Photos and such

We just got back from an impromptu trip to Washington to celebrate Sacha's mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Cathe! We called to wish her a happy birthday on Saturday morning, and then realized we had virtually no plans all weekend. So, we decided to get in the car and drive up to deliver birthday greetings in person. She was very surprised when Mateo wandered into her bedroom and woke her up from a nap with a big "Happy birthday, Bubby!"

It just shows how far we've come that we could make the decision to drive up there at 9 am and by 10 am be packed, in the car, and waiting outside the library until it opened and we could pick up some books and a new dvd for the road. After that, we were on the freeway and in Sacha's parents' town by 1 pm. In the past, it has taken us an ENTIRE morning to pack, load up, get the kids going, etc, so we are really making progress!

Maybe I should amend that to say that the kids are really making progress. They are becoming great travelers. They both slept through the night at Bubby and Poppa's house, and they did great in the car, too. It is soooo nice to be able to go places again without the dread of how we'll make it through getting there and getting back and how we'll deal with not sleeping much while we're there.

Of course, Mateo's making us pay for it now. He's been trying to go to sleep for almost an hour, but is so overtired from two days of catnaps in the car (the giving up nap experiment has been shelved for now, by the way, but that's another story) that he's having a hard time going to sleep. Well, and staying in his room. Thank goodness Sacha does bedtime, or there would probably be some serious temper-losing going on right now.

Anyway, I just finally downloaded our recent photos and wanted to post a few. Enjoy!

Here are the kiddos hanging out with my brother's awesome girlfriend, Megan. She knew I was having a rough time and offered to come over last Thursday and help out for a few hours. It was such a sweet thing to do and the kids had a great time. Thanks again!


Here's Mr. M playing with a puzzle with a neighborhood friend. This puzzle, lent to us by our kids' older cousins, has provided hours of entertainment. It shows a bunch of typical house scenes and then has see-through pieces with characters doing different activities. You're supposed to match the character with the scene (ie, man with a lawnmower goes on the grass), but Mateo loves to get everything all mismatched. He and his little buddy must have been laughing for 20 minutes over this thing. They'd go up to the other kid's mom and want her to exclaim over each combination, a la: the bed is in the middle of the road! HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Or, the kid is taking a bath on the roof! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! Hilarious.


Last time Mateo was sick, he got the idea that he gets to watch as much tv as he wants when he's not feeling well, which is pretty much true. He doesn't get to watch it much when he's not sick, so he started pretending to be feeling bad in order to get me to let him watch a video. I may be gullible, but I'm not that easily fooled! However, now, when I do let them watch a video, they both insist on lying on the couch as though they were very ill. It is too funny. You'll notice that Natalia is very graciously sharing Blankie in this picture, which is not usually the case. Normally, they each need their own separate pillow and blankie combination, and preferably those things should not be touching.


For some reason, this one is of me and Sacha's dad pretending to eat Mateo for dinner. I'm not sure why, but one of his favorite things to pretend is that he is our snack/meal/etc and that we are about to eat him up. In the interests of realism, we put him on the table for this one, and I grabbed a spoon. Yum!


Here are the kids yesterday at their grandparents' house. Sacha found this hammock chair from when she was little (when, legend has is, she spun around in it so many times that she unscrewed it from the ceiling and the whole thing came crashing down on her head - ouch!) and got her dad to put it up again. Being very careful not to spin the kids, lest we have a modern day recreation of the earlier accident, we gently pushed them back and forth and they loved it.


Finally, some photos of the amazing container garden Sacha put together last weekend. You can see all the containers on our front steps here. They're full of all sorts of veggie starts, including what will one day be mini-pumpkins (who knew you could grow them in containers?), chard, snap peas, bok choy, lettuce, tomatoes, summer squash, chives, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Sacha has the kids excitedly checking every day for more new baby plants, which is very cute. Natalia likes to pet them, saying "baby! baby!" Our front steps are really the only place in our garden that get enough sun to grow veggies, so that's why we went with containers for this. They may look empty now, but we hope to do a lot of eating from them as the spring and summer progress.


Here are our hanging strawberry plants, which will hopefully complement the strawberry patch we started in our old square foot garden box from last year.


And, finally, the star of the show, our new blueberry "bush"! It's a bit scrawny now, but we hope it will grow up big and strong and give us many berries. All those flowers will probably come to nothing this year, because we didn't plant our second bush in enough time for them to cross pollinate each other. Next year, we hope! We could have quite a crop in a couple of years, if we're still in this house! In the meantime, we'll enjoy the bounty of berries at my grandmother's house nearby. Can't wait for summer. Yum!

