Big girl

Tali is officially sleeping in a big girl bed from now on.  I took apart her crib this morning, so there's no going back!  I put up a side rail on Mateo's old bed (after I took it mostly apart to move it into their room) and she slept in it for naptime, so I have some hope for nighttime.  In any case, she's going to have to get used to it, because I am not putting that crib together again until Drizzle is ready for it. 

Our big girl seems thrilled by the prospect of a big girl bed, so let's keep our fingers crossed that she also likes the idea of actually going to sleep in it (and staying asleep in it).   With the railing up, it's not too different from her crib, or at least I hope it's not. 

Also, poor Mateo has been officially diagnosed with "some kind of eye virus" and given some drops, which he hates.  We're supposed to do them four times a day until his eye is better, but I doubt we'll be able to hold him down that often.  Poor guy.   Sacha worked on telling him a pretend story about a little boy who had to get eye drops at bedtime, so hopefully that will help.  At most, it will be a week of unpleasantness, and hopefully less.

Anyway, here are some photos of the new arrangement.  With the bed out of Mateo's old room, it is now their new playroom!   And, I ordered one of those self-inflating blow-up beds for that room, so we can use it as a guestroom when our moms are here after Drizzle's birth, as well as if we ever have just one person come to stay.

Here are the photos!

A bit cramped, but they love it!

Brand new playroom!

They had Sacha make this sign for them....

31 weeks

31 weeks!  Wow!  Let's hope there are no more than nine weeks to go :)

Here she is, or, should I say, they are!

Weekend, part II

We celebrated Eric's birthday last night with some of their good friends and lots of good food.  The kids made it through about five minutes of dinner before climbing down and all over Mommy until we finally put them to bed.  This morning, Sacha surprised me by getting up with Mateo and then, eventually, handed him off to her parents so she could come back down and sleep in with me.  We slept until 7:45, and I am not kidding when I say that I think that's the latest I've slept since Sacha got pregnant!

Anyway, I got in a nice run around the island they live on, and then we spent some more time together, took some photos, packed the swagger wagon, and said our goodbyes.  The drive home went incredibly smoothly, although we had two majorly overstimulated, overtired kiddos when we got home and HOURS to go before bedtime.  We played inside, took a walk around the block and ran into some friends, had dinner with Apa, and even threw in a call to the advice nurse, because Mateo's eye has not only turned red but has two tiny little white bumps in it.  It's probably pink eye, but now we get to go get exposed to lots of germs at Kai.ser tomorrow just for them to tell us that!  Hopefully they'll give him something to make it feel better, because he's been rubbing it, and also rubbing his face all over us, which is especially great.

Here are some photos of the weekend, pre-exhausted children and pre-probable-pinkeye:

The view

Despite an extremely early morning wake up on the part of Mateo, (in which he woke up at 4:30 am and got me upstairs and awake before I looked at the clock, which in turn led to him watching videos and me dozing on the couch between episodes until 6 am, when we really got up) our son and daughter are now out on the deck with their grandfather, having the time of their lives.  They just got some bubbles from Sacha's parents and are now trying them out on the deck, giggling hysterically all the while.

They woke up in great moods from their naps, which is not a given, and I got in a great workout while they were sleeping.  Tonight, we'll have an early birthday dinner for Sacha's dad, which will be fun.  And, we will pray that tomorrow morning will come later than this morning did!

PS:  This is the view from here.  That's the Puget Sound.  Gorgeous, eh?  In the summer, it is absolutely mind blowing.

Winter

This winter has been bogging me down. I think it's because there's so much anticipation about spring and Drizzle coming and nicer weather starting up again, and also because we hardly had a summer last year before the yucky weather started again...but I've been feeling cooped up, cold, and just tired of bundling everyone up just to go to school or the store or one of the multitude of indoor play places around here. I know it could be worse - we could be snowed in or something like that. But still, I'm just not in the mood for winter anymore and it's only January!

However, it seems like most years have a freak week sometime in January or February that is unseasonably warm and sunny...and I think this might be it. The last two days have been sunny and in the 50s, which is practically balmy for this time of year. Our car's in the shop today, so I borrowed some friends' jogging stroller and used it to pick Mateo up from preschool. It's a short 15 minutes each way. On the way home, the kids were happy, the sun was shining, and it was even warm enough to take off my long-sleeved tshirt and run in short sleeves!

Of course, despite all our plans to go to the park this afternoon, the sun is already fading fast while the kids nap. However, our lovely run home in the sun did me a lot of good and I hope this week will hold more moments like that. I also hope to readjust my attitude about winter, because I'm really not doing myself any good. The afternoons in particular seem very long, and it's mostly because I tend not to plan anything for them. I need to get back in the routine of getting the kids out somewhere after their naps/quiet time, instead of staying around the house and watching the clock. I need more of a plan for afternoon activities, because they almost always have fun even if they don't want to go initially.

So, I will work on that, and also work on appreciating winter for its good parts - winter sweaters, hot soups, lots of hot chocolate, and snuggling in our warm bed in the morning as the heater warms up our house. I'm looking forward to this weekend away, visits with friends and family being in town next week, to our day trip to Seattle next Friday, and to Mateo's first ski lessons next Saturday. All that fun should be enough to shake things up, right? And, I'm sure spring and Drizzle and all that good stuff will be here before I know it, no matter how much I moan and groan now!

