Mateo's 26 month letter

Dear Mateo,

Here it is New Year's Eve and you are 26 months old today. In the couple of months since we last wrote you a letter, you have developed an amazing amount! We know it will be this way until, well, forever. We'll blink and you'll know how to do something new and then soon you'll be driving!

Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here's what you've been up to this month. First, you have really gotten excited about imaginative play. Yesterday, for example, you arranged all your stuffed animals in a circle and told Mommy to call you Mary Beth (the name of your music class teacher) because you were about to lead a music class. Then you assigned each animal a name (Underwearra was our favorite by far - a pink bear wearing a pair of toddler briefs) and proceeded to sing the hello song to them while playing your pretend guitar.

You've spontaneously started a lot of other pretend games this month, from pretending to cook up hot meals to pretending to talk on the phone and pretending to do all sorts of other things. You really love the "kid kitchen," as you call it, that Bubby and Poppa gave you for Christmas and cook up lots of soup, milkshakes, mac and cheese, and other foods nearly every day.

In the realm of communication, you're still talking up a storm. You've started to use what we call conditional sentences, although we're really not sure if that's the right term. You'll say things like "maybe tomorrow I can have macaroni and cheese." You're also on the verge of using a simile in the correct way - you keep saying things like "That ball is sort of like..." and then you trail off, not sure how to finish the thought.

You're also working on singing and have several favorite songs (the Hello song and This Old Man are big right now). You have firm ideas of who can sing what song and if someone, say Mama, tries to sing a song that only Mary Beth the music teacher can sing, well, then you put her in her place right away by saying "NO! ONLY MARY BETH!!" Right now, the only song Mama is allowed to sing is called The Worms Crawl In, The Worms Crawl Out, which she made the mistake of teaching you around Halloween time.

You seem to be in the middle of a growth spurt and are enjoying eating. You have really started to have a huge appetite, which never ceases to amaze us. We'd gotten used to your tendency to have a few bites and be done! Now, you sometimes eat a whole adult size bowl of oatmeal and raisins in the morning, and other larger servings of food throughout the day. You are getting much better at using a fork, spoon and wiping up spills. You are also starting to use a regular cup some of the time and do fine with that.

In the arena of the potty, we think we can really say that you're potty trained now, at least during the day. It is amazing that you have been now going around in just underwear for a few months now during the day. You do have accidents here and there and are still working on letting us know when you need to use the potty, but most days you stay dry all day - at home and out and about. At night you are still in a diaper, and for the time being that is just fine.

Finally, you are really starting to play more with your sister. Today at a cafe you wanted to tell other kids, "Look that's my baby sister Talia!" You were so proud when you said this! You also like to tell other people how cute she is and give her toys to play with.

A new favorite activity recently is playing with all of your puzzles. You like your alphabet puzzle as well as other types of puzzles and are getting good at putting the pieces in. You've also been having fun with finger painting. You like to say what you have painted and have Mommy write a caption on your painting. Speaking of activities, you were also very helpful digging our car out from the snow recently...

Mateo, you are just the best little guy. We hope you have a wonderful start to 2009 and we're so excited to spend it with you.

All our love,

Mommy and Mama

Natalia's six month letter

Dear Natalia,
Today you are six months old! You marked your half-birthday with a rather unfortunate milestone - your first big fall. You were balancing on Mama's legs this morning as she lay on her back on the bed, having lots of fun, when Mama got distracted by your brother, who was lunging towards her. Before you knew it, you were flying through the air. You fell off Mama, off the bed, and finally landed on the carpet. Chaos ensued. You screamed, Mama and Mommy lunged for you, and Mateo started crying because you were crying. Luckily, you turned out to be just fine. Thank goodness for baby flexibility! However, Mama feels terrible about it and is very glad your memory of the experience lasted only about five minutes.

Anyway, other than that, your half-birthday has been quite a nice day. We're going on a week of being snowed in and we've had lots of nice family time as a result. Today, we did some house projects in the morning and then took a hike in the snow in the afternoon. We took you and your brother to a local pizza place and ate an early dinner before heading home.

That brings us to the first thing your mommies have noticed about you in your sixth month. You are fascinated by the world around you. You've started to show interest in our kitty and are always trying to grab her. In fact, you're always trying to grab everything! If you can see it, you want to grab it. Utensils, paper, toys, bowls, rattles, clothes, Mama's glasses, hair, your brother, and everything else under the sun are now fair game for grabbing.


You're starting to get into little games like peek-a-boo. You laugh at that and lots of other things. You can be quite serious a lot of the time, but when something strikes you funny, you let us know. The other day, we were playing with one of Mateo's friends and came up with this random made-up game where he would run around in a circle and every time he got to Mama, she would yell "BOO!" as loud as possible while shaking a stuffed reindeer at him. This went on and on because you thought it was hilariously funny. We've never seen you laugh that hard. And, today, you were cracking up at the sight of Mateo playing nearby. You think he is pretty neat and the feeling is often mutual!


Next up: food. You love food. We sometimes hold pieces of pear to your mouth and let you gum on them and you just go nuts. You've mastered rice cereal, as well, and just tried banana today for the first time. Verdict: good. From the looks of it, you would happily have indulged in pizza and bagel and cheese and pretty much anything else we ate today.

Speaking of food, you and Mommy have reached six months of breastfeeding! We don't know if you remember, but you had a tough time with it in the beginning and Mommy did an amazing job of persevering until you finally got the hang of it. These days, you love your mommy's milk and you have these hilarious conversations with the boob. Sometimes, when it seems like things aren't going quite the way you had in mind, we would swear that you're giving the boob a stern talking-to. We're so proud of you and Mommy for making it to this point!


Things are going well again in the sleep department. You're starting to sleep longer stretches at night again, which your mommies welcome wholeheartedly. Against the advice of every sleep book we have (and we have several), bedtime seems to go best if you have a short nap around 5 or 6 pm and then go down for the night at 7:30. You've been waking up around 11 pm to eat and then, at least for the past few days, have slept through until 5 am or so before waking again. This works quite well for all of us. Keep up the good work, kiddo.

