Turning Three

My little "baby" turns three today. It's hard to believe, a mere three years ago I was being introduced to him for the first time. Sometimes it seems like longer, actually. He has been walking and talking for so long, and we can't imagine our family without him. Even so, he is no longer a baby. (Although he is not completely potty-trained yet and still carries around a blanket and needs a bottle at times!)

When I think about this day, I think about how funny it is that Agustin always wanted to be grown up, was always excited about getting a year older, but Nicolas hasn't been so into it. He wants to be the "baby" - whenever we tell him he is a big boy, he tells us "No, soy pequeño." So, I wasn't sure how Nicolas would react this morning when we made a big deal about his turning three. When he woke up, however, we sang to Kas in bed and later in the car (Big Brother singing the loudest) and he was soooo happy! He got a great big smile on his face. You can tell he was happy to be made a fuss over. Maybe now we can convince him to "grow up" a little more and leave behind the diapers and bottle. No rush, I guess, except this summer I'd like to use the Ikea babysitting service while we go shopping, lol.

Last night his daddy made him a Mickey Mouse ears cake. Daddy decorated it with chocolate frosting and sprinkles and the kids ate it up. We'll have a mini celebration tonight (no presents - the "big" party with the grandparents will be on Sunday afternoon to celebrate grandma Shushú's birthday as well). We ordered him a pirate cake, are going to have buckets of KFC and fruit salad. It should be a nice little party, without too many kids to make things hectic and crazy.

I have a watch for Kas (or Nico, as Big Brother has taken to saying), so maybe I will wrap it up and give it to him tonight. Big brother has a watch and Kas is always so jealous of it.

In the meantime, I am going to spend the morning thinking of my Kas-isms (term stolen from my friend Patricia) and write down some of the crazy things this little 3-year-old boy says:

Grandma Shushú: Where does your friend Javi live?
Kas: (looking at her totally seriously, like you've got to be kidding) In his HOUSE.

Mommy: Don't you like to wear underwear so that you are nice and dry and clean? If you mess your diaper, you get all smelly and yucky.
Kas: No importa, se puede limpiar. (No big deal, you can just wash me up.)

Kas: Look at my hands, they are all wet. (He smears them over his Uncle Bati's face.)
Tío Bati: Why are your hands wet? Are they sweaty?
Kas: (evil evil laugh starting at the back of his throat) No. I just did pee-pee. (He proceeds to stick his hands down his pants)

Anyone: What a big boy you are!
Kas: No, soy pequeño. (I'm little.)

Mommy: Eat so that you can get big and strong like your big brother.
Kas: I don't like to be big and strong. I'm little.

A typical Kas-answer: Instead of yes or no, he'll say (in Spanish): Indeed! Of course! Of course not!

His favorite food at the moment: cereal in milk (he loves his Captain CrunchBerries), egg omelet with LOTS of ketchup
His favorite things to do: hit big brother (for no apparent reason - Agustin can just look at him wrong and Kas gears up the fists), "chat" online with his aunt Jennie, do his "homework", "cut with scissors", glue pages of magazines together, watch "pículas", do puzzles, read books (he is way into the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff right now), and GO TO THE MALL.
His favorite TV channels and shows: loves Lazytown, Pink Panther cartoons, Pocoyo, Curious George, really anything DiscoveryKids or Playhouse Disney
His favorite color: likes blue but will also do red
His favorite outfit: his green "skateboard" shirt (like Big Brother has), blue dinosaur pants and his "cowboy" boots
His favorite superhero: seems to be Batman, but also likes Spiderman. Big Brother is a close runner-up.
His favorite toy: monster trucks (the bigger, the better)
His favorite books: Three Billy Goats Gruff; One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (he loves the old fish and the new fish, the low fish, and the little saying in there "Oh me! Oh my! Oh me! Oh my!") - really he loves anything Dr. Seuss - and Mrs. Pirate

Oh, and Kristin just reminded me: Kas loves ketchup on almost anything. He loves mayo almost just as much, and has taken to eating his cookies by dipping them in mayo first.

My First Love(s)

Anyone who knows a bean about me knows that I am a huge bookworm, and even if I don't get an opportunity to read much, I am and always will be a reader at heart.

Anyhow, Monday night I went through my book shelf to find a book, and came across all my loves again: Fay Weldon, my huge book of all of Shakespeare's work, a collection of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, my Toni Morrisons (minus The Bluest Eye, which I lent to a friend and never got back but that's ok), my poetry books from Hamline MALS program (Every Shut Eye Ain't Asleep!), Pablo Neruda and Borges - wow, I couldn't keep my eyes off of them and had to start taking them off the shelf to literally caress them! Sick, I know!