Sleeping beauty

I almost never look in on the kids while they're sleeping, due to our creaky house and the ease with which they wake.  However, today, I went to wake up Tali from her nap and she wouldn't open her eyes for anything.  She must have been deep in the middle of the sleep cycle.  So, I took some photos!   She acts like such a big girl normally and I'm sure she'll seem even more that way once Drizzle comes, but when she's asleep, she still seems like our little baby to me.  We love her sooooo much!

PS:  Can you tell that someone is in the midst of a stuffed animal/baby obsession?  That pink bear is her current "baby."  And, both kids have been toting around stuffed animals in their shirts and going on about how much their babies are kicking. 

Screens

Sacha and I just had an interesting night of tv:  we watched the State of the Union (sort of, over the din of our kids and friends over for dinner) and then followed it up with the Biggest Loser, which is the only show we really follow and even that is sporadic.  It's not that we don't love screens - we're both totally addicted to the internet (although we don't have iphones or anything, partially because I know I would be on mine all the time if I had one) but we basically never watch tv. 

We were just chatting about the kids and I was saying that I have to give myself a pat on the back, because despite the looooong winter afternoons and evenings, I have succumbed to showing them a video only once or twice in the last few months.  I have no judgment against families that watch more tv than we do, but it's just not our thing.  (Although, we did let Mateo watch Cars for the first time over Christmas and just one and a half viewings of it has caused it to completely take over our lives and his imagination.  Wow.  Lightening McQueen is practically a member of our family now, along with all his little car friends.)

However, I just dropped an obscene amount of money having a dvd player installed in our swagger wagon.  We may not let our kids watch tv in normal life (and, actually, I don't think they even know that regular tv exists, although they sure do know that the dvd player is a magical thing) but on road trips or on vacation, all rules are off.   When we're on vacation, we bring portable dvd players and let Mateo watch up to two hours in the mornings so we can actually sleep in.  Tali sleeps in on her own, thank goodness, so she misses out on that perk.  We also let them watch videos on planes and in the car, although we do try to break it up with books and games and other stuff.

When we got the van, we decided that we were done with portable dvd players losing their charge mid road-trip, so we agreed that we would get one installed in the van.  Wow, those things are expensive.   Hopefully, though, it will be worth it!  We have some driving to do in the next month and I'm counting on that piece of equipment to get us through! 

We're going to visit Sacha's parents this weekend.  Then, next Friday, I'm taking the kids on an up and back daylong adventure to Seattle to see a dear friend.  And then after that, Mateo's taking ski lessons every Saturday in February at Mt. Hood, so there will be a lot of driving to and fro.  We even went out on a limb and reserved some new videos and kids' movies from the library, including our very first foray into Yo Gabba Gabba.  I don't have plans to change our regular mostly non-tv life at home, but I'm happy to expand our horizons on the road.  Let's just hope the kids can keep their earphones on so I don't have to experience all the new videos with them!

Then again . . .

This pregnancy is a whole story of I will never . . . but then again. It started after Natalia's delivery. I was quite clear that I would never, ever get pregnant again. No way, no thank you. I did not care for the morning sickness, and while there were a few redeeming qualities, overall it was a once in a life time, not to be repeated experience. And yet, here I am at 30 weeks.

And then there was the "we will never have a third child" part of the never. Two was a bit of a compromise on my part, but seemed ok, most of the time. In retrospect, I am thrilled that we have two and could not imagine life any other way. Three - no way.

So, my new never say never has to do with the birth of this one growing in my belly and Alayna's heart. (This is what we always say to the kids, that they grew in one of our bellies and one of our hearts.) I have always thought that having to get a C-section was the one thing I really wanted to avoid with giving birth. When I gave birth to Natalia and was told I had 15 minutes or else. I was so relieved that I was able to push her out quickly (with the help of some forceps).

This time, with my trips to the urgent care room and issues that needed some prescription medicine much stronger than Prep - H, my provider has suggested that I think about a C-section. I know that the birth is a guaranteed ticket to the same problems. It was last time, and everything lasted over six weeks. None the less, my first response was - no way.

Now I've talked with a few people, and am least somewhat open to the suggestion. Any thoughts you would like to share?

30 weeks!

Wow, I can't believe Sacha is at 30 weeks.  She is looking great and doing great overall, although the poor thing has a cold.  Her belly button is about to pop and Drizzle is really making herself known inside and out.  Here she is with our oldest and youngest in the same shot :)

This ain't Hawaii

We took the kids to the closest beach we could find today.  It's at this place we used to go kind of a lot, at the crossing of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.  Both of the rivers have heavy transport traffic, so they're surrounded by ports and industrial areas in a lot of places.  In fact, the park we went to today had a wilderness area on one side of the road and a HUGE lot for new imported cars on the other side.  It's crazy.

Anyway, with much whining on the part of our older child, we finally got underway with him walking and Tali riding her little tricycle.  We were just planning to take a walk and get outside for awhile, but then we found this little beach right by the water.  By little, I mean tiny, and freezing!  The kids had a great time throwing sticks into the water and playing with the sand and such. 

A happier moment during our walk

Here's the "beach."  Check out that fog!  It was magical for the kids, though, so I guess we don't need to visit the tropics after all!

The kids could hardly stand having SO MUCH FUN!

Finally, a photo with Mama, per Grammy's request :)

They'd probably still be there if I hadn't gotten too cold finally and had everyone head back to the van.  The incredible amount of "I'm toooooo tiiiirred, I CAN'T walk back to the car" that we heard on our walk back convinced us that we really had left at the right time.  And, everyone's spirits improved back in our warm van.

