Sick Sarah

So Sarah is sick today. Let me rephrase that. She has a fever which keeps her out of school, but she seems to be absolutely fine. This is a little recap of what my day has been like so far.

10:00 a.m. Sarah: Mommy, we gonna pick up Mateo now? He done with da school.

10:05 a.m. Sarah: Mommy, it's gonna be night time. We gotta pick up Mateo.

10:06 a.m. Sarah: Mommy, I don't have anybody to play wif me. Who gonna play wif me? Mateo misses me. We have to pick him up.

Do you see the pattern here? And today was supposed to be the day where I stayed home and did homework all day long. In peace. With no kids. No interruptions. Yeah, what was I thinking???

New Year , New Me!

So I had all these end of year posts planned . . . and the Christmas and New Year's festivities posts planned . . . but now I might as well save it for next year. (Kind of like I'm thinking about saving my 2008 Christmas cards that still haven't been sent out).

Anyway, tomorrow I go back to school FULL TIME. And if you want to know where I am going, you can visit their link here. The program is ACCELERATED. Five weeks per class . . . four hours class time per week . . . approximately 10 hours outside class time preparation/homework per week . . . TIMES TWO. I failed the Spanish entrance exam (for NATIVE SPANISH speakers) . . . so I have to take SPANISH 501. Five stinkin' percentage points more and I would have had 80% on the test and would have been exempt from taking any more Spanish classes. I am also taking a Curriculum Design class. I could care less about all the different teaching philosophies (my philosophy is the only RIGHT one) . . . and I'd rather leave the curriculum design up to someone else. Let me teach and I am one happy camper. But, it's a required course. So I will . . . TAKE IT.

Anyway, Turabo University (that's what it's called in English) is taking 15 semester units of my 102 semester units of graduate course work I completed in California. I should have that little piece of paper that says I have my Master's degree within 6 to 8 months. And please, don't give me any grief about why didn't I finish up my Master's the first time around. I know, I know. Now I know. But 10 1/2 years ago I could have cared less about finishing up my thesis. I was going to be a STAY AT HOME MOM for the next 20+ years of my life. Funny how Heidi's plan for Heidi and Heavenly Father's plan for Heidi are always a little bit different. Who would have ever thought in a million and one years that I would be attending a PUERTO RICAN University? Not me.

Dear Anyone and Everyone,

Not that you care, but just had to let you know what I've been doing the last 24 hours. I STARTED and FINISHED Christmas shopping (5 1/2 hours, 7 stores, and 12 presents), printed off the Christmas/New Year's cards, went to the grocery store with 3 children in tow, and am now doing my holiday baking. I never thought I would have been able to pull it off.

It's all about simplification.

• The 12 brand new boxes of lights for outside? Yeah, next year I am hiring that out.
• The brand new 100 foot tree? Yeah, it is all decorated. As for the rest of the decorations that usually are throughout the house . . . who needs them? I'll just have everyone come into my great room and see the beautiful tree. That makes up for the lack of Christmas decor throughout the rest of the house.
• Thanks Cousin April for the MARVELOUS idea of 3 gifts. I completely borrowed that idea and modified it to fit our needs. Three gifts= the three gifts from the Wisemen to Baby Jesus. For our family's purposes, one gift is from mom/dad, one gift is from the siblings, and one gift is from Santa. I just sent a memo to Santa so he would know that only one gift would be from him. Yeah, I couldn't get him to comply 100% because he already had some stocking stuffers for the kids' stockings.
  
• Thanks Paige for the idea of faux-baking. I am doing some real baking, but also borrowed your ideas for the brownies with my modifications (added red and green m and m's to one batch, will add mint frosting to the other batch).
• Thanks Heather for inspiring me to get it in gear and prepare for the holidays.

Now if only I could find my cable to my camera (that has been DISCONTINUED) so I could upload photos onto my blog of our cruise to Cozumel, Tino's band concert, Sarah and Mateo's holiday program, and our other holiday happenings.

