Miami

We just came back from a week in Miami. My husband’s brother got married, so the three of us made the trip down to enjoy the beach and attend the matrimonio. Sofía was much better on the plane this time; it is amazing what four months and three hours less can do for your plane ride. I still remain adamant that using the FAA approved child restraint seat belt is the way to go instead of the carseat on the plane. Maybe for our NEXT trip, we will have one.

Sofía LOVES exploring hotels. She runs around like a crazy woman, trotting from room to room and squeals with delight. If only the playpen or portable crib were comfortable. We discovered that she still does NOT like the beach (check out that face in the foto below!), but does enjoy the breeze on the beach or on the terrace for that matter.

We also took her to a place called Jungle Island (I DO NOT recommend it to anyone unless you get free tickets and have nothing better to do.) to see some live exotic animals. She liked seeing the animals, all of them except for the parrots that is. She was a bit freaked out by them which may be my fault. As you enter the facilities, they grab you and put you into a foto-shoot pose with parrots and a crocodile. I didn’t know what was going on and before I could protest, there was a huge parrot clawing into my shoulder and I know I made a fuss which upset Sofía and from there on out, the big colored birds were on her creepy list. I hope she isn’t scarred.

¡Sofía y iphone Mania!

Sofía loves the iphone and has mastered figuring out where her favorite videos, pictures and Youtube are.  I have tried to videotape her using it, but very unsuccessfully because whenever she sees the cámara, she wants that too.  But I can show you how she is obsessed with the iphone , how she can ask for it using her signs and how she relentless about getting it!

La Bicicleta

Technically, it is a triciclo, but we usually say bicicleta. Tío Phil came for a brief visita and brought Sofía a surprise! When she woke from her nap, not only was her Tío here, he had put together the bicicleta and it was waiting for Sofía to ride! She LOVES her new bicicleta! Her feet barely touched the pedales, but since her massive growth spurt, that won’t be a problem anymore. Every morning for 4 consecutive days, the first thing she said/signed when she woke up was “bicicleta”! ¡Gracias Tío!

Babbling Con Mami en Agosto

Here is one of the videos I took of Sofía in Agosto, but never got around to posting. She was babbling to me and I thought it would be cute to document for prosperity’s sake—ja ja ja jee jee jeee. She also uses her signs for “mami” y “papi”. I love the “mmmmuuuaaa” sound she makes when she gives me a beso or a kiss.

Un Día

I lied. There was ONE good day en Septiembre and that was my husband’s birthday. Here are some fotos of Sofía celebrando el cumpleaños de su Papi.

Sofía looks at the cámara before Papi blows out the candles.

More than cake, Sofía loves water bottles!

Sofía regaló a Papi a pizza pan for his cumpleaños!

Sofía loved Mami’s chocoflan!

¡Octubre!

Finally, Octubre is here! We have been preparing for this day for a while. Sofía and I decorated just a little bit for Halloween. Nothing scary or creepy, but bright cheery cartoonlike happy decorations. We even created a VERY entertaining activity for Sofía in the process. We bought some cutesy Halloween foam stickers that I thought were just going to be stuck on the window for decoration purposes. But Sofía REALLY liked sticking them on the window and taking them off and sticking them on the table. She had a method to what she was doing and she seemed to enjoy running back and forth from window to table. I tried to video tape her new activity, but she LOVES the camera and always wants to touch it. Then I tried doing a “hidden camera” recording which also didn’t work very well. It is very funny though and if I can edit it before she wakes from her nap, then I will post it.


In the meantime, here are some fotos of our happy Octubre make-over.

Calabaza centerpiece with Halloween tablecloth.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Calabaza wall hanging.

The Halloween foam stickers and if you look carefully, you can see Sofía’s hand prints all over the windows!

A Halloween flap book for Sofía.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

¡Ah....por fin Octubre!

Septiembre

Septiembre 2010 sucks. I’m so glad it is the final day of Septiembre because I’ve already moved on to Octubre. I’ve started to decorate for Halloween because I need a change of scenery and Octubre is one of my favorite months of the year. I’ve been away from blogging for way too long, but I’m going to try to gradually slip back into it.

