Wassup?

I've got a post in the works that has been in the works for probably about two weeks now. I keep putting it off because I needed to add some photos. In the meantime, I wanted to blog and thought, why not? No one knows there is another post to go up that I had planned on getting up first (well, now you do I suppose). There are no blogging police who say what can go up when and how. So here I am.

Apparently, with nothing to say.

So, here is what is up this month.

• Still working without a contract. There was a flurry of activity last week as my contract got written, printed and signed and then two days ago withdrawn again. Back to the drawing board. My boss says not to worry but honestly I am tired of not worrying... It is what I do best, after all.
• Agustin graduates from kindergarten on Monday. We will have the day off because the ceremony will be no less important than the crowning of the Queen. Then I am sure we will have to celebrate by taking the kids out, showering them with graduation gifts (can't give something to one and not the other), and stopping by the relatives' to boast that he made it! haha. Always so much drama!
• I am so excited for kindergarten to be over. No more homework for me!!!! Oh, I mean Agustin. But since I have to sit and twist his arm to do it two hours every night, it will be a break for me! Yay! Summer vacation!
  
• I don't think I could - well, would want to - function without coffee. Two cheers for coffee. Let's make that three cheers!
• For some reason I just started thinking about the Chinese embassy here in Quito. Strange. I think that means time to go...

Watch for Stuffed Animal post soon...

Mother's Day Poem - Translation

I forgot to put the translation to the poem in the previous post. Thought you might like to hear it!

From the sky fell a rose
My mother picked it up
She put it in her hair
How pretty she looked!

Gotta love it when two little kids think you're the prettiest princess in the world!

Poetry Night in Claros del Norte or How to Feel Like a Million Bucks

So, you want to feel like a million bucks, do you? Well, I have the recipe and all it takes is two cute little kids (ages 3 and 5), one cheesy little poem, and a mother. The best part is the mother doesn't have to do anything, except get hugged at the end. So there!

This little poem has been everything I live for for the past ten days. In honor of the upcoming holiday (Mother's Day), Agustín and Nicolás have taken to reciting it for me every evening (and sometimes two or three times an evening).

They get real excited and say "Mommy, mommy, I have something to tell you..." Then they stand real straight and tall. They suck in their little breaths and start...

Del cielo cayó una rosa
Mi mamita la recogió
Se puso en la cabezita
¡Qué bonita que quedó!

And then for the very best part. They beam, ask me if I liked it, and RUN over to give me the biggest bear hugs in the world.

And if that doesn't make you feel like a million bucks, I don't know what will. Well, besides a million bucks.

Living in a Video Game

Some days I feel like I am living in a video game. A little Mario Bros. world where simple tasks like walking and jumping over a puddle at times become a challenge.

• Like trying to pour milk while a 3 year old climbs up your leg.
• Or walking by the stairs when suddenly a five year old jumps out at you screaming "Catch me!"
• Or trying to navigate the kitchen-utensil (land mines and grenade bombs in my boys' imaginations) strewn kitchen floor while I try to make supper.

• Balancing one kid on my back while I carry the other because they both have to be the first ones in the car.
• Making gecko/Galapagos tortoise/fire salamander/iguana/crocodile/newt/bullfrog/Komodo dragon noises as I read the bedtime book Grandpa Dan gave us.
• Blocking karate hacks (rattlesnake attacks) to the face and fake crocodile bites while reading said book and also while trying to differentiate between one of the former or what might be an unexpected bear hug and kiss.

I figure I am in Level 3 approximately - I am just beginning to get the hang of it while the difficulty has gone up a notch. I still have all my lives though!


My boys - turning my life into a video game one day at a time.

Just for fun

A very funny lady was recently updating her status on FB with Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts. (You remember those skits from SNL - way back when everyone knew it as "Saturday Night Live"?) I had to start googling them, and thought I would add a few of my favorites, for a laugh every time.

• “If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
• “The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've hidden it. Good magic trick, huh?”
• “I hope some animal never bores a hole in my head and lays its eggs in my brain, because later you might think you're having a good idea but it's just eggs hatching.”
• “If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.”
• “Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny.”
• “I think there should be something in science called the "reindeer effect." I don't know what it would be, but I think it'd be good to hear someone say, "Gentlemen, what we have here is a terrifying example of the reindeer effect."”
• “I can't stand cheap people. It makes me real mad when someone says something like, "Hey, when are you going to pay me that $100 you owe me?" or "Do you have that $50 you borrowed?" Man, quit being so cheap!”
• “Here's a good trick: Get a job as a judge at the Olympics. Then, if some guy sets a world record, pretend that you didn't see it and go, "Okay, is everybody ready to start now?".”
• “To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, Hey, can you give me a hand? You can say, Sorry, got these sacks."
• “If any man says he hates war more than I do, he better have a knife, that's all I have to say.”

OK, that's enough. Funny.

On Thoughts

"...thoughts can save people, and...the capacity to believe that you can have thoughts, connected to your own experience, is every bit as vital as the more fashionable claims for emotional self-expression."

-Philip Davis, The Reader

I love this quote. It reminds me why I went into Liberal Studies in the first place. We truly are a dying species, ah, but what a way to die!

