We did something new tonight and went to a family concert at a local non-profit. This group does amazing things with music and kids, including lessons and classes and family stuff and music in the schools. They did a workshop at Sacha's school and, hence, she found out about this concert tonight. It featured a group called Fandango sin Fronteras and it was awesome!
The headliner was from Veracruz, Mexico, and the other musicians had come together from around this area to back her up. In addition to being fun to listen to, the music turned out to have a personal connection. The second song they did was about the singer's youngest daughter, whose name is Natalia! It was all about being a mother and about this girl specifically. I admit I only got the gist of some of it because it was all in Spanish, but I did get the chorus completely: it was "ah, Natalia!"
It was pretty fun to have our Talia there and for her (I imagine, at least, not being able to read the mind of a 22-month-old) to feel like the song was all about her!
And, I have to say, it was validating to hear this amazing Mexican singer talk about her daughter being named Natalia. Whenever people ask about our Natalia's name, they invariably think that it is a Russian name and that we must have picked it because of Sacha's Lithuanian/Jewish heritage. And, while that is an aspect of Tali's ancestry that we wanted to honor, we largely picked her name because of the Mexican side of her geneology. So, it was validating, at least for me, to hear this powerful Latina woman talk about picking the same name for her daughter!
************************
In other news, Mateo has learned how to snap! He can actually do it and make a sound, too. He did it the other day and, of course, we assumed he had learned in preschool. Nope. He insisted that he had not. Did someone else teach you?, we asked. No, he said. Then, he said something like this: "I just thought about snapping all night long and then I thought about it and thought about it and now I can do it!" I guess visualization really does work! It is very cool to watch him do it, and he is extremely proud of himself for learning all on his own.
Also, this might explain why he was in our room last night at 12:30 am, wide awake and ready to party. Let's hope night-long ruminations aren't the only way he can learn new skills, or high school might be challenging for all of us!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Quack quack
Unlike her brother, Talia has never been the least bit interested in animal sounds. I'm always amazed at how kids have their own interests at the youngest of ages, and this is another example. At this age, Mateo had a huge repertoire of animals sounds. He also couldn't count up to 5 to save his life. Talia, on the other hand, counts to 10 on a regular basis and even hit 11 or 12 the other day, but thinks all animals say "quack, quack!"
Today, I was giving the kids a bath after dinner and they had been splashing around for quite awhile. Casting around for a conversation topic, I said "Tali, what does a dog say?" On cue, as if she knew it was absolutely the right answer, she said, "quack, quack!" Then, I said something like "Silly girl, it's woof woof!" Then, I said "What does a dog say?" again, thinking that surely she'd remember this time. Instead, she said, with a huge smile on her face, "Meow, meow!" And then, upon being asked again, while belly laughing, "Moo, moo!" At that point, Sacha had come in and we realized she was totally messing with us. She laughed and laughed and laughed and so did we.
Later, at bedtime, I was doing something with Mateo and brought him into his room. There, we found Sacha and Talia curled up on the bed with a stuffed kitty. Tali was cuddling the kitty and cooing "meow, meow, meow, meow" to it over and over (way too cute, by the way). However, when asked what the kitty was saying, she grinned gleefully and said, "quack, quack!"
That, in a nutshell, is our daughter. Her sense of humor is clearly developing right on schedule!
Today, I was giving the kids a bath after dinner and they had been splashing around for quite awhile. Casting around for a conversation topic, I said "Tali, what does a dog say?" On cue, as if she knew it was absolutely the right answer, she said, "quack, quack!" Then, I said something like "Silly girl, it's woof woof!" Then, I said "What does a dog say?" again, thinking that surely she'd remember this time. Instead, she said, with a huge smile on her face, "Meow, meow!" And then, upon being asked again, while belly laughing, "Moo, moo!" At that point, Sacha had come in and we realized she was totally messing with us. She laughed and laughed and laughed and so did we.
Later, at bedtime, I was doing something with Mateo and brought him into his room. There, we found Sacha and Talia curled up on the bed with a stuffed kitty. Tali was cuddling the kitty and cooing "meow, meow, meow, meow" to it over and over (way too cute, by the way). However, when asked what the kitty was saying, she grinned gleefully and said, "quack, quack!"
That, in a nutshell, is our daughter. Her sense of humor is clearly developing right on schedule!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Musings: No S plan, Spanish, Should we pay kids for grades?
I haven't written for a while, which is my norm. So here are some things that are going on with me right now:
No S Plan
I was able to lose all of my pregnancy weight and then some, thanks to my horrible anxiety I had this fall. Who knew that barely being able to eat at all for close to two months could have such an effect? Anyway, the silver lining of my anxiety is that I did indeed lose a lot of weight. Once the anxiety went away, and I had a student teacher, I started creeping.
So, I am trying something new, called the No S Plan. While it can be used to lose weight, I am just using it to maintain my weight. On weekdays, the No S stands for no Sweets, no Snacks and no Seconds. On the S days (Sat. and Sun.), you can do whatever you want. I have changed the S days to be Saturday and our date night, Wednesday.
So far, I feel less guilty having snacks and sweets on my S days, and do not feel deprived on my No S days. And, I have stopped creeping.
Spanish in the mornings
I keep on trying different things for consistently speaking Spanish with the kids. I guess the idea is that I would like to find a routine that works consistently. The star chart worked, for a few months, and then I stopped using it so much. Talking after school worked for a while, but then I would be too tired or would fall off the bandwagon. My new plan is talking Spanish in the mornings, before I go to work, Monday through Friday.
