Mateo's five year letter

Dear Mateo,
You turned five today!  Five seems like a big milestone in a lot of ways.  It's amazing for us to think back to the day you were born and how much you've grown since then.  Of course, some things haven't changed.  At this time five years ago, Mama and Mommy were working very hard to bring you into this world as you slumbered in Mama's belly.  At this time today, you are slumbering again, worn out by all the celebration of your fifth birthday!

Mateo, you have learned so much in this last year.  We'll just go in order of what comes to mind, so we'll start with your favorite things.  Probably your two favorite things are in a tie:  reading and playing with cars from the movie, Cars.  You read like a maniac, devouring picture books and chapter books alike.  You read signs aloud and easily sound out words you don't even know - like today, we were in Mommy's classroom and you said "Mama, does that binder say developmental reading?"  It was awesome.  You always want to go to the library, and when we do, you come home and go into a kind of a book coma, reading and reading and reading.

Your other favorite thing is the movie, Cars.  To say that you love it would be the understatement of the year.  You've actually only seen the movie once, but it is as if you have seen it thousands of times.  Your baby sister brought you a haul of Cars cars when she came home from the hospital and you have been focused on adding to your collection ever since.  You haven't seen Cars 2 because you think it would be too scary (and it probably would be - you're pretty sensitive about any kind of scary stuff in videos and such), but you have most of the cast of characters and can narrate the whole plot of the movie to anyone who seems interested.  You recently got even more Cars stuff for your birthday and have spent the past 24 hours cuddling your Lightening McQueen pillow and playing with your new Cars gear.

Another favorite lately is writing.  As with many things, you went from zero to sixty in about ten seconds with writing - well, not that fast, but it was pretty quick.  We went from being a little worried about your lack of interest and ability in writing to amazed at how fast you picked it up.  We credit the Funnix math program that you've been doing, as it not only taught you how to write your numbers but also sparked the desire to write letters, too.  The other day, you wrote Mama a letter completely on your own that said:  "Dear Mama, I love you.  I wish we had a dog.  Love, Mateo"  Ok, I added in the punctuation, but you spelled everything right and I just about died from the cuteness of it.  We're not getting a dog, though, so I hope you're happy with our cat!

 You love to be silly and especially so in front of a camera.  Here's proof:

 Other things you like to do include playing lots of games of pretend with Tali, most of which involve being a family of something - animals, babies, you name it.  You've even pretended to be a family of worms before!  You and your sister get along pretty well for the most part.  When you are playing well together, you are the best of friends and have a wonderful time.  Conversely, when you are having trouble getting along, you really have trouble getting along!  Typical sibling stuff.

You and Rosa are pretty infatuated with each other right now, which is very cute to see.  She smiles for you like you hung the moon and you gently grab her cheeks and patiently wait for an adult to move her when she gets into your toys.

Oh, and your teeth!  You just lost two of them!  They came out within days of your fifth birthday, which we all thought was pretty cool.

Mateo, we could go on and on, but it's late on Halloween and your mama is worn out after all the celebrating!  At five, you are a loving boy who gives lots of hugs and kisses and snuggles, a kid who still struggles with sleep and ends up in our bed more nights than not, an adventurous preschooler who makes friends easily and loves to run around, and, most of all, a son who we love more than words could ever say.  We wish you the best of being five years old and a year full of growing and learning new things.

We'll close with a story about you from tonight.  You went out to dinner with Apa and came back full of energy and ready to go trick-or-treating.  You zoomed into your ant costume and practically dragged your moms out the door (with many thanks to Grammy, who watched the house and your two sleeping sisters).  You marched us all over the neighborhood, knocking on doors and proudly informing several people that it was, in fact, also your birthday (that got you a lot more candy, by the way).  It was awesome to see you so confident and excited.  It made us excited about the adventures we're going to have with five-year-old you!

with all our love,
Mama and Mommy

PS:  How cool is it that this is the 1000th post on this blog, which we started right before you were born?  Very cool, that's what it is.

Almost five...