So for almost 14 weeks I was pregnant, which is why I took a little hiatus from blogging. I was too tired and sick to even post that I would be taking a break because every morning, I had good intentions of blogging and then when Sofía’s nap rolled around, I could barely move my pinky finger. First trimester in the 90° heat and humidity of D.C. is taxing. I was also huge. At a mere 6 weeks, I had people, some I didn’t even know, come up to me and ask me if I was pregnant. Somewhere someone told me that the second pregnancy pops out quickly and I my body took it to an extreme. So we ended up telling our families before the first trimester was over because I just couldn’t hide it anymore. I even made Sofía an awesome little shirt to wear to a family function so that we had a cute way of telling everyone. (See foto below).

Then Septiembre rolled around. It was hell from day 1 to the dwindling hours of today. To make a long story (that I don’t even want to talk about) short, there was something wrong with the baby and he/she ended up not making it. That was two weeks ago. We were devastated and exhausted from the trauma. I recovered fine from the surgery and my poor husband had to do everything because I couldn’t lift anything or drive for a week. Not Sofía, not the gatos, nada. To add insult to injury, I have the body of someone who just had a baby and the hormones too....so I can’t even just put on a pair of “fat pants” and go with it. I still, STILL have to wear maternity clothes. Uuggh. We are supposed to go to my husband’s brother’s wedding next week. I wasn’t going to go because really who wants to face that? But then I came to the realization that my husband shouldn’t have to face that alone either. So I decided to see if I could find a dress to hide the belly….I’ll take looking fat over looking pregnant, hands down, right now. I finally found a dress and took it to get altered today. It should be finished the day before the wedding. The quilt I am making them will not be finished in time however.

As if Septiembre wasn’t sucky enough, my best friend who was pregnant also lost her baby not even two weeks after us. Yesterday at 5PM, Sofía spiked a fever and rash so I called the doctor and when she said to bring her in immediately, I almost started crying. (I’m still VERY hormonal.) She is fine, but is still feeling cruddy and is congested and fevery. As it turns out, Sofía and I may not be going to that wedding anyway….we are going to play it by ear. Sucky Septiembre still continues. My husband took off so much work, that of course he had to say something to his colleagues, so he had to face to face explain to everyone what happened. (I informed people by email because I JUST can’t talk about it.) And to round up the month of suckiness, a colleague of my husband, whom I know, called him from the hospital to tell him that she in fact was pregnant, but was being brought into emergency surgery and they didn’t expect the baby to survive either. How awful that my poor baby has to receive such news AGAIN. Septiembre has definitely SUCKED and I still have eight and a half more hours to endure. But then Septiembre will be OVER and we will be moving on! I have a bunch of backed-up news about Sofía’s language and developmental progress that I can’t wait to share! Tick, tick, tick, tick….it is almost Octubre.

La Niñera We Will Never Know

On the same day as we took Sofía for her first Carrusel ride, we also went to lunch at a traditional South American churrasqueria. Sofía was all about making friends with the family who sat across from us. (Latino of course) At the end of the meal, I let her out of her high chair and she immediately went over to their table. Before I know it, she is sitting in this young woman’s lap. When I picked her up to let the family eat in peace, Sofía pushed out of my arms and ran back to the young woman insisting to be picked up. My husband made jokes about asking her to babysit Sofía. I was so tired, that I JUST DIDN’T FEEL LIKE IT. I should have because Sofía really liked this person and of course she spoke Español.   BUT I JUST DIDN’T FEEL LIKE IT. I told him that he should do it. He didn’t and now I want to kick both of us!

El Carrusel

One Sunday morning when it wasn’t so blazing hot in Washington, DC., we took Sofía to our favorite park. We hadn’t been there in quite some time because of the heat. Actually we hadn’t been there since Sofía learned to walk by herself! In the summertime, the Carrusel runs and so Sofía went on her first Carrusel ride. Every time they passed by me, Sofía waved! If you look closely at the picture, you can see some woman who OBVIOUSLY didn’t see my husband’s wedding band! ¡ROAR!

Cocinando Para Fulanito

So this post is more than a few weeks overdue. It’s simple and cute and I wanted to make sure that I put it in the blog for Sofía to see when she is older. She loves to cook, cocinar, for her peluches and her gatos. Here she is cocinando for Fulanito who surprisingly seems to enjoy the actividad.

