Bembos Park

Bembos is a fast food resaurante chain in Perú.  It serves a variety of hamburguesas y papas fritas.  I took Sofía there one morning, not for the food, but for the children’s play area.  I’ve always been impressed with how Latin America has great play areas for children in their fast food places.  Nothing like I’ve ever seen here.  Take a look!

This is a foto of the restaurante from the outside.  If you see where it says, Bembos Park, that entire section is the play area.  It has lots of natural light and a high ceiling for climbing and going down cool slides.

I was also really impressed with how well things were labeled and the rules set out.

This is the giant ball pit.  There is a tunnel slide that opens into it also.  Sofia played in it (since we were the only ones eating at 11:30 AM) and liked it!

¡Salud!

As one can imagine, while we were in Perú, there were lots of familia get-togethers with buena comida and lots of brindises.  One morning, while we were eating our breakfast, Sofía grabs her cup of leche and taps it against my coffee cup and says, “¡Salud Mami!”  I was shocked and she was proud of herself.  Now she does a brindis with many other things too; pencils, magic wand, and paint brushes….always saying, “¡Salud Mami!” 

Anticuchos de Corazón

One thing that we wanted to do with Sofía during our brief viaje a Perú was expose her to all the delisioso cuisine that we could. One night we took her to Pardo’s Restaurante (what I like to refer to as a Chicken Shack). My hands were too greasy from the roasted chicken and fried yuca to take a foto when the food actually arrived. But what I was able to snap was a foto of Sofía and the Anticucho menu. Mi esposo LOVES anticuchos. He has tried to make them here, but really nothing compares to the Mother-Land. The word anticucho is quechuan for “cut stew meat”. Basically anticuchos are any shish-kebab marinated vinagre and grilled in specific Peruvian spices. Although anticuchos can be of any kind of meat, generally it is made from Beef heart. (It tastes like liver to me; I eat it, but it isn’t anything I crave.) Long story short…..Sofia ate anticuchos de corazón-and liked it!

Primos

Sofía was able to see her second primos again while we were in Perú. My husband has tías who are our age so, his primos are only a few years older than Sofía. It all works. Now that Sofía is a bit older than the last time she saw them, she fell in love with her primos, Juan Diego and Salvatore. Especially Juan Diego.

She “talks” to him ALL THE TIME on her Mickey Mouse cell phone. She tells him what she is doing and what she is going to do and if I interrupt her, she puts up one finger to tell me to wait un minuto!

¡A Perú!

We are very afortunados that my husband gets to travel (for work) a few times a year and that Sofía and I usually get to tag along.  So when mi esposo told me that he needed to go to Perú the following week, I got busy!  It was hot Agosto in D.C., but mid Winter en Lima.  I had to run and purchase tickets and make hotel and transport accommodations, as well as buy Sofía warm clothes!  She obviously outgrew all her long pants and long-sleeve shirts from last season.  (As I write this blog, she has since outgrown those clothes we purchased for the trip!!  Yes, my daughter is near the 100 percentile in height!) This trip really had only one purpose.  It was not the big event of our matrimonio, nor the culinary weekend celebration, or the cultural escapades of the Hacienda and the Pachamanca.   Mi esposo is from Perú and he still has close familia that live in Lima; aunts, uncles, cousins and most importantly, his abuela.  So Sofía learned to tell people that she was going on an avión to Perú to visit her bisabuela. La bisabuela is about 84 years old and as feisty as ever, and Sofía is the first bisnieta that she has ever met!   

A Mini Mi

For those of you who know me, you will appreciate this Mini Mi foto.  We even bought Sofía an absorbent towel like mine too (which actually got left behind on a  trip L - maybe Santa?) Sofía really loved this foto shoot!  She may really, really look like Papi, but she is totally a Mini Mi!!

Crema de Afeitar

Another sensory experience I like to give Sofía is playing with creama de afeitar (shaving cream).  Right now, she just plays and isn’t interested in drawing shapes or anything yet, but when she is ready, it will be a great way to practice shapes, letters and numbers.

¡A Pintar!

Sofía LOVES to pintar.  She got a little emocionada with the pintura….luckily, it is very, very washable!

