The Times I Most Want Another Baby...

... are when they are like this (Pedro this afternoon after a tough couple of days of preschool):

Look at that little face, what an absolute angel (again-when he's asleep-whole different ball game when he's conscious):

Of course, those two shots were hard to get because Juan Carlos was intentionally trying to ruin the picture running back in forth in front of me...

...thus bringing me back to reality.

First Playdate

Just to mark this day in history, Pedro (almost 4) had his very first playdate.

He went home with a little friend directly after preschool for a couple of hours. So, what did I do with all my free time? Well, I divided it basically between two activities:

1) pacing around the house not feeling quite right
2)worrying that they would get in a car crash while driving from the school to the ice cream shop, and then from their house to our house

I called after an hour or so to make sure he'd made it to their house and she asked him if he wanted to talk to me and I could hear him in the background, "No, that's ok."

He made it home safely and all is well (other than a bucket load of tears shed because I wouldn't take him immediately to Target to by a Lighting McQueen game for the Wii that he played at his friend's house), but I still feel weird.

My little guy is growing up. :(

Horse Feathers (or is it one word?)

Remember how my older kids taught Pedro to replace the word "uneducated" for the word "stupid"?

They have now brought to my attention how often I say the word "crap" by teaching Pedro to tell me that crap is not a nice word (I know it already!) and to replace it with "horse feathers" (horesefeathers?).

Whatever would I do without the little gems?

Blasted Lunches

Juan Carlos and Julio start school tomorrow.

After three years of having my kids eat a wonderful lunch at school, it's back to packing them. I made the boys pack them tonight. At this point, I think it's probably more trouble to make them do it, but I just didn't have it in me. That's not good the night before the FIRST day of school.


Woe is me...

Speaking of school-oh my were the supply lists LONG. This is our first experience with public schools-I'm used to buying a few pencils and pens and having everything else provided by the school. The kids' school supplies covered my dining room table and cost well over $100. I think I'll need a fork lift tomorrow to get the stuff into the classroom. Juan Carlos has to take 3 reams of copy paper; Julio has to take 48 pencils. Forty-eight pencils??? I'm truly surprised I didn't have to take in 1,200 rolls of toilet paper.

Oh well.

The organizing went well, thanks for asking. The movers unpacked the stuff and took the boxes away which is the only way to go. I worked myself silly that first day and finished about 80% of the job. I did 15% the next day leaving me with just 5% that I'm saving for when I'm uptight (organizing mellows me out). It all fit in the house, so that's good.

I'm off to put the kids back in bed, again (they've been going to bed around 11:00 pm, so 8:30 pm was a bit of a shock to the system).

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane Big Bus

Well, I'm off to Sao Paulo tomorrow with Margarita and Julio for their Destination Imagination competition. Thanks to me and my (irrational) fear of flying without my kids, Ballerina Girl and I are going to suffer through a bus ride (with 20+ kids) that takes anywhere from 5-8 hours, depending on whom you ask. Did I mention I get carsick?

Sounds like fun, eh?

It's a humbling experience for me to see Juan Carlos (6 years old) crying tonight because I'm leaving. I spend a fair amount of time feeling frustrated with my kids; so to see one of them crying because I'm not going to be here, when I sometimes feel like they'd be happier if I wasn't around nagging them about this or that, makes me feel grateful that kids love so unconditionally.

That's all. I'll be back Sunday.

Welcome to The School of Hard Knocks

When I went into help in Juan Carlos' 1st grade class last week, his teacher pulled me aside and told me she had to show me something. It was a writing assignment where the kids were supposed to respond to a letter from a disgruntled young woman, Lizzie, who was upset that she couldn't join the boys only Soccer Club, despite her supposed soccer skills.

She first showed me a few of the other kids' response which were generally along the lines of, "I'm sorry. It's not fair, you can play with us" or "the club should be for boys AND girls" or "if you keep practicing, we'll let you join."

Then she showed me Juan Carlos' paper:

(you can click it to make it bigger)

"I am sorry but that is how it is. You can make you're own club" (please disregard the grammatical error, he's only 6 :) )

His teacher loved it. I felt like in those two short sentences, that she had a window into our home and how we deal with a lot of the problems around here. "You're going to have to work it out.", "What are you going to do about it?", "You're ok" , "You're going to have to deal with it.", "You can handle it", "Life's not fair", "You can't always get what you want" (sung to them in my lovely singing voice. You know the song, from the Rolling Stones?)