My idea is that this way I am fresh, and have energy. The start time is when we wake up and the end time is when I leave for work. Once I get back, and I am a bit tired. I am not trying to expend more energy.Generally, I want to be talking in English to Alayna about my day and hear about her day in English while talking in Spanish to the kids. This was not working very well!
We continue to read in Spanish every day. And. . . as it turns out . . . research says that the amount of time spent reading or being read too in the second language has more of an impact on vocabulary and language skills than the amount of time talking!
Should be pay kids to do well in school?
There was this interesting article in Times magazine that talked about paying kids to do well in school. They looked at the impact of paying kids for effort (doing homework, reading books outside of school, showing up to school on time, not getting in trouble) vs. paying kids for results (getting good grades, passing the state test.)
The results: paying for effort works. In terms of reading, it works phenomenally (better than reducing the class size to 16, having a Teach For America Teacher or a great teacher) well and in particular for the hardest to reach children.
How well does it work to pay for results? It had no impact or the students test scores slightly decreased.
My learning from the article: reward effort, not results!
No S Plan
I was able to lose all of my pregnancy weight and then some, thanks to my horrible anxiety I had this fall. Who knew that barely being able to eat at all for close to two months could have such an effect? Anyway, the silver lining of my anxiety is that I did indeed lose a lot of weight. Once the anxiety went away, and I had a student teacher, I started creeping.
So, I am trying something new, called the No S Plan. While it can be used to lose weight, I am just using it to maintain my weight. On weekdays, the No S stands for no Sweets, no Snacks and no Seconds. On the S days (Sat. and Sun.), you can do whatever you want. I have changed the S days to be Saturday and our date night, Wednesday.
So far, I feel less guilty having snacks and sweets on my S days, and do not feel deprived on my No S days. And, I have stopped creeping.
Spanish in the mornings
I keep on trying different things for consistently speaking Spanish with the kids. I guess the idea is that I would like to find a routine that works consistently. The star chart worked, for a few months, and then I stopped using it so much. Talking after school worked for a while, but then I would be too tired or would fall off the bandwagon. My new plan is talking Spanish in the mornings, before I go to work, Monday through Friday.
My idea is that this way I am fresh, and have energy. The start time is when we wake up and the end time is when I leave for work. Once I get back, and I am a bit tired. I am not trying to expend more energy.Generally, I want to be talking in English to Alayna about my day and hear about her day in English while talking in Spanish to the kids. This was not working very well!
We continue to read in Spanish every day. And. . . as it turns out . . . research says that the amount of time spent reading or being read too in the second language has more of an impact on vocabulary and language skills than the amount of time talking!
Should be pay kids to do well in school?
There was this interesting article in Times magazine that talked about paying kids to do well in school. They looked at the impact of paying kids for effort (doing homework, reading books outside of school, showing up to school on time, not getting in trouble) vs. paying kids for results (getting good grades, passing the state test.)
The results: paying for effort works. In terms of reading, it works phenomenally (better than reducing the class size to 16, having a Teach For America Teacher or a great teacher) well and in particular for the hardest to reach children.
How well does it work to pay for results? It had no impact or the students test scores slightly decreased.
My learning from the article: reward effort, not results!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Photos and such
We just got back from an impromptu trip to Washington to celebrate Sacha's mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Cathe! We called to wish her a happy birthday on Saturday morning, and then realized we had virtually no plans all weekend. So, we decided to get in the car and drive up to deliver birthday greetings in person. She was very surprised when Mateo wandered into her bedroom and woke her up from a nap with a big "Happy birthday, Bubby!"
It just shows how far we've come that we could make the decision to drive up there at 9 am and by 10 am be packed, in the car, and waiting outside the library until it opened and we could pick up some books and a new dvd for the road. After that, we were on the freeway and in Sacha's parents' town by 1 pm. In the past, it has taken us an ENTIRE morning to pack, load up, get the kids going, etc, so we are really making progress!
Maybe I should amend that to say that the kids are really making progress. They are becoming great travelers. They both slept through the night at Bubby and Poppa's house, and they did great in the car, too. It is soooo nice to be able to go places again without the dread of how we'll make it through getting there and getting back and how we'll deal with not sleeping much while we're there.
Of course, Mateo's making us pay for it now. He's been trying to go to sleep for almost an hour, but is so overtired from two days of catnaps in the car (the giving up nap experiment has been shelved for now, by the way, but that's another story) that he's having a hard time going to sleep. Well, and staying in his room. Thank goodness Sacha does bedtime, or there would probably be some serious temper-losing going on right now.
Anyway, I just finally downloaded our recent photos and wanted to post a few. Enjoy!
Here are the kiddos hanging out with my brother's awesome girlfriend, Megan. She knew I was having a rough time and offered to come over last Thursday and help out for a few hours. It was such a sweet thing to do and the kids had a great time. Thanks again!
Here's Mr. M playing with a puzzle with a neighborhood friend. This puzzle, lent to us by our kids' older cousins, has provided hours of entertainment. It shows a bunch of typical house scenes and then has see-through pieces with characters doing different activities. You're supposed to match the character with the scene (ie, man with a lawnmower goes on the grass), but Mateo loves to get everything all mismatched. He and his little buddy must have been laughing for 20 minutes over this thing. They'd go up to the other kid's mom and want her to exclaim over each combination, a la: the bed is in the middle of the road! HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Or, the kid is taking a bath on the roof! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Hilarious.
