A snippet

Noemie is my bubbly, obedient, social, charming little girl who, likely an ENFJ, is so like me in some aspects of her personality that I rarely comment on her behavior because it seems so ordinary and nondescript to me. One thing about her that is a bit unique is that she is given to panic attacks at the occurance of loud noises. This afternoon, when a neighbor decided to drill something into the walls during nap time, little did they know the psychological trauma they would inflict on my unsuspecting two-year old. Our condominium's studs are made of metal, so that when they are hit or cut, the whole building trembles with the grinding sound, so that you can't tell if they're drilling the floor beneath you, the walls under yours, or even if it might be the unit two doors down. As soon as the drilling started I braced myself for it. Sure enough Noemie was, within seconds, screaming in mortal terror. I walked into my bedroom (where she naps) and she was gripping the comforter for dear life. Just screaming her head off. I took her into my arms, holding her tightly, and after several minutes she, between gasps for air, was able to make out, "Estoy SCA-A-RY!" (How can you not laugh at that?)

Noemie is also different from Dominic in that she is taking much longer to acquire the reading and arithmetic skills that Dominic had already mastered at this age. By his third birthday, albeit quite advanced, Dominic could identify 11 letters of the alphabet and 6 numbers. I've started using flash cards with Noemie to see if that will help. I can show her a letter and tell her what it is, and then show her another. I'll go back to the first again and she won't remember. Every letter I ask her to identify, the answer is "ep." With the exception of "O" to which she confidently answered "penguin."

As for Dominic, he thought peeling off the panel of wallpaper by his bedside would be a good way to kill time as he fought off sleep at naptime today. I explained to him when he woke up that he can't do that because this home belongs to someone else and he was damaging it. Dominic was very alarmed to find out that we lived in someone else's home and now he wants out.

Those were the funny moments in our day today, which like other days this week, have been kind of on the busy side. I spent the morning going to grocery stores and recording prices on our family's staples for comparison's sake. (Whole Foods is, on average, twice the price of Publix in everything from cheese to peanut butter... with the curious exception of Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. Also a curiosity- that I consider Ben & Jerry's a staple.) And my church has been having a week-long revival. We leave for Venezuela on Monday. But first, I have to bake six quiches. And pack. Oy vey.

Keirsey and Pizza

I was writing an email to a friend in Nashville who I'd like to see on my South Carolina vacation trip but Danny won't let me because he's an ISTJ and ISTJ's don't go to Nashville on vacations to South Carolina. And because I am an ENFJ with ENFP tendencies, I was attempting to make a homemade pizza while writing this essay. I mean email. I mean... my brain, like the rest of me, might be coated in a light layer of flour at the moment, so bear with me. So I was writing this email as I was making my dough, because making dough is not hard enough already, and somewhere along step 3, I ran out of flour. Now, I couldn't let a 1/4 cup of rolled oats, 2 cups of flour, 2.5 Tablespoons of olive oil and a good packet of yeast go to waste so I had to find me some flour and find it right quick because, as everyone knows, dough will die at the slightest provocation. It's why I very rarely bake- I have low tolerance for high maintenance stuff. (My babies know this before they even exit the womb. Probably because they've noticed I eat nothing but chocolate in the last trimester. It always surprises me when they come out white.) But it was nap time and I don't believe it would have been wise to leave three babies unattended so that I could go out and buy flour...when there was a perfectly good sack of unground wheat on the counter... and a brand new... wheat mill... in the office... a wheat mill I have been too scared to unwrap since I received it last Mother's Day... and...... well, I need a cup of flour!!!

I opened the box to said mill and read multiple instruction booklets at lightning speed while removing plastic protector wraps from various pieces of equipment. "...must run 2 cups of dry grain in order to clean parts..." No sense in wasting my wheat on that! I grabbed a bag of lentils and assembled the machine per photo instructions and plugged it in to hear the sound of a jet engine in my kitchen, a screaming pitch that was going higher and higher and higher, sounding definitely like impending global destruction. I pulled that plug out in a heart-beat and half-expected to see Noemie tumble out of my room half-asleep shrieking in mortal terror. Thankfully, this did not happen. I closed all the doors and placed the machine on a rug, considered throwing some couch cushions over it as well but there as no time! No time! My dough was already looking displeased. So I turned the machine off and plugged it in and got ready with my 2 cups of lentils. Turned the machine on and poured in the lentils as the engine whirred doom and despair and small clouds of lentil dust escaped the various filters on the outside of the collection basin. Or was that smoke? I imagined the mill bursting into flames and realized that I was not within arms reach of a fire extinguisher. (An ENFJ always has a worst-case scenario escape plan ready.) It took me way longer than it should've to figure out how to open the darn contraption once it was finished. Dump, sweep, wipe, and I was (am) thoroughly coated in lentil dust from head to toe, in my lungs as well, no doubt. Put all the parts on again and ready for round 2, this time with the wheat. Knead the dough... waiting to see if it will rise... and now I will tell you about the babies.

