Getting ready for the holidays!

The Espinosa family holiday preparations are in full swing! The plan is to drive down Tuesday to Miami, and to leave the 29th or so of December. (Yes, you read that correctly). Danny is playing a little more salsa and merengue around the house lately so Dominic and Noémie will feel right at home in the Christmas festivities. I'm wrapping up my history books and preparing my extensive and thorough family history interview questions so I can record as much material as I can while I'm down there! As boring as this may seem, I'm riveted. I would give up chocolate forever for the opportunity to travel back in time (with a camera!) and see my great great grandparents doing whatever it is they did- to see how they lived and what they looked like, to see my grandparents as kids.

We have a list going to make sure we don't forget anything... Christmas presents, cell phone chargers, playpen... a month is a long time for a family to live out of suitcases! Dominic and Noémie, in the meantime, are preparing new tricks. Dominic has been working on standing on his head and making spit bubbles (not at the same time, though). Check out Noémie's new trick:

Time to spare?

My brother asked me today what I've been doing in my spare time, which I think is an interesting way to gain insight on the peculiarities of a specific chapter in a person's life. After all, we don't reminisce about our routines. These days, I've been spending my spare time (I have about 3 hours a day) either reading up on the histories of Venezuela, British Guiana, and Cuba; or hand sewing a cover for our toddler car seat. ( I also devote a couple minutes each day to griping about how dirty the house is).

I was late in returning some books to the library last week and incurred $.40 in fees, enough to disable the online book renewal feature of my library account. Thus, Danny and I loaded the kiddos into the car this morning to make our way to the downtown library to return more books and pay my fine. Upon approaching the Monroe/Call intersection, we noticed it was barricaded. As we weaved our way around downtown Tallahassee trying to find a way to the library, we started to think we might be missing something... ah yes! It's Veteran's Day! I remember my mom mentioned she had the day off... we started to notice that people were gathering along the blocked roads... a ha! There must be a parade! And so we found ourselves marching uphill towards the downtown area to see the Tallahassee Veteran's Day Parade with our trusty double stroller. Having arrived half an hour early, Dominic got to watch the high school band drum lines rehearsing. He was enthralled. We were well situated to watch the parade and someone gave Dominic a little flag to wave. Dominic sat in the stroller and I was squatted beside him, helping him to identify objects familiar to him only in book illustrations (fire engine!). After a while I began to get a little irritated that the man standing next to me was so shamelessly passing such foul gas so close to my face. I came to find later, that it was probably Dominic who had his second massive poopie in the span of an hour. This is what happens when you are trying to potty train a child who fights it by holding in the goods till you put his diaper on.

And so I've reached the end of another day and am running out of "spare" time. I'm off to tackle that car seat cover which I'm stitching together with the fabric recommended to me by the lady who works at the craft store...a fabric that I am almost certain will tear within a week of use. Commitment to a failed endeavor? I hope not!

Halloween 2008

We jumped in our car to drive to a neighborhood 20 miles away so our 2 year old could walk around his friend's block in a costume I spent the week stitching together. We used a pillowcase for a candy bag. As I left the house, arming myself with a pile of extra jackets, and a pocketful of safety pins and half-used tissues, I couldn't help thinking, "Check me out! I'm a mom!" You can call me Wilma. But just for today.

For Halloween this year, the Espinosas dressed up as winter edition Flintstone action figures. Dominic who was supposed to be Bam Bam, actually came out looking more like a caveman newspaper boy.

Noemie (...or should I say Pebbles...) came out a little better. She rocked the Radio Flyer all around Krissie's neighborhood.

Tommy the firefighter, and Dominic the caveman newsboy were so excited running around in their outfits, terrorizing the neighborhood landscaping. It was quite the endeavor to get them to stand in one place long enough for a picture.


Happy Halloween!

Amen, Papi?

The muses have been on vacation, hence the long silence. They must have gotten waylaid by extremist political activists. I'm so thankful that the voting season is almost at an end.

Noemie pooped in our bed this morning during a diaper change and thus began our day at 7 am. Danny adamantly refused to continue trying to sleep any longer (it was a rough night). At 10 we met up with friends for some festive gourd decorating. Dominic decorated his pumpkin and I decorated Noemie's. She told me what to do, of course.