Last time Mateo was sick, he got the idea that he gets to watch as much tv as he wants when he's not feeling well, which is pretty much true. He doesn't get to watch it much when he's not sick, so he started pretending to be feeling bad in order to get me to let him watch a video. I may be gullible, but I'm not that easily fooled! However, now, when I do let them watch a video, they both insist on lying on the couch as though they were very ill. It is too funny. You'll notice that Natalia is very graciously sharing Blankie in this picture, which is not usually the case. Normally, they each need their own separate pillow and blankie combination, and preferably those things should not be touching.
For some reason, this one is of me and Sacha's dad pretending to eat Mateo for dinner. I'm not sure why, but one of his favorite things to pretend is that he is our snack/meal/etc and that we are about to eat him up. In the interests of realism, we put him on the table for this one, and I grabbed a spoon. Yum!
Here are the kids yesterday at their grandparents' house. Sacha found this hammock chair from when she was little (when, legend has is, she spun around in it so many times that she unscrewed it from the ceiling and the whole thing came crashing down on her head - ouch!) and got her dad to put it up again. Being very careful not to spin the kids, lest we have a modern day recreation of the earlier accident, we gently pushed them back and forth and they loved it.
Finally, some photos of the amazing container garden Sacha put together last weekend. You can see all the containers on our front steps here. They're full of all sorts of veggie starts, including what will one day be mini-pumpkins (who knew you could grow them in containers?), chard, snap peas, bok choy, lettuce, tomatoes, summer squash, chives, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Sacha has the kids excitedly checking every day for more new baby plants, which is very cute. Natalia likes to pet them, saying "baby! baby!" Our front steps are really the only place in our garden that get enough sun to grow veggies, so that's why we went with containers for this. They may look empty now, but we hope to do a lot of eating from them as the spring and summer progress.
Here are our hanging strawberry plants, which will hopefully complement the strawberry patch we started in our old square foot garden box from last year.
And, finally, the star of the show, our new blueberry "bush"! It's a bit scrawny now, but we hope it will grow up big and strong and give us many berries. All those flowers will probably come to nothing this year, because we didn't plant our second bush in enough time for them to cross pollinate each other. Next year, we hope! We could have quite a crop in a couple of years, if we're still in this house! In the meantime, we'll enjoy the bounty of berries at my grandmother's house nearby. Can't wait for summer. Yum!
It just shows how far we've come that we could make the decision to drive up there at 9 am and by 10 am be packed, in the car, and waiting outside the library until it opened and we could pick up some books and a new dvd for the road. After that, we were on the freeway and in Sacha's parents' town by 1 pm. In the past, it has taken us an ENTIRE morning to pack, load up, get the kids going, etc, so we are really making progress!
Maybe I should amend that to say that the kids are really making progress. They are becoming great travelers. They both slept through the night at Bubby and Poppa's house, and they did great in the car, too. It is soooo nice to be able to go places again without the dread of how we'll make it through getting there and getting back and how we'll deal with not sleeping much while we're there.
Of course, Mateo's making us pay for it now. He's been trying to go to sleep for almost an hour, but is so overtired from two days of catnaps in the car (the giving up nap experiment has been shelved for now, by the way, but that's another story) that he's having a hard time going to sleep. Well, and staying in his room. Thank goodness Sacha does bedtime, or there would probably be some serious temper-losing going on right now.
Anyway, I just finally downloaded our recent photos and wanted to post a few. Enjoy!
Here are the kiddos hanging out with my brother's awesome girlfriend, Megan. She knew I was having a rough time and offered to come over last Thursday and help out for a few hours. It was such a sweet thing to do and the kids had a great time. Thanks again!
Here's Mr. M playing with a puzzle with a neighborhood friend. This puzzle, lent to us by our kids' older cousins, has provided hours of entertainment. It shows a bunch of typical house scenes and then has see-through pieces with characters doing different activities. You're supposed to match the character with the scene (ie, man with a lawnmower goes on the grass), but Mateo loves to get everything all mismatched. He and his little buddy must have been laughing for 20 minutes over this thing. They'd go up to the other kid's mom and want her to exclaim over each combination, a la: the bed is in the middle of the road! HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Or, the kid is taking a bath on the roof! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Hilarious.
Last time Mateo was sick, he got the idea that he gets to watch as much tv as he wants when he's not feeling well, which is pretty much true. He doesn't get to watch it much when he's not sick, so he started pretending to be feeling bad in order to get me to let him watch a video. I may be gullible, but I'm not that easily fooled! However, now, when I do let them watch a video, they both insist on lying on the couch as though they were very ill. It is too funny. You'll notice that Natalia is very graciously sharing Blankie in this picture, which is not usually the case. Normally, they each need their own separate pillow and blankie combination, and preferably those things should not be touching.
For some reason, this one is of me and Sacha's dad pretending to eat Mateo for dinner. I'm not sure why, but one of his favorite things to pretend is that he is our snack/meal/etc and that we are about to eat him up. In the interests of realism, we put him on the table for this one, and I grabbed a spoon. Yum!
Here are the kids yesterday at their grandparents' house. Sacha found this hammock chair from when she was little (when, legend has is, she spun around in it so many times that she unscrewed it from the ceiling and the whole thing came crashing down on her head - ouch!) and got her dad to put it up again. Being very careful not to spin the kids, lest we have a modern day recreation of the earlier accident, we gently pushed them back and forth and they loved it.