Finally, you are turning into a mover and a shaker. Your Grandpa noted recently that you've been raring to go ever since you were born! You certainly do want to get going. You now can creep backwards all over the place. You have the crawling position mastered and like to rock back and forth, but haven't figured out how to move forward yet. This is fine with us. You can just take your time on that one! You love to stand and jump when supported. And, you have gotten into the crawling position from sitting a couple of times. We're enjoying this calm before the storm, because once you get going, you are going to GO!


Baby Talia, you are just a delight of a baby. You are in that delicious phase where we just want to eat you for dessert. We love your chubby cheeks and your big smiles and your fuzzy head and your whole chunky, babbling self. You are our favorite six-month-old girl in the whole wide world.


Hugs and kisses,
Mommy and Mama

White stuff from above

After a week of snow days that started out snowy and ended up drippy, today we finally got a real snow day. It has been below freezing and pouring down snow all day today. It's still going out there right now. Our favorite weather site, to which we have become totally addicted since our outdoor thermometer broke (well, Mateo ran it through the wash by accident), says that it's 19.9 degrees outside right now and is calling for blizzard conditions.

We had a surprisingly busy day, all things considered. We did an errand very, very carefully this morning in the car, and then had lunch with my brother, who's in town for the holidays. He came to us on his studded tires. Mateo was very into playing with him - so much so that when Sacha came in to tell them something, Mateo said "You go back out!" He also very much discouraged Uncle G from holding baby Talia, who was doing her best to compete for attention! Then we went to a neighborhood buddy's birthday party and then had dinner with other friends who live close by, who braved the budding blizzard to walk to our house. We were very impressed.

I didn't get a chance to take any photos while the sun was up, so I decided to give it a try after the kids went to bed. It was snowing really hard and the flash picked up on it, which was sort of cool. Here are a few photos of our surroundings. Plus, at the end, a bonus photo of Teo and Uncle G.

Snow and ice and everything nice

Our weekend started off on the down side - Mateo was getting over being sick, Sacha was sick, we were worried that Natalia was going to get sick - but ended on the up side. Everyone is well and we've had a cozy last two days in our house. It is bone-chillingly cold for Portland, hovering in the low 20s. Thank goodness we got the plastic sheeting up on our windows on Saturday, because otherwise our heater would never be able to keep up! Sacha had a snow day today and I had a work thing also get canceled, so we got to have a bonus weekend day together.

Here are some photos from the last week.

First, Sacha and the kids by our tree. Yes, the matching jammies have been quite a hit with the two of them. And wow, baby Talia is getting big!:


Second, here's Mateo licking his very first beater covered with cookie dough. He seemed to get the hang of it pretty fast! We made oatmeal raisin cookies with chunks of dark chocolate and they are yummy:


Third, here's Teo pretending to take a bath with his bear, Knut (named after a book about a baby polar bear). He has suddenly discovered pretend play in the past couple of weeks. He's been making us pretend eggs and tea, "fixing" his toy cars in an auto shop, and pretending to feed his bear a "bottle" that's really a plastic measuring cup. Today, he insisted on taking off all his clothes to climb into a pretend bath with Knut the bear, including on-going commentary for our benefit. "The water is very hot," he would say as he climbed into the plastic basket. Knut has been all over the place with us this weekend, including out in the snow and sleeping with our boy. Here are the two buddies in their hot bath:

Rockin' and Readin'

1. Baby Talia is working on her crawling skills. In the last couple of weeks, she has gone from a sphinx-like tummy pose and not being able to sit to rocking on all fours and sitting like a champ. Of course, we are bursting at the seams with pride. With our first child, we tried not to go into what we call "Babylandia" (in which the parents can only and ever talk about their child), but with our second kid, we are embracing it. We have officially landed in Babylandia. We keep finding ourselves telling anyone who will listen that Baby Talia might crawl soon! And have you noticed how cute and chubby she's getting?

2. Mateo and Sacha have been playing at reading in the afternoons and lo and behold, he can actually read a few short words. He actually read a very short story on his own this afternoon. The text: "See Vee. See San. See the van." Who are Vee and San, you ask? Cartoon characters with conveniently phonetic names, apparently.

Over and out.



Notice that puffy right eye on our little guy? Somehow he managed to come down with both a stomach virus AND pinkeye in the same week. I'm starting to wonder if we're all going to make it through the winter in one piece...

Our tree...

We got our Christmas tree today and I have to say, it was hard won. We had planned to go to a u-cut tree farm today and cut down our own tree, and even though yesterday was a beautiful, sunny, gorgeous day, we opted to stick with our plan of going today. I thought the weather would be just as nice...but it wasn't. No, it was overcast, raining, freezing, muddy, and just generally not the kind of day where you really want to go tromping around through the forest. But, hey, that's what winter is like! So, we carried on with the plan.




When we got there, it was pouring down rain and socked in with fog. Mateo insisted on being carried the entire time and baby Talia didn't really see the tree farm because we had to bundle her up in the ergo so she wouldn't get wet and cold. But, we did find a great tree and successfully cut it down - a really nice 6-foot Douglas fir. It looked big to us until we carried it to the tree-wrapping area and saw the massive trees most other people were buying. Crazy.


Then, we accidentally tied it to the car through the windows, so we could only open one door to get in. And, we got lost on the way home and had to stop to change the baby's diaper and such. This led to me crawling in and out through the window several times. Good times!


Anyway, we made it and we have a great tree and we really did have fun. A friend came with us and she was a lifesaver. I don't know if we could have made it through by ourselves!

And, one of Mateo and Apa hanging out after our weekly Sunday dinner together:

New stuff

Last week, during a surge of motivation, we filled out an application to be a host family for a nanny-training program in our city. We read about it in a local parenting magazine and thought we'd give it a shot. Basically, it's an agency that runs a year-long nanny school and they need families for their nannies to do internships with. You get the nanny student for one eight-hour day per week and one of the parents needs to be there half the time. Their internship days are Mondays, which is perfect for us because it's my day off, so I'm with the kids in the morning and we're both around in the afternoon. And, it's the day on which we end up scheduling all errands and appointments.

Anyway, we'd heard that this program was very popular, so we sent off the application and kind of forgot about it. It said there was a very long waiting list and you might not ever get called.

So, imagine our surprise when they called us the next day! I don't know if they were having a temporary shortage or if being lesbians actually helped us stand out or what, but the training coordinator came over the next day (yesterday) to interview Sacha and meet the kids. And now we have a nanny student starting on Monday!

