Still Loving Firetrucks!

Almost every time we go to Walmart, we see firetrucks and fireman (much to Luis's delight). And much to MY delight, they are always VERY friendly with Luis, allowing him to tour the truck, try on gear and ask lots of questions. Today, Diego was with us when we went - and I was glad that Diego got to see, first hand, what these encounters are like.

Snuggled in (Ashley's) Bed

We were having a quiet kind of morning where I try to get some work done around the house and thus let Luis watch too much TV. He stays in his pajamas and loves it. So while I was cleaning the bathroom, Luis went to get a few "comfort items" and then sprawled out on Ashley's bed to watch some TV in our room. You can see Alfie (the green/orange turtle), Baxter (black & white dog), Puppy Dog (the tan dog barely sticking out under Alfie), Bat, and Blanket. And on top of Luis is the amazing quilt that Mercedes made for Luis for Christmas. That he brought the quilt to the snuggle-fest is what I love best about this photo!

Luis Camping

While I was in Rock Hill working, Diego took Luis on his first camping trip. It was a HUGE success.

The Joker

It's just raspberry popsicle, but it looks A LOT like the Joker make up to me!

Lil Horns: Team Photo

Luis's team, the Lil Horns. Luis is easy to spot, as he is the only kid who refused to wear his hat.

A Boy and His Dog

I love, love, love this picture of Luis riding his tricycle and Ashley running along beside him. Ashley will never be Luis's dog (she will always be mine), but this image of the two of them allows me to pretend, for a moment that she is his dog, that they'll grow up together and go on adventures love each other. To me, there is something very quintessential about a boy and his dog.

And it reminds me a bit of the dog I had growing up, Pup Pup the Irish Setter. (Of course, Pup could not be trusted off-leash and thus would have never run beside me like this on my bike, but that's a minor detail.)

Back in DC

Last Saturday afternoon, Luis and I boarded a plane to spend eight days back in the MD/DC/VA area - helping Mom get some projects done before her upcoming knee surgery, meeting the newest Rimicci, checking in on the house, and generally catching up with friends. It had been almost a year since our last visit.

Complicating matters was the fact that Diego was in DC the week before on business. We overlapped for a mere 15 hours, between when we flew in to BWI and he flew out of DCA. Sigh. The good news is that we were able to meet up at JuanFe's and RC's newly renovated condo in DC for brunch before Diego flew out. Luis loves loves loves his Uncles JF & RC, and this visit was no different. Luis had a great time exploring the new condo, trying on RC's snorkel & mask, playing with RC's extensive vintage car collection (think matchbox - but from the 60's and 70's), pretending to be a fireman, playing construction in their back yard (complete with traffic cones!) and generally loving and snuggling with them both.

Luis, RC and the snorkel

A mere sampling of the car collection

Fireman Luis, to the rescue!

Back at Bibi Croom & Grandpa Sandy's house, Luis enjoyed his usual activities: feeding the birds with Grandpa Sandy, sitting on the "tractor" (lawn mower), playing with toys that I played with as a child, reading stories, and cooking with Bibi.

Luis and Sandy feeding the birds

In addition, Mom bought Luis his own fireman costume, complete with jacket, helmet, badge, fire extinguisher and bullhorn. Apparently, the bullhorn takes batteries, but Luis will NEVER know that. The costume was a big hit with Luis (no big surprise!). Here, Luis poses with Mom and Sandy.

We spent two days in Northern Virginia, which was great. We stayed with Sarah and her family (always a treat). Luis enjoyed playing with both William (almost 7) and Matthew (3), and was fairly unimpressed with Baby Elinor (1 mo). While in that neck of the woods (Falls Church), we stopped in on my friends at HITT Contracting and admired their new building. While I was admiring how beautiful it was, Luis was appreciating that lots of people who work for a construction company have construction vehicle toys in their offices. We met up with Lopa for a visit and lunch and then swung by our house to check on it and the tenants. We had hoped to also see Aunt Midge (who turned out to be travelling) and Emily Poulin (who had a crazy work schedule), to no avail. Unfortunately, I didn't snap a single picture after the ones of Fireman Luis - not even on my camera phone. :(

The two nights we spent with Sarah were the 4th and 5th nights of our trip, and Luis was starting to miss the comforts and routines at home. The first night, he sat bolt up in bed at 1a (we were sharing a bed) and screamed out BACA!! It was the first time he'd asked about it on our trip. It took quite some time to quite him back down before he eventually fell back asleep. The second night, he again woke in the middle of the night and decided that he was going home. Right Now. He tried to take off his PJ's and get dressed, to put things back in our bag, saying that he was going to the airport to fly home. At 2a. The only way I could talk him down was to explain that the pilots and planes were all sleeping, and wouldn't wake up until the sun comes up tomorrow. Thankfully, he bought that version of the truth and we were able to get some sleep. Needless to say, from a restfulness perspective, it was a rough couple of days.

