Making stuff

Back in the day, our family had a record player. There were a number of records that I used to play especially often. On any given non-school day, our large living room speakers would blast Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits, Sinatra, or the Beach Boys, and I could be found choreographing elaborate routines in my pajamas and a good pair of slippery socks. Around Christmas time, we had a separate collection of records. Listening to Salsoul Orchestra, La Rondallita, and the Chipmunk's Christmas album was a stalwart tradition that did not buckle, even with the advent of the compact disc player and the introduction of Mariah Carey's Christmas classic to the playlist. We have our Christmas traditions, but they're particular.

Now that Danny and I have our own family, we've started to develop our own traditions, (though I don't think Danny is even aware of it. ) For the past two years, we've taken a Christmas photo. My family used to do this when we were very young but I don't remember taking one since I was ooohh... about this little:


We've been without a dependable camera for some time, so finding the opportunity and the means to take our family photo has been some what of a struggle. We weren't able to take a photo till this past weekend, less than 2 weeks before the big day. Jonny and Hana joined us for our last-ditch effort to keep our fledgling tradition alive, taking the photo on an unseasonably hot December day at a baseball field of all places. It's amazing how many shots you have to get to get a single decent family portrait. God bless my long-suffering brother and sister in law.


A second family tradition that my family never got into but which I attempted to start is baking. In addition to my insatiable sweet tooth, a bucket of egg nog icecream that begs for cakey accompaniment, and some untried recipes in my Southern Living cookbook, I was also inspired by my neighbor's gift:

How gorgeous are those cookies? And they double as puppets!

This year may mark the end of this tradition. I'm a pretty decent chef in my opinion. But I've always said cooking is an art; baking is a science. And I have neither the patience nor the delicacy for science. Amy and Melissa (and Rosie) came over to help with the project this weekend, while Danny was off at work. We settled on sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and started early in the evening, Melissa watching the kids while I cleaned and prepped and Amy made the dough (which needed to chill for 2 hours before baking).

We took a break at Sawgrass Mills because we're slightly ADD then came home and put the kids to bed. I made dinner while Amy got to baking.

Amy's first batch of sugar cookies were fat, but otherwise, great! As I surveyed her progress, I noted that she wasn't using a timer. "So how do you know if they're ready?" I asked. She opened the oven door to show me how easily this can be determined by simply using one's eyeballs. And it's a very good thing she demonstrated this procedure, for that was how we came to realize that she hadn't removed the plastic wrap from the second baking sheet. And so we salvaged the oven, but not so much the cookies from batch #2. Feeling somewhat frustrated, and somewhat concerned about toxic fumes, we dumped the dough and sat down to eat dinner. About halfway through dinner, she remembered batch number three. And so, we were left with 14 edible sugar cookies for the effort. 10, if you count the un-burnt ones.


"Amy, why do we have so much left over butter?"
"Because we didn't need it."
"...yes, we did."

And thus we realized that we'd halved the required amount of butter for the gingerbread men. One stick of butter is only half a cup. Tell your friends.

Amy melted the butter. In the microwave. Without using a splatter guard. And it exploded. And, once she recovered, had to massage it into the hardened block of ginger bread. Thoroughly dejected, she devoted herself to cleaning the microwave and to knitting Gio's Christmas present for the rest of the evening with Rosie at her feet.


I confidently set myself to making the oatmeal cookies. And after they were done, to humbly peeling the sticky, chunky mass off the baking sheets. By the time we cleaned up and went to bed, it was 1 am and I was dreading the morning.

Amy made frosting in the morning while I took the kids to find black dress shoes for Noemie at Target. (No such luck. Toddler 6 is like the holy grail of shoe sizes). When we came back Amy looked relieved and redeemed: 4 successful batches of gingerbread men, women, and bears, and a large bowl of picture-perfect frosting. Danny says break-and-bakes for next year. I don't know if I can bring myself to do it but knowing the disasters are coming sure does dampen my motivation. For now....

So my forever-long To-Do list is starting to see some check marks. With less than a week before Christmas, I'm almost done hand-sewing Gio's onesie, and I've pretty much given up on the Christmas cards I haven't gotten to writing. I haven't wrapped any gifts, I have to find a white elephant for Emily's party and I have Melissa's gift being shipped to a wrong address... better fix that. Tomorrow we celebrate my dad's 55th birthday with some family friends and some very ugly cookies and then Gio gets here on Wednesday and then we eat lechón on Christmas Eve and then Danny has the weekend off! YAY!

Ah. Christmas. The one tradition I've definitely kept from my parents is to be unnecessarily stressed before, deliriously excited during, and numb after. Amen.

These great gettin-up mornin's

I've been a chocoholic since the day I stopped believing I was allergic to it, sometime around age 5. Since then, I've steadily shifted from a milk chocolate preference to a dark chocolate preference. This may be due to my discovery that 1, dark chocolate has higher levels of antioxidants; 2, it's satisfying in much smaller amounts; and 3, Europeans think milk chocolate is kinda gross anyway. (Doing anything like the Europeans do just ups your level of cool and for those of us who are lacking in that department, we have to pay attention to these things.) I mention this because, despite my addiction, I have never enjoyed "the World's Finest Chocolate" fundraising bars. Yet I recently was gifted a dark chocolate bar (and I ate it because I never turn down chocolate even if I don't like it...with the exception of Butterfingers and Milky Ways...) and I thought it was fabulous! So, all that to say, if you don't like World's Finest milk chocolate, don't run from their dark chocolate on account of it.