In the past few weeks we had a visit from the abuelos Andollos, we threw a birthday party for Dominic, Dominic went to a movie theater for the first time (to see the first 20 minutes of Wall-E), and Noemie started eating solid foods. We started her on rice cereal but she kept gagging (see photo) so we went with green beans on day 2 and she's been in heaven ever since. With the time afforded by Danny's unemployment I thought now might be a good time to experiment with some new dishes for the adults in our family as well. I made an apple pie on Tuesday that Danny fell in love with. He'd think about it night and day. We had the Honharts over for dinner on Tuesday and I made a killer potato soup. Thursday I got a little crazy and made some butternut squash to accompany our London Broil. That was... ok. It's a funky vegetable. And tonight I tried my hand at a Bourbon Chicken recipe that was also acceptable but not spectacular.

On Tuesday we went to the library as usual, and I picked up several books on crafts. The book on forgotten crafts was kind of heart breaking. In a few years, I'm sure, there will be very few blacksmiths left. You will be hardpressed to find people who can make boats, butter churns, horsecollars or wagon wheels from raw materials. Where is the outrage? For my part, I'm taking up quilting and rug making. I will wait till after Christmas so I can ask Santa for the materials. In the meantime, I will content myself with making both Dominic and Noemie's Halloween outfits. I won't tell you yet what they will be. (It's a surprise).

My petit pois

Dominic amuses me. He loves dragging our paper shredder around the house. He hates clothes with buttons. He reads Archie comics on the potty (that's all he does on it). He wont touch jello. His courtesy laugh is so over-dramatic as to be alarming. Every night, stripped and ready for his bath, he runs around the house looking for everyone's belly button.

I was singing kids songs to him quietly as we strolled through Target today. Something in the peanut aisle prompted me to whisper the song, "She'll be comin 'round the mountain." I almost fell over backward when at the end of the first line Dominic let out a loud "YEE-HAW!" I wonder what the other customers thought as they went about their package inspections and heard his cowboy call marking the stanzas of a song they could not hear.

My favorite funny moment of the day was tonight at bedtime. I was tucking Dominic in to bed after saying a prayer and putting on his music. As I was getting ready to stand up, I kissed the bottom of his foot. Before I could leave, he very seriously said, "...otro pié!" (other foot!) This tickles me so much because it's just like Dominic to feel bothered by imperfection or incompletion. Order must be maintained. Both feet must be kissed. And the the request was honored.

Dominic had been in his room quietly for several minutes when his door began to open slowly. He walked out with a significant, serious look, carrying a wooden pull toy. He placed it in the middle of the living room floor without making eye contact or a single sound, then walked back to his room and carefully closed the door. I thought it was odd but who am I to question these things? A few moments later, the door opened again and a small soccer ball was mysteriously ejected and the door promptly shut. After a few more moments I peeked into his room and found him sitting on the bed in the dark, pulling diapers out of a pack that had been nearby, naming the Sesame Street character pictured on the front, one by one. Silly boy.

Sans Danny

Danny is the glue that holds me together. Yesterday, I shipped that glue off to South Florida to find a job. No sooner did we arrive home from dropping Danny off did I, while laying Dominic down for his nap, kick the bed and manage to split my big-toe nail quite a ways into my nailbed. Mmmhmm.

When Dominic woke up, we rushed to make it to church early where I was expected to run the camera. Dressed to go, Dominic ate his lunch- picking out strings of shredded cheese and a few saucy noodles. I ran to his room to grab Noemie's church outfit, expecting to see much the same picture as I ran back through to my room. But no. Dominic decided he'd prefer to eat his noodles off of the tray so he dumped the bowl onto his tray, except that he missed and a good pile of wet noodles escaped through the gap in the high chair and were now snuggly nestled around his legs and waist. Dominic was wiping his hands on his face and shirt (not his bib of course). I considered his outfit a lost cause and ran to get another after wiping him down. Dominic, meanwhile, pulled the tablecloth to reach things that he wasn't supposed to and proceeded to season himself with the salt. I was beginning to panic. I fed Noemie and dressed her (and redressed her... she's my doll and she has to look perfect) then changed Dominic's clothes and threw them both into their car seats. I arrived at church half an hour late and Dominic still had pasta sauce on his legs. When we got home Dominic got a quick bath and jumped in bed (but not without spilling milk on his pillow, down the side of the bed, and onto the carpet.)

I would just like to point out that yes, I am capable of sustaining myself in Danny's absence. It's just that he's an ISTJ and I'm...practically the opposite. I will tell you of Day 2 without Danny to illustrate.