We've had a lovely weekend - one of the best in awhile.  Mateo and I made pancakes for everyone this morning and stuffed them full of so much fruit that they turned purple!  Purple pancakes for breakfast = awesome.  We also got in some playtime at home, some time out of the house for me, some time out of the house for Sacha, and one casserole cooked for dinner while another one was cooking for the freezer in the slow cooker.  We had dinner with Apa to cap off the day, and now Sacha's in bed and I'm waiting for the slow cooker to finish so I can put the casserole in the fridge and go to bed, too!  I'm sad to see the weekend end, but always excited about one more day closer to meeting Drizzle :)

Footloose

For once, we had a day with no plans at all!  We just spent the day as a family, doing whatever we felt like doing.  Sacha let me sleep in for an hour this morning, which was much appreciated (and rare, since I get up with the kids every day because she's pregnant - and I'm more than happy to do it so she can grow our baby!).  Then, after breakfast, we went out for a walk that started out bright and sunny and ended up cloudy, but was still fun.  I have a hard time with all the stopping the kids want to do along the way to things, but Sacha loves pointing out all the interesting stuff, so we had quite a meandering expedition. 

Then, while they were napping, I went for a nice run and it was sunny and gorgeous and almost 60 degrees outside, which is amazing for January!  We tried to capitalize on the weather by going out for another walk and coffee shop trip after everybody else napped, but it was getting cold by that point, and the sun was setting.  So, we skipped going to the park on the way home and just headed back to the house.  Then, we had homemade (well, except for the dough) pizza for dinner and put the kids to bed and now we're about to watch the first Harry Potter movie.  For having two small children, it was a relatively relaxing day and hopefully will be a restful night, too!

Winter afternoons

It seems as though winter has been upon us for eons, although it's really only been a couple of months.  With lots of time stretching out before us until the weather turns nicer again, I have opportunities every day to try to come up with something to do for the afternoon.  Most of our mornings are booked with one thing or another, but the awkward time between the end of napping/resting and dinner and bedtime can seem like forever on a lot of days.  Sometimes we go out to the library or even to a play park or the Children's Museum or something, but a lot of days, we just hang around the house. 

This can make for some very long afternoons!  In an effort to shake things up, I've been trying to find simple, crafty projects that require very little prep and yet are still fun.  One big hit was flour.  Yes, flour, on a big cookie sheet, that the kids could practice tracing letters or just mashing around into mountains.  Then, we read a book about the moon and how the dirt there is like flour, and how craters are formed by meteorites, and so then we had to try that out ourselves with flour again, but this time in bowls.

Another big hit has been a new set of awesome art supplies from our friends K and C.  They included some sweet markers that draw brightly on any color paper, and a set of kid dominoes.  We played with them both last night and the time flew by until bedtime, which was a wonderful thing.

Of course, there's a lot of other playing to be done, and most of it still involves cars, cars, and more cars.  Tali is more into play doh, play doh, and more play doh, and this can actually be done simultaneously with cars (and sometimes also simultaneously with folding laundry) if one can multi-task enough!

I'm more of a get out of the house and do something adventurous kind of mom, but I'm trying to make peace with this part of the year and the staying around the house that it encourages.  It's good for the kids to have unstructured playtime and it's good for me to get down on the floor and play with them.

With that said, I'm always thrilled with the beginning of the weekend and having Sacha home for two days!  She's so good with the kids and they're always doing fun and cool stuff that I would never think of, so it's great that they get more of her on Saturdays and Sundays. 

On that note, TGIF and happy weekend to everyone!

The nest

My lack of pregnancy hormones doesn't seem to have saved me from a crucial third trimester urge:  nesting.  I didn't even realize I was doing it until this afternoon, when I started contemplating whether it's took early to buy a huge box of newborn diapers, wipes, ointment, etc, or not.  Then, I opened the second dresser in our bedroom to get out a rag and realized that I had already filled it with newborn clothes, all organized by shirts or pants or onesies, plus all our cloth diapers in the top drawer. 

I have also organized ALL of our baby and kid clothes in the basement, saving favorites and getting ready to give away the ones we never used or don't think we'll need again.  I've pulled together all our little baby toys for Drizzle.  I've gotten out our little baby blankets and ordered more easy velcro swaddlers, not being able to find our old ones.  I also ordered a yoga ball, again not being able to find our old one, for labor and for bouncing the baby after birth.  Our babies so far have loved bouncing on the yoga ball, so I'm guessing Drizzle will like it.

Lest you think that is all, I have also started cooking.  Now that I know how crazy things can get after the baby is born and how important it is to have easy food available, I want to stockpile as much as I can.  That means lots of cooking for the freezer.  I've already made mountains of bean, rice, and cheese burritos, easy mini-pizzas, chili verde, a quiche filling that can be defrosted and baked, and a corn chowder.  That's only about half the list of what we want to have on hand, but I don't know if our freezers (yes, we have two) will hold it all! 

Mostly, I've done all of this in little bits of time when Te Te is at preschool or when we're playing in the basement and the kids are entertaining themselves.  This morning, for example, the kids started playing on their own and I threw together the corn chowder at warp speed.  Then, after we got back from our morning adventure, it had cooled completely and was easy to put in freezer bags in about five minutes. 

