32

So today I turn 32. I want to use this opportunity to start and continue a few things, one of which is this blog.

This weekend was one of the nicest birthday weekend's ever! We had a wonderful family dinner on Friday, followed by family game night. We are trying to plan family events and outings every weekend since we already know when Freddie will deploy again (end of April until August). Friday we attempted family bingo & pizza night at Chayla's school. It was too crowded so we left and opted for Armands pizza followed by Trivial Pursuit- Lord of the Rings edition. I know it's cheesy, but we are big fans of the movies.

Freddie made an appointment for me at a nice hair salon and I finally got a haircut that I love. Last year's haircut made me look like a soccer mom and I came home crying. Later that evening when I got in the car for our dinner date I came across a box with a beautiful pair of pearl earrings. We had a delicious dinner at Ceviche, a place in downtown Silver Spring. Then today I got a delicious breakfast, beautiful cards from the kids and a pair of gold earrings from Chayla. After an awesome workout I came home to birthday cupcakes and they all sang for me. Mateo was so excited for me. I wish I would've taken video. The final present was a beautiful book published by the NY Times that documents Obama's historic road to the White House. The book was a reminder to me of all the change the country has experienced and the good things I have in my life.

I'm grateful I had such a wonderful birthday with my beautiful family. Here's to many more! Cheers!

Vegging out

Mateo was sick since Thursday and I thought I had avoided catching it, but alas, I did not avoid it. I woke up feeling like crap but since we had accomplished so much this weekend I decided it was ok to veg. We all woke up late and eventually we all snuggled up in bed to watch The Incredible Hulk. I think Chayla and I enjoyed it more than Mateo. He likes the nicer version of the Hulk; the one that gets excited about "weekends, sunny days, and the ice cream truck." It really is a quote from his book.

No word from Freddie yet. These last few days are going by so slowly. Since I haven't heard from him even by email, I'm worried that he won't be back for a while more. He just better be back by Dec 23rd because we have tickets to PR and I am getting the heck out of Dodge and on to tropical paradise!

ABC's and F

How good it feels to have a clean and organized house. First room to suffer a purge was Mateo's room. I hadn't done anything in his room since...I don't know when. He still had 12M clothes in his drawers and baby gear in his closet. I made a nice pile of stuff to give my sister-in-law who will add another Santiago to the family next summer. I sorted clothes by size and what I would keep for the next boy (which I am determined to have) and stuff to give away. As I was putting stuff in the attic I found a whole other bin full of clothes a friend had sent to me when Mateo was one. I had forgotten about it and now he has twice as many clothes as he'll ever need for a two year old. I rearranged his room to make the most of the very small space and I finally hung up the wall decorations I bought before he was born. As I laid him to bed last night he said, "thank you for cleaning my room mami." He finally has a room.

I continued the furious cleansing in my room, except there was so much s$*%t everywhere that I only managed to pick up my clothes & change the bed sheets as I watched Big Love, the HBO series on polygamists. I love cable shows like Six Feet Under, the Tudors, and Dexter, especially b/c they are on demand. I digress.

Chayla was very intrigued at my ability to organize. She is quite the organizer herself so she pays attention to that type of stuff. I offered to organize her room as long as she promised not re-organize everything the minute I left the room, which used to be the case in Austin. So I spent the better part of the day transforming her room and discovering that she isn't as organized as I thought. It was all superficial! She had a wide variety of bags full of junk stuffed in various containers. The bookshelf did not have books on it and her floor was littered with remnants of her arts & crafts projects. Lord. I told her that the key to keeping organized is patience. Instead of stuffing to get things out of sight, she had to think about what she was doing and putting items in their place. We'll see how long this lasts.

Mateo played around the house as Chayla and I worked. He was pretty good today. We found out that he could sing the alphabet song by himself. I'll post the video as soon as he lets me take it! I also discovered that he picked up the unsavory language I use in the car. I hate driving in DC- people are SLOW! I guess Mateo figured out that the F-word is used after a moment of frustration. When he couldn't find his magnetic letter A that flew into the living room after Chayla kicked it, he expressed his frustration with a big, "F*#%, I can't find it mom!" Boy, did I underestimate his speaking abilities.