This morning we went to Winthrop Park, where we met up with Krissie and Tommy. There are few things in life as heart warming as watching Dominic's excitement when he catches sight of Tommy at a distance. He squeals with delight and starts his lop-sided gallop to catch up with his beloved friend, giggling the whole way. Sometimes, when they reach each other they hug, though more often than not the excitement suddenly dissipates and they go their separate ways- Dominic to climb the tallest playground feature and Tommy to shake all the other kids' hands. Today, Dominic's attention was drawn to an abandoned toddler buggy in the corner of the playground. He took a little ride on it and an angry looking one year old approached him so I encouraged Dominic to play with something else. Random kids took turns playing on this buggy and, after a while, Dominic found the buggy unoccupied again. Dominic took his seat and was making his way around the swings when two boys between 5-6 years old ran up to Dominic and violently flipped him off the buggy. Dominic rolled backward onto the mulch with a look of injured confusion as the kids yelled at him for using their toy. For an instant, I wanted to punch those kids' faces. And I let them know it.

Before we left the park, Dominic befriended an older Italian man who threw a football back and forth with him and who taught him to run around the bases on the nearby baseball diamond. Dominic left the park dirty and tired, but he'd played good and hard and enjoyed Tommy's proximity. I, on the other hand, was still trying to calm my boiling blood an hour after the buggy-yanking incident. I have my father's temper.

Amy came to spend time with Dominic so I could wash my hair, and then she washed my dishes. Things were running surprisingly smooth so I decided to brave a ropa vieja. I set the meat in the pressure cooker like I always do, with just enough water to cover the meat and a half a handful of salt, then I locked the lid and set it a notch above medium. I then got to making sofrito, chopping garlic and onions and green peppers, and catching up with friends on the phone. Dominic and Noemie, meanwhile were watching a DVD. At one point I looked up and saw Noemie fiddling with the DVD player and Dominic trying to deal with the problem. When I reached them, I heard Dominic explaining to her, "memedon-do-da" (noemie, don't do that), as he wrapped his arms around her waist and tried to pull her away. I was floored- I'd never heard him say that before. Or anything remotely close to that. My child speaks in sentences and I didn't know! Return trips to deal with wandering Noemie entailed fishing half a chewed up business card from around her gums, and replacing a DVD player dial she managed to remove.

At about this time, I noticed that something resembling molasses was oozing out of the top of my pressure cooker. I called my father, the chemist, who referred me to my mom, the other chemist... but before this could get figured out, the smoke alarm started to sound and within seconds I realized that my house was full of thick smoke. I opened all the windows and all the doors, and welcomed all the neighborhood houseflies into my kitchen. Five hours later, my bedroom still smells like a tobacco smokehouse. My ropa vieja was charred and I set the pot to soak with vinegar, baking soda, and some misery. Somehow, these things don't happen when Danny's here. And on the rare occasion that they do, at least Danny knows how to turn off the smoke alarm.

Michael and Rachel saved the evening by bringing over steak and bocaditos and chips and onion dip and a balloon and cookies and teaching Dominic that giraffes say "achoo." Sophia and Heather joined us before long. Dominic ate potato chips and a fistful of matchstick carrots for dinner because it's his birthday, followed by 2 small cookies. We stuck a candle in each of his cookies, sang him happy birthday, and then he blew out the candles without any help. I said "I love you" from the doorway as I put him down for the night and, for the first time, he said it back. That's my two year old!

Happy Days

It's been really great having Danny home (though the paychecks have been missed). We've spent a lot of time together as a family; these are days we'll never have back once they're gone. Over the course of the past week, we've had a number of adventures. On Saturday, we went to the Downtown Marketplace where Dominic got to pet a macaw and we had Dominic and Noemie's names painted for free in Chinese characters...though come to think of it I can't remember where I put them.

On Monday we went to visit Magdiel, Lisa, and baby Lucas. (My mother and Magdiel's mother have been friends since girlhood. Magdiel is one of the many people I've come to consider quasi-family. ) Lucas is the tiniest baby I've ever seen (5 lb!). He's very, very cute.

Tuesday we went to the library and to the post office. Wednesday, Danny got his hair cut and then we had Bible Study. We even took a trip to the pumpkin patch with our photographer friend, Sarah, and watched the VP debate with Mike. But of all our endeavors, the most arduous has been to potty train Dominic. Thursday morning was the second morning in a row we woke up having to change his bed sheets because the diaper had leaked. They were not ordinary leaks but what could only be described as poo-juice. I will spare you all the details but suffice it to say that I had no intentions of ever cleaning another such mess and decided that that was the day that we would potty train Dominic. He soiled his underwear (and the carpet) 8 times that day. Finally, in the evening, he peed in the potty. It was an incredible triumph. We praised him and let him dump it and flush. We clapped and danced and sang songs and gave him cookies. But our victory was short-lived. He refined his strategy overnight. This morning he woke up with a full diaper which I changed as soon as he woke up. He went the whole morning without peeing. We put a diaper on him for naptime. He woke up from his nap very wet. He then managed to go the next six hours without peeing or pooping. Unbelievable. I promise he was drinking water and eating popsicles. We put him in a diaper for the night and sure enough he peed within a minute and pooped a minute after that. UGH. Potty training is debilitating.

