18 months

Natalia had her 18-month check-up on Monday and I am happy to report that she has cracked 20 pounds! Officially, it was 20 lb, 5 oz. We've been waiting for this blessed day in order to turn her around in her car seat (from rear facing to forward facing), although I haven't actually done it yet. I made the mistake of watching a safety video online that compared the impact of an accident on a rear facing kid to a forward facing one, and it made quite an impression. Rear facing is much, much more safe, although also much, much more frustrating for everyone involved.

However, regardless of the car seat thing, our little tyke is moving up in the world! The nurse measured her at least an inch tall again - this nurse seems to have issues with measuring, which I find odd, since it's a major part of her job (although she is very nice and was once on an airplane with us) - so I'll hold off on that number until we get a more accurate one!

Anyway, in addition to the stats, Tali (as we have taken to calling her) is doing very well. She can say lots of words, she answers questions, she can almost run and walks very well, etc. And, today she had her first haircut! We did it ourselves, as we really just wanted to clean up the back. Luckily, her hair is wavy and quite forgiving, so it didn't matter too much if we got it straight! Hopefully now it will be able to grow out at closer to the same length all around. All I can say is thank goodness we didn't have to trim any more than we did! We will definitely be going to a professional place when she needs a real haircut...but, judging from how long it has taken her hair to get this long, I think the next one is going to be a long time off! Someone was a bit wiggly and more than a little skeptical about the whole process, but she did very well overall. Here she is!



Finally, a big thank you to Auntie E, who watched the kids for us so we could go out to dinner on Monday. It was one of our many anniversaries - the 9th anniversary of when we first got together. She and the kids had a great time! A big thank you as well to my parents and Sacha's mom, who watched the kids last week so we could go out for Sacha's birthday, and to Apa, who is the most wonderful date-night-giver on the planet and who comes over every Wednesday to hang with the kids. Thanks, everybody!!

The best thing about Christmas...

...as far as I'm concerned, is getting matching outfits. For the kids. Although, I guess Sacha and I could get our own matching outfits and aim for the kooky-matching-lesbian-couple look in 2010. I think it's cuter and less freaky on the kids, though.

Anyway, their Bubby and Poppa got them some matching shirts and even some matching jammies. I never would have thought that I would like dressing them similarly, but I have to admit I get a kick out of it. This was especially true this evening, when the kids both wore their new doggie jammies to bed.

Talia kept signing "dog, dog" and trying to say "woof" and pet the dog, and then she realized Teo had a dog on his shirt, too! And so she wanted to pet the dog. Meanwhile, Mateo was making kissy faces at himself in the mirror. Adorable.


Other great things about Christmas, from the kids' points of view:

A new chef costume:


A new rocking chair:


And, a table full of our favorite people, which was the best part of all.


This was the first year that Mateo really got the concept of Christmas and Santa and presents and all that stuff. We tried an abbreviated explanation of the spiritual aspect of Christmas, but who knows how much of that sunk in. Some of the highlights included three nights in a row of family dinners, a lovely candlelight service at my grandmother's church, lots of present opening and paper throwing on Christmas morning, and more delicious food than we could eat.

On a less happy note, Sacha's mom had to leave earlier than planned tonight to go and be with her own mother in Atlanta, who may be facing the end of her long life. We're thinking of them and wishing them a peaceful journey ahead.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, Sacha! She's had quite a nice birthday, if I do say so myself - presents with the family this morning, shopping with her mom after that, then lunch and massages (courtesy of my parents) with just the two of us, and then cake and fun after that. Whew! Here she is with her two erstwhile helpers this morning...


...and making gingerbread earlier this month. We love you!

The wrong hair

Sacha had a work colleague over this afternoon to do some planning. This colleague brought along her elementary-school-aged son, who spent some time playing with our kids while I supervised and the other adults worked.

At one point, the little boy asked me, out of the blue, "so what's going on with having two moms in this house?" I don't think Sacha's colleague knew anything about us being gay until she got to our house, as she's new to the school, and no one had said anything about it after they got here, either, but the kid must have figured it out.

"Well," I said (thinking, I knew this day would come eventually, but what do I say?), "that's just what our family is like."

He immediately had another question about the two moms: "Then why does one of them have the wrong hair?"

I thought he was talking about me and my short hair, but I wasn't sure, so I asked him what he meant. So he said, "You know, the one in the other room has light hair." Like if we all had matching dark hair then it would obviously make sense for us to have two moms, but since one of us has blondish hair, then it's just all wrong.

I tried not to laugh and wondered what he would ask next, but he had moved on, and that was the end of it! Hilarious. Perhaps I should pick up some hair dye for Sacha?

Carbon copies

Sacha was under the weather on Sunday, so I took the kids out for an adventure in the morning. We went to different Trader Joe's than we normally do, because this one has kid carts that Mateo wanted to push. He pushed his cart around the store and put in lots of things that we needed and avoided clipping any senior citizens in the ankles, so I considered that a great success!

After we finished shopping, we wandered over to a part of the shopping center that I used to visit as a child. We traveled up here frequently so that my mom could attend meetings for the family business, as well as for holidays and other things. Right before Christmas, this shopping center would put down a bunch of hay and a fence and bring in actual reindeer to hang out there. I remember being amazed by them as a child. Since we were there, I described the whole reindeer scene to Mateo and told him we were standing right in the exact spot where the reindeer had been. This totally rocked his world! We called Grammy, who had also witnessed the reindeer way back when, and he described the whole thing breathlessly. The hay! The fence! The reindeer!

