. She's kind of past that age so to blog about her I would have to give info I'm not sure she'd appreciate me giving out later on in life. I'm sure I'll reach that point with each of my kids as they grow up.

But, you should know she is a great girl. She is very talented in many ways and I hope she will take the time to develop those talents-especially now while she is young and has lots of free time. She is a great big sister, someone who can get along with just about anyone, almost always happy, independent and just a fun person to be around.

To celebrate, she had a small birthday party-3 friends came over; we went swimming and then out for sushi-one of the benefits of living all over the place-my kids will eat almost anything. Margarita LOVES sushi. She will even eat plain seaweed!



I gave Vanessa $25 to do a little "Brazilian-birthday-table-magic" She decided on a horse theme since Margarita loves horses:


I made the cake (totally professional looking, don't you think? not):




Happy Birthday Margarita! Thanks for being such a wonderful daughter. :) I love you!