Mis Queridos Hijos 9/30/07

Mis Queridos Hijos,

Tino: You received your progress report for the first 6 weeks of school. You received all As except for the B in Science. (That's o.k., because your mother was always challenged in that subject as well.) Everything you have been studying in Science so far has been helping you earn your Science belt loop in Cub Scouts. You continue to bat 3rd in the lineup on your baseball team. Your mami is clueless regarding things like baseball lineups, but everyone else in the stands tell me that being #3 in the lineup is a good thing and you are one of the power hitters on the team. You have a beautiful swing. You even have a great little ritual that you do each time you go up to bat. It's really cute. Hopefully I will be able to video tape it before the season ends.


Mateo: You went to pre-school on Tuesday and Friday. You still miss Sarah and BEG for me to pick you up before lunch time and nap time. On Tuesday night when it was time for bed, I couldn't find you or Sarah anywhere. You were hiding from me (in the dark), in my dirty clothes hamper. You guys were hiding very quietly. The only thing that gave you away was the flashlight's light coming from inside the hamper. It has been almost 3 weeks since you decided to cut your hair. You are very concerned that your hair isn't growing. Your hair still isn't even long enough to put gel in it and style it. I think you learned your lesson and next time you will wait for the barber to cut your hair.


Sarah: Your homework this week with Ms. Erika, the behavior therapist, was to practice saying "yes" and "please". There have been quite a few meltdowns, but we will work our way through this. You went to Kindermusik with mami. You loved dancing with the scarves and also wanted to sing the "Rumble, rumble, rumble in the jungle, jungle jungle" song over and over again. This week when I showed you a picture of Aunt Anne and I asked you who it was, you said "Cindewewwa". I tried to convince you that it was your Aunt Anne and not Cinderella, but you wouldn't listen to me. Now every time you walk by that picture, you get so excited and say "Wook, mami . . . there she is . . . Cindewewwa."

Love you,
Mami

Ideas needed PLEASE

I have a son. To keep it anonymous, I won't mention names, but will give you a hint that his name is often confused by little kids or the hard-of-hearing gringos as "Potato". This particular child is very rambunctious. He is very busy. He keeps me alert and attentive at all times. He is also very smart. Except for when it comes to one thing. When he gets in trouble . . . big trouble . . . as in time out/go to your room/pow-pow for you trouble . . . he literally gets the pee scared out of him. The kid will be 4 in December and he still has accidents. This happens at least twice a week. And I am SOOOOOOOO OVER IT! How do you get a kid to stop peeing their pants? I'm completely open for ideas here.

Date Night

I just got back from date night. Date night was on Wednesday nights, but then I had to go ahead and mess everything up by getting a new calling to be Bear Den Leader in the church tri-pack . . . and church scouts meet on Wednesday nights. So change of nights AND change of venue. Since I am no longer an employee of the Y---, we don't get the perks of reduced family membership. And we don't exactly have an extra $100+ floating around to pay for a membership. (Let's get priorities straight here . . . ya think if I had some extra money I would actually choose the ritzy gym membership over cable t.v. OR satellite?) So, Cristian and I now will be having our Zumba date nights on Tuesday nights . . . at the "ghetto" gym where I get FREE membership since I am now an employee there.

There was this lady there tonight that made the mistake of blurting out loud that she had eaten 3 . . . yes THREE pork chops before coming to class. And my dear friend Gisselle (a.k.a. the Zumba instructor) took it upon herself to make sure that pork chop lady worked off those 3 pork chops she had eaten before class. Let's get one thing straight . . . I DID NOT EAT PORK CHOPS before going to class. Neither did Cristian . . . neither did the other 50+ people that attended the Zumba class. There was only ONE pork chop lady in attendance, but the ENTIRE class had to PAY for her eating habits. I can barely walk. I can barely breathe. I'm surprised my fingers can even move enough to type. Every bone and muscle in my body is SORE. We got our BUTTS KICKED. But it was a lot of fun . . . AND I burned more calories than I have eaten so far today. Maybe I will be able to fit into a bikini before the cool weather hits after all. Thanks pork chop lady!!!

Day of Rest ?!?

