Back to School
13 September 2010 at 8:37 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsWell we are over a month into the new “school” year here in GA and its still hotter than hot! Mateo is still alternating between two different schools this year. With an October birthday he doesn’t qualify for Pre-K until next year even though he’ll be 4 in a month. Fortunately the daycare doesn’t have to abide by the state cutoffs and he is able to do private Pre-K there 2 days a week. His new teacher is great and is very excited to have him in her class. She keeps a relatively low ratio of students in her class which is great and is very willing to work with us to make sure we know what they are working on during the week so he can keep up between Monday and Friday when he is there. We got feedback from one of his teachers last year that he spoke up a lot more once he started going every day this summer and I suspect it was because on Monday the topic was new to all the kids but by Friday they had worked on it all week while Mateo was learning something else entirely in Spanish. Working with Ms Linda I think we should be able to make sure he keeps up during the week.
Mateo also started back to Spanish school 3 days a week. While he was very sad to see one of his favorite playmates has moved on to a new school, he is very much enjoying his new teacher. Ms Paula has been very enthusiastic in her notes home. I’m looking forward to getting to talk to her when we have parent teacher conferences. I can’t wait to see how much progress he makes in spanish this year.
The boys had an accident on the way to school not too long ago. Both are ok other than a few airbag burns…but the car…not so much. Mateo was very excited to go car shopping this weekend and his favorite was not the red convertible…but the 415 HP BMW M3…I think I’m in trouble in about 12 more years!!
Its all cars, cars, cars here at our house. Not only the movie Cars which has been a favorite for a while now, but car racing of all sorts and much to Papi’s chagrin…NASCAR. Mateo’s two favorites #42 and #88. He has models of both. #88 is a favorite simply because it has the same paint job as the #4 Indy Car which PawPaw has a model of in FL. I took Mateo to Target to buy a new car to replace one that went missing at school. Not only does he not go for the Hot Wheels cars…or even the Cars’ cars…but right for the big NASCAR cars. I tried to at least get him to go for the Target car which is driven by a Colombian, Juan Pablo Montoya, but alas Target did not carry the Target car…which is just weird if you ask me! So he ended up with the #88 National Guard car. He does now have (although technically its Papi’s and Mateo can share with him) the #42 Target car. Car crazy is in full scale operation here at our house!
We are anxiously anticipating Mateo’s first trip to Disney coming up next month. He has no idea what to expect but is very excited about going to see Mickey. He’s been able to identify the castle in his DVDs as his birthday party for a few months now. He’s watched a few Disney promo videos too. I know I’ll have lots of pictures from that event! Going to be a busy few months between football, Disney, birthdays and the holidays!! I’m going to try to do a better job updating the blog…just in case anyone is still reading. 🙂
Uhem…Part 2 :)
13 June 2010 at 12:06 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 CommentsSo I promised photos…and them promptly abandoned the blog. So I am going to make up for it in a big way today. First up is the Mothers Day album I did for my mom. Of course I just finished it last week so you can see I am running far behind in all aspects of my life. LOL! The photos are from Easter Sunday. Its the same park we did photos in last year.
For Father’s Day I am making an album for my Dad of photos from our recent beach trip. Since I know he never checks here I’ll give you guys a preview! I just finished it today and I think it turned out really cute. It took a few days for him to work up the nerve to go in the water.
I’ll try not to be so remiss in my posting. I love reading everyone’s blogs but have been really bad about keeping up with mine.
Way Overdue Update Part 1
29 March 2010 at 10:41 am | Posted in Home | 1 CommentI am calling this part 1 because I will have to add photos later. Sorry for the lengthy absence here in blogland. I’ve have neglected my blog badly and have no one and nothing to blame but myself. 🙂
Mateo is doing great and getting so big. He’s about 39 inches tall and 37 pounds these days and is all boy!