We're very excited about this. We'll get someone to help out with the kids and the house one day a week, it will be free, and we'll get to help her gain experience for when she becomes a paid nanny. One of her assignments will actually be to cook us dinner. I guess they have to demonstrate all sorts of household skills. I can say that I will be more than happy to help her learn that one. Wahoo!

Rice cereal and matching jammies

Here are some photos of Natalia eating her first bites of rice cereal.




Mateo's opinion:



And, here's one of the kids in their new matching jammies. Ever since we started accumulating clothes for baby Talia, Mateo's been wanting to try them on. Since we don't have too many girl clothes in his size, that hasn't been possible very often. So, when Sacha and her dad were at the store this past weekend and found some jammies that matched little sister's jammies, they had to get them. They say "Cozy" across the front. Check them out, chilling in their chair like little co-conspirators:

Baby eats! Plus, home plumbed by prisoners!

Two noteworthy things happened today. In reverse chronological order: Natalia ate her first bites of rice cereal and we found out that much of the innards of our house were installed by inmates on a job training program.

First things first. After talking with some friends this weekend about their baby's readiness for solid foods, we started thinking about our own baby Talia and the not-so-subtle signs she's been making. For example, she's been grabbing at both food and utensils and literally yanking them towards herself. One minute, you're holding her on your lap as you eat a bowl of hot chili. The next minute, she has her hand on the chili bowl, clutching it with an iron-fisted grip, and is in the process of yanking it towards the edge of the table.

She also opens her mouth - wiiiiide open - when you put a spoon up to it. We gave her an apple wedge to suck on and she went after it like a little vampire.

So, we thought, let's try some rice cereal. For anyone who remembers what our first months of "feeding" Mateo solids were like, there wasn't a whole lot of feeding involved. He cried in disgust at rice cereal. He occasionally tolerated a bite or two of baby oatmeal. Same with just about every other baby food around. We bought it. We made it. We kept food logs. Eventually, we read a great book called Child of Mine, and then we chilled out. We let him go back to his voraciously nursing self and he eventually started eating more foods as time went by. The real key was when we introduced yogurt, cream cheese, and cheddar cheese when he was about 10 months old.

Anyway, after that experience, we weren't expecting much this time around.

Boy, were we surprised when Natalia loved rice cereal. Actually, she LOVED IT. She ate IT ALL. She opened her mouth wide for every bite and seemed almost frantic to get it all down her little throat. Mateo fed her. I fed her. Sacha fed her. We just kept saying to ourselves, wow, she's actually eating it!

In the end, we tried giving Mateo a few spoonfuls, and, true to form, he grimaced and consented to eat just one bite.

The obligatory photos and video are coming soon.

**********************************************

Secondly, the prisoner thing. We were eating lunch today when a nice-looking man appeared on our porch and knocked on the door. Of course, trusting northwesterners that we have become, we let him in. Turned out, he was one half of the gay couple that we bought our house from. We had met his partner when we got the keys to the house four years ago, but not him. They were obsessive gardeners and he, on a visit to the neighborhood, wanted to see how the garden was doing. We have always kind of dreaded this moment, because we are not obsessive gardeners and are doing the best we can with the massive number of plants these guys left behind.

Anyway, after he looked around, we were chit-chatting about the house and he just happened to mention that he and his partner had bought it from a company that rehabbed old houses. Apparently, they used the services of inmates who were trying to learn new job skills. They used these inmates to do the plumbing and electrical work for our house.

We have always wondered about our plumbing, as nearly every single thing that involves water in our house has had problems. Leaking, breaking, spraying, you name it. The electrical system is also a bit bizarre. Turning on more than one appliance often results in a blown fuse and some of our light switches just don't do anything. We always thought that the previous owners had just done a shoddy job. Now we know that it was really the convicted felons that did a shoddy job! Good to know.

Big day, eh?

Traditions

We're not quite done with Thanksgiving weekend yet, but we just finished off the big family extravaganza part of it! We've had quite the holiday of relatives, having seen Sacha's parents, my parents, my brother and sister, two sets of aunts, uncles, and cousins, my grandma, her caregiver, and, of course, ourselves. Here are some of the high points:

Wednesday: Sacha, having worked two long days on Monday and Tuesday, had Wednesday off! We celebrated by making a nice breakfast and then going out for a walk. It was a rare treat to spend time with all four of us together on a weekday. We went out to a park bordered by two big rivers and spent some time wandering around the paved paths. It was lovely. Then, we went home and met up with my dad and brother, who had just arrived in town.

After that, I went to work and then met up with Sacha and the kids at my grandma's house for a big pre-Thanksgiving dinner with all the family. Apa even consented to come along, which was awesome. We ate ourselves silly and then rolled home and collapsed into bed.

Thursday: I got up early and went to do the local Turkey Trot with my sister and brother. Somehow, this has become a tradition for the three of us and we've done it for at least the last five years, if not longer. I discovered that, apparently, I can still run four miles! I decided to give it a shot and I actually ran the whole way. My siblings were nice enough to wait for me to come chugging along to the finish and then we all went out to coffee together. We hardly ever get to spend time together these days, so it was really nice to reconnect.

The rest of the day flew by - Sacha and the baby and her parents went on a quick hike while Mateo and I went downtown for an hour or so. Then, after lunch and such, we went over to my aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Mateo got to play with lots of different relatives and had tons of fun with his cousins, who are 7 and 10 years old. They have quite the little mutual admiration society and it is just so sweet to see them playing together. Then, again, we ate ourselves silly, staggered home, and collapsed into bed.

Friday: Both kids slept in until 8 am! I guess there is some benefit to putting them down at 10 pm, even if they are hysterically tired by that time. But I digress. I was expecting to be so sore from the run that I couldn't move, but I actually felt pretty okay. I mean, I was sore, but not like I was expecting. I guess all those exercise videos I've been doing (ever since my plan to start running again crashed and burned) have actually helped my state of physical fitness.

Anyway, we spent Friday toodling around town. Sacha's dad and Mateo and I went to meet the rest of the fam at the art museum while Sacha and the baby and her mom went shoe shopping. Then, we came home and cleaned the house, because everyone was coming to our place that night. My aunt and uncle were kind enough to send all the leftovers home with us, so we made a big leftover dinner for everybody. Again, we ate ourselves silly, but we didn't have to stagger home this time. We just rolled to our beds and collapsed.