Several months ago . . . April-ish, I was released from my calling as counselor in the Primary presidency. I also gave my two-month notice that I would not be returning as a member of the PTA Board . . . nor would I continue to be CubMaster and Den Leader in our community Cub Scout pack. All of this was in attempt to get my life in order . . . try to have some time to BREATHE, etc. etc. I love the way that my Branch President said he was going to give me a little break. As he put it, he was giving me "an opportunity to come to church, enjoy the meetings, not be commited to being highly involved in any church calling, etc. " Somehow that ain't happening. Yesterday was supposed to be the Sabbath day . . . a day of rest and I am absolutely EXHAUSTED. In fact, if I didn't have a 2 and 3 1/2 year old running rampant in the house, I would probably crawl back in bed and not wake up until tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, my church day looked something like this: Play the organ in sacrament meeting . . . (yeah, just a sneaky ploy to get the Ramirez family to church on time or almost on time since we are ALWAYS LATE), teach the 12-13 year old Sunday School class, play the piano in Relief Society, teach the Relief Society lesson . . . and have a member of the primary presidency wait patiently until there was a brief break between R.S. announcements and opening hymn to ask me if I could go play the piano for Primary while they were practicing for the program. YIKES! I believe there are about 5% of the members in the branch doing about 95% of the work. What happened to spreading the wealth? Don't be afraid to jump in and SERVE. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Bear Den is in charge of decorations for the pack meeting. Translation: Heidi the new Bear Den Leader for the church tri-pack needs to run around town trying to find big boxes and spray paint them and turn them into a stinkin' train for pack meeting on Wednesday night. Yeah, that was the one BENEFIT of being CubMaster in the community pack. I could look at the themes for the entire year and delegate decorations to my Bear Den on the EASY MONTHS. And give all the creative, artsy-fartsy months to people that don't have an impairment of that creative side of their brain.

Also, word is getting out at church that I teach piano lessons. BIG MISTAKE. There was a very nice elderly sister that gave FREE piano lessons for the last 10+ years to whoever wanted them. Apparently, since I also know how to play the piano and teach piano lessons and am a faithful/active church member, it is my "duty" to teach every kid/youth between the ages of 6 and 16 how to play the piano FOR FREE. Not to have an eye for an eye mentality . . . but what are they going to give me in return for teaching their kids? Scrub a toilet, mop a floor . . . take care of my kids on the days I teach Kindermusik and get PAID to teach piano lessons??? What part of I do these things to help bring some extra cash flow into my household do they not understand???

Time to go scrub a toilet . . . or put the kids down for a nap . . . or give me a timeout since I am in such a p---- mood. Ta-ta for now!

Mis Queridos Hijos 9/23/07

So I am TOTALLY stealing . . . I mean borrowing an idea from Celia. I met Celia in Blogland. I've never met her in person, but I feel like I know her. She is super duper funny. And I check out her blog every day just so I can get a good chuckle. Anyway, she is starting to do a weekly update of her kiddos for family history purposes. Awesome idea, so I am going to do the same. Thanks Celia!!!

Mis Queridos Hijos,
I am going to start to document or recap the main events that happen to you each week.

Tino: One of the pitchers from the Washington Nationals organization came out to help you and some of your teammates with pitching on Wednesday night. You were reluctant to pitch your first game yesterday, but you did it! You were AWESOME! Although you were disappointed that you gave up some runs, YOU DID YOUR BEST and that is all we ask. You are one of the power hitters on the team and you have a lot of potential as a lefty pitcher. Mami and papi are certainly proud of you!

Mateo: You went to your second week of preschool. You are still going through Sarah withdrawal. You miss your little sister while you are away at school. Both nights after pre-school, you cried when we put Sarah to bed because she was going to miss you so berry berry much. You snuck into her room, got her out of her crib, closed her bedroom door, and gave her strict instructions to play QUIETLY so mami and papi wouldn't hear you. After playing with her for over an hour, you helped her get back into her crib, turned out her light, and came into mami and papi's room to report to us that you had been taking good care of Sarah. On Friday, papi picked you up from pre-school and took you back to Oracle. You told me all about the big lake that is in the backyard of papi's work. You also saw Daisy the girl alligator that lives in the big lake. You had fun visiting all of papi's co-workers and you even ventured off on your own a couple of times to explore. Papi found you in the kitchen both times you ventured off . . . trying to get some soda out of the fridge.