Post Thanksgiving

Yesterday was a bit hysterical. At first it was smooth sailing as I cooked up a storm. I was so inspired by the Puerto Rican dishes I was making, I put on some music and was dancing in the kitchen. As the pernil roasted in the oven, I fried up the plantains for mofongo (which eventually just turned into Puerto Rican stuffing b/c I couldn't make it into balls). I really got into mashing up the platanos with the bacon and garlic in the pilon I got in Brazil. What a great time. Until Mateo rolls up into the kitchen as I was trying to cook the arroz con gandules. The first step to this dish is vital. If you don't get the seasoning right, the rice just taste like rice. So in walks Mateo and begins having a fit, pulling my leg, screaming, hitting me. I don't even know why. I eventually put him in time-out until I could finish. Then I go "talk" to him but he was not interested in what I had to say. Then Chayla was skulking about since she was annoyed too. She was trying to figure out what I had told her to do earlier in the day so she could be allowed outside to play. I was so frustrated with telling her to do the same thing everyday that I simply told her that when she remembers what I asked her to do and does it then MAYBE she can play (eventually she made a list of all these things to which she must refer before she asks me to do anything). It's funny how quickly she "remembers" to brush her hair when playtime depends on it. So as Mateo was hysterical and Chayla frustrated I tried to deal with the cooking, which had been going so well up until then. Luckily I finished and even got to rake the front yard before finally getting to shower. Mateo only took a 30 minute nap (part of the bigger problem too) so I wasn't able to do much else but shower. Then we sat down to our sad little dinner. I say sad, not because of my food (it was actually delicioso) but because it was just us 4, minus Freddie. This is the 1st Thanksgiving I can remember that he wasn't around. Except for the fact that we were dressed nicely, it just felt like a regular ol' dinner. We gave our thanks, ate our food, yet we were still bummed about Freddie's absence.

After Mateo had 2 slices of pumpkin pie we went to my coworker's house to hang out and meet another Puerto Rican family. That was nice given that we weren't with our own extended family. Mateo got along fantastically with her family, giving hugs, talking, and sharing nicely. I could hardly believe my eyes. He was a perfect angel. I figured it was because he thought all these loud, brown people speaking Spanish were family. Leave it to Mateo though to not disappoint. He had a massive break down right as we were leaving to go home. He squirmed all over the floor and screamed as I tried to put on his puffy coat. I thought I had almost made it out of there having given the impression that I had these two well-behaved, cute kids. Just kidding.

He fell asleep in the car and we got home safe and sound (there were some seriously deranged drivers on the Beltway last night). As I laid him down in his crib he said he loved me very much. While I had been angry earlier, his little voice melted my heart. I went to bed last night thankful for having this love in my life and BEGGING for a little patience and guidance to get through the terrible two's. 7 months to go.

Another day in November

This weekend I had to work the craft.bake sale at Mateo's nursery school. It's the annual fundraiser and it was actually much more fun than I expected. I was glad to see so much spending in support of local crafters and our neat,little co-op. All our baked goods sold, which is AWESOME considering how much effort parent's out into it. I wasn't the only one up until the wee hours of the night baking. I'm a little over baking, but I realize that it's not so bad and I can actually do it pretty well. All from scratch too!

Mateo has been cracking me up. He just gets funnier and funnier (altho he can be a pain in my butt just as much). It's a daily occurence that I tell him I am going to eat him up. Lately he's taken to protesting it. Yesterday when I asked him if I could him up he said, "no! You can kiss me mom," as he placed his little finger on his lips and smiled at me.

Today I was looking at the Victoria's Secret catalog that we randomly got. I flipped through regular Pj's, perfumes, sweaters. When I got to the lingerie part Mateo looked at it and exclaimed, "yuck, mom. Catwoman, yuck!" It's pretty hysterical that he associates lingerie with the 1960's version of Catwoman and that he doesn't like it! I think that my Dad was a little sensitive after I made this comment to him because when he saw Mateo with a book about ballet, in the shape of a ballerina's bag, he said he shouldn't hold it, "it's for girls." Well, I snapped my neck as I turned to stare down my Dad and proceeded to remind him that Mateo is allowed to like any book he wants!

Chayla's bday party is all set. I decided to just pay for it! I will have a clean house and no planning headaches! Chuck E. Cheese is getting a sweet check from us on Dec 6th and in return will provide 10 kids with pizza, tokens, and all around fun!

