Today went much better, thank goodness! Having a friend (actually, it was a playdate that turned into a play group, which was very fun for all involved) over helped Mateo cut loose and take back his house again. He and his buddies spent several hours running around like crazy kids, pretending to be fire fighters and police officers, and they helped me make cookies, and the terrifying tree in front of the house was mostly forgotten. We spent the afternoon at the farmer's market and had a lovely family dinner of local strawberries, chicken curry, cookies and lemonade while sitting on the grass. Things are looking up again!
We got another piece of good news today. Sacha has a new job! She's going to be teaching 5th grade (in English this time) at a school that's less than 10 minutes from our house by car. We probably won't know until close to September whether she'll be part-time or full-time, due to a very complicated hiring process combined with the economy, but it is a very good move for her and I'm so proud of her! She did a wonderful job interviewing and got this school to not only offer her the position but to go to bat with human resources for her after her principal pulled a lowdown stunt this morning to try to get her to stay at her current school. It's a long story, but we'll just leave it at that. Go Sacha!!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Rafael and Sophia stories
The whole window/wind/tree/wind chime issue with Mateo is getting slightly better. Today we were able to have the shades about half-way up, which was a huge improvement over two days ago. In the morning he did a great job being in the house for awhile and in the afternoon he wanted to spend a lot of time in his room, playing, but he did spend some time in the family room and in the play room.
One thing we have been trying have been a technique called "Annie stories." These have been modified into "Rafael and Sophia" stories. They are stories to help kids get over their fears. Basically, the story is modified to deal with whatever worry that the child is having.
Today's story was about listening to the wind chime and going out the front door - two things that currently cause fits. The story goes something like this:
Rafael is a boy who lives in a yellow house. He has a little sister named Sophia. In Rafael's house there is a bathroom, a playroom, a kitchen. He lives with his Mommy and his Mama. . . so you get the idea. Basically I describe our own family.
Rafael was going to go to the farmers market, and so he went to the front room to get on his shoes. He started to feel his heart beating and he started shaking. (Two symptoms he has been having.) So, he took some magical breaths. Rafael breathed in really slowly and breathed out really slowly. Can you show Rafael how to take magical breaths? Rafael was still feeling anxious, and so he asked for some cuddles from his Mommy or Mama. Then, he put on his shoes and walked out of the front door.
When he stood on the porch (another difficult area for Mateo), he looked at the tree and started to get scared. Then, he took another magical breath and looked at the strawberry plants. He wondered if there were any ripe strawberries to eat and looked at all of the plants and found a red, ripe strawberry.
He then walked all the way down the stairs by himself and was so proud of himself. He had been scared, but he walked down the stairs all by himself and he was ok.
Anyway, this is the general format for the stories, only they change for whatever seems to be the biggest issues of the moment. The first few times, the stories were so scary for Mateo that he would try to climb back into his crib when I told them, but now he asks for Rafael stories, and will even listen to them in the play room. He has also been taking Rafael's magical breaths!
We are noticing gradual improvement every day, but this has really been a tough thing for our little guy. I guess we're all learning something - Mateo's learning about being brave after a storm and we're learning a lot about having patience.
One thing we have been trying have been a technique called "Annie stories." These have been modified into "Rafael and Sophia" stories. They are stories to help kids get over their fears. Basically, the story is modified to deal with whatever worry that the child is having.
Today's story was about listening to the wind chime and going out the front door - two things that currently cause fits. The story goes something like this:
Rafael is a boy who lives in a yellow house. He has a little sister named Sophia. In Rafael's house there is a bathroom, a playroom, a kitchen. He lives with his Mommy and his Mama. . . so you get the idea. Basically I describe our own family.
Rafael was going to go to the farmers market, and so he went to the front room to get on his shoes. He started to feel his heart beating and he started shaking. (Two symptoms he has been having.) So, he took some magical breaths. Rafael breathed in really slowly and breathed out really slowly. Can you show Rafael how to take magical breaths? Rafael was still feeling anxious, and so he asked for some cuddles from his Mommy or Mama. Then, he put on his shoes and walked out of the front door.
When he stood on the porch (another difficult area for Mateo), he looked at the tree and started to get scared. Then, he took another magical breath and looked at the strawberry plants. He wondered if there were any ripe strawberries to eat and looked at all of the plants and found a red, ripe strawberry.
He then walked all the way down the stairs by himself and was so proud of himself. He had been scared, but he walked down the stairs all by himself and he was ok.
Anyway, this is the general format for the stories, only they change for whatever seems to be the biggest issues of the moment. The first few times, the stories were so scary for Mateo that he would try to climb back into his crib when I told them, but now he asks for Rafael stories, and will even listen to them in the play room. He has also been taking Rafael's magical breaths!
We are noticing gradual improvement every day, but this has really been a tough thing for our little guy. I guess we're all learning something - Mateo's learning about being brave after a storm and we're learning a lot about having patience.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The due date
Just wanted to note that today was Natalia's due date last year. We were pretty excited when this day came, thinking we'd have our baby girl here soon....and then the day went by....and then two weeks passed before she was actually born! It's pretty wild to think that she's coming up on a year old.