I eat chocolate the way most people drink coffee. And as Cubans need extra coffee to be extra Cuban, I need extra chocolate to achieve the same effect. I am not a morning person. I can be cheerful at all hours of the day because I usually love my life. Call me up at 11 pm and I will talk your ear off, dance a marathon, do 100 push ups, whatever. But wake me up before 9 am and, well, I wont. There have been days where I will sit on the couch in semi-consciousness, where Dominic can do everything short of stick a fork in an electrical outlet before I snap out of my coma. And the second 10 am hits, I'm up and in action. I'm just a night owl! I can't help it! Who signed me up for 1st period math all those years? For shame! No wonder I had to repeat Algebra! And Analysis of Functions! (I got through Algebra 2 with a D because my teacher felt pity on me, no doubt. I don't know a quadratic equation from a Gucci handbag, to say nothing of a logarithm). So God blessed me with a handsome, wonderful, little boy who is in every way shape and form, a morning lark.

Danny leaves for work sometime before the sun comes up. I am so dead asleep, I just assume he's telling the truth that he kisses me on the way out every morning and that I sometimes tell him niceties like "Have a great day" or "I love you." (If I do, I'm not aware of it but I think this shows that I'm a genuinely nice person on a subconscious level at least. ) And at 7 am, every morning that Danny goes to work, I wake up to Dominic, like a siren, wailing his heart out that Danny has gone and left him forever. "Donde esta Papi?!" he cries as he jumps out of our bed (when did he get there?), and runs desperately around the house searching for his missing Papi. The answer is always the same, "Dominic, Papi is at work." And he cries and he wails, and he cries and then, all of a sudden it's quiet. (I usually wait a few seconds then I poke my blind head up to see if I see movement). And seeing Dominic standing in the doorway, I plop back down. Because it's 7:06 and no one needs to be awake at 7:06.

A few seconds later I feel breathing on my face. Dominic has crawled into my bed again and now, not an inch away from my face asks me in all seriousness, "Camión? O Bulldozer?" And he continues quickly. "Beep. Beep. Estoy titilando así" (he is twinkling, he says, and makes twinkling hand motions). "Que numero es hoy?" (by which he means, 'what's today's date?') "Quiero comer. Te gustas ir a Miami? aunque... UN MOMENTICOOOOO! Dije que yo tengo hambre! ....RAWR!... mami, te asusté? No te quería asustar. Yo solo quería comer. Como un leon. " (You'll notice here that Dominic wakes up very hungry. He had 2 waffles, a banana, and a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning). And this is how I wake up every morning that Danny goes to work. Dominic sounds the alarm that Danny is gone, and after the mourning passes, he is alert, conversant, cheerful, and very much in my face. For an hour. Because that's how long it takes me to drag myself out of bed most of the time. Hence, the chocolate. And Noemie? She woke up chirping at 8:30. I took her out of bed and she laid on my belly with one arm wrapped around her teddy and the other around her blanket, with her fingers stuck firmly in her mouth. And so we laid there on the sofa peacefully for another 20 minutes, while she eased into consciousness. That's my girl!

_________________

Dominic clasped his hands and jumped the gun on saying our dinner time prayers the other night so Danny, Noemie, and I obediently and quickly followed suit with our heads bowed as Dominic blessed the meal. Dominic's first prayer:

Señor, Gracias que la comida esta lista. Te pedimos que los niños lo comen. Y el arbolito. Amen.

Thanksgiving in a nutshell

We're back from a very long, full weekend in Miami. We attended two Thanksgivings, two birthday parties, and got to spend lots of time with lots of family, and Amy's chihuahua, Rosie. Rosie is roughly the size of a grown man's tennis shoe and she scares me half to death when she sneaks up on me. Luckily, she's small enough that we don't think my grandmother can see her, which is a good thing. She doesn't need any more provocation for being upset.

I found out this weekend that my grandmother has been harboring resentment against me for restricting her from eating a second dessert at her brother's birthday party a month ago. She says that she's an adult and she can do whatever she wants and that I'm a "culo súsio." I had a feeling that she was mad at me but I thought it was because she couldn't remember the last name of some dead aunt that I'd asked her about. She's usually mad at me for those sort of things. But apparently not. Also, I called her boyfriend, Pepe, fat. Curiously, I may be the only family member in the whole family to whom she has not spoken to about her fiancé. And if Danny would quit "following" her and "staring" at her maybe she would stop hiding in her room. She's very emotional when she bemoans our impertinence. So my family waits till the rest of us are gathered on the back porch to laugh about it all and debate the ethics of geriatric medicine. (Because you can't get more than 2 Andollos in a room without an argument ensuing). The weather being gloriously cool and breezy, it was one of my favorite parts of the weekend- in addition to the day and a half "off" from the kids that Danny so graciously gave me, going undefeated at Dominoes, and mashed potatoes ad infinitum.

Dominic fell in love with Handel's Messiah (and shouted "Hallelujah!" all the way into church to my mom's embarrassment). Noemie went on a nose-squeezing frenzy (other people's noses, specifically). I got a black maternity skirt so I can dress up for the holidays. We didn't break anything that I know of... in all, not a bad weekend!

Digging up the past, minding the skeletons

I love history. I love the idea that there once existed a world where people as familiar to me as my grandparents lived, that can never exist again. Like an archeologist that tries to reconstruct the past by picking up the pieces found today, I too am digging up remains... the remains of identities, personalities, memories, and paradigms. And photos when I can find them.

It all started by accident- I picked up one of those family history fill-in-the-blank books about 3 years ago. And I started filling in blanks. But the blanks weren't good enough. The content wasn't exciting or juicy enough. And my entries were spilling out of the allotted blanks and onto the margins and covers anyway. I also came to realize that the two paragraphs on Cuban history taught to me in 9th grade were insufficient to understand the contexts of the characters who were developing in my mind. The more the characters and the setting and the stories developed, the more I realized that they deserved to be recorded. My interest in my family's past has evolved into a book.

