Simply Christmas

We had a pretty simple tree this year. I bought a 3 ft Charlie Brown Christmas tree before we left the US, and we made all of our own decorations. The kids had a wonderful time and were so proud of their paper chains, gingerbread men, candy canes and stars. Under the tree, we put the best gift of Christmas, a nativity scene that M made at school.

Festa do Natal

I hope you still have a little Christmas spirit, because I'm finally getting around to posting the kids school Christmas program!

The week before school ended, the kids' school had a Christmas program. The kids had been talking about practicing for it for weeks. Additionally, both kids' teachers has requested certain items for the kids costumes (fabric, shirts, props, etc). Needless to say, with the costumes, practices and so on, it was quite an event!

It included the entire primary school, which is pretty much 2 years old through about 9 or 10 years old. There were also a few performances by older dance troupes from the school, a performance by a band of students and so on. This program started at 8:30 PM. My kids are usually washed, brushed, pajama'd and in bed by 8:30 PM. But as this is Brazil, the whole clock and schedule are shifted a few hours later and the program, scheduled to begin at 8:30 really kicked off closer to 8:50.

Depending on the age of the class, the performances were of a different scale. Older kids did choreographed dances or skits, younger kids mostly paraded around the gymnasium. But every child was in a complete costume. The whole gym was elaborately decorated.

D's class were all dressed as angels and did a little dance with a partner of the same gender. It was so cute, and he was so serious, being sure to do exactly what he was supposed to. Several weeks later he is still singing the song they danced to.

M's class was more along the lines of parading through the gym, which is a lot to ask of a group of 3-year-olds at 10 PM in my opinion! The kids were Santa and his helpers, fairies, dolls, ballerinas, and drummer boys. She was a "yellow fairy." We sent her to her classroom wearing a tulle skirt, tank top, wings and bare feet. Her group walked the perimeter of the gym blowing bubbles. When we picked her up at the end at about 10:30 she was also wearing gold cuffs on her ankles and wrists, stars and glitter in her hair (that lasted for more than a week and 5 shampoos) and lipstick, blush, sparkly powder on her face and lots of eyeshadow.

I am still adjusting to this concept of Brazilian time, but I was amazed to see the teeny tiny kids a part of this program so late at night.

The whole of the program was really amazing to me, especially for a primary school. It was so
well organized and planned. The gym was packed. The program ended with Mary and Joseph parading through with a real brand new baby "Jesus" and all the children following. During that time they had each family in the audience light and hold up a candle. It was beautiful, but hundreds of open flames is not something we'd do in a gym full of people in the US. Unfortunately the kids didn’t get to see any of the program. They were held in their classrooms before and after their parts, because there was no place to seat them in the full gym.

But my favorite part of the program was a skit by some older children. It was all without dialogue. The main characters were an obviously poor family of 6. The mom kissed and waved the dad off to work, then she packed up the older children with baskets of popcorn to "sell" throughout town. Mom cleaned a little and did the laundry and kids came back turning over the money they earned to mom, dad returned with an aching back and handed mom a bag. In it was one very small load of bread, which they broke into 6 pieces, said grace and ate, then laid down to go to sleep. While they were sleeping, Santa came and left a gift at the feet of each person. When they woke on Christmas morning they opened their presents and each family member pulled out a long banner and held it up....their gifts were "Peace," "Faith," "Love," "Health," "Happiness," and "Hope." It was a beautiful message, especially in a place where there is some serious economic depression.

I’d been having trouble with my Christmas spirit, and even though it was hot and humid in the auditorium that night, the program really made a turn for me....and the kids were so proud of it!

A Daily Purchase

Not to brag, but I went to the fruitaria the other day and brought home these gems for just under US $3....total.

Pineapple anyone?

(DaddyHealy said I should also mention that we pay the equivalent of $6.25 for a gallon of gas here...and the price has not changed even 1 cent since we arrived in Mid-Oct.)

Thirty-Five

Having a December birthday can be rough. It's cold and snowy. People always wrap your birthday presents in Christmas wrapping paper. People are often too busy with holiday stuff to remember or to help you celebrate. But, being on the other side of the world shakes things up a bit.

This is how I spent my afternoon....

....in the company of a new friend.

Oh, and there's also that part about how our wonderful maid already cleaned the house, did the laundry, washed the dishes. I got a love note from my husband. I got snuggles from my kids, and a 2 1/2 hour-Happy-Birthday-to-Mommy nap from H. I fit into a bikini that I haven't worn since 2 children ago, and I used it to load up on vitamin D in the pool.....Thirty-Five is looking like a pretty good year.

