It's like I'm living in a frat house....

Living with my now 3 year old, is just like living with a frat boy.
Normally that wouldn't be such a great thing, but I love it. Not that I love frat boys...that has never been true. 
There's just something so freakin' joyful about Jorge.
She laughs at everything, and makes jokes at the most inappropriate times. She never takes me seriously, has the memory span of a goldfish and refuses to wear anything but gonchies. She thinks showing you a chewed mouthful of food is hilarious. Thinks 'being lazy' is a perfectly good reason for not doing things, and only stares at you confusedly when you don't accept it as such. Drinks milk straight from the carton and draws all over her room mate's body in felt marker 'because it's funny'.

Then there's the physical evidence of her frat boy ways visible all over the house: Half full plastic cups littered everywhere. Under the couch, in the yard, the bed....the shower. DNA stains all over the furniture. Plastic Mardi Gras beads IN MY FREEZER. (?!) You can find party dresses and gonchies strewn throughout my house at any given time. Balloons in the turtle tank?

Jooooorge! Why are there balloons in the turtle tank?!


In the turtle tank?

Yes! In the turtle tank!

Balloons?

Yes Jorge, balloons. Why are there balloons in the turtle tank?


( shrugs shoulders, gives sheepish sideways grin ) Muuuuhhhh-Meeeeee, I loooooove you

I love you too Jorge. And all the nutty things you do. Please take the 'Kinder Surprise' alien out of the salt mill.
Love, Mum.

My Bilingual Babes, and their Bilingual Issues

I've never mentioned this, but I'm a native English speaker living full time in Mexico with my native Spanish speaking husband, and 2 bilingual daughters, 3 & 5. I speak almost exclusively in English with them (the occasional word here and there in Spanish) and my husband speaks probably about 60% English and 40% Spanish with them.

My kids go to a 'bilingual' school that teaches half their subjects in English (by non native English speakers) and the other half in Spanish (by native Spanish speakers). The issue I'm having is not so much within our home, as we seem to have finally struck a workable balance here, but rather in their school. Since my kids are truly bilingual, they have begun to dominate in contests and games in English, as well as their share in Spanish. It was agreed recently among the teachers and a couple of parents that when my kids win an event, that they will be praised or awarded, whichever is appropriate, but a tie will be declared between my child and the first place winner among their monolingual classmates. This practice irks me just enough to write about it.

Is it fair to my child to declare her a tie winner with a child who isn't scoring as well as she is? My eldest feels like she studies and practices and should be rewarded fairly for her efforts, and I'm inclined to agree. What about the message being sent to my kids? It's deflating to stand before your teachers a winner, only to receive a ' That's nice dear, we knew you were going to win.' and stand aside while your classmate is doted on for her accomplishment. It diminishes the achievements my kids, and other bilingual kids have reached. No?

*sigh* Am I being 'one of those parents'? Because I guess I just can't quite tell. I'm at a loss, and I don't necessarily like the way I am feeling about this situation, and need to resolve it. I don't expect that there are too many parents of bilingual kids reading this, but I need to sort this out. Advice?

Suegra generosa

So here's what happened: My mother in law offered the use of her credit card at Coppel, so we could get a camera...or whatever else it was that we wanted. She's the generous sort. Plus, we have a good credit history with her. We got our stove on her card too. Thanks Suegra!

New camera! And man, is it cute. It's a Fujifilm Z...something. It's good. And....( super awesome detail coming up ) the only model they had left was fuchsia. FUCHSIA! I'm understandably more excited about this than my husband, but...he'll manage. 

So, lots of nutty pics of the turds coming right up. A wise woman told me not too long ago, that your life needs to be documented. She's a smart girl.

i - Nothing

Of all the devices I don't have, ie: camera, blackberry, mp3 player, i-anything, which would you recommend I get first?

It's not that I NEED any of these items, I appear to be managing quite alright without them. However, it would definitely be nice to snap a photo or 2 of my rapidly growing children. Or make the occasional phone call OUTSIDE of my house or send a flipping text message once in a while. It's not like I'm considering a 40" flat screen for the john, or a slingbox so I can catch 'Jersey Shore' on the bus. I'm just talking about your basics here. By the way my students talk, I'm the only person in the free world without these devices. 

I have had digital cameras in the past, but I don't have much luck with them. My first one landed face down and was rendered unrepairable. Second one ( a hand me down from the early 90's) I traded for a ColecoVision or something, which I sold to buy a new camera from Wal Mart Mexico which came out of the box broken. Wal Mart Mexico refused to accept it as a return, citing their return policy as: 'We don't accept returns'. Harumph.

The cell phone that I have right now had 2 functions: Received calls and told the time. Now it does neither. Though, I bought it new more than 4 years ago for about $250 pesos, which is about 20 bucks CDN, so, I did have a good run with it.

The most technologically advanced device I have apart from my laptop ( hand me down without a working internal fan ) is my cordless phone. Seriously. I don't even have a microwave, or any sort of plug in and hook up to your TV game station like ATARI or whatever it is the kids are playing these days.