Not that he's not a compassionate little guy, he is, actually his answer surprised me a little. He will often come home and tell me he helped so-and-so who was sad, or showed the new kid around. He draws pictures when we're sick and gives great hugs. And I do like that he realizes that sometimes life isn't fair and offers poor Lizzie a suggestion. But, it still made me feel a little weird.

Like I'd better watch out or I'm going to be complaining about my arthritis in the nursing home someday and he'll tell me, "Sorry, but that's just how it is. Take some aspirin and suck it up."

Home Alone (well, almost) and NOT Pregnant

Yesterday marked a significant day in my life: all my kids were at school at the same time while I was at home all.by.myself (except for the maid from whom I was hiding).

This has happened before, but I have always been pregnant at the time, which is different. It always added a kind of frenzied feel to it, like I had to cherish ever second because the hours were numbered before I would have another little one to care for full-time.

So, it was the first time this has happened in just shy of 12 years!

It was nice. A little anti-climatic since Pedro has given up his 2+ hour afternoon nap. I feel like I've just traded in my afternoon peace for a little morning peace. I went running and practiced piano. That's it. And then it was time to go pick him up.

The first 3 days consituted Pedro's "adaptation" period during which time I had to stay at school (hidden away where he couldn't see me) just in case anything went wrong or he got too sad. The first two days were great; I took my huge book (Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin which is excellent btw) and hung out by myself in a nice air conditioned office.

The third day wasn't so great, I had to share (the nerve!) my room with another lady whose granddaughter was also "adapting". She had headphones on listening to Brazilian music and was belting in it out for all to hear (well, really just for me, she obviously couldn't hear herself or she would have instantly stopped). She'd also periodically get up and saunter around the room, snapping her fingers to the beat of her music, all the while continuing to sing. It made reading my book, which is by no means a beach read, difficult at best. Oh well, at least she was enjoying herself.

Pedro had no problem those first few days, it was new and exciting and he got to carry his backpack and feel like a big kid going to school with his brothers and sister. Yesterday and today it's been like, "What? This again? But I already did this!" He was a little weepy today when I left him which was very hard, but his teacher emailed me shortly there after to let me know cheered right up. He gets to go to PE, library and music class each 2X a week which seems to be the highlight so far.

Well, that and the gerbils that his teacher lets him feed when he's missing me. :)

The End of an Era

We put away Pedro's crib over the weekend. Here's the last picture ever of him in his crib that once belonged to his Uncle Matty (Guapo's brother and husband of my awesome SIL, Abby, who has big plans for her future, BTW. The crib's all yours Abby, rust and all):

*Sigh*

No more diapers, no more cribs. At least in the foreseeable future (don't roll your eyes at me, Guapo).

He's a big boy now at almost 3 years old and he and Juan Carlos (6 yrs) are going to share a room while Julio (9 yrs) is going to enjoy a little of being on his own. The maiden voyage didn't go so well last night-we still aren't back to normal time wise. Pedro kept poor Juan Carlos up past 11:30 and he had school this morning poor kid.

Which leads me to another sad loss...much more tragic than either The Crib or The Diapers...

The Nap.

Can I still make him take a nap? Technically, yes. But, it's not a pretty process. It usually involves me falling deep asleep (read: my mouth open with drool on the pillow) while he gleefully wreaks havoc on the room and then me coming to, realizing what's happened (again), and then wrestling him down until he finally gives up the fight.

But then he won't sleep at night until really, really late. Much later than I care to stay up with him.

Sad, huh? Oh well.

On the bright side he's super cute again, after going through a bit of a tough spell before Christmas (lots of hitting, a fair amount of kicking, plenty of screaming, and even a little experimentation with biting. Ouch). He's quite pleasant now, comparatively speaking. His latest thing is that he wants me to carry him a lot (I remember my other boys going through this same phase at the this age) and he'll say, "Mom, can you carry me? I'm really busy." Today he changed it to "dizzy" but either way, it's totally cute.