Our Digs

I promised a few pictures of the inside of our place. The furniture is all rented with the house. (But I now understand why it is orange....the same reason we buy brown at home! It doesn't show the dirt!! Anyway, just to give you an idea:

The livingroom

From the front door looking through the livingroom to the kitchen

D's room

That's all for now.

My Messy Little Fairy

The school Christmas program is coming up later this week. I don't feel a bit Christmassy, with the weather in the 90s and this whole tropical thing we have going on here. But, regardless of what I think, the program is tomorrow. M came home with part of her costume the other day and wore it the rest of the night. I would have normally put it away immediately so nothing happened to it, but when we left school that day, her teacher actually put it on her to wear home. Obviously, she's not that worried about it. M loved it. I love the picture it made:

What is this pose? I have no idea, but can you tell how hot she looks coming home from school?

Have I mentioned yet that the dirt here is red? Maybe it's orange...or maybe burnt orange...anyway, it's a mess. Our shoes are orange. We leave the windows open most of the day, and therefore the house is orange too. If you mop, the water is orange. If you dust, the cloth is orange. At school the sandbox is red/orange dirt. The kids come home filthy most days. This particular day, M came home from school covered in orange grime...... and a tutu.

Check out her "dancing" here. She looks so intent.

I can't wait to see how this all comes together tomorrow night.

Neighbors

We live along a forest preserve, and DaddyHealy likes to say that looking out of 3 out of 4 sides of our house, it looks like we are in the middle of the Amazon. It may be a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. There are a lot of tropical plants here, and we only have direct neighbors on one side. But the forest is host to a whole variety of neighbors.....including this guy and his friends.

In this picture he was just hanging out in our side fenced in yard. I would say he's about 3 ft long head to tip of tale. That sounds bigger than it actually is, because the tail is over half the length. D thinks they look like chameleons, but they don't change color. There are lots of them around. They cross the road all the time (a whole new age of "Why did the XX cross the road" jokes going on in our house), and we find them just about everywhere in our neighborhood, and sometimes in the middle of town.

I guess he was looking for food. I have seen them hauling away grocery sacks of garbage from the neighbors. Our yard is fenced in with a concrete wall probably 18" or 2 ft high. I've wondered how they get in there, but we watched him till he left. He leapt up to the top of the concrete and snuck under the metal rails on the fence. Amazing! This picture is horrible, but I had to post it anyway. I doubt I'll ever get a chance to capture this scene again. he is totally airborne, and eventually grabs on the concrete with his claws and pulls the rest of the way up.

Leaping Lizards!!! (I couldn't resist that comment--maybe it's been a while since you saw Little Orphan Annie, but it reminded me of her.)

Our maid told me not to let the children play with them. (oh, huge danger of that....so glad she warned me....) They are not aggressive, but of course if threatened, or really hungry, they would bite.

The Dangers of a Cactus Patch

Don't worry, this post is not what you think.

If you've heard from D at all about our house, then you've heard about the cactus patch. That's what he tells everyone. "We have a house with a pool and a cactus patch." It is a nice little feature, one that we would never have on the Big River. But it poses some problems. We've talked a lot about not touching it. We look from afar. It's a nice view from the pool, and just below my bedroom window.

Here is our cactus patch, and above it, my bedroom window.

The view from my window is a great one.

Looking from my window down.....

Take a closer look.......

In case you are wondering, there are no screens on windows here. (It's highly uncommon to have screens) We have the dark levered shutters you saw in the first picture, and glass single pane sliding windows behind it. (Don't worry Grandmas, they are too high up for a child to fall out of.) This unfortunate incident happened when DaddyHealy was looking out the window while holding H (who'd just woken from a nap) and oops, there went the pacifier! And believe me, it was a chore getting it down!

My Big Kids

Our blue-eyed girl is getting longer curls. It must be the sun, or the diet or maybe just her age, but I cannot believe how long it is now. Isn't she a sweetie? I would say of all of us, she's having the biggest adjustment issues, although she is unaware of it. Her words say she loves it here and everything about our lives right now. Her unconscious is struggling, though. We are not perfect parents. We don't understand all her issues, and we don't have unending patience, but we do our best to comfort, cuddle, love, reassure.