We had a family birthday party for Mateo this afternoon and it was wonderful.  Both sets of grandparents came to town for the occasion, which was great.  We also had aunts and uncles and honorary aunties and lots of presents.  The birthday boy had a blast playing with his cousins and with his new toys.  We can't believe he'll be five tomorrow!  Anyway, here are some photos.  It was great to see everyone who came, and Mateo got to talk to Auntie E on the phone right beforehand, so it was kind of like she was here, too!

This week in iPhone photos

Here are some photos from this week, courtesy of my mom's iPhone!

Rosa's seven-month letter

Dear Rosie J,
You are seven months old!  You have been working hard at figuring some things out this month, like putting together all the pieces of crawling.  You have got the part about lunging forward down pat, and  you can get up on your knees and rock back and forth, and you even can get in this bizarre position where you fling one leg up in the air like you're attempting a yoga pose.  None of these things go together yet, but they will, and soon.  

Regardless of crawling or not crawling, you are on the move!  You employ all sorts of methods to get around, including rolling, hauling yourself around in a circle, pushing yourself backwards, and somehow, you get all the way across the room before we know it.  You also never seem to stop moving.  When we hold you, you jump and jump and wiggle and try to turn around and around.  When you nurse, Mommy has to take you into a dark room to get you to settle down.  When we feed you, we have to keep the food faaaar away or you lunge at it and get yogurt everywhere.  We're all for playing with food, but not all the time :) 

One other thing you're still working on is sitting.  You can do it now for short periods, but you still like to hurl yourself backwards and usually end up on your tummy eventually, which is your favorite place to be.  You are a tummy time girl. 

You are also, as I have mentioned before, quite a foodie.  You like virtually everything we offer you, from various baby food combinations to yogurt to banana and avocado to whatever else we may have fed you.  You love food, and we love to feed you!  You seem to have gotten noticeably bigger again, so you're probably in a growth spurt.  You now wear nine-month sizes.  You're probably not high on the charts, but you are a big girl to us!

Let's see, other things.  You have started playing with toys and seem to enjoy them a lot.  You are still working on passing a toy from hand to hand.  Right now, you will try to do it, but that stubborn first hand just won't let go!  It's very cute and funny to watch you try to put it all together. 

You watch Mateo and Natalia with wide eyes and will smile and laugh for them like you do for no one else.  You don't even seem to mind when they haul you up onto their laps or "help" you roll over or accidentally conk you in the middle of playing.  You are going to be running around after them soon and we know that you can't wait for that day.

Your sleep leaves something to be desired, but you are doing pretty well.  You wake up once or twice at night.  We've moved to giving you a bottle when you first wake up and then having Mommy cover the second feeding in the early morning, and that has been working pretty well.  The other area of sleep - napping - is becoming less and less a part of your day.  You almost never sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time no matter where you are.  You get a large share of your naps in your car seat, but even when we're home and you're in your swing or your bed, you still cat-nap.  It doesn't seem to affect you that much, so I suppose it's fine.  You are just a short napper right now. 

All in all, you are a very satisfying baby and a wonderful girl.  We love you oodles and oodles and we always will.

much love,

Mama and Mommy



PS:  Photos to follow soon, I promise!

Never a dull moment

It has been an eventful few days since I last posted!  First, and already known by those of you following along on facebook, Mateo developed two loose teeth and lost them both in just two days.  He now has a cute little gap at the bottom of his mouth and is feeling like a very big boy, indeed.  He is also practically delirious with excitement about his upcoming birthday.  The birthday plus the trick-or-treating is like hitting some kind of kid jackpot.

It may be because of this, or because of nothing, but this week was particularly challenging with the kids.  There was much limit-testing and behavior management and not as much of the fun we usually have together.  I know, everything is a phase, but this isn't such a fun one.  I wonder if the kids sense that change is in the air and are reacting to it in their own ways.  In any case, they have been whiny, clingy, deliberately hard-of hearing, defiant, and generally difficult for much of the week.  Of course, we have had our good moments, too.  I'm just saying, it has been rough and I'm glad it's Friday!