Sarah: You had your appointment with Early Steps. You qualified for more services . . . speech, OT, and the special needs pre-school. You have a lot of specialists and professionals that are going to see that you get the very best treatment and care necessary. Early intervention will help you in the long run. We hope to help you succeed and be a happy little girl. You missed Mateo when he went to pre-school, but you enjoyed all your alone time with mami to read lots of stories and play with your toys.

Love,
Mami

WonderWorks

Last week was Tino's 9th birthday. We went to WonderWorks. WonderWorks is the big upside down building that is on I-Drive (for all those that have ventured to Orlando on vacation). We lost our Disney park privileges almost 1 year ago when Cristian went back to Oracle. BUT, the good news is, we have now found a substitute for EPCOT. Tino's favorite place to hang out at Epcot was in Future World where they that have all the interactive exhibits, displays, etc. WonderWorks is equivalent to the Future World in a G.A.T.E. student/math/science enthusiast kind of way. Tino was in 7th heaven. He wanted to stay there for 8 hours. We compromised and stayed for 2 1/2 hours. Mateo and Sarah divided their time among the bubbles exhibit and the space exhibit. Since they would not relinquish the space suit and let anyone else have a turn, they had a good time posing for all of the European and Japanese tourists.

P.S. Ever since our hard drive crashed and we lost ALL of our digital pictures from the last 2+ years, I haven't been using the digital camera because there is supposedly a way we can retrieve the "deleted" pictures off the memory card. I'm going to start posting some of the pictures that go along with my blog entries over the last couple of months.

Delegation

There are certain chores that I have inherited throughout our 12 years of marriage . . . and certain chores that Cristian takes care of. I take care of laundry, mopping floors, cooking . . . Cristian irons, scrubs a mean toilet, does all the outside landscaping, takes out the garbage, etc. And then there are those jobs that we haven't officially discussed and decided upon, but for some reason or another they have been delegated to either myself or DH.

I have been the lucky winner of disposing of rodents. Perhaps it is because in one of my areas on my mission, our neighbors had a pet pig. And said pet pig attracted little friends . . . or a little bit on the bigger side friends. Each morning, I would be awakened by a pouncing on my chest . . . which would then go down my stomach, legs, etc. I always knew that it was a little too heavy to be a mosquito . . . or even a little mouse. I was always afraid to open my eyes to see what exactly it was that would climb through our bedroom window every morning and pounce on me . . . and continue on it's merry way. Until one morning I opened up my eyes . . . to see exactly what it was. Yeah, not such a great idea. I was completely horrified. As earlier suspected, it was heavier than a little mouse . . . it was a stinkin' rat. I guess that mission experience prepared me for my job in marriage to dispose of rodents. When we first moved to West Sacramento, our house was built on what was an empty field and farmland for years and years. So of course we had the joy of uprooting several THOUSAND or maybe MILLION mice when our neighborhood was built. I got the pure joy and pleasure (NOT) of disposing of the mice that got caught in the traps . . . whether they still be alive or dead. Fun times.

After moving to Florida, I discovered that Cristian doesn't do green tree frogs or lizards. The green tree frogs REALLY GROSS ME OUT, but somebody's got to take them back outside to Mother Nature. Tino is freaked out also by green tree frogs, BUT he will do lizards. Last night I put him in charge of getting the little baby lizard out of our house. He had a little bit of difficulty catching the little critter, but he finally caught him and took him back outside. This is what our closet looked like after Tino came to the rescue. Thanks Tino for a job well done! And baby lizard, next time PLEASE don't mess up our closet. (This mess certainly couldn't have been attributed to Tino trying to catch the baby lizard could it?????)

And she . . . . QUALIFIED!!!!!