Danny will be in Ft. Lauderdale until Friday, taking some physical agility tests and interviewing with an agency. This means two very important things. The first is that if Dominic doesn't suddenly embrace potty-peeing by tomorrow, I'm going to postpone training until he's older. Like say...5. Second, there's a very real possibility that we may have to sell our house! To prepare for such an occurance, I sold our giant bean bag chair for $25 today and turned around to use that money to buy an extra Lantana, some fall blooming daisies, and another big bush to put between my sparse, sickly plumbagos. God might have to work a little miracle in order for us to sell our house. We'll just take it one day at a time.

Who could ask for anything more?

"If only we could know what was going on in a baby's mind while observing him in action we could certainly understand everything there is to psychology."
-Jean Piaget; La Premiere Année de l'Enfant

Boom boom diddum daddum wannum shoo

So does anyone else think that Barack Obama's presidency would resemble Woodrow Wilson's? I've decided to stay away from politics. I have no desire to entertain fruitless arguments. Our generation has unprecedented access to information in what has been called "the information age," though it might be more accurate to call it the "misinformation age." I'm surrounded by fools. The Tallahassee gas situation is a case in point.

Let me tell you a little something you may not know about Tallahassee. We are a city of lemmings! The day before Hurricane Ike, or whatever his name was, hit Texas, the usually judicious citizens of Tallahassee went into a panic and ran to their nearest gas station with every vehicle and receptacle they could lay hands on. Almost a week later, Tallahassee stations are still at 15% capacity.

Here's a little something else I learned- Noemie has a death look to rival my own. And I've been told mine is a good one. (You'll notice I started that last sentence with a conjunction. I can do that because I'm a college graduate.) It's difficult to imagine Noemie unhappy at all much less giving someone the evil eye... but I saw it. She will probably never forget that nurse's face, and I fear that from here on out, getting our recommended (delayed) vaccinations will be a trial.

Today the kiddos and I drove over to Lake Ella where we'd planned to meet up with our Friday morning mom's group. The weather was perfect- 80 degrees with a strong, cool breeze. Fall is definitely on its way. Dominic was enjoying a strawberry smoothie with his whole face- from his forehead to the bottom of his chin he had gobs of the stuff. I let him loose in the middle of a swarm of ducks (the ones you're not supposed to feed), with a slice of bread...which he promptly ate. All the other kids were throwing their pieces. I modeled the bread-throwing for Dominic and gave him another slice. The whole thing was in his mouth in one swift motion. So I decided to give up on feeding the ducks and decided instead to follow him as he wandered. He wandered over to a squirt of duck poop and stomped his foot into it. Then he stepped on my sandaled toes as he wandered towards the lake. And into the lake. He was up to his knees before I could get to him (I almost fell in myself) and the other moms took out their cameras. By squatting on the edge and reaching as far as I could, my fingers could reach just the edge of his shirt sleeve to pull him back to the bank. I decided not to let him so close to the water any more and he decided he'd rather throw pebbles into the water anyway. Which was fine, until he ran out of pebbles and started throwing the dirt that was under the pebbles. I don't know that Dominic has ever been so filthy as he was when I brought him home from the lake this afternoon.

Speaking of lemmings, I've decided to "yearbook" my family. (It's what all the cool kids are doing. This is how I've been entertaining myself while Danny has been working on his applications). And speaking of family, we will be visiting Danny's family in New Port Richey this weekend. We should be back by Tuesday.

Take it to da house

I'm not having many original, insightful thoughts these days. I've even been losing at my online Scrabble games. I ran out of double chocolate Milanos. I need a piano.

Danny is in a constant state of filling out job applications, getting forms notarized, retrieving school transcripts and calling caseworkers and human resource offices. Noemie is busy working on her crawl. She's getting pretty good, traveling almost two feet per minute if there's something colorful and plastic to lure her to the other side. Dominic had some molars make their way out this weekend. He woke with a fever of 102 on Friday morning and didn't stop whining and crying till Sunday...