Not to be left out of the excitement, Rosa turned seven months old yesterday, on the very day that her great-grandmother turned 93!  She celebrated by continuing to eat us out of house and home.  These days, a typical day for her includes a huge bowl of baby oatmeal and some kind of fruit mixed in, plus at least two whole-milk Trader Joe's yogurts, plus more baby food for dinner, plus a few bottles and some nursing thrown in for good measure.  We seriously cannot believe how much she eats!  It is a pleasure to feed a baby who so appreciates food.

Also, Sacha and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary on the 26th!  We went out to dinner (thanks, Apa!) and reflected, as we usually do, on what we did on each of our previous anniversaries.  We had to laugh, because after year three, one of us was pregnant or we had a new baby in virtually every year.  We also had to laugh because we were talking about next year and how things would probably seem easier then...and then realized that Rosa will probably walking and running by next year, and that we will probably look back fondly on when we had it so "easy" before she was mobile!

And, finally, in breaking news, it looks like our house deal is falling through.  Yes, you read that right.  One of the buyers has suddenly developed a major medical problem and it looks like they will be pulling out.  It's not for sure yet, so we're waiting to see what will happen.  We do have a back-up offer waiting in the wings, so we'll go about the process of seeing if that person is still interested.

I do feel really bad for the buyers and hope that the person gets better soon.  I also hope that the back-up buyer is still interested, because I do NOT want to go back to showing the house again!  It was so stressful to keep the house looking perfect and to keep having to drag the kids out for random periods of time while random people looked through our stuff.  Just writing that made me realize what a small stress that is in comparison to really major problems...but still, I'd rather that things just went smoothly!  We shall see.  Argh!

At least the weekend will be distracting.  We'll have both sets of grandparents in town for Mateo's birthday and a nice family gathering on Sunday to celebrate him.  It really is true:  they grow up so fast!

Hiking

We went on another hike this morning, this time with our Monday morning crew.  Erin, Amanda and I and our respective kiddos usually get together on Mondays to play, and today we went out to a local nature area to let the kids run and to enjoy the fall colors.  It was probably growing up in California, but I don't remember noticing fall much at all as a kid.  Now, it's one of my favorite seasons.  I just love seeing all the trees changing and the weather slowly changing as well.  And, of course, Sacha and I have our wedding anniversary in October and Mateo's birthday, as well, so it's just a happy time of year.

Anyway, we spent about an hour and a half hiking around and we all had a great time.  It was so much fun to see Mateo running around with his buddies.  That nature camp he went to this summer really opened him up to being curious about the outdoors, as he's a bit of a homebody a lot of the time.  It helped that the nature camp was in the exact same location as we went today, so he already felt comfortable there.  He ran ahead most of the time, while Tali stuck close to me, as usual.  I pushed both the girls in the stroller and I was tired by the end of the morning!  They are both tiny, but somehow heavy together :) 

We've had a day that's been relatively full of limit-testing, so it was welcome to have a morning respite from all that and just to have fun outside.  Yay, fall!

Weekend round-up

We are finishing off a lovely weekend with some family time at home.  We spent most of yesterday and last night at our new house, ending with chocolate pancakes (not as good as the mix suggested, by the way) and playtime this morning. 

We also had dinner last night at a place near our new house called Five Guys Burgers and Fries.  Apparently it's a national chain, but it's the only one we've ever heard of, so it's a new place for us.  It's loud and busy and crowded.  In other words, it's the perfect place to take our sometimes loud and busy small children!  (This is only slightly related, but it's also awash in peanuts - there are peanuts in huge barrels that you can snack on before you eat, and then everything is fried in peanut oil.  It would be a nightmare for someone with a peanut allergy.  Luckily, as far as we know, our family is okay in that regard.)  We filled ourselves to the brim with hamburgers, fries, and soda.  Sacha and I just learned on The Biggest Loser that the average American drinks 50 gallons of soda per year!  We average close to none per year, so it was no big deal to get one, but it's still quite the sobering statistic. 