The Bible says, "Fools despise wisdom and instruction. " The don't-trust-anyone-over-thirty mantra that clouded the sensibilities of the baby-boomer generation, and has been eagerly adopted by my own, is absolute foolishness. It's like saying, "Let's make our parents' and grandparents' mistakes over again!" My grandfather wont be around forever to lecture us during Thanksgiving dinners. I don't have a very good memory and my children might ask me one day why I believe in things like hard work and education, the inherent faults of socialism, or in not wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Now I can just say, well let's just look at the books. I'll make it part of their homeschooling curriculum :o)

Now for some fun stats:
My maternal grandmother is the oldest of our grandparents (she'll be 88 next year)
My maternal grandfather was jailed 7 times for political dissidence.
My paternal grandmother was an only child who never met her father.
My paternal grandfather is 22 years older than his youngest sister... They share the same parents.

Danny's maternal grandmother is the youngest of our grandparents (she'll be 70 next year)
Danny's maternal grandfather is 1/4 Scottish.
Danny's paternal grandmother was 8 years younger than her husband
Danny's paternal grandfather had 2 brothers and 4 sisters. Yet he had 4 sons and 0 daughters.

My family tree has 730 names in it between Danny's family and my own.

Most prolific ancestors- Jose Elias Garcia & Maria Regla Rizo (my mom's dad's dad's parents, with 45 grandkids.)

Oldest living person*- Andrea Dorila Garcia (my mom's dad's sister) who is 90 years old (unless
Danny's dad's dad's sisters Dolores or Estrella are still alive in Cuba, in which case one of them would be the oldest at 92 and/or 97)

Person who lived the longest*- Fabiana Borrego (died in 1993 at 101; Danny's dad's dad's mom)

Oldest birthdate on the chart- 1816 Maritiña Escubiña (Danny's dad's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom. She also lived to be 101 years old)

* I don't have dates for all 730 people on the chart

Considering that my heart goes a-flutter anytime I find that I'm in the presence of a centenarian, I might look into doing this for others. For lots and lots of money. (It's not easy, you know!)


We still don't know if #5 is a boy or a girl, and Danny starts his first full-time day-on-the-road as a certified police officer tomorrow at 6:30 in the morning. Ka-chow!

The night before the big day

Thursday's a doubly big day, and while I usually don't lump my posts so close together, celebrating our veterans has afforded me this special opportunity to share, very quickly, my predictions for tomorrow.

For my first prediction, I predict that Danny will graduate. Ok just kidding. What I really wanted to say is that it has come to my attention that it is in fact possible, if you're lucky, to tell the sex of your baby at 14 weeks pregnant. Tomorrow we are going to our first doctor's appointment and will very likely get a sonogram for #5.

When I was pregnant with Dominic, I thought he was a girl. But the night before our sonogram, I had a Moe's burrito and it absolutely convinced me that Dominic was in fact a boy. And so he was.

When I was pregnant with Noemie, I determined she was a girl because I craved bruschetta with fresh mozzarella- the kind you can't buy at Publix. Only a girl would want that. Score again.

This time, I am predicting it will be a boy. The only serious craving (and boy was it serious) that I've had was for iceberg lettuce. But everything else feels just like my first pregnancy. And well, it's just a hunch anyway. I just wanted to put it out there cuz if I'm right again, someone should buy me a new car. Preferably a Honda Pilot. Oh! With a salad bar!

School. At home. Oh the possibilities!

When I was pregnant with Dominic, many people were excited for me. Some expressed concerns about my plans for continuing education, or the tightness of our budget, or about whether I was too young, but even they were generally positive. When I was pregnant with Noemie, it seemed that the mood of the public shifted to one of resignation to the fact that Danny and I were officially in family mode. But the announcement that we are expecting our third has brought out the uglies! If you've had more than two kids you know what I'm talking about. One tactless family member made the discovery while asking Danny if he'd "snip snip"-ed yet. When she found out that on the contrary, we were still at work, she glared at me from afar for the rest of the evening. Yet another family member admitted she was "too liberal" to share her opinion on the matter. Hah! I'm still planning on at least one more. I suppose at that point people will dismiss me from the human race altogether. And wait till they find out I want to home school!

Here are Dominic and Noemie in their Halloween costumes:

Dominic is a beach-goer in the 1920s. Noemie is his lifeguard. Obviously.

I recently got in an argument about homeschooling with my parental units. And while I've no intention to use my blog for a forum of discussion on the topic, I would like to reiterate my points here.

Why Anais wants to homeschool:
1. I like my kids
2. I like teaching them stuff
3. The teacher:student ratio is way better than they're going to get anywhere else
4. I desire to have control over what they learn, when they learn it, and how they learn it because no one knows my kids better than I do, and no one loves them as much as I do
5. Because we can take vacation whenever, wherever I want, for as long as I want

Will my kids be socialized? Yes, and probably much better than in a traditional schooling system where the only "socialization" that happens is on the playground or on the bus, with a pack of unsupervised children exactly their same age, from the same socio-economic background. How very like the real world. (Oh wait, that's not like the real word at all now, is it?)

It saddens me to see kids drooling over their mundane homework worksheets at the library. They just spent 7 hours at school and now they have to spend another 3 hours grueling over fractions and using the word "earnest" in a sentence? Gross! My busywork-free 4th grader, meanwhile, will be reciting the Declaration of Independence as he runs down the soccer field, solving quadratic equations in his head, for fun, as he plays the drums in his garage band, and explaining oxidative phosphorylation to his little sister as they work together to replace the transmission on a '57 Thunderbird. And if we don't make it to the Krebs cycle, no big deal. I didn't understand it till college anyway. If you take away all the time spent going to and from school, waiting for attendance or walking between classes, taking useless assessments, and waiting for the slow kids to catch up, your kids could have 4 more hours to their day- 4 more hours to learn, to play, to meet people who aren't just like them... It's a beautiful thing.