I think I'm just so excited to meet the baby and can't stand the wait, so I'm pouring my energy into getting ready instead.  And, both Sacha and I are trying to consciously enjoy this time with Mateo and Natalia and soak them up just the way they are now.  We've been trying to do some special things with them, and have gotten them a few new things to wear (mostly new jammies) so they don't feel competitive with all the baby clothes.  It's funny to think of this as the calm before the storm, but I'm sure that's what it is!  Right now, they are sitting on the couch so cutely together, happily watching a video of Spanish songs.

Finally, Sacha and I are both nesting in the most important way:  by sleeping!  We love to sleep and we go to bed every night by 8 or 9 (Sacha) or 9 or 10 (me).  I always want to tell people expecting babies to sleep while they can, so both of us are trying to follow that advice, too. 

I may feel differently when the time comes, but I can't say I'll feel upset about getting up with Drizzle when she comes.  We're going to do the same thing we did with Tali, where Sacha does the night nursing and I do all the other night stuff (getting the baby up, changing diaper, getting baby back to sleep, etc).   The first time, it equalized, as much as possible, the time we both spent with her, instead of her being with Sacha all the time.  I loved that I could have that bonding time with her, and I look forward to the same with Drizzle.  This is a baby that I've wanted for a long time, and she will certainly be our last, so I hope I'll remember to enjoy her babyhood, even in the middle of the night.

So, I'll continue to nest.  I wonder what I should cook next...

Thoughts at 29 weeks

I can't believe that I am 29 weeks along. At the same time, I can't believe that I am only 29 weeks along. That does not seem like a very big number. Anyway, I am into the third trimester and feeling pretty good these days.

For a long time I had very little energy and was feeling blank. It was a struggle just to get through each day. My practitioner made some changes with me about a month ago, and I am finally feeling like my old self. I have the energy to play more with the kids, am enjoying work more and not having so much anxiety in the morning! It's great to be feeling better. It is like I am having the second trimester energy boost now that I am in my third trimester.

Some things I have been enjoying with the kids. I love cuddling with Natalia and playing play dough with both of them. With Mateo, I love our chapter a day of a Spanish book and doing puzzles. We all enjoy going in the hot tub together (it is only set at 99 degrees and I got the ok from my practitioner). When we go in, we sing songs and just have a great time outside, no matter what the weather is.

Mateo is requesting to listen to tumblebooks - so I think this is all for now, but is more than I have written in forever!

29 weeks

Here's the lovely lady, with a lovely little girl and an even tinier lovely girl:

Caution

Sacha got home yesterday afternoon (yay!) but we had a full day before that. We went out to breakfast, went to the store, and then went to PLOP, which stands for Pregnant/Parenting Lesbians of Portland, which may possibly be the most bizarre acronym ever. Anyway, we went to breakfast at a favorite local cafe, which is also a favorite hangout for cops in the area. Seriously, I don't know if they are debriefing before or after a shift, but it's not uncommon to see four or five squad cars parked there when you arrive.

Yesterday, there were quite a few police officers there and it made me think about the kids' associations with the police. Mostly, they think of them as the nice people who dole out Jr. Crimefighter stickers. We tell them that the police are there to enforce our laws and keep people safe. However, we also recognize the reality of raising biracial kids and what that may mean for them in their relationship with law enforcement in the future. Yes, for now, both kids can easily pass as white, because there's no sun here. However, when the sun does come out in the summer, or if they were to ever live in a different climate, they both get nice and brown.

This is probably the case in any city, but the Portland police have a reputation of being trigger happy, and it's not uncommon for them to shoot and kill a person of color simply because that person was reaching into his pocket or turning around or some other probably innocent move.

So, we try to reinforce the idea that the police are here to keep us safe, but we also have started a very basic conversation with the kids on appropriate behavior around officers. Namely, for right now, we say, "The police are there to keep us safe, but if a police officer ever asks you to do anything, you need to do it right away and not ask any questions." Of course, this isn't going to come up for young kids, but we'll get more specific as they get older, and especially when they get old enough to drive.

Being white has spared Sacha and I have ever really having to think about the police, but that may not be the case for our kids. A friend and I were recently discussing this, and she told me a story of being pulled over while her Korean husband was driving. She said he immediately turned the light on in the car, put both his hands on the steering wheel, and told her to get out his license and registration immediately, because he needed to keep both hands visible. She said it was her first experience with what it must be like to be a person of color interacting with the police, and it was eye-opening.

I want our kids to trust the police and think of them as persons of safety, but also to have a healthy awareness of their power and their tendencies to make snap decisions over very little.


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

In other, less serious news, Sacha brought home a solar system puzzle last night and she and Mateo spent about 45 minutes putting it together. It's by far the biggest puzzle he's ever done (60 pieces) and it took a lot of work, but he did it! Here they are, working on their creation!

(PS: Tali's hair always seems to look wild in photos because I often take them in the morning or before bedtime - I don't know why - and so her hair is often crazy from sleeping on it or from being up in pigtails all day. I really do do things with her hair, I promise!)

Success!

Just wanted to post quickly to say that Sacha's mom had a heart procedure done yesterday, to close a hole in her heart, and it was a success!  She got discharged this morning and was home in time to take a nap this afternoon.  Sacha went up north to help out until tomorrow, and when we Skyped with her later on in the day, her mom was even up and about.  Medicine is really amazing these days.