Sports – He is playing soccer and swimming and doing well at both. He does soccer at daycare on Mondays and they have PE at spanish school Tuesdays & Wednesdays where they do a lot of soccer. His ball handling skills are getting better and he can kick the ball pretty hard. He does soccer league with the company that does the daycare program on Saturdays since he’s too young for most of the organized soccer leagues around here. He is a bruiser at soccer, frequently needing to be reminded not to push and shove the other kids but he scored 4 goals this weekend including one from midfield! We just put him back in swimming lessons a few weeks ago and this is his first class where we aren’t in the pool with him. Its been a bit of an adjustment and sometimes he doesn’t follow the instructor as well as he should but overall he does well once he focuses on the activity at hand (more on that in a minute). We have him in classes at our gym which is very convienent and they keep the class size for his age limited to only 4 students which is good. I suspect that he’ll be swimming well on his own this summer once he gets regular pool time and continued lessons.
School/Learning /Language – He is doing great at school. We just had a parent teacher conference with his Spanish teacher this weekend. She said he is improving in his use of spanish but he pretty much understands everything. He is also very competitive and tries to be first most of the time. He is counting up to 39 on his own in both english and spanish and if you tell him forty, fifty and sixty when he gets there he knows the sequencing to get up to 69 in both languages. The main issue we need to deal with is getting him to focus on the activity at hand. Often he can be tough to get engaged in an activity and gets distracted from starting something (we see this at home too – often at meal time) but once he engages he is fine and stays on task. He can trace letters & numbers and write some of them. He can spell & write his name.
Development – He is very adept at expressing himself and his imagination is really taking off these days. He often creates situations for us often using characters and scenes from some of his favorite shows…but all mixed into something much more elaborate. Last fall we got Mateo a computer. He sees us on ours all the time and we thought it would be helpful if he had one that is primarily his (so he would not want to “play” on ours as much). It is amazing the rate at which he has been able to pick up on it! He goes and gets on the internet and can get on Disney without our help. We also have a few different games loaded on the machine he likes to play. They have a computer in the room at daycare and since he’s the first one there on the days he goes there he’ll often go turn on the computer, wait for it to boot up and then play until the other kids get there. He’s usually on there again in the afternoon when I pick him up!
Home – We have moved all of his toys upstairs into his playroom and its been great. He now has one place where all of his toys are together. While the house is still messy…at least there aren’t toys scattered across the whole house!
Upcoming Plans – We are looking forward to a trip to the beach with my parents in May…The house we are renting has a pool and is across the street from the beach. Its a nice quiet beach area that is definitely family oriented so I think we will have a great time. We will have lots of Andres’ family visiting this summer and are looking forward to taking his brother around to look at colleges and for Mateo getting to spend time with his cousin, Sara! In the fall we are headed to Disney to celebrate Mateo’s 4th birthday. We are already talking about it and whenever he sees the castle on his Disney videos he talks about his birthday.
I’ve got several funny stories of things Mateo has done and said but I’ll save those to go with the photos!
Fall Photos…
12 December 2009 at 9:27 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsI have been very negligent in my posting, especially photos. So to make it up to anyone who is still left reading this blog, here are some photos from our trip to Colombia, Mateo’s birthday, Halloween, Day Out with Thomas and Fall Festival at his school…
Be back later this week with a new post about everything going on around here!
Almost 2 Years…
21 October 2009 at 4:12 pm | Posted in Home | 2 Comments2 years ago this Friday, Andres and I boarded a plane headed to Medellin, Colombia to meet Mateo. The time has flown by since then. We made a special trip back to Medellin this year, where we celebrated Mateo’s 3rd birthday and visited with family. It was a fantastic trip that focused on our family, along with my SIL, her husband and my neice Sara who was born the same day we met Mateo for the first time, and my BIL. We spent about 1/2 of the time at a finca with a pool (and air conditioning!! in 3 of the bedrooms) and the other 1/2 running all over Medellin!
