Olé Olé Olé Olé

Father's Day this year was great! Amy and I made a fancy, complicated dinner for my dad (snapper... mmm!). Danny had to work, but we all got to spend a little bit of time together before he left. The kids gave him the 3 volume Lord of the Rings extended edition looks-like-a-set-of-books DVD collection that he'd been ogling on ebay for months. And, because I couldn't be a a functional mom without him, I got him a gift too-- a gift that no other wife in the world would get her husband. But because Danny is awesome and trustworthy, I knew he could handle the responsibility... I got him cable.

What I really got him, was the almost-greatest desire of his heart-- the World Cup in his living room. I love World Cup soccer. It's the only soccer I watch and it only comes around once every four years but when it comes, I'm as big a soccer fan as the rest of the non-American world. My soccer playing husband got me hooked the year I was pregnant with Dominic, when all I wanted to do that summer was lounge on the couch anyway. We started this tournament like we did the 2006 one, printing out a bracket from ESPN's website, and making our best, uneducated guesses of the outcomes. Then we watch the fun games with our On Demand capabilities. Occasionally I embrace technology.

I commented to Danny earlier today that I couldn't be a referee, I don't have the attention span for it. And it's true, I spend most of the game wondering. I wonder how they fit those long Greek names on the jerseys. I wonder at how closely the Aussies resemble their native fauna. I wonder if anyone else thinks Paraguay games look like a page out of a Where's Waldo book. Is it just me or is Kaka's face exceptionally symmetrical? My favorite team is Brazil. Not just because they play fair and tend to win, but because they dance! I learned this year that their style has a name: Samba. That's my kind of soccer. But you didn't come here to read about soccer. You want to know about the kids. [Enter Dominic darting through the living room with a jock cup on his face, clutching a headless Wall-E figurine, with Noemie behind him screaming like a banshee] "Mami, Noemie me esta persiguiendo!" Amy turns to me and says, "There's got to be a more age-appropriate word for "chasing." I see her point. Cristovan is largely oblivious but smiles politely because he is a saint. Or a baby. But let's go with saint.

Wallabies? Footballers? Bet you weren't sure!

When Waldos attack

Happy baby!

Happy Father's Day!

Who needs sleep?

Verily I say unto you, I recently read in a National Geographic article on sleep that if you keep a small herd of mice awake for two weeks without rest, they will surely die. There have been days in the past few weeks where I thought I might meet a similar fate. It's not Cristovan's fault- he was giving us 4 hour sleep stretches by day 3! It's just that I can't seem to get to bed before 1 am, trying to keep up with email. Danny let me sleep in this morning and I woke up refreshed. Which presents a new problem- I'm now coherent enough to realize the length of my to-do list. I watched the water pool around my feet in the shower and I thought, "oh gross. As if the list wasn't long enough." Danny was off first thing in the morning with the kids to replace our broken toaster oven. I have a man (with an Australian accent) coming in less than an hour to replace the crank that de-threaded yesterday...with the window in the open position... it's a hundred degrees outside! And inside it's not.. much, much coolerrrr.... what commercial is that? Winterfresh? Also the guy behind the seafood counter at Publix yesterday had a Scottish accent and his name tag said "Scotty"! I've been back and forth on the phone with the doctor all morning because it appears that Noemie got bit on the eyebrow by a spider. Her eye is so swollen she can't open it all the way. I'm more self-conscious for her than she is. Poor thing! Also in less than an hour, Danny has plans to hang out with friends to watch the South Africa v Uruguay World Cup match and my cousins are coming over to visit. Ricky, who lives in Ohio, hasn't met the baby yet. We triple booked ourselves because we are that chronologically uncoordinated. And at 5 we run off to church for dinner and vacation bible school. You'll notice I didn't include any time in there for breathing, thinking, or working on the Garcia family history book I need to have written in 4 weeks. Or reading...

I'd been skimming a lot of books on diet lately- not because I think I need to lose weight but because I eat more chocolate than I drink water and I have a feeling that that's a bad thing. I've read everything from Mike Anderson's cancer-treatment-through-food studies to Dr. Abravanel's diet typing project (I'm a thyroid dominant type given to sleep deprivation and sugar cravings. Seems pretty self evident to me). My newest book is so far my favorite, "French Women Don't Get Fat" by Guilano, who has convinced me that, aside from the health benefits of reducing my chocolate intake, eating less chocolate will make it taste better! It's true that even though I will down a fistful of mini-oreos for my breakfast prelude, a chocolate donut for my morning snack, some spoonfuls of ice-cream to hold me over till dinner, a slice of key lime pie for dessert and a chocolate chip cookie for good measure on a day of temperance, I don't actually enjoy most of it. I've lost my sense of indulgence for these foods... which is probably why I keep eating so much of them! I'm starting to sound like an addict! I obviously need help.

On our way home from church yesterday, I told Dominic we would have to brush his teeth when we got home. He said that he didn't need to brush them because he hadn't eaten anything. I said, "You just told me you ate popcorn at church..." and he replied, "yes, but it wasn't dirty!"

And on that note, I have to run off and be productive. I may never have the chance again!