We did decide to celebrate one thing a little early though. We started feeding her cow's milk in her bottles instead of formula. You're not supposed to give them cow's milk before a year, but as Sacha put it, we've reached her original due date, so she counts as a year old now, right? She's actually already had it several times in the past few weeks and has tolerated it just fine. Mateo fed her her bedtime bottle tonight, which had to be the sweetest thing ever.
We did decide to celebrate one thing a little early though. We started feeding her cow's milk in her bottles instead of formula. You're not supposed to give them cow's milk before a year, but as Sacha put it, we've reached her original due date, so she counts as a year old now, right? She's actually already had it several times in the past few weeks and has tolerated it just fine. Mateo fed her her bedtime bottle tonight, which had to be the sweetest thing ever.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Continued...
Well, the birthday party went fine, but the rest of yesterday afternoon and evening were just awful. Mateo was in a state from the minute we got home. He wouldn't go near the living room or the dining room (which are really just one big room) and just wanted to hide in the play room and his room, which are in a different part of the house. Every time we'd coax him out into the main part of the house, he would look through the window at the scary tree outside and just lose it. He refused to eat dinner at the table and was practically begging to go to bed by the time bedtime came around. We had some friends over for dinner, who are in the process of considering when and how to have children, and I'm not sure what they thought of the whole affair.
Mateo got so upset that we eventually called the Kai.ser advice nurse number. Sacha talked to a nurse who was very reassuring and suggested that tomorrow (today), we keep the blinds closed in the living room and just try to get Mateo comfortable with being in that part of the house again. As he started to get more comfortable, she said we could start slowly raising the blinds a little bit at a time. We also consulted our parents this morning and they had some good suggestions about playing out his fears with him.
I was really anxious about how today would go, because I tend to be a worrier anyway and I was an anxious kid and I was coming up with all these doom and gloom scenarios about how Mateo would end up having terrible anxiety and eventually would have to be hospitalized or something.... not very realistic, obviously, but that's just how I am sometimes.
Anyway, today actually went pretty well. He spent the morning at a friend's house and when he got home, I immediately got him started helping me make popcorn and watching the Prefontaine Classic on tv. He loved watching the races and we pretended to do some of the running and jumping events in the house. This kept him in the living room for a couple of hours and he seemed fine. He ate lunch at the table and went down for his nap just fine. Whew!
Then, this afternoon, we went out right after the kids woke up to this family pride event down the street, and Apa was at our house for dinner when we got back. Mateo still got a little spooked at dinner time - maybe because he was sitting at the table eating when the big wind storm started on Thursday - but we made it through and actually had a nice evening. So, we're feeling more optimistic about the whole thing and are hoping that the next few days will bring more improvement.
Also, we got two pieces of sad news today. First, a family friend of Sacha's family passed away after being very sick in the hospital. Secondly, the spouse of one of her fellow teachers died suddenly last night. Sacha is feeling sad about this, as is understandable.
On happier news, here are some pictures from the past few days.
Above, a beautiful rose from our garden.
Next, Mommy and Mateo with their cute new hairdos:
And Mateo and a tractor at the zoo - this is a prized picture that he has looked at lots of times! As you can see, he gave up a good amount of hair during the process of his hair cut.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Fears
We've heard of toddlers having crazy fears of random things, but had never experienced it until this week. Mateo has been somewhat afraid of trees falling for awhile, as in getting freaked out this winter when it was stormy and the trees were blowing around. Then, this week, we had a freak thunderstorm that started with crazy winds out of nowhere. One minute, it was calm, and the next, I was at work wondering if we were about to have a tornado.
Sacha and the kids and Apa were hanging out at home when the winds started up and Mateo got really freaked out. The adults decided to close all the curtains to help Mateo calm down, because he was getting really upset and worried that the trees were going to fall over outside. That worked at the time, but the whole experience must have been traumatic for the little guy.
Enter this morning, when the day dawned gray and windy and the trees were blowing around. Mateo took one look at this as we were sitting down to breakfast and demanded that we close all the blinds. We said no. He went from zero to tantrum in two seconds and spent about the next half an hour crying and asking for us to close the curtains over and over and over. He was so scared that he was actually trembling. We tried reassuring him, tried reasoning, tried telling him he was safe, tried giving him a timeout to reset, tried taking him outside to see that everything was fine. Nothing worked.
Finally, Sacha had the brilliant idea to pretend to get scared herself and need lots of cuddles from Mateo to feel better. They cuddled up in his room and he gave her lots of cuddles and that seemed to help him snap out of it. However, he's still quite wary of going into our living room, which is the main part of our house. Our books and Dr. Google both say to reassure him but not to give in to the fears, so that's what we're trying to do. We're going to a birthday party this afternoon that is outside in a park with lots of trees, and it's still pretty windy out there, so we'll see how that goes! Poor guy. It's rough to be two and a half sometimes.