Anyway, we're very thankful that she's okay.  The kids and I had a good day on our own, including a visit to a play gym, a visit by Uncle Galen, naps long enough for me to get a good workout in, and another visit from some good friends, in which our kids put on their very best version of The Mateo and Natalia Timeout Show.  Luckily, we rebounded and had a nice dinner and bath before Skyping with Sacha one more time and then the kids going to bed.  Tali is still talking to herself in there, but no one has come out of the room yet, so I am cautiously hopeful that they will stay in bed.  All I wanted for the evening was an easy bedtime, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :)

Now, assuming no crying sleep disaster occurs, I'm going to read my book (The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver) and go to bed early.  Good night!

Routines and sleep

Getting the kids ready for bed tonight, I started thinking about routines.  It's funny, because (at least, to us) structure and routines are essential parts of raising kids, but they are also the very hardest part.  Especially consistency.  It's something I really struggle with, and I know I'm not alone on this. 

It's so hard to figure out exactly where to draw the line with behavior, especially when your kids are constantly testing you to find out what they can get away with and what they can't.  So, that part is very much a work in progress.  I lecture too much and go to our 1, 2, 3, timeout system far more slowly than I should.  Or, I do both at the same time, which is even worse.   I also point out negative behaviors far more than positive ones, although I'm working hard to change that, and I'm sure I could mention a million other works in progress in the parenting department.

However, one thing I am proud of is the sleep routines we've established for our kids, and therefore for our family.  We get up at the same time every day (mostly thanks to our early-rising son and Sacha's early schedule at school), we have naptime or rest time at the same time, and we all have dinner and then the kids have playtime and go to bed at nearly the exact same time every night.  It's nice for them because (in my opinion) kids need structure, and they always know what to expect in terms of rest or sleep time during the day and night. 

I try to fill up our days with fun and cool stuff, but we always do have the pillars of waking up, taking a rest, and going to bed to bookend things.  It's also really, really nice for Sacha and me to know that between 7 and 7:30 pm every night, the kids will be in bed and (hopefully) going to sleep.  Once we FINALLY transitioned baby Mateo to an actual bedtime - and believe me, it was an epic battle - we realized what a magical thing it was.  An evening for ourselves and only for ourselves?  Sign us up!  When Natalia was born, she was, first of all, a much easier sleeper, but we also focused more on getting her on a schedule from early on.  And, now that the kids are sharing a room, they're both sleeping better at night.  It's so cute to see them comforted by each other, even if they do occasionally stay up late gabbing away. 

Anyway, this is nothing earth-shaking, but I am all about early bedtimes for our kids and am hoping to keep it that way for a long time to come.  Both of them need to be well-rested to function during the day, and the 7 pm bedtime seems to work for them.  When they go down later, they tend to wake up earlier, or at least Mateo does.  I think Tali would happily sleep later in the morning, but it's just impossible with her brother around!   Although many, many, (way too) many well-meaning people have suggested that a later bedtime would mean a later waking time for him, it's just not true.  If anything, he wakes up earlier and way overtired, which derails our day before it starts.

I know they won't always go down at 7, but I hope we can carve out an evening for ourselves for as long as that's possible.  And, I imagine that by the time the kids are older and going to bed later, that they will be much more self-contained and busy with doing their own thing a lot of the time, so we won't be quite so exhausted at the end of the day (somebody, tell me this is true!).   As well, I certainly don't mean this as what works for us should work for everybody...just that sleep routines have been crucial for us so far and I think they will continue to be.  

Also, today is apparently de-lurking day, so if you're out there reading this, it would be great if you could leave a comment!  We think this blog is mostly read by family and friends, but we'd love to hear if anyone else out there is following along.

Beautiful day

Yesterday, Sacha laughed at me as I waltzed in from a walk and declared, "It's such a beautiful day!"  When we first moved here, it was only beautiful to me if it was 80 degrees and perfectly sunny outside.  Now, apparently, I've adjusted.  Compared to the frigid temps and freezing rain of the last however long, mid-50s and cloudy but not raining seems pretty darn beautiful to me!  I guess I have changed a lot since becoming a pacific northwesterner.

Anyway, the kids and I had an unexpected free morning today, so after they hung out with Megan for an hour (thanks, Megan!), we actually went to the park.  It was 55 degrees, not raining, and only a little windy.  We haven't been to the park in I don't know how long - probably weeks if not months.  I'd say we've been once or twice since Thanksgiving.  It was soooooo nice to be outside and not cold and have the kids get their energy out in the outdoors instead of in some indoor play park or just in our house. 

There was goopy, slurpy mud-stomping to be had...

...as well as lots of drying of the slides with towels, climbing, sliding, swinging, and then climbing back into the stroller.  They made a HUGE mess of the baseball outfield, but I figure it will all slosh back together soon enough when the rain starts again.  And, they actually both decided they wanted to go home at the same time, which was a minor miracle.  Then, it was still so balmy out that we decided to keep on walking and go to the hardware store, where we bought some token items but really just wanted their 'free with purchase' popcorn.   It was a big outdoor adventure for us this time of year.

This afternoon, we may have another walk in store, along with an OB appointment for Sacha and probably more indoor playtime.  We sure are getting well acquainted with our house these days.  I guess I'd better get used to it, since it's only January.  Maybe soon I'll be going on about what a beautiful day it is if we just have the right combination of lights on in the living room!

Change

Sacha sprung me for a little while yesterday, so I took a nice, long walk around our neighborhood.  For some reason, I was feeling reflective.  I think it was/is because we are, yet again, pondering moving.  The school we hope our children will attend is about 15 minutes away in good traffic and 45 min to an hour in bad traffic.  For Sacha, this isn't such a big deal, as she commuted 40 minutes via bus to school every day of her school life until college.