But order has been restored. We visited the sing-along time at the library this morning (I picked up some oscar wilde and g.k. chesterton). This week, Danny has a dentist appointment and Noemie will be getting her first round of immunizations. Lisa's due date is Friday; Gio's birthday is Sunday.

Monday, Monday

I feel obligated to write something as it's been over a week since my last post. It's not that I haven't had anything to think or write about, but rather, perhaps I've had too much. We've reached a sort of crossroads as Danny's job has been terminated and we find ourselves counting our pennies.

In the past week, Danny's maternal grandfather and paternal grandmother have, independently, been touring the state of Florida. Jonny and Hana traversed the country for a friend's wedding. Gio began his new job at Americorp. My paternal grandfather fought for his life in a Hialeah hospital. A middleschool friend tagged me in a pro-choice diatribe that to this moment still has my stomach churning. What nerve! I skimmed a biography on Benjamin Franklin and another book on the fallacies of thought behind the emergent-church movement. We broke a fluorescent lightbulb and obsessed about how to clean mercury out of the carpet. Danny and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary at Macaroni Grill, with a gift certificate given by a friend who had no idea it was our anniversary. I've seen God's faithfulness dozens of times and have fallen short of his righteousness dozens of dozens. I attended an orthopedic appointment, a Bible Study, a moms playgroup, a housewarming party, and a football watching party. I "RSVPed" to two birthday parties. I don't quite know what to do with myself. The sense of disorganization is so pervasive that any attempt to correct it by doing things like washing the dishes or putting away laundry seems like too much effort. I cling to the calendar. Dominic and Noemie, however, took the news well.

The following are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs that applies as much now as at any season of life:

His Eyes (by Steven Curtis Chapman)
Sometimes His eyes were gentle
And filled with laughter,
Sometimes they cried;
Sometimes there was a fire
Of holy anger,
In Jesus' eyes.
But the eyes that saw hope in the hopeless,
That saw through the fault to the need,
Are the same eyes that look down from heaven
Into the deepest part of you and me.

Sometimes His voice comes calling
Like rolling thunder,
Or like driving rain;
And sometimes His voice is quiet,
And we start to wonder
If He knows our pain.
But He who spoke peace to the water
Cares more for our hearts than the waves,
And the voice that once said "You're forgiven",
Still says "You're forgiven" today.

Sometimes I look above me when stars are shining
And I feel so small;
How could the God of heaven and all creation
Know I'm here at all.
But then in silence He whispers,
"My child, I created you too
And you're my most precious creation;
I even gave my Son for you."

His eyes are always upon us;
His eyes never close in sleep.
And no matter where you go,
You will always be in His eyes, in His eyes.

Raindrops are falling on my head

What does it mean to have faith like a child? Driving Danny to the Pat Thomas Police Academy today, I was reminded of that question as Dominic sat in the back seat happily babbling nonsense to himself, clearly unaware of the conversation going on in the front half of the car. Dominic has no idea what is going on but he is cheerful, completely secure in the fact that tonight he will fall asleep in his "casa" with a full belly, a kiss from mami, a bedtime story (or 5), and bija (his blanket). He has faith that everything else will work itself out.

Danny's orthopedic evaluation went as well as anyone could expect, anyone who wasn't praying for a miraculous healing, anyway. The day that Danny was injured, I had read some essays by C.S. Lewis on the efficacy of prayer. It has been very helpful to have those thoughts in mind as we've waited through this past week. I prayed for divine healing and asked others to do the same, believing fully that God is capable. His appointment this morning revealed that his elbow was healing on mortal schedule and that he had ligamental tears all the way around his elbow as well. He will need extensive therapy for the next couple months, several times a week. Furthermore, he is restricted to sedentary activities- no firearms training, no hand to hand combat, no running, no snorkling, no piñatas...no more academy. (I'm trying to smile here). So many people were praying for Danny. It was not for not-asking that Danny wasn't healed supernaturally. God's answer was simply "no" ...which happens... and God is to be praised for these "no"s too because it means that God has something else in mind which is for our good and His glory. I know these are all the right answers, but my faith waxes and wanes with the levels of chocolate in my bloodstream and with Dominic's behavior. Perhaps one of the hardest things Danny will have to deal with is not being able to graduate with his class. He has made many friendships there and has really enjoyed working with his classmates. We still don't know what this means as far as Danny's employment is concerned. I just wait silently, like a defendent in a courtroom waiting on a verdict.