He is growing up so fast. This is last year's Halloween costume, and the very first thing he did when he opened his box from the shipment was put it on. He's still reading all-the-time. I have to pry books out of his hands to eat, get dressed, clean up, put on shoes, or whatever. Maybe it's his comfort, his constant. We've recently found out he gets car sick, and the streets in our fine town are not exactly a smooth ride, so books have been banned from the car. At home, though, he reads on. One of his favorite "books" at the moment is the Lego catalog. I'm not kidding. He reads it thoroughly, cover to cover, every few days. He knows the names of sets and characters from movies we'd never consider showing him (Star Wars, Harry Potter) because he's memorized the details from the Lego sets. He likes to play a little game with the magazine...guess which set on this page is my favroite. He would play it on all 72 pages of the catalog if he could find someone to sit with him that long. He apparently needs more reading material. He has no idea how hard I worked before we left to anticipate his reading level for the next two years. There are many things that are scarce here in Brazil and Horizontina (tortillas!) but books in English have to be at the top of the list. I have a stash. I cannot wait to cuddle and read. That thought actually makes me miss winter. Well, maybe not yet.

Brief

It's been in the 90s, but today is the 70s. I'm baking like mad, (muffins, cookies, banana bread, croutons, breadcrumbs, lasagna).....or I'd spend some of this nap time catching up the blog. I'll have to do that on a hot day! Stay tuned. I have some pictures of great natural learning environments, waterfall visit, global fun, and the inside of our house...all coming soon. I PROMISE!

The Kids

So I've been being hounded about not having pictures of the cuties on the blog, so in lieu of a good story for today, it's the kids:

Delivery Day

Well, today turned out to be delivery day for our shipment. The kids were so excited their Portuguese lesson was a mess.....no one could concentrate. I can't really blame them. They've been so good about it for the past 5 weeks, regularly remembering a favorite thing from the US and asking if it is in the shipment. As long as I said yes, they never fussed about wanting it sooner, or wishing they'd brought it in a suitcase, etc. I have been amazed at how patiently they've waited for this.

So today I took out two boxes, the ones each kid packed for themselves. The rest will wait until tomorrow, the next day, the next week. The kids think they are in heaven. I can't bare to send them to school today, so we are taking a "personal day," taking the day off to play, play, play and maybe go for ice cream to celebrate! I never thought I'd be the parent to let my kids "play hookie" but this is Brazil and the rules are different here, at least they are for me.

I'm actually a little embarrassed, looking at D's room full of toys spread out like a toy store after a tornado. Although I've been very excited about downsizing and living with less chaos and clutter here in Brazil, when we were packing I had a hard time leaving some certain things behind. I felt bad for the kids for a large amount of toys that we could not bring. Now I cannot imagine why on Earth we need all the things we brought. It seems over the top. They noticed too....I've heard them talking with each other this morning about the massive amount of toys they never even knew they had. We were hoping to be changed in this way here. So why am I surprised that we are?

Our Total Shipment (except the bed, which belongs to the house)

Learning As We Go

Not that I've ever personally had issue with foreigners in the US, but now I have even more sympathy for the people in front of you in line at Walmart giving the clerk a blank stare when she asks them debit or credit.

My Portuguese is a cobbled together mess of vocabulary and verbs (in the wrong tense, I'm sure) that sometimes come across in an intelligible manner, enough to get what I need anyway. Usually, at the grocery store I don't talk. I smile and nod. I know how to ask where something is, but I don't understand the answer. I found the handy bar code reader machine so I can check prices without words, and when they ask if I want a carry out (at least I think that's what they are asking...) I just smile and the boy usually follows me out with my groceries. I can ask the butcher for a half kilo of 1st grade ground beef, but if he says anything other than "anything else?" I just smile. I know what they are thinking. I've heard it many times in the US. It turns out,even though I don't speak Portuguese very well, I'm actually not an idiot, and I am really trying to learn it. Hopefully, next month I'll be better, and by winter (remember, it's spring here) I'll be able to communicate whatever I need.

Today I registered at the church. My end of the conversation went like this:
"I want join church."
"I come one month ago. I live Brazil 2 years."
"I have husband, 3 kids."
" We are Catholic, Baptism, yes."
"I want envelope for tithe."
"I want paper with Our Father and The Creed in Portuguese."
"Thank you. Bye."

They were so nice though. Well, I was holding H too, and Brazilians love babies. I'm sure that helped my case a lot. :)

It's Raining, It's Pouring, Our Hamper is Overflowing....