Saturday: Kids again slept until 8! Mental note: must stop putting them to bed at 10 pm. The sleeping in was nice though, I'm not going to lie. Sacha and her dad went off for a mega-trip to costco and Sacha's mom and the kids and I hung out with my parents and my brother, all of whom were on their way out of town. Then, after everyone returned and the kids napped, we went to the zoo. Who knew that zoo lights starts right after Thanksgiving? We got to see the whole light show, plus the baby elephant! Then we headed towards home, stopped for dinner, and then Sacha's parents packed up and headed home themselves. And now, the kids are sleeping, the house is quiet, and we're about to crash, ourselves.

Tomorrow, the plan is to have brunch with friends in the morning and dinner with Apa in the evening. In the middle, hopefully we'll be able to get ready for the week.

One more thing: We never managed to go around the table and say what we were thankful for on Thanksgiving, but I would be hard pressed to think of a year that I felt more thankful than I do this year. An amazing marriage, adorable kids, a house we love in a neighborhood we love in a city we love, great friends, wonderful families, stable jobs, enough to eat, stability in general - for all of these things, which we experienced in abundance this weekend, we give big thanks.

Natalia's five month letter

Dear Baby Talia,
Can you believe that you're five months old? Wow! We still call you Baby Talia (which is what your brother called you in utero) most of the time instead of your full name and we're starting to think we may still be addressing you that way when you're 13. We get so used to saying Baby Talia all the time that we've started to address other friends' babies as Baby So and So, instead of just using their names, which must sound a little bit funny.

Anyway, you are just a delight these days. You are fabulously chubby. Sometimes it's difficult to get you dressed (on those days when we actually change your clothes before bed - sometimes you stay in your cozy sleepers for longer than we'd like to admit) because you are just so cute in your birthday suit.


You love to move your arms and legs all the time. Mommy says that she always knows when you're about to fall asleep when you're nursing, because you finally stop kicking her! You also like to stand up on our laps and then quickly drop down to sit and then jump back up again, over and over and over. When you have tummy time, you are starting to be able to push up from the ground until your arms are straight. You've also started to extend one leg while on your tummy, so you're sort of pushing up from behind. Who knows when you'll actually crawl, but it's fun to watch you learning what pieces you might need in order to do it.


Other physical stuff - you've rolled from front to back and back to front several times. You're very close to sitting in a tripod position.


If we had to pick a single word to describe you, it would be happy. You are just so happy almost all the time. You do have some moments of upset, which usually occur at bedtime or in the middle of the night. During the day, however, you really only cry or fuss if you're tired, hungry, or have a wet diaper. Other than that, you are a smiley, happy girl. You flash your big grin to pretty much anyone who enters your line of sight. You don't seem to have any stranger anxiety yet! At the same time, you do seem to know when you're with one of your parents.

You're starting to laugh more, although it's still a rare treat. And, you're babbling more and more all the time. You definitely know your big brother and seem to enjoy observing whatever he might be up to. It's very sweet to watch the two of you start to interact.

Last, but not least, you're starting to grow some more hair! It's not exactly what anyone would call long at this point, but it's starting to stick up on top a little. Really, we just love your fuzzy little head and are happy to have your hair take as long as it wants to grow out.


Kiddo, we couldn't love you any more if we tried. You just light up our little family. We can't wait to see what this next month will bring, and are looking forward to introducing you to the holiday season!


Besos y abrazos,
Mommy and Mama

Skunkologist

Our little guy has recently gotten very interested in going to work. After Mommy leaves for work in the morning, Teo sometimes industriously goes to his own little riding car (which he is obsessed with and gives hugs and kisses to before going to bed) and "goes to work" too. He also wants to talk about what Mommy does at work and has started asking what Mommy's "teacher name" is. Today, Apa was visiting and Mommy got home from work, which prompted a discussion of Mommy being at work, what her teacher name was (ie, Mrs. So and So), and what Mommy does at work.

We started joking around with Mateo about what his teacher name would be if he were a teacher, and then Apa asked him if he would read lots of books with his students if he were a teacher. Totally unprompted, Mateo announced that he would read lots of books about skunks with his students. Skunks! It was one of those moments that is just so priceless you don't know what to do with yourself. Sacha grabbed the video camera and got him to talk about it a little more. We present it below for your enjoyment.

The only other thing I have to say right now is TGIF. We are tired around here and it has been a long week. Up on the docket for the weekend: hanging around with our children and hopefully doing a naked baby photo shoot with our completely edible daughter, making tamales with Apa, and hopefully working on the basement, which is my latest obsession. I seem to be in some kind of autumn cleaning mode. Viva la weekend!

Photos from the weekend

Playing at the park:









The kids with Apa (on Mateo's birthday):




Waking up early in the morning:

21st or 20th century at school?

Today was a normal day at school, and sometimes when I stop and think about what a good day entails, technologically, I just have to laugh. How do we expect to hold teachers to a high standard and to work efficiently and have a 21st century school system with outdated technology?

Here is my day. I arrive and go into my office, where I do not turn on my computer. Why don't I turn on my computer? Because:

1. It is a mac that is so ancient that I can pump 4 to 6 oz in the time it takes to open up safari or internet explorer. It is so slow that I can not do anything on the computer in my prep time (15 min. of planning I have at the end of the day after teaching).
2. It is not set up to print. Why not? Because it hasn't been set up to print for over two years now and the vice principal/defacto IT person "doesn't have time" and won't show me how to do it.
   
3. After reporting to the school on two different occasions that it was not set up to print, I stopped pestering people about it, because of #1. What am I going to print?

Now, if I feel like this is a problem, my two office mates are the psychologist (confidential information anyone?) and the speech therapist (more confidential information) really can't work without computers. They are required by law to have computers and a confidential printer, and lucky them, the special ed department got them their own printers and laptops. I am not so lucky.

Here is what happens when I need to print something. Today, I was supposed to print out five pages of a reading evaluation for a teacher during my third literacy block. Since the teacher asked me to do this after I had started teaching for the day, I was going to print them out for her during my 50 min. lesson with her students.

I went to the computer lab, which actually does have a printer (a little mini inkjet like you might get for free along with a computer purchase), and found the documents and pressed print.