When Ray married us, he warned us that just as a hurricane had threatened our wedding, there would be other storms in life that we would have to weather together. I'm reminded of that now. Our wedding plans completely fell apart but it only served to highlight the important things- the ceremony that was taking place and the love and goodness of our family and friends who came together to celebrate our marriage regardless of what church we were married in or the afterparty. Plus we got all that wedding money back and were able to use it to buy things that we needed. A hurricane hit the weekend that we moved to Tallahassee. And now Hurricane Fay came to herald Danny's police academy withdrawal. Maybe the hurricane is God's way of telling us he's doing something great. Really, though, I think I'd prefer something more subtle... like a rainbow.


Richview & Park Ave
(two blocks from our house)

Lake Ella...to infinity and beyond!

Where's my medal?

Dominic wants me to loop "The Wheels on the Bus." The song is just under two minutes long and there's still half an hour left till his nap time. That means I will have to listen to this song about 15 times... When I went in to see him this morning, he was bouncing so high in his crib I thought he might bounce right out of it, yelling, "Elmo! Bob! (Hi Mami) Elmo! Bubbles!" He's a happy boy. And, as his other favorite song is Soulja Boy (or yoooouuuu, as he calls it), it could be worse.

I think I'm doing remarkably well considering, well, a number of things. I was almost struck by lightning yesterday morning. I was leaving my neighbor's house when a bolt probably hit within a few feet of me. (It wasn't raining). I hit the turf with my hands over my head and when I realized I was still alive, I picked myself up and ran for my life back into my house. I'm sure I looked more than a little ridiculous. I later realized that my keys had fallen out of my purse on our way home from church on Sunday (Danny drove) and that they were locked in my car. Brilliant. Subsequently, I almost had a heart attack when Danny's classmates called me at 10:30 pm to tell me that if I left for the hospital that moment, I could arrive there before him. WHAT?! Excuse me, I have two babies and no car and I prefer to stay away from hospitals unless I'm in labor and really, I'd like to avoid being in labor as much as possible. So at 11 I was on the phone with my mom, frantically scrubbing the baseboards in my guest bathroom to spend my nervous energy. At 3:30 in the morning, long after Nastia was awarded the silver medal for her gold-medal-worthy uneven bar routine, my long lost husband arrived from TMH with a fractured elbow. Danny says he had like 5 or 6 fellow officers-in-training who stayed by his side till his discharge. I think Danny was very moved by their devotion. And by the morphine. He spent the morning getting an Orthopaedic evaluation and came home to change and leave for the academy again, sporting his fancy soft cast. I saw him for all of 5 minutes.

And with that, I'm going to go collapse. Thank you.

A day in the life

Noemie is in a league of her own. She is quite possibly the happiest baby ever. She LOVES to talk and be talked to. She is constantly smiling and giggling and wanting to get her hands on your face. When I'm tired or frustrated, she cheers me up in an instant.

For the next three weeks Danny will be at the academy from 1-10pm. Our days are...strange. Danny wakes up with the babies between 8 and 9 am and lets me sleep in till 9:30-ish, at which point I roll out of bed and make breakfast and dinner simultaneously. Then I heat up Danny's lunch, which is usually left overs from "dinner" from two nights before. Danny usually runs errands with Dominic in the mornings and has to be home by 11:30 to get dressed and ready to go. Monday they did groceries, Tuesday we went downtown to get Noemie her passport, I can't even remember yesterday, and this morning Danny and Dominic went to get Danny fitted for his uniform. Danny says it looks "tight" (which is slang for 'stylish'). Danny leaves just before 12 with his lunch and dinner in stacks of tupperware.

Defensive tactics has not been kind to Danny. The first two days they worked on pressure points. Danny keeps getting partnered with a girl who doesn't trim her fingernails quite as short as she probably should if she's going to be digging for pressure points. The next day they worked on escort positions, and yesterday on proper falling and on deflecting the force of attacks. I would like to note that Danny explains all these maneuvers when he gets home (at 11) and demonstrates them on me. Then I stay up till unreasonable hours watching Olympic gymnastics.

As I was laying in bed this afternoon taking a nap, the house phone rang waking up both myself and baby girl, who proceeded to wail. As I laid there burying my head in Danny's pillow and trying to seal off my inner ear with my shoulder, I attempted to teleport. I know this might sound odd to you but I've seen it done in movies countless times and sometimes I wonder just maybe... maybe... it's possible to think so hard that I might suddenly find myself curled up, in the same position, on a striped towel under a matching umbrella on a warm mound of sand on an empty beach in, say, Aruba. With a pineapple-coconut smoothie. MMMmmmm. Where would you go?