Dominic has been climbing atop furniture since before his first birthday. As a four year old, he is climbing the walls, doing airborne flips from my bed's foot-board, and working on his long-distance jumping by leaping across his bedroom, over Cristovan who is playing innocently on the floor. No, this is not ok. I'm currently advocating a gymnastics class for "Look, I'm Spiderman!" We will also be beginning social skills lessons. Dominic has been getting bullied (again), and Danny didn't think my how-to-punch-bullies-in-the-nose lessons were entirely age-appropriate. Gotta quench that Spanish blood sometimes. Our modified lessons will be more like: How To Spot A Stink-Face and How To Respond to Stink-Faces. We'll also be working on our manners. When I say, "Dominic, it's bad manners to pick your teeth," the appropriate response will never be, "But I have a booger stuck in them."

Cristovan, while not exactly high-maintenance, is quite the picky person. At nearly 8 months he is just now reducing his wakings to one per night (Dominic had this down at 5 months, Noemie at 3 months). His doctor says he is under-weight but the child refuses to take a bottle under any circumstances, and dinner times are always a battle of wills. "I will you to eat this vegetable medley!" says I. "I will not eat it unless it tastes like peaches!" he responds inaudibly. Which is to say, he samples a smackering of every spoonful that comes his way, then violently swings his head to the side so that you can't shove the spoon in any further. He trusts nothing. And refuses even fruit if the consistency doesn't suit him exactly. A picky eater? My mother always wished I would have the blessing of knowing what it was like to have a child just like me. It's not my fault if he's underweight! His fat rolls haven't suffered on account of it yet, in any case.

Noemie wants to be a ballerina. A queen ballerina monkey. I am looking into this.

And... looking into the oven... am quite relieved to note that the dough did in fact rise!

Venezuela bound in T-16 days!

Happy 81st...I mean, 31st... I mean... birthday! to Danny's Abuela Sonia!

Doing puzzles in pajamas. This is the life.

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If the terms ISTJ and ENFJ are unfamiliar to you, then you have been deprived of the wealth of amusement available in the Keirsey temperament sorter a.k.a Myers-Briggs test, of which I have become such a self-proclaimed expert, that I can usually get you nailed down within 10 questions. Each of the four letters has only one of two options. The first letter, E or I, defines whether you're an extrovert or an introvert. Most people know this about themselves. The rest of the test is more interesting. Take the following quote from my blog, for instance: "ISTJ's don't go to Nashville on vacations to South Carolina." Danny, upon proof-reading my blog (as he always does because I'm so prone to saying stupid things), thought this was hysterical. Why? Because it's so OBVIOUS that trips to South Carolina are just that, trips to South Carolina. If you agree with this statement, then the last letter in your personality type should be a J. And your second letter may very probably be an S. If you find a trip to South Carolina to be a welcome opportunity to visit any other city within 200 miles of your destination city, then you are likely to have an N as your second letter. If you welcome the opportunity to visit such a city simply because you're on vacation and you may feel like it if and when the opportunity presents itself while on the trip, then you likely have a P for your last letter. If the answers to these questions seem very matter of fact to you, then you are likely a T for your third letter. If you felt any emotional impulse whatsoever to make a case for my cause, then you are probably an F instead. My mother, who is an ESFJ, calls me after all my disaster-story blog entries to advise me on disaster prevention. As she reads these very words she is probably reaching out for her phone.... Yes mom, I will never bake bread again without pre-measuring my flour. But I make no promises about the yeast.

You can read more about the temperament sorter in the synopsis on wikipedia or pick up a copy of Keirsey's Please Understand Me II, which has the formal test, and more in depth studies on the ways that different personality types drive each other crazy.

