Happy St. Patty's Day!

I guess I should send out a very Happy St. Patty's Day to all of those with Irish descent out there. I forgot completely and am decked out in pink instead of green, but when I get home tonight I'll have myself a nice beer (no Guinness around here though) and wear some green to bed. I do have Irish blood, by the way, so by default so do my kids, and I am probably doing them a disservice by not hamming it up a bit more. Of course, what fun is St. Pat's Day until you're 21 and old enough to get some green beer? So, until then, my kids will probably never appreciate the nuances of this so-very-Irish holiday...

Pic from www.jupiterimages.com.

Kisses for the Easter Bunny

Most three-year-olds incessantly ask "Why?" to everything. Why is the sky blue? Why is Minnesota far away? Why are dinosaurs dead? Well, you get the picture. My three-year-old, however, has not caught onto the "why" line of questioning. For him everything is "¿Dónde?" (where?).

Easter Sunday was a little rainy, and we had to conduct our Easter egg hunt indoors. Nicolas woke up first, found some eggs, had a good time throwing them around, and quickly lost interest.
Agustin woke up later and had a great time looking for his basket and eggs. Everything he pulled out of his basket was brandished before the camera so that we could record it for posteriority: what the Easter bunny brought Easter 2007.


After the excitement died down and candy had been eaten, Agustin settled down to watch a movie. Suddenly, he turned and asked me, "Mommy, dónde?"

"Dónde what, honey?"

"Dónde is the Easter bunny?"

I didn't know the answer. "I don't know where he is. Why?"

"Because I want to give him a BIG kiss!"

Halloween Update

A little while ago the doorbell rang.

“The cable guy, finally!” (As Andres says, the bill knows how to reach us, but when it comes to installation, suddenly the company has no idea where we live!)

The doorbell rings again. A very insistent cable guy.

Open the door. It looks as if a tornado has hit. Jack is rolled over, face down, leaking candle wax all over the stoop as if he were bleeding to death. Candles slowly sputter out on the cfement step. Our solar lights which line the walkway have been knocked over and kicked around. Tufts of grass are pulled up and thrown around the sidewalk leading to the street.

Vandals, you say. Actually, no. Just over zealous trick or treaters!

Yes, there were about twenty kids swarming the door, begging for candy. they had no idea what to say, and only a few were dressed up (I saw a witch, a cat, and a big ugly monster) but there they were! Of course I had to dig around for candy. Luckily I found a bad of Safety Pops, which just happened to be from Halloween last year, but the kids got SOOOO excited to see a different kind of candy that they went crazy! So, Amy, I got to be that house too! How exciting.

So now we know for next year that we will go trick-or-treating. Tin is already talking about it. (It’s going to be a long year...)

PS I will add pictures to the previous post tomorrow at work. For some reason I still can’t add pictures from home. Bummer. Oh, and the cable people finally did make it. And we got cable in our room! Uh oh, I can see now that going to bed early is going to become a thing of the past, and it will get harder and harder to wake up at 5 am...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I’ve never missed being away from the Halloween celebrations back home - until I had kids. Now I think of how they’re missing a magical day - a day to be whatever you want to be, a day to dream, to feel a part of a larger whole, to become part of a community, and - let’s not forget - a day to get sick on candy!

It may seem like a romanticized view of Halloween, but Halloween is that day. A community sharing and participating, a city-wide, country-wide celebration, a day to be someone or something else, and to create. I feel bad sometimes that I’m not giving that to my kids, as part of their cultural heritage. Of course there are many Ecuadorian holidays, but I want them to experience both.

So last night we carved a pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin was grown in Grandma Susy’s pumpkin patch in Calderon, from seeds bought in the U.S. last summer. It didn’t get very big, but the kids didn’t mind (know). They had a blast. Tin even helped poke out the design with a nail. We put “Jack” out on the stoop to get comments from the neighbors - some criticism, some compliments, but who really cares anymore?



After our pumpkin carving experience there was a firework show that could be seen from our house. I still have no idea why there were fireworks, but when Tin heard the noise he asked me where it was coming from. It was foggy out at that precise moment, and, not seeing the firework display, I told him I honestly did not know.

But he did.

“They’re dinosaurs,” he announced. “They’re stomping around with their big feet. Boom. Boom. Boom” He walked around the house like a dinosaur for a few minutes.

“Do you like dinosaurs?” I asked, expecting an emphatic yes!

“No,” he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “They have big toes. Yuck.”

Well. So dinosaurs have big yucky toes, do they? Hmmmm.

(On another note, tonight we get a cable connection in our bedroom. Yay! Happy Halloween to us. Hello, Jay Leno, Desperate Housewives, Big Love and the news! Goodbye soccer and Mexican telenovelas!)

Happy 4th

Oh, and I should probably say Happy 4th to family and friends. Have a nice time at the cabin...without me! (Here I am, slaving away at work ... read: posting on my blog!)

Quito's Parties

I love this time of year. The hot HOT sunny mornings, the rain in the afternoon, the comidas típicas, the games of cuarenta, the red and blue streamers garlanding the city. Celebrating the foundation of Quito is one of my favorite things. Now, with Agustín's birthday just a couple weeks before that, and Christmas and New Year's right after, it is definitely my favorite time of year. Plus, the mangoes are coming out - juicy and ripe and fragrant. The only thing I'm missing this year is the music - all my Fiestas de Quito music got left in the states a couple years back...
I need to get some pictures of Agustín up on this blog. I have been so bad about taking pictures since we left the States this summer. I think I have taken ONE picture of him, maybe. I also need to videotape him more. He is at the cutest age. And he is so sweet. He kisses and hugs you and says "Love" and then grabs your arm and hugs it. The other day I was sitting on the couch and he put a pillow down and forced me to lie on it. Then he lifted up my feet and put them on the couch so that I would be comfortable. All of this topped with a juicy kiss!!!!
Anyway, I am still trying to figure out how this thing works. Bear with me. I will try to be better about writing.