O.K. the bad news is Sarah qualified for more services . . . and the good news is she qualified for more services. I have had that motherly instinct for a long time now that something just isn't right with my baby. At least we will be able to start getting some more answers. Once again, she regressed significantly since 3 months ago in all areas: Gross/Fine Motor Skills, Self-Help/Adaptive Skills, Social/Emotional, Academic/Cognitive, and Expressive and Receptive Communication. Her major areas of concern are: behavior and expressive communication. There is a definite developmental delay in the area of social/emotional skills.

She will continue with once a week hourly sessions with the behavior therapist. She also qualified for one hour/week of Speech/Language therapy and 45 minutes a week of Occupational Therapy. She also qualified for the special needs preschool. We are still waiting to find out if she will go 2 days a week (minimum time) or the entire 5 days per week. And yes, thanks to Mom University . . . or perhaps my background in education . . . I called it on the sensory processing. The results that I received by doing a screening on the internet for anything on the autism spectrum or PDD came out right on with the specialists' screening today. On the Chat-M, there are 25 items. In order to be recommended for further evaluation she needed to score positive on 2 critical items. She scored on 3 critical items in addition to having an additional 6 "red flag" items on the screening. Although today she was only screened and did not receive an in depth evaluation, she definitely shows many characteristics and behaviors of children that have PDD or autism. She will be seen in 3 weeks to get the full evaluation. At least now we will start to get some answers. I've been bawling my eyes out the last couple hours. I know there was something wrong with Sarah and that there has been something wrong . . . so I didn't expect to have this reaction. What's up with all the tears? I have no idea where that came from. I guess it's just hearing the words come from someone else that make it a little more real.

Early Steps

Tomorrow morning Sarah has her follow-up appointment with Early Steps, the early intervention program run by the state of Florida. I am HOPING and PRAYING we can find some answers. Not only for Sarah's well-being, but also so I can have hope of someday being permanently off prozac.

I am going to insist that she be evaluated for autism and pervasive developmental disorder. Also, I think there might be a sensory processing disorder in the mix. Delayed speech, a seizure that came out of nowhere, walking on her tiptoes, NO reasoning skills or understanding of cause and effect, tactile/sensory issues, behavior issues . . . is there anything else I am missing? I am trying to review my notes so that this visit can be as thorough as possible. Let me know if you can think of anything else.

Hopefully by tomorrow afternoon I will be able to share the good news that she has qualified for speech therapy and some occupational therapy. Wouldn't it be too awesome if we could also qualify for two hours per week of behavior therapy instead of just one??? Send a prayer or two to Florida.

Squishy Eggs

Mateo has had an egg allergy since birth. We think it might have something to do with the modified Atkin's Diet I was on while pregnant with him. (This could possibly be the same reason he is so sensitive to peanuts and has a peanut allergy as well.) Anyway, he is finally outgrowing his egg allergy. We have started introducing egg-based products back into his diet and his skin doesn't have a major eczema outbreak. For the last week he has been asking me for squishy eggs for breakfast "because that would be so special". So, day one I made him scrambled eggs. Wrong answer. Those weren't squishy eggs. Since then, I have tried over-easy, fried, and as many other variations of eggs I could possibly think of. Although he ate them, they were not "squishy eggs". This morning he asked for squishy eggs for breakfast again. Emphasizing the fact that it would be "so special" if I made that for him because he loves "squishy eggs" so much. I told him he would have to show me how to make squishy eggs since I didn't know what they were. He found the small pot for me. He told me to fill it up with water. Then he told me to put the whole egg inside the water and not to break it. Mystery solved. If Mateo ever asks you for a squishy egg, he wants a hard boiled egg. You should have seen the look of excitement on his face when his mother FINALLY got him his "so special, squishy egg" for breakfast.

Please Vote

So I'd like your input regarding children's television. As you know, we cut our cable in April of 2006 and still haven't gotten it back. (To make it through that challenging day, we tried to remain distracted and spent a lovely day at Animal Kingdom with Brad and Abigail Maude.) We depend on the library for our entertainment since we aren't high tech and can't figure out how to download shows like Brad does. So I'd like to know, which show highly annoys you and gets under your skin the most between Dora, Dora, Dora la Exploradora and The Backyardigans?