Nothing printed out of the only working computer lab printer.

I then printed to the library, which was my only other option. The library is at the other end of the school and its printer has been making black smudges on the paper since the first day of school. It has yet to be fixed.

Now it was time to make 4 copies of my smudgy printed sheets. I went to the copy machine and press copy. It shot out two sets, broke down, I fixed it, and then it finished copying. Twenty minutes later, I have printed out exactly five pieces of paper and made 4 copies of each piece of paper. 20 pages in 20 minutes. Or a minute a page. I think I could write faster than that!

The amazing thing is I work in a good school in a good district. One of the big problems in my district is that it's shrinking instead of growing, so funding is getting cut and anything that resembles infrastructure is crumbling. I've worked with less, but I would like to be able to be efficient.

Anyone have a printer and semi-decent computer they want to donate to me?! LOL. Just kidding, but it sure would be nice!

The circle is complete

Sacha has it now. Poor baby! At least she got it in the afternoon and hopefully will be done with the more, um, active part of the virus by the time bedtime rolls around. And then, hopefully, we will all be done with this ordeal. I tell you, I have no idea how we're going to make it through the kids' time in elementary school. One family-wide illness and we're ready to throw in the towel and live in a bubble.

Wishful thinking

As it turned out, we were way ahead of ourselves in our plans for last night. We would have taken a night of crying it out over what really happened any day. Shortly after we went to bed, Natalia and I both came down with a stomach virus that had us puking all night long. I, being an adult, managed to make it to the bathroom when necessary, while Talia, being a baby, simply covered Sacha in an endless river of baby vomit. I think I threw up at least 4 or 5 times and Sacha says that she lost count after time #6 with the baby. It was a horrible, horrible night. Other high points included Sacha calling the doctor at 4 am and me waking up Mateo (whose room is right next to the bathroom) at one point and having to go in and nurse him right after puking my guts out.

Luckily, it's now been almost 24 hours and we're feeling a lot better. We're also very grateful to our friend Caroline, who brought us ginger ale and chicken soup, and our friend Lili, who stopped by to say hi, was met at the door by Sacha saying "You really don't want to come in here!" and subsequently went to the store to buy us baking powder, so that we could make waffles for dinner, which was the only thing I could imagine eating. And, to Apa, who took Mateo on an afternoon adventure so that we could get some rest. And, to our parents for needed phone support. Thanks, guys!

Now we're just hoping that neither Sacha nor anyone else gets the terrible virus. Unfortunately, we saw just about all of my local family members yesterday morning and exposed another friend in the afternoon. We've already managed to take down yet another friend, who is 7 months pregnant and who had the misfortune of hugging Mateo (the original getter of the virus, albeit a much milder version) on Thursday, when he was getting sick but we didn't know it. Getting the stomach flu is just the worst. I think I am now well-qualified to say that, having had it twice in the past two weeks. Ugh. I just hope this means we're getting our winter sicknesses out of the way early.

CIO, the sequel

After the first two months of Natalia's life, Alayna and I thought: wow, we sure have a great sleeper on our hands! And we did. She would frequently go 6 to 8 hours between feedings at night, and would get herself to sleep for naps with little or no fussing.

Then, as we were writing the three month letter, I started to think - huh, she was sleeping better last month than this month. At that point, she was eating two, sometimes three times a night.

And now, at four months, she is wanting to eat every 2 to 3 hours in the night. This is not progress. In fact, we seem to be moving backwards!

So, we have gone back to the good old sleep training (ie, CIO) to deal with her nighttime wakings and feedings. The problem is that she is using the breast as a pacifier to get herself back to sleep when she is not very hungry, and so she will just stay on forever. Like, for hours. Clearly after 30 min or so, there is very little nutritive sucking going on!

Here's how things have gone so far. A lot of it is foggy, but it's what we remember. The way it goes - we're using Ferber - is that you start with a set amount of time between feedings and increase it by half an hour a night. We waited until 5 months to do sleep training with Mateo and we were wracked with guilt when we finally did it. However, like many others with their second child, we feel much less guilty this time around and know that she's ready to do this. We wouldn't be doing her any favors by letting things continue the way they have been.

Day one: went really well because she only had to go 2 hours between feedings. Piece of cake.
Day two: She needed to go 2.5 hours between feedings, and for the most part this went fine.
Day three: Three hours between feedings - not so great. At the second feeding of the night, I fell asleep while she was feeding and woke up an hour and a half later, with the babe still sucking. (Can we say sore?) Then she fussed, rather loudly, for the next hour and a half, until she finally went back to sleep at the boob (having hit her next three hour feeding mark).
Day four: We decided to stay with three hours, since the night before didn't go so well. Same story as the day before. Can't remember much about it, except for lots of crying and cursing (from Alayna, not the baby).
Day five: Wow. It doesn't seem like much progress, but I guess day three is where we started working with her for real. . . The first time she woke up thirty min. too soon, and actually got herself to sleep (albiet briefly) before the next feeding. The next time she woke up a solid hour or so early, and never got herself to sleep before feeding.

Today is day six. According to ferber, it takes them getting up to six hours between feedings before they are really able to get to going to sleep on their own after rousing during the night. She is still her happy self during the day and once she learns to sleep at night again, everyone will be more rested, healthier and happier.

We expect for things to be rough for two weeks. But, we would both prefer a rough two weeks over a rough two years (or more) or sleep problems. Unfortunately, neither one of our kids has been one of those cry-for-five-minutes and then sleep for 12 hours every night after that type of babies. Actually, while we did CIO with Mateo at bedtime, we could never stand to do it in the middle of the night, and so we just went with his patterns of frequent wakings for months and months on end. He did eventually learn to sleep through the night, essentially on his own, at about 21 months.

We're hoping that Talia's progress is faster than that, because, since Mateo started sleeping through the night after his sister was born, WE still haven't gotten to sleep through the night. At over two years and counting, we're ready. We're fine with Talia waking up once to feed, but we're really not up for much more of this every-two-hours business. Wish us luck!