So it's been raining for days. Truth be told, I don't mind it. It's nice to have a break from the warmer days, and I'm glad to actually pull up a blanket in the middle of the night. Apparently, though, it's causing a bit of stress on our maid. ("Wait...you're what?!" I know, more on that later.) This is how I found our garage yesterday afternoon. Good thing we park outside anyway. There are no clothes dryers in most houses here, including ours--that means you launder every day or run out of clothesline.

Our Little House in the Bairro (Neighborhood)

Well, we've been waiting for our air shipment to arrive in order to get some pictures off the camera and onto the blog, but that smart DaddyHealy figured out a workaround.

This is where we are living (for the time being). It's a little house by American standards, and the smallest house of the Ex-pats living here now. But we were the last family to do house hunting here, so our choices were limited. We have a contract to stay here until January, at which time we may move to something bigger. In the mean time, it's a nice little house. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, an eat in kitchen and a livingroom. You can see the front porch and the entrance to the house on the left of the porch. Under the main house is the garage, which we are using as storage for now. We fit in this house just perfectly. Then again, we don't have any of our stuff yet.....



Below is the back of the house, and the all important swimming pool. (When DaddyHealy came on the house hunting trip, which I declined to attend, I told him, "Just get me a house with a pool." He did very well.) :)

You can also see what Daniel calls our "cactus patch," one of his favorite elements of the house. In this back yard, we also have a small patch of "green vegetables", parsley and green onions, which are used quite often, and usually together in Brazilian cooking.


We call this our "cabana." Here we have a bathroom, an outdoor cooking area complete with sink and Churrasco pit (sort of a barbeque of sorts, but something Brazilians take very seriously). We also hang our clothes out to dry here. I love it. It looks so tropical! :)


The picture below shows our front yard. The owner did all the landscaping of the house himself, and I think he did a wonderful job. He also takes care of it for us. Handy, no mowing, trimming, weeding, or cleaning the pool. Have I said yet today that "Life is Good" ?!? You can also see the fence that goes around our house. It is very typical in Brazil. There is a man gate (with intercom) and a powered gate for the car to enter. So far, we just park on the street.


Again, here is the single most important reason we chose this house. And we love it!

The Uncluttered Kitchen

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am currently working under very simple conditions in my kitchen. We have a variety of my favorite things in route in our air shipment, but for now, I am trying not to duplicate what I have coming. My cooking utensils include: a medium frying pan, a very large pot and a smaller one, a slotted plastic spoon, a cutting board and knives and a pyrex-type glass dish. I also bought a disposable oven sheet, which I cover in foil and use over and over (I have not yet found anything resembling cookie sheets). It’s amazing what you can do with that short list. I have learned to cook quite effectively. I have no measuring cup, but I have a plastic cup that I know is 500 ml, so I use that and guestimate. I have started to finely chop instead of shred ingredients. As many of you know, it IS possible to peel vegetables with just a knife. I am becoming quite skilled at popping popcorn in a pot on the stove. I cook in batches. I cook ahead and reheat vegetables in the microwave. I mix vigorously by hand. I drain pots with the lid or the slotted spoon, which by the way, is passable as a spatula. I do a lot more prep work. But it is so simple.

It makes me wonder why I have a kitchen back on the Big River full of items for specialized purposes. Granted, it takes me more time to chop my onion with a knife than if I had my handy Pampered Chef chopper. A spatula would be useful, as would a scraper, a steamer, a colander. I miss my food processor. I am sure they would all save me time. But do you know how much time I spend digging through the utensil drawer looking for an item? ZIP. None. There’s only 3 things in it.

The Way Things Work

So, here we are a million miles from home (okay, not a million, but DaddyHealy is going to have to fill in that number for me later). The company offers us a pretty nice setup. They rent us a furnished house. They lease us a car, and they pay for private school tuition for our children and as many Portuguese lessons as any of us want to take. Our end of the deal is much easier: We enjoy life, make friends, and learn the language and culture. Most importantly, we support our Daddy, who works hard, bringing his expertise and also his awesome communication & people skills to try his best to keep and improve the flow of information between the company in the US and here. He’s doing very similar work as when in the US. He manages a group of Brazilian engineers (who blessedly speak better English than we do Portuguese) working on combine (specifically headers) design.

We are officially here on a two year assignment. However, that doesn’t mean we have a plane ticket home for October 11, 2013. It’s a general time period. We do know our Brazilian visas expire mid-September 2013, so we’ll have to be home by then. Obviously, the company paid our plane tickets here & back, and also one trip home for a visit during our 2 years here.