Sonidos de Animales

In an earlier post, I wrote about how Sofía signed and spoke the word she signed at the same time, for the first time. She doesn’t do this often; she usually just chooses one form to communicate her word. The only other time she will sign and SPEAK simultaneously is when we ask her about sounds that animals make. What she does is funny. When we ask her what sound said animal makes, she will orally make the sound and sometimes sign the animal simultaneously, but this isn’t what she does ALL the time. Usually she will only make the oral sound of the animal even if she knows the sign. There are a few exceptions however. If she doesn’t know the sound for the animal, she will only sign the animal, as she does with elefante. (Really, who can make an elefante sound?) With leon, she ALWAYS makes the sound and signs leon. She knows the sign and sounds for caballo y pájaro (horse and bird), but she usually only makes their sounds and will not sign them. Go figure. Then SOMETIMES, not all the time, sometimes when I point to a picture of a caballo o pájaro and ask her what it is, she will sign the animal name and other times she will make their sound! There is no rhyme or reason---she is a TODDLER!!!  I've been trying FOREVER to videotape her doing these things, but she has not been very cooperative or I have not been very sucessful at it.  I'll try to post it when I figure it out.

Uugghh Sleepless Night

For some reason, Sofía woke up about every two hours on Thursday night. At 4:30 AM, my husband threw in the towel and told her that if she wanted to play then she could play. Hmmm. When he later tried to put her back to sleep in her cuna, she threw a fit (big surprise) and became hysterical. So I brought her into the bed with me and we watched Baby Signing Times to calm her down and munched on waffles. (No, I didn’t even care about the crumbs that were piling up in my bed!) We ate breakfast and by 8:30 AM she was back in her cuna sleeping. She was exhausted as well as I was….but I usually don’t get hit with tiredness until the afternoon. Sofía slept for three hours in the morning and then another two in the afternoon. The reason? I think her other molars are coming in and are interrupting her sleep. When she wakes up, I think she is finding it hard to go back to sleep and wants some LOVE in the process. She likes to sleep, so I’m sure she doesn’t like being awake any more than we do! Ah, parenthood!

Julio 28 – El Día de Independencia de Perú

I couldn’t let today go by without paying some kind of homage to my husband’s motherland on its Independence Day. In addition that he is the Amor de mi Vida, my daughter is also of Peruvian heritage, so I felt something was really necessary! So we made a quick run to a close Peruvian restaurant, La Granja de Oro, for some carryout. We celebrated my husband’s prima’s cumpleaños there and we were all impressed with the authenticity of the food. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, Lomo Saltado. (I really love ceviche, but breastfeeding and raw fish are a no-no!) Sofía ate more rice than meat, but was really into the rice that sucked up all the juices from the dish. She’s no fool! Peruvian cuisine really merits an entire blog or at LEAST an entry all to itself, so I will have to save that for later. For now, ¡Feliz Día de Independencia!

Galletas de Chocolate Chip

Do you sometimes just get antojos (cravings) for chocolate chip cookies? The cookies or galletas originated in the USA which would explain why in my travels throughout Latin America that they were nowhere to be found. Anyway, we decided to make chocolate chip galletas and Sofía of course helped me. Now that she is almost a year and a half old (gasp!!) she can really actively participate in the baking process. Before, I used to put her bouncy seat on the island or hold her so that she could see what was going on. Now, I put all the ingredients in separate bowls and she poured them into the mixing bowl and then even got to operate the buttons on the mixer! She even used her hand to spread the dough into the pan! I think I created a Mini-Me Monster!

La Lora: The Sequel Part II of Mi Madre is un Language Nerdo!

The other day while watching Baby Signing Times, Sofía became a Little Lora, a parrot. She decided that it was the day to REPEAT the vocabulary words out loud in English; something that she has never done before. She said “cracker” and “grass”, words from her favorite sound group C and G. Now I don’t know if she KNOWS the meaning of the words in English because I didn’t test her. All I know is that she was repeating the words, making the sounds. I know she knows the meaning of the words en Español and in ASL (American Sign Language). She can say “cracker” en Español and ‘grass” is a little weak still. All this leads me to believe that she must know the meaning in English as well, but without having given her some kind of evaluation, I can’t be sure. But it was sure interesting to hear her repeat what she heard in English just like a little Lora!