This and that

I had just started my drive home from work last night when NPR called Ohio for Obama. "YES!!" I shouted, to no one. That was the moment when I started to let go of my mental white knuckles and believe that maybe this one would go our way. Later in the evening, as the clock turned to 8 pm PDT and the networks all called the election for Obama, we cheered quietly, so as not to wake up the kids, as our neighborhood erupted in shouts of celebration. We felt elated, relieved, and proud. For the first time in my adult life, I felt really proud to be an American. On the phone this morning, friends kept saying "We did it!" And we did. Wahoo!!

And yet, there's a moderately-sized part of me that just feels like throwing up. Watching Proposition 8 pass in California and the other anti-gay measures in Arizona and Florida and Arkansas made me wonder when we'll ever be done with throwing rocks from glass houses.

I was listening to NPR on the way to work today as they interviewed person after person who said, of Obama's election, I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime. While I would never presume to compare the struggles of African American people with those of gay and lesbian people, I feel kind of that way myself. I hope that I do see the day when we, too, have the right to marry and raise our children without being discriminated or legislated against. And even though today is evidently not going to be that day, I hope it comes sooner rather than later.

Doctor smorgasboard

We felt very proud today as we schlepped towards the doctor's office, having scheduled Teo and Talia to have their 2 year/4 month appointments, respectively, back to back. It still took forever. We were there for two hours!

Both kids are doing great. Talia weighed in at nearly 14 pounds, which is the 50th percentile for her age. She's 24 inches long. She's a pretty mellow baby and laid very cooperatively on the table to be measured, but somehow they managed to get it wrong by two inches the first time. That is a lot on a baby! We (having chilled out considerably since child #1) didn't care too much about how long she really was, but the doctor insisted on remeasuring. I think they measured her head, too, but I forget the number. It's tracking an appropriate curve, which is the important thing.

She seems to be doing well with developmental stuff - chatting, laughing, etc. She's not really trying to roll yet, but she loves to move around and has learned how to nearly scootch out of her bouncy chair. She also likes to chat and will give a huge grin to anyone who comes within her line of sight. She got a bunch of shots and screamed her little head off, but calmed down right away once she got some boob. She didn't have any reaction at all to her first set at 2 months and we're hoping this time will go just as smoothly.

We (Sacha and I) also got shots, by the way. Flu shots. Hopefully, this will mean no flu for us. Mine was my very first flu shot ever. Since we're both working with germy kids this year, we decided it was the way to go.

Meanwhile, Teo had his first appointment with Talia's pediatrician. We just switched him to Sacha's health insurance and had to leave our original ped, who we loved so much that we almost kept him on the old insurance just so he could keep seeing her. This new lady is good, but still no comparison to doctor #1. He weighed in at 24 pounds, which is somewhere below the 10th percentile for his age, and is 35 inches tall, which is around the 30th percentile, I think. He is a little stringbean! Doubling his current height, which we think you can do at age 2 to predict adult height, would put him around 5'10", which is probably about right for his genetic stock.

The doc didn't ask too much about developmental stuff until Sacha asked her about it. She mentioned that he should be able to use two-word phrases by now, which was a little strange because he was chattering away right in front of her. He's starting to use words like "sometimes" and "hopefully" in sentences. She also said he should be able to run and that he would probably be doing parallel play with other kids for awhile.

I think that's about it. Sacha just commented that we can't say we have two kids under the age of two anymore! We do, however, as one of the nurses commented, still have our hands full! Here's hoping we all have good health and stay out of the doctor's office this winter.

*************************

On a totally different (and short, since this is already really long) note, we had a wonderful birthday party for our little guy yesterday. We had a great, and large, group come out and it was good to see everybody. At one point, I looked across the room and noticed just how many kids were spread out playing everywhere. Before Teo was born, we knew two kids in this area - my cousins! Now, two years later, we have this amazing community of all sorts of people and families. With Thanksgiving coming up, we have much to be thankful for.

Two years old

Our big boy turned two today. When I went in to get him this morning, I said, "Mateo, it's your birthday!" and he said "Apa coming to take you out to lunch!". Apa did indeed come to take him out to lunch and they had a great time. He also got two fun presents from his moms and got to see his Bubby and Poppa and talk to quite a few other friends and family on the phone and went to a Halloween party and got to help give candy to trick-or-treaters. Overall, it was a very successful birthday. He was so revved up by bedtime that he could barely go to sleep. His party is coming up on Sunday and I'm sure that will be an experience in over-stimulation all of its own.

We made a little movie about the last year, which is below. During the process of making it, we went back and watched a lot of the little videos we've taken over the course of Mateo's second year. It was just wild to look back at him as a 13-month old just barely beginning to sign and talk and run around and such...and then to see him now, looking and acting like such a kid instead of a baby.

I was thinking back to his birth while I was nursing him off to sleep, and remembering the overwhelming joy immediately after he was born and we got to meet him for the first time. Even with all the ups and downs and times when it seemed like nothing was going right, it's only gotten better from there.

We love you, Mateo bear!

Talia's four month letter

Dear Natalia,

Happy four months! What an eventful month this has been. Now that you have officially moved out of your "fourth trimester" you are so interested in the world. You love to track objects with your eyes, and look at your brother, mama and mommy. When you are nursing these days, you sometimes have a hard time staying attached with there are so many interesting things you could be looking at!


You also have learned a new skill: shrieking. You delight in hearing your voice and shrieking to your heart's content. Actually, on our plane ride down to California, you shrieked almost the entire time. Although the fellow travelers may not have been too happy about the racket, you were having a wonderful time and letting everyone know about it. The flight attendant even stopped by to say, "She is a loud one, isn't she?"


Speaking of this, the trip to California was your first airplane trip. The air pressure change didn't seem to bother your ears and you took the flight like a champ. On the other hand, you were not interested in sleeping away from home! You clearly know your bed, and thought that Grammy and Grandpa's house was such an interesting place to be that you were not interested in sleeping at night! This pleased you much more than us.

You are really enjoying your tummy time and spend lots of time on your play mat. Sometimes, Mateo shows you his toys and reads you books while you are having tummy time. Almost always, he lies down next to you and says, "Mateo have tummy time too!" You look at him, smile and coo.

Another fun skill you have is grabbing things. Especially, you love to grab hair! Mommy's hair is just the right length for you to get a fist full and hold on tight. I know that before we know it you are going to be grabbing and shaking rattles and other fun toys. For now, you love to grab hair.