Believe it or not, the company considers 2 years a short term assignment. Therefore, they recommend we keep our home and personal belongings in the US (and we daily thank God for the blessing of our amazing friends who are helping us maintain it). Since our expenses are basically covered here, it’s a logical choice. In addition to what we brought with us on the plane (which, believe me, was a LOT), the company ships us an air shipment of about 200 cubic feet of items we chose to send. In our case it includes books, toys, computer, clothes, more books, some gifts, shoes, books, craft supplies, bicycles, kitchen items and so on. Oh, and did I mention books? Honestly I’d have to guess about a quarter of our space was filled with books. That shipment arrives between 2-6 weeks, lately it seems to be leaning toward the 6 week end. Until then, we have what we brought in our suitcases, which as I mentioned is an amazing amount.

Our plane tickets allowed us each two 70 lb bags, a carry-on, plus a personal item. That is 20 items total, plus 2 carseats. We brought 20 (knowing it would be all we have to live on for up to 6 weeks). We strategically packed clothes for spring and summer, toys, books, language materials, school supplies, laptop computers, paperwork, work items & documents, diapers, a very few kitchen items, bedding & towels, toiletries, medicines, about 15 stuffed animals plus blankies that are “required” for some family members to sleep, and that about sums it up. At any rate, it took a 15 passenger van to haul our family of 5 to and from the airport!

So now we enjoy what we have and await our shipment. We’ve purchased some things we know we’ll need (and did not ship) such as garbage cans, dishes, cups, utensils and a few pots. Amazingly, we are doing just fine. No one has complained of boredom, or even of missing anything from home. We have no TV and I don’t think anyone has noticed. I’m kind of sorry one is coming in the shipment. It’s peaceful without it. I imagine the Christmas morning we will have when that 200 ft3 arrives.

One of the things I’ve anticipated the most about this experience is the simplicity of life we will experience here. It is not a harried culture. People don’t seem over-scheduled and family and relationships are very important. Everyone is very laid back. Being late (which it seems I often am these days) is never a problem. We will have less stuff….in a good way, and less commitments too. Considering that, a tiny bit of me is dreading the chaos of all the additional stuff once the shipment arrives. We are surviving quite nicely on what we have. Perhaps this feeling of blissful simplicity will wear off just in time for our shipment to arrive. That would be good timing.

How We Ended Up So Far South

Well, I’m at “home” with a sleeping baby, two kids at school and not much else to do. Finally, blogging time! I have so many blogs running around in my brain, I’m going to have to just start somewhere. Here is a little background on how we ended up here.

An international assignment is something we’ve talked about for a long time. In fact, before I was even pregnant with D, I made a trip to this very town for the company and took loads of pictures to show DaddyHealy as a potential temporary location for us. We asked to be put on “the list” of potential expatriates (a word is essentially defined as an emigrant. We usually shorten it to “ex-pat” and use it to refer to ourselves and other non-natives on a temporary assignment.)

Seven or so years later, the town looks very much the same. I would guess it has around 15,000 people, and there are a few larger towns within 45 minutes of here, but no major metropolitan areas nearer than 6 hours. That is one of the things I really like about it here. There is no McDonalds. There is no “American school” or “English school.” We cannot hide behind a neighborhood that is like a mini homeland (a little American Village to make us feel at home as you might see a China Town in large US cities). We just have to mingle, to learn, to adapt, and most of all, speak Portuguese.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for the comforts of home, but in my eyes this whole experience would be a waist if we didn’t take advantage of being somewhere new. From my past experiences abroad, when the familiar is available, it is hard to avoid. When it is not available, you really begin to experience things and appreciate the culture. That’s what I want for myself, what I want for my marido (husband), for my fihlos (children).

A New Chapter...

This week we begin a new chapter...we don't have a title yet, but we move into a new home, in a new country, a new culture, a new language.

We have been here only 5 days and we have learned so much:
1. You can communicate almost anything with a few basic vocabulary words and a lot of sign language.
2. Everyone here loves babies, especially our baby!
3. When you go to a Catholic mass, it doesn't matter what language they are speaking, you know exactly what is going on.
4. Wal-Mart is everywhere (though here it is called "National," it is owned by the same parent company and they use the same logo).
5. The food here is really, really good (unless you are 5).
6. When you live here, every night is bath night.
7. Tom & Jerry is funny in Portuguese too.