Jeanette came down from New York on Thursday night and stayed with us until Saturday. We hadn't seen her since August of last year when she and her boys came to Dallas. It was a super fun 36 hours, and I'm not sure who enjoyed Jeanette's company more, me or Luis.

In between all of these visits, Mom and I cleaned out almost every closet and dresser in house, making piles and piles of donation materials (which Sandy carted off to Good Will daily) and piles of trash. I think it was very satisfying to Mom to do so much decluttering. It was satisfying to me, and it wasn't even my stuff!

Baca Fairy

Once upon a time, I said that Luis would be out of diapers and rid of his baca (pacifier) by his third birthday. While Luis was, in fact, out of diapers several months before his third birthday, December 22, 2009 came and went with no sign of departure for the baca. My excuse is that there was just too much going on with pregnancy, family in town, the holidays, etc. But I just didn't do it.

As my pregnancy progressed, I began to feel more and more pressure to break Luis of his pacifier habit before we had another pacifier user in the house. Then, when we were at the dentist last month, he reinforced that it was time for the Baca to go. So I steeled my resolve to do it and made a plan. After talking to many friends about their experiences, we decided to go the Baca Fairy route. The Baca Fairy, for those of you who don't know, is a fairy who comes in the night, collects up all the Baca's from your house and gives them to new babies who need them and leaves a new toy as a way of saying "Thanks!" (for some people, the Baca Fairy magically turns all of those bacas into a new toy, no re-gifting involved).

The week before the big day, I started to talk it up to Luis, explaining that the Baca Fairy would come and take the bacas, and that she would bring a toy. We also talked about how the dentist had said that the bacas were hurting his teeth, and we'd look daily in the mirror to 'admire' the 1/8" gap between his top and bottom teeth when he smiled. Luis was clearly a little gun shy of this idea.

I picked the Thursday before spring break as the Big Day, mostly so that we could be (hopefully) totally Baca Free before returning to school, as I did not want his teachers to have to deal with any of his possible withdrawal issues. Unfortunately, said Thursday arrived just 3 days before Luis and I were scheduled to take a 8 day trip to the East Coast.

Luis had his last Baca sleep on Thursday at school. That night, at bedtime, I told Luis that the Baca Fairy had taken all the bacas while he was at school, and that she'd come back in the night with a toy. He seemed to buy that story. I was prepared for all kinds of hell at bed time - sadness, anger, confusion, but mostly a lot of tears. I made a point of not planning to do any work, or anything really productive that night, as I imagined lots and lots of trips to put Luis back into bed, to console him, etc. I was ready to fight this fight.

Except that Luis went to bed without a peep; didn't even come down once. The next day, at nap time, he asked if there were any bacas. When I reminded him that there weren't, he took it in stride and went straight to sleep. It's been two days now, and all seems to be going well. Luis has barely looked back at his Baca days. It helps, a lot, that he LOVES LOVES LOVES the present the Baca Fairy brought him - a "airport rescue fire truck" (which really just means a neon green fire truck). He's told me at least 25 times how much he loves it.

Now, I'm just a little worried that on our trip, without the baca OR the toy, that he won't be so hip to the idea...

Some Like it Hot

I have had a very hard time encouraging Luis to embrace the warmer weather with warmer-weather clothes. He insists on wearing his "tall pants" every day. And most days, he requires a long sleeved shirt as well. It didn't matter that it was in the 80's today, Luis was intent on this particular outfit. When asked about the temperature or about being hot, Luis replies, "It's OK Momma, I LIKE to be hot."

Sigh. Wonder where he gets his stubborn nature from???

T-Ball: Opening Day!

We signed Luis up for T-ball this year, a team for 3 year olds, based in the neighborhood, that advertised no practices and Saturday morning games. It sounded ideal. Turns out that there were quite a few practices, many games on weekday evenings and not as in-the-neighborhood as we'd hoped, but it was still, pretty much, ideal.

The coach hosted a meeting at his house about a week before practices began. Luis was not at all psyched about the idea of t-ball, the coach, or the kids he saw at the meeting. He spent the whole 45 minutes climbing up on to either Diego or me, asking if it was time to go home yet. Going to the first practice brought out a similar attitude for him. But slowly, slowly he warmed up to it all.

On our way to the second practice, he told us, "I used to not like Coach or t-ball. But as it turns out, Coach is my friend." Whew! Glad Luis came to that realization on his own.