Finally, some photos of the amazing container garden Sacha put together last weekend. You can see all the containers on our front steps here. They're full of all sorts of veggie starts, including what will one day be mini-pumpkins (who knew you could grow them in containers?), chard, snap peas, bok choy, lettuce, tomatoes, summer squash, chives, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Sacha has the kids excitedly checking every day for more new baby plants, which is very cute. Natalia likes to pet them, saying "baby! baby!" Our front steps are really the only place in our garden that get enough sun to grow veggies, so that's why we went with containers for this. They may look empty now, but we hope to do a lot of eating from them as the spring and summer progress.
Here are our hanging strawberry plants, which will hopefully complement the strawberry patch we started in our old square foot garden box from last year.
And, finally, the star of the show, our new blueberry "bush"! It's a bit scrawny now, but we hope it will grow up big and strong and give us many berries. All those flowers will probably come to nothing this year, because we didn't plant our second bush in enough time for them to cross pollinate each other. Next year, we hope! We could have quite a crop in a couple of years, if we're still in this house! In the meantime, we'll enjoy the bounty of berries at my grandmother's house nearby. Can't wait for summer. Yum!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Another first
Well, we had an interesting weekend. It was supposed to be our first night away from the kids together since Mateo was born. Yes, it's been three and a half years since we went away by ourselves. We never meant for it to be that long, but that's how it turned out. Apa, bless his sainted heart, has become a pro with the munchkins and offered to come over and babysit for a whole weekend, and so, naturally, we said yes! This happened several months ago, but actually getting it scheduled took a bit longer than expected.
Anyway, he came over on Saturday morning and we said goodbye to the kiddos and headed out. There was just one problem. Actually, two. First, I had had an awful week last week, and I mean awful. It turned out, in hindsight, that the decongestant the doctor put me on, to help the antibiotics get in there and clear up my sinus infection, can escalate anxiety in people who are already susceptible to it. Which, as we all know, I am. So, I spent much of the week in tears and on the verge of a panic attack. I finally called the doctor's office to follow up, late in the week, and they were like, um, you need to stop taking that medicine. Which I did, and it seemed to help, although I had gotten myself into quite a state by that point.
However, by that point, the antibiotics had kicked in and the kind I'm on is apparently hard on the stomach. So much so that when I woke up on Saturday morning, after several days of feeling pretty queasy, I felt like I was going to puke. And I did. Not then, no, no. Only after holding it together long enough for Sacha and I to get onto I-5 en route to the beach. Thank goodness she managed to pull over in time, or it would have been even grosser. Great way to start a date weekend, right?
We tried turning around and heading back to Portland, thinking we would just spend the day poking around the city and then find somewhere to spend the night later, but I was in bad shape. My stomach still felt awful, I had barely eaten for several days, the anxiety had never completely resolved, I was besieged with guilt for ruining our first weekend alone in three years, and let's just say that I was not myself. Sacha, bless her heart, suggested that we just scrap our plans and go to urgent care. And so we did. They checked me out, pronounced my ears still full of fluid, gave me a gentler antibiotic to start over with, along with a different decongestant, gave me something to help me calm down, and sent us on our way.
At this point, we could have just given up and gone home and crawled into bed. But we still had at least 24 hours until we needed to get the kids, so we decided to try to regroup. Sacha called around and found a room at a nice hotel downtown. We stopped by home, knowing Apa and the kids were planning to be out, and grabbed me some gentle food for my tummy. Then, we drove downtown and checked into the hotel.
"How was your trip?", the concierge asked, which made us giggle, since we had just driven across the river. Then, when we mentioned the restaurant we wanted to visit that night, he offered to call and get us a reservation. He totally hooked us up with a corner table and we had our second experience of having the chef send out fun little tastes of things just for us. It was just what the doctor ordered after such a rough morning.
After dinner, we enjoyed some time just reading in the blissful quiet of our hotel room, and then, of course, a long night of sleep with no interruptions. We capped it off with massages and breakfast the next day, before heading home to see the kids. In the end, we definitely salvaged the experience and ended up having a really nice time. It was wonderful to have some time to ourselves, and also wonderful to see the kids again. All reports indicate that they had a fun time with Apa. Thanks again, Apa!!
We spent the rest of the day doing family stuff. We took a run together and then went to the garden store to buy supplies for the container garden Sacha had been plotting. And here we are, at Monday again. I'm not going to lie - whenever I get into one of these anxiety trenches, it sometimes takes me some time to dig out - but I hope that I'll continue to feel better, both physically and mentally, given a little more time. And, Sacha and I are already hoping to plan another weekend together. Hopefully the next time will go better right from the beginning!
Anyway, he came over on Saturday morning and we said goodbye to the kiddos and headed out. There was just one problem. Actually, two. First, I had had an awful week last week, and I mean awful. It turned out, in hindsight, that the decongestant the doctor put me on, to help the antibiotics get in there and clear up my sinus infection, can escalate anxiety in people who are already susceptible to it. Which, as we all know, I am. So, I spent much of the week in tears and on the verge of a panic attack. I finally called the doctor's office to follow up, late in the week, and they were like, um, you need to stop taking that medicine. Which I did, and it seemed to help, although I had gotten myself into quite a state by that point.
