Luis: Still likes to "hide" on the library shelves

See here for a similar pose in October.

Baby (Boy) Rincon #2

Today, we had our "20-week" ultrasound (though I am only at 18 weeks right now).
Because I'll be over 35 at the time of delivery, this is considered a "high risk" pregnancy. They sent me to the high risk ultrasound people, who took an amazing amount of measurements of the baby. In the last 3 years, ultrasound technology has really improved and Diego and I were mesmerized watching the baby on the monitor. I had not felt a whole lot of movement yet, so was relieved to see the baby squirming and flipping all over the screen. Everything looks good with the baby, and the measurements confirmed an ~ July 1st due date.

We decided to find out the sex of the baby at this ultrasound. The tech did all of the measurements first. When she began trying to determine gender, she kept getting a shot of what looked like the baby sitting on an invisible chair with the photo taken from below. And the legs CLAMPED shut. Both Diego and I laughed. The ultrasound tech bumped and nudged the baby a bit to try to get a better view. The next clear view we got was almost the same, except this time around, the baby seemed to be pushing down on the "invisible chair" with both fists, as if adamant not to reveal the gender.

After a few more bumps and prods, baby spread it's legs wide open. And clearly, it's a boy.

(For those interested in a comparison view, here are two of the ultrasound pictures of Luis)

Pollo a la Brasa

We've been in Dallas for just over a year now, and have really settled in to our new home. We've found just about everything we need here, except Peruvian Chicken. Diego has done a lot of looking and internet searches. We've been on a few wild goose chases looking for restaurants that don't actually exist. We found one place about 30 minutes north of here - but the day we went, their rotisserie was broken. But finally, we have found a place - El Gran Machu Pichu.

For those of you from Northern Virginia, it's no Super Chicken. But it's yummy. And they have yucca - a must for me. They have lots of Peruvian Delights that Diego loves, but I don't (like anticuchos)- which is a must for him. And they have chicken, one of the six foods Luis will actually eat, so it's really a win-win-win situation. The down side is that it's about 25 minutes east of here, in the direction of traffic. So far, we've only been out there on Sunday evenings, but really, that is not all bad...

Rainy Day

What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than splashing in puddles?

Luis Visits the Fire Station

Very often, when we are at Walmart, Luis and I see firemen shopping. Luis ALWAYS wants to say hello to them, and they are very accommodating to Luis, chatting with him, answering his questions. Luis, of late, has been refusing to wear socks with his Froggy/Fireman Boots. He claims that "fireman don't wear socks with their fire boots". So when we saw a fireman in the parking lot this morning, I decided to try to get to the bottom of this debate.

Luckily for me, the fireman confirmed that they do, in fact, wear socks with their boots, to keep their feet safe from the fire. Additionally, he invited Luis to come to the fire house for a visit anytime. So later that day, after nap, we took him up on the offer.

Fireman Jesse graciously agreed to give us a tour of the fire house. We started with the Engine truck, seeing the different gear and equipment they kept on the truck, what it was used for, etc. After approximately four minutes, Luis asked me, very politely, if we could go home. I was pretty embarrassed. We stuck around for the whole tour and saw lots of interesting things. Luis got to try on some boots, hold the axe, climb into the truck, play with the flash lights, and see where they ate and slept. And about every four minutes, he asked again, very politely, if we could go home. Sigh. Luis was able to impress Fireman Jesse with all of the knowledge he'd gleaned from Fireman Sam and this Fireman DVD.

Big shoes to fill

Fireman Jesse shows lets Luis have a turn with the axe

This was as high as he could lift the axe - it had about 20lbs on Luis

(It was a complete coincidence that Luis was wearing his "Hero in Training" fireman shirt the day we visited the fire station.)

Fireman Luis!

One of the presents Luis got for Christmas was a set of four DVD's from Bibi Croom that includes a fire & rescue video. Luis has watched it at least once a day since Christmas, and several times a day on certain days. He still loves his Fireman Sam, too. In general, his fascination with fireman/fire truck things continues to grow.

Diego helped Luis with some of his "turnout gear". He took his old camel back pack, put an oatmeal (cylinder) container in the back and found a hose to provide Luis an air tank to give him fresh air to breath while he puts fires out. They found Luis's goggles (to protect his eyes). The Froggy Boots officially became "fireman boots". And Luis's big red winter jacket became his fireman's jacket.

