My Kids Are On A Roll

One last post before it's Puppy Time. T-15 hours and we'll be dog owners once again. (sigh)

Anyway, earlier in the week it was Pedro that was cracking us up, and today it's Juan Carlos (7 yrs old). I was going through his Friday folder which contains all of his graded work from the week and I came across this little gem in which he has to list 10 mammals. I was there that day, helping some of the kids with this worksheet. He had one mammal left to go and told me he was going to put "naked mole rat", a totally acceptable mammal. I left him to finish up and went on to the next kid.

I should have checked his work. (you can click to enlarge)

Not "naked mole rat". No, no. He ended up writing "naked male" You can see the teacher's obvious confusion-the double question marks and the arrow pointing to #4, "people", which would obviously included all naked males (and clothed ones for that matter).

Oh my. I've been laughing all night thinking about what she must have been thinking when she read it.

("peking bird" was also a mystery-maybe he meant "Peking duck"? or a "pecking bird"? Who knows)

Have a great weekend!

Eradicating Stupid

Today in Pedro's home folder was the following note from his preschool teacher:

"Today Pedro thought someone said 'stupid' and told the kids in circle time, 'in our family we say 'uneducated'!!!

I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but...

Love, F"

It's true; Pedro has had a little problem with the word "stupid"; his siblings, being the jokers that they are, thought they'd be funny and teach him to replace the offending word with "uneducated".

Which he has.

Pedro has uneducated wii remotes that won't work, uneducated cats that won't let him pet them, uneducated train tracks that won't fit together right, an uneducated hermit crab that pinches him, uneducated flashlights that are out of batteries, and two very uneducated brothers.

Got to love that kid!

Another Week

Has another week come and gone? I tell you what, my biggest fear living here is that I'll wake up one morning and- BAM! I'M 45! Seriously, the weeks fly by.

So, the happenings of last week...


Tuesday

Tuesday night we went to the Rockies vs. Padres game. My mom's cousin's son, so her second cousin? And that would make him my second cousin once removed or something? It doesn't matter, any sort of extended cousins are just "cousins" in my family (especially when they are major league baseball players). So anyway, my cousin is the third baseman for the Padres and when they come to town we go to the games. This time we got to sit in great seats with his parents and the kids even got to go down by the dugout and talk to their "cousin". It was great fun.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a busy day. I helped out in Juan Carlos's class for the first time. I'm doing a swap with a friend where one stays home with the kids and the other volunteers in the classroom. She has the cutest 5 month old baby girl who makes me insanely baby hungry. Pedro probably doesn't have quite the same effect.

A little later in the day the boys' school had their annual "Jog-a-Thon" fundraiser. All the kids had to run around a 220 yard. lap for 20 minutes. We all had to pledge money per lap, the goal being to raise $35,000 ($85.00 per kid-sorry, we fell a bit short). Juan Carlos's goal was 15 laps and he ended up doing 16. The cool thing was that the kid had a grin on his face the.entire.race. He never complained (and if you know Juan Carlos, you know this is a minor miracle). Guapo, my mom and I took turns running around with him and he was pretty tough to keep up with.

Me and Juan Carlos:

Guapo and Juan Carlos:

Grandma and Juan Carlos:

Then there was poor Julio, who came home with a fever Tuesday after school; we drugged him with Tylenol so he could go see his "cousin" play. He woke up Wednesday morning worse (go figure), but he still wanted to run for his school-so I drugged him again and he went and ran/walk 13 laps. What a trooper!

I was greatly discouraged when we got home and lo-and-behold, what do I find in Juan Carlos's backpack but yet ANOTHER fundraising opportunity-this time selling cookie dough and wrapping paper.

AGGGGGGHHH!

Coupon books, jog-a-thons, silent auction dinners, cookie dough-make it stop!

Anyway, later that afternoon (poor Julio still under the effects of the fever reducing drug), we had cub scouts: we took a hike on a trail to pick up trash. I know, I know, I'm super hot in my cub scouts shirt.

