California Recap, Part II

One big piece of the California puzzle is my sister’s upcoming wedding. She’s getting married on June 26th, 2010. One of the things on my to do list was to spend time with Leslie talking wedding stuff. Not because I’m a great wedding planner- just ask Terre, but because I’m one of the bridesmaids. A dear friend of Leslie’s is going to be her maid of honor- so that Leslie didn’t have to chose between her two sisters. I don’t think Gayle or I would have cared but we’re happy this way.

One of the things that seemed to keep Leslie and her fiance from planning their wedding was the cost. They have a ton of friends and they want to invite most of them. That means a lot of food, a lot of cake and a lot of chairs, to say the least.

It goes without saying that in this economy pulling off a big wedding is a creative task. My younger sister married into a Mexican family. For weddings, they give tasks to a bunch of different people. Each are the madrina or padrino and they pay for and arrange a part of the wedding. Everyone seems to have a real job. And they pay for it.

So, that’s kind of what Leslie is doing. It’s not part of either bride or groom’s culture so it’s harder to actually ask for people to pay for things, but I think they’re getting more comfortable with the process. Plus, many of us want to pay for a lot of things.

Besides having people either offer their services or the services of friends who owe them a favor, or people are simply giving them a check to help with all the little details.

They’ll have a paypal account- most likely- so that people can help them out financially.

It’s a new day for weddings.

Apartment Sale

I desperately need to clean out our apartment. I/We like that we can’t really accumulate a ton of stuff, but it takes a bit of discipline to continuously get rid of the things that we don’t absolutely need. I keep thinking that we should just move into a bigger place but I think it would actually defeat me. I’d be miserable trying to keep it clean and keep my creativity at a level that helps maintain my sanity. So, small places of the world, here I come.

I was thinking of putting our stuff in a bag and giving it to the second hand kids store but I think I’d rather have an apartment sale. In Chicago, this is what people do in lieu of a garage/lawn sale, since few have a garage or lawn.

There are a number of things I have to do before being able to forward with this:

1. Select the items for the sale.

This is easier said than done. For one, the second I put things away, the kids want them all of a sudden. I also need to make sure we have all the pieces to toys. I’d hate to promise completeness and have a kid find that a piece to a puzzle is missing.

2. Set a date for the sale.

Probably a weekend.

3. Let people know.

I’m already excited about getting some of the baby toys to other families. Everything will be priced to sell and I’m sure I’ll have a bunch of freebies.

Besides toys and books, I’ve got maternity clothes, baby clothes, and my favorite: handmade clothes. Things I’ve made that the kids have outgrown. Several of these handmade items are going to my pregnant friends, but others yet have to find a home.

With more room in the closet, I think we can have their favorite toys and puzzles nearby, just not lying on the floor of the living room.

Being in my mom’s classroom at her school gave me all sorts of organizing ideas.

Wish me luck.

Violet, complete

For some time, bilingual baby has been asking me to make her a Violet dress. Not violet as in purple but violet as in the Peanuts character Violet. She looks a lot like Lucy but wears a green dress instead of Lucy’s classic blue dress.

While in California I found the perfect pattern and bilingual baby picked out the perfect green fabric and I went ahead and made her the dress. I used the 2T size and it fits her as if it had been a 3T size. I’ve had that sort of luck with patterns for a while. I did check the back of the pattern to make sure the size was just right for bilingual baby so I knew that I’d get a 3T when sewing a 2T.

When bilingual baby saw the dress, she immediately wanted to wear it. She wore it every day until our trip back home to Vermont. She hasn’t worn it here because it’s just too cold for a short sleeved dress but come spring and summer, I don’t think she’ll want to take it off.

There is the way to make this mama happy: have my kids choose to wear something I’ve made. Bliss.

And here she is modeling the dress. Actually, she’s showing me a quarter but I was photographing the dress.

Here’s the pattern I used, dress D: Sewing Patterns : Simplicity Patterns : Toddler Dresses.

California Recap, Part I

Three weeks and 12 plus hours later and we’re back home in Vermont. The travel part of the trip was only to be expected. It’s a cross country flight. What else could be expected? All in all, in flight, I tried to keep the focus that my relationship with my kids was going to vastly outlive the relationship with any seat mates or evil eyes.

San Francisco had a play area (tubes for crawling through and other cool things) at our gate. The kids got to play there and giggle, wiggle and relax before we got on board our long flight. Thanks SFO!