There is a scene in the fireman movie where the alarm sounds during the night, signalling a fire. At that point in the movie, Luis JUMPS off the couch, runs around the house putting on all of his turnout gear and then re-appears in front of the TV, ready to help fight the fire. It's pretty hilarious to watch.

Even in the bathtub, Luis likes to play Fireman. Here, he's got his goggles on to protect his eyes and is using another toy to act as his "breath thing" (the regulator for his air tank).

There is a very fuzzy line between Luis pretending to be a fireman in the tub and Luis pretending to be a SCUBA diver. I'm not really sure which one he is supposed to be here.

While Mary was Away...

Diego really stepped up to take care of things at home while I was gone. He stayed home with Luis on Monday and went in late on Tuesday so he could take Luis to school. Luis spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday with Leah.

The best story that came from while I was gone was from Leah. On Wednesday morning, Leah was going to take Luis to the Science Museum. It was time to put shoes on. Luis only wanted to wear his Froggy Boots. Leah told him that he had to wear his sneakers. A power struggle ensued. Leah stepped into the restroom. When she came out, Luis had his Froggy Boots on, and his sneakers were no where to be found. Leah looked and looked - they were gone. When she questioned Luis about them, he held his hands up under his chin and said, "I don't know where they are."

Turns out that he had hidden his sneakers. And all of his other shoes. In different places. Leah was shocked. After finding them all, she asked Luis if he had hidden them. Luis totally tried to pin it on Ashley!!

Leah called to tell me about this and I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. And, was glad that I was on the other end of the phone, not in the same room with Luis. After a little "quiet time" in his room, Luis came down, donned his sneakers and they had a good time at the museum.

Mary Takes A Business Trip

On Saturday, I flew to South Carolina for a business trip. A custody case I've been working on since May is finally going to trial. (It was scheduled for trial in October, but postponed when the adverse attorney came down with H1N1 right before the trial.) It was a complicated, intense case where we represent a mother who was both defending outrageous abuse allegations made by the father and seeking custody of their small child. I was heavily vested in the case from probably hundreds of hours worked over eight months. But it was more than that. I believed in our client and I really felt that the current situation was not in the best interest of the young girl.

Thomas, Erin (the other attorney in his practice), and I spent about 14 hours on Sunday preparing for the three-day trial that started on Monday morning. All of us camped out in Thomas's office, each with our laptop, scanning through reports, depositions, affidavits, emails and other documents - it was like being in the War Room. While the work that we were doing was very different, it was not unlike my days at HITT Contracting, the night before a big budget was due, poring over excel spreadsheets, double-checking formulas and reviewing drawings. I LOVED IT.

Court on Monday was fascinating to me. I really enjoy court-room dramas on TV, so it was exciting to actually be in court, sitting at the attorney's table with Thomas, Erin and our client. It was also really exciting to me to see questions I had posed, details I had unearthed in the documents and tactics I suggested be used in court. I'm finding it really difficult to find the words to describe what it was like for me. On a different level, court was intense because some of the most mundane, slow-pitch questions Thomas asked of the adverse party's witnesses produced shocking answers and opened doors we didn't know existed. This also gave us LOTS of work to do Monday night in preparation for Tuesday...

Tuesday morning, the court called the attorney's in to the courtroom (I got to sit in on this - exciting to be part of "the attorneys" group!) to announce that his mother in law was dying of cancer and he expected a call at any time to notify him of her passing. When that call came, he would recess court and reconvene some time in the future. We got about 2 hours of testimony in before the call came. The judge literally interrupted the father's testimony, mid-syllable. He notified us that he would reconvene court in early February to continue the case.

While we all understood his situation, it was hard to process that we were being put on hold for another month. I likened it to spending weeks studying for a final exam only to be told half way through to come back in a month to finish it. The up side was that we now had another month to investigate some of the (shocking) new information that had come out in testimony. But it also meant another trip back to SC for the final stage of the trial, and it meant yet another postponement for our client, and for her daughter.

Another upside to the postponement was that I got ELEVEN hours of uninterrupted sleep Tuesday night. It was amazing. Amazing. I spent Wednesday in the office working on other cases before heading back to Dallas Wednesday night.

Just before heading to South Carolina for this trip, I signed up to take the LSAT's in February. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. But taking them seems to be the right thing to do.