Krispy Kreme Kraziness

I really should start watching the local news. Apparently this weekend there was another incident involving one of our students (playing with a gun, someone got shot). Luckily the student is ok, but you can sense the community's growing concern about our school. In my humble opinion, our school is pretty awesome. We have kids from all around the world who manage to get along pretty well on a daily basis. There are plenty of resources and lots of staff who gives a damn. That's more than in other places just a few miles away. I went to a high school that was on the opposite end of the diversity spectrum. I was one of a dozen or so "Spanish" kids in the school and I was the only one in all of my advanced classes. Today I created a list of Hispanic kids who were former ESOL and I was beside my self when I saw over 600 kids in our school who fit the bill. This doesn't even count the students, like me, who never needed English as a 2nd language. We have kids from Nepal, Cameroon, Haiti, Colombia, Albania...you name it. Everyday these kids get along just fine, but some community members get in a panic when there is a streak of violence OUTSIDE of school. I repeat, it takes a village to raise our kids. Instead of complaining, I wish more people would dedicate some time to our school and come by to check out the amazing work of our staff & students .

Sadly, I don't know if I will be back in 2009. My position is grant-funded. The money comes from a MD Dept of Ed School Improvement grant. When our school's academic performance improves, the grant is cut, or parts of it are. My pay is part of the deal. I think our school did improve, thank goodness, but now I might not be able to come back. It's hard to get too invested when I don't know if all my work will be of use. I'd love to create more programs to get the community involved in our school and to continue addressing certain communication gaps, but alas, it all depends on the grant. Can my school get a piece of that bailout plan???

On a lighter note, I took Chayla for her yearly physical and found out upon arrival that the appointment is for tomorrow. I was so mad, until I saw the Krispy Kreme next door. Chayla and I sat down to a delicious donut and some chit chat w/o that annoying little brother :). After dinner I gave Mateo his donut. Why did I do that? He was literally jumping off the bed. My brother told me I should've just given him some smack! Fortunately for me, he jumped on that bed so much he wore himself out. Still, my kids are night owls like me and they can't fall asleep until 10pm. I'm hopeful that when Freddie returns he can help me put these kids down a little earlier. These are the days I wished I followed a schedule like most of my friends who have little ones.

Fish fight

I have avoided writing because I know that when I get online I spend far too much time in cyberspace.

Mateo reached a whole new level of maturity today. Instead of "no" he now says "i don't want to." I'm in for a whole new world of hurt. He also fought me for 1/2 an hour about putting away his fishing game. He had thrown the fish all over the floor. Later he asked for juice and I told him I wouldn't give it to him unless he cleaned up. He refused, screamed, kicked, yelled, hit. You name it, he did it. I had to clean up the damn fish and put him to bed. He said he was sorry, but I didn't care at that point. After he finished his milk I brought him to my bed to hold him for a few minutes, as I like to do these days before he get any bigger, and when I took him back to the room I asked him to help clean up the toys in his room. He did a wonderful job. As I laid him down he looked up at me with those droopy eyes and told me, "I don't want put away pish mom." I don't know what he has against those fish.

Yesterday Mateo & I went to Stacey's house to watch Kung-fu Panda and play with her dog. He loves that dog, and in turn, adores Stacey. He's come a long way with her. The first time he met her he screamed bloody murder and thereafter would avoid her by creeping along the walls instead of walking next to her. Last night though, he gave her a kiss, sang (I like to move it , move it!), and danced for her. He also did a little Kung-fu with her. Chayla wasn't with us because she decided to go across the street to partake in a memorial dinner and ceremony for her friends' grandmother who passed away 40 days ago. She was unfazed by attending a ceremony for a dead person which was officiated in Chinese (???), in a house full of Vietnamese speakers and food. I'm so impressed that she is being exposed to such a variety of cultures at such a young age.

I know that most of my friends don't have children as old as Chayla so it's hard to find good advice as to how to deal with her. She has already reached the stage I thought she'd reach when she's 12 or 13. My older coworkers who have teenagers have told me they believe she may get her period soon. Can I just express how terrifying this is to me? Imagine how Freddie will feel when I share this theory with him.

I made homemade chili and oatmeal-carrot cookies from scratch today. I forgot how good cooking makes one feel. I wished I liked cooking more. In any case, Thursday I will spend many hours baking for Mateo's school's fundraiser and for Thanksgiving, I will make pernil and mofongo. I'm gearing up for two-weeks of serious cooking.