For me, it's a bigger deal, because I grew up living about a mile from my school and riding my bike there.  I think I must have started in third grade, because I remember riding with my sister when she was a first grader.  When middle school started, it was just a mile in the other direction, and so the biking continued.  High school was a drive because of weird neighborhood boundaries, but it was still only about 10 minutes away and there was no traffic to speak of. 

So, we are going back and forth.  Do we stay in the city, hope that our kids will get into what I will call Hopeful School, and accept the commute (which, I should add, would be laughable in any bigger city), and stay in the city because of all the things we love about the city?  Or, do we move out closer to the suburbs in order to be closer to what will be the center of our children's lives for the next many years?  In particular, we really love our neighborhood, and that's what I was thinking about as I was walking yesterday.

In my half hour walk, I passed three coffee shops, a street full of shops and restaurants, the park that our kids took some of their first steps at and still play at when the weather's nice, homes of friends and neighbors, and landmarks that have become familiar and loved over the past six years.  I thought about the streets and sidewalks themselves and how I walked them numerous times at 2 or 3 am with baby Mateo, the non-sleeping wonder baby.  I thought about walking newborn baby Talia over to our good friends' house to introduce her for the first time, which is one of the fondest memories I have of her right after birth.  It was June 24th, we were home from the hospital with our brand new baby girl, and I was walking on air.

This neighborhood has been a central figure in the formative years of our family.  Our children have been conceived here, born not too far away, and now know the familiar zig-zagging we do all around the neighborhood, going to the park, the coffee shops, the restaurants, the kids' stores, the indie music venue, and to friends' houses.

However, our neighborhood still has the same downsides that it had when we first moved here.  The crime rate is still high, despite massive gentrification, and our attempts at forming relationships with the more diverse members of our community have been largely unsuccessful.  

At the same time, moving out nearer to Hopeful School would have many advantages.  We would actually still have a Portland address, although we'd be living at the juncture of the city and the suburbs.  We have our eye on a neighborhood that has a wonderful park that we've been to many times, that has rolling hills and sidewalks and bigger lots and lots of nice people, judging from those who we've seen at the park.  We wouldn't be able to walk to the library anymore, but we could still get out and about and go places.  And, I'm sure we'd make some new friends and find new favorite places.  And, we would be within a mile of my grandma's house, which would be a huge plus.  It would be wonderful to live in the same area as she does!

However, the diversity of Hopeful School's neighborhood is nonexistent, as far as I know.  It's all white.  Hopeful School itself is more diverse than many of the public schools in Portland, but the neighborhoods around it are not.   However, again, living in a diverse neighborhood and attempting to build friendships with people of color here has not been very successful, either.

So, that's where we are.  We're leaning towards a move in the next year or two, although this is contingent on Sacha getting a job nearer to where we would live.  I'm meeting with a realtor this week to go over options and see some houses in the area, and promising myself that I won't fall madly in love with the first house I see, which I tend to do.  There's really no rush, since Mateo won't start kindergarten until the fall of 2012, but I personally would like to be settled before then.  Sacha feels more open to both possibilities and wants to see how things shake out, which I also understand.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm consciously appreciating what we have around us now - our house, our neighborhood, our place within the city - knowing that change may be coming.  Or, rather, change will be coming.  I just don't know exactly what it will look like yet!

28 weeks

And into the third trimester we go!

New

I keep waiting for that time in life when we just have all our friends and everything is stable, although now that I type that out, it sounds kind of boring!  Anyway, we've been lucky enough to meet some new friends recently, by which I mean in the last year or so.  Suddenly, things seem to be picking up and just in the past month we've connected with three new couples/families.

It's funny, actually, because we have two different but sometimes overlapping social groups.  The kids and I tend to be busy and social during the week with various playdates and our music class and various other activities.  Sacha commented recently that, at this point, she barely knows the people we see during the week, because she's not usually around for the kid playdate stuff.  Then, we have our people that we see on the weekends, who are more likely either not to have kids or to work fulltime or both, so weekends are the main social option.  Of course, sometimes the groups overlap, but that's the basic breakdown. 

Things have been pretty steady with these groups over the past couple of years, and that's been all well and good.  We're always kind of looking for new friends, having realized how relationships turn over and having to put so much energy into building a community when we moved to Portland.  Attempts at other friendships have, until recently, for whatever reason, not worked out, and we've instead enjoyed building deeper relationships with our core group. 

I guess the reason that I'm writing this is that I'm excited about getting to know new people!  We had three social things with new or newish (is that a word?) friends this week and weekend and really enjoyed them all.  We feel so lucky to have local friendships that we've built over a period of years as well as new ones that are somewhat new or just starting.  It feels good to have more of a mix again. 

Bundle

When Sacha's mom was a baby, in upstate New York, it was common practice to bundle up one's baby and put them in their stroller out on the porch for a nap.  It got very cold there, but apparently the baby or toddler stayed warm and this was the accepted thing to do. 

We took the kids out for a walk in their stroller today and Talia insisted on sitting in the basket underneath, which you're not really supposed to do but didn't seem especially dangerous to us.  Partway through, she fell asleep.  It was right around naptime and she was all bundled up, so we covered her up a little more when we got home and then left her out on the porch to nap, just as her grandmother did two generations ago! 