However, by that point, the antibiotics had kicked in and the kind I'm on is apparently hard on the stomach. So much so that when I woke up on Saturday morning, after several days of feeling pretty queasy, I felt like I was going to puke. And I did. Not then, no, no. Only after holding it together long enough for Sacha and I to get onto I-5 en route to the beach. Thank goodness she managed to pull over in time, or it would have been even grosser. Great way to start a date weekend, right?
We tried turning around and heading back to Portland, thinking we would just spend the day poking around the city and then find somewhere to spend the night later, but I was in bad shape. My stomach still felt awful, I had barely eaten for several days, the anxiety had never completely resolved, I was besieged with guilt for ruining our first weekend alone in three years, and let's just say that I was not myself. Sacha, bless her heart, suggested that we just scrap our plans and go to urgent care. And so we did. They checked me out, pronounced my ears still full of fluid, gave me a gentler antibiotic to start over with, along with a different decongestant, gave me something to help me calm down, and sent us on our way.
At this point, we could have just given up and gone home and crawled into bed. But we still had at least 24 hours until we needed to get the kids, so we decided to try to regroup. Sacha called around and found a room at a nice hotel downtown. We stopped by home, knowing Apa and the kids were planning to be out, and grabbed me some gentle food for my tummy. Then, we drove downtown and checked into the hotel.
"How was your trip?", the concierge asked, which made us giggle, since we had just driven across the river. Then, when we mentioned the restaurant we wanted to visit that night, he offered to call and get us a reservation. He totally hooked us up with a corner table and we had our second experience of having the chef send out fun little tastes of things just for us. It was just what the doctor ordered after such a rough morning.
After dinner, we enjoyed some time just reading in the blissful quiet of our hotel room, and then, of course, a long night of sleep with no interruptions. We capped it off with massages and breakfast the next day, before heading home to see the kids. In the end, we definitely salvaged the experience and ended up having a really nice time. It was wonderful to have some time to ourselves, and also wonderful to see the kids again. All reports indicate that they had a fun time with Apa. Thanks again, Apa!!
We spent the rest of the day doing family stuff. We took a run together and then went to the garden store to buy supplies for the container garden Sacha had been plotting. And here we are, at Monday again. I'm not going to lie - whenever I get into one of these anxiety trenches, it sometimes takes me some time to dig out - but I hope that I'll continue to feel better, both physically and mentally, given a little more time. And, Sacha and I are already hoping to plan another weekend together. Hopefully the next time will go better right from the beginning!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Blagh
Just as spring is really springing, it seems that our winter of sickness is not yet over. Argh. Poor Sacha is fighting off yet another cold. And I, who thought I was done being sick after that last virus, finally went to the doctor yesterday after three weeks of sinus pressure and an increasingly bad headache. Diagnosis: my very first sinus infection, which probably started way back when I was so congested and has been cooking in there for weeks now. Unfortunately, waiting so long to get checked out allowed my old friend, Anxiety, to also take up residence in my head. I am a complete hypochondriac and there's nothing like weeks of feeling yucky to get my anxious side to take control. I have just been a mess for the past few days, which is no fun for anyone. I hope the antibiotics I'm on will have me feeling better soon, both physically and mentally.
In other news, despite all that, we had a flurry of organizing this weekend that culminated in a big trip to the huge Swedish store that sells lots of stuff. After much furniture assembly, Mateo has a new big-boy bed that will eventually be a bunk bed for both him and his sister, and they both have new storage systems in their rooms.
It's been fun for all of us, because the moms in the family can soooo easily clean up toys now, and because the kids are newly fascinated by all their stuff, since everything is in a new place. Next part of the plan: move Tali from the pack and play into Mateo's old, full-size crib, which we just need to bring up from the basement and put back together. Then, when she's ready, she'll move into Te Te's room and her current room will go back to being a playroom again. And that, my friends, will mean that Sacha and I can get to the bathroom at night again without a big production. Wahoo!
In other news, despite all that, we had a flurry of organizing this weekend that culminated in a big trip to the huge Swedish store that sells lots of stuff. After much furniture assembly, Mateo has a new big-boy bed that will eventually be a bunk bed for both him and his sister, and they both have new storage systems in their rooms.
It's been fun for all of us, because the moms in the family can soooo easily clean up toys now, and because the kids are newly fascinated by all their stuff, since everything is in a new place. Next part of the plan: move Tali from the pack and play into Mateo's old, full-size crib, which we just need to bring up from the basement and put back together. Then, when she's ready, she'll move into Te Te's room and her current room will go back to being a playroom again. And that, my friends, will mean that Sacha and I can get to the bathroom at night again without a big production. Wahoo!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Yes or no
Natalia has been doing some of the cutest things lately. One of my favorites is when I ask her a question about something she might or might not want to do, and , after I don't quite understand what she said in response, I say, "Tali, was that a yes or no?" She then responds, with a big smile on her face, "Yes or no!" She totally knows that's a little joke and you can tell she thinks it's hilarious.
She's also been saying all kinds of new words and even singing songs. Currently, her repertoire includes "Los Pollitos," "Twinkle, Twinkle," and even her ABCs (which is the same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle - who knew?). She's a good little singer and her little singing voice is pretty adorable, at least to this biased mama. Another fave, picked up from her big brother's preschool stylings, is "Siete Dias de la Semana." She also seems to have learned to count to 10, which we think is pretty awesome.
Thanks to having an older brother who loves to hold a pointer like a teacher and run us all through our ABCs, she gets the connection between letters and the ABCs, at least in a general sense. She'll point to a letter, any letter, and say "ABC!" She's saying more sentence-like phrases, too, like "I go in my crib!"