And, he's going to start morning preschool in the next couple of weeks. I feel guilty about sending my kids to preschool so early (not guilty enough not to do it, but still), but everyone here (and all the other places we've lived abroad) puts their kids in "school" (um, can you say "daycare"?) at 18 months so I feel like an over-achiever for keeping them home until they're 3. But, because of this, Pedro hasn't had any friends outside of his siblings ever. I think he needs that now. We're getting quite bored with each other. So, that will be good-I think he'll enjoy it a lot.

Whatever will I do with my 3 kid-free hours a day?

How I Lost My Groove

...having somewhere between 2 to 4 men in my house daily arriving between the hours of 8:00 am (when they should be showing up) and 10:00 (when they usually end up showing up) and leaving between 4 pm and 6 pm.

They seem to always be where I want to be and I'm getting nothing done-no piano practice, no emails, no blogging. :( I am getting good at getting out of my house whenever I can. Luckily, the weather's been nice.

The whole thing's just frustrating. They're always showing up late or can't work because they have to "buy materials". Ugh. Not to mention that they are starting with the inside problems instead of the outside problems (despite the sunny weather), so, if it rains anytime soon (you can pretty much bet on it) it's going to be messed up again. But, what do I know? I'm just a stupid gringa.

Anyway, I'm still here, but barely. I've been playing a lot of tennis and doing a lot of field trips with Pedro. Here're a few random things that are going on:

Adventures in Potty Training

I would say Pedro's graduated from Potty Training 101; I don't have to ask him every 3 1/2 minutes if he has to go, he just tells me now. I can take him out without worrying about it and I don't even have to lug the baseball potty around any more, he'll accept his little seat you put on top of a regular toilet now or even just have me support him. He hasn't had an accident in a long time and he's almost always dry in the morning now. He even wakes up in the middle of the night to pee (that's fun for me). A couple of funny potty training things I want to remember:

1) The George Costanza Phase. Pedro wants to be buck neked when he goes to the bathroom. I try to discourage this practice as it lengthens the whole process. (remember that episode where George strips down to go?)

2) Pedro's Amazing Control. He is able to save up his #2 until nap time and bedtime and then, just as I'm leaving the room it's, "I've got to go, I've got to go." (kind of hard to say no to) He then proceeds to release rabbit size droppings for the next half hour while I go nuts waiting for him to finish. "I'm almost done mom," he tells me over and over. I've started setting the stop watch on my watch and I tell him when it rings, he's done.

Trying to Save The Holidays

Julio's got a kid in his class that doesn't celebrate any-thing. So, I discovered the day before Halloween that his class wasn't allowed to decorate for Halloween because of him. I Was.Not.Happy. They had a one hour Halloween activity (while the kid left the room) and then Halloween was OVER-not to be mentioned again. This is a private, American, international school with people from all over the world, all with different customs and religions, and why an exception is being made for one out of 24 students and ruining my kid's fun and American traditions that I work hard to preserve, I don't understand.

If you're against your child even seeing decorations of any kind or being educated about other people's cultures and traditions, then maybe.you.should.be.homeschooling.

I'm very grouchy about it, in case you couldn't tell. So, tomorrow I have a meeting with the principal to discuss. And, I've already ordered not one but two Thanksgiving projects to do with Julio's class.

What else? Well, speaking of Halloween, here's my crew, all dressed up before the school Halloween party (at least that wasn't canceled).

They all loved their costumes. Halloween's so fun.

I guess that's about it. Hope you're all having a great week.

It's Tough...

...potty training when you have bigger responsibilities:

I'd say Grandma's winning the potty training war- Pedro's doing great with #1; he gets lots of practice since he seems to go every 3 1/2 minutes. Number 2 has yet to be released into his potty.

Please advise- how do we get him to do #2 on the potty?

Confessions of a 1st Grade Room Mom

Sorry, I don't really have any confessions, it just sounds a lot more interesting than:

• How I Got Bullied into Being a Room Mom
• Why I Hate Being a Room Mom
• Remind Me NEVER to be a Room Mom Again

Juan Carlos' first grade class had no volunteers for a room mom. I have avoided that job like the plauge ever since the one and only time I've ever done it; it was for Margarita's kindergarten class long ago, back in our Venezuela days. But when his very nice teacher begged me to do it and promised me she would ask nothing of me, that I would be a room mom in name only, I warily accepted the position.