Besos y Abrazos,

heidiram

Cherished Memories: Tino's Travel Misadventure

Tino has a big writing piece due tomorrow. They use the COOLEST writing program at his school. He writes on the computer and submits his work and IMMEDIATELY gets feedback from the computer regarding focus and meaning, content and development, mechanics, organization, language use, etc. So here it is for your reading pleasure.

Kaboom! That was all I heard as the huge, silver doors closed . I stood, hypnotized, watching my family as I glanced out the dark, black, tinted windows of the train. My mom, brother, and sister were vanishing away further and further, by the second. Was this really happening to me? "No!" I exclaimed.

This whole misadventure started on a humid, extremely foggy winter morning. It was raining cats and dogs outside. Everything all happened so rapidly, but this is what I recall. We were about to go to Utah for Christmas. The vacation was supposed to be for my whole family to have a family reunion. The quest in the airport was very suspenseful and action-packed. It was a very spine-tingling experience for me and for everyone else in my family. Little did I know that I was about to get lost.

The Orlando International Airport was packed with many holiday travelers. After we checked in our baggage, everything happened so quickly. I was so excited to visit my cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents that I suddenly started roaming recklessly away from my mom, brother and baby sister without paying any attention at all. I mistakenly stepped onto a tram leading to the terminal for my outbound flight. The huge, silver, doors closed. I glanced out dark, black, tinted windows. All I could see was my mom doing two things. First, she was yelling,"No, TINO!!!" and she was chastizing my obnoxious, 3-year old little brother. She was paying more attention to my little brother than she was to me. Then the tram inched away from my family. It wandered further and further until they were way out of sight. Then I vanished. I had no viewpoint of where I was.

Could my situation get any worse? First, I was carrying my baby sister's heavy, blue car seat. Second, it was cold and my mom was carrying my jacket. To top it off, I had vanished from my family. Could it possibly get any worse than this? I had a mixture of feelings right now. I was feeling furious and miserable. Fortunately, I fought to stay tranquil. I thought for a few moments. What would I do? Would I try to find my family? Should I report myself lost? Or should I just stand here hoping to find someone to help me out? What would I eat for food if I got hungry? I should be happy I am lost, I thought caustically. The five minutes of me pondering seemed like a day at this place. It was the longest five minutes of my life. It felt as long as a voyage to Africa. I was as worried as when I had misplaced my 2nd pair of prescription glasses in a row, a couple years ago. My final decision was to step off the tram at the next stop. So I did. Now I would have to face the daring and extremely dangerous challenge of surviving in the airport. No doubt would it be a tough, grueling mission. I might not even make it out alive. The airport was so huge I had no idea of where I even was.

The airport was filled with frazzled and stressed out travelers waiting for their airliners to arrive. Suddenly, I was having trouble breathing. Now I thought again. Would I die from having trouble breathing? Was I sick? Or was it just the amount of people here? Was this asthma? Did I feel an anxiety attack coming on? I didn't have a clue. The mixture of emotions was starting to overwhelm me. And now to top it all off, I was beginning to feel scared. I was as scared as when my mom encountered a rat a few years back. Uh oh! I thought to myself.

The airport terminal was so big that I thought I was in the city. I suddenly found myself sprinting. I dodged people carrying neatly wrapped packages, animals in their travel crates, and plants in clay pots. I even passed a few small, gray golf carts carrying passengers that were about to miss their connecting flights. I halted to a stop. I had to ask for help or now one would here from me ever again. I spotted a man dressed in a navy blue uniform in the near distance. I noticed on his uniform there was a huge golden badge. I glanced, trying to guess who it might be. It was a police officer. My chance to stay alive was now. If I did not ask for help now, who knows what would or could happen to me. I had no money. I had no food. I could starve to death or die of thirst or both.