She's picking up more words in Spanish, too. She can name some body parts, and loves to say "Hola!" and "Adios!" (complete with vigorous waving, of course).
Tali has also become quite the jumper. She is a determined little girl and once she realized, a few months ago, that Te Te could jump and she couldn't....well, she set about rectifying the situation. She has been practicing and practicing, getting off the ground with one foot up and one foot planted firmly on the floor. Then, one day, she got it! Now she can really jump, and she is Very Proud. She has the most expressive little face and you can just tell that she is sooo proud of herself.
She seems to be getting taller, although her weight is hanging steady at 20 pounds. She's quite portable that way! Speaking of portable, her new height means that she's nearly grown out of the pack and play that she's always slept in. This has upped the ante on our ongoing debate: get her her own bed and leave the kids in separate rooms or get them bunk beds and finally, finally, regain easy access to the bathroom at night? Big questions.
We love our little Tali. Just wanted to write a quick update of what she's been doing!
She's also been saying all kinds of new words and even singing songs. Currently, her repertoire includes "Los Pollitos," "Twinkle, Twinkle," and even her ABCs (which is the same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle - who knew?). She's a good little singer and her little singing voice is pretty adorable, at least to this biased mama. Another fave, picked up from her big brother's preschool stylings, is "Siete Dias de la Semana." She also seems to have learned to count to 10, which we think is pretty awesome.
Thanks to having an older brother who loves to hold a pointer like a teacher and run us all through our ABCs, she gets the connection between letters and the ABCs, at least in a general sense. She'll point to a letter, any letter, and say "ABC!" She's saying more sentence-like phrases, too, like "I go in my crib!"
She's picking up more words in Spanish, too. She can name some body parts, and loves to say "Hola!" and "Adios!" (complete with vigorous waving, of course).
Tali has also become quite the jumper. She is a determined little girl and once she realized, a few months ago, that Te Te could jump and she couldn't....well, she set about rectifying the situation. She has been practicing and practicing, getting off the ground with one foot up and one foot planted firmly on the floor. Then, one day, she got it! Now she can really jump, and she is Very Proud. She has the most expressive little face and you can just tell that she is sooo proud of herself.
She seems to be getting taller, although her weight is hanging steady at 20 pounds. She's quite portable that way! Speaking of portable, her new height means that she's nearly grown out of the pack and play that she's always slept in. This has upped the ante on our ongoing debate: get her her own bed and leave the kids in separate rooms or get them bunk beds and finally, finally, regain easy access to the bathroom at night? Big questions.
We love our little Tali. Just wanted to write a quick update of what she's been doing!
El dentista, an x-ray, and other transitions
I took the kids to the dentist last week. As you may recall, the dentist is somewhat of a mythic figure in our house. Mateo has loved everything dental since his first visit with Marshall (the dentist) and Katie (one of the hygienists) about a year and a half ago. I have to say that I love pediatric dentists, too, or, at least, I love ours. The office is full of fun stuff for kids and the hygienists are like preschool teachers with some extra tools. They do an amazing job of making the visit into a fun adventure for kids. While we were there, Mateo got to pick out his own toothpaste flavor, wear cool sunglasses, watch part of a Curious George movie, feel the buzzy toothbrush before it cleaned his teeth, help the hygienist count his teeth, and so on. They go way beyond just making it tolerable, and so we all look forward to going there.
Well, we all do except for Natalia. She hasn't decided to give Marshall the same high regard her brother does, at least not yet. I will say, though, that while she did start screaming the second Marshall's gloved hands touched her face, just like last time, she miraculously stopped and calmed down when the tooth-brushing began. I hope that next time she'll be able to have more fun with it and perhaps get through a whole visit without screaming at all!
Anyway, my point in bringing this up is that Mateo got his first x-rays taken this time. After the pictures were developed, Marshall pointed out to me that our son has rather large adult teeth lurking under his gums. In fact, he described them as "massive." Then, he showed me how Mateo's front four adult teeth are so big that they're all crowded on top of each other under his gums. My first thought upon looking at the x-ray was, "how are those all going to fit into his mouth?"
People, let's hope his face grows a lot before those things come in, or we are going to have one buck-toothed kid! I asked the dentist if there was anything we could do to prepare for the Invasion of the Massive Teeth and he said that we should get ready for braces. Sigh. At least we have many more years of fun pediatric dentistry to look forward to before the adventure of orthodontia begins.
*************************************
My other piece of news is that yesterday, Mateo had his first day in which he did not nap. He was up all day, on purpose. His bedtimes have been getting longer and longer and more and more frustrating, and he hasn't been seeming tired even with his new shorter naps. This weekend, a friend was telling me that long, difficult bedtimes can be a sign that the kid is ready to give up napping, so we tried it yesterday. Despite my visions of terrible behavior and a possible mental breakdown on my part, we all did fine! I did let him watch a video while Tali napped, but then we all got going again and had a nice afternoon. And, the best part: he fell asleep before Sacha even finished reading to him at bedtime. Whatever the cost of having a no nap day, the easy bedtime and a quiet house at 7 pm was absolutely priceless.
Of course, today he started acting tired soon after he got up and was a disaster by naptime, so I went ahead and put him down. I think we might try alternating nap and no-nap days for awhile and see what happens. I hope this is the beginning of a smooth transition for us. Smooth transitions in the sleep department have been very difficult for us to achieve, but there's always a first time, right?