On the sleep front, it is definitely two steps forward, one step back. You are doing a great job with getting yourself to sleep and most days, at home, sleep between 6:30 and 7:30pm. Although you do wake up in the next hour most days, you then sleep till 1pm or so. (Last month it was better, but I guess you go down more consistently on your own.) Then you nurse every 2-3 hours till morning. Now that Mommy has the feeding while lying down figured out, she doesn't mind two night wakings, but prefers not to have three in a night.


You are such an amazing girl and we love having you in our family.


It is hard to imagine a time before you were born, now that you have been with us for four months. We love you and can't wait to see you continue to grow and explore the world.

love, Mommy and Mama

Spanish afternoons

In previous posts I think we have mentioned that when Alayna is working, I am trying to speak in Spanish with the kids. Some days I do better than others, but most days I speak at least 1-2 hours only in Spanish.

I read in _Raising a Bilingual Child_ that two hours is actually the minimum children need to become bilingual. It sounds like a lot, but then you think they are awake for 10-12 hours a day, so 2 hours is around 20% of the time. On the days I am home in the afternoons, I think I average that amount of time.

Also, the book stated that the best predictor of vocabulary in the second language is not the amount of time talking in the second language (beyond those two hours), but how many hours the child spends reading books (or being read too) in the second language.

This made me feel much better! I read to both Mateo and Natalia in Spanish almost every single day and have since Mateo was born.

It is interesting to see that Mateo's progression in Spanish has followed just like his learning curve in English. First he has started with saying nouns, and then some phrases that he hears frequently and can repeat verbatim. Now he is starting to create two word combinations, and on rare occasions three word combos. He does mix Spanish and English, which is completely normal, but only when he is talking in Spanish. He will insert a word in English to complete is idea, if needed. He can also follow most simple comands in Spanish now and seems to understand what I am saying most of the time.

Today I read him a new, silly book, El Gato de Mil Narices (The cat of a thousand noses) and he just giggled up a storm. This might have explained why he didn't go to sleep after hearing the book, because he wanted me to read it to him again! The amazing thing to me is that he clearly understood the book the first time I read it since he was laughing so much at the story.

For me, I too am learning much Spanish this year! I love my job as a Spanish literacy teacher and at school I spend three hours reading in Spanish every day. Just like with my students, I am learning many new words. This year I have looked up or figured out every single unknown word in every story that I have read! Today I learned the word for compost (abono natural) and disguise (antifraz). Every day I read new words and get to explain them to my students, helping me remember the words! My job is a one year post, and because of my vocabulary in Spanish I was a bit nervous about teaching reading to older kids (I teach up to third grade), but I am really enjoying the year.

Now. . . if only I could find a job where I taught Spanish literacy in the mornings to younger children, mathematics in (English or Spanish) the afternoons to older children and one or two days a week supervised aids or newer teachers . . . That would be my ideal full time job for next year!

Sleeping porch naps

When my mother was a child, they apparently took naps outside on their sleeping porch, and slept there as well. This afternoon, our two children ended up taking outside naps as well. It was a beautiful day and Mateo would not fall asleep in his crib. I ended up taking him on a drive "to the store," of dreamland. Of course, on that drive Natalia kept on fussing. . . so after Mateo fell asleep, I took her in her car seat out of the car and placed her on the porch, where she is now sleeping.

Mateo is sleeping in the car, with the door open, and Natalia on the porch and I am thanking the world for wireless internet! Sitting on the porch, I'm writing and enjoying some sun, peace and quiet.

Catching on

My mom made Mateo an early birthday cake this weekend and he ate it up - not just the cake, which was delicious, but the candles and singing and presents and attention. Today, he got another early present - a special birthday cake plate from our friend, Catherine, who was visiting. He loved it!

Then, tonight, as I was putting him to bed, I was telling him about tomorrow and how we'd be seeing his friend, D, in the morning. I said we'd all play together and maybe go to the park. Then, Teo said this: "Then my cake is going to come out...in a bowl...and we're gonna eat it in a bowl!" I had to laugh. He must be starting to think that life is just one big birthday celebration!

Siblings

We're back from our trip and mostly in one piece! I ended up coming down with a 24-hour stomach virus pretty much right after I hit 'publish' on that last post. No fun. We had spent time with our friend, Sara, earlier that day and she had been worried that she was coming down with something...but, ironically, I turned out to be the one who was contagious! I really hope no one else catches what I had, because it was no fun, but it was also gone in 24 hours and now I feel back to normal.

Anyway, we had a great trip except for the very, very end. The kids have been interacting more and more these days and so I thought I'd post this video of them attempting to read a book together. Mateo's telling Talia all about what animals are in the book...

Traveling anniversary road show

On this day five years ago, we stood in the hot sun before many of our nearest and dearest and tied the knot.  We can't believe it's been five years already since that day.  And nearly eight years since our first...um, well, it was sort of a date.  But that's a story for another day.  It's been quite the wild ride since our wedding day!  We went out to dinner (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and spent some time talking about where we've been on our anniversaries, so I thought I'd write down the list:

On our first anniversary, we had just moved to Portland and went to spend the night at a b&b in Hood River.  We listened to our wedding ceremony on our ipod and had dinner at a deserted brewpub overlooking the gorge.  

On our second anniversary, we were both in school, Sacha was also working, and we were trying to have a baby.  We went away to the Bend area and played in the snow, including taking a cross country skiing adventure. 

On our third anniversary, I was massively pregnant and overdue with Mateo.  Undaunted, and with labor nowhere in sight, we went out to this great Peruvian restaurant and then to a B&B near our house for the night.  I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible heartburn and realized we had forgotten the tums, so I decided to drive home to get it.  At like 2 am.  It made sense at the time!  Then, I returned safely to the B&B and slept much better.  Mateo made his big appearance five days later.

On our fourth anniversary, Mateo was nearly one year old and Sacha was about 8 weeks pregnant.  Nearly no one knew about that second part!  We were overwhelmed, to say the least.  We made it out to a sushi restaurant (tempura was all Sacha wanted to eat at that point) and then out to tea afterwards, and felt pretty good about ourselves for getting out at all.