On the way down we had 4 suitcases…2 with our stuff and 2 with other stuff. Having the extra suitcases came in handy since we bought tons of books while we were there. About 1/2 of the books were for Mateo’s collection and the other 1/2 are for his school. While some storybooks are available here (Disney, Dora, etc) in spanish there aren’t a lot of workbooks or resource books easily available for the preschool/elementary age group. Thanks to a cousin who used to be an elementary school teacher we loaded up the school with workbooks and also found a really cool series by LaRousse. The school had the LaRousse books in French and were hoping we could find them in Spanish. They are so cool we bought a set for Mateo too! Books are always the thing we request when people visit us from Colombia because there is so much more variety down there. I’m pretty sure Mateo has more books in Spanish than English. 🙂
Mateo is doing well at Spanish school. Apparently he is very popular there. During our vacation 4 different parents emailed the school asking where Mateo was! And at daycare one of the little girls who is in his class was practically pushing the other kids away from the door when we got there. His first language is English he is understanding more and more and even speaking more spanish. They other day when I went in to get him up I told him good morning. He responded back (half- asleep) Buenas Dias. We have parent-teacher conferences next week so we’ll find out what the teachers think then.
Mateo is also “playing” soccer. He’s in a league that is an extension of the program he does at daycare with 3-4 1/2 year olds. They do a 15 minute warm up and then 2 15 minutes halves. The first two games he played on the field before and after the game, but not during the warm up or game. This past week I was told I wasn’t allowed to come (by Papi) so the boys went by themselves. He made it out onto the field although he held Coach Tony’s hand most of the time. In the final minutes of the 2nd half he did score a goal on a pass from one of his teammates! It is so funny to watch them as one day they are doing great and another they don’t want to come anywhere near the field. Its very random.
Lots more to post, including some photos so hopefully I’ll be able to get back to the blog soon.
3 Weeks of Spanish School
31 August 2009 at 1:12 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentWe have now finished 3 weeks of spanish school and all reports are that its going great. Mateo is understanding and even speaking in short sentences in spanish. And best of all he really seems to like it. He wants to go to spanish school even on the days he doesn’t have to. And he loves to wear his uniform although only the blue shirts. He has one white shirt for which he tells me, no white shirt, blue shirt! There are between 5 and 7 kids in his class depending on the day. Kids have the option to choose from Spanish, French, German, Mandarin and English so they may be in the class some days but not others. He is also one of a few that do before and after school care so it makes for long days, but they keep them busy with lots of fun projects. I get stacks and stacks of papers each week of the things they are doing!
The school hasn’t been around long (a few years) and has been slowly expanding to now offer up from age 1 thru elementary grades. And they moved into a new building this year which gives them some room to grow and expand plus have much more outdoor space and room for a computer lab and possibly a library. All of the teachers are native speakers in their language. The one thing that I have noticed though is the lack of books in the language, at least in Mateo’s room (and from a quick glance in the other spanish rooms too). So our plan is to bring back books when we go to Colombia. Some will be for Mateo to have at home and can be loaned to the school, but we will also have some to donate to the school for the library or use in the classrooms.
This weekend marked another significant occasion. We moved Mateo to a full size platform bed. We’ve had the platform for a few months. I happened across it online and it was very reasonably priced, which is hard to find. I didn’t want a set because we already had the dresser and nightstand that coordinated with the media center we had been using for a dresser/changing table. I picked up the comforter last week and he had been using his “new blankie” for a few days. Even though half of it was hanging out of the toddler bed (converted crib), he still loved it so I think that helped the transition to the new bed. We (my parents, Mateo, Andres and I) all went to the matress store on Saturday and picked out a new matress for the new bed. They delivered that night which was a good thing since we had to take the old bed apart to get it out of the room. He’s had lots of fun jumping on the new bed and hasn’t had the first problem sleeping in it the last two nights. I peeked in on him last night and he looked so tiny in that big bed. I thought to myself before I know it he will be laying across the bed, taking up most of it. But for now, it looks huge!
Its tricky!