Anyway, after we came home today and everyone napped while I worked out, we went out for a short hike in this huge park in the middle of the city.  It's a cool place, because almost right away you're in the forest and you feel far away from the city.  The fall colors were gorgeous and the kids did well with all the walking, which is saying something.  It used to be that Mateo wouldn't walk anywhere for any reason, so taking him on a hike now is pretty sweet.  Rosa rode along happily in the Ergo, which is also saying something, because she hasn't liked it too well in the past.

Speaking of Rosa, she just recently got her second tooth!  And, we have finally figured out what to do to make her laugh!  She's always been a big smiler, but getting a laugh out of her is tough.  Turns out, all we had to do was have Mateo or Tali act silly in front of her.  Once she gets an eyeful of them clowning around, she busts out giggling!  It is the cutest, and, of course, very heart-warming that her siblings fill her with such delight. 

Rosa has also been eating like there's no tomorrow and moving around as much as she can.  She hasn't figured out crawling yet, but she can scoot around the floor deceptively quickly.  She gets her eye on something and then figures out some way to get there.  She's getting harder to just hold, because she is so strong and wiggly!  She is happy, too, except at nighttime, when she transforms into a different baby.  We are struggling a little with what to do about it, because she wakes up crying and wants to nurse pretty frequently, which ends up meaning that she "sleeps" most of the night with us and Sacha doesn't get good rest. 

However, crying it out in the middle of the night is no fun for anyone, and we avoided it completely with the older two (I just got up with Mateo until he started sleeping through the night at 21 months, and similarly I got up with Tali to give her a bottle for quite some time, although she only woke up once at night for a long time before she finally started sleeping through.)  Anyway, I'm sure we'll figure it out, but for now, our once-great sleeper has turned into a tough nut to crack!

And that is the news from here.  It's been a great weekend.  Here's hoping for a great week, too!

Soooo...

...we got an offer on our house!  And, we accepted it.  It actually happened last week, but I was hesitant to blog about it until today for some reason.  It's probably because the potential buyers just scheduled the inspection, for Sunday of all days, and it's starting to feel real now.  In fact, it might be feeling a little too real!  Our house is over 100 years old and I'm more than a little anxious about how it will hold up under the home inspector's scrutiny.  But, we've been living here for seven years and aren't aware of major issues, so we'll just hope for the best.  I have this specific fear that something will be wrong with the roof, but that's probably because we haven't done a thing to it since we moved in and therefore I assume there must be something wrong with it!

Anyway, the offer is a good offer and we're very happy about it!  The potential buyers are actually the parents of some of our neighbors, so that's pretty cool.  And, we just heard from our agent today that we got another (lower) offer this afternoon, so we have some back-up if things go south.  If the inspection goes well, then they want to close by Dec. 1, which gives us some time to pack and move.  We are really going to need the time!  We're pretty good about not holding onto clutter, but we still have a whole houseful of stuff to schlep to our new house, including all our furniture.  When we moved into this house, I swore I would never move again without professional movers...but looking at the prices of the professional movers, I think we may be doing it the old fashioned way again!  Either way, if you're reading this, you can be sure that we will keep you posted on how everything goes.

On a completely different note, I haven't posted many photos recently, so I thought I'd post some today.  They're mostly of the kids enjoying the fruits of helping me bake cookies, plus a few of Rosa for good measure :)

Pumpkins

We made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch today, accompanied by our friends, K and C.  It has become a yearly tradition to go with them and we were so glad that it worked out again this year!  It was really, really muddy and none of us came well-prepared for that.  We have a whole family set of mud-caked shoes on the front porch and are hoping that most of it will dry by tomorrow so we can knock most of it off! 

Anyway, we found some good pumpkins and rode the hay ride and got apple cider, so it was all good.  We attempted a photo of all three kids at the pumpkin patch sign and ended up with this:

Also, here's our annual family photo on the hayride (and thanks to Megan for Rosa's adorable hat!):

Now that we have the pumpkins, we just need to hold off Mateo for awhile.  He wanted to carve them today, but we genuinely didn't have time because he had a playdate this afternoon.  We'll see how close to Halloween we can get, so that they aren't rotting by the time the big day arrives!