I'm a HUGE homeschooling advocate, even though most people look at me like I've got pudding coming out of my nose when I talk about it. I am EXCITED! Homeschooling was the norm prior to the 20th century. Literacy today is lower than it was at the onset of compulsory education! Not every one can homeschool for many reasons, but if it's something you are considering, I would love to convince you. I can also give you a number of reasons why having a big family is awesome, but you might feel kinda lonely if you go for it.

Is that a protractor?

Our trip to Disney was a great success! I'd post pictures but in the words of the pie man who met Simple Simon, indeed I have not any. My parents have them in their possession and they are traveling with my grandmother at the moment, who in recent months, has been starting to let her imagination run away with her. Far away. She's apparently engaged to be married and none of us had any idea!

One of the more entertaining moments at Disney was our breakfast at Ohana's with Mickey, Pluto, Lilo, and Stitch. All-you-can-eat fruit, Mickey waffles, and scrambled eggs, and bacon, and potatoes, and passionfruit-orange-grapefruit juice... and it tasted amazing! When Dominic got his surprise cupcake at the end, my parents got a surprise of their own- a third grandchild on the way! Now I know what you're thinking, "Aren't you the lead coordinator for a family reunion cruise that you've been planning for months that you now wont be able to attend?" and "Isn't your Corolla too small to hold three car seats given the size of the first two seats already in your possession?" and "Isn't Danny going to be in his probationary year when the baby is born so that he wont be able to take any time off?" and, if you're Gio, "Aren't you concerned about global overpopulation?" And the answer to all but the last of these questions is "yes." So there you have it. Isn't life exciting? Feel free to commence celebrations. The expected due date is on my aforementioned grandmother's birthday, May 12. Now Danny and I have the thrilling opportunity to find a new doctor and a new hospital, and a new car. For Christmas, in fact, I will be asking Santa for any help he can give towards the purchase of said new car. (Naturally, as Danny was unemployed for 9 months, we have zero savings, and given his current salary, we have zero capacity to add to it). I will also be asking for a wheat grinder. I want a wheat grinder so bad! But that's it.

Today, Dominic got to have his pictures taken by Wall-E! (Read: he got X-rays taken). He loves it when Wall-E takes his pictures and always holds very still. The orthopedic took baseline measurements of his legs so that in a year we can evaluate their growth rate. It appears that Dominic may have a congenital condition known as klippel-trenaunay-weber syndrome. Which is to say nothing of serious import at all, but that one of his femurs is 2 mm longer than the other, and that the opposite tibia is 4 mm longer than the other, resulting in a leg length discrepancy of 2 mm... which is about the size of the thickness of a spaghetti noodle and, as expected, completely negligible. We just wanted to be sure that this was the case. It was recommended that he see a "genetic." So that's what we'll do one of these days, I guess. In the meantime, we are celebrating that Dominic is officially and totally diaper free! YAY! We tried to train Noemie but she resisted. She is anti-peeing-in-the-potty. I'll need a month to recover from the effort, and then Danny and I will reform our attack.

Until then, I am happy to report that my first trimester indigestion has subsided and I keep a casserole dish full of Hello Dolly cookie bars to keep my self-diagnosed hypoglycemia at bay. For those of you who don't know what this awesomeness is, you can find a recipe here!

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2007/07/well-hello-dolly-bars.html

And Danny is loving the driving portion of his academy training. Here's particularly adept at serpentining traffic cones in the dark, in reverse, at 30 miles per hour with lights and sirens on, and enjoys coaching those who aren't. :o)

Graduation is Nov 12! One month from today!

Getting ready for Disney

Dominic turns three in less than a week! What happened to my baby boy? ...And why isn't he fully potty trained yet!? I've been potty training this child for over a year now. It's not rocket science! Ugh!

In preparation for our upcoming trip to Disney, to celebrate Dominic's birthday, I've been teaching him how to use a calendar. So far he has retained practically nothing from my elaborate lessons but he asks me four times a day, "what day is it?" and always points correctly to October 4th to remind me that that's the day we are going to Typhoon Lagoon. (He's been to the waterparks but not to the Magic Kingdom. Saturday is going to blow his mind and I am SO excited!)

Noemie is going to be potty trained, fully, within 3 days of our return. I'm absolutely determined. I'm tired of all this poop. She too has been preparing for her Disney trip. She knows the song for "It's a Small World" and sings it day in and day out. People will stop us at Walmart to sing along with her. She's got great pitch! She's still working on getting the words right. On getting any words right, for anything. She practically has her own language that we've been slowly deciphering. She can rattle off animal sounds and the names of most body parts and sesame street characters. But real, practical words are still giving her a hard time. Here are some we've figured out.

"Bubo"- jugo (juice)
"Alo"- hello (phone)
"Fofo"- photo (photo album)
"Fufa"- fruta (fruit)
"Cobi"- cobija (blankie)
"Kai"- origin unknown- (Dominic)
"No"- if she's shaking her head, actually means no. Otherwise, it means yes.
"Sebebaba"- "se balanceaba"- (elephant)...that was a hard one

Dominic's Spanish vocab nearly exceeds my own at this point. He's corrected me before. Here are some of the more amusing things he's said recently. (If you don't read Spanish, just use an online translator).

- (Realizing that I am controlling the automatic windows from the front seat,) "Mami, tu subes las ventanas. Tu eres muy intelligente. "
- (Explaining to me why he doesn't need a nap,) "Soy un señor. Un señor muy fuerte. "
- (He whispers to Noemie when I yell at him for disobeying me,) "Que susto! "
- (While playing with a tennis racket in the computer room, he hears my cell phone go off in the distance. He raises the racket with both hands over his head and runs out of the room at full speed yelling...) "Lo voy a matar!"

Life around here gets more amusing by the day.

Summer recap!

Going away picnic and kickball game at Tom Brown Park, and looking for turtles on a special farewell play date with Krissie and Tommy

Multi-generational hang out time at the neighborhood park.