5 August 2009 at 11:32 am | Posted in Home | 1 CommentMateo has been very busy this summer expanding his vocabulary. The things that come out of his mouth can crack me up even when I am frustrated with him. This week I put him on the potty in the morning while we were getting ready for daycare and I was getting frustrated with him because he fights you getting on and then won’t get off until he’s done. Well nothing was happening so I told him he needs to hurry and go or its time to get off. His response…It’s tricky! Hilarious.
Another funny story… This weekend we went and picked up some stuff from the cleaners. They gave Mateo two Dum Dum lollipops. So he had one and we put the other away. I pulled it out the and gave it to him after school one day this week. A couple of licks in he tells me…It’s tasty!
We are very sad that starting next week Mateo won’t be able to attend soccer class at daycare. We put him in it this summer just for some extra activity and to see how he would do. Apparently he is quite the little athlete and gets rave reviews from his coach. I was able to talk to the coach last week (usually I get messages from the daycare staff) and he told me that Mateo is one of the most coordinate/athletic kids he has seen at his age. He is able to hop over the soccer ball and kicks it back to the coach pretty hard. The reason he won’t be able to continue is because Coach K comes on one of the days Mateo will be at Spanish school. 😦 Since this past Monday was his last day I asked if they would take some pictures for me. Here is my favorite…
Check out that form!!
He is definitely left footed (although he is right handed). Since he turns 3 in Oct he won’t make the deadline for even the smallest kid leagues this fall, but we will probably try and find something for the spring. We are also taking a little break from swimming lessons after this week. Over the summer we’ve been doing 2 days a week and its been really good. He can now swim about 6-8 feet completely on his own. We’ll keep going to the pool on the weekends (gym has a nice indoor one when the outdoor ones close) and practicing some, but try to make it fun for him too rather than so teaching intensive. When he starts back, probably over the winter, he’ll be old enough to go by himself, which means we don’t have to get in the pool with him! And it will keep him from depending too much on us.
Spanish school starts next week! We are preparing by reading Dora’s First Day of School Book. In it Dora, Boots & Tico are all starting their first day of the new school year. Boots is going to learn spanish…so Mateo calls the school Spanish school. Its great for helping him get over the anxiety of going to Spanish school (at least I hope it is). While the people are the same as were at Spanish camp this summer, the location is new. They moved into a new building over the last couple of weeks so we are going to see it this weekend at the open house. We found that reading a Dora book about going to the doctor really made huge improvements in how he handled the drs office…so I am optimistic that it will work this time too. We have been reading it 2-3 times a day (his choice) to him and he “reads” it himself also. Â
I’ll post back next week about how the first day of school goes!
Must be summer…
16 June 2009 at 8:48 pm | Posted in Home | 2 CommentsOnly excuse I can think of as to why the blog has been so quiet. Certainly can’t be because of a lack of focus or things to say! Seriously though…its been crazy busy here since we got back from Spain. I am working on editing the photos and hopefully will get them posted to my website soon. Work has been busy working through yet another forecast cycle. Andres is learning a new technology to support so he’s been busy too. And Mateo…well…he stays busy.
In addition to continuing the swim lessons we started before our trip (only better since now he’s a solo student) he is also doing “soccer” at daycare once a week for the summer. I think he is enjoying it and have gotten good reports back that he is doing well. Swimming is rather hit or miss. Some days we do really well and listen and other days Mami takes him and he doesn’t want to listen to either the instructor or me! 🙂 Actually he is doing pretty well overall. He is not at all afraid of the water and his favorite thing right now is to dunk himself under the water and stay until he has to come up for air! We are even starting to practice something that resembles a stroke…so I am still holding out that he’ll be swimming on his own by the end of the summer. He only has issues if the water is too deep for him to stand up and we aren’t holding on enough. As if all that isn’t enough he has Spanish camp in a couple of week…yes I am sending my 2 1/2 year old to Spanish camp. It isn’t as bad as it sounds. I promise I’m not one of those moms who is trying to schedule their kid to death. (I hope) Its actually at the school we are sending him to in the fall 3 days a week. Thought it would be good for him to get some exposure to the teachers with shorter days and maybe meet some of the kids that will be in his class. And its only a 4 days week because of the holiday.