S es para Sofía

A friend of mine gave this book to Sofía when she was born.  It is a really nice personalized book.  There is a fairy for every letter of the alphabet and the book spells out the child’s name with a different fairy.  The fairy’s represent a flower and talks about an attribute of the child.  The book is written en Inglés, but we “read” to her en Español.  It is a super way to expand her vocabulario with words that aren’t really used every day.  The other day, Sofía pointed to the letra S of the S Fairy (The S Fairy talks about how Sofía is sensata and superespecial.) and said, “La letra S de Sofía”.

There is a New Jefe in Town!

Sofía and I went to see Papi at work….kind of a sorpresa. He wasn’t in his oficina, but after he got this foto, he appeared soon!

1, 2, 3, Just for Prosperity Sake!

I have forgotten to post about this, so just for prosperity, I need to mention this.  Since Abril, Sofía has been able to count both en Español and en inglés.  Well, at first, she would just say a few numbers, then she learned to say them correctly in order, gradually increasing to 10.  Lastly, she can actually count objects, which is a much slower process as we know.  But she learned them almost in tandem-almost…Español really was first, but Inglés followed almost simultaneously.  I can’t take any credit her for the Inglés because she really learned them from this Baby Signing Time YouTube video clip.

A Bedtime Story Revelation

One night, while I was rocking Sofía before bed, she started asking me her usual“¿Cómo se llama…um…” en inglés.  We had just given her a bath and combed out her hair, so it seemed pretty normal for her to ask how to say, “peine” en inglés.  I answered her, “comb”.   Her response:  ¿Hmmm…..es “come” o “comb”?  Of course, I answered her; she soaked it up, repeated it, contemplated it, and then went on to ask me another question.  I was jumping out of my SKIN!!!  I knew she could differentiate between sounds, what I wasn’t quite aware of is that she could verbalize the process! For those of you who do not know, these are two sounds that are very hard for foreigners to differentiate between.  Ah….proud moments of a Language Nerdo Mamá!

Campanita




Foto Credit:  Disney-Clipart.com

Sofía’s latest movie obsession is Campanita.  We discovered the movie on Youtube, probably by accident and she became so hooked that we actually made the purchase of the DVD.  I never knew who Campanita was before I met my husband (whose first word, I think, was "Disney"), but now I feel like una especialista in Tinkerology!  What we learned linguistically about Campanita is fascinating to me, the Language Nerdo.  We use the word, Campanita, but on Youtube, Sofía found a version of the película from España.  They don’t call her Campanita, but Campanilla.  What is even more interesting is the addition of the DVD.  The DVD uses Español from México.  They call her Tinkerbel! (Say it like Antonio Banderas!)  Sofía noticed the diferencias of course and asked about them.  I explained them to her and she decided that she liked to listen to the versión Española the best.  She uses the word Campanita and will watch the versión Méxicana, but sometimes she won’t!  ¡Increíble!

My Mami AND HER FRIENDS are Language Nerdos!

If Sofía could write and verbalize everything she was thinking, I would have my hands full. This is one example of what she would write:

I thought it was just my Mami who was a Language Nerdo. As it turns out…so are her amigas. The other day I was talking about something important like going to the park and I could tell that she wasn’t listening to me because her eyes glazed over. Then later, she called her friend who I thought was normal, but turns out to be another Language Nerdo. I don’t really know what in the world Mami was talking about but I did hear her tell her amiga how thrilled she was because I used the SUBJUNCTIVE properly. And the crazy thing is that her amiga understood and thought it was awesome too. I heard Mami say something about how other people get excited when their kids take their first steps and that she gets excited about the SUBJUNCTIVE. Then she told her amiga that I used the word, “Escarapela” and that she was really amazed at how my vocabulary flourishes. I mean, really, how does she expect me to identify the escarapela if I don’t say it! I don’t know what it all means….but it must be good to those crazy Language Nerdos!

El 4 de Julio, 2011

El Día de Independencia! Papi *estrenó a new parrilla for El 4 de Julio. He got fancy with the hamburguesas too. He made varios kinds (note the cutsie signs I made for the hamburguesas below) and everyone brought a plato to share. It was hot, we were outside and I forgot to take fotos. Sorry Sofía….maybe I’ll remember next year!


*Estreno- this is a cool verb en Español. You use extreno o estrenar (technically) when you are using something new-shoes, an outfit, a chair, a new recipe, a new hairdo, anything new- for the first time.