If someone were to ask me if it’s worth it to fly long distance, I’d have to say that as long as the stay there were long, then it is definitely worth the stress of flying with two kids. Even alone I’d do it again, knowing what I know now. It’s tricky but so is staying home (or putting kids in daycare, for that matter). It’s part of the mothering package.

I’ve got about 300 photos that I need to sift through and put up on flickr or facebook or something.

We got home past midnight with the kids fast asleep in their carseats. One carseat was borrowed from the airport since ours got lost along the way. We all got in bed and I slipped out to take a relaxing bath. I was still wired from the adrenaline of the trip and the glee at seeing my sweet husband. Regardless, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

We woke up this morning at around 11am. It’s been only a couple of hours but I think we’re all getting tired again. I’m guessing we’ll be off for about a week. Up until midnight and awake mid-morning. Don’t know who we’ll be able to see with this schedule but I’m comforted to know that it’ll all return to an eastern standard time normal in a bit.

I finished a couple of projects while in California. One was a Violet dress for bilingual baby. She likes the Violet character from Peanuts and has been asking for a green dress, like Violet’s, for several months. Well, she has one now. Photos to come.

Baby brother changed a lot in 3 weeks. He picked up speed running, learned how to climb, how to slide down the stairs, climb stairs standing, and how to drink from a cup. He’s wanting to jump so badly and once he learns how to, I can’t imagine why he’d want to walk anywhere. His hair grew and I gave him a quick trim before we left California.

He called my mom (Nonita) mama, which tickled her to no end. My nephew called her Nonamom at one point and now she’s adopting mamanona, as well.

He can’t sit still, but why should he? My family knows of my homeschooling intentions and once my mom got to hang with my kids for 3 weeks, agreed that they’d really shine as homeschoolers.

We did take off with some really cool books in Spanish.

One reason for clearing my parents of their Spanish books was to support a new endeavor I’m starting up: a Spanish playgroup class. The way I envision the playgroup, we would start with songs together, a couple of stories together, then some one on one reading between the parent and child and then some games, or parallel play, depending on the age.

I’m excited to get into this sort of thing. I had been wondering how we would get something like this started and it just happened. There’s another woman who will be heading up another group during the week, but I chose a weekend so bilingual papi could also participate.

My brain is powering down so I’ll come back to share some more California stories.

California 2010: Week One

So, we’re here in California at my parents house. My dad is recently retired so I have adult interactions all day. Lovely. Plus it’s my dad. I’m his favorite.

We’ve been here for almost one week. The first of three. It’s been up and down. Mostly up. The first couple of days were exhausting with the 3 hours of jet lag. I had no idea I’d be so out of sorts. Now we’re getting into a new groove so things feel more relaxed.

Bilingual baby took a nap yesterday and the day before. Lucky me! And only lucky because her baby brother was also napping which means… (drum roll)… I got to lie down. I didn’t nap. Mostly I just thought. But for those 30-45 minutes when they were asleep at the same time I had thoughts that could start and stop at my own pace, not theirs. In my world, it was bliss. My thoughts made me giggle, too.

My kids have taken to their nonitos. Poor Nonito is sick so he’s been upstairs resting the last couple of days. Let’s hope he improves quickly. It is nice having him home all day. They do wish Nona would stay home all day, too. Such is life.

On Friday, we drove up to Half Moon Bay to visit one of my college friends. We had fun hanging out with the kids, having burritos and catching up. The weekend brought my two sisters to my parents house to visit. That’s always fun. Imagine the three of us as little girls, all close in age. Now, fast forward to now and we’re still doing the same stuff, but sitting and talking more.

Sunday I saw an old friend from my school (actually, one of them) in Colombia. We were in school from 4th-9th grade together. Like glue. The two of us and one other friend were very close. We’ll get to see her at least one more time before we leave. She’s in San Francisco so who knows where we’ll meet up.

Over the brief time we’ve been here, I’ve been to my mom’s gym twice. This morning marked the second time. The manager was nice enough to let me come for free the whole time I’m in town. She did seem surprised to see me walk through the door at 7:30 am today. There’s a kids room with open doors but gates so the kids can check-in with me as they play. The gym itself is sort of like the class I go to except that you go at your own pace, there is no instructor and there’s party music going the whole time. I didn’t get to stay as long as I had hoped but I broke a sweat. (I do have to add that I don’t agree with the way that the gym- think a cross between Weight Watchers and Curves circuit training, sorta- has clients eating to lose weight with a high protein diet, but my mom does look way thinner and is working out 3 times a week, which is more than she ever has. All in all, kudos to her! Way to go mama!)