It's kind of funny timing, because Sacha and I were just talking about toddler fears a few days ago. I had taken the kids to the zoo with some friends and Mateo had announced on the way home that he was scared of lions and that tigers were very scary, too.
In better news, Sacha and Mateo both got haircuts today and they look very cute. On the way home, we were telling Mateo how cute he looked and he said, seriously, "Mommy, I am very handsome with my new hair cut."
We also dropped by his potential new Spanish immersion preschool for next fall and we liked it. We talked to the owner/main teacher and Mateo got to play in the space for awhile. He seemed to like it and we did, too. So, we are in for two mornings a week! We hope this will be a great new step for him in the fall. There are lots of huge windows, so hopefully he'll be over this fear of trees and wind by then!
Sacha and the kids and Apa were hanging out at home when the winds started up and Mateo got really freaked out. The adults decided to close all the curtains to help Mateo calm down, because he was getting really upset and worried that the trees were going to fall over outside. That worked at the time, but the whole experience must have been traumatic for the little guy.
Enter this morning, when the day dawned gray and windy and the trees were blowing around. Mateo took one look at this as we were sitting down to breakfast and demanded that we close all the blinds. We said no. He went from zero to tantrum in two seconds and spent about the next half an hour crying and asking for us to close the curtains over and over and over. He was so scared that he was actually trembling. We tried reassuring him, tried reasoning, tried telling him he was safe, tried giving him a timeout to reset, tried taking him outside to see that everything was fine. Nothing worked.
Finally, Sacha had the brilliant idea to pretend to get scared herself and need lots of cuddles from Mateo to feel better. They cuddled up in his room and he gave her lots of cuddles and that seemed to help him snap out of it. However, he's still quite wary of going into our living room, which is the main part of our house. Our books and Dr. Google both say to reassure him but not to give in to the fears, so that's what we're trying to do. We're going to a birthday party this afternoon that is outside in a park with lots of trees, and it's still pretty windy out there, so we'll see how that goes! Poor guy. It's rough to be two and a half sometimes.
It's kind of funny timing, because Sacha and I were just talking about toddler fears a few days ago. I had taken the kids to the zoo with some friends and Mateo had announced on the way home that he was scared of lions and that tigers were very scary, too.
In better news, Sacha and Mateo both got haircuts today and they look very cute. On the way home, we were telling Mateo how cute he looked and he said, seriously, "Mommy, I am very handsome with my new hair cut."
We also dropped by his potential new Spanish immersion preschool for next fall and we liked it. We talked to the owner/main teacher and Mateo got to play in the space for awhile. He seemed to like it and we did, too. So, we are in for two mornings a week! We hope this will be a great new step for him in the fall. There are lots of huge windows, so hopefully he'll be over this fear of trees and wind by then!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Some new and not so new videos
Here are some newish videos that we have been wanting to post! The first is from April and the second is from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!
Apa finding Natalia's tickle bone.
Natalia pushing her big brother!
Mateo singing a love song that he made up.
Apa finding Natalia's tickle bone.
Natalia pushing her big brother!
Mateo singing a love song that he made up.
Garden salads
Today, we had one of our first salads from our garden. We had snap peas (who knew just how quickly they turn from flower to pea), pea leaves, lettuce leaves, arugula and cilantro. All from our polyculture garden. I am amazed about the peas. Yesterday it seems like they all started to bloom at once, and I didn't see a single ripe pea. Today, when I went out to harvest some of lettuce, there were peas all over the bush. Now the peas were very small, and really should not have been eaten today, but I couldn't resist and neither could Mateo later in the afternoon.
After trying the square foot method last year, and really not getting much of a harvest at all, I am really enjoying the polyculture method. It is so fun to look and see all of the plants intermingled together and the larger bush beans giving some needed shade to the young lettuce plants and other new starts. I can't wait to get to eat more salads from our garden. And it is densely packed enough, that I have had to do very little weeding. It turns out that little chaos is a very good thing in a garden.
Other new in our garden: Mateo ate the first red ripe strawberry of the season yesterday. He was quite patient in waiting for it to become ripe, and popped it into his mouth the minute it turned red.
The last piece of garden news is that we are growing cucumbers and tomatoes in pots that allow them to cascade down. We shall see how this works, but I love the ideas of red sweet tomatoes and little cucumbers cascading off of our porch.
After trying the square foot method last year, and really not getting much of a harvest at all, I am really enjoying the polyculture method. It is so fun to look and see all of the plants intermingled together and the larger bush beans giving some needed shade to the young lettuce plants and other new starts. I can't wait to get to eat more salads from our garden. And it is densely packed enough, that I have had to do very little weeding. It turns out that little chaos is a very good thing in a garden.
Other new in our garden: Mateo ate the first red ripe strawberry of the season yesterday. He was quite patient in waiting for it to become ripe, and popped it into his mouth the minute it turned red.
The last piece of garden news is that we are growing cucumbers and tomatoes in pots that allow them to cascade down. We shall see how this works, but I love the ideas of red sweet tomatoes and little cucumbers cascading off of our porch.
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