Then, I took them to the Moonstruck Chocolate Cafe for a treat. This place is quickly becoming my favorite dessert venue. They have fun little chocolates for the kiddos and delicious dark sipping chocolate for grown-ups. And this was my whole point when I started this post: We ended up sitting next to another mom and her daughter, who was in between Teo and Talia age-wise. The mom took one look at all of us and said, "You're like three carbon copies of each other!"

Before Natalia was born, Mateo and I used to get comments like this all the time when we were out together, and even when we were with Sacha. It has been important to us to build relationships with both kids without dwelling overly much on who is biologically connected to whom, so I usually would just say thank you and change the subject. I have been surprised that the same "they look just like you!" conversation has happened, and frequently, since Natalia has been born. When she and I are out together, people often comment on how much she looks like me. This was the first time it had happened with both kids, and I just had to laugh! There was no way to explain the whole thing, so I just stuck to the tried and true: I said thank you and changed the subject.

Cutest

Now that we have attended our very first preschool holiday performance, I think I can say objectively that it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. These groups of three-, four-, and five-year-olds belting out songs in Spanish at the tops of their lungs (while also randomly running away, spitting on their hands to rearrange their hair, drowning out their fellow performers, and wiggling to beat the band) were just too adorable to be believed.

Apa came with us, and, despite pre-performance discussion about how we all might get emotional and be in tears by the end, it was actually much too funny to even think about crying. And, for all the wiggles, they were impressively organized. The head of the school (who apparently never read the manual about what little kids shouldn't be able to do) had organized the older kids into a bell choir. Yes, a BELL CHOIR. Each kid had a bell and a teacher held up a color coded score and the kids chimed their bells right when they were supposed to. Impressive.

After that, we all milled around and ate using the plates and utensils and cups we were required to bring from home so that we might help save the earth (oh Portland, how I love you). I made these cookies but never got to eat one, so I guess they were a hit!

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Going in reverse chronological order, we spent the earlier part of today with Uncle Galen, who is in town for the holidays. He earned major good-uncle points for going with us to the indoor play park at a local community center, and for persevering through lunch with a cranky toddler and her very overstimulated older brother. He helped me make the aforementioned cookies by pulverizing handfuls of peppermint candies, and he eventually succeeded in winning over his extremely skeptical niece. A well-timed present of crayons shaped like cats from Galen's girlfriend proved to be the final tipping point for Talia, who then began wandering around saying "mao, mao, mao" while handing them one by one to her uncle. Here's Uncle Galen with Mateo and Yarn, who has finally started to socialize with us during the day.


And, in a final bit of news, someone actually recognized us from this blog when we were at the play park today! Another mom came up to me and said "This must be Talia from The Adventures of Teo and Talia!" This started another round of my on-going internal debate about how much info is the right amount to share on the internet, but I have to admit that it was fun and I also felt a tiny bit famous!

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I tend to write about mostly the fun stuff in this space, but it has been a long and stressful week around here. Sacha has been run through the wringer by some students with major home issues and even more major behavior issues. She's also had some long days at work, which means long days for everybody. We got that astronomical quote on the sewer, and there's been a lot of running around and trying to get everything ready for the holidays.

Sacha and Mateo are both on vacation from school for the next two weeks, starting today, so we're all hoping for some rest and relaxation and nice time with our families. Of course, our weekend is going to be insanely busy (among other things, we're going to look at a house in a nearby neighborhood that has an elementary school in which we're becoming interested), but maybe the relaxation can start after that? At the very least, I'm planning to make more peppermint chocolate cookies sometime soon, so I can find out what they actually taste like!

One more thing: I just have to post this photo of Talia with her new shirt on. One of Sacha's students gave it to her, and it says, "Good things come in small packages." I could just eat her up like a little holiday dessert!

A number of things

As Sacha alluded to in the last post, we had a blast making a gingerbread house with some buddies this weekend. My grandma (my dad's mom) used to be very big on gingerbread during the holidays. We always did a big day of making gingerbread cookies and we would also usually put together a gingerbread house at the same time.

When she passed away, I ended up with all her gingerbread paraphernalia, including this great, heavy cast iron molds for a gingebread house. I never had any idea how much work she must have put into getting everything ready for us until last week, when I finally did it myself!

Thanks to some help from my lovely wife, who was home with laryngitis all last week, we made it into a big project with the kids - mostly Mateo - who helped shop for candy decorations, make the dough, press it into the molds, etc. Then, we had some friends and my brother and his girlfriend over and we all put it together, well, together! We had a really fun time. It reminded me of all those times we'd get together at my grandparents' house and laugh and laugh as we consumed massive amounts of sugar and cookie dough!

We had a fun rest of the weekend, too. We lit Hanukkah candles with the kids for the first time on Friday and Sunday nights (accidentally forgot Saturday - oops!) and that was fun. Sacha found some catchy Hanukkah music and we danced and played Go Fish while the candles were burning. We had a funny moment on Friday night, in which I was attempting to explain both Hanukkah and Christmas and how people celebrate God in all kinds of different ways. I wasn't getting complicated or anything, but after a few seconds, Mateo cut me off and said "Did anyone hear a fart?" We just about died laughing. Clearly the religion stuff was not as interesting as bodily functions!

Then, on Sunday, at the invitation of my grandma (my mom's mom), Mateo and I went to an organ concert at her church. They have this huge amazing organ and it's named after my great-grandmother, which is pretty neat. The concert was all Christmas pops music and Mateo was transfixed for most of the time. They had moved the organ console to the middle of the stage, so he got to really see what the organist was doing. It was very cool! We left at intermission, as the wiggles had started to set in, and I took him out for a sweet treat before coming home. We capped off the night with latkes and homemade applesauce and sour cream for dinner, and then a surprise visit from Apa, who had been away for the weekend and came home early enough to see the kids before bedtime.