General mayhem ensues at the Andollo house

Dominic is placed in an advanced gymnastics class to temper his acrobatic inclinations

Noemie gets a haircut to temper her hair


Noemie sleeps in the play pen. Dominic accompanies her when mami and papi go out.

Father's Day

Welcoming the Green family back to Florida

Moving into our new home, and getting to see a whole lot of Melissa's face. Life couldn't be better!

Celebrating Hana's birthday at Tatu and saying goodbye to Jessica Brennan and Santi-san.

Saying goodbye to Amy...this is getting sad!

Meeting Danny's cousin Marco, visiting from Venezuela...
And that concludes our summer!

Gio's trip across the US

Gio has been traveling across the US with his roommate Sam for over a month now. Well, they had been traveling together until Sam's car was stolen in Tijuana. In any case, they reunited in Washington for a few more days before Gio returns to Orlando and moves to New York City. Here are a few photos from his adventure while I find a way to retrieve the photos from my uncooperative camera.

(Photos taken from Sam's Facebook albums)

We're home!

"Mami, mira- burbujas!" Dominic whispers as he catches me looking at him through one partially closed eye. I am tired, angry, and frustrated to the point of delirium. Dominic is mastering his spit bubble skills as we approach the hour mark of another naptime wrestling match of will. It's become a daily struggle and I suppress a laugh as his breath tickles my face. He peers into my eyes making soft popping noises with his spit. If the laugh were to escape, I wonder that it would sound maniacal. Am I going crazy?

We found home. It's a beautiful 2 bedroom, 4th floor condo in Davie with a lake view that is so peaceful that sometimes I pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming. There are still boxes everywhere (mostly books) and a washer and dryer in the living room that I haven't gotten around to advertising. Everyday I wake up with an ambitious to-do list and the energy to take it on. But by the time I get breakfast taken care of and restore whatever disaster has befallen our household during Dominic's morning run, and then clean the kitchen and find the kids' shoes which are invariably missing, dress the scattered litter and march them to the car in the steaming heat, trap Dominic as he jumps from seat to seat locking the car doors and buckle him down, and get in myself, I am thoroughly zapped. I can usually get to the first of my intended destinations where I stand in front of whatever item I'm considering (a three-drawer Sterilite countertop organizer for instance) and try to remember every time I've seen that same item or a similar one at Target, Walmart, Kmart, HomeGoods, Bed Bath & Beyond, IKEA, Michaels', Home Depot, Office Depot... and I try to remember what it cost at each store. And I think about how I'd use it and where I'd put it. And what my storage alternatives are. I wonder about the environmental implications and about what Laura Ingalls Wilder would have used instead on the prairie in the 1800s. All the while I am intercepting flying sandals and containing toddlers that are trying to scramble out of shopping cart baskets, answering phone calls and politely acknowledging strangers who poke admiringly at my children. And this, my friends, is why it takes me two hours to buy a piece of glorified tupperware, and why, when I am pulling Dominic out of Noemie's crib for the upteenth time at 2 pm, I have to monitor my mental stability.

I needed to find some ribbon for a photo project and I was hoping Danny would install a bookshelf in the kids room. The camera cable is MIA and I had some things around the house that needed glue-gun mending. I've got some long overdue thank you cards to write and I have to pick up groceries for the weekend. Don't even ask me when the last time was that I worked on the baby scrapbooks... or why Noemie's walking around with a kiddie toilet seat on her head. I think I'm just going to call it a day and go to the pool. After all, it is Friday!

Getting closer...

No pictures to upload- I can't get the computer to recognize the camera. And, I am thoroughly exhausted. Every time I get on the Palmetto Expressway I feel like I am taking my life into my own hands. I undertook that risk yet again today in search of a world map for my grandfather. I ended up in a WalMart in the NW area of Miami-Dade, but they didn't have any maps. After taking an inordinate amount of time on the phone with Gio to get directions to the nearest Office Depot, I was directed to very near the airport where, to my great frustration, I found no maps either. Very sweaty and very tired, I marched forward to my abuelo's house in Hialeah where I had to drop off a book I'd borrowed anyway, and to ask him to ID some photos that recently arrived from Cuba. What an ordeal! It was supposed to be a 15 minute stop since it was already the kids' nap time but I should have known that would have been an impossibility. Esperanza, my abuelo's wife, chased my children with crackers and fruit juice cocktail while my abuelo walked around his complex, knocking on doors to show his neighbors how "gallant" his father was, how "elegant" his mother, and how studly he looked sitting next to "La Reina de la Carnival" at a society function. (His first reaction to seeing this photo, by the way, was "Crap, I'm old!") I was at a loss. Worst of all, I missed Danny's daily lunch time phone call! Dominic escaped from me before we left and was running up corridors and down stairs. With Noemie on my hip and my geneology notebook in my free hand, I just watched. Menacingly. My grandfather corralled him in the elevator and we eventually made it to our car and back onto the freeway of death.

The pictures I was taking to my grandfather for identification were from a batch that my mother's cousin sent a few days ago. There were pictures of my great grandparents, the first pictures of them I've ever seen, and pictures of aunts, uncles, cousins, and of my grandfather being a pimp. (Not literally... well, I sort of... I mean... nevermind). Gold! (As I like to say anytime I hit a research jackpot). I also recently came across some writings my grandfather made some years ago depicting some aspects of his prison experience. I'd love to interview him more but, as you can see, I need a babysitter. I need a vacation, actually.

Next Wednesday I am going to Tallahassee with Jonny and Hana, give or take a Danny, to move all of my family's belongings in a ridiculously long (24') truck which I will have to drive myself. We have to be out by July 31, which seems impossible. I love my brother in law and sister in law. I do not love moving. And I do not like being rushed. And I definitely hate being in a car for 8 hours and I am not looking forward to next week!