I sprinted towards the officer and asked for help. "Sir, will you help me!?" I called out."I don't know," he replied not so sure. "What is your name?" he questioned. "Why should I tell you!!!"I snapped. "Sorry for bothering you"he answered."What airliner are you riding?"he questioned."The Ted airline." I responded."I think I can help you out." I really hoped so. All I was thinking about now was getting back to my family. I was very anxious. Then I thought. He might not find my family. So I tried not to get too excited. He took out a small, shiny black gizmo. It had a little antennae on it. It read, MOTOROLA. It must be a walkie-talkie. It was. He started talking to another officer that was somewhere else in the airport. It had to be where my family was located. I hoped so. He asked me to follow him. We were enduring for a while. And then finally, I saw my mom and the rest of my family. I saw her sobbing. Somehow the other officer found my mom. At that moment, I could tell she was very miserable. Now I would be able to travel to Utah and have a great time in the white, fluffy snow with my cousins, and the rest of my family.

I learned a great lesson from that experience. Now when I go to the airport, I know that I need to be more cautious. I know not to make that same mistake I made two years ago. And that was wandering off, not having any thought where I might be going. That little, dumb mistake nearly cost my life. This was a huge lesson to be learned. I have finally learned it. And to think this was all just a memory. I would be brain sick. Or should I just say crazy.

Mr. Mateo . . . Helper Boy Extraordinaire

Mateo has loved his first couple months of Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten . . . until just the last week or two. Although the curriculum is absolutely incredible . . . and the kids learn more than their Florida public-school attending Kindergarten counterparts, he has hit the wall . . . and He.Is.Bored. He is reading. And writing. And doing math. And excelling in his enrichment program Spanish class. So now what? Instead of him being challenged, he is CHALLENGING his mother every time she walks by his classroom. And his teachers. And the Director and Assistant Director of the center. So now what? Oops, I already asked that question.

I can't have the absolute perfect child right? I figure that is why he is giving me academic challenges. Now on to his perfect characteristics: He is the best helper in the whole entire planet. Here are a couple examples:

1. On Friday, Sarah had another one of her infamous medicine-induced meltdowns at school. It's usually a snowball effect where one thing leads to another, which leads to another, etc. In this particular incident, her Cinderella princess high heel (which her mother told her was too dangerous to wear to school) had BR-OKE. And then to top it all off, her Cinderalla dress that she was wearing for Halloween got caught up in the pedal of her bike. She fell off the bike and hit her chin. Mateo was visiting another classroom (Read: Mateo was kindly invited to give his teacher a "time-out" and was sent across the hallway to another VPK class that looks out onto the "big kid" playscape/playground). He asked the teacher if he could go outside and help Ms. Meagan with Sarah. He led Sarah by the hand, walked her inside to his "time-out" classroom and said as told to me by a couple teachers that witnessed the entire incident: "Come on, Sarah. It's o.k. Big brother is here. Let me help you." He then proceeded to help her wash her hands and face to cool down, gave her a wet paper towel to stick on her banged up chin, gave her a big giant hug and kiss, and took her over to the reading corner and read her a story. Meltdown CEASED. Sarah happy. Whole world can now move on again.
2. Mateo absolutely LOVES to cook. And clean. There is actually a side story to this which I will save for another day, but it has something to do with him wanting to show me he is responsible enough to help . . . which translates into= he deserves to get a pet. Anyway, yesterday I came down with a KILLER cold. I spent the majority of the day in bed feeling downright MISERABLE. We were having the missionaries over for dinner (which I felt bad cancelling on them) . . . yet NO DINNER HAD BEEN COOKED. Mateo came into the kitchen and said "Mom, I can tell you need a lot of help. Since I'm your best helper boy (yeah, and also extremely humble), can I vacuum the floor for you? After vacumming he said, can I help you mop now?" And then he put two and two together that the poor missionaries were going to starve . . . and his family was also going to starve . . . so he volunteered to make a cake. He is able to do most of the reading of recipes. He LOVES the power that reading gives him . . . especially in the kitchen. He proceeded to go get Tino (so Tino could help him with the long vowels and crazy irregular words in the recipe that he hasn't learned how to read yet) and together they made a chocolate cake for dinner. I mean for desert. (As a side note, thank goodness for SUPER SUPPERS or the entire family and missionaries would have gone without dinner.) And speaking of Super Suppers, Mateo is my Super Suppers helper now. He goes with me each week, decides what we are going to have for dinner, and helps me assemble the meals. He thinks it's cool because he is being my best helper boy and I think it's cool because my pickiest eater in the whole entire planet is now eating better because he likes to eat the food that he has prepared.
   