Whew! Today has already started with a bang - our roof is being fixed as we speak and there's no rot underneath it. This is a huge relief. They're almost done and then we'll have no roof worries going forward. Unfortunately, we also got our first quote on building a new sewer line and holy crap, it is going to cost a boatload of money. Good thing we've started listening to a relaxation meditation at bedtime, because we are going to need the stress relief!

December pictures

Here are some different pictures of our December.

Our near constant pose every day: watching the construction next door.



Projects with scissors. Fun!



Our new cat Yarn receiving some Natalia cuddles.



Natalia thought that the flour was more tasty than the gingerbread dough!



Gingerbread construction!

Making the molds for the house.




Working on building the house.





The completed project!

Out of work for a week

On Monday, my throat felt a little bit sore and at the end of the day I had the foresight to get some sub plans prepped, just in case. By an hour after school, my voice was 75% gone. Yesterday, it was 80% gone and I really tried not to talk. And today I really have NO voice, and have whispered less than 50 words total over the course of the day.

Honestly, though, if I have to be home sick, at least I don't feel horrible! I would take this over a cold or fever any day.

Being on my own personal silent retreat has been, well quiet! The first day, although I couldn't talk, I was a whirlwind of activity. I bought Mateo two more sets of nighttime underwear, emailed the roof person, went to the library, bought a coupon book for the metro area, went through the coupon book and put them up on the fridge so we would actually use them, and this was all before lunch time! I might not have had a voice, but I had a decent amount of energy.

Today, I have been a bit more low key. Alayna and I went out for a nice date tonight, and I did lots of writing, while she did lots of talking. It's wonderful that we can enjoy each other so much, even if I can't talk! I just hope my voice comes back soon.

The three trials of our house

The kids and I were hanging out with some friends today and one of them asked how we were all doing. Great!, I said. And we are. Things are good. Good, good, good. Except, I somehow forgot about the relatively major home ownership issues that have cropped up recently. I think I might be in denial, because I didn't even think about the fact that I could have mentioned them until I was driving home. We're hoping 2010 will be a better year home-wise, because the last part of this year has held more than its share for our poor casa.

1. The unbloggable thing, which is moving slowly towards resolution. Very stressful, but thankfully not as disruptive as it could have been.

2. The roof. We have a great roof over 95 percent of our house. The last 5% is a flat roof over the porch and front room. When we bought this place, the inspector mentioned that we might need to replace it at some point, but we figured that was a ways off. Turns out, 2009 is a perfect time to replace it, because it is buckling and leaking and in bad shape. We've gotten three quotes on fixing it and the last guy, upon climbing down the ladder from checking things out, informed me that he had been able to lift up the roofing material and plywood with his hand. That was a great moment. We're just crossing our fingers and praying that there's no major water damage underneath. If there is, at least we're catching it now, but ugh. It will be costly.

3. The sewer. In addition to the new house being built on one side of us (which has been all the entertainment I thought it would be, and more), our neighbor on the other side is about to start some major remodeling to his house. In the process of getting plans together, he had his sewer line scoped and the contractor discovered that we have a shared sewer line, which is a no-no. Said contractor reported this to the city and now we both need to get new sewer lines. As there is no access on our street, we have to go all the way through said neighbor's yard to connect to a main line. Again, stressful and expensive. Argh.

Bad things come in threes, right? So, hopefully, nothing else is about to come out of the woodwork!

'Tis the season

1. We got our Christmas tree this weekend. It was beautiful, albeit freezing, outside and we decided to learn our lesson from last year and go while sun was shining. (Last year, we passed up a beautiful sunny day because we had other things planned and then ended up cutting down our tree in the icy rain and mud the next day.) We went to a much less crowded place this time and found a great tree.

Sacha and I have been compromising on tree types since we got together nearly 9 years ago. She likes doug firs and I like the nobles, so we alternate years. Then, this year, we discovered the grand fir. It is like a cross between the doug and the noble - perfect! Luckily, we're fast decision-makers, so we found our tree without too much going back and forth. We're enjoying the ability to do it quickly now, before the kids get old enough to get involved in deciding! I am totally into this cutting-d0wn-the-tree-yourself thing. It takes about 5 minutes and is fun for all involved. While I was sawing, Sacha and the kids went across the trail and found a tree that was just Mateo's height, which wowed him about as much as you might expect. Now it's home and all decorated and the whole house smells delicious.

2. Sacha and I have a (now, not so) secret affinity for Christian music. Neither one of us is exactly Christian, but the music is just so uplifting most of the time! So the local station is on our preset list in the car and we found ourselves listening to it on the way home from getting the tree. Turns out, these days it's all Christmas music, all the time! We were all feeling very Christmas-y as it was, so that just added to it. We turned the chorus of "Ding Dong Merrily On High" - "Gloooooria, in excelsis deo" - into "Glooooooria, in excelsis tickle Mateo!" and that was quite well received. He kept saying, that's not how it goes!, but then begging for more.

3. This time of year always brings up my feelings about Christmas itself. As I mentioned above, I wouldn't call myself Christian, but I do believe in God and I love the rituals of the Christmas season. There's something about celebrating new life and hope in a season of cold and darkness that gets me every time. This has been especially true since we've had the kids in our lives. All those songs about welcoming baby Jesus and celebrating his birth always make me think about our kids' births and our feelings of joy and euphoria when they came into the world...and beyond that, how every child should be celebrated and welcomed that way on their first day.

