...And a Space of Her Own...

Our sweet girl, M loves pink, probably just like most of the little girls you know.  So why not do it up pink!  Area rugs have a nice use here.  I've never seen carpet here, just area rugs, and we let each kid pick their own rug.  Our house is tile downstairs, and unusually, wood laminate upstairs.  Either way, it is cold to little toes first thing in the morning, and we're glad she can (literally) jump from bed to this cozy pink rug.

The bedroom windows have wooden shutters that do a pretty good job of keeping out the early morning summer sunlight.  If I don't have them opened by the time our maid arrives, she'll make sure sunlight is pouring in shortly.

I have to point out the naked light bulbs again.  I never in my life have appreciated light fixture as much as I do now.

After the major success of the wall stickers in D's room, we ordered some for the girls from Amazon and DaddyHealy brought them back while on a business trip.  M chose dogs, which was no surprise since she is completely infatuated with the creatures.  I am still trying to convince her that Santa absolutely, positively cannot bring live animals because it is too dangerous and scary for them to ride in the sleigh!  (She doesn't believe me, and plans to ask for one anyway).  Lucky for her, Brazilians love dogs too, and most families have at least one.  There is also a little gang of strays that roam our area, and are fun to watch from within the confines of our fenced in front yard.

For M, too, a place of her own was important.  When we first arrived and lived in our temporary house, she and H shared a room, which I really anticipated working out quite well.  In fact, my long term plan has included putting them together in a room at our house in the US as well.  Unfortunately, it didn't work out nearly as well as I had hoped.  I imagine our issues were compounded by age, H being only 13 months at the time.  When one would wake up (with a  nightmare, cutting a tooth, etc) she would wake the other.  When they napped at the same time, one would distract the other and neither would sleep.  M had no place to set up her toys or dolls without H attacking her scene godzilla-style.  Now I have the peace to say, "If you don't want H to touch it, play it in your room."  I know there are lots and lots of families in the world whose kids share rooms.  At this point in our lives, I am so incredibly grateful that we have the option to separate them, both here, and at home, and give them all their own space.

Just like D's impractical Cars night stand, M was allowed the equally impractical pink furniture.  Oh, how I wish we could take it home.  The only thing that I can think of that would make her happier is a dog of her own (which is about as likely as fitting this dresser into our suitcase).


You can see in the corner plugged in we have a small black voltage inverter and a white noise machine we brought from home.  All of our kids sleep with white noise, which has been a beautiful constant for them, really since birth.  No matter where they are sleeping, bedtime always sounds the same.  Here, especially, white noise has been useful.  It can get pretty loud at times.  When a favorite soccer team scores, fireworks shoot off all over town.  An advertising motorcycle drives by at nap time almost every day blaring announcements over a speaker down our street.  Remember those windows that don't keep out the cold?  They don't keep out the noise either.  These white noise machines just sound like a loud fan running, and it blocks a lot of the outside noise.


M also has a nice size 'closet' for all her adorable clothes and even enough space left over for all the little dress-up items. There is a lot of space in this closet that she can't reach, but that's ok, we have clothes for every season and enough sizes to last our whole stay here, so we need high shelves to store all of that for future use too.  There is no basement, no garage, and the only storage area we have is full of suitcases!  We've also used her closet as a place to display her artwork of the month.  She chooses which to post and when to change, but one has been there since we moved in, her 3 picture-story of the birth of Christ.