(Wo)man in the mirror

I have finally figured out how to keep my kids under control, which is to keep them busy. Danny and I decided to put Dominic in preschool gymnastics to help with that. Besides occupying two hours of his week, we hope he'll burn some energy there and maybe even get some climbing out of his system. So that hopefully, I wont find him on the roof of my car again.

I knew I was taking a risk by waking up this morning without a plan. The consequences of my decision were realized within an hour of Dominic's waking up- one of Amy's books was torn to shreds on the dining room floor. I have no idea how he got his hands on it, and I am painfully aware that out-of-print books based on characters from short-lived 80s cartoons are nearly impossible to replace. Dominic, not so aware, was smiling at me as if he'd done me a favor. I developed a plan post-haste, to go to the library. The Kendall branch library, where I used to live, isn't as pre-school friendly as I hoped, and we had to make due with a "room" partially closed in by shelves full of picture books. Dominic and Noemie worked on puzzles and read books about abandoned toys, sea captains, and vegetable colors, while I tried to dodge a hyper 5 year old with a thick, gurgly cough. The foam chairs that we were sitting on started to feel distinctly grimy. The air felt thick with killer spores and my throat started to swell. Germophobia overtook me. I fought it as long as I could, as gurgly-cough-boy ran circles around me, tackled chairs and rolled on the carpet. When he walked up to Noemie and gave her a big hug, we called it a day and headed for home.

Two days ago, a little boy gave Noemie a kiss. Either the kids here are much friendlier than in Tallahassee, or Noemie is quite the charmer. I hope its the former. As it is, she has much better dancing skills than I do and she loves to dress up. She's always asking us to put her shoes on. And she loves to dig her fingernails into makeup kits and lipsticks. On the other hand, 70% of my wardrobe hasn't changed in 10 years. Most of the clothes I wear today, I wore in highschool. On her last visit, Melissa sharply reproached me for wearing cut-offs. I haven't watched TV in ages... is that not "in" anymore? During a game of charades last night, someone had to perform Manolo Blah-something. Some shoe designer. I've never heard of him. In Tallahasse, this was not a problem. In Miami, this is a problem. Not having your eyebrows maintained...big problem. Legs must be freshly shaven and moisturized at all times. Chipped nail polish is a no-no, even on your toes. These kinds of things I already know, even if I fail to keep up on most days that I walk out the front door. But what I'm completely clueless about is clothes. Emily Villa de Rey is coming in a few days. Her giftedness is in "personal shopping." I am taking her to Dolphin Mall and when I come back, you may not recognize me. Yay! (That's not really true. I only have like $30, but I'm going to stretch those $30 as far as I can!)

Also, super sad about MJ. I'm so glad it didn't happen on my birthday. Dominic can now recognize and say "Michael Jackson", and sings the chorus to ABC. Our tribute.

A Day in the Life

Danny began work on Monday with a week of orientation. The first three days of orientation took place with the agency he will be working for, and today he had orientation at the police academy. During his agency orientation he had the opportunity to go on some "ride-alongs," where he goes on patrol with an officer and shadows him or her while he or she is on duty. Danny went on ride alongs in Tallahassee where he answered calls for the following: fighting roommates; a child who was beat up by neighborhood bullies; a gang hanging out in front of a gas station and detering customers; a drunk college student who shoplifted a flip flop (this resulted in an amusing but pathetic foot chase). At the new agency, the calls were the following: an old lady fell down the stairs; an old lady had a stroke; an old lady was angry that an iguana pooped on her car. Clearly, I like Danny's newer job better. But not as much as I liked having him home.

Today began well. (Much better than yesterday, anyway. Yesterday was TERRIBLE). Abuela was in a good mood, Dominic was in a good mood. I slept enough to be in a good mood myself. We played in the house and read books. Dominic was climbing and flipping and swinging all over abuela's walker so she suggested I take him to the park. The 10:30 sun was blindingly bright, but not being in Tallahassee, the heat was still manageable. We took Dominic's tricycle and I, with Noemie on my hip, started around the block. Shortly after the halfway point, Dominic decided he was too tired to continue. I would advance to the nearest shady spot of sidewalk and wait for him to decide he had enough energy to push forward. It took us quite a while to make it home and we were all tired (and sweaty) by the time we arrived. Noemie went down for her nap soon after while Dominic ate a snack. I put him to bed at noon, answered email, and received my childhood friend Katie, who came by to visit.

I went to check on Dominic after Katie left and found the door to his room locked. I didn't worry about it, assuming he knew how to unlock it, but a few minutes later I heard him tinkering with the knob. I walked over to the door and tried to explain to him how to unlock it but he didn't understand. He'd stick his fingers under the door, and call me. It was very cute. Like the scene in Dumbo where everyone cries... I sat in front of the door with a paper clip forever trying to disengage the lock. I was a little bit concerned that I would have to wait till Danny came home in 4 hours... As I was getting ready to look up the police non-emergency number, Dominic popped the lock and came out to "go pee pee" at the same time as Noemie woke up. I set him free to go about his business and went to take Noemie out of the crib. She said she wanted to go pee pee too so I took her diaper off and went to the bathroom where Dominic was looking at his reflection and not so much peeing. And smelling mysteriously of apricot. So I carried him off the toilet and put Noemie on it at which point naked Dominic made a break for the front door. I threw the pee pee diapers in the sink, hoping I'd remember to get back to them later. Leaving Noemie on the potty I ran out to grab Dominic and upon doing so noticed that he was sticky. Really sticky. Sticky from his hair, down his arms, down his legs. Going back into my room I found my very favorite lipgloss- the one I tried to buy an extra tube of a month ago at CVS and couldn't find another just like it- completely empty. The contents of my purse and my wallet were emptied on the bed and gloss was everywhere from the credit cards to the camera to the comforter. As I'm taking this in I hear what I've come now to recognize as the sound of Noemie playing with the wine bottles in the wine rack and off I go again. I grabbed Dominic and gave him a quick shower, and almost literally threw him back into the bed as I cleared the comforter and the gooey things and dressed Noemie. I started the laundry, located missing phones, surveyed the fridge and started preparing lunch while Noemie tried on different tupperware bowl helmets and practiced her Miss America wave. As I turned to put lunch in the microwave I caught Dominic out of the corner of my eye tiptoe-ing across the dining room doorway. I put Dominic back in bed and gave him a stern talking-to before running back out to rescue Amy's CD rack from disembowelment by Noemie who is always excited by such things.