Yes, I am a Licensed Kindermusik Educator, but this Backyardigans singing everything for the entire show and repeating the annoying singing has GOT TO GO. (P.S. That's my vote.)

Monday Morning Manners

Mateo: MAMI, I WANT MY SAMMICH RIGHT NOW. WHERE IS IT?

Mami: Excuse me, let's try that again. That is not the way to speak to your mother.

Mateo: (This time with a cheesy grin on his face) Mami, MAY I PLEASE have a sammich, a grilled cheese sammich? And would you like me to go put my clothes on? Oh yeah, and a big heart and hug mami. (pause . . . waiting for my reaction). Was that better mami???

Baseball Practice

I love baseball season. And I really love it that Tino has late night practices from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday nights. Of course Tino thinks its really cool, because he gets to play under the lights twice a week. Last night I had a delightful time with Sarah at the wet, muddy fields. Although Cristian is Assistant Coach and he would normally take Tino to practice, last night he had a Missionary Movie Night. Since he is the Ward Mission Leader and since this activity had been planned for well over a month, he went to movie night at the church. He took Mateo . . . which means I was the lucky winner of Sarah.

I entertained her in the van for the 1st hour, but she got a little stir-crazy and needed to get out. I was actually hoping that a combination between the heat and humidity she would just pass out. Not so much. So from 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. we did the rounds at the major league baseball field. Sarah went up every bleacher, back down again . . . and then she had to make sure she broke in her new white and pink shoes. For some reason, she was stepping into almost every puddle she saw. I was a little short on patience . . . being that is the end of the week, late Friday night, etc. I said "Sarah, why don't you go ahead and step into EVERY SINGLE PUDDLE THAT YOU SEE. YOU MISSED SOME PUDDLES BACK THERE." She looked at me with her eyes as big as could be, and obediently replied "O.K. Mami". She then proceeded to backtrack and step into each of the puddles that she had missed our first lap around the baseball field. New white and pink shoes . . . are not so new white and pink looking anymore. They now have a beautiful muddy red clay tinge to them. Needless to say, the girl was sopping wet after practice. Some of the puddles she was jumping in were at least 6-8 inches deep. Do I get the "Mommy of the Year" award by admitting that she still hasn't had a bath since last night's practice? Does stepping in all the puddles count? I know that swimming in a pool definitely counts as a cleansing for the day.

Tagged

Thanks Rach!  That makes for an EASY BLOG ENTRY!

Two Names You Go By:
1. Heidi
2. Mami

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Workout clothes
2. Heart rate monitor watch

Two Things You Want in a Relationship:
1. Communication
2. Humor

Two of Your Favorite Things to do:
1. Teach Kindermusik & Silver Sneakers
2. Travel

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. Someone to do my grocery shopping for me.
2. Snow . . . or something a little bit cooler
than this Florida heat and humidity.

Two pets you had/have:
1. Snake
2. Do kids count?????

Two people who will fill this out first:
1. Celia or Paige
2. Rach (She is the one that tagged me)

Two things you did last night:
1. Entertained Sarah at the wet, muddy baseball fields for 2 hours
2. Fought the crowds at 10:00 p.m. at WalMart (Everyone was in search
of the same stinkin' WHITE baseball pants that were sold out at
Blue Diamond Sports and Sports Authority.  And yeah, so much for the
HUGE order that was supposed to come in this week at
Rawlings and Blue Diamond)

Two People that live in your house (home):
1. The Taxi-Driver
2. The Maid

Two people you talked to last:
1. Cristian
2. Sheny (two of my piano students' mom)

Two things you are doing tomorrow:
1. Speaking in sacrament meeting with Cristian.
Topic:How to Have an Honorable, Happy and Successful Marriage
2. Celebrating Tino's birthday with the cousins

Longest Vehicle Rides
1. ANYWHERE with Sweet Sarah in tow
2. Santo Domingo to Barahona (after traveling by airplane
the entire day from SFO to DFW, DFW to Miami, Miami to Santo Domingo)