Why don't I want to be a room mom?

1) I hate planning parties
2) I hate when other people complain about the parties I've planned when they offered no input or support in the first place. (I've had a little experience with this)

Well, it's true, she has asked nothing of me in my two month term. The PTA President is an entirely different story. She and I are good friends, our daughters are best friends so when I complain about her demands, I do it with love in my heart. And, it's not her fault the Children's Day Ice Cream Social and Teacher's Day with its accompanying parent-provided Teacher's Appreciation Lunch fell in the same week this year, leaving me to collect the many items that my class was responsible for.

It's almost as if parents didn't enjoy receiving my daily emails imploring them to send in this many kilos of sprinkles and that many kilos of M&M's, a half dozen pasta salads, and, oh yeah, enough money to get two decent presents for the kids' teachers.

Do I like being responsible for a group gift?

Ummmm, NO.

When I asked for suggestions, several people recommended buying clothing or handbags for the teachers. Ok, if any of you know me, you know I have a problem with shopping (other than at Target and other stores that have carts), fashion, trends, etc. I would NEVER in a million years purchase a handbag for someone else. So why that might have been a perfectly acceptable suggestion to someone with a normal level of fashion sense, it made me break out into a sweat.

I ended up going with a gift certificate to a popular bookstore here. Gift certificates are not as mainstream here as they are in the States, so I had to really do some ground work to find an acceptable store that offered them. I added a nice lotion gift set and baked some banana bread. The teachers both seemed happy with their gifts (If they were hoping for a nice handbag, they hid their disappointment well).


It was worth all of the frustration when I saw how pleased they were to be recognized and how excited the kids were to know their parents were all apart of the gift (well, most of their parents, but we won't discuss names right now). I really have a deep respect for good teachers; especially early education teachers-I could never do it and I'm glad there are people who can and even seem to enjoy it.

So, I'll be room mom to help them out and I'll try not to complain too much.

(Well, maybe just one more little thing and then I'll stop complaining; just when I thought I could relax until the Christmas party, it's one of their birthdays and I have to send a cake in tomorrow.)

Aggggh!

Happy Mother's Day!

Ahhhh. I just woke up from a refreshing nap. Now I'm sitting here, all by myself, in my room, grazing from a new stash of American candy that my brother and sister-in-law brought us, while Guapo manages the chaos of the children whilst making dinner. I already had breakfast in bed and help with the kids this morning as Guapo didn't have an early morning meetings at church.

Oh how I love Mother's Day.

As I was sitting here trying to decide which leisurely activity to engage in next, I remembered my poor little blog who hasn't seen much of me this week because of our candy-bearing visitors. Not that they were difficult or anything, on the contrary, they were very easy to have around; they played with the kids, helped with the dishes, and even toured all the sites on their own, sparing me the chore of seeing things I've already seen 100 times. But, visitors always make for a nice excuse for a little vacation from the blog, ya know?

Here they are hanging out with Pedro:

The only negative thing about their visit was the fact that I kind of feel aged now. To hear them talk about the "old" people in their ward, those decrepit old geezers in the 35-to 40-year old range, was more than a tad bit disturbing. I'm sure felt the same when I was that age, but man, it's painful to be on the other end!

So, anyway, back to Mother's Day.

I got a very delicate orchid that I'm afraid to look at directly for fear it will die instantly (I do not have a good track record with orchids. Or any live plants to be perfectly honest):



Ballerina girl gave me this lovely bouquet of flowers (much less stressful-these flowers are supposed to die):



Juan Carlos gave me a ladybug box:



The three big kids make me great cards:



And Harold, I mean Pedro, made some "wittle houses" for me during his nap time with his famous purple crayon that he must have snuck in in his diaper.




And, as you can see, he's trying to find his own fashion-sense these days.

It has been a great day.

Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mom and mother-in-law to whom I am so grateful for their friendship and support; to my sister and sister-in-laws (my brother's wife became a mom just yesterday with the birth of her sweet little boy!); and to all my friends-past and present, real and virtual, who make me a better mom. And a special thanks to my wonderful, precious kids-I am proud to be called your mom, and to Guapo, for without him, none of this would be possible.

Happy Mother's Day!