After a couple of weeks of practices, the kids on the team seemed to have learned how to hit the ball of the t-ball stand, how to run the bases (usually) in the proper order, and how to kick up big piles of dirt. Fielding the ball was pretty iffy, and usually ended up with several kids piled on top of each other. But they were having fun, and us adults enjoyed the show.

More fun than playing t-ball was scaling the fence.

Today was Opening Day. The league has teams with kids as young as Luis up to, I think, early teenagers. It was clearly with the older kids in mind that the schedule was made for the day: teams arrive at 8a, march in a "parade" at 8:45, Opening Ceremonies where all teams are introduced at 9a, and an hour break before the first game at 11:00a.

Trying to line the team up for the "march on" at opening day. Note the bucket of candy in the coaches hand.

Luis was not too keen on being left on the field with the team an the coaches while Diego and I went to join the spectators. There was much crying on his part and guilt on our parts. But in the end, Luis did march with his team (though he refused to where his hat) and participate in the events. Between the Opening Ceremonies and the first game, we took Luis out to breakfast. He promptly fell asleep in the car on the way back to the fields, at 11:30a. Sigh.

A little pre-game nap

The game itself was pretty hilarious. Much like practices, hitting and running the bases worked pretty well. Every kid gets to stay at bat until they hit a playable ball. Then, they advance one base, regardless of the fielding that is done. Then, each kid gets a turn at bat, regardless of the outs. It is definitely a fair process that lets each child get a turn. But also much like practices, the fielding of the ball was like watching the Three Stooges. Some kids ran after every ball, regardless of their position on the field or where the ball was hit. Some kids never noticed that a ball was in play, or that kids were running the bases.

Not sure what position Luis is (just to the left of the asst. coach in black pants), but at least for this moment, he was looking in the right direction.

Luis's first at-bat. Thank goodness for an exceptionally patient batting coach, Coach Thomas.

Easter Eggs

Easter is not a big holiday in our house, though I do have VERY fond memories of Easter in Norwell, with the Norris's (during my college years). They did it up right from the dying of eggs, great egg hunts, delicious feasts and as many friends and family as would make the journey. While it is the easter egg dying that I have tried to hold on to, it was the friends and family that I loved the most from those spring days.

Last year, we had Caleb and Bethany over to dye eggs and then have a hunt. Luis had a great time with they dying, but really didn't get the hunting part so well. This year, we were slow to get our act together, didn't invite anyone over, and actually didn't dye eggs until Easter evening after dinner. Whoops. But still, it was fun.

I wasn't really thinking the whole process through when I grabbed these shallow bowls. Lucky for us, Luis really like to move the eggs from bowl to bowl to bowl (to bowl), and to turn them constantly. So while few eggs were evenly colored any one given color, they were all fully dyed.

Unsupervised Marker Playtime

Luis was VERY proud of himself for this master piece!

(Incidentally, I think he looks a lot like his cousin Maggie in this photo.)

Bibi Comes to Visit

Mom came out last week for almost a week. It was fantastic to have her here. I think Luis spent the most time with her reading books, making cookies, playing outside, reading more books, playing fireman, hanging out with her in the guest house, and reading more books. I loved having her here, watching her get to know this new three-year-old Luis, showing her how our day-to-day life works, and talking with her every day. And to be honest, I loved having the distraction for Luis, creating a little extra time for me. The last night she was here, she stayed with Luis while Diego and I went to the movies together (the first time we've done that since I was pregnant with Luis - almost exactly 3 years!). It was a real treat.

Unfortunately, we spent so much time having fun together that I didn't get the camera out very often. Just a few pictures from the visit.

Reading stories together

Decorating Gingerbread Cookies

Raisins were the "hot commodity" topping for the cookie

Fish!

A couple of nights ago, Diego took Luis to pick up some fish for the fish tank. At 50-cents a fish, Diego splurged on five gold fish. Having no idea how long they'll last, I thought it was great that Diego started with so many. Luis LOVES his new fish tank. It is now part of his nightly routine to feed the fish before he goes to bed. He gives them a pinch of food, and then sits and watches them eat it for a couple of minutes. While I feel pretty indifferent about the fish, I do love how much Luis loves them.

Pregnancy Picture - 26 Weeks

I finally got around to taking a picture of my belly. I am 26 1/2 weeks. Still a long way to go!

(Check out this post to see what 27 weeks looked like last time around)

Batting Practice

Diego is doing a great job working with Luis between t-ball practices on his hitting. And it's working, Luis is doing a great job! The big new skill that Luis has is keeping his eye on the ball - as he does in this photo.

Yucca

It sounds silly, now that I sit down to write this, how much I enjoyed the homemade yucca that Diego made a couple of nights ago. He's been experimenting with peruvian chicken at home (and has made some really yummy pollo!), but yucca was the missing piece of the meal.