Anyway, all of this is to say that Christmas is feeling particularly fun and celebratory this year. Now that Mateo's old enough to get excited about it, he's taking us all along for the ride. Every time we dare to turn the tree lights off, he notices and asks to have the tree turned on again. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go turn on the tree before he wakes up from his nap!

Love

We are all smitten by our new cat. We loooove her. Her name is definitely going to be Yarn, and Mateo is very, very proud to have named her.

She is the sweetest, cuddliest cat we have ever had. She's definitely still adjusting to our home - she spent most of the day hunkered down a dresser in the bedroom - but she started coming out more and more as the day went on. And, we were all greatly relieved when she demonstrated that she does, in fact, know how to use a litter box.

When I went in for a few minutes by myself after Sacha came home, she trotted out, jumped up on the bed, and snuggled onto my lap. And she purrs whenever we come into the room. She is showing all the signs of being the lap cat of our dreams! Yay for a new kitty!

Introducing...

...our new kitty!

It all started with a mouse in our house yesterday. After finding said mouse, we began to think more seriously about getting another cat. After hearing the adage that seeing one mouse usually means there are more in the wings, we decided to get back into the cat business, and fast. Two trips to the Humane Society later, we found our girl! She is 6 years old and mellllllow. Very mellow. We hope she will be a lap cat, but also a hunter!

She let both kids hold her on their laps and drape toys all over her in the little visiting room when we met her. That was when we knew she had to be our cat! She seems sturdy and lovable and calm. We brought her home and she is peacefully getting acclimated in our bedroom.

The Humane Society people seemed a bit surprised to see us again, once they pulled our records up in the computer. Perhaps this is because we've gone through four cats in the last five years. Of those, one ran away, two died in freak circumstances, and one was a beloved stray that we eventually brought to the Humane Society before Mateo was born, since he was quite the scratcher and pretty aggressive. We could use some better luck for this kitty!

Mateo suggested the name Yarn and we think it may stick.

Here she is! This is taken from the website, so excuse the random background...

Thanksgiving, the expanded version

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. It really started on Wednesday, which was Sacha's first day of vacation after two 12 hour days of student conferences. Wednesday was also Mateo's very first parent-teacher conference. We schlepped over to preschool at 8 am and spent half an hour going through a three-page list of different developmental areas that he's working on. It was impressive! The preschool itself is not overtly academic - the kids play and speak Spanish and do art and science projects and go to the park and such - but I was impressed by the structure underlying what they do. Plus, it was fun to talk about how great our kid is with his teachers. Seeing the way they are with all the kids there, I'm sure the rest of their conferences were like this, too!

On Wednesday night, we started the Thanksgiving extravaganza with dinner at my grandma's house. This year's group of family and friends seemed especially congenial and a good time was had by all. We had two new guests this year - Apa and my brother's girlfriend - which was fun. I'm impressed with both of them for spending three lengthy evenings with all of us! Apa spent Christmas with us last year and we were excited that he wanted to come to Thanksgiving with us this year, too.

Thursday morning was the much-anticipated Turkey Trot, which my sister and brother and I have been doing together for at least the past five years, or more. I know we started doing it before we moved to Portland, so it must be at least six years, now that I think about it. We all competed in cross country in our younger years and so it's fun to all run together once a year. This year, I actually managed to keep up with them! I was very proud of myself and think our workout routine must actually be working! It was raining the entire time, but that didn't stop us.

Then we had our traditional coffee and pastries breakfast afterwards, which was a lot of fun. We covered topics such as relationships, children, careers, how we would survive in a post-money world, survivalists with bunkers in rural areas, and other fun things. There was a guy sitting next to us who was pretending to work on his computer while not-so-subtly eavesdropping, which was funny. The Turkey Trot is one of the only times in the year when just the three of us hang out, so I'm already looking forward to next year.

Thanksgiving dinner was held at my aunt and uncle's house. My aunt always puts together a feast of epic proportions and then refuses to take credit for it! It was delicious and staggeringly large, as always. The pre-dinner festivities were filled with lots of wine and snacks and shrieking children (ours, obviously). They had a wildly fun time playing with their cousins and all the adults in attendance. Or, Mateo did. Natalia went into her normal crowd mode, which is to bury herself in my or Sacha's shoulder and hold on for dear life like a baby koala bear. She is in a very, very shy phase right now!

Then, we had Friday, which was dinner at our house! My aunt and uncle graciously provided the food (leftovers from Thanksgiving) and we added some things and everyone came over and ate and drank and played Cranium. Again, I give mad props to Apa and my brother's girlfriend for voluntarily hanging out with us for the third lengthy evening in a row! The Cranium game is becoming something of an annual tradition, despite the best efforts of my father, who objected to nearly every move made by anyone. It was quite funny, although it didn't prevent his team from losing. Mwaaaa, ha ha!

Finally, to cap it all off, we all geared up and went to Zoo Lights on Saturday evening. The zoo was mobbed, so we didn't get to ride on the zoo train, but we did have a great time roaming around and checking out the lights. Natalia, like her brother before her, really loved the fish display and even started saying fish ("fis! fis!"). She's been learning tons of words lately. Mateo liked just about everything. And, when we were heading out, we ran into my brother and his girlfriend again. I have run into my brother in some random places (most notably in downtown LA when I was in college there and he was on a high school band trip and we just happened to both go to the same mall and bump into each other), so I guess it wasn't too surprising to see him there!