With Noemie locked into her highchair and lasagna in hand, I set about quickly to get her water and my own lunch to keep the messes to a minimum. But the fridge's water spigot decided to shoot in multiple directions, squirting water down the side of the fridge and onto the floor. And I couldn't find my keys as I was running around frantically looking for the diaper bag that had the extra bib. By the time I got to my own lunch it was cold and I was exhausted. I looked up from my food in my first moment of rest to see Dominic peeking out from behind the bedroom door. For almost 10 minutes, the entirety of my lunch, I stared at him silently, and he stared back. As I finished my food, he began meandering slowly towards the table with a book in his mouth and a guilty smile. He quietly climbed into his highchair and strapped himself in. Dominic was supposed to be waking up from his nap by this time and his lunch was due so I gave in and prepared his food. It was at this moment that I heard car doors open and close. I made a mad dash for the back of the house to take care of those diapers in the sink, the gobby messes of wallet-stuff and the remains of shattered plant matter from Amy's dried bouquet that Dominic launched at Noemie that morning. Meanwhile, my mom's sister, Mimi, entered the house with abuela, whom she had taken to the doctor and to run errands. I walked into the kitchen with a tiny sense of triumph that I had given the appearance of a mom in control- that all was in order. A sense that dissapated in a breath as I witnessed the tower of tuppoerware containers stacked neatly by Mimi as she passed through the kitchen. I had forgotten.

I realized that, because it was Mimi and not any other member of my family, that I was going to be spared a lecture, but the defeat warranted a bowl of consolatory ice cream nevertheless. I know what you're thinking... I already had a dove icrecream bar as a breakfast-dessert and three oreos for my lunch's appetizer. It's true. And that's why my love handles are, every day, resembling more and more an innertube. I hope to be "home" soon.

Movin on... up?

We finally heard from Hallandale about two weeks ago and they gave Danny a start date of June 8th. In these past two weeks we planned goodbye parties- a game night, a musical night, dinners with friends, a picnic at Tom Brown. Krissie made us a going-away cheesecake at Bible Study. I finalized the Garcia family reunion plans for 2010 and mailed out the invitations. We also began packing, cleaning and purging in earnest. (Don't ask me for those inline skates- they're gone!) It never ceases to amaze me how many boxes it takes. There were minor set-backs, like Dominic's permanent-marker escapade, and unexpected victories, like Noemie peeing in the potty. (She went three times in one day and we had never even tried teaching her! Random!) We made arrangements with a friend to house-sit and hightailed it for south Florida on Thursday afternoon, stopping only at a drive-thru for dinner and eating in the car on the go. We arrived at Jensen Beach 6 hours later where we found that my parents beach house was a plumbing disaster. We let Dominic play in the pool for half an hour or so before we climbed back into the car and continued south. At about Davie, we hit so much traffic that we didn't arrive in Miami for almost another two hours (a drive that would otherwise have taken 40 min). Exhausted and sore, with Danny's clutch sticking and his car's brakelight switch busted from the intense stop-and-go necessary to keep from getting butted in traffic lines, we pulled into my parents driveway at 11 pm. On Friday, we dropped the kids off with Danny's parents and headed back to Davie to begin the apartment search. My head was spinning by the time we were done.

The local news is filled with stories of a recent string of robberies, and a murder where the victim's body parts are showing up in different spots every day from Miami to Pompano Beach. What a far cry from Tallahassee, where it seems the biggest fear is that some patch of forest near your house will get mowed over to make room for development. Dominic is in crazy-mode most of the time, and Noemie is her usually cheerful self. A little whiny these days but content. Abuela's in crazy mode too. Just this morning she was ranting about how the woman who comes to bathe her is demon-possessed. The lady seems nice to me, but maybe abuela knows something I don't.

It may be a while before I can post pictures; I have no idea where the camera cables are. A lot of things are missing at the moment. For now, my mind doesn't appear to be one of them. Let's see how long that lasts!

Nibble nibble

We haven't heard back from the bank or from Hallandale but we've started packing anyway. Winter clothes, books I don't want to read in the next month, and the few trinkets we own have found their way into empty diaper boxes. We decided to host a Going Away Game Night party last Friday night so that we could pack our board games next. We never got around to making dinner for ourselves before folks arrived but I figured that chips and salsa were healthy enough to suffice if eaten in substantial quantity. My figures did not factor in what that would do to the ph balance of my GI tract. When I came down with a migraine and acid indigestion an hour into my highly anticipated game night, I had to tap out of Settlers of Catan and crawl into bed to wait for my headache to pass. I did eventually fall asleep for about 3 minutes and when I woke up, the migraine was gone. I woke up just in time to dive into game 2. We had such a great time with our friends that we hadn't noticed the time pass. It was 3:30 am by the time we finished! The rest of them laughed it off but Danny and I were painfully aware that Dominic was going to be wide awake in 4 hours.