Another first

Well, we had an interesting weekend. It was supposed to be our first night away from the kids together since Mateo was born. Yes, it's been three and a half years since we went away by ourselves. We never meant for it to be that long, but that's how it turned out. Apa, bless his sainted heart, has become a pro with the munchkins and offered to come over and babysit for a whole weekend, and so, naturally, we said yes! This happened several months ago, but actually getting it scheduled took a bit longer than expected.

Anyway, he came over on Saturday morning and we said goodbye to the kiddos and headed out. There was just one problem. Actually, two. First, I had had an awful week last week, and I mean awful. It turned out, in hindsight, that the decongestant the doctor put me on, to help the antibiotics get in there and clear up my sinus infection, can escalate anxiety in people who are already susceptible to it. Which, as we all know, I am. So, I spent much of the week in tears and on the verge of a panic attack. I finally called the doctor's office to follow up, late in the week, and they were like, um, you need to stop taking that medicine. Which I did, and it seemed to help, although I had gotten myself into quite a state by that point.

However, by that point, the antibiotics had kicked in and the kind I'm on is apparently hard on the stomach. So much so that when I woke up on Saturday morning, after several days of feeling pretty queasy, I felt like I was going to puke. And I did. Not then, no, no. Only after holding it together long enough for Sacha and I to get onto I-5 en route to the beach. Thank goodness she managed to pull over in time, or it would have been even grosser. Great way to start a date weekend, right?

We tried turning around and heading back to Portland, thinking we would just spend the day poking around the city and then find somewhere to spend the night later, but I was in bad shape. My stomach still felt awful, I had barely eaten for several days, the anxiety had never completely resolved, I was besieged with guilt for ruining our first weekend alone in three years, and let's just say that I was not myself. Sacha, bless her heart, suggested that we just scrap our plans and go to urgent care. And so we did. They checked me out, pronounced my ears still full of fluid, gave me a gentler antibiotic to start over with, along with a different decongestant, gave me something to help me calm down, and sent us on our way.

At this point, we could have just given up and gone home and crawled into bed. But we still had at least 24 hours until we needed to get the kids, so we decided to try to regroup. Sacha called around and found a room at a nice hotel downtown. We stopped by home, knowing Apa and the kids were planning to be out, and grabbed me some gentle food for my tummy. Then, we drove downtown and checked into the hotel.

"How was your trip?", the concierge asked, which made us giggle, since we had just driven across the river. Then, when we mentioned the restaurant we wanted to visit that night, he offered to call and get us a reservation. He totally hooked us up with a corner table and we had our second experience of having the chef send out fun little tastes of things just for us. It was just what the doctor ordered after such a rough morning.

After dinner, we enjoyed some time just reading in the blissful quiet of our hotel room, and then, of course, a long night of sleep with no interruptions. We capped it off with massages and breakfast the next day, before heading home to see the kids. In the end, we definitely salvaged the experience and ended up having a really nice time. It was wonderful to have some time to ourselves, and also wonderful to see the kids again. All reports indicate that they had a fun time with Apa. Thanks again, Apa!!

We spent the rest of the day doing family stuff. We took a run together and then went to the garden store to buy supplies for the container garden Sacha had been plotting. And here we are, at Monday again. I'm not going to lie - whenever I get into one of these anxiety trenches, it sometimes takes me some time to dig out - but I hope that I'll continue to feel better, both physically and mentally, given a little more time. And, Sacha and I are already hoping to plan another weekend together. Hopefully the next time will go better right from the beginning!

Blagh

Just as spring is really springing, it seems that our winter of sickness is not yet over. Argh. Poor Sacha is fighting off yet another cold. And I, who thought I was done being sick after that last virus, finally went to the doctor yesterday after three weeks of sinus pressure and an increasingly bad headache. Diagnosis: my very first sinus infection, which probably started way back when I was so congested and has been cooking in there for weeks now. Unfortunately, waiting so long to get checked out allowed my old friend, Anxiety, to also take up residence in my head. I am a complete hypochondriac and there's nothing like weeks of feeling yucky to get my anxious side to take control. I have just been a mess for the past few days, which is no fun for anyone. I hope the antibiotics I'm on will have me feeling better soon, both physically and mentally.

In other news, despite all that, we had a flurry of organizing this weekend that culminated in a big trip to the huge Swedish store that sells lots of stuff. After much furniture assembly, Mateo has a new big-boy bed that will eventually be a bunk bed for both him and his sister, and they both have new storage systems in their rooms.

It's been fun for all of us, because the moms in the family can soooo easily clean up toys now, and because the kids are newly fascinated by all their stuff, since everything is in a new place. Next part of the plan: move Tali from the pack and play into Mateo's old, full-size crib, which we just need to bring up from the basement and put back together. Then, when she's ready, she'll move into Te Te's room and her current room will go back to being a playroom again. And that, my friends, will mean that Sacha and I can get to the bathroom at night again without a big production. Wahoo!