Its really been fun to watch the development over the last couple of months. He is starting to say very funny things…I’ll have to write some down to post later. He is singing along with tv shows (even in spanish) and just randomly on his own songs he’s learned at school. He’s starting to act out little mini scenes from Cars, Mickey and Thomas with his toys. He is repeating lots of what we say so the time has come where we need to be careful what we say around him, even when we think he’s not listening. He is starting to play xbox with Papi. Andres got the Cars game and also one from Bee Movie which we haven’t opened yet and he loves driving the cars…although its a good thing he’s not on the auto insurance yet!! He also loves when Papi does the tractor tipping game and especially if Frank comes after Mater (it will make sense if you have seen the movie at least once – or a hundred times like me).
I got a major score at our local second hand shop about a week ago. I stopped by randomly after not having been in for ages and it just so happened that someone had brought in tons of Thomas trains! At 3&4$ a bag, usually with 2-3 pieces in it, I got $33 worth. So I have lots of toys for the treat drawer stockpiled. Apparently someone else had already bought $60 worth earlier so I can’t even imagine how much the person who brought them all in had! And there were still a lot left when I got done with them. We need lots of treats these days as we have finally begun serious potty training. When Mateo moved to his new class in April his teacher started sitting him on the potty when everyone else did. More often than not nothing happened. We had already decided not to start at home until we got back from Spain thinking he might regress if we left for 10 days right after we started. So now we are about a 5 days into a more concerted effort with some success and some not so successful efforts. But it will come in time I am sure. 🙂
And last but certainly not least…we are headed back to Colombia in Oct. Just for a visit this time. 🙂 There is now a little competition for flights between Atlanta and Medellin (American and Spirit) with layovers in S FL so we’ve been seeing some decent prices. I just happened to check a previous search I had done for Oct on Kayak and found 3 tickets for less than $1000 RT total! And then when I went to American’s website to book I found out Mateo gets a discount on the non-tax/fees portion of his ticket! So 3 for $900….thats substantially less than 1 ticket last time we went and is about what we have paid on other trips! Very excited by this turn of events…hopefully Spirit will keep flying to both Atlanta and Medellin and give us some fair priced options in the future. Now if only Delta would add Medellin or code-share with Avianca so we could book online (and be price competitive) I would be very happy. We can call and get flights but you can’t book online and the prices are a good bit higher.
Hope all of you out there in blog-land are doing well. I will try to post pictures next time. Camera has been put away since our trip…not ready to edit more while I am still working on Spain! But hopefully I am close on those and we can get back to taking pictures of Mateo! Grandparents are coming for the 4th…so I should be able to get more then…as they can distract while I shoot. Otherwise he just wants to hold the camera or see himself in it. 8)
Merida & Sevilla
20 May 2009 at 2:56 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments On Tuesday morning Andres headed over to the airport to pick up our rental car and off we went. Our destination for the evening was Sevilla (seville) but we had all day to get there and a couple of options of where to stop. We decided to stop in Meridas to see the Roman ruins from when they occupied it Iberian Peninsula. Merida was one of the key towns of that time and they have found extensive Roman architechture throughout the city. There is an enormous roman bridge which spans the river, an arena and an amphitheater that they still use. A few things were closed for renovations but we did find the Temple to Diana in addition to the above items.
Small section of Roman Bridge
More Roman Bridge
Arch of Roman Bridge
Plaza Mayor MeridasTemple of Diana
Arena
Arched entry to Arena
Amphitheater
Columns
More Columns
From the Gold Tower
Gold TowerSilver alter in a chapel at the Cathedral
Cathedral Statue
Christopher Columbus' tomb
Bell Tower at Cathedral
Image a palace surrounded by brick walls with these on top
Plaza de Espana
Tower at Plaza de Espana
Bull on wheels
At the Alcazar
Gardens at the Alcazar
Alternate View
Segovia (warning lots of photos)
19 May 2009 at 3:55 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentOn Monday we did a daytrip to Segovia. We left thinking (based on our guidebooks) that it would be a 2 hour train ride. Apparently that was a different kind of train. Imagine our surprise when we arrived about 25 minutes later. A short bus trip later and we arrived right in front of the Roman aqueduct. Very cool! The town is very quaint and we had an extra hour and a half to explore due to the train schedule issue. Most things were closed because it was Monday but Cathedral and Palace were open. We also just wandered around and took pictures and enjoyed a leisurely day.