Oh, I thought I should let you know, we chickened out of potty training last weekend and decided to postpone the ordeal a few more weeks.

Back that grass up

Mow to the left

Mow to the right

Runaway mower!

Clogging...blogging...not to be confused

It makes me feel young and sassy to zip around capital circle, perfecting my eyebrows with my handy car-pocket tweezers in a cute dress and lip-glossed glamor, blasting "St. Elmo's Fire" on my way to the wedding of two wonderful people. But sometimes, regardless of how good you look or how fast you drive, you can't cross Tallahassee during rush hour in twenty minutes, and yes, in Tallahassee when the wedding invitation says 5:30, they actually start at 5:30. No kidding.

So I missed the entire processional and some of the message, really. And there was nothing even remotely cool about that. In my defense, I combed my kitchen and bedroom for over an hour for long-lost parts to my breast-pump and never succeeded in finding them all before my baby sitter arrived. With twenty minutes left till my timed departure, I still had to nurse Noemie, brief the sitter, dress, and do my hair and makeup. Feeding Noemie alone takes twenty minutes. So there you have it. Those parts of the wedding which I did get to see, I loved. Their centerpieces were green apples and pink gerberas. Can you handle the cuteness? Like Sally bouncing up and down during her vows... she was so excited. Danny thought she looked like a wedding cake. I thought she looked beautiful.

We had to return home early since Noemie's feeding schedule will not yield to even the cutest nuptial celebration. Dominic was asleep and the sitter was cheerful, two good signs. Noemie was awake and looking hungry but she wasn't crying. And Danny... Danny discovered that a package had arrived while he was at the academy this afternoon. He finally got the cell phone he ordered. A tough guy cell phone. A phone that he chose because he can run it over with his car and it wont break. I'm sure Dominic can break it. We'll see how long it lasts. At the time of this writing, he is carefully removing and inspecting every item in the carton and placing it in a pre-ordained spot on the floor. I take it back. That's what he was doing 2 minutes ago. In the past two minutes, Danny has gone from ceremoniously disembowling the cellphone package to passing out cold on the carpet. Hana and I have talked about this. It's an Espinosa boy-thing.

It's been such a long day. For me, I mean. Dominic woke up with a poopie. Nothing new. But what was new is that this morning he told me he had a poopie. Usually, I ask him (though I already know) and regardless of the correct answer, he always responds with a "no?" Like he's hoping that answer will be acceptable. But we have made it to the end. A Playdate, gardening adventures, a wedding... and here we are.

Dominic models his new 'do



Danny and Noemie chat with family in Venezuela



Dominic explains for the upteenth time that the Schechem stranglehold originated west of the River Jordan (duh, mom)

It's not funny

How many times did I hear the phrase "no me da ninguna gracia" growing up? It's the phrase of the month around the Espinosa house.
Dominic is in time out until he learns to clean spaghetti sauce out of the carpet. It may take a few years but he'll learn eventually.

I've lost that lovin feeling

A milk duct aspiration followed by a longer-than-usual bout of the stomach flu totally shot my weekend. (Toe is feeling better). I stayed in bed almost all day Saturday and most of Sunday, making my only public appearance at the Puig baby shower. At that point I was eating nothing but cantaloupe and had to stare longingly at the dump truck filled with chocolate cake. I'm really glad I resisted. Projectile vomiting is so fascinating that if it weren't also so intensely disgusting, I'd be curious to learn how the stomach accomplishes such a feat.

And so I find myself at Monday again. Danny was a champ and watched over the kids almost the whole weekend by himself. He also bought me roses (pink) and brownies for when I do feel better. I've been a little panicky searching for the source of my illness... Did I get salmonella from licking a spoon of raw batter? Did I place a slice of bread on a kitchen counter that hadn't been adequately cleaned after some chicken goo dripped on it? I am (thank God for real) the only person here who got sick (we all started washing our hands extra). While I still haven't found the source of contamination, I think I might be closer to figuring it out. You can learn a lot from facebook stalking. Looks like my Thursday friends have been having some tummy troubles this weekend too.

Noemie is outgrowing her play pen (I'm assuming this is why I always find her stuck with her face squooshed against the mesh). We will have to move her to the crib soon. I am looking for a daybed for Dominic's room and then... and then... ah. We'll see. I DO know that Dominic is going to learn to use that darned potty ASAP. For one, I hate poop. For two, diapers are ridiculously expensive, waste-producing, and have chemicals and stuff which always makes me wary. Operation Poop-goes-in-the-potty begins this Sunday. (This month is kind of busy).