Yes or no

Natalia has been doing some of the cutest things lately. One of my favorites is when I ask her a question about something she might or might not want to do, and , after I don't quite understand what she said in response, I say, "Tali, was that a yes or no?" She then responds, with a big smile on her face, "Yes or no!" She totally knows that's a little joke and you can tell she thinks it's hilarious.

She's also been saying all kinds of new words and even singing songs. Currently, her repertoire includes "Los Pollitos," "Twinkle, Twinkle," and even her ABCs (which is the same tune as Twinkle, Twinkle - who knew?). She's a good little singer and her little singing voice is pretty adorable, at least to this biased mama. Another fave, picked up from her big brother's preschool stylings, is "Siete Dias de la Semana." She also seems to have learned to count to 10, which we think is pretty awesome.

Thanks to having an older brother who loves to hold a pointer like a teacher and run us all through our ABCs, she gets the connection between letters and the ABCs, at least in a general sense. She'll point to a letter, any letter, and say "ABC!" She's saying more sentence-like phrases, too, like "I go in my crib!"

She's picking up more words in Spanish, too. She can name some body parts, and loves to say "Hola!" and "Adios!" (complete with vigorous waving, of course).

Tali has also become quite the jumper. She is a determined little girl and once she realized, a few months ago, that Te Te could jump and she couldn't....well, she set about rectifying the situation. She has been practicing and practicing, getting off the ground with one foot up and one foot planted firmly on the floor. Then, one day, she got it! Now she can really jump, and she is Very Proud. She has the most expressive little face and you can just tell that she is sooo proud of herself.

She seems to be getting taller, although her weight is hanging steady at 20 pounds. She's quite portable that way! Speaking of portable, her new height means that she's nearly grown out of the pack and play that she's always slept in. This has upped the ante on our ongoing debate: get her her own bed and leave the kids in separate rooms or get them bunk beds and finally, finally, regain easy access to the bathroom at night? Big questions.

We love our little Tali. Just wanted to write a quick update of what she's been doing!

El dentista, an x-ray, and other transitions

I took the kids to the dentist last week. As you may recall, the dentist is somewhat of a mythic figure in our house. Mateo has loved everything dental since his first visit with Marshall (the dentist) and Katie (one of the hygienists) about a year and a half ago. I have to say that I love pediatric dentists, too, or, at least, I love ours. The office is full of fun stuff for kids and the hygienists are like preschool teachers with some extra tools. They do an amazing job of making the visit into a fun adventure for kids. While we were there, Mateo got to pick out his own toothpaste flavor, wear cool sunglasses, watch part of a Curious George movie, feel the buzzy toothbrush before it cleaned his teeth, help the hygienist count his teeth, and so on. They go way beyond just making it tolerable, and so we all look forward to going there.

Well, we all do except for Natalia. She hasn't decided to give Marshall the same high regard her brother does, at least not yet. I will say, though, that while she did start screaming the second Marshall's gloved hands touched her face, just like last time, she miraculously stopped and calmed down when the tooth-brushing began. I hope that next time she'll be able to have more fun with it and perhaps get through a whole visit without screaming at all!

Anyway, my point in bringing this up is that Mateo got his first x-rays taken this time. After the pictures were developed, Marshall pointed out to me that our son has rather large adult teeth lurking under his gums. In fact, he described them as "massive." Then, he showed me how Mateo's front four adult teeth are so big that they're all crowded on top of each other under his gums. My first thought upon looking at the x-ray was, "how are those all going to fit into his mouth?"

People, let's hope his face grows a lot before those things come in, or we are going to have one buck-toothed kid! I asked the dentist if there was anything we could do to prepare for the Invasion of the Massive Teeth and he said that we should get ready for braces. Sigh. At least we have many more years of fun pediatric dentistry to look forward to before the adventure of orthodontia begins.

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My other piece of news is that yesterday, Mateo had his first day in which he did not nap. He was up all day, on purpose. His bedtimes have been getting longer and longer and more and more frustrating, and he hasn't been seeming tired even with his new shorter naps. This weekend, a friend was telling me that long, difficult bedtimes can be a sign that the kid is ready to give up napping, so we tried it yesterday. Despite my visions of terrible behavior and a possible mental breakdown on my part, we all did fine! I did let him watch a video while Tali napped, but then we all got going again and had a nice afternoon. And, the best part: he fell asleep before Sacha even finished reading to him at bedtime. Whatever the cost of having a no nap day, the easy bedtime and a quiet house at 7 pm was absolutely priceless.

Of course, today he started acting tired soon after he got up and was a disaster by naptime, so I went ahead and put him down. I think we might try alternating nap and no-nap days for awhile and see what happens. I hope this is the beginning of a smooth transition for us. Smooth transitions in the sleep department have been very difficult for us to achieve, but there's always a first time, right?