Some Seriously BAD News

No, it's not that by car has been broken down the last two weeks and that the used replacement piece, if it even works in my car, is going to cost us over $1,000.00 USD...

Or that after waiting 3 annoying weeks and shelling out hundreds of dollars to fix the washing machine, it's doing the exact.same.thing again...

Or that Guapo not only beat my W11 Fit soccer score, but he got a perfect score-what's the point of even playing anymore???

No, no. It's much worse.

Friday I put Pedro down for his nap as normal. I went to chill out in my room for a while before all the big kids got home. I had his monitor on and I could here him singing and babbling-totally normal. Then it goes silent-sleeping right?

A bit later he comes into my room with the Wii remote, "Want to play W11 Fit?" (I swear we're not addicts)

What the heck? "How annoying," I think to myself, "the maid got him up because she heard him talking." Humph.

So, I take him back downstairs to put him in bed and to talk to the maid about not getting him up. But- she's not there. She left. Could it be that she got Pedro up and then left? No, unfortunately, I don't think that's what's happened. She's not like that.

So, praying for the best but fearing the worst, I put Pedro back into his crib and wait...

I don't have to wait long. Two minutes later he comes blazing out of his room, "Hi mom!"

AGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!!! He can get out!!!

After several more attempts at bedding him, he finally gave up on escaping his room-but not his bed-this is what I found:



When Guapo got home that night, Pedro very proudly demonstrated his new skill to him.

What am I going to do?

Would there be a problem with sticking him in a large dog carrier for the night? He likes cages. Here he is garage sale-ing last summer-we could not get him out of this cage.



My mom almost bought it for him just because he loved it so much. If I got a really big one, a little mattress, a pillow and his blanket-it could work, right?

Or maybe a lid for the crib? Why don't they make those?

But seriously (read: I would never really put Pedro in a cage) (ummmm, unless, of course, it was socially acceptable), this phase is one of my least favorites, second only to the horror that is Potty Training.

Any advice? Suggestions? Words of encouragement?

Happy Valentine's Day!

How's your Valentine's Day going? Mine has been de-lightful. Guapo (at my gentle insistence) decided to give me The Gift of Peace and Quiet for Valentine's Day. He let me sleep in, and then he left for several hours with all 4 kids. The hard part of it (other than having all 4 kids, of course), was that it is raining here today and there's really not a lot to do with kids when it's raining. His ideas of what to do included:

A) taking them to his office

B) just driving them around in the car

C) taking them to a movie in Portuguese

D) visiting the huge gem and geode store on the outskirts of town

He chose D. I would have probably gone with either A) or B) OR C) because that store is a scary proposition with 4 kids in tow. I would only go there with a maximum of 2 kids and NEVER EVER with Pedro. Everything is breakable and just sitting out on very low tables-making it all very accessible to even Pedro-sized kids.

But, Guapo's a brave guy and he decided to go for out.

He made it back, in good spirits around 1:00 pm. I'm sorry, but the desired response to spending 4 hours alone with the kids, including a trip to the gem store, is, "That was awful! How in the world do you do it Gabs? You are amazing!!!"

I would have come home from the gem store crying, and he walks in with a smile? Humpf.

A little while later we had our Valentine's exchange. I received some very cute stone hearts from the gem store:

And the kids worked hard to make us homemade Valentine's cards.

Here's the Valentine Margarita made for Guapo:

Please note the little picture on the left. That's Guapo, saying, "See ya!" while throwing Margarita out of the car and her yelling, "Ahhhhhh". Next to it it says (in case you can't read it), "I know you would never really do that! I still love you!"

Huh? What's that? The gem store wasn't complete and utter bliss?

Apparently on the ride home Guapo threatened that he was going to kick them all out of the car to find their own way back to the apartment.

Well now, that's more like it!

...And Lowlights

(I couldn't talk about Julio's baptism and poop in the same post, it just didn't seem right)

...and then this morning the kid woke up with the dreaded stomach virus that Pedro and I had last week. Even before I had eaten breakfast, he went into the bathroom to throw up, and as he did, he suffered from the other common symptom of this particular stomach virus. On the floor. Poor kid. He apologized and explained he couldn't sit down and throw up at the same time. I told him that in the future, if it were at all possible, I would much prefer to clean up vomit off the floor.