It was about 4 am by the time Danny and I got to bed and it was soon after that we started to hear what sounded like racoons dropping river rocks from our roof to the floor outside our window. Danny didn't care so much to see what was causing the noise but I am scared of the night (not to be confused with being scared of the dark) so I wanted to investigate further. Twice I tried to snap the light on and look outside the window to see what scampered away but both times I saw nothing. On the third attempt, I braced myself for an attack and opened the back door. (Mind you, Danny is still in bed). I looked around but there was nothing. Until I looked up. And saw IT. The underside of a medium sized rodent looking at me from the other side of the vent...IN MY ROOF. The mouse was inside my house. I spent what few hours remained of my night in anxiety, listening to the foul creature gnawing on my roof beams and eating through the drywall, laying a trail of mouse turds, propagating feverishly and creeping out to nibble on my children's toes and ears. It doesn't appear that that's what it did, but that's what I thought it would do. I've never lived in a house that, to my knowledge, had ever seen a mouse. All I knew about mice is what I'd seen in movies (all cartoons) and history (ie. they carry the plague). When I described the mouse to the man at the hardware store the next morning, he laughed and said, "that's not a mouse. That's a rat." A rat. Like the one in Lady and the Tramp that tries to eat the baby. My heart almost gave out. It wasn't until I expressed my horror to friends and family that it became apparent to me that having a rat show up in one's house isn't the exceptional cataclysmic misfortune I thought it was. And truth be told, I felt a little foolish. A little duped. A little bit like...maybe I shouldn't create real-world paradigms from cartoons.

So per the recommendations we found online, Danny baited a store-bought rat-trap with peanut butter and placed it as close as he could to the tapering end of our roof. At about 3 or 4 am last night, I woke up to what sounded like a shoe being dropped onto the other side of our ceiling, right over our bed. Danny climbed into the attic as soon as he rolled out of bed in the morning and retrieved the rat. A very cute rat. The trap had caught the rat by the tail and he squirmed to get free. The fierce hunter wrapped his savage prey in a garbage bag, removed the trap, and put him into our curb-side garbage receptacle, where I sincerely hope he will still be when the truck comes by tomorrow. I'd feel a little bad about it if it weren't that I still believe that, despite the furry facade, he is still evil .

In honor of Mother's Day

It's the Friday before Mother's Day and in honor of the forthcoming holiday, my friend Meredith asked me for a contribution for a church project she is working on to commemorate the day. She requested that I send her a list of 5 challenges of motherhood and 5 joys. Here was my response:

My 5 biggest Challenges:

#5- Thinking of creative, non-destructive ways to occupy their time without relying on television as a babysitter

#4- Teaching the tricky stuff- Why are some kids mean? Why are our rules different from the rules of other kids? Why can't we give all our friends kisses?

#3- Nothing is ever clean. Pee in the carpet, hand-prints on everything made of glass, the never ending propagation of dirty clothes and dishes...

#2- Potty training. Good gracious.

#1-The biggest challenge is constantly having to put the kids first, whether that means sacrificing precious hours of sleep or surrendering the pizza slice with the most toppings per square inch.


My 5 biggest Joys:

#5- Helping them learn new skills

#4- Being welcomed with ear to ear smiles and bouncing

#3- The funny things they say (today Dominic learned how to say, "for shame!")

#2- Kisses and hugs

#1- The first time he walks up to a kid in the playground and says, "Hi, my name is Dominic! This is Mami!"


The wonderful thing about parenting is that any one of those joys can ease the frazzled nerves of a multitude of challenges. Childhood is such a short phase of life. It's the subtleties of childhood that make it so wonderful and so spiritually necessary: their fascination with the world around them, their unguarded affection, their carefree faith. When we fail to appreciate our kids because we are too stressed it is as much a detriment to ourselves as to our kids. To all the moms out there, Happy Mother's Day! May you be as much a blessing to your children as God intended them to be to you!


¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

What Would Jefferson Do?

Happy Tax Day! It's been another fantastic day in the Espinosa household.

Believe it or not, the image to the left is pretty much the only Easter family photo I was able to take this year. No cooperation!!!

My first blueberry bush has yielded a grand total of 19 blueberries for me. I am really hoping it's not done for the year. My zinnias have all collapsed but my tea olive is sprouting right up, and I think one of my lantanas is making a come back! Noemie's fourth tooth is finally making some headway as well. Not like she needs it that much- she tore through 2 and a half slices of pizza yesterday. Noemie does not mess around when it comes to her feedings. Dominic's most recent feat was reaching the top of the web feature of our local park. Fearless, he climbed the 10 or so feet to the top of the platform. Judging from the looks of parents in the area, he may be the youngest (and probably the tinyest) kid to ever get that high. He's incredible. We even overheard him speaking Korean in the shower (specifically, he said 당신이 인 방법, which sounds roughly like "otoshemnika" and means "how are you?" I'm not kidding, by the way.) He's also ridiculously particular. Earlier today he bumped his head and requested that Danny wipe his tears exactly where he was standing. He also indicated to Danny which specific bathroom towel he desired to have his tears wiped with.

The highlight of my day was a trip to the capitol to enjoy a non-partisan assembly of citizens concerned about our $11 trillion deficit. In the spirit of Gio and the founding fathers, I carried a poster that declared my allegiance to the principles espoused by one Thomas Jefferson. Amy carried her chihuahua Rosie. It was really fun! I find it telling that even though about 2000 people showed up, no mention of the event appeared in Tallahassee's main newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. I did see a FEMA van drive by, though. Take heed- when the Department of Homeland Security issues a terrorist warning because its opposition threatens to criticize Congress, we should all be alarmed. (Notice Amy's angry-tax-payer face in her picture.)

Tampa Recap

Tampa? Where's that?

It's where we'll see la Tia Rodmar and Abuela Thais (and Tia Aida and Tio Luis and Luisito and Elizabeth and Alexander and Amy and Jessica and Eric, and Benji, and dos gatos y un perro, and Joellen, and the zoo!)

This boy has no... zero.... nada fear of heights.

He is, however, scared of carousels. Until they start moving, that is. Then that's all he wants to do. I think someone's ready for the Magic Kingdom.



Taking a photo with the Komodo dragon
(Wait mom, my hair's not ready!)



Noemie was one with the goats in the petting zoo





Yum, Yum!



What's going on in this picture? You tell me!