Feliz Navidad

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! Our own family celebrations were, as usual, a mix of Cuban traditions, with Puerto Rican influence from my mom's time there in her late teens and early twenties, and meshed with Danny's own Venezuelan-Cuban roots. These are then tossed in with the medley of American traditions that surrounded us in childhood. And voilá. A mess.

For those of you who didn't grow up in Miami, here's a guide to following our traditions.

Illustrated Dictionary of Hispanic Holidays

FAMILY: Anyone in your family tree, and everyone you wish was on your family tree. For as long as I can remember, our holiday gatherings have included my immediate family, my grandparents on both sides more often than not, two sets of second cousins with their immediate families, and anyone that my parents knew of that didn't have family to go to themselves. Here are Dominic and Noemie with their fourth cousins. (That means that they share a great-great-great grandparent).

LECHÓN: A gutted pig of usually 100-150 pounds, marinated for at least 24 hours in a bath of naranja agria (sour orange), lime juice, a gazillion cloves of smashed garlic, olive oil and probably some other stuff. The pig is roasted the whole day of the 24th to be ready in time for me to eat it. It is Oh-my-goodness-Oh-so-good, and the first year I celebrated Christmas with Danny's family and they didn't have it, I was utterly devastated. Serve with black beans n' rice, yucca, a garden salad, wine, and a game of dominoes.

NOCHE BUENA: The cubans' Christmas Eve. On Noche Buena, the family gathers pretty much for the sole purpose of eating lechón sometime between the Protestant candlelight services and the Catholic midnight masses. A few years ago, my cousins spent the evening watching grizzly horror flicks. So Danny and I began spending Christmas Eve with his family, who calls it simply "Navidad"(Christmas). They eat ayacas instead of lechón (I get my lechón fix the next day with left-overs). I hope that someday Amy's farmhouse dream materializes, where we all spend a week in her North Carolina homestead to take horsedrawn carriage rides in the snow, snuggling up in our handmade quilts with hot mugs of homemade cider singing carols with Brandon on the banjo and Danny on the fiddle. And there will invariably be lots of lechón.

El DÍA DE LOS REYES: Three Kings Day, the day when children across Latin America receive gifts (deposited under their beds by the three kings on camelback). The children often leave hay for the camels to eat (much the way American children leave cookies for Santa), and if they are bad, they get coal (like the American tradition as well). I don't know any Cuban-Americans who still stay entirely true to this holiday, as it falls on January 6th and I guess parents didn't want to leave their children empty-handed on Christmas morning. This year, we did Christmas morning at the Espinosa house with the abuelos, Tio Diego, and Tio Jonny and Tia Hana with their schnauzer Roxy, dressed in her Christmas best. We went to my parents house in the afternoon. The kids still are a little confused about whether the presents were brought by Bible characters, Santa, or family, but they're too busy enjoying them to worry about such technicalities.

PARRANDA: (Of Puerto Rican origin). Similar to caroling, a band of friends or cousins gather to visit other friends and/or cousins with the intention of spreading Christmas cheer by way of singing songs that I've never heard sung by people who aren't in my family. Songs that, as far as I can tell, are about drunk fish and picking flowers on a mountainside, and have nothing to do with Jesus or angels or reindeer. Unlike caroling, there are maracas involved. These unannounced visits are also known as asaltos, which literally and appropriately translates to "assaults." As Puerto Ricans have a crazy streak, they celebrate Christmas till January 8th. They can therefore show up randomly at your house at any point in that time frame, pounding on their tambourine as loudly as possible, wailing, "Si no me dan de comer...LLORO!"* I was going to post a video but it was embarrassing.

AÑO NUEVO: New Year's Eve, the holiday of superstitions. I'm not sure how non-Cubans celebrate it, actually. Cubans are supposed to spend the passage into the new year as they wish to spend the next year- all dressed up, with wads of cash in one's pockets, dancing salsa and merengue, eating grapes (one for each month of the new year, always red, jumbo and with seeds, yuck!), drinking champagne, and watching Dick Clark on TV. This year, Danny was working. When he returned from work, he had to take Noemie to get her foot X-rayed and didn't come home till 10 pm. We went to bed early that night, reading the Chronicles of Narnia, and listening to far away fireworks in our pajamas. I don't care for injuries any more than I care to watch Dick Clark count backwards but all in all, I don't know that I'll mind too much if our evening was representative of the year to come.

* Si no me dan de comer...LLORO: "If they don't feed me I will cry!" The original song actually says, "si no me dan de beber..." the spanish word for drink. Guess we got the PG version!