Everyone is friendly, everyone tries to help us. The kids love it. The weather is beautiful, sunny, blue skies and 80s every day. They have phenomenal fruit. We are staying in a hotel and eating in restaurants but ready to get into our house (which has a pool and a banana tree!). We move later this week into the house. We're anxious to get settled and into a routine, start school and language training and so on. I have spent the last 2 months practicing "letting go" as a parent. I still need more practice. :)

Modern Day Novelties

I remember when baby carrots first came out. They were so cute and handy! No peeling, no chopping, and best of all, ready to eat healthy snacks right from the fridge! They were a treat. We didn't use them exclusively, of course, because they were more expensive than their peel-bearing longer cousins: the carrot. But we had them occasionally and we loved them.

Fast forward about 20 years....As a busy mom, I cannot justify peeling and cutting carrots (the hands down winner for favorite veggie in our house). Baby carrots may be 50% more expensive than traditional carrots, but we're talking less than $2 on a grocery order. Baby carrots rule in our house. That is, they did rule, until my munchkins-turned-shopping helpers noticed "those big huge carrots like Bugs Bunny eats" at the grocery store. They begged and pleaded to try them, and they absolutely loved them! I still, however, love the convenience of baby carrots.

I have this little shopping sanity saver: If you are a good listener, patient and helpful at the grocery store, you can choose an item to purchase. There are restrictions, of course, but we usually do our prize browsing in the produce aisle, or the cereal aisle where they choose something they consider a treat...like blueberries or raisin bran. Lately, it has been big, giant bugs bunny carrots. So I've dusted off my vegetable peeler and moved it to the front of the utensil drawer.

Big carrots are not the only surprising attraction at our house. On a recent family trip which included a hotel stay, the kids were absolutely taken by the bar soap! Come to think of it, they pretty much only know liquid soap. It quickly became an obsession (especially for M), and we brought home the half used hotel soap for her to continue to enjoy. Even the Easter Bunny brought both kids bar soap in the Easter Baskets (smart bunny!)

It really seems we've taken the old "the toddler likes the box better than the toy" bit a little too far.

A Mother's Plight

I think it is every mother’s plight to bear the pain of her child. I remember the honest physical pain I felt when D broke his leg. Also how I ached inside as I bandaged M from many a wound. But by far the deepest pains I have borne with my children are pains of the heart.

On D's last day of preschool on the prairie I deeply felt his ache over leaving his beloved teacher behind as we moved on to new pastures. When M cried and cried over missing her pink bear one night when we realized she had left it at D's preschool earlier that day, I cried with her. When one is struggling with developmental milestones, with missing Daddy, or from pure childhood overload, a mother feels it so strongly with the child cuddled in her arms.

Most of the time there is nothing I can do but hold them and empathize. Occasionally, I can distract and a time or two I have been able to lighten the burden.

On a recent cold and crummy afternoon, D, M & I were all cuddled under a blanket reminiscing about our house on the prairie and all the people, places and things we missed about it. On the list were things I expected: the cat, the big sandbox, the farmer and his hay baler, the friends; and things I didn't expect: the wildflower patch, the gravel road, the clothesline. The clothesline? I didn’t even know they realized or remembered it. But yes, I miss the clothesline too, so we decided to do something about it, and so it became our afternoon activity. Amid laughter and pride and sheer delight, we strung up our wash and basked in our accomplishment.

Milestones

Well, I'm in trouble. H is getting precariously close to crawling. I have done everything humanly possible to prevent/delay this milestone, but to no avail. She keeps getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth and I know any day she is going to figure out that one last detail of propulsion. A day I dread, to be sure.

It's not that I hope to hold back my children indefinitely. In fact, I wasn't always this way. When D was an infant, I religiously read every baby and childrearing book or magazine I ran across. I memorized the details of each expected milestone and panicked if D hadn't reached them by the earliest end of the age range. I did everything I could to encourage milestones like rolling, crawling, walking, talking...

By the time M came along I didn't have the time or necessity to read and memorize all those details, but certainly when I realized other 8 month olds were crawling, I worked with her to accomplish the task....putting toys just out of her reach, helping her get into the right position, getting on the floor and encouraging her in her efforts.

The third time around I have no need, nor desire, to hurry these developments. A crawling baby means baby gates. A crawling baby means tiny legos left on the floor will be found and ingested. A crawling baby means a lot of extra work for a mommy. And for that, I am in no hurry!

