Walker

For 3 years now Tino has wanted to be a "walker". And for 3 years I have told Tino he could be a "walker" when he was in the 5th grade. It seemed so far away . . . and something that I wouldn't have to commit to for a very long time. (Kind of in the same category as Pokemon. Tino wanted to start watching Pokemon on t.v. when he was 4 years old and I told him he couldn't watch it until he was 7 years old. You better believe that the night before his 7th birthday, he reminded me that he would now be able to start watching Pokemon and all of the other Y-7 shows on t.v.) Anyway, back to the walker story. Tino is now in 5th grade and he wants to be a walker. Even though Tino is in 5th grade, there is still the very busy and very dangerous Lee Vista Blvd. he would have to cross . . . which I am not ready to let him cross by himself. So that means, if Tino is a walker, I am also a walker. Mondays we walk alone, Wednesdays with Mateo, Sarah, and our next door neighbors, and Thursdays alone and/or with Mateo/Sarah. Tino is a very quiet and reserved guy. But, when he is ready to talk, he talks and talks and talks and talks. I am looking forward to our walks in the morning because along with the walks come the talks. In order to not jeopardize the confidentiality, I will just list the topics that we talked about . . . I mean that Tino talked about and I listened to this morning on our way to school:

• Little League World Series and the size of the players
• Writing paragraphs in 5th grade
  
• New pest control product from Ortho that will keep the bugs out of our house. (Tino saw it on a commercial and wrote down the information so I can go to Home Depot and buy it. Yes, we have been having issues lately with creepy crawly things entering our house. YUCK!)
• What Tino wants for his birthday and what color with 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices of colors. And he wants a new one and not used from E-Bay. (My track record for buying leapster, gameboy, DS Lite, and other electronic stuff from e-bay is about 0 for 3 now. 0 for 4 if you count the pirated version of Pokemon Ruby version that I got from Hong Kong.
• Pony baseball sign-ups in the Spring/Conway Little League in the Fall.
  
• Left handed catchers in MLB.

Backpacks

Can I just tell you how CUTE Tino is? And can I also tell you he has no idea in the whole entire planet that children get new backpacks every year before school starts? Here is his backpack history: Preschool 3, Preschool 4, Kindergarten: Thomas the Tank Engine backpack 1st grade: little red teeny tiny backpack that didn't fit anything and was used for the 2 weeks he was in 1st grade and then given away to Goodwill 2nd grade: Scooby Doo wheel backpack 3rd grade: Scooby Doo for a couple of months until it broke and then Cristian's Eddie Bauer backpack he used in college 4th grade: Cristian's Eddie Bauer backpack from college 5th grade: Why would Tino need a backpack if the backpack he has been using for the last 2 years and the backpack his papi used for 4 years is perfectly fine??? He feels more "comfortable" using his old backpack and a new backpack isn't "necessary". (Words in quotation marks are Tino's words he used this morning while trying to convince me that we wouldn't need to go after school today to buy him a new backpack.) I don't know how many more times this backpack can hold up in the washing machine. We'll give it a try for another year.

NO UNIFORMS!

O.K. I'm in a little bit of distress here. You know me . . . last minute gal for almost everything. What's a little bit of procrastination here and there? And P.S. how can I have my act together and be all organized when Mateo and Sarah keep me busy with all their "travesuras"? So there is one thing that I LOVE about all the schools that Tino has gone to so far. They have all been uniform schools.

The whole go to the mall and buy school clothes thing has been a completely non-existent issue. The yearly routine goes something like this: I show up to school the Friday before school starts for "Meet Your Teacher", buy 6 uniform shirts and 3 "Spirit" t-shirts and call it a day. Easy as pie. I have done this for . . . . 2 years of pre-school, Kindergarten, 1st grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade. The only reason I didn't do this 2nd grade is because that was Tino's "1st grade" year and he bumped up to 2nd grade 20 days into the school year. Imagine the HORROR and complete DISTRESS that entered into my life on Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. when I went to go buy uniform shirts at Tino's "optional uniform" school, only to find out that there ARE NO MORE UNIFORMS! YIKES! So, needless to say, we hit Old Navy on Saturday which was about 1 week later than the rest of Central Florida hit Old Navy to buy school clothes. The store was CLEANED OUT! And being the absolute mall lover that I am (NOT), I refused to check that scene out. 3 collared shirts, 3 t-shirts, 4 pairs of boxer briefs, 6 pairs of socks and WAY TOO MUCH $$$$$$$ later, we are "ready" for at least the first week of school. You all know how I am a little over the edge when it comes to searching for bargains, shopping only the sales, and coupon clipping. Can you believe I didn't have ONE Old Navy coupon or discount AND that sales-tax free days in Florida ended about 1 week ago?

Tonight I told Tino to go pick out what to wear, he pulled out a piece of paper and pen. He told me to go ahead and make a list of what he should wear each day of the week, because he didn't want people to make comments if he wore the same clothes more than one day in a row. I told him he was going into 5th grade and he has been choosing his own (uniform) clothes for school for years now. His reply: "Mom, I might be going into 5th grade, but I'M ONLY 8 YEARS OLD. Kids that are 8 years old don't know how to choose good matching outfits to wear to school." YIKES! And can you remind me again why it is that some parents and children actually like going to non-uniform schools???????

I already have a big giant headache and the school year hasn't even begun! There's a lot to be said for navy, gray, white collared shirts and khaki or navy dockers.

Selective mute-ism ?!?

O.K. so first of all, I don't know how to spell that word . . . but I'm starting to wonder if Sarah just chooses not to speak. These are some of the things I have caught her saying the last couple days, when of course she doesn't know that I am within earshot.