I'll close with a photo of just how deep the mud was.  This was what we saw on our ride back from the pumpkin patch, sitting right behind the tractor and skidding back and forth behind it!

Visits

We were lucky enough to have Sacha's mom come down to visit this past weekend, and then to have my mom in town for a few days this week.  Earlier this year, Sacha and her mom went through the calendar and scheduled monthly visits, so she could make sure to see the grandkids (and us!) more regularly.  Of course, there have been visits scattered in with both of Sacha's parents, too, which is always nice.  One nice thing about having Bubby come to visit is that she takes Monday off of work and goes to school with Sacha to help out.  It's a big help to Sacha and I think it's nice for Bubby to have a better sense of Sacha's class and what she does all day.

Today, my mom came into town and we were chatting about how it had been a long time since she came up - about two months.  I was struck by the fact that two months is, indeed, a long time for her to go between visits, because she normally comes up almost monthly for family business meetings and such.  Of course, it would be nice to see my dad much more often than we do, but it's great to see Grammy as much as we do.  Such regular visits from the two grandmas interspersed with visits from the grandpas make us very lucky, indeed.  I'm glad we live in a place and in a world where cars and planes make arrangements like ours possible. 

On another note, my mom got her first look at the new house today!  We went over there right after preschool, because our old house was being shown for the afternoon.  I'll gloss over the fact that the second showing got canceled, but the broker didn't call me until after they were supposed to have been at the house, meaning that we spent two more hours away from home than we needed to, not that I was irritated or anything, and just say that we had a lovely time hanging out with Grammy at the new house.   We don't have much furniture over there, but we made do and had a nice time chatting and playing in the front room while Tali took her nap and Mateo and Rosa played.  Also, I ordered a fridge today for the new place, so we'll soon be able to store and eat over there much more easily.  This is probably the world's slowest move, but it is happening piece by piece!

On that note, speaking of slow things, I'll sign off by saying that I went to bed at 8 pm last night and it was fabulous.  I was so tired and I just needed a long night of sleep.  I woke up early this morning to work out and I felt great.  I was contemplating another early bedtime tonight, but Sacha and I both got a nice rest this evening while the kids played their new favorite game:  pretending to put us to bed!  They tuck us into the bed downstairs, read us a book, sing a song, give a kiss, etc, and all we have to do is lie there with our eyes closed.  It's great!  Best game ever.  Let's hope it stays a favorite among the small crowd for a good long time.

Like a bee

Things have been busy busy around here lately.  Adding the whole selling-our-house thing to our regular lives has made everything, well, a little more lively!  We never know when we might get a call asking to show the house, possibly in an hour or the next day or in a few days.  We're having an open house tomorrow and are very interested to see how many people come to that.  It seems like there's been a lot of initial interest in the house, but no repeat visitors and no feedback from their agents, and, of course, no offers.  I'm trying not to get stressed out by the whole thing, rather unsuccessfully, and instead have become obsessed with buying a fridge for the new house.  Bizarre coping strategy, but at least it's distracting!  The life and times of a lesbian housewife sure are fascinating, aren't they?  :)

Anyway, on a different note, here are some things the kids did today: 

Rosa sat on her own for up to five seconds on several occasions, which is a new record for her.  Sitting might not be right around the corner, but perhaps at the end of the next block.  I am looking forward to the time when she can sit and play with her toys.  It sounds so peaceful!  That will be in the brief interlude between sitting and crawling, but I intend to enjoy it.

Tali and Rosa had some special time with Mommy and Bubby this afternoon while I took Mateo to a birthday party, although they spent most of it asleep.  After we got back with goody bags for both kids, they spent most of the rest of the afternoon playing with Silly Putty.  I've gotten it for them before, but they have never been interested before today.  It was pretty cute to watch them play with it.  Unfortunately, Mateo decided to open up a container of generic play putty that had gotten very sticky and probably should have been thrown out...but instead the kids got it everywhere, including in their hair.  This led to bathtime, which was much needed anyway!