I’ve got two knitting projects here to keep me busy but I’m finding myself wrangling more than I do at home. New house. New toys. New “no, that’s not a toy” things to play with. I wake up at 6am and by 9:30pm they are both asleep and I pass out alongside them. One night I did force myself to stay awake to watch the Da Vinci Code. I just had to stay up to watch something. My dad made the recommendation. I never read the book and didn’t see the movie during the rage but as for a who dunnit movie it was fun. I do go for those kind of movies, even though the end was very, very obvious. I’ve got LOTR under the pillow in case I feel like a movie one of these nights.

I’ll come back to talk about the cross country plane ride. Alone. With two kids. Later.

An EC morning

Over the last couple of weeks, baby brother has been waking up really early and nursing on and off for about an hour. Up until yesterday morning, I just kept nursing, trying with all my might to keep the boy in bed so I didn’t have to get up and peel the warm layers off of me to take him downstairs where the heater hadn’t done its job yet.

Yesterday morning it hit me that perhaps he had to pee. So, I took him to the potty and sure enough he had to go. He wasn’t sure about sitting there and did protest after a bit but I got the message: He didn’t want to pee in his diaper. By the way, after a whole night of nursing, his diaper was completely dry. From about 8pm to about 6am it went dry.

The little one is 16 months and I’m assuming that we’re approaching a new level of awareness when it comes to peeing into something that isn’t a diaper. It was around this time that bilingual baby, and many other babies, gain more body awareness and I’m ready to open the door to potty time.

He is at a point where he can walk over to the potty and sit down but he can’t pull down his own pants. That’s what I need to prepare for him- crotchless pants so he can just sit down and go. I’m also planning on putting a diaper over the pants just in case.

With bilingual baby I remember being stressed out about her disinterest in the potty… only to relax later when I figured out that it was just a potty pause. From then until she regained interest around 16 months I just used diapers and changed them as soon as they were wet. Same with baby brother.

I can’t assume that their progression will be the same but I do feel like this time around I have a little bit of a framework that will keep me relaxed about the whole thing.

What bothers me the most is that I can tell that baby brother wants to use the potty but gets annoyed when I sit him there. If he gets upset, I take him off. No problem. But if I read his signals, I take him. I wonder if this means that my mornings will require me to get up sooner than I had hoped.

Bopa

During our recent visit to my in-laws house a new nickname was established. Baby brother has been calling my father in law “Bopa” for a while now and it’s starting to stick. While we were out there, I asked my fil if he’d mind being called Bopa and he liked it!

I only met one of my grandparents. It was my maternal grandfather. We called him Bapa (same pronunciation as my kids’ Bopa). I’m so glad that my kids have grandparents on both sides that they can get to know. They even have a great grandmother. How cool is that!

When I was a kid I even adopted my best friend’s grandmother. They called her “Bue”, short for Abuela. She’s passed on, and even though we didn’t see her very often, she was as close as I ever got to having a living grandmother.

I’m doing everything possible to set up opportunities for my kids to be with their grandparents. We’re visiting their Nonitos during January and since we live so far from them I thought it would be appropriate to spend a good chunk of time there. We’ll be there for 3 weeks. It’ll even give us time to visit with some of my college friends who live in the area. Some of them have kids of their own, which should add to the fun.

Bopa and Bapa, Slainte!

Working with the issue

I’m here to brag.

Sometimes I come up with some pretty wicked (I am in the northeast…) strategies for working with my kids. One said strategy came to me one day when baby brother was hitting a lot. I felt like he was doing nothing wrong and didn’t feel like saying the traditional “no hitting” line. I had also lost interest in those commands from my time with bilingual baby who doesn’t work well with them.

The solution that day has now become my standard phrase- our standard phrase- for most everything. What we say now is that one has “hitting energy”.

Why does that rephrase make any difference?

In my head it makes all the difference. It hits my brain like an observation rather than an accusation or an adult judgment placed on a child. Once we realized that we had “hitting energy”, we could go over to the sofa and hit the sofa all together, which usually gets all three of us laughing. A much more sane way for me to deal with hitting energy than telling my kids over and over again that they have hitting energy.