On our fifth anniversary, we were visiting the bay area with our 23-month-old and our four-month-old in tow.  We spent time with family in the morning.  We went to Tilden Park in the afternoon and played on the steam trains, which was a big hit with our little guy.  Then, we went by the Brazil Room, where we were married, on the way home.  We took a couple of photos and were amazed at how much smaller everything looked without all the wedding accoutrements and people milling around!  Then, my parents watched the kidlets while we went out to a lovely dinner and sat outside in the balmy California weather.  

I have to say, it doesn't get much better than this.  We feel like we have hit the jackpot.   Happy anniversary to my lovely wife!

I have to say, though, on another subject, that Natalia apparently really does like to sleep in her own bed and nowhere else, and thus has given us two of the most horrendous nights of sleep we have ever had.  Our first night here, she was up for two and a half hours in the middle of the night!  Last night, she consented to stay asleep for most of the night, but so restlessly that one of us had to be right next to her, frozen into position and ready to insert the binky every ten or fifteen minutes.  Good times. 

She has also learned to screech, which she has been doing happily and LOUDLY ever since we got on the plane to come down here.  Wow.  She is delighted by the sound of her own voice!

Teo has been loving the attention of his grandparents and his auntie E, which is visiting from the east coast.  He went nuts for the trains this afternoon and has generally been soaking up everything about Grammy and Grandpa's house.  

We leave tomorrow for our much colder home.  Before I sign off, I want to send out two big congratulations...

....to our friends Briar and Gus, who are expecting their second baby in May!

....and to Anastasia and Chris, who welcomed nearly 10-pound baby Toby earlier this week.  Wahoo!!

Fridays are for adventures

After Alayna took her bus adventure a few weeks ago, I felt like I also needed to take a public transit trip with the kids one of these days (due to gas prices, Mateo loves buses and trains, and why not?). So, after Mateo woke up from a wonderful two-hour nap this afternoon, we had a snack, got ready and headed out to visit Mama at work, which is an hour and 20 minutes by light rail (the MAX) from our house.

You should have seen us. Because we needed to drive home with Mama later on, I was lugging the 10 lb baby car seat, along with the double stroller, the diaper bag, and of course two kids. I walked the normally 15 minute walk to the MAX, although it took me significantly longer than 15 min to push all of the stuff and the kiddos, but we got there in time to catch the train!

Although this is the northwest, and people are supposed to be so friendly, it took a bit of standing up for myself to get a sitting down seat for the three of us. People were not feeling very understanding of our situation, but eventually we got one sitting down seat for both max trains. (I just couldn't help myself from using the word understanding. LOL Maybe I'm a bit too tired because even Alayna didn't quite get why I found that funny!)

We negotiated a transfer between trains and headed out to Mama's work, where both kids were quite the hit!

After Alayna finished up, we had a fabulous dinner at a Guatamalan restaurant and ate a Guatamalan enchilada (very different - more like a tostada with beets and other yummy vegis), fried plantains and pupusas.

At the restaurant I started talking to our server, who was also the cook. She was covered in burn scars because some power lines had fallen on her eight years ago. She had a really intense story to tell. She told me that along with the burning, her husband had kicked her out of their house after she got out of the hospital and had eventually had to flee the country to be able to provide for her children, who are still in south america. As if that wasn't enough, she was caught up in an immigration raid last year at a local factory, where she also had gotten injured on the job and had not been able to get medical treatment. However, she avoided deportation because of the situation she left behind and is in the process of hopefully receiving amnesty and becoming a legal resident. It was such a sad story, but also such a testament to human resiliency. We were also able to give her information about a local free clinic that focuses on migrant workers that she hadn't heard of, so we felt like we were able to help a tiny bit.

All in all it was quite the trip and now we're all ready for bed. We're planning a relaxing weekend that will hopefully be free of any long trips on public transit or otherwise!

PS: I forgot to mention that Mateo made the whole trip wearing big boy underpants and did not have a single accident. We are so proud of him. We've been trying to be consisent about having him wear underwear at home and praising him a lot for keeping it dry and going in the potty. He's also been essentially potty-trained outside of the house for some time, too. Nights are another story, but that will come with time. People keep asking us how long he's been potty-trained and we always say, well, he isn't potty-trained yet but we're getting there. I thought about that today and realized that we really are getting there!

Hmmm

Random miscellany, because I feel like blogging but can't think of what I want to write about...

We watched the debate last night and I have to say, I'm glad it was the last one. Even though things seem to be going our candidate's way, Sacha and I are on the edges of our seats hoping the tide doesn't turn before election day. Bizarrely, the better the polls look, the more anxious we get. The election seems too important to wait for any longer, darn it. Plus, there's the fact that we may just have to move to Canada if the dark side goes back into office. We actually looked into it, although I can't imagine us actually leaving for anything other that some kind of actual persecution.

I am a somewhat sheepish reader of many blogs and I read a couple of posts today on late-term abortion and McCain's debate comments on the "health of the mother" that I feel compelled to link to here. I'm not sure how many readers we still have, but here they are.

http://www.alittlepregnant.com/alittlepregnant/2008/10/why-no-one-with.html

http://flotsamblog.com/2008/10/16/more-wounded-that-eloquent-im-afraid/

***************************************

In other news, we are cruising through another busy week. We're working on getting to bed before 10 pm, which is pretty laughable considering what early birds we are. We love (well, loved) to go to bed early so much that someone once asked us if we thought we would be able to handle having kids because we'd have to give up control over when we slept. Turns out, it's worked out pretty well. But, ten at night is LATE for us and yet, somehow, we just can't seem to go to sleep before then. I think it's because I get home at 7 and then we put the kids to bed and then eat dinner and it's 8 or 8:30 before we finish cleaning up and such. Then we need some down time to unwind.

And yes, I did say that we put the kids to bed. Both of them. They are both going to bed AT THE SAME TIME. I would like to publicly credit my lovely wife for this amazing accomplishment, because I did not believe it was possible. Teo didn't have a bedtime that he actually used for going to sleep until he was five or six months old and it was very tenuous for a long time after that. His sister, however, is totally up for conking around 7 or 7:30 pm. It is the best thing ever. The best. We are incredibly happy to have some of our evenings to ourselves. Wahoo! Natalia also had her first night of sleep in which she was completely unswaddled last night. Amazing.

Finally, I keep meaning to post some of my thoughts about being the "other mother" this time around and how it's all going. I keep not doing it, so hopefully saying it here will motivate me to post about that next time!