It's not an un-complicated process - peeling, boiling, cooling, and then deep-frying. But it's worth it. Yummmmmmmmm! And to make it even better, Diego made some homemade garlic aioli to go with it. Delish!!

Snow ... in MARCH!

It was a big surprise to everyone yesterday morning to look out the window and see snow flakes falling. Just two days ago, I was sitting on the driveway soaking up some sun on a beautiful 60+ degree day.

Everyone had a different reaction to the snow. Luis was thrilled to put on his snow clothes (which I really didn't think he'd get the opportunity to wear again!) and head out to play.Ashley, always up for an adventure, was happy to frolick for a bit, before retiring back inside to the warmth of her bed.
Diego, who has taken on the brunt of the "snow play" duty this winter season, was most interested in staying in the house, staying warm and drinking coffee.
Luis enjoyed his usual round of activities, using his little rake to clean off all the flat surfaces in the back yard. This nice thing was, this time around, Luis was properly outfitted in snow bibs, long john (pants) and proper gloves. To be honest, I'm not sure if he really appreciated the difference, but I did.

As a testament to how caught off guard we all were by this brief snow, you cans some shocked tulips and daffodils from the neighbors yard. (They weathered this storm, literally, without a casualty, and looked beautiful for a couple more weeks!)

Not surprisingly, the snow did not last long. We went out to get some lunch, leaving snow on the ground. When we returned 90 minutes later, it was all gone!

Luis & Diego's New Pet

After the hit that Chester was, it may be a little surprising that Luis's new pet lives in a fish tank, not in wood chips. Yesterday evening, Diego and Luis went out for a late afternoon adventure, and came back with all the makings for a fish tank (minus the fish).

To say that Luis was over the moon would be an understatement. He was so excited he could barely get the words out. Diego and Luis spent close to an hour getting the tank ready. First, they washed the gravel off.

Next they carefully added it to the fish tank (spilling only a very small amount - I was impressed!).

Next, they "planted" the plastic plants in the gravel and added the properly treated water. I really liked how Diego allowed Luis to help with every step (not always easy in fish tank set up!) and explained to him why each step was necessary. Luis LOVED being able to help his Daddy to this important job.

The (nearly) final product. The tank is all set up with gravel, plants, treated water, filter and light. In a couple of days, we'll get the fish to go with it. Luis is so excited with what he has now, it almost seems like the fish themselves are superfluous! Added bonus, the fish tank is the new night light in Luis's room.

Chester Spends Spring Break with Us

Over Christmas, Chester, the neighbor's guinea pig, spent a week with us. The Cuy, as he was called by all of the spanish speakers over the holidays. Luis really enjoyed having him here, taking care of him, feeding him carrots and playing with him. But I think Diego enjoyed it even more. For spring break, the Gee's went skiing and Chester came over here. Though I really only have this one picture of Chester's visit, this is not representative of how much time both Diego and Luis spent with Chester (LOTS!). This is representative of how Chester and Diego spent many a night watching TV together, and of how many kisses Luis bestowed on him. It was a happy week.

Taste Testing

Luis and I made cookies today. He was helpful in many ways (cracking eggs, measuring the flower, mixing it all together). But he most enjoyed sampling the batter. Hey, it's a tough job but someone's got to do it!

Luis Feeds the Ducks

We took Luis to a park close to our house to feed the ducks. After sampling the potato bread (that I found in the freezer), Luis decided he'd rather feed himself. He still calls potato bread duck bread. Unfortunately, we've used it all up (and it isn't something I typically buy).

Silly Faces

Getting Dressed

Luis has taken a real interest in dressing himself lately. The building block of any good outfit is his "tall pants" - regardless of the temperature. I will admit that Luis has a pretty good sense of what looks good together (no fancy & fancy), but he's still working on clothing "orientation" - most often wearing his pants backwards, and occasionally getting his shirt inside out.

Yesterday after his nap, Luis came down in this outfit - not the clothes he was wearing when he went down for his nap:

(Can you see that the pants are on backwards and the shirt is inside out?)

About 15 minutes after donning the above outfit to help our neighbors Kyle & Tim with some yard work, Luis decided that he'd like to run in the sprinkler. He went into the house by himself, and came out in this outfit.

And once Luis decided it was too cold to play in the sprinkler, he resorted to this outfit.

How Do You Like YOUR Blanket? Nicely chilled, thank you.

I am not really sure why, but for the last couple of days, Luis has asked to have his blanket cooled off before bedtime. He stashes it in the fridge next to his favorite thing in the fridge - the chocolate milk, and his second favorite thing - "white sauce" (ranch sauce).