Luis's 3-year Check Up

Luis had his 3-year check up today. Generally speaking, Luis got a clean bill of health from his good friend Dr. Curry. Luis's weight was 34lbs and his height was 39". The nurse deemed him to be in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. (I'm pretty sure she was incorrect, as he is still wearing all 2T clothes, and is smaller than most of his friends.)

Luis (Still) Loves to Clean

It is a pretty common request from Luis to ask if we can vacuum. I am not exaggerating. And when, as a special treat, we pull out the vacuum for him, he'll spend 30-45 minutes meticulously vacuuming the base boards, under the furniture and in the corners. It's great. Mopping is something that is typically reserved for work in the garage with Diego, but on Sunday, Diego let Luis take a turn at mopping the front entryway. Luis loved it. So did Diego.

Post-Christmas

The couple of days after Christmas were a bit of a blur. JuanFe and RC left early on the morning of December 26th - much to every one's sadness (especially Luis!). I'm not really sure what we did in the days that follow. I'm pretty sure there was a trip to the zoo, some post-Christmas sale shopping, lots of left-over eating and general togetherness. Jules was a bit under the weather, but managed to participate in much of what we did. Liz, Jules, and Diego went to see Avatar - in 3-D on an IMAX screen. They come home in complete awe of the movie-watching experience.

Diego and Luis enjoy sandwiches together

Luis enjoyed both coloring with the window crayons AND wearing his ear protection

Our friend, Heather, arrived from Richmond on New Year's Eve to spend a couple of days with us. Diego made an AMAZING paella for dinner. We all managed to stay up past midnight (barely). Liz, Jules and Heather participated in a few South American traditions (superstitions?) to ensure good things in the New Year - including running around the house with an empty suitcase (to bring travel) and with money in the pockets (to bring prosperity). It was a fun night.

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Christmas

Luis slipped in to our room about 6:30a in the morning saying, "Momma, it's time to go downstairs." Seeing the time, I told him it wasn't time yet. He said, "But Momma, I need to see if SANTA came!" We managed to keep him up in our room until 8a - the agreed upon meeting time for Christmas to start. In keeping with Coward family tradition, Mom had sent us a Kringle (coffee cake) to share and Jules made home-made cinnamon rolls. I (of course) made lots and lots of bacon to go with it all.

We enjoyed all of our stocking gifts - seeing what Santa had brought before enjoying breakfast. Though Luis new to ask if Santa had come, he clearly did not really have any idea what to expect after that. He spent several minutes looking at his stocking (and the unwrapped gifts on his chair) before digging in. Even then, he picked up one toy (the plastic black-and-decker tools) and basically played with that for the first 24 hours hours.

Liz and Jules had made home-made stockings for JF, RC and each other, so that everyone would have a personal stocking. Everyone contributed to the stocking stuffing, allowing each of us to find some surprises Christmas morning.

After that, there was present opening, and snow playing and more breakfast eating and coffee drinking and then more present opening and playing and left-over eating and relaxing and more eating. It was a great day. The snow from the night before stuck around most of the morning, giving me maybe the second or third White Christmas of my life, a special treat in itself.

Luis wanted to spend as much time as possible outside in the snow. And then, he was very bossy about exactly how each person was play in the snow.

JF & RC gave Luis some legos - a very big hit!

Luis loved loved loved the candy canes on the tree

Later that evening, we had a great Skype call with Diego's family in Tamesis (Colombia). We were able to share with them our exciting news: that we are expecting a second baby ~ July 1, 2010!

(This picture is actually from a Skype call on Christmas Eve. I didn't have a picture from Christmas Day, but it looked essentially the same)

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Christmas Eve

Starting about noon, a light dusting of snow started. Considering that neither Liz nor Jules had ever seen snow, and that this was the first Christmas that Luis may remember (though, of course, he may not), having snow on Christmas Eve was pretty magical.

The beginning of the snow

Three years ago (2006) when Luis was born, JuanFe and RC came over on Christmas and made us the most amazing feast. As I recall, they arrived about 10 a.m. with several bags of groceries and proceeded to cook for the next 8 hours (Diego and I were trying to figure out what in the world to do with the baby we'd brought home the day before). While there was course after course of delicious food, the thing that I remember most was this great chestnut soup that started from actual chestnuts.