*****************************
PS: We're sending lots of happy birthday wishes to my sister today, who's celebrating her 30th birthday! Happy birthday, Auntie E!
Well, we all do except for Natalia. She hasn't decided to give Marshall the same high regard her brother does, at least not yet. I will say, though, that while she did start screaming the second Marshall's gloved hands touched her face, just like last time, she miraculously stopped and calmed down when the tooth-brushing began. I hope that next time she'll be able to have more fun with it and perhaps get through a whole visit without screaming at all!
Anyway, my point in bringing this up is that Mateo got his first x-rays taken this time. After the pictures were developed, Marshall pointed out to me that our son has rather large adult teeth lurking under his gums. In fact, he described them as "massive." Then, he showed me how Mateo's front four adult teeth are so big that they're all crowded on top of each other under his gums. My first thought upon looking at the x-ray was, "how are those all going to fit into his mouth?"
People, let's hope his face grows a lot before those things come in, or we are going to have one buck-toothed kid! I asked the dentist if there was anything we could do to prepare for the Invasion of the Massive Teeth and he said that we should get ready for braces. Sigh. At least we have many more years of fun pediatric dentistry to look forward to before the adventure of orthodontia begins.
*************************************
My other piece of news is that yesterday, Mateo had his first day in which he did not nap. He was up all day, on purpose. His bedtimes have been getting longer and longer and more and more frustrating, and he hasn't been seeming tired even with his new shorter naps. This weekend, a friend was telling me that long, difficult bedtimes can be a sign that the kid is ready to give up napping, so we tried it yesterday. Despite my visions of terrible behavior and a possible mental breakdown on my part, we all did fine! I did let him watch a video while Tali napped, but then we all got going again and had a nice afternoon. And, the best part: he fell asleep before Sacha even finished reading to him at bedtime. Whatever the cost of having a no nap day, the easy bedtime and a quiet house at 7 pm was absolutely priceless.
Of course, today he started acting tired soon after he got up and was a disaster by naptime, so I went ahead and put him down. I think we might try alternating nap and no-nap days for awhile and see what happens. I hope this is the beginning of a smooth transition for us. Smooth transitions in the sleep department have been very difficult for us to achieve, but there's always a first time, right?
*****************************
PS: We're sending lots of happy birthday wishes to my sister today, who's celebrating her 30th birthday! Happy birthday, Auntie E!
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Roller coaster
We started the day out in such a lovely way that the way the afternoon went is all the more shocking in comparison. Sacha's parents are in town and they and Sacha went out for an extended brunch while the kids and I had a fun playdate with preschool friends. Everybody eventually met up back at home and Mateo did his last Headsprout episode, to much fanfare. I went for a run and then finished making the cake we had promised him for after he finished his last lesson. We were going to eat it up after naptime, and then Sacha and I were going to go out to dinner with friends while her parents babysat the munchkins. The kids went down for naptime, Sacha and her dad went out for a run, and then they came home. Within 15 minutes, all hell had broken loose.
Sacha had been feeling crampy on and off since the morning, but that's pretty normal for her at this time of the month. After she got back from her run, though, it suddenly got much worse. In fact, the pain apparently went from uncomfortable to VERY BAD in about five minutes. Pretty soon, she was curled up in a ball on the couch, moaning loudly and clutching my hand. After a couple of scary minutes, she felt better and we all wondered what to do. Then, the pain came back even worse and pretty soon she was on the floor and it was very scary. It was like she had suddenly rocketed back to being in labor, except without any reason for it. Something was very wrong.
We decided to call 911. Sacha was moaning so loudly that her dad had to step into the next room to hear the 911 operator, who decided to send an ambulance. And a fire truck. They arrived with lights flashing, sirens going, and all that. Luckily, the kids were asleep during all this, because I think it would have been scary for them to see Mommy in so much pain. I know it was scary for me. (As an aside, it was too bad that the moment of the ambulance arriving was due to a crisis, because having a fire truck AND an ambulance arrive at our house with their sirens going would otherwise have been the coolest moment of Mateo's young life.)
Sacha was a bit more coherent by the time the paramedics came in, but she was still feeling awful, and so they decided to take her to the hospital to get checked out. They loaded her onto a stretcher and rolled her right down our front stairs. Our poor next-door neighbor came out on his porch just in time to see all this, which I'm sure was a bit shocking! Then, we rode off to the hospital with Sacha's dad following behind in his car. Sacha's mom stayed with the kids (thanks, Bubby!) and I got in touch with Zenaido, who offered to come over and help out (thanks, Apa!).
This type of situation has always been frightening to me in theory. First of all, obviously, having to call an ambulance is terrifying enough! But this is the type of thing you read about in the paper, where the gay couple goes to the hospital and pretty soon one of them is stuck in the waiting room while the other one is having a health crisis. Even living in a relatively gay-friendly state with good new laws on the books, you still hear horror stories. Adding to my nervousness, the ambulance driver had a religious book resting on his cupholder. However, I am relieved to say that everything went fine. Kai.ser lived up to the great experience we had with them in labor and delivery by being awesome in the emergency department, too. Whew!
By the time we got to the ER and checked in, Sacha was starting to feel better, and within an hour her pain had mostly gone down. After several exams and tests, an ultrasound, and lots and lots of waiting, they decided they weren't quite sure what had happened, but the leading theory involved a ruptured ovarian cyst. Poor baby! She has had a rough afternoon and evening. We're home now and she's resting and will go to bed soon. I'm just so thankful that she's okay. Let's hope for a calmer day tomorrow, shall we?