Two Favorite Holidays:
1. Christmas
2. Dia de los Reyes Magos

Two favorite beverages:
1. Diet Coke
2. Protein Shake

Sarah's Update

Today was the second visit with Sarah's new behavior intervention specialist. (I fired the other one about a month ago). Ms. Erika is absolutely fabulous! And she even gives homework. Last week my homework was to get Sarah some of her own toys. Apparently part of the sibling rivalry and tension between Sarah and Mateo can be circumvented if Sarah has her own toys in her OWN room. So, my task for the week was to get her some toys of her own. All of Sarah's toys were the hand-me down toys from Mateo and Tino. (Heather's Women's Studies professors at Utah State would be proud that I wasn't imposing any gender stereotypes for Sarah's toys right????) So now Sarah has some toys of her own. She has a little princess purse, pink sunglasses, Ariel (Barbie) doll, and comb, brush, and lipstick. I even found her pink and purple mega-blocks that she got for her birthday that have been hidden in Mateo's room with his stash of toys. Sarah had a great session with Ms. Erika. It's got to be because of her new toys. Here's hoping for new and improved behavior for "Sweet" Sarah.

Yankees

It's Fall ball time! And Tino is on his favorite team in the entire UNIVERSE! This is the 3rd time that he ends up on the Yankees. The first time, it was no big deal because he was barely 5 years old and didn't know any better. Now that he eats, sleeps, and breathes the Bo Sox . . . . this is a BIG DEAL. It is about as low a blow as one could get to HAVE TO PLAY on the Yankees team. I asked Tino if it bothered him so much that he wanted to quit and try playing ball again in the Spring. He said he would be o.k. with staying on the Yankees. Since he had a little hiatus from playing ball when we first moved to FL, he was in Coach pitch the last two seasons.

Now he is in the minor league . . . where kids pitch . . . or at least attempt to pitch. Tino's coach works with the Washington Nationals organization. Anyway, he has connections. Last night, a couple of pitchers from the Washington Nationals minor leagues came out to help the boys with their pitching. Cristian (a.k.a. Assistant Coach), asked one of the players what he thought of the lefty pitcher on the team. He responded that he has a lot of potential. I'll have Cristian guest blog so he can use the exact words and baseball lingo. Now if we can only convince Tino that he should pursue this pitching thing. I catch him doing wind-ups and doing practice pitches ALL THE TIME. But then he tells me he's not into pitching. Yeah, whatever.

Mateo's First Day of Pre-School 9/11/07

As dictated by Mateo . . . after being home for 4 1/2 hours and enjoying every second playing with his sister Sarah that he missed so berry berry much.

"I played. I colored. I taked a berry berry long rest. And I didn't like that part. And I have lots of friends at school but I don't remember what their names is. I did the letter E (draws in air to show me). And we learned about the numbers. The number 9 (draws"9" in air). I got my name on the name tag on the table. And you got me a lunch. Grapes and yogurt and cream cheese with jelly sammich and Cheez-its and water. That's what I ate."

Hair cuts continued

Cristian rushed home from work so he could supervise Tino and Sarah while I took Mateo to the barber before they closed at 6:00 p.m. On the way to the barber, we had a heart to heart talk. I asked Mateo what on earth he was thinking when he decided to cut his hair? First response: Mami, I was just trying to make my hair look like papi's brown friend. (P.S. Thank you RICHARD! Richard, our friend from Trinidad and Tobago goes to the barber every week and gets his hair shaved . . . with a 0 clipper. ) Mateo's second response: But don't worry mami. I was berry berry careful. I didn't even cut myself with the scissors.

Unfortunately, the barber was unable to fix Mateo's damages with a #2 or a #3. Mr. Mateo is #1.

Hair cuts

So we always get new clothes and new hair cuts before school starts right??? Mateo starts his first day of pre-school tomorrow. And apparently the hair cut he got a couple weeks ago wasn't good enough for him. He decided to take matters into his own hands. When he just told me about 15 minutes ago he was going to fix his hair, I said o.k. Mateo. Well, usually when he fixes his own hair that means he will use about 1/4 -1/2 bottle of gel on his hair. Today he had other plans. Thank goodness the barber doesn't close until 6:00 p.m. What on earth would I have done if he had pulled this number on me after closing hours? I'll post pictures later. And, that whole thing about Cristian wanting me to learn how to cut the boys' hair . . . let's just throw that idea out the window. I only have the #3 attachment left on my clippers. Apparently I needed a #4. YIKES. I hope the barber can fix the combination of Mateo's hair cut blunders and my #3 mistake. Thank goodness for PROZAC. Oh yeah, did I mention I put myself back on the meds about a month ago????? It really really really helps in situations like this.