So, I ask you, constant reader, which if any of these new fangled devices would you suggest I consider? You know, in case I find a wallet full of pesos on the bus or something.

First Day at School

When our nanny was out with the chicken pox ( enter high pitched sing-song voices: 'Maricela tiene varicela!' )  we had to bring the girls with us to work. Helps that we work at the best school in Manzanillo. Anyway, first day in and Jorgie and Phoebe have lots of questions for one another, like this one....

What's your teacher's name Jorge?

Miss Funny!

No es cierto... 

Si! Es cierto! Her name is Miss. Funny!

Are you lying?

No! I'm not lying, her name is Miss. Funny.

( Long pause while Phoebe ponders the notion of having a teacher named Miss. Funny ) 

Is she funny?

It's as I mentioned before, tiny little bilingual people make wonderful mistakes. Jorgie's teacher may well be a funny lady, I don't know her very well, but that's not actually her name. She is Stefani. Or Fani, for short. But not to us, here in the Sandcastle, she is and will forever be, Miss. Funny.

Greatest. Name. Ever.

I'm normal. Right?

Today is my 35th birthday. And by 'today' I mean the day that started 51 minutes ago.*hiccup*

The circle of life is on my mind. Not in it, as in I'm humming Elton John's 'Circle of Life', but definitely in my peripheral. Life and death is literally at my doorstep today. For a start, a capsized cockroach met me at the door this morning. Ghastly. Not that I'm a fan of said vermin, but still.....ghastly way to die. I had jokingly asked the girls once:

'...and whose cockroach is this here in the hallway....? Hmm? I SAID CLEAN UP YOUR MESS! '

That totally made it into the rotation, regrettably. After changing course this morning so as to avoid the big ugly beast, the tiny BFF traveling in my wake ratted me out to everyone....

' Whose cockroach is this?, '  she demanded  ' it's not Mummy's, 'cause she didn't pick it up, and she saw it! '

Sheesh...no loyalty in this joint! I swept it up. Sad...ish.

Later this afternoon, the quirky little Korean that I have the privilege of teaching 3 times a week announced that the family cat had had 5 kittens of her own. One of those kittens is bound for Beth's house, and Jorgie of course thinks it should be called Blanca Nieves. But then, she's obsessed. I vote Fleabag, or as Phoebe suggested, Dirtbag.

Circle of life...circle of life. These 35 years have been all that they should have been. I have my kids, and I have my health. I used to have Ghost Whisperer, but with the time change, it's just not the same in the bright of day. Sorry Melinda, I miss you too...Call me!

As another year passes, I realize that they aren't really about me anymore, they're about them. That's normal, right? Right?

Yogurt Seeds

It's not 40º or even close today. But it's hot. There's a bit of a fresh breeze. I can't smell the ocean today, but I can smell the coconut with a fluorescent pink straw stuck in it that is sitting next to my laptop on my patio table this afternoon. We're almost midway through semana santa a.k.a. Spring break. While it would be nice to walk down to the beaches, our beaches are unrecognizable right now. That is to say, they're packed.

No bother. I've been keeping busy here at home. The girls bought seeds and planted a container garden. In 30 days I'm promised radishes. 60 days until my basil harvest, and 90 days wait for the beets. Phoebe drew pictures of her veggies on cardstock, glued them to chopsticks then stuck them into the pots to identify the plants. There's also a pot whose card has a question mark on it, this will be the mystery plant. The seeds came free with Phoebe's yogurt. There was a little paper packet inside the packaging of her tiny snack cups. We're all a little excited to see what the seeds produce. But that wasn't so in the beginning.....

Look Mum! Seeds! Now I can have my own garden!

Cool! 

Later that day....

Look Papi! Seeds! I'm going to grow them with water and sun! I'm going to have my own garden!

Cool!

Later that week at breakfast, while studying the empty little yogurt cup...

After we plant the yogurt seeds, you're not going to have to buy yogurt from Soriana anymore. I'll have my own yogurt tree!

Uhhh....

It's gonna be so cool Mum! I can share them with all my friends at school! 


But Honey, the seeds that came with your yogurt are going to grow a plant, or a flower. Yogurt doesn't come from seeds Babe. Yogurt comes from cow's milk, then people do something special to it to turn it into yogurt. Yogurt doesn't grow on trees Sweetheart.


( painful pause as colour drains from daughter's four year old face, which then drops it's jaw agape and twists itself  in preparation for....FULL. ON. MELTDOWN. )

It was not a typical reaction. Certainly not for Phoebe, but in retrospect, I think she must have been silently imagining the entire yogurt harvest from start to finish for the whole week. Perhaps when she had lined up all of her school bag options the day before, she wasn't just playing around, but rather deciding which bag would be the most appropriate for transporting her harvest to school to share with all of her classmates when the yogurt seeds finally produced their bounty. She had probably daydreamed about which flavours would grow from her tree. Maybe even secretly hoping that the peach yogurts she loathes wouldn't grow at all! Or maybe she had already planned on giving those ones to Alejandro. (He's rotten)

However it played out in her beautiful little four year old brain, she was quick to recover from her meltdown. And now we all excitedly wait to see what will grow from the mystery seeds.......