Where do I begin????

It's been so long since I have blogged that I even forgot how to sign in. Now that I got that part figured out, I guess I should think about something to post.

I'll start out with Sweet Sarah. The good news about her is she has made so much progress in speech, that our insurance wouldn't cover her services anymore. She officially was released the beginning of October. As far as expressive language, her last evaluation was given at 3 years 6 months. She scored the age equivalent of 3 years 7 months. As far as articulation goes, she is making errors that are developmentally consistent with children her age.

As for other Sarah news, her OCCASIONAL seizures have gone from being all in the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain to generalized seizures happening all over her brain . . . multiple times per day. Our next step has been to start MEDS. So far we have tried two medications and they have not been very nice to Sarah. They have made her psychotic and aggressive. Leave it to my posterity to get one of the side effects that will only happen to less than .01% of the population. What has been the most challenging is that she knows something is up and is now able to communicate that with me. She will tell me several times a day in between fits of rage when she is actually able to talk: "Mommy, I don't feel well. Something's wong with me".

New Family Pics!!!!

I am so excited. It's almost like Christmas morning . . . even better. One of my friends started a photography business. And of course, I have been saying for the last year "I really need to schedule an appointment to get family pictures done". Well, we finally had the kids pictures taken. The DAY.BEFORE.JANNA.MOVED.AWAY. The kids had a lot of fun during their photo shoot. I had to laugh at the progression of the photos.

Can we play a little game? Can you guess which photos were taken seconds after getting out of the comforts of the air-conditioned van and which photos were taken towards the end of the hour-long session? Can we say sweat buckets? Thank you so much Janna. I LOVE the pictures. And if any of my close friends and family want to help Janna out with her business . . . hire her to take your family photos. She now lives in Montana and she does travel to do photo shoots. Or buy some pictures of my cute kids.

Oh yeah, most important part if you want to see my kids . . . go to client proof . . . password is "My last name" . . . As in type what my last name is all lower caps.

Back to School

I will try to post several posts a day for the next year to try and catch up with all this lost blogging time. I just found this picture on my camera. Mateo decided to have snack time and nap time once he got home from school.

Arepas

I would love to say I learned how to make Venezuelan-style arepas this summer. Let's just say I WATCHED my friend Yazmely make the dough for arepas. She was kind enough to make an extra batch that I could stick in my freezer. My kids were very impressed that I was actually successful making arepas. What they don't know is that the dough was already done . . . all I had to do was decide if they were going to be fried or boiled/baked. I'm a big giant cheater . . . who still doesn't know how to make arepas. I do however know that it's very important to always keep a supply of "harina de maiz blanco", cheese, ham, tuna and all the arepa fixins on hand. That way when hurricane season really starts, I'll just invite my Venezuelan friends over to hang out with us and ride out the storm. And of course my friends from other nationalities are also invited to hang out at my house during the hurricanes . . . just make sure you bring your own Serrano ham, cheese and diet coke.

All-Star Baseball

Silly mom worked full time over the summer. Which means, I had little to no time for blogging. I guess I better get my priorities straight huh? Tino was on the All-Star baseball team. This kept us busy for 3 weeks. Practices two hours per day, seven days a week, for THREE STRAIGHT weeks. And the big giant bust was that on the first day of All Stars, Tino got bit by fire ants during his last day of Aquatics camp. He was able to put his shoes on for Game #1. Thank goodness, the following day the boys had off. By Day #3 Tino's foot was triple the size and it was very difficult for him to get his cleats on. He hobbled out onto the field and gave it his best shot. Since he couldn't run, he was 1st base coach. His All-Star dreams were shattered due to those stinkin fire ants, but I was proud of my guy for not uttering one word of complaint . . . no matter how much pain he was in.