Since starting to use “hitting energy”, we’ve realized that when we get all wound up inside, we have “outside energy”. Again, rather than saying that one of us needs to use inside voices, we recognize that we have energy better fit for the outdoors and we can usually get outside soon after the realization.

After noticing that everything is energy (thanks Katherine B), bilingual baby has started saying that she has things like “swinging energy”, “hugging energy”, “washing energy”, and so on. It really can encompass everything.

My mom and I were talking the other morning and she said that a friend was over with her two daughters. One of the daughters, as she put it, had outside energy. That was the first time that someone used to remove all the crud that comes with adult assumptions on children.

Today I came up with another solution to one of my never ending problems.

The problem: I can never get anything spread all the way around a piece of toast. In turn, bilingual baby, upon seeing my half spread piece of toast will up and demand another piece, spread better. With more. Argh!

Or so I used to think.

What happens is that when I try to spread flax seed oil on toast, it’s nearly impossible for me to get the oil spread all over the bread. How can I?

Solution: Today, I’m sure inspired by one of my favorite tv characters, Monk, I decided to just cut off the pieces of bread that didn’t have enough oil visible to appease my 3 year old. She ended up with a perfect square toast entirely covered by oil.

It worked. The tears and frustration were replaced by a contented face.

One point for Leila!

She doesn’t even notice

In my daily interactions with bilingual baby, who needs a new pseudonym (suggestions anyone?), I find that when she’s frustrated her voice gets shrill and she punctuates certain words in a way that makes me dread the next couple of hours. What’s interesting about the change in her voice- something you’d call whining- is that I don’t think she knows that she’s doing it.

If I point out that her voice has gotten so high pitched that dogs will start barging through the door, then yes she can adjust. Left alone, I think she’d thing she sounded pretty normal.

A couple of stories to help you along my train of thought:

1. When I was in high school, I went up to visit a university with my family. When we got home, my sister said, “I was so cold”. My blunt answer: Next time bring a sweater. (ouch. I know. mean sister) Anyway, I got the parental lecture and never quite understood why I got in trouble. All I said was that she should bring a sweater. What was her problem? I know now what happened. I had no idea how my words sounded. I had no idea that I sounded like that a lot. Nobody told me and it took quite a bit of time for me to unravel it on my own.

2. When I was working at an elementary school library north of Chicago, I remember a 5th grader getting left behind by her friends. The girl was upset when they left without her and turned to the universe (I was there, too) and said, “What’s their problem?” I realized that nobody had told her what she sounded like. I very gently, as if it had been a future me talking to a past me, asked her if she knew how she sounded when she made the remark that made her friends leave. She shook her head. I repeated her words, using her tone. Her mouth fell open. “Really?” She had no clue what she had sounded like until I pointed it out. I really liked her and I didn’t want her to lose her friends over a lack of information. She was sweet enough to thank me- not knowing that I did the same thing and I only recognized the situation because it had happened to me. Many times.

I wonder if kids- people, even- just don’t know what they (we) sound like sometimes. What if we were made aware of it? It might change how we say things, right? What if, on the other hand, instead of trying to change our kids we just assumed that they had no idea that they were whining or that they were saying something in a way that made us resent the situation? Wouldn’t that change how we react toward them?

It sure has worked for me. But then again, I have my history.

Knitting warm-up

Why and how do I figure something is a knitting warm-up? On one hand, the first picture shows you the swatch of a sweater I want to knit up. All the yarn is cotton except for the burgundy which is a soft acrylic. This is the 3rd or 4th try. I took some crayons that matched the yarn colors and swatched it out on paper first. Then, I knit up 2 swatches- this one being the second one.

I like the combination here. The last time I knit this sweater I used five different colors. I like what I’ve got so I’m not going to go searching for a fifth.

This is a warm-up because it warms me up to the idea of knitting this particular sweater. Seeing how the colors will work together is making me very eager to knit it up. I think I’m going for a 2T size.

The next picture is of a cape I made for bilingual baby last month. I loosely used a top down sweater pattern and left out the sleeves. I think it worked out pretty well. Bilingual baby chose navy blue buttons to complete her cape- buttons that bilingual papi’s great grandmother collected during her lifetime. Last year I received a basket full of these buttons from bilingual papi’s grandmother. I feel so lucky to have inherited such a cool collection.

I tried to take a picture of bilingual baby wearing the cape but she isn’t liking photo ops these days, so I’m not pushing it.

This is a warm-up for the top down sweater I’m working on now… and possibly more designing.