Anyway, that was the weekend. Whew! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and this year was no different. For all the love I have in my life, I am so, so thankful, and this weekend was a busy reminder of that. Now if we could only convince my parents and Sacha's parents to move here, we could continue the family carousing all year round!

Photos to come in another post...

Thanksgiving

We are so very, very thankful for all our many blessings, today and every day. Happy Thanksgiving!

Mateo's 3rd birthday letter

Dear Mateo,
You have changed a lot since our last letter to you, and now that you're three years old, we thought we would write to you about what you're like right now.

You had your 3-year-old well-child visit at the doctor's office about two weeks ago. You love going to the doctor and spent the morning prior to your appointment peppering Mama with questions about what it would be like. Asking questions, particularly those including the word "why," is one of your favorite pastimes. You barrage us with questions from morning until you fall asleep at bedtime. You weighed in at 29.6 pounds and 36.5 inches tall, which are about the 27th and 20th percentiles, respectively. The doctor commented that you're at an average BMI, which is great! It's nice to have you be a bit more sturdy right now.


You definitely do seem bigger to us - taller and heavier than a few months ago. In fact, you've gotten big enough that it's no longer easy to carry you around for very long. Mommy and Mama did a lot of carrying with both you and your sister on our recent trip to the midwest and we were SORE when we got home. Whew!

Mateo, you have changed and grown so much since your second birthday that it's hard to put it into words. You've always been a talkative guy and your abilities in that area have continued to develop over the past year. We need to start writing down more of what you say! This morning, I said (rhetorically) as you were swinging back and forth with one hand on the windowsill and the other on the couch, "Mateo, how did you get so big that you can do that now?" You said, "I just grew and grew and my bones got bigger and now I'm big enough to do it!"


One of your favorite things to do these days is to play pretend games. Any sort of game will do, although you prefer those that you make up, and those which require you to be some sort of character. You also just learned to play Hide and Go Seek, which you think is fun, but baffling. Other favorites include Toll Taker, in which you drive in circles around our dining room table and Mama or Mommy collects tolls as if you were going over a bridge, and Chef, in which you cook up lots of delicious concoctions using your kid kitchen and play food.

Age three has brought with it more energy than ever before, which is hard to believe. I think we could power a nuclear reactor with you! Your happiest time of day is definitely morning. You wake up at oh-dark-thirty, as my mom would say, but you do it so happily that it's hard to be upset. You wake up wanting to read and play with water in the sink and clomp around the house and all that stuff. We've tried explaining the concept of sleeping in to you, but it is totally foreign to you at this point! Someday, we will sleep past the wee hours of the morning again.

Speaking of sleep, you have lots of stuffed friends in your room and bed with you these days. Your favorites include two large stuffed bears, a lion, a tiger, and a panda. And Birthday Bear, who was Mama's Care Bear when she was small and now is yours.


Of all the things you like to do, I'd say reading books is still your favorite. We had your little preschool parent-teacher conference today and your teachers said the same thing. You love stories and being read to. You're starting to recognize some words on the page, which is really cool, and you love to recite books to us from memory. I remember doing this as a kid and feeling very proud that I could read like a big person, and I'm sure you feel the same way.

Of course, one of the biggest changes this year has been that you've started preschool. We're extremely pleased with your school and look forward to several more years of being involved there. In addition to telling us how well you're doing at school, your teachers mentioned that you can converse in both English and Spanish. We've noticed this at home, too, and think it's amazing. Mommy has done a wonderful job consistently speaking Spanish with you and it's starting to show!

Oh, and that reminds me, since you and Mommy both go to school these days - you now hold conversations on the phone. These can be either pretend or real, and sometimes both at the same time. A few weeks ago, I was putting clothes into the dryer and listening with amusement to your pretend phone conversation...until I turned around and realized that it wasn't pretend! You were talking to Mommy on my cell phone! I have no idea how you got the phone or how you called her, but you did both things. I felt a bit sheepish, but really it was quite funny and cute.


Finally, things are going better with your behavior lately (knock on wood, knock on wood) and with your relationship with your sister. We all went through a difficult patch this fall and we still have a close relationship with our friend the timeout, but things are going much more smoothly than they were. You seem to have remembered how to be gentle with your sister again, which is greatly appreciated by all! Case in point: she fell yesterday and you went right over and gave her a hug and kiss and some gentle pats, and she stopped crying! Sometimes, you two even play together for a few minutes. Hopefully this is the beginning of a great sibling relationship.


You've been sleeping like a champ and eating well and all that good stuff. You're in a good spot, kid! In this week of thanksgiving, we are so, so thankful that you are our son. We look forward to all the adventures this year will bring.

all our love,
Mommy and Mama

Construction and other odds and ends

Behold, in the photo above, our children in the position they have been in for a week. Can you see the digger in the background? We had a friend and her son over on Friday for our weekly playdate and she said, "Every time I drive by your house, I see Mateo standing at the window and staring at the digger."

I hadn't realized it was quite so obvious to the whole neighborhood, but our lives have really changed since the coming of The Digger. It's probably leaving tomorrow, which is a total bummer, because it has been entertaining and fascinating for all of us for the last week. As with seemingly all construction projects, it is already behind schedule: it was supposed to be here for two days and it has now been nearly a week.

Today, the digger operator told me that today was their last day, but then they found something under the driveway ramp they were digging and that seems to have set them back. We think it was the remains of an old oil tank or septic system or something. The Digger has entered our lives to the extent that Sacha and I had not one but several separate conversations about exactly what had been dug today and what might have been found under the dirt!