Sacha had been feeling crampy on and off since the morning, but that's pretty normal for her at this time of the month. After she got back from her run, though, it suddenly got much worse. In fact, the pain apparently went from uncomfortable to VERY BAD in about five minutes. Pretty soon, she was curled up in a ball on the couch, moaning loudly and clutching my hand. After a couple of scary minutes, she felt better and we all wondered what to do. Then, the pain came back even worse and pretty soon she was on the floor and it was very scary. It was like she had suddenly rocketed back to being in labor, except without any reason for it. Something was very wrong.
We decided to call 911. Sacha was moaning so loudly that her dad had to step into the next room to hear the 911 operator, who decided to send an ambulance. And a fire truck. They arrived with lights flashing, sirens going, and all that. Luckily, the kids were asleep during all this, because I think it would have been scary for them to see Mommy in so much pain. I know it was scary for me. (As an aside, it was too bad that the moment of the ambulance arriving was due to a crisis, because having a fire truck AND an ambulance arrive at our house with their sirens going would otherwise have been the coolest moment of Mateo's young life.)
Sacha was a bit more coherent by the time the paramedics came in, but she was still feeling awful, and so they decided to take her to the hospital to get checked out. They loaded her onto a stretcher and rolled her right down our front stairs. Our poor next-door neighbor came out on his porch just in time to see all this, which I'm sure was a bit shocking! Then, we rode off to the hospital with Sacha's dad following behind in his car. Sacha's mom stayed with the kids (thanks, Bubby!) and I got in touch with Zenaido, who offered to come over and help out (thanks, Apa!).
This type of situation has always been frightening to me in theory. First of all, obviously, having to call an ambulance is terrifying enough! But this is the type of thing you read about in the paper, where the gay couple goes to the hospital and pretty soon one of them is stuck in the waiting room while the other one is having a health crisis. Even living in a relatively gay-friendly state with good new laws on the books, you still hear horror stories. Adding to my nervousness, the ambulance driver had a religious book resting on his cupholder. However, I am relieved to say that everything went fine. Kai.ser lived up to the great experience we had with them in labor and delivery by being awesome in the emergency department, too. Whew!
By the time we got to the ER and checked in, Sacha was starting to feel better, and within an hour her pain had mostly gone down. After several exams and tests, an ultrasound, and lots and lots of waiting, they decided they weren't quite sure what had happened, but the leading theory involved a ruptured ovarian cyst. Poor baby! She has had a rough afternoon and evening. We're home now and she's resting and will go to bed soon. I'm just so thankful that she's okay. Let's hope for a calmer day tomorrow, shall we?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
The lion sleeps tonight
Last fall, when Sacha was having such a rough time at school, Apa started coming over with fun music and videos to dance to. It worked like a charm on Sunday nights, when we started our dinners with family dance parties!
One of Apa's offerings became an instant family hit. It featured an animated hippo singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," accompanied by a dancing dog. Along with another favorite, about a singing gummy bear, the kids started asking for the singing hippo every time Apa came over. At first, it was an occasional thing, but, for our daughter, it soon became an obsession.
For the past several weeks, Tali has wanted nothing more than the hippo song. "Hitto son(g)! Hitto son!" she says, over and over and over. She spent a good chunk of our Arizona vacation begging for "Hitto son! Hitto son!" to various family members. She now associates Apa most of all with the hippo song and almost loses her mind begging for it when he walks through the door. It is the funniest thing ever. Ever. Well, that and the little dances she sometimes does when we relent and show her the video.
Her favorite part of the video is when dog pats its own bottom for a few seconds during its dance routine, and so that's the part she likes to imitate herself. "Hitto son! (furiously pats her own rear) Hitto son! (more patting)" Sometimes she does more of a song and dance after that, and sometimes she just likes to be held so she can admire the musical stylings of the animated hippo. You would fall over laughing if you could see any part of this. However, in the interests of her speaking to me when she's 13 and reading through our blog archives, I won't show any photographic evidence!
I love the random things kids come up with to be obsessed with, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite random kid obsessions so far. Bring on the hippo song!
One of Apa's offerings became an instant family hit. It featured an animated hippo singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," accompanied by a dancing dog. Along with another favorite, about a singing gummy bear, the kids started asking for the singing hippo every time Apa came over. At first, it was an occasional thing, but, for our daughter, it soon became an obsession.
For the past several weeks, Tali has wanted nothing more than the hippo song. "Hitto son(g)! Hitto son!" she says, over and over and over. She spent a good chunk of our Arizona vacation begging for "Hitto son! Hitto son!" to various family members. She now associates Apa most of all with the hippo song and almost loses her mind begging for it when he walks through the door. It is the funniest thing ever. Ever. Well, that and the little dances she sometimes does when we relent and show her the video.
Her favorite part of the video is when dog pats its own bottom for a few seconds during its dance routine, and so that's the part she likes to imitate herself. "Hitto son! (furiously pats her own rear) Hitto son! (more patting)" Sometimes she does more of a song and dance after that, and sometimes she just likes to be held so she can admire the musical stylings of the animated hippo. You would fall over laughing if you could see any part of this. However, in the interests of her speaking to me when she's 13 and reading through our blog archives, I won't show any photographic evidence!
I love the random things kids come up with to be obsessed with, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite random kid obsessions so far. Bring on the hippo song!
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