This year, JF graciously agreed to make his soup again, but we decided to spread the rest of the responsibilities to the other adults here. Liz took charge of the turkey and decided to brine it - something no one in the house had ever done before. I made stuffing, mashed potatoes, and glazed carrots. JF made the soup, steamed asparagus and a homemade apple pie. There was also a salad walnut, goat cheese and cranberry salad (but I'm not sure how that made it to the table!)

Ta-da!!

JF works on the apple pie

Diego carves the turkey

The finished product

My very good friends Chris and Leah joined us and it was great. Everything turned out delicious (especially the brine turkey!!). Luis's interest in dinner was very short. Once she finished eating, Liz was kind enough to go outside with Luis to "play" in the snow.

Me and Leah, Leah and Luis

Luis was very excited about Christmas at bedtime (which was about 2 hours later than it normally is!). He wanted to read the Olivia Christmas book, and asked several times if Santa (and Rudolph!) were really coming. Surprisingly, he was asleep within minutes.

After he went to bed, the rest of us readied for the morning. When we were little, I remember Randolph being the most excited about Christmas morning, having a very tough time getting to sleep. As teenagers, and even into our early 20's, I have these same memories. This year, it was me who had a hard time going to sleep. I think it was after 1 a.m. by the time I dozed off.

[Though this post is being published in December, it was actually written in March.]

Another Way to Keep Luis Busy

We have three native pecan trees in our backyard that have been dropping pecans for almost 3 months. And they are still dropping. Jules took Luis out to collect pecans on a number of occasions; it was an activity that never got old for him.

And did I mention that he was good at it??

Cookie Decorating

Over the holidays, we have made an obscene amount of sweets. To put it in perspective, we went through almost ten pounds of flour. We made from scratch: gingerbread men, sugar cookies, cinnamon rolls, bunuelos, arepas, waffles, and other goodies. And by "we" I mean mostly Jules with much help from Liz.

Jules, JF, Luis and Liz work on decorating the cookies. Luis found that he preferred to be the colorist - mixing the icing colors.

Both of them are wonderful bakers - but I was much more touched by how inclusive and patient they were with Luis. Luis helped with every step of the process from cracking the juevos to using the mixer to coloring the icing to decorating. And, of course, he helped with the eating. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I'd hoped to and find that I only really have pictures of the sugar cookies that were made the other day.

A whole tray of beautiful, sugary goodness!

Luis - His actual birthday

For Luis's actual birthday, we had a pretty low-key day. Diego, who was feeling terrible after a very hard rugby practice the week before (and by terrible I mean scary-high fever, lots of pain and a bad rash) and I spent most of the day at the hospital getting a diagnosis of cellulitis and making sure he didn't also have a blood clot (he didn't). And having had a great party at school and a great party with his friends, Diego and I didn't really think that Luis needed another big production.

So while JF and Jules made a run to Costco (someone went to the grocery store every. single. day), Diego, Liz and I took Luis out to a special birthday dinner at Hunkys. I have only one picture to commemorate the day - though I have no idea what is happening in it.

Happy Birthday Luis!

Chester Comes to Visit

Our next door neighbors (the other side from Kyle and Tim) have an Aussie named Rex and a guinea pig named Chester. Last summer we animal-sat for them for a week. This week, we had Chester stay with us for almost five days. Luis loves Chester, so I thought this would be a nice treat for him. Turns out that Diego liked Chester A WHOLE LOT, while Liz, Jules and JF also had fun with him.

Everyone was pretty concerned that Ashley would harm to Chester. She was very curious about him, sniffed him a lot, but was very kind to him. It looks like she's about to chomp him in half in this picture, but she's not.

Guinea pig in Spanish is "Cuy" (think "muy" in Spanish). Cuys show up in all sorts of places in hispanic culture: they roam free in the house (in packs) and act as guardians, swarming around and squeaking when a stranger comes, as part of some carnival game where a cuy is placed in the middle of a bunch of numbered boxes - when he runs for cover, the person who picked the number of the box he ended up in wins (apologies if I didn't get this game description just right), and on the table as a meal. I'm not kidding. At least once a day, someone (not me or Luis) would make a joke about at which meal the Cuy would be served.

Rincon Siblings

It's been a long time since all four Rincon siblings were together (2004). Though they spent seven days together, there were only pictures from this series that have all four of them in the same frame.

Liz, Juan Fe, Diego and Jules

Luis's Birthday - Phase II

On Sunday, we had five of Luis's closest friends over and one older sister (a girl, six, who Luis is crazy about). I was excited about the kids decorating gingerbread houses, and had made peace with the disaster that would over come the house.