Segovia is best known as it was the place where Isabella was crowned Queen of Castille. And it was where she met Fernando. We got to see the place where she was proclaimed queen and also visit the palace where they met. An interesting note…since she was Queen and then married him her throne was equal in size and stature to his. There are replicas of the thrones in the castle. There is also a pretty cool tower which is an insane climb up a narrow circular staircase. But you are reward with spectacular views of the countryside and looking back to the city.
Aquaduct at Segovia
Top Level Arches
Can you tell I really liked the Aquaduct?
View of the Aquaduct from lunch
At another churchThe Cathedral
The Cloisters at the Cathedral
I had to wait forever for everyone to leave the courtyard to get this shot.
Alcazar (Palace)
Armor
Throne Room
Roof Top Gardens
View from the Tower
Another view of Segovia from the Tower
Greetings from Madrid!
15 May 2009 at 4:11 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsWe are alive and exhausted in Madrid. Manage to make it through 2 museums and the botanical gardens today. Tried a 3rd museum but it was closed for a random local holiday. We also toured around on the double decker buses and saw the Real Madrid Stadium. Have several photos…of course many are somewhat abstract so not sure you’d really know we were in Madrid. We were disappointed that we couldn’t take pictures in the museums, even without flash. We are overloaded on 11th-15th century religious art. But enjoyed the impressionist and more modern stuff.
We are hoping to get to call Mateo tonight before we crash. He is at home with the grandparents who are no doubt spoiling him rotten. I heard the zoo and park were both on the agenda today. We’ll get photos online soon. And we’ll be updating reguarly while we are gone.
Busy Days
28 April 2009 at 2:27 pm | Posted in Home | 3 CommentsI have been woefully negligent of our blog lately…and I am sorry. It has been crazy busy for us and isn’t going to get any better before summer. But I am back and have photos!
We have been out of town each of the last weekends, twice to Tallahassee for FSU Baseball with a quick trip to Charlotte, NC sandwiched in between. Mateo has done remarkably well at the baseball games (when we go we do 3 games in 3 days – which can challenge many adults). We discovered the joy of toy cars and of ColorWonder markers and pads which are great for traveling and also for sitting in his chair at the baseball games. Of course 3+ hours is a long time to expect a 2 1/2 year old to sit under any circumstance so we have also fully explored the stadium and have entertained just about everyone in the grandstand by running as fast as those little legs will carry him.
We can’t go to Tallahassee though without going to Tom Brown Park and their awesome playground. Mateo loves it and has thoroughly explored the playground. I can’t tell you how much I wish we had a playground like this near us. It rocks! Easter weekend we tooks a friend’s daughter with us. Kelsey was great with Mateo, helping him when he needed it and showing him how to do new things.
We also celebrated Easter at my parents house, dying and huning for easter eggs and making cupcakes with “green grass” and jelly bean eggs. When we woke up the “Easter Bunny” had hidden eggs on the back porch for Mateo and after a little help with the first one he really got into finding them. So while he was occupied in back, my dad and I hide a few plastic eggs in the front yard. Well…being the brilliant boy that he is, Mateo picked up the first one and declared “no egg” and threw it back down on the ground. He promptly refused to pick up any of the plastic eggs so we had to gather them up and re-hide the real eggs for him to find again. I’m sure it doesn’t read nearly as funny as it was at the time.
