God Save the Queen! (What is He saving her from?)

I pride myself in knowing the birthdays of my closest friends (and past highschool crushes...Taylor Hanson, March 14. BAM! ) So it was a little embarrassing when I wished one friend of mine a happy birthday a month ahead of schedule. But the embarrassing thing wasn't so much that I got the date wrong, because I didn't, but that for at least one whole day, I thought we were in October. Whoa.

I haven't updated lately because these past two months have been a world of busy. Dominic and Noemie quit kung fu and started gymnastics classes in its place. Danny and I started the P90X work out videos. Giannina went from being a cute blob to being a wriggly, vocalizing, chunky-bottomed baby. (Still cute.) And Cristovan, well, he's still trying to figure out that potty. He bears no ill will toward the commode but doesn't seem to understand the signs that a bowel movement is imminent. Until today, anyway. He caught some tummy bug (perhaps from those coins we caught him sucking on?) and he definitely knows now. Additionally, we began the home buying process. We don’t have the money for the down payment at the moment, but I’ve got the will. Four kids in a two bedroom apartment that smells like a potty training child? I’ve got a heck of a lot of will. But the most significant update for us is that the school year has started again. (I mean, it never really stopped, but let's pretend). We joined a support group, bought new boxes of crayons,  took first-day-of-school pictures, and dove into our first unit: Attentiveness.

Attentiveness is a handy character trait. Attentiveness means asking, "What's going on around me?" I expect it will encourage Dominic to hold the door open for me when I'm pushing the stroller into the elevator room. I expect it will keep Noemie from accidentally riding her tricycle down the stairs again. When she recovers from the initial shock of the descent, attentiveness will allow her to keep her mind in order instead of shrieking up the stair well, "My knee's gonna bleed and I'm afraid of it!!!" Am I expecting too much? Always. But, I must be doing a better job at this mothering thing. This week nobody commented that I had my hands full. Instead, there were two separate instances where I was asked, "Are they all yours?" I've gone from object of pity to peculiarity.

In our lessons, we've been talking about the ear and its parts, about the physics of sound, about concentrating. Toby sits in on brief spurts of our lessons. His two year old brain is not engaged in biographies of Helen Keller, Beethoven, or Alexander Graham Bell. He'd rather sit with his brother's geography computer-toy listening to national anthems. Toby does tend to be my most attentive one, but really, language is not his forte. He does say a few words. Twenty at most. I got excited the other day when he pointed to a black car in a book and said, "black car." I cheered him for this demonstration of great progress. Then he pointed at Clifford (the big red dog) and said "black car." I just stared blankly at him.

The decision to put the kids in gymnastics was an easy one. They were hiding from us when it was time to go to kung fu, the novelty clearly faded. Yet, from time to time, I would walk in on Noemie running in tight circles as fast as she could, saying, "Mami, this means I want to do something with you. It's sign language with my foots." Close the door. Clearly, energy release was an issue. So we put them in gymnastics. Now, Dominic does bear crawls and dashes, headstands galore, swings on the parallel bars once a week. Noemie jumps on a balance beam, flips on the uneven bars, bounces on the trampoline, calling out to her instructor, "Hey Mr. Monkey Head!" and landing every single move with her hands elegantly posed over her head. In her mind, she is an Olympian. Our Thursdays are exhausting. Unfortunately this doesn't mean they don't run out of crazies. I had to conduct an emergency diaper change for Giannina on the floor of the van after the last class. When I finished, I found that Dominic had run around the outside of the car and pushed in all the side view mirrors. Having accomplished that objective, he was standing in front of some flower bushes spraying them with mouth-fulls of water from an old Chick-Fil-A cup he'd found inside the van. His shirt, soaked.

As for my exercise program, I have nothing nice to say. The first day was amusing. My legs were so out of shape that I couldn't hold myself up about halfway through. I did much better on the second day of cardio- this time my leg muscles got through it; they caught up to my heart. I was very out of breath. I hate that feeling. I like exercise about as much as I like going to the dentist. And when do I have time to exercise? We put the kids to bed at 8 pm, and spend the next 40 minutes chasing them back in their rooms between jumping jack-squats, swing-kicks, lunges, and jumping in and out of invisible tires. Jump-twist, jump-twist, jump-twist, take the chicken pot pie out of the oven, jump-twist, jump-twist, take Toby to the potty.... Last night, Giannina was in a bad mood so Danny had to do his routine with Giannina strapped to his belly in a baby backpack. We had dinner at 10. I mean, 9. (If I say 10, I'm going to have relatives calling me to warn me about the dangers of late-night digestion. Sh.)

Giannina is 5 months old. Almost 6, come to think of it. Ack! It happens so fast. I'm totally in love with her. She's the cutest human being I know at the moment.

Oh, and my last surviving grandparent passed away. Abuelo Nilo, quite possibly, the world's greatest contractor, if for no other reason than he loved what he did, and he did it well. He thought his family was pretty awesome too. I agree.

Nilo Garcia

1924-2012