Anyhow, I got inspired to write this post today after reading a favorite book blog where the author had mentioned The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman), a Hamline short story classic that reminds me of why I love reading so much. I am going to go back and read that short story again.

I go through these stages of what I will/will not read. In grad school I was mainly into poetry and literary works of nonfiction about education and such. When I start teaching my TEFL class I get into reading all my TESOL Quarterlies and Essential Teacher Magazines, or lovely books titled "Exploring Second Language Assessment". When Tin was born I couldn't read for about 2 years, and that was a real dry spell, for some reason when I was pregnant (and then afterwards also) I didn't have the concentration, resolution, interest (all three?) to pick up a book. Luckily I haven't had that problem with Nicolas, and so have started reading again.

One thing I have found that I am able to do now that I'm older (and love doing) is reading more than one book at a time - I may have four sitting around at a time, all of which grab my interest at some point in time. I never thought I'd like to have more than one book going at a time, but I guess I had just never tried it.




At the moment I am reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It started out really good and has since gotten a little slower (it is really long) but I like it anyway. Next I will try to hunt down the Twilight series. I just finished David Mitchell's Black Swan Green and really enjoyed it. I have his Ghostwritten and wasn't such a fan the first time around, but may have to go back and look at it through new eyes one of these days.







I have also got The Panama Hat Trail by Tom Miller going, and it should be fun as it takes place mainly in Ecuador (Panama Hats are actually made in Ecuador and just got their name from the port where they were peddled out to the rest of the world- um, for those a little slower on the uptake, that would be Panama!). By the way, for anyone who wants to read a great book about Ecuador and a little of its (and the world's history), I would highly recommend The Mapmaker's Wife by Robert Whitaker. There aren't that many novels out there about Ecuador, but this one is excellent! It is a little about the French expedition that came to Ecuador to measure and locate the equator.

I have been reading a lot more fluff lately, too, like mystery and suspense. Not my usually choice of literature, but I can get through a paperback in a day and also like the fact that I can read while in line or waiting for a bus (not that I ever do that, it's just an example! lol) and not have to worry about the plot too much (i.e. no thinking involved).


Rereading Elizabeth Alexander's Antebellum Dream Book again, and hope to find her newest this summer. May have to order it online, I think I read somewhere they will only be printing out 20,000 copies. Will everybody start reading her now, like they did with Maya Angelou?








Nonfiction is another thing I never liked much, but as I get older I find myself drawn more and more to it. I don't have a chance to get much nonfiction down here but will be looking this summer in MN for some books I can bring home, so send me those nonfiction book recommendations!

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a very happy new year!





As some of you know, here in Ecuador today is like Halloween. The kids are all dressed up and we've got our pennies and nickels rounded up so that we can circulate freely around town. We'll be leaving shortly for our annual año viejo viewings (it might still be too early but the kids are anxious) and I will be posting pictures later tonight or tomorrow. I'll also get caught up on my December Daily album later this week.


And dinner...

Hope you all have a happy and safe 2009!



P.S. Happy birthday, Dad!

december daily days 1-9

I have finally gotten around to uploading the pictures of my December Daily album. The quality isn't that great, but I think you can get the idea.









I'm really having a great time with this, even with the problems of developing 1-2 pictures a day. The last two days I haven't gotten the kids as they have been sleeping earlier than normal, but I guess that gives the viewer a little break! :)

You can also see the before pages.

funny things they say

In tribute to my December Daily, and as a direct result of my faulty memory, I am trying to be better about documenting the little things, the daily things, in my life.

Especially when it comes to the kids and the things they say and do.

Which brings me to the other day at the mall. We went to do a little Christmas window shopping and when we got back to the car, Kas got in and got really worried.

"¿Mi teta*? Where is it? Someone broke into the car and took my teta!" He starts pouting and within a few seconds silent tears are streaming down his face. Of course the teta was there, up front by the driver's seat, but the look of pure horror on his face was sooooo funny! As my sister said, oh the things those little kids have to worry about. Makes me want to go back to the days when I had nothing to worry about. Now it seems that all I do is sit around with a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that there is something I forgot to do... Worse is that there usually was something I forgot to do and now I didn't do it, which sets off a whole new worry. Well, I'm not the product of a Bauer for nothin'!