But, I do have to mention here how much I'm enjoying being a den leader-it's so fun. The boys are cute and it's only an hour a week-how hard is that? Janice was right-it's a great calling to have.

Thursday

Julio still sick; Margarita comes home with a fever and a sore throat.

Friday

I take both both kids to the doctor, despite the fact that Julio is markedly better, and after one quick whiff of Julio's breath he diagnoses them both with strep. Ok-how guilty did I feel for letting Julio run in the Jog-a-thon?

Saturday

More soccer. Speedy Juan Carlos, who tends to shy away from the ball, sprinted his heart out to catch an opponent quickly approaching their goal and stopped him. His teammates were full of high-5's and celebratory chest bumps and instantly dubbed him "Lightning Bolt" which supposedly he "hates". He's retold the story 100 times this weekend- about how it was the same as scoring a goal since he stopped one. So cute.

Now if I could just get my act together and do a mini-posts during the week I wouldn't feel like such a lame blogger.

The dog's coming in 6 days. Help!

Officially a Soccer Mom (I think)

Just wanted you all to know I experienced an American first today: I went to Julio's and Juan Carlos's first soccer games. In my minivan, of course.

Are there any other requirements for being a "soccer mom" that I don't know about?




Unfortunately, both teams lost. :( Julio scored the only goal for his team, so at least there's that. For the most part the parents behaved-only a few who got a little too excited with calls made against their sons.

All and all, a fun time!

Next time I have to take orange slices (maybe then I'll be a true soccer mom?).

Did I mention that I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant?

Wouldn't that be funny? It would explain my lack of posting...

No, I'm not really pregnant, but we do have a little "bundle of joy" arriving two weeks from tomorrow who will likely cause me as much work as a newborn.

Ta-Da:

We've come full circle here, folks. We started our marriage out with dogs, then we moved on to kids, and now, I guess, we're back to dogs (well, just "dog" for the foreseeable future, if I have any say in it, which I probably don't).

This one's all Guapo's doing. He's the dog guy. I've been holding him at bay for 9 years thanks to our "apartment living" and "frequent travels". We always told the kids we'd get a dog when we moved back to the US, and here.we.are. But it's not really the kids who want the dog-they are cat people thanks to years of my brainwashing. It's all Gaupo. (And guess who gets to get up at 5 am to let the little guy out? I've paid my dues over the last 12 1/2 years, thank you very much.)

Have I mentioned we have new furniture for the first time in our married life? Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Since he's a Brazilian Terrier, bread by a Brazilian here in Wisconsin, he will have a Portuguese name, chosen by Guapo. And that name is (drum roll please) "Cuecas" (pronounced quay-cuss). That means boy's or men's underwear in Portuguese.

Why, you ask? I'm asking the same thing. It is kind of fun to say I guess, but really, who names their dog "Underwear" ?

Margarita says she's just going to lie about what it means there aren't a lot of Portuguese speakers around here. That's probably a good idea.

What I thought of Mockingjay

So I finally finished Mockingjay after just over 1,347 normal interruptions of daily life.

I'm assuming you've read it, so if you haven't and plan to, you might want to stop reading now.

For the most part, I loved it. I know it wasn't the feel-good ending of say Harry Potter, but I thought it was realistic. Warm and fuzzy? No at all. But, probably truer to life. I was glad Katniss ended up with Peeta despite the fact that Gale was still alive. That was the warm-fuzzy of the book for me-that she decided that what she needed to survive was to be with someone with a more optimistic outlook; someone who believed that life could possibly be good again on some level despite all of the horror that they'd seen and losses that they'd suffered.

Katniss had a different attitude and played a less stable role than in the first two books-but really, who wouldn't be seriously messed up after having participated in two rounds of the Hunger Games? Who wouldn't contemplate suicide or need to be occasionally drugged? She was a broken, flawed character and I love broken and flawed characters.

