Sozinho

This word, "sozinho" is one of my favorite Portuguese words.  It means alone, but the nuance is something more like "a little bit alone."  As opposed to completely alone, I guess.  I hear it a lot, and use it almost as much.  Baby H likes to eat her food sozinho (in other words, she holds the spoon and nobody, I mean nobody can help her).  M doesn't like to stay in school sozinho.  She wants to go to D's class, or have me stay with her.  And this week, were are staying here sozinho, because DaddyHealy is "home" or "away" depending on how you look at it.  Regardless he is in the States, and we remain here.

I've been asked a lot, by Brazilains and expats alike, how things are going.  I get lots of offers for help.  People have been so kind to look out for us.  For me, though, this week has signified a bit of independence (and enlightened me to a bit of dependence) I have here in Brazil.  Before DaddyH left, I asked him to do 2 things: withdraw some money from our bank account and fill the car with gas.  These are 2 things I either don't know how to do or have just never attempted.  He's only gone 9 days, I can survive on a tank and one ATM withdrawal. 

I was feeling pretty accomplished, considering that DaddyH arrives home in just a few days and we're doing just fine.  I'm letting M do the dishes (she volunteered) and they are clean enough.  D reads to baby H so I can make supper.  I survived some minor crises all by myself.  Yesterday I was granted the opportunity to just suck it up and take care of the biggest spider I've ever killed in my life.  (I am sure it was comical from an outside perspective).  I was feeling pretty proud of myself, until I talked to an expat friend who had just used a broomstick to maim and kill a bat that was creeping about her house.  I'm not feeling quite as impressed with myself now, but still....we're surviving sozinho.

The first night DaddyH was gone, I asked the kids to make a list of everything they wanted to do and eat during this little hiatis.  D was determined to scribe:

We're making our way through, but we'll need to pick up the pace if we're going to finish by Sunday night! We ordered pizza, we stayed up late watching a movie, we baked, we went to the park, today we're pretending to be on vacation. Unfortunately I don't think we're going to swim, which was the #1 item on the list. The only time it's been warm enough the kids were at school.