Crespuculo, or Twilight as You Have Probably Heard It Called

I am well into the Twilight series, and since many of my dearest friends seem to be obsessed by it, and since I cannot NOT read something that everyone is talking about, even if it is something I would never pick up on my own, I decided to acquire the series on my last trip to the States. Unfortunately, vacationers in Orlanda,FL do not seem to be much interested in reading, and I could not find a bookstore anywhere near the Disney World properties. Not even in the resort, where I thought for sure they would have a stand for magazines and books or something. Strange. Anyhow, I ended up looking for the books at a Walmart, and could only find the first one. I got it, and when I got back home started reading it. I don't know what I was expecting, but it sort of fulfilled my expectations and didn't at the same time, so I became intrigued and decided I had to read all four books. But where was I going to get them?

Fast forward to the largest display of Twilight books in an Ecuadorian book shop in a nearby mall, and all in English! Wow! Amazing. So I spent a small fortune on the other three books and have settled in to figure out what the hype is all about.

Maybe I was wrong to read all of them in a row. Too easy to find inconsistencies. Or maybe I was wrong to mention that I was reading the series to a bibliophile friend who was none too happy, and then proceeded to tell me his theory that Meyers had books 2-4 ghostwritten. But I haven't enjoyed them as much as I expected to. It is a book for young adults, so I realize who the audience is supposed to be, but I find myself going back page after page and trying to figure out what the heck is happening. For example, at a crowded party Edward will "leave the room" and Bella will be frantic to find him, only to notice Alice in the corner, who has "caught Edward's eye from across the room". Now, how did that happen when I had assumed he had already left? I know it is picky and petty but that is the kind of reader I am, I guess. I am not reading the books for their literary worth, but for the story (and the story is good), but if I am reading for the story, I would think the author would have to be more careful with the details that really make the story move. So, I have been struggling with that aspect of the books (and yes, the first book was much more polished, making me buy into my friend's theory).

I also have not appreciated how flat of a character Bella seems to be (I think she is changing a bit in book 3). I mean, the girl is obsessed with being a vampire, to the extreme that she (who I had the impression of being so smart and perceptive) seems to miss out on the whole picture. And if she really loved Edward that much, as much as she obsesses to, why wouldn't she listen to his reasoning a bit more? It makes me think she doesn't really love him but instead is obsessing over him because he has that (apparently) special vampire characteristic to appear irresistible to humans.

One of my friends has said that Bella is so flaky because she is in love. Perhaps. She was supposedly so different from the other girls her age, though, that she has secretly disappointed me that she is acting like the star struck teenager. Really, is it so different to think a teenager would want to give up everything to become what appears to be a glamorous, eternal vampire - give up marriage and college and babies and family and friends and death for a boy? Wouldn't every teenager be willing to do that? They are, after all, quite selfish and not much interested in the things about life that make living living. Oh Bella, you are so sad sometimes. What a sell out.

These are the questions I have, and normally they would sound like good ones, except that there is nothing in the story to help me through them. Like the author is just avoiding those hard questions. Again, it is YP Fiction, but even young readers deserve to have the hard questions approached, don't they? Especially with such a successful series.

On the whole Edward is a much better character, deeper and more intriguing, which probably explains why the series is so popular, since many of my friends seem to be secretly in love with Edward Cullens.

Ha! Taking a book so seriously. I am still obsessed with getting to the end, so don't think I am saying I won't read them. But, I am a little surprised at their wide spread success (don't hate me!).

Disney Vacation

So, I haven't posted anything about our vacation, yet, probably because I have been having trouble getting back into things since we returned. What a great time, everything was perfect and the best thing was having someone cleaning up after me, cooking for me, taking me places, etc. I loved the hotel and having the pool and while it was miserably hot I secretly loved the heat (as usual). Right now I am sitting at work with a heating unit full blast on my legs and I feel like I am never going to thaw. So, bring on the heat! I will complain but just because that's what I do!

The kids of course had the bext time. We saw all four parks, but the Magic Kingdom is of course the best one. I wish we had spent all our time there, maybe one day at Epcot. I didn't get on any adult rides, but just watching the kids get so excited for Dumbo was the best. The 55-minute line full of young adults waiting to get on could have been a bit more pleasant, but oh well. It was busy. What can you do?

On a side note, I just love going to the U.S. and experiencing all that space. Everyone takes it for granted (except those in NYC I suppose, that cement jungle is a special type of hell), but in a place like Minnesota you just figure everywhere in the world the yards are big, the avenues wide with little traffic, the trees shadow the streets and there are virtually no people since you do not see evidence of people everywhere you go. So I didn't appreciate the crowds in the parks, but the hotel was big and not so crowded and we spent a day renting a car and just driving around and I loved just soaking up all the extra space there is to be had. And to imagine how big the Disney property is, well, that is another thing. From our hotel it was a 20-minute drive on a highway to Magic Kingdom. All within the Disney property. Crazy. Scary, too, how big that place is and how powerful in a sense. But I am not going to dwell on the evils of Disney because as long as I got my money's worth of a vacation I guess I can shut up about it. But man, there is a lot of money in that place. That's all I'm going to say. That and comment how a recent article came out here in Ecuador where the public complained about the high cost of public transportation (25 cents). Just to put things into perspective.

I think it was just great having a true family vacation, just the four of us to do what we want when we want and where we want without having to worry about boring someone else or what someone else wants to do. Not to be selfish, but just to know that if the kids are tired we can go back to the hotel, even though we didn't "finish" all of our plans. Or, if the kids wanted to have chicken nuggets for the 115th meal in a row, it was fine. Very refreshing to have that kind of freedom. We will have to do more of those things, I think. My next idea was trying a trip somewhere down here, in South America, like maybe Argentina or Chile, or up to an island in the Caribe, like San Andres. We'll have to see, there are so many places in Ecuador I still don't know, but I see that as the boys get older it will be easier and easier to take those types of vacations.

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: