Traveling anniversary road show

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fridays are for adventures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmmm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A one diaper afternoon

So, I think we mentioned earlier that poor Natalia has a diaper rash of the yeast variety. Our Dr. gave us some prescription cream, plus we are using GSE in a spray bottle for our wipes. The Dr. also suggested that we keep Talia mostly out of diapers when possible.

I would have to say that having her out of diapers does raise the awareness of when she might go! LOL. Don't ask me how, but she only used one diaper this afternoon. We were out of the house for much of the afternoon (so she was in a diaper then), but with elimination communication I was able to catch all of the other pees.

Mateo was using his underwear all afternoon and has been doing great with that.

I don't expect us to have another day like this for some time, but pretty cool to have two kids under the age of two and only use one cloth diaper in an entire afternoon!

Free association

Mateo has recently learned about the octopus. He knows how to sign it from his Signing Time sessions and he also has a book that features a group of octopi (although it says "octopuses" in the book, which irks me to no end). Apparently, he's pretty excited about them. Sacha made waffle batter with him this morning and he seemed to think the whisk she used looked like an octopus. Here he is giving us his thoughts on this matter, among other things. Bizarrely, our digital camera made his eyes look brown...:

Pumpkins

Like, apparently, most of the rest of the free world, we went to the pumpkin patch today. We were actually planning to do the big corn maze (or, maize, as they creatively called it), inspired by our friend, Katie, who was going to provide her sense of direction to lead us through it. Sacha and I tried to do a corn maze before, but we never made it to the exit. After an undetermined amount of time, which seemed like about a year, we gave up in frustration and broke out through the side of the maze. This time, unfortunately, we never even made it through the maze entrance! They were charging a whopping $7 per person and we thought that was a little steep for walking around a big field of corn.

Undeterred, we had a lovely time. It was a gorgeous and sunny fall day and there were all kinds of things to do. We went on the hayride, which was quite the adventure. As we were climbing up onto the bales, Natalia decided it was time to eat. So, Sacha channeled her inner pioneer woman and nursed her as we rumbled along and I tried to keep them both from falling off the side. They were never in any danger, but it was quite funny all the same!


After we got off, Talia finished her meal on solid ground:


Then, after Teo romped up and down this huge tower of haybales and avoided being crushed by the crazed older children jumping without looking from high above, we decided it was time for a snack. Sacha got some delicious corn on the cob and I decided to try my first caramel apple. Verdict: not my thing. The apple was awesome, but the caramel was kind of overwhelming. Eventually I just peeled it off and ate the apple underneath.


The piece de resistance of the afternoon came right before we left, when Mateo and I rode in the kiddie cow train. Mateo was determined that he would ride on it before we left, and so we did. Our cow car was named Pookey, but Mateo decided to rename it Moosey. At some point during the middle of the ride, he started petting the wooden cow head on the front of the car and saying "hello Moosey, hello Moosey" over and over in the sweetest little voice. It was as if he himself was gently leading a real cow around the pasture.


So ended our afternoon. It was pretty awesome.

Here's one more photo of me and the kids last week sometime. Notice how Talia has Teo's hair in her iron grip...


By the way, she has started to laugh! And, she is chatting up a storm and squealing and even learning to stick out her tongue. Her little personality is really starting to emerge. Yesterday we got a great video of her cracking up as her brother jiggled her legs. She was poker faced when we did it, but when Mateo did it, she thought it was the funniest thing ever!

Mateo's 23-month letter

Dear Mateo,
You just turned 23 months old and you are going to be two years old in less than a month! You are beginning to grasp the concept of your birthday and can tell us, when asked, that your birthday is on Halloween and it is October "firty-first". Grammy gave you a shirt last year that says "October 31" on it and we call it your birthday shirt. You love to wear it.


Enough about your birthday for right now, though. We still have a month to go! We want to write down a few things about what you're up to right now, at 23 months. One thing right off the bat - you have learned to smile for the camera. It is this totally over the top smile complete with throwing your head back and you do it every time someone pulls out a camera. We thought we'd showcase a selection of those photos here today...