I thought that both sides ended up "bad" was also true to life-justifying one's actions based on the previous actions of your enemy-pretty realistic I'd say.

I sat and cried at the end not because I was happy that Katniss and Peeta ended up together (even though I was), but because I felt the kind of sadness that I feel when someone's external circumstances makes it virtually impossible for them to live the remainder of their life without feeling the continual pain and sorrow that their memories bring to them. Margarita came in to the room in a tizzy, "Did someone die? Who died?" For me, the tragedy was that all the characters seemed emotionally, physically, and spiritually broken and that the healing process seemed so lengthy and difficult; like even though they had "won" the war, they still kind of lost. Their children had gained much improved lives-but for the remainder of their lives they would be haunted by what they went through. I don't say that as a criticism of the book, I liked it-it all seemed very real to me.

Here's what I didn't like-I thought that despite the gruesome subject matter, the first two books did a pretty good job of not being super violent. The third was completely different for me. I found it to be over-the-top in that department. Maybe the author was making a statement on war, which is fine, but I felt like it was a little unfair to get all of the tween-agers hooked on the first two milder books and then end with such violence.

I always know I've read a great page turner when I'm having problems getting into my next book-I'm definitely experiencing that right now.

We interupt my latest obsession...

...to bring you this brief post.

The first two in the series I think I read pretty much in one sitting, but thanks to my new life of non-luxury, I just can't do it. I'm telling myself that I've matured and that I'm just savoring it, but it's just a lie-I've got too much else going on.

When I was complaining about all the housework were you thinking to yourselves, "just wait until school and activities start, hehehe,"?

Oh my goodness. How do you people find the time to blog?

I'm not one to over schedule my kids-we've got some piano lessons, soccer practices, cub scouts and Young Women activities and I feel like I'm drowning. Have you ever been in one of those whirlpool things that is shaped like a donut and it sucks you around and around and around and you have to cling to the exit to pull yourself out of the rushing water? That's kind of what my days feel like.

Oh well, it's all good.

The transitions is going nicely I think-it's always difficult, but I think we're through the worst of it now.

Margarita-7th grade

She's definitely coming in at a difficult age. And coming from an international school where kids are used to lots of comings and goings and people are always looking for new friends, to a US public school where most of the kids have been together for a while is tough. She feels like no one is really looking for new friends. And the size difference is tough as well-her class in Brazil had around 50 students-her PE class her has 47!

But, she's got a great attitude and will survive.

It is funny to hear her talk about how well behaved the kids are here compared to in Brazil and how teachers here tend to be able to control their classes, despite the large class sizes, much better thank in her old school. Unless you've lived there that probably sounds strange, but Ballerina Girl will know just what I'm talking about.

Julio-4th grade

He had a few rough days at the beginning but now he's got friends in the neighborhood and feels pretty comfortable. He loves being independent and riding his bike to and from school. He has a kind teacher who doesn't raise her voice and that's just what he needs after his somewhat different experience last year.

He started piano, reluctantly, yesterday and starts soccer next week. My brother gave him about 5,000 of his old baseball cards and now they are all over the house being "sorted out". Thanks, bro!

Juan Carlos-2nd Grade

He's doing great. He's got a teacher who's basically a rock star at their school, everyone wants her as their child's teacher; she's already sent him two cards in the mail and one nice note home. He was sick on Monday, so of course, being the rock star that she is, she called to check on him. She told me that they had moved desks that day and that the kids were allowed to make a request of someone they wanted to sit by; she said she had close to 15 people that wanted to sit by Juan Carlos and she thought it was so funny because he wasn't even there that day for them to be reminded of him.

That's Juan Carlos.

He started soccer this week and starts piano next and wants a different friend over everyday for play dates.

Pedro-Preschool

Pedro loves his preschool and so far his teachers think he's the cat's meow.

Wait til he comments on their "bouncy" bottoms!

Well, I've got 15 minutes until the kiddos come storming in.

Back to my book...

(have a great weekend!)