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PS: We're sending lots of happy birthday wishes to my sister today, who's celebrating her 30th birthday! Happy birthday, Auntie E!

Roller coaster

We started the day out in such a lovely way that the way the afternoon went is all the more shocking in comparison. Sacha's parents are in town and they and Sacha went out for an extended brunch while the kids and I had a fun playdate with preschool friends. Everybody eventually met up back at home and Mateo did his last Headsprout episode, to much fanfare. I went for a run and then finished making the cake we had promised him for after he finished his last lesson. We were going to eat it up after naptime, and then Sacha and I were going to go out to dinner with friends while her parents babysat the munchkins. The kids went down for naptime, Sacha and her dad went out for a run, and then they came home. Within 15 minutes, all hell had broken loose.

Sacha had been feeling crampy on and off since the morning, but that's pretty normal for her at this time of the month. After she got back from her run, though, it suddenly got much worse. In fact, the pain apparently went from uncomfortable to VERY BAD in about five minutes. Pretty soon, she was curled up in a ball on the couch, moaning loudly and clutching my hand. After a couple of scary minutes, she felt better and we all wondered what to do. Then, the pain came back even worse and pretty soon she was on the floor and it was very scary. It was like she had suddenly rocketed back to being in labor, except without any reason for it. Something was very wrong.

We decided to call 911. Sacha was moaning so loudly that her dad had to step into the next room to hear the 911 operator, who decided to send an ambulance. And a fire truck. They arrived with lights flashing, sirens going, and all that. Luckily, the kids were asleep during all this, because I think it would have been scary for them to see Mommy in so much pain. I know it was scary for me. (As an aside, it was too bad that the moment of the ambulance arriving was due to a crisis, because having a fire truck AND an ambulance arrive at our house with their sirens going would otherwise have been the coolest moment of Mateo's young life.)

Sacha was a bit more coherent by the time the paramedics came in, but she was still feeling awful, and so they decided to take her to the hospital to get checked out. They loaded her onto a stretcher and rolled her right down our front stairs. Our poor next-door neighbor came out on his porch just in time to see all this, which I'm sure was a bit shocking! Then, we rode off to the hospital with Sacha's dad following behind in his car. Sacha's mom stayed with the kids (thanks, Bubby!) and I got in touch with Zenaido, who offered to come over and help out (thanks, Apa!).

This type of situation has always been frightening to me in theory. First of all, obviously, having to call an ambulance is terrifying enough! But this is the type of thing you read about in the paper, where the gay couple goes to the hospital and pretty soon one of them is stuck in the waiting room while the other one is having a health crisis. Even living in a relatively gay-friendly state with good new laws on the books, you still hear horror stories. Adding to my nervousness, the ambulance driver had a religious book resting on his cupholder. However, I am relieved to say that everything went fine. Kai.ser lived up to the great experience we had with them in labor and delivery by being awesome in the emergency department, too. Whew!

By the time we got to the ER and checked in, Sacha was starting to feel better, and within an hour her pain had mostly gone down. After several exams and tests, an ultrasound, and lots and lots of waiting, they decided they weren't quite sure what had happened, but the leading theory involved a ruptured ovarian cyst. Poor baby! She has had a rough afternoon and evening. We're home now and she's resting and will go to bed soon. I'm just so thankful that she's okay. Let's hope for a calmer day tomorrow, shall we?

The lion sleeps tonight

Last fall, when Sacha was having such a rough time at school, Apa started coming over with fun music and videos to dance to. It worked like a charm on Sunday nights, when we started our dinners with family dance parties!

One of Apa's offerings became an instant family hit. It featured an animated hippo singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," accompanied by a dancing dog. Along with another favorite, about a singing gummy bear, the kids started asking for the singing hippo every time Apa came over. At first, it was an occasional thing, but, for our daughter, it soon became an obsession.

For the past several weeks, Tali has wanted nothing more than the hippo song. "Hitto son(g)! Hitto son!" she says, over and over and over. She spent a good chunk of our Arizona vacation begging for "Hitto son! Hitto son!" to various family members. She now associates Apa most of all with the hippo song and almost loses her mind begging for it when he walks through the door. It is the funniest thing ever. Ever. Well, that and the little dances she sometimes does when we relent and show her the video.

Her favorite part of the video is when dog pats its own bottom for a few seconds during its dance routine, and so that's the part she likes to imitate herself. "Hitto son! (furiously pats her own rear) Hitto son! (more patting)" Sometimes she does more of a song and dance after that, and sometimes she just likes to be held so she can admire the musical stylings of the animated hippo. You would fall over laughing if you could see any part of this. However, in the interests of her speaking to me when she's 13 and reading through our blog archives, I won't show any photographic evidence!

I love the random things kids come up with to be obsessed with, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite random kid obsessions so far. Bring on the hippo song!