Juan Fe, Liz and Jules generously and graciously spent much of Saturday constructing the gingerbread houses. It wasn't that hard, but required a sharp knife, icing "glue", patience and an hour between finishing the house and putting on the roof. This part would not have gone over well with 3-year olds.

After house construction was complete, Jules decorated another round of train cakes. This time, we put them on our big cutting board, adding green "grass" and a blue "lake" - both made from coconut - to simulate the look of a train table. This round of cakes was a bit different because one of Luis's friends is allergic to milk, butter and eggs. His mom made a batch of chocolate cakes that were "Elijah-friendly" and we made a batch of yellow cakes. It turns out that we needed two batches of trains to feed all the kids and adults.

Bravo Jules! The trains looked amazing!!

After about 3 weeks of unseasonably cool weather, Sunday turned out to be an unseasonably warm day. At the last minute, we decided to move the party outside. Besides saving my house from a thousand sticky, little-kid hand prints, it also allowed the kids to run off all of their post-nap energy, their ate-too-much-gingerbread-house-decorating-candy, and then their ate-too-much cake energy.

Kids started arriving about 3p and we went straight outside. There was almost enough outdoor toys to keep everyone happy. I say almost because unless I'd had SIX of every toy, it would have been impossible to avoid the occasional scuffle over a toy. I had been a little nervous about entertaining the kids until it was time to decorate, but they did a great job of entertaining themselves.

I had told the parents in advance that we'd be decorating gingerbread houses and the parents were great sports about helping out. We had seven kids, eight parents, three aunts/uncles, and two adult friends - giving us almost a 2:1 adult to kid ratio. Thank goodness! Liz, Jules & JF worked hard to make sure that everyone had the supplies they needed - icing, candies, knives, napkins, etc. Attention spans varied greatly: Luka spent approximately 3 1/2 minutes on his house before going back to playing, while Logan put in close to 45 minutes. Luis didn't spend much time at all decorating, but was fastidious about eating as much icing as he could get into his mouth (which was a lot). As kids finished (or lost interest), they peeled off from the table and went back to running around the backyard. (It was at this moment that I was particularly glad that we were outside and not in the house!)

Thomas decorates. Luis eats. Caleb decorates. Elijah decorates (with help from his mom). Logan decorates. Which of these is not like the other?

Next was cake time. The train cakes were a HUGE success with the kids. In fact, each of them made sure to note which train he wanted by touching it. Repeatedly. In an effort to make sure Elijah felt part of the crowd (in terms of being able to eat the same cake as the other kids - something which never happens for him), I put the candles in one of the chocolate trains. The plan worked, and almost backfired. Almost all of the kids wanted chocolate trains.

It's hard to get six 3-year old boys in a single shot. Here is 5 of them

The one problem we had was that it was pretty windy: the three tiny candles we had wouldn't stay lit. Tim, our next door neighbor was sweet enough to hold something to block the wind so that Luis could fully enjoy blowing out the candles. And he did enjoy it!

After cake, it was time for more running around. One of the reasons we liked this house the first time we saw it was because of the big back yard. It was perfect for this party. And the fort that Diego and I built almost a year ago was a big hit. Kids were on the glider, the swings, and the slide, up in the fort and down in the sandbox almost all afternoon.

I imagine this picture being dug up and tagged on some one's Facebook account in 25 more years (or whatever thing has replaced Facebook).

Elijah, Luis, Alexandra, Logan and Thomas

It didn't surprise me that Luis cried at his party. It was a bit overwhelming - and required a whole lot of sharing of toys. Twice, he and Diego had a few quiet moments together so Luis could collect himself before rejoining the festivities.

In the end, the party was a great success. Kids had fun. Adults had fun. All of the cake was eaten. No blood was shed. And there was constant laughter from everyone. In the months leading up to Luis's birthday, I had been really nervous about what to do for his party. Though the sources were different, it wasn't too unlike how I felt about helping Luis with a Halloween costume: I both wanted it to be just right and I didn't want it to be my fault if it wasn't. When it was all said and done, I had this really wonderful feeling that I did, in fact, 'get it right'; that Luis had a great time, enjoyed his friends, and felt special (on his special day). I doubt that he'll actually remember this day, but I hope that I never forget.

Luis enjoys his gingerbread house. After this, no one else really wanted any.