Later that day, Agustín was admiring the new Hot Wheel he got as an incentive to sleep on his own (we are going on about 3 weeks straight, and I am officially jinxing myself by admiting this in public). He was so excited about it because it was full of "gold". It actually looked like the color silver to me, so I asked him, "Isn't that more like silver than gold?" He simply informed me that it was too shiny to be silver, since silver "es un metal muy sucio"**.

Well. I can't argue with that.


*teta = bottle
** is a very dirty metal

First Day of December

Today is the first day of December and the start of the advent. We found these great retro advent calendars where you open a little window for every day (there is a piece of chocolate behind each one) - do you remember those? I used to love the advent calendar, opening the windows or drawers and finding some little treat. It made Christmas so real, and made it seem so close. I also like it for the kids because it will help them 9especially Tin) with dates and figuring out time better, which has been a bit of a struggle (could it be the age? When do kids start recognizing today, tomorrow, yesterday, etc.?) Actually, Tin was the one who reminded me that it started today, so it's already helping, although he thought that Christmas was tomorrow...

The beginning of December is also a special time here in Quito, when the Fiestas make the city larger than life and an otherwise somewhat conservative little mountain city comes alive. Parties and dancing on the street, traditional food kiosks everywhere, chivas with brass bands taking over the streets. But possibly my favorite part of this time of year is the bullfights.

We won't be going this year, and I'm a little disappointed. It is truly amazing watching a bullfight, and I really want to read the story Hemingway wrote about it now that I have come to understand it better. It isn't just about the fight, it is the bull, the bullfighter, the olés and handkerchiefs, the wine flowing from the botas, and the general festiveness. Every Quiteño putting on a Spanish straw hat and talking like españoles (a little annoying but something you get used to). It's man versus beast, and so exciting to see who will win. (Secretly I always hope the bull gets a piece of the bullfighter.) It's amazing how graceful both are, when the fight is good. Before I had gone the first time, I thought it was like a slaughter, but once you are there in person you can really see the art and culture and history behind it.

I'm thinking about all of this not because it is the first of December, but because today Tin was running around the house playing "bull". "Corre toro que te voy a matar" - singing it over and over. I can imagine that here little boys grow up dreaming not of being firefighters or policemen but bullfighters.




But it has also brought up another issue. Many people have been protesting the bullfights lately, oh, in the last two years or so. Usually college kids, hechos los hippies (acting like hippies), screaming and freaking out outside of the arena. They put up violent images of bulls being slaughtered (not by bullfighters but usually in slaughterhouses - or maybe the images are even photoshopped, not sure), and scream insults at everyone coming out of the arena. It is really distasteful. They call everyone murderers as they chomp on meat empanadas and hamburgers! I'm no tree hugger and I know living in Ecuador for so many years has snuffed out a love for animals I used to have, but these kids really go too far (I'm sounding like my grandpa now!). Anyhow, I was thinking about them because Tin was asking why they have to kill the bull. And I didn't know the answer. And then he said that he hoped the bull won, too.

Thanksgiving Hit

I tried the Miller family slush recipe this Thanksgiving and it was the absolute hit of the day! Why worry about the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie when it's really the booze people care about? :)

So here's the recipe (thanks, Dad!):

1 part frozen lemonade concentrate
1 part vodka
2 parts 7Up

Mix it all up and stick it in the freezer. The alcohol will keep it from freezing solid.

I couldn't find lemonade concentrate here, so I used orange juice instead, and it turned out great. I'm thinking any citrus-y juice might work (passion fruit, pineapple, maybe naranjilla?)

Ringing in December

I'm getting really excited to start on my December Daily tomorrow. I assembled the album this morning and LOVED using a lot of my new supplies and all those Christmas supplies I could never figure what to do with. Bought the photo overlays to help with some journaling squares - I love them and may try designing my own someday.
Here are the before pictures:

Go, Speed Racer, Go!

We're doing the Speed Racer thing for Agustin's birthday Wednesday. We bought the DVD but it was hard (for me) to follow. There was some very strange anime stuff going on, but the graphics were cool. Granted, I didn't know any of the back story, and I was trying to watch while the kids played and screamed and half-watched while asking me a million questions (why does he have eyes, Mommy? Who is the guy in the car? Why isn't the car red and blue?, etc.), so that might explain why I had a hard time with it, too.

On a slight Japanese twist to the whole Speed Racer theme, we will have a giraffe piñata. No monkey, but I'm sure the writers could fit the giraffe into the plot somehow.