This is what Zero Looks Like

If you know much about babies, you'll know doctors like to keep close tabs on their growth. Each doctor visit (5 in the first year) they measure height, weight and head circumference and chart them against the average baby in the country (a percentile ranking). When you have a porker like D you call the grandmas after each visit and brag that his is a strong and healthy BIG boy. When you have a mini like H, after each appointment you call and say "She's still tiny!"

Currently she is a ZERO.... I like to say that according to the charts there are no baby girls her age in the US smaller than she is.

Take a look...this is what ZERO looks like!



She doesn't look like she's missed too many meals to me...

Book Worm

Sometimes I think D was born holding a book. His reading ability continues to amaze me. From the first time that I realized he could pick up a new book and read it without help (about a year ago--at 4 yrs 4 months), I knew God had given him a very special gift. Language in general is his forte...and early talker, a big vocabulary, and now reading.

I like to challenge him, see what he can read and actually comprehend. I love picking out new books at the library and having him read them to me. Then I quiz his comprehension. My favorite part, though, is how he reads with such animation. If you have listened to many young kids read, you know it's rather monotonous. Not so with D. All of his characters have unique voices and amazing facts are read with great emphasis. That is the benefit of having two highly animated parents, I guess!

On days he doesn’t go to preschool he takes a "quite time" in his room while the girls nap. Often during that time he builds legos or reads. Last week I happened upon him sprawled on his bed reading a chapter out of "Little House in the Bog Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (one of my personal favorites, by the way!) He was honestly reading it. Flabbergasted once again, I listened to him read with full understanding, sounding out the few words he didn't know. The best part, though, was that I couldn't drag him away from it. Nap time was over, he walked down the stairs still reading, snack time began and he brought the book to the table...

More than his ability, though, I am delighted for his love of reading. Long may it continue!

Felicitations

It's nice to have friends with a sense of humor....

Pink Bear (and M), received the following greeting in the mail this week.

Called...

Well, for those of you who follow the life of our beloved Pink Bear, you may find it interesting that today DaddyHealy was invited to the Baptism of Pink Bear. (Out of curiosity I asked, and it was indeed a Catholic church.)

M lead the congregation of one in a special song:
"And the Glory for God,
and the Baptism,
Glory for God and Mary and Jophes, and baby Jesus..."

Then they took a nap at their "church."

Pink Bear

Everyone has a favorite. For M it is "Pink Bear." That is her (or his, depending on the day) official name. It's been the friend she has carried everywhere since she was old enough to have a good grip. I'm grateful pink bear is tiny, as she has definitely been around the block a few times. She is also, of course, M's best bedtime friend. In fact, many a trip to M's room in the middle of the night are to answer frightened desperate cries that turn out to be "I can't find Pink Bear."

I have overheard, at times, Pink Bear misbehave and get scolded and punished in a strikingly similar way to my discipline measures for M. When it's thunder storming, Pink Bear is scared (even though M is not). Pink Bear doesn't like no dessert in Lent. After she got her flu shot, M told Daddy that Pink Bear cried even though I seem to remember tears falling from my little girl's face. M puts Pink Bear to bed with the same stories that I read her, and not surprisingly Pink Bear always asks for one more story, and M always tells him that it's already past his bedtime, and maybe tomorrow. (sounds rather familiar).

Pink Bear is also vividly alive in M's imagination. I have been told:
When Pink Bear was a baby, he didn't like squash.
One time, pink bear flew in a hot air balloon.
When Pink Bear was little, one time he went to heaven, he had angel wings.
...among others.

M cracked me up today before her nap when she decided to read her bedtime stories herself. Following our example she read me the title and author:
"Sweet Dreams" by PinkBear.com

I couldn't resist having a few of her 3-year pictures with Pink Bear.

Japan Update

Thanks to all of those who sent up prayers, I have contacted all my friends in Japan and all are safe. However, several are really not all that far from Fukushima and the nuclear plants. It continues to concern me (and them!).

A friend in Tokyo recently told me things are "getting back to normal." They can get most supplies(...there had been a shortage of bread, water, milk, etc), they are still experiencing rolling blackouts, 3 hrs each day, and try to conserve power as much as possible, only using it when necessary. The trains (the primary means of transportation there) are running on a short schedule. They are concerned about the radiation, of course. Please continue to keep the people of Japan in your prayers.