Needless to say, a winter of construction bodes well for all of us. Especially since these guys seem to start work every day at 7 am, which is great for our crew of early risers. I feel bad for them that they have a nearly constant audience, but maybe that happens to them a lot?

In the absence of heavy machinery crashing and banging over the weekend (which the kids have slept through beautifully so far, by the way, and I am knocking on major wood as I say that), we did lots of stuff! Mateo and Apa went on a hike on Saturday morning while Sacha and I took turns hanging out with Natalia and going for our Saturday runs.

Then, Apa got back with Mateo and suggested that Sacha and I have a date! Right then! Spontaneously! Of course, we said yes. Thank you, Apa! And we proceeded to go to the mall. We're not really very mall-y normally, but this was a nice mall and Sacha needed some new pants and so off we went. We had a great, great time. I think it's pretty awesome that we've been together for nearly nine years and that we still have so much fun together. It also helped that it was a daytime date, so we weren't pushing our bedtime back by going out!

This is getting long, so here's the rest of the weekend in a nutshell: went to Pix twice, saw Sacha's cousin and her new husband, who were in Oregon on their honeymoon, and then saw our friends K and C, who have had some recent adventures that we got to hear about. We planned our second annual Xmas tree-cutting adventure with them for early December. Here's hoping for some better weather than we had last year, when it was freezing and pouring down rain!

In other news, I can't resist posting this photo of Talia, who is wearing the new shoes Grammy and Grandpa got her. I seriously covet them - I wish they made them in my size! She loves shoes and these ones will keep her tiny feet nice and warm this winter. Thanks, grandparents!


And, suddenly, here it is Thanksgiving week and Sacha's immersed in parent-teacher conferences. She's working until 8 pm today and tomorrow, which means long days for both of us. We're all looking forward to her having the rest of the week off, seeing family, doing the Turkey Trot on Thursday morning, and then stuffing ourselves silly for the rest of the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

PS: For all you digger aficionados out there, here's a gratuitous video of The Digger getting itself down into the huge hole it has dug. Try to ignore my random commentary!

Fresh air

I almost never post these days. Between teaching and time with the family, I guess I keep busy and when I am relaxing I tend not to think about writing. Overall, I think things are going really well. I was struggling with anxiety for the first two months of school, but I am finally feeling better. This week, I am actually starting to feel like myself. After struggling with going to school each day, I am enjoying teaching again! Yah.

Through all of this Alayna has been amazing. She has made going back to work full time so much easier than it would otherwise be. I don't know how she does all of the house things that she takes care of, but she is just a rock star in my book. She takes care of 95% of the house necessities, so when I am home, I can just be with the kids and my family.

On the kid front, this last weekend I went and bought some cute nighttime underwear for Mateo. They are waterproof, but are made of absorbent cotton. He is doing really well with them. In the last week, he has had three nights where he woke up dry! Go Mateo.

Natalia is starting to have more language. Sometimes I get a bit worried because she doesn't say that many words, but she really is starting to say things. She can now say/sign: mama, dog, cat, ball, shoes, apple, eyes, ba ba (binky), hat, train, baby, milk, car, go girl, up, yeah and a few other things. It is a relief to hear her starting to talk a little bit more. I know I was slow on the language front, and so it is nice to hear her using more words.

At school, I have made a few changes that I am happy about. I have learned this new way of teaching grammar that the kids and I love. This week we had a sentence smack down! The students learned about the subject and verb of the sentence and then got to perform the smack down and they were really excited about it (and finally seem to remember that every sentence needs a subject and a verb.) Now they are learning about FANBOYS (For, and, nor, but, or, yet and so) and when they need to use a comma with those good old boys. (Sentence , FANBOYS sentence.) These ideas are all from this book called Mechanically Inclined.

In math I am really differentiating a lot more. I have five different math groups and students are doing a whole range from 3rd grade math to 6th grade math. I am just pleased with how well it is working and that the students all seem to be challenged, on-task and happy. They appear to like math time (and so do I). So far, this has been a great school year, even with all of my anxiety!

Adoption

In contrast to when we first became parents, when we knew almost no one with kids, and to a couple of years ago, when we knew almost entirely straight families, we now have a fairly even mix of lesbian families and straight families in our group of friends. It's great! We're still searching for those elusive gay dads, so point them our way if anyone knows any!

Anyway, we have some good friends who are a lesbian couple and in our same position vis a vis how they came to have kids. In other words, one of them gestated and birthed one kid and the other of them did so for the second kid. One of them and I were chatting sometime recently about fertility and such and got to talking about adoption.

We both agreed that, had getting pregnant not come relatively easily for us, that we would have adopted, although I guess you never really know until you're in that situation. I've always felt pretty sure about that, though. Then, one of us said, "well, I guess we do have some experience with adoption, since we had to do it for kid #2." And then there was a pause as we both realized that we actually both HAVE adopted for real. As in, in the traditional sense of adopting a child that is in no way genetically related to us.

It was kind of shocking for both of us, because it really doesn't feel that way. In my mind, Natalia has always been mine and sometimes I forget that she didn't actually come out of my body. I sometimes think of the night she was born and holding her little foot while they were suctioning her and then being up nearly all night with her that night while Sacha recovered from the birth marathon (and of all the other moments we've shared over the past 16 months), and of how bonded I am to her. Then, I wonder about the people who ask us (infrequently, thankfully, but it's not uncommon) if we don't each love the child we gave birth to just a little bit more? Um, no.

Anyway, to me, (although I was and am exceedingly grateful to be able to adopt Natalia and be her legal parent) the adoption was more of an expensive legal technicality than anything else. So, it was a funny moment with our friend, going from discussing whether we would theoretically adopt or not to realizing that we already have!