Of course, we made sure she couldn't be seen from the street and checked on her every 2 minutes or so, but nonetheless, it was similar.  Here's our little bundle, who is now awake and wanting to be entertained while her brother naps.  I pretty much live for their coordinated nap and rest times, but I'm trying to appreciate the one-one-one time with our younger one, especially before she becomes our middle one!

See her in the bottom?  This was the view from the window...

Sleeping beauty all wrapped up

Favorites

I thought I'd quickly post a photo of each kid in their favorite thing to wear right now.  Talia is obsessed with this I Love Science shirt (covered in the remains of a big day of playing, I might add) that we got at the Lawrence Hall of Science while in the Bay Area...

and Mateo loves his sweater from Old Navy that I got on a whim.

Scientists and fashionistas of the world, watch out for these two!

Experimental

Two experiments currently underway in our house:

1. The shared sleeping situation. So far, it is going cautiously well. Mateo has been experimenting with exactly how many times he can exit the room upon being put to bed, but overall things have been improving and they've both been sleeping through the night for the most part (knocking on serious wood here). We've been bribing Mateo with the promise of a brand new library book for every night he sleeps all the way through, which has been very effective so far. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I am so grateful to the universe for giving us a kid (and hopefully kids, but it's too early to tell with Talia yet) who loves books.

2. I just read an article forwarded by a friend on facebook about the downsides of staying home with your kids instead of continuing to work. There are certainly plenty of downsides: the salary advances you'll never catch up to, the promotions that your peers will have achieved by the time you go back to work at a lower level, the difficulty of finding a job at all after a certain number of years. The article ended with the conclusion that continuing your career without a break is ultimately more important, because of financial security, than opting to stay home even if you can make it work financially at the time.

I have to say that it's been hitting home recently, even without that article, because of how many people I know that are climbing some kind of ladder, be it in the corporate or nonprofit worlds or otherwise. As well, when I worked half-time after Talia was born, one of my colleagues was a woman who had stayed home with her daughters for ten years and then gone back to work at a level populated mostly by 20-somethings, and she was probably lucky to get that job at all.

I don't regret our decision for the kids to be my job. On the contrary, I feel incredibly lucky that we have the financial ability to do this. I know that most families just don't have the choice in the first place. It is, however, a bit disconcerting to see friends and acquaintances taking on ever more important titles and knowing that I will never catch up to them professionally or in regards to salary.

On the other hand, I'm taking a leap of faith that I'll be able to find a social work job when the time comes, albeit at a lower level than my peers. And, I know in my gut that the one thing you really can't get back is time. That's what our lives are made of, right? Time. That's what you can't get back, more than a job or a higher salary or any of that. Right now, we're buying time for the kids to have a parent at home and time for me to experience their childhoods with them.

I am fully aware that I'm saying this from a point of privilege and I am 100% behind the idea that the best thing for any family is what works for that family, regardless of what works for mine. But, I can't say that I have any real regrets about our situation now, and I doubt that I will in the future. Staying home is what I want to be doing and I am just so thankful that it is possible. It is definitely a big experiment with the future, though, so stay tuned to find out what happens!

Two and a half

This girl recently turned two and a half years old, and I decided it was time for an update.  At two and a half, Tali's favorite food is mac and cheese, which she calls simply Mac.  She likes to shorten most names, in general, actually, and she also loves to use the word "actually."  For example, we go to this place called Playdate PDX and she insists on calling it PDX and nothing more. 

She is a little koala bear in public, at least most of the time.  She prefers to be carried around, which isn't too much trouble because she's so tiny, but she does take a very long time to warm up around other people, even when she knows them.  She had a big breakthrough today at PDX when we ran into some friends and she played with a friend who is Mateo's age on her own for a little while. 

She can say lots of things and does, but her signature move for "no" is to cock her head onto her shoulder, and for yes, she just says "huh," as in "uh huh," which, of course, she has abbreviated.  She has a great sense of humor and the best belly laugh ever.

She has a hilarious way of asking questions that is hard to describe but extremely cute. She asks with this very concerned expression on her face that looks like she might be asking about world peace, but instead, like this morning, she will say something like "We see you chew gum this morning, Mama?"  For some reason I bought some gum the other day and the kids can't get enough of watching me chew it.   Maybe they will also like watching grass grow?  On the way home from picking up her big brother, Tali asked Te Te all about preschool and quizzed him about what kind of bandaid he would like for his owie when we got home.  "You have penguin bandaid or penguin bandaid, Te Te?", she asked, not being able to remember any other kind of bandaid we have. 

Here they are, showing off their carefully chosen bandaids...

In any case, Tali is very attached to her family, from her Mommy and Mama and Te Te to Apa and her grandparents and auntie and uncle and Megan to Yarn, who she still adores, but mostly from a distance.  She is interested in the idea of Drizzle, but has no idea really what is going on!  She's going to be a great and loving big sister and I can't wait to see her in action.

She already has the role of little sister dialed in.  She adores her Te Te and pretty much thinks he hung the moon....unless, of course, he takes something from her or infringes too much on her personal space, in which case a tantrum is in order.  It's amazing how they do all the expected sibling behaviors (sometimes inseparable, sometimes unable to stand the other's presence) without having had any instruction.  I guess these things are just instinctive. 

Natalia at two and a half is just what I think a two and a half year old should be.  She is, at times, so outrageously cute we can hardly stand it, and, at times, so outrageously stubborn and infuriating that we can hardly stand it!  She's just as she should be and we wouldn't want anything different.  It's amazing to see her little personality start to emerge.  She is strong-willed, loving, creative, energetic, cuddly, and generally just a great kid.  It's hard to believe she'll be three in just six months.  We're just enjoying her the way she is, right now.  We love you, kiddo!