On the bright side, I got a ton done putting off cleaning the bathroom including:

• two loads of laundry


• cleaning out the kitchen trashcans
• disinfecting the kitchen trashcans


• unloading the dishwasher


• loading the dishwasher


• cleaning out the fridge


• sweeping the kitchen floor


• organizing the DVDs

Finally, after about 2 hours, I got up the nerve to enter the bathroom and got the job done.

I guess you've got to enjoy the good moments, and laugh at the bad ones, eh?

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!

Pedro the Great

When Margarita was around 15 months old and we were dirt-poor and living in D.C., we did a babysitting swap with a family that had one little boy her same age. The first time he came over Guapo and I were in shock at how different two babies could be. While Margarita sat quietly on the floor playing with her toys, Stephen quickly surveyed our apartment and located all available buttons that were on the TV, VCR, computer, light switches, and boom box (or from where I came from, a "ghetto blaster". It was 9 years ago, there were no ipods). He went from one area to the next at lightning speed as we tried to keep up with him. By the end of the night we were both EXHAUSTED.

We thought there was something seriously wrong with Stephen (ADHD?), or that his parents were doing something wrong.

...then we had Julio (now 7 yrs old) and realized that there was nothing wrong with Stephen (or his parents), that he was a boy and on the "active side" of normal, as was Julio.

...then we had Juan Carlos who gave us very few toddler problems and we forgot all about what it was like to have a terror in the house.

And now we have Pedro.

I write this not to shock or impress you with his toddler "capabilities", I know that most toddlers are a handful, but so that when I am pining for another baby in a couple of years, I will be able to look back on this post and accurately remember the work that a toddler is.

Things that MUST not be left within Pedros reach (and his reach has gotten a whole lot higher since he learned to drag stools and chairs around with him). We have had experience with each:

Markers
Pens
Pencils
Crayons
Glue
Paint

Shampoo
Conditioner
Hand lotion
Body lotion
Foot lotion
Face lotion
Baby lotion
Toothpaste
Mouthwash
Diaper rash ointment
Bar soap
Liquid soap
Baby soap

Q-tips
Toilet Paper
Baby Wipes
Toothbrushes
Dental floss

Chapsticks
Gluesticks

Plungers
Toilet Bowel brushes
Toilets
Bidets
Faucets

Chairs
Stools
Shelves
Boxes
Couches
Beds

Phones
Computers
Cords that connect things to the computer
Ipods
Blackberrys
DVDs
DVD players
Videos
VHS players
Cameras
Light switches
Baby monitors
Alarm clocks
Power strips
Lamps

Kitchenaids
Sprinkles
Frosting
Cookies
Crackers
Paper towels

Bananas
Apples
Oranges
Potatoes

Books
Magazines
Papers

Water coolers

Wallets

Dryers
Dryer sheets

Dishwashers
Dishwasher soap

Cat food
Cat water
Cat litter
Cats

Lego war fighter planes hand-crafted by Julio

Plants
Flowers
Dirt
Rocks that can be thrown off our 9th floor balcony
Other items, both large and small, that can be thrown off our 9th floor balcony

Cupboards that open

Drawers that open

Doors that open

All liquids

The kid is a walking cyclone. It's a good thing he's cute!

If you'll excuse me, I've got a mess to clean up.

The Choo-Choo's A Comin', But the Tunnel's Closed

My first three kids started eating solids around 4 months; rice cereal first, then some fruits, then some oatmeal cereal, then some veggies, and finally meat. That’s what you used to do.

Thanks to the recent epidemic of food allergies, sometime since Juan Carlos was born 4 years ago, they have upped the age from 4 to 6 months due to the belief that feeding them earlier than 6 months can lead to said food allergies. I am a little bit lazy, so I thought that sounded fine-it’s easier just to breastfeed than try to feed a little baby 3 times a day and try to keep 3 other kids under control.

But, come to fine out, Pedro is not the world’s best sleeper. So around 4 months 3 weeks I started daydreaming about sleeping more than 4 hours in a row and suddenly the rice cereal came to mind.