In between trips to Tallahassee (and also two trips by Andres to Calgary) we went to visit a friend in Charlotte. Brian recently moved into a new house and this was his inagural poker tourney and cookout at the new place. Its a great house and we are very happy for him. Mateo loved it so much he talked about Brian’s house for a few days after the trip. He also loved that the house is in the flight pattern of the CLT airport so he got to see planes fly overhead all weekend!
For those of you not in the Atlanta area, you may not have heard about the drought that has plagued our area for the last couple of years. We have been under watering restrictions for about 2 years now and haven’t been able to water our grass or wash our cars. Well in the last few weeks they have officially declared our drought over but by law can’t end the restrictions for at least 4 months after the ban is lifted. It has been somewhat of a badge of honor to have a dirty car (or at least thats what I tell myself) but I finally gave in this weekend. While in Tallahassee I decided I had to wash the car since there are no restrictions in that flood raveged part of the country. (And yes I have washed my car in the last 2 years…but it has been a long while). While I was out washing the car, Mateo was riding his tricycle. He has gotten really good just in the last few weeks. Now that he is in the Preschool 1 classroom he gets to go out and ride the tricycles, plus riding around in the house. He can pedal very fast and make quick turns and almost never uses his feet to push, unless he has to go backwards. He also didn’t argue with us about wearing the helment when riding outside.
We also discovered it is almost as much fun to push the ticycle down the driveway.
We asked Mateo to help wash the cars and figured the wheels were a safe place for him to help. Lets just say his future is not in car washing…and thats ok by me. 🙂 And since everyone else was getting in the act of washing their vehicle, Mateo took it upon himself to wash his too.
His vocabulary continues to explode and we are pretty much at the point where he will repeat what you say but every now and then he still surprises us. This weekend my dad, who loves to talk to kids in his donald duck voice, was playing with Mateo on the drive over to the ballpark. Mateo told him “PawPaw not nice.” He said something else in the DD voice and Mateo tattled on him…”PawPaw did it.” And he third time, no more messing around…”PawPaw, Enough!”
We started swim lessons at our gym. Really like the classes at the gym over the swim center we did last year. There are only 3 kids (max 4) in the class (rather than the supposed limit of 4 with about 8 kids in the class at the other place). They already are doing more advanced stuff than he did in the other class. We are going to go through the summer and I’m convinced he’ll be swimming on his own by the end. He is fearless when it comes to jumping in the pool and going down the slide. Much more so than the two other boys in his class.
I’ll have more stories soon…
PS…I forgot the sprinklers!! We haven’t been able to water so he hadn’t seen them before.
Happy Birthday DiDi!!
29 March 2009 at 1:50 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 2 CommentsToday is my mom (Mateo’s grandmother’s) birthday and while her present isn’t quite ready to be delivered, it is complete. The plan was to take the photos we took last weekend and turn them into a book as her gift from Mateo. So even though you have seen some of the photos already…here is what the book should look like. I think its going to look great!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It was a lot of fun to put together. And I am really excited to see it in person! Happy Birthday Mom! Hope its a great one. We love you and wish we were there!
Spring is here!
26 March 2009 at 7:07 am | Posted in Home | 3 CommentsAs my allergies can attest, spring is officially here in the South. We took advantage of it this weekend to take Mateo to some gardens near my parents house to take some new photos. Its been a while since we have taken some more formal photos. As the photos attest, he is a very busy & curious boy! This post is all about the photos…more stories to come…
S-C-H-O-O-L B-U-S
10 March 2009 at 8:38 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Commentspells Bus! I wish I had the video recorder tonight while we were getting ready for bed. Hard to do though when I am by myself trying to get him ready and to sleep unfortunately.
Mateo has a book that is all about school buses. In all caps on the front are the words school bus. As I mentioned in the previous post Mateo knows all his letters and has been able for several weeks spell out words in all caps. I was reading Brown Bear to him while he held the Bus book when he started on his own spelling out the words school bus. He puts a finger over the letter when he says it so he know which one comes next. When he got to the end he told me that “spells BUS”. Of course in the last day or two he spelled out another word and claimed it spelled bus too…but listening to him spell out the words is so cute and I am so proud of him.