Disappointment

This morning, Sarah and Mateo were in the middle of their routine fighting over toys. I was very disappointed in Mateo's behavior because I know that last week's lesson in Primary had to do with sharing/getting along with siblings. He went into explicit detail about the picture he saw of the two girls fighting over a toy, that makes Heavenly Father and Jesus very sad, yadda-dadda . . . . And then of course he had NO PROBLEM yanking Sarah's beloved Barbie doll out of her arms so he could play with her. He doesn't want to play with Barbie . . . he's simply messing with his sister and trying to stir things up a bit.

The greater disappointment of the morning wasn't that big brother Mateo was provoking his little sister, but that speech-delayed Sarah opened up her mouth and said this: "Mateo, I told you don't take it the Barbie! Pow-pow Teo." She has her 6 month speech re-evaluation coming up in two weeks. For those of you that don't recall, last time she was getting tested, she busted out with "Where Papi go?" Which on the testing scale was a very solid sentence string that a 3-year old would use . . . and it disqualified her for getting speech services. Granted, Sarah didn't need to say "it" and also "the Barbie" to describe her subject this morning . . . but word-count for that demand/sentence is 12 . . . Maybe I should go ahead and cancel her re-evaluation right now and sign her up for the 5th grade Oration contest which will take place in the Spring. She will have plenty of time to practice. What do you think?????

Adjectives

There are some mornings when I am having a bad hair day or bad face day, etc. (what's up with the sudden outburst of adult acne??? I never had issues with this before.) Right when I am starting to feel really down . . . Mateo will come up to me and say "Mami, you are SOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL." Then, I actually start to feel so beautiful. Mateo then proceeds into the kitchen and exclaims with a lot of enthusiasm "Wow, those scrambled eggs are SOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL or Look at those beautiful chocolate chip cookies we made last night". My moment in glory . . . and feeling "beautiful" . . . RUINED.

On the same note, yesterday I took Sarah and Mateo to Burger King after teaching Silver Sneakers. P.S. I can't stand Burger King. YUCK . . . I am not a BK fan. Anyway I actually let them eat their lunch inside and play in the kiddie area yesterday. Talk about GROSS! Sticky floors, ketchup smeared on the table, smashed french fries on the chair . . . Mateo looked up at the play structure and said "WOW, ISN'T THIS PLACE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING?" Amazing?????? ABSOLUTELY AMAZING???? YIKES! Mateo starts pre-school next week. I think I am going to give his teacher a heads up that he needs to be instructed in the proper use and not so proper use of adjectives. Ya just gotta love that kid.

Silver Sneakers

Silver Sneakers is a federally funded exercise program for all medicare eligible participants. The average age of Silver Sneakers class participants is between 80-89. I teach the Silver Sneakers: Range of Movement and Muscle Strength class at Bally Total Fitness on Thursday mornings. I was also certified a couple of weeks ago to teach Silver Splash (water aerobics). I am having so much fun! Next week I am going to take my camera to class so I can get pictures of my students. They are too cute. I LOVE teaching this class.

Unclaimed

On Wednesday, there was the mystery of the pellet poops in the toilet. I asked Mateo if he had pooped and forgot to flush the toilet. "Nope, mami I already flushed it down". I asked Sarah if she had pooped and forgot to flush. "I dinn't do it mami . . . no, no, no" is what she replied. Finally, Mateo said very matter of factly . . . . "I know, I know, I know mami. The toilet did it. The toilet made those poopies and forgot to flush". Fair enough. It wasn't until later on in the day that I noticed Sarah had big skid marks in her pull up. Mystery solved. Sarah did it. And yes, Sarah is now pooping on the toilet ALL BY HERSELF. Now if she can just claim it so I can help her wipe. YEAH SARAH! She is ALMOST potty-trained.