Digger day

I lamented to Sacha yesterday afternoon that I didn't know how I would make it through the winter without succumbing to the temptation of extremely germy play options like indoor play parks and OMSI and such. "What will I doooooo with them?" I whined.

We had just spent the morning with a newish playgroup, ripping one of the members' houses to shreds and witnessing some difficult behavior from the other kids in attendance. "We're going to be in the house all winter loooooong..." I continued. Then, the chaos of the day began anew and I was distracted by other things.

Meanwhile, there has been this vacant lot next to our house for the last couple of years. We received a notification when Mateo was an infant that a house would be built there, but then the housing market tanked and nothing ever happened. And, by nothing, I mean NOTHING. The lot was overtaken by weeds that grew to be taller than Mateo.

Recently, a crew of men came and disassembled the fence that borders the alley next to our house, but left abruptly in the middle of the project. We think they were actually stealing the wood. The half-up fence added a charming element of, well, trashiness to the whole scene and finally pushed me over the edge into filing a complaint with the city. I submitted the form online two days ago, so I'm sure it hasn't even been processed yet, but nonetheless...

This morning, a huge digger showed up on our street. Then, a man in a car came to consult with the digger operators and rolled out a sheaf of papers that were clearly house plans. I know this because Mateo and Natalia and I were staring down at the scene from our window. Then, awhile later, the digger operator got into the digger and turned it on and proceeded to raze everything in the vacant lot. Weeds? Gone! Fence remants? Snapped like toothpicks! Overgrown blackberry vines? Crushed and hauled away. This thing will supposedly be here for two days, digging out the basement or foundation or whatever. Then, hopefully, a new house will be built!

All I can say is thank you to the universe for solving two of my problems in one fell swoop.

1. Kids in need of entertainment got a digger delivered to their door and the promise of a whole winter of home construction that we can watch from our window (How will they nap with all the banging and crashing, you ask? Let's not think about that right now...).

2. Adults in need of a vacant lot being cleaned up (and a nice, new house being built on it to improve the neighborhood and their home's value) are finally going to get some action. Wahoo!

Here are some photos.

Before:


After:


Enthralled kid and friend:


PS: I'm sure the city inspector for nuisance complaints will, in about 10 days, come out to do an inspection for our complaint and wonder what the heck I was all upset about!

Cellist

When we were in California this past summer, we spent an afternoon visiting one of my mom's childhood friends. They were close friends while growing up in the northwest and then amazingly ended up living in the same town as adults. This friend and her husband had kids much later than my parents did, so they are just in high school and college now. Anyway, they always invite us over when we visit because they know how much we (and the kids) love to admire the flock of chickens they keep in the backyard!

However, my mom's friend just happens to work in the field of classical music and she and her children are all accomplished musicians. What does she play, you ask? Well, the cello. Mateo's most favorite of all the instruments, excepting possibly the guitar. He used to bring it up frequently when he was into introducing us all as various members of a quartet.

And, it just so happened that my mom's friend had recently decided to start playing the cello again after a long hiatus and so had a cello just lying around. Which she let Mateo play. I wish we had had a video camera, because he was absolutely over the moon with excitement...and did manage to make some sounds with the bow on the strings. It was pretty funny and cute - this two-year-old trying to play a full-sized adult cello with a whole crowd of adults gathered around oohing and ahhing.

I bring this up because my mom just sent me a photo and it brought back the memory of that afternoon. Here's our little budding cellist:

Veteran

We're sending out happy Veteran's Day wishes to our favorite veteran, Apa! He served in the Navy when he was fresh out of high school and has some amazing stories to tell. Thanks for your service, and for everything else, as always. We love you!

Journeying

We got back last night from our big adventure. It was quite a trip! From the flying to the hoteling to the weddinging and familying, we had lots of highs and lots of lows and not a whole lot of sleep. However, now that I am not trapped on a plane with our two wiggling, kicking, crying, toy-throwing, MANIC children, I can say that it was worth it. One of those things we're glad to have done despite some traveling woes. Anyway, here's how it went.

Part I: Planes the First and Second
As we could have (and did, actually) predicted, we were all in various stages of colds by the time our plane took off on Thursday morning. Our children were both veritable rivers of snot, which was actually good because they weren't all congested and hence their ears did fine on the plane. I was starting to feel sickish (but not nearly as bad as I would feel in a couple of days) and Sacha was still in pre-cold land.

We flew to Denver and then on to Detroit from there. Let's just say it was less than fun. I don't know how other people have kids that will just hang out on a plane and look at their dvd player or play with a cup for an hour or whatever, but those are not our kids. Our kids go nuts on the plane. We brought many things for them to do and they played with each for about 30 seconds before attempting to throw it or rip it or whatever. We did have some peaceful moments (and I am talking 5 minutes max) where one or both were engaged in an activity, so we were glad for that.

Here we are in happier times, right after boarding the first flight.


Really, the only thing that got us through this part of the trip was Bena.dryl. Until recently, I was vehemently opposed to drugging your kids on the plane, but I am not anymore. It is a mercy to everyone. We just gave them enough to calm them down without knocking them out and that helped both of them take some semblance of a nap. Not at the same time, but still, it was something! And so, eventually, the two flights crawled by and we made it to Michigan in one piece. Whew!

Part II: The Family
After being met by Sacha's mom (who had just arrived) and one of her uncles, who had driven out to meet us, we all schlepped out to another aunt and uncle's house. They are the parents of the bride, who is Sacha's cousin and who lived with us for almost a year when she lived in Portland. In fact, we inadvertently introduced her to her fiance, who was the best friend of the gay law student who rented a room from us at the same time that Rachel was living with us.