It's a Small World, After All

This is not my typical kind of post, but I'm feeling rather compelled to share the sinking I felt in my stomach Friday morning when I heard the news of the destruction of the quake and tsunami in Japan.

You may, or may not know my history with Japan, dating back to hosting a Japanese exchange student in high school in 1994-1995. I studied Japanese in college, joined the "Japan Club," made many Japanese friends, studied in Japan for a year myself in 97-98, lived with a host family for a year, travelled and made friends all over, returned to the US and lived with several more Japanese roommates until graduation. In college, most certainly my best friends were Japanese.

I have been back to Japan 3 times since graduation. I have been visited by many Japanese friends in my "adult life." I have been to weddings of two of my very good friends. I have even given birth to a child on the exact same day as one of my close Japanese friends. We exchange pictures, emails, Christmas gifts....regularly. They are family to me.

So, when I saw the video clips, it wasn't just shock and disbelief but utter fear for my friends. When I saw the faces of the victims, I saw the faces of friends. I fired off a string of emails, but the infrastructure being what it is right now, replies have been slow, and in one case I'm still waiting. I have friends across the country, and also along the eastern coast. And they have family and friends everywhere.

One of my friends in Tokyo replied:

"...the earthquake was terrible. I was on the thirteen floor and
could not stand on the floor at the time. The big wave was lasted long time and
happen again and again.
We hid under the desk and wait till the earthquake calmed down. I was so scared."

You can truly sense her terror in her words. She is still often without power and waiting to hear from friends of her own in Sendi and elsewhere.

My mom said the whole point of exchange students is to "humanize" people in other countries. In other words, we're not just saying "oh, the poor Japanese people!" We're saying "Is my family ok?!"

We financially support a fine relief organization in all of the major natural disasters over the recent years. I hope you will do the same. And pray. Please Pray.

When the Cold Wind Blows

You might have thought I was kidding during those snow days a few weeks back when I said we were going to go on an imaginary vacation. We most certainly did. And it amazed me, as it usually does, how D & M both latched on to this concept and my few simple ideas chained into 3 days of amazing fun and memories. They came up with most of it....I lent a hand, found supplies, and turned some impossible ideas into possible ones. But I give the credit for this post to the under 6 crowd. This was their vacation.

They packed their suitcases....I mean STUFFED them with everything from their dressers. When they brought them down we reviewed the contents, which allowed some good Q&A like Momma: "Where are we going?"
D: "On a cruise, like Grammy!"

Momma: "Then why did you pack sweatshirts and long pants?"

M: "Because it's cold!"

Momma: "Do you know where Grammy's cruise is going? Grammy is in the Caribbean, it's warm there." We looked at a map, the proximity of the islands to the equator and D explained to M quite knowledgably about the temperature variance between here and there. "In fact," I added, "I bet Grammy is wearing her swimsuit today."

And up the stairs tore 4 little feet, second later returning waving swimsuits over their heads like pirates proudly displaying the Jolly Roger. I asked what else you would need on a sunny vaca, and they thought sunglasses. We found some leis in the Halloween box, and they were ready to start the festivities.

For the rest of the week they asked me about cruises..."What do they eat for lunch on a cruise?" so we had pineapple for dessert. "Who drives the ship?" so we appointed D captain and made him a badge. "Does it hurt the fish when the ship sails over them?" so we watched Finding Nemo to find out. "Can you jump off the ship to go swimming?" I don't recommend it, but the ships have several pools...so we decided to check out our ship's pool (also known as the big jacuzzi tub). They donned their swimming suits and splashed for almost 2 hours.

Later, D wanted to go snorkeling. We don't actually own snorkel equipment, or I'd have let them try in the tub. D suggested bendy straws....awesome imagination! To make it more interesting, I thought we needed some fish to look at so I outlined some generic sea life shapes on a loooong piece of butcher paper and let them paint it. That was a 2 hour activity in itself, and I can't even tell you how long, or how many times they snorkeled....
We had popsicles. We sat in lawn chairs and read books. We observed the ship's "mandatory afternoon rest period" and retired in our "cabins" for an after lunch snooze. D & M put on an evening stage show for me. (It was titled "The Beanie Baby Show" and starred lots of tiny stuffed friends.) We even had a buffet lunch one day and a waiter served fancy lunch another day, for which we all dressed up in our nice clothes.

They are already planning our next snow day. They want to go to Disney World. That might be a bit more challenging to create at home....With any luck I'll have untill next winter to plan that one.