Ka-chow!

We let Mateo and Natalia watch their first movie on Christmas Day.  It was Cars.  We had tried Finding Nemo before, but it was much too scary.  It inspired months of Talia going around saying "Nemo too scary for Te Te" in her tiny little voice, which was adorably cute even as it reminded Mateo of how scared he had been.  We've since gotten the advice to just skip the first ten minutes of any Disney movie, as that's usually when the scary part happens.

Anyway, we have some kid friends who have loved Cars, and this has trickled down to Mateo, so we got them both the movie and each a little car to go with it.  Mateo got Lightening McQueen and Tali got Doc (I have no idea who this is, but Mateo assures me that he's a friend of McQueen's), both of whom change colors in hot water, which makes them extra cool. 

This movie, which both kids watched all the way through with a collection of relatives, has sparked a car explosion in our house.  Just by happenstance, we've collected a few hotwheels here, a few other cars there, and suddenly we have enough for an army, and just in time for Mateo to become obsessed with them.  He's always liked lining them up in perfect little lines, but now he wants to really play with them and talk about them and talk about them and talk about them and....

...well, the monologues!  Basic child development will tell you that endless monologues are typical for kids this age, and we have watched them happen with our little cousins, but wow, it's still amazing to see just how much the kid can talk once he gets going.  He just yammers on and on about the cars and what they're doing and who each one is and on and on and you can't just sit idly by, you have to say "uh huh" and "oh really?" and such at appropriate times.  It so funny and cute, although sometimes more so when he's talking to someone else :)

One of the most fascinating parts of all this is that it hasn't actually made the kids want television more.  They talk about the movie, and at this point I think Mateo could spend the rest of his life reenaacting it, but that's about it.  Sacha tried to watch some of it with them today and Mateo watched it for two minutes before saying that he'd rather play with his cars.  Tali lasted a bit longer, but not much, which is fine by us. 

Especially for a week when we're going to be inside a lot, until this cold spell breaks, it's perfect timing.  Our house is littered with cars everywhere, but at least it's also littered with happy kids.  (Our other happy kid isn't as invested in the cars, but she is quite obsessed with the baby toys we just pulled up from the basement.  Both kids desperately want to be babies again, not surprisingly, and so the baby toys have taken on much new importance, as well.)  We've just been amazed at how quickly a toy car, in Mateo's mind, could go from a plaything to McQueen the Invincible.  Ka-chow!

Le weekend, plus 27 weeks!

It has been a cold, cold last weekend of winter break. I know it's nothing like the weather in other parts of the country, but it's amazing how several days of temps in the 30s can affect the flow of things. Most of the things we would normally do during the day, such as taking a walk outside, going to the library, going to another kid-oriented place, were impossible either because of the weather or the holiday or both. Even though the rain here makes outdoor adventures difficult during the winter, there are tons of places to take kids to play indoors, but all of them were either closed or mobbed with bigger kids on break from school. We tried one of our new favorites during the first week of winter break and both kids got mowed down by bigger kids more than once. So, we decided to avoid that this past week and weekend!

At Sacha's suggestion, we bundled up both kids both yesterday and today and took them to the park anyway, in their snowsuits, mittens, hats, etc. Once there, they were happy as clams and, apparently, warmer than we were, because we had to drag them away when we finally had enough of the cold. Other than those two expeditions, and a trip to see my grandma on New Year's Eve and my aunt and uncle on New Year's Day, we spent almost the entire weekend in our house. This is totally not normal for us, because either the parents or the kids end up going stir crazy. However, with stir crazy being the only option, we just went with it.

Don't get me wrong - I would LOVE to have more lazy weekends around the house. It just doesn't seem possible at this point in our lives. However, since there was no other choice this weekend, we made it possible! And, it went okay and we had fun doing around the house stuff, like wearing our pajamas all day and watching football and making popcorn and playing with play-doh and coloring and playing in the basement and just about anything else we could think of. I have to say, although I will be very sad to see Sacha go back to work, I'm looking forward to getting back into our normal daily routine, too.

One big part of the weekend involved the kids and Sacha swaddling up various stuffed animals and pretending they were babies. The kids found some swaddling blankets I had gotten for Drizzle and instantly became obsessed with having their own babies. Once swaddled, the pretend babies got nursed, put down for naps, put in the back of the car, and generally carried around everywhere. Here's Mateo getting ready to put some babies down for a nap:

Also, an update on the sleep front: Mateo is still sleeping in Natalia's room, but bedtime has been a major struggle. He keeps wanting to come out and each time he has a million little requests that are just stalling tactics. So far, he's managed to fall asleep in her room every night since this started, but there have been some rough evenings.

He really, really wants to sleep in her room, but he really, really doesn't want to go to sleep. Not that he ever has. We were having these issues when he was in his own room, too. So, I guess we'll see what happens. At this point this evening, he has come out twice, had a timeout on his third time (as he had been warned would happen), and is now back in her/their room in his bed. We're just crossing our fingers that he stays in there, and that this transition eases up after awhile. Change has never been easy for him (is it for anyone?), and even though he initiated this, it's still taking some getting used to.

Anyway, in happier news, Sacha just hit 27 weeks! Here she is with Tali. Mateo was doing something else at the time, so it was an all-girls photo session.