First three kids + cereal = sleep

Pedro - cereal = Allergy free Pedro +"good mommy" - sleep (which doesn't really make me a good mommy at all because I am such a grouch without adequate sleep)

In my sleep deprived state, the answer seemed clear:

Pedro + cereal = "allergy inducing bad mommy" + sleep (I could deal with the allergy guilt on a good night's rest)

Here he is at 4 months 3 weeks.



He didn’t love it, but he didn’t hate it either.

Sadly enough, it didn’t help the sleeping situation.

So, I went back to being a "good mommy” -no more cereal, just breast milk.

Last week he hit the magical 6 month mark. I was ready-they have super produce here and I am planning on making all of Pedro’s food-no jars for this kid! I even bought a couple of recipe books in the States this summer on how to make the best baby purees.

Before the big day I prepared for him a lovely apple/pear/cinnamon puree, a carrot puree and a squash puree; all which can be frozen in ice cube trays for a fresh, wholesome meal anytime.

The kid won’t eat.

I started with cereal. Nope.

Moved on to squash. Hated it.

Then I thought “well, maybe he would like something sweet” and I gave him the apple/pear combo. Whole-heartedly rejected it.

And when I say he won’t eat, I am not talking about pursing his lips and spitting out his food. I am talking about dry heaving that leads to throwing up.

Here’s some photos from tonight’s attempt:







(Yes, I am aware that the kid needs a bib-they are coming in our shipment. I don’t want to buy one here-they seriously cost like $25.00)

Help!!!

Happily Ever After? Yeah-Good Luck with That.

The kids’ school here has an excellent library. Supposedly it is the best children’s collection in all of South America. And the kids get to use it a lot; they go at least twice a week and sometimes 3 times a week to check out new books to bring home. Today Juan Carlos (4 years old) brought home “Hansel and Gretel”.

When I saw it I gave him the Brazilian thumbs up and thought, “Cool-what a fun story!”

OK. Have you read the story of Hansel and Gretel lately?

It is disturbing with a Capital "D".

Disturbing Part #1
Right off the bat we’ve got the wicked step-mother’s solution to their lack of funds: just “ditch the kids in the woods” (Juan Carlos won't be letting go of my leg at the beach anytime soon.)

DP #2
The father agrees with, and helps execute, this plan. (Show some spine man!)

DP #3
The cannibal witch is planning to EAT them. (Can this get any scarier for a little kid?)

DP#4
Said witch puts Hansel in a cage for apparently several days at least… (Good times, good times)

DP#5
…And makes Gretel slave away in the kitchen preparing food to fatten up her soon-to-be-food brother. (this has got to be more than a little girl can handle-both the cooking and the guilt)

DP#6
Poor, sweet, innocent Gretel ends up KILLING the witch by pushing her into a stove and shutting the door. (Have fun carrying around that baggage the rest of your life, Gretel.)

DP#7
Our hero and heroine loot the home of the witch (OK, so this isn't really scary, but is it really a message we want to instill in our innocent youth?).

DP #8
They run back into the arms of their father who got them in this predicament in the first place. (Does anyone else feel so sad for those kids at this point?)

And supposedly they live “happily ever after”?

It’s a good thing they took the loot because there’re certainly going to need it to pay for all of the therapy.

Whew! So why did I have fond, happy memories of this story? What’s changed? Is it because I am a parent now and the thought of hungry children lost in the woods is very unsettling? Or because there are such heinous crimes these days that it sounds more like a CSI plot than a so-far-fetched-it’s-ridiculous fairy tale? I’m thinking maybe my sweet-toothed-self focused in on the gingerbread house and unlimited goodies the kids were allowed to eat and blocked out all the scariness.

I don’t know. Does this story bother anyone else, or am I nuts?

P.S. Just so you know- I am not one of those people who's anti-fairy-tale. I think I might just be anti-Hansel-and-Gretel. Or maybe just really, really tired.

To Sleepover or Not To Sleepover

I'm just wondering what other mom's opinions are on sleepovers. We are about to be bombarded with sleepover invitations. I feel like in this day and age, it's kind of scary to send your kid off somewhere for more than 12 hours. Most of the trouble I got into when I was younger was when I was "sleeping" over at a friend's house. But, I don't want my kids to be the freaks that can't do them either. Do you say yes to some and continually decline offers from their friends you don't know as well, or that your not quite sure about the parents?

Please share your insights with me!