Anyway, Sacha's family is wonderful and we were thrilled to see everyone again. From the moment I met the Michigan crew (7 or 8 years ago? We are coming up on 9 years together in December, which is pretty amazing...), they have welcomed me with open arms and made me feel right at home. Mateo and Natalia got to meet lots of new relatives on Thursday night and this continued throughout the time we were there. They got lots of attention and Mateo ate it up. Natalia was glued to one of us for most of time, but that was okay.

One thing I particularly appreciate about Sacha's family (and mine, too, for that matter) is that they treat Mateo and Natalia exactly the same. They don't give more attention or gifts or anything to the one they're biologically connected to. They just give both of them lots of love. It is really the best gift they could possibly give to our family.

Anyway, the family connection was the highlight of the trip. We got to see the bride and a little bit of the groom and lots and lots of loving relatives. And, we spent lots of quality time with Sacha's parents. It was nice for us all to be away from home and have no obligations other than spending time with each other.

Part III: The Hotel
We stayed in a nice hotel in the middle of a large commercial office complex. Thanks to Mateo's insistence on getting up between 6 and 7 am despite the time change, and to both kids' needs for something to do at all times, we explored nearly every inch of the place. Here we are in the early morning, looking out at the sunrise from the elevators on our floor. I tried to photograph our reflections, without much luck, but it's still kind of a cool photo.


We ran around in the lobby in our pajamas...


...charged up and down the stairs, learned about revolving doors and automatic doors, played in the pool, stared at people in the workout room, checked out the parking garage, visited the really awesome atrium in the building next door...

...and put our fingers (and, in some cases, mouths) in places that they were not meant to go. Two examples of this: Mateo learned the hard way about not pushing the "help me now!" call button in the elevator and then, a few days later, was caught by his Mama in the act of licking a mirror in a public restroom. EWWWW. I was actually taking a picture of him at the time, because it was so cute the way he was looking at himself...and then suddenly I realized he was about to lick. Bleck.


Part IV: The Wedding
The wedding was the catalyst for the whole trip. We've been to quite a few weddings by this point in our lives, but this one was a whole new experience for us. Sacha's cousin and her now-husband recently converted to orthodox Judaism. This had caused something of an uproar in the family and we weren't sure how things would go once we got there. We were pleasantly surprised to find that, by and large, people put away whatever opinions they might have had and just focused on celebrating the bride and groom and the love they obviously have for one another.

The wedding and reception made for a joyful afternoon/evening. The crowd was a mix of people from their family and friends and their new religious community. And, there were lots of new and interesting things happening throughout! Here's Mateo with the bride:


Here's part of a pre-wedding ritual called bedecking, where the groom is sung and danced to the bride after not seeing her for a week. The groom puts a veil over her face and then everyone proceeds to the ceremony from there. The bride sits on a throne...


...and a group of men comes in singing loudly and dancing the groom up to the bride. It was very intense!


I can't speak to the service itself, as I spent it at the park next door with the kids, to avoid the commotion they would inevitably cause inside! But, Sacha says that it was mostly in Hebrew and Aramaic and involved lots of symbolic movements and blessings and such. The kids and I had a great time at the park, by the way, although I had to laugh that we were romping around while dressed to the nines. Here are some photos of them in their fancy outfits:





Here they are running to Mommy as she came to get us after the ceremony. This was such a sweet moment:


I can, however, speak to the reception. It was fun and actually got pretty wild at some points. There was a partition down the middle of the dance floor, so that men and women danced separately. There was a LOT of dancing, especially in the beginning when the bride and groom entered and were immediately swept up into a joyous dance of lots of people holding hands and moving in concentric circles. This was nearly every woman in attendance packed onto the dance floor:


The other thing I didn't know about orthodox weddings is that the guests are expected to entertain the bride and groom, so there were some different stunts and little performances by various guests.

Needless to say, Mateo thought this was pretty awesome. He danced with us on the women's side and with his Poppa (Sacha's dad) and uncles and male cousins on the men's side. Here he is, trying on a yarmulke, and then with his cousin and uncle below.



As the night went on and the dance floor got more sparsely populated, he wandered around dancing and gaping at everything around him.


See Mateo in the background? He had just narrowly escaped being leveled by one of the dancers' shoes as the circle whirled around:

Even Natalia, who was very shy for most of the weekend, seemed to enjoy herself. We got to sit with Sacha's other cousins for dinner, so we caught up with them and got to meet some of Rachel's friends and generally had a lot of fun.


Part V: Planes the Third and Fourth
Yesterday afternoon, after a post-wedding brunch at the bride's parents' house, we went to the airport. We were all exhausted and the kids were overtired and the last last last last LAST thing we wanted to do was get on a plane. Especially since the flights were longer going home. But, we made it through. Even though I forgot to pack the benadryl in our carry-on. Oh, what am I saying. Not carry-on. Carry-ONS. We had so much stuff that I was like a pinball going down the plane's aisle to our seats, bouncing off one side and then the other!

However, we did make it. We tried to just take it moment by moment. And both kids did take naps again, so that helped. And we spent a lot more time walking the aisles with them, which probably helped lessen the screaming episodes. Overall, I think the flights home went better than the first ones, but we were so tired that it all pretty much evened out. This was a low moment:


Now we are home and hoping to not see a plane again for awhile. The kids and I had a lovely morning with our Tuesday playgroup at the arboretum, which was a great way to return to our normal routine. We're glad we took the trip and also very glad to be back!