Also on the calendar for this week: TPD Block Party on Tues, Sally's wedding on Friday, and a date night with the Leidys and Lehmans on Saturday.

Step by step

I'm not usually a negative person. I must be having a rough week. I crushed my toe yesterday- I didn't bump it, hit it, stub it... no, I crushed it. I possibly broke it. It's really not much to complain about, though it's purple and swollen, and I'm walking with a limp. I actually had a great morning! The daughter of a previous pastor of mine called me to ask if I wanted to come over and spend time with her, her son, and a mutual friend. Dominic had never met Jack before and, considering Dominic's current cohort (mostly bullies, girls, or babies) this seemed especially promising. Dominic and Jack got along so wonderfully that I wish I could see this friend every other day. They played with each other, they shared nicely, they ran in circles and had only one short-lived snatching incident. They are two sweet-natured, cheerful, relatively quiet boys, almost a year apart. Finally! (read: sigh of relief)

Conversations with Lindsey and Katie always leave me thinking after the fact. Lindsey is so careful to watch her words and speak honorably of all people at all times that it makes me more consious of doing the same. I am reminded of a quote (popularly credited to a Tobias S. Gibson) that I once heard: "Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people." Katie and Lindsey are idea people. And to top it off, they're refreshingly educated (grad students) and devoutly Christian.

I've recently decided to take up a new hobby- Copperplate Calligraphy. I have always enjoyed trying my hand at new letterforms and scripts. I was surprised to learn on one of my last trips to Miami, that my abuela Yolanda had won awards for her penmanship in Cuba. Maybe it's in the blood. I'm very excited to devote myself to this new skill! It was a font that reached its height during the 18th century (Declaration of Independance...) used in most legal, business, and social transactions, though most of its use today is limited to wedding invitations. I will need to buy pens with "nibs" and special ink and paper and a protractor. These kinds of purchases always make me nervous.

I'm happy to report that Gio has accepted a position with Americorp in Apopka, that my good friend Jessica has arrived safely in Honduras for her mission trip, and that Thais has arrived safely in Venezuela where she is visiting family before the school year starts back in Dade County. Tomorrow I have a pool date with my friend Leslie and her twin daughters, and with the wife of the pastor at Forest Heights, a homeschooling mom of two girls (10 and 7) and a baby boy of 1 year. In other news, I'm experimenting this evening with a crock pot roast made with a-1 sauce and a slew of baby carrots. I'm really wishing that potato hadn't rotted... I hope this works!

First Post

Status updates (in facebook fashion):

Danny is... at the police academy in Gadsden County, FL. I think the novelty is starting to wear off but he's still happy. He has to polish his boots.

Dominic is... finally taking his nap. Yesterday's word of the day was "cinturón." He also learned to say "Hana." He can recognize the letters o, u, x, z, and according to Danny, w. Occasionally he gets h and b as well. All in Spanish of course. He can count 1-9 without prompting, though he usually forgets 8.

Noemie is... trying to keep pace with Dominic and might actually accomplish her objective. She rolled over within a day of her brother's mark. She's a fresh four months old but already scooting (that is, pushing her self around the floor with her legs). Last night she and Danny stayed up laughing at each other. When she hears Danny call her "chiquitica," she lights up and starts kicking.

Anais is... slightly frazzled. Danny had to run off to a homeowner's workshop yesterday after work. He got home at 8, at which point I had to finish making dinner and we had to feed and bathe Dominic, who was tired, moody, and obnoxious. Without much time to recover (and, I might add, without a shower) today started at full speed, having to feed and dress the kids and be in Killearn (a half hour drive) by 10 for a play date. We came home in time for Dominic's nap; I was patting myself on the back for having thought to bring grapes so he could have his snack on the ride home. Just as I was getting ready to put Dominic down I got two phone calls, one from a Dr. office, cancelling an appointment, and another from my babysitter, ready to be picked up. I loaded the kids right back into the car and picked up the baby sitter I no longer needed and took her to her house across town (another 45 minutes of driving) as my hungry little Noemie whimpered in the back seat. And of course, on the way home, it started to rain. "Quesi queno, mami?" starts Dominic. And we begin to sing... "Que llueva, que llueva..."

Tonight I'm making pasta. Tomorrow night's bible study and a crockpot meal. I live by the calendar these days.