First, you've learned to say your full name. This started as a game with one of your little friends, in which I went back and forth telling you both what your full names were. You first thought that your full name was "Uncle (last name)", which Mommy and I found hilarious, but now you can say your first, middle, and last names. You still throw in Uncle (last name) sometimes just to get a laugh. You've deduced that saying it is funny from listening to me tell several people about the whole thing. You really are listening all the time!


In other news, we found a cool website called Starfall on the recommendation of our friend, Emily, and you are totally down with it. We started with the section on learning letters and now you and Mommy like to explore the section with interactive stories. You call it "looking for letters" and beg to do it whenever the computer comes out.

On the subject of letters, you love to talk more and more every day. You amaze us all the time with what you can say. You often speak in sentences these days and have your own, unique take on the world. One of our favorite things is that you say "you" often when you mean "I". Just in the past couple of days, we've noticed you starting to say "I" more. People comment all the time on your vocabulary and how clearly you enunciate. We usually just respond by saying that you love to talk and leave it at that. We feel really lucky that you're so verbal, because we can ask you to use your words when you start to get frustrated and you will usually tell us what's going on.


Mommy has been speaking Spanish with you in the afternoons ever since the school year started. You have picked up quite a few words and phrases already. We'll hear you reading a book in Spanish to yourself and sometimes, when you want us to read a particular book, you'll say "Este libro. Este libro!"


You are also really digging music these days. Your music class has started up again and we just went to our second class of the semester today. You particularly enjoy the "hello" song that we sing at the start of every class. You love to have me sing it in the car and we say hello to everything in the world. A sampling of the things we greeted on the way to our friends' house today: Mama, Mommy, baby Talia, every single truck we passed (ie, "the green green tractor trailer truck!" or "the orange orange cement mixer truck!" You like to say colors twice when they apply to trucks, as if for more emphasis), the trees, the freeway, the seats in the car, the cars on the road, etc. I'm sure they all felt very well acknowledged.

You are starting to try to sing. Mostly, it's songs from our music class, but you've thrown in some others, too. I was singing you this song I learned in elementary school about the worms crawling in and out and you started up trying to sing it. You don't have too many different voice tones yet, but you're getting there.

You're getting more interested in stacking and building things. Your blocks have taken on new importance. You've been wanting to build towers as well as making interpretive versions of different trucks, such as tractor trailer trucks and moving trucks.


Other physical things: you're trying really hard to learn to jump. You've made it off the ground a few times! It's pretty cute to watch you try to overcome gravity for a second. Also, you're eating more with utensils and becoming more competent with an open cup. We've been trying to encourage this and, hence, have cleaned up quite a few spills recently. You get really upset when you spill something and often want to help clean it up.

You've had some difficult behavior developments recently, too. You've discovered how to really whine and have started putting it into practice. You've also been testing limits more and have gotten into a clingy stage with Mama, which is probably because she started a new job and isn't around as much as she used to be. We're trying to work with this and really have a lot to learn! We do notice that the more consistent we are, the better things go, so I guess all we have to do is be more consistent and things will go perfectly. Ha!

In terms of sleep, we have only good things to say. You consistently sleep through the night now. You usually go down right after Mama gets home from work, around 7 pm, and sleep to somewhere between 6 and 7 am. You often wake up fussing in the night at some point and almost always get yourself back down on your own without much trouble. Mama usually goes in if you get too upset, but you almost never do. We love it! We have all ridden on quite the sleep roller coaster together and getting to this point feels really good.


Now that the cold weather is starting up, our house heating system has been coming on, and that fascinates you. You looove it when the air starts blowing out of the heating vents!

Mateo, we can't believe our little guy is about to be a two-year-old boy! We could not be more happy and proud that you are our son. Happy 23 months and here's to a great end to your second year.


All our love,
Mommy and Mama