Mateo and I had a really nice time out together at the birthday party.  We got some lunch beforehand and did another errand and then went to the party together.  It's rare that I get one on one time with any of the kids out of the house, and I think we both enjoyed it.

Finally, we spent some time last night disassembling the kids' bunk bed, which had been in our basement, and then reassembling it at the new house this morning.  Now all we need to do is bring over Rosa's pack and play and an air mattress for us and we might be able to pull off spending the night there!  Of course, that would be much easier if we had a fridge over there :)  I guess it's back to the Consumer Reports website for me! 

Swinging

I have decided that selling a house is a lot like trying to get pregnant.  You get everything perfectly lined up and give it a good try at the right time, and then you have lots of waiting time before you find out if it worked or not.  During that time, referred to as the Two Week Wait by many, it seems that you have nothing but time on your hands to agonize over whether it worked or not.  One minute, you think you must be pregnant, without a doubt!  Then, the next minute or hour, you become convinced that you are not pregnant, after all, and that you will without a doubt never be.  And so the swings go.  At least, if you're me!  I'm sure not everyone gets so worked up about it :)

Granted, our house has only been on the market for two days, but I'm already feeling the ebbs and flows between the two poles of "we must be about to get an offer in the next five minutes," to "it will never, ever sell, not in a million years!"  As I noted above, I tend to run very black and white about these things, but still, I feel like I'm on a roller coaster!

Part of this may have to do with the fact that, since it hit MLS yesterday morning, it has already been shown five times.  One of those was a well-attended open house for brokers and the other four have been individual agents coming to check things out with people in tow.  Great start, right?  Definitely.  Except that it seems plain to me that if four couples plus all those brokers have seen it and no one has made an offer yet, then of course it will never happen at all.  It feels all too similar to the hand-wringing of the two week wait.

I know I am being ridiculous, but venting seems to help!  I know that the market is terrible right now, so I'm thrilled that it has generated so much interest right off the bat.  I just wish there was a timeline that I could consult!  On the one hand, some houses in our neighborhood have gone pending in less than a week.  On the other hand, we know people in other areas whose homes have been on the market for a year.  We will probably fall somewhere in between, but where?  And, when?

Perhaps luckily, I have been working very hard for the last year or so on just being present in my life and not getting so caught up in the future.  So, I am better able now to let all my wonderings go and just accept this moment for what it is.  In fact, I believe I have ice cream and possibly Glee in my near future!  So, I will focus on that and let the housing chips fall where they may...at least for right now.

New and old

We went over to the new house again today, bringing a few more things with us, and spent most of the afternoon.  We even got some pizza and ate sitting on the floor.  We have the majority of the kids' toys over there now, plus all the clutter we could box up from our old house, because...

...we are putting it on the market!  The old house, that is.  It's going to be available for purchase starting on Tuesday.  Tuesday!  We decided, with some consultation, that it is a good idea to get it out there now, since it might take awhile to sell.  

So, In the spaces between kid and life demands, I've been madly cleaning and schlepping stuff over to the new place.  If I do say so myself, the old house is looking great.  It feels so much more open now than it did before, in a good way.  We aren't big on clutter in the first place, but we were outgrowing this house and it showed.  It is going to be so awesome to have a bigger place, although (#1) we're going to have the opposite problem - not having anywhere near the furniture needed to furnish it - and, (#2) I hope we don't accumulate enough extra clutter to fill up the new place, too. 

Anyway, it's going on the market on Tuesday.  The weather here is supposed to be rainy all week and the market is obviously terrible, so we're not banking on a quick sale.  Still, we live in an up and coming neighborhood that has remained desirable, so we hope that eventually someone will want to buy this place.  It's going to be hard to leave the place where we brought our babies home to and where we have grown so much over seven years...but I think we can do it!  More updates to follow when there is more news on this front...