"I not a baby, Teo!"

"Esto es mio "piggy". (This is my piggy . . . referring to her favorite stuffed animal).

"I o.k. Don't worry."

"I go to the parque. And the Wheeeeeee. And ride the bike. " (Sarah went to the park. She went down the slide. She rode her bike.)

O.K. Heather Danielson Mrs. Special Education Extraordinaire . . . what's up with inserting "and the" whenever she is explaining what she did? Also, what's up with using sound effects instead of labeling the object?

I'll continue to spy on her and write down the other things I catch her saying.

Sarah's Adventure

So, Sarah had quite the eventful morning on Monday. I guess she figured since her brother loves to push buttons on the alarm keypad for his very own personal firefighter and police visits to our house . . . and since her older brother has ridden in an ambulance . . . it was "her turn, her turn". She had a seizure Monday morning. Freaky, out of the blue . . . seizure. Since she is only 2 years old, the pediatrician's office told me to hang up and dial 9-11 immediately. (Apparently I have issues trying to figure out what is considered an emergency and what is not an emergency . . . since every day in my life feels like an emergency. ) Anyway, firefighters came (who of course remembered us from their previous visits) and then EMTs arrived on the scene. Sarah was transported to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.

After 3 attempts to do a CT scan and being unsuccessful because she was moving too much even after being strapped down in the straight-jacket looking X-Ray vest . . . she had received the maximum amount of radiation recommended for a child her size and age . . . so she was sent home. Now I just get to watch her very carefully . . . and then of course take her to a pediatric neurologist for further testing. Needless to say, I canceled one of my Kindermusik classes. I just emptied my plate, but Sweet Little Sarah seems to be wanting me to fill my plate again. She, sufficiently regressed since March . . . and now it looks like we get to visit a new kind of specialist.

My Kindermusik business is going well. Fall Session classes begin next week. I continue to have fun (NOT) trying to troubleshoot and fix the bugs from my web page: http://heidiramirez.kindermusik.net

I'm Back!!!!!

So, I am so happy to say that our computer is finally FIXED! Almost 3 weeks with no computer . . . computer access only when I could slip away from the house and go to the library (WITHOUT KIDS), or when Cristian would come home from work and not have a million and one things to do on his computer. Now I've got several pictures to upload, lots and lots of stories to tell . . . but can't find the stinkin' cord that hooks into my camera for the uploads. So, I guess I'm out of business.

Customs continued

How FITTING that I was just blogging about customs. My sister-in-law's family, Rachel, has a tradition/custom in her family. It has been sooooooo popular that my children have now adopted/borrowed the Melendez tradition. Whenever anyone has a birthday, the birthday boy/girl gets to take the first bite of the cake. Literally. You just chow down on the nearest corner of the birthday cake. Then, the cake cutting ceremony takes place. Now whenever anyone has a birthday, Mateo and Tino ask "Can I get the first bite of the cake?"

I figure that one of the reasons that I don't blog as often is because I rarely have a moment of peace in my life where I can actually sit down at the computer and concentrate for an extended period of time or upload pictures, etc. Case in point. I was getting ready to publish the previous post and I heard a commotion coming from the kitchen. When I got to the kitchen, all I could see was Rebecca's and Mateo's faces huddled around a certain object. They both had their teeth planted into something. I asked them to remove their teeth from whatever it was they were trying to bite. And I found this . . . .
Can you believe it????? If you can't recognize the picture, this would be the DOVE ice cream that has been hiding in the top shelf of the freezer . . . way in the back supposedly out of view of 2 and 3 year olds or whoever might happen to open up the freezer and be looking for a sweet treat to eat. I have been waiting so very patiently until FRIDAY/"FREE" day when I would be able to truly enjoy eating the chocolate ganache topping and then delving down into my DOVE ice cream. Yeah, apparently Rebecca and Mateo wanted ice cream. They were having difficulty scooping the ice cream part, so they decided to go ahead and take turns sinking their teeth into the chocolate ganache topping. This is one of those moments that I am irritated at customs being passed down and/or shared. But, then again . . . let's look at the positive. I wouldn't want my 3 mile walks, 2 latin-cardio/Zumba classes, and 1 boot camp session to be a complete waste of time this week right? Who needed the extra calories of that chocolate ganache anyway??? There's always NEXT Friday. :0)

Quinceanera

So there are many times that I have wondered if Tino, Mateo, and Sarah will end up adopting more United States/ "American" customs or if they will pick up any Dominican/Latin-American customs. We went to a quinceanera on Saturday night. 7-7-07. It was a lot of fun. Great food. Great friends. Great dancing. Great Hispanic/Latin-American custom. And then it hit me . . . will Sarah celebrate her 15th birthday or will it be a Sweet 16 celebration? If it's a quinceanera, we better start saving up the money now. . . . Hotel or other venue for the party, D.J., florist, caterer, custom made quinceanera cake, fancy invitations, formal dress, etc. As for the Sweet 16, Sarah can invite a bunch of friends over, order some pizzas, pop in 16 Candles or other chic-flick/teenager appropriate movie . . . and call it a day.

Monstering

Mateo: We're playing monster.

Rebecca (Mateo's friend): Yeah, we're playing monster.

Mateo: Sarah is monstering us. And she's really scary.

Rebecca: Don't worry Mateo. I promise. Wait, wait. I will protect you.

Mateo: Yeah, let's go do that again.


Mateo and Rebecca: Running down the hallway, they scream in unison: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Hurricane Days

This is what we do when it's Hurricane Season. We invent. Now instead of Mateo and Sarah riding around the house on Sarah's tricycle, big brother Tino decided he needed to ride along as well.