Agua-falls and other funny things
9 March 2009 at 2:12 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 CommentIn our attempt to teach Mateo both English and Spanish, he has done very well even though we have not been as diligent as we probably should be. There are some words he will mostly say in one language or the other, ie please and gracias. And he counts in both languages and rarely mixes them. He almost exclusively says vamos and agua as well as mostly avion instead of airplane. But the funniest Spanglish word he has right now has to be Aguafalls. He knows water=agua so when I pointed out waterfalls in a couple of books and tv shows he made his own association and now calls them aguafalls.
A “new” favorite in our house is Cars. He has watched the movie several times and loves it. When we were at Target last weekend I bought him a couple of the small die cast Cars. They are his new favorite toy. He has to have them when he goes to bed at night. If we forget to take them upstairs I have to go back down and get them. Last night when I went to check on him Lightening McQueen was firmly in his grasp and Sheriff was laying beside him. So cute!
We have discovered the wonderful world of popsicles this last week. With Mateo being sick I was willing to try just about anything and everything to get fluids and calories back in him so I got a box of the single, fruit popsicle bars. So now in addition to wanting candy, (gummy) vitamins and cookies, all of which he knows where they are stashed, he has added popsicles to the list. And to make it worse he can actually get to the popsicles thanks to the joy that is the bottom mount freezer! Side note: went to see a coworker’s new house last week. They also got a bottom mount freezer. They don’t have kids yet but are planning on it. He thought I was joking when I told him Mateo could get into our freezer. And then thought that maybe ours was just easier to open! LOL! When kids want something or know you don’t want them to do something they will find a way. Mateo’s been able to get into ours for at least 6 months, maybe longer.
Another current favorite of Mateo’s are Letter Factory and Math Circus. If you have 2-3 year olds who are working on their numbers and letters I highly recommend these Leap Frog DVDs. I think we watched the letters one at least 5 times over the weekend at Mateo’s request. Even before we got these DVDs he knew his letters but it is helping reinforce the sounds for him and he loves them! I bought them based on comments from other moms I know so I thought I would pass along the recommendation based on our experience with them. We have the words one too but so far haven’t been able to get him to watch it.
Movin’ on Up
There are 2 stories related to this. The first is just kind of funny and has nothing to do with us. There is a restaurant around the corner from us. Its called Weezys Moving on Up Cafe and features jazz and BBQ. We thought it was and odd name, but turns out its owned by the son of Weezy from the Jeffersons!
Second story is Mateo is moving up to the Preschool 1 class at daycare. No more Toddler class. This will be his second move and with the last move his teacher left the school to move back to New Orleans about the same time so he didn’t see her anymore. This one may be a bigger adjustment since he loves Ms Liz and she’ll be right next door. Overall I think it will be a good move for him. I have heard wonderful things about his new teacher. One of his classmates is moving with him. And they get to play on the better playground which he will love. They are transitioning this week and I think will be full time in the new room starting next week. Two kids in that room are moving up so there are a total of 6 kids in his new class which is a nice size I think. And the best part is Ms. Wendy loves the idea of having the camera in the classroom so she is going to continue that for me! I delivered the first set of CDs to the parents last week and they were a big hit!
We did elect to enroll him in the spanish immersion program 3 days a week beginning in the fall. He’ll stay at his regular daycare the rest of the time. I know he’s going to do great with it (aguafalls aside). Its going to be so confusing for me…since one provides meals while the other doesn’t, one requires uniforms and the other doesn’t, and they are in opposite directions when I leave the house in the morning! I am reasonably sure the adjustment will be much harder for me than for Mateo. 🙂
Kind of a random catch up post about a lot of things I’ve been meaning to take the time to post. More soon…with pictures. Need to do Easter pics soon too!
A Plague Upon our House
1 March 2009 at 8:17 pm | Posted in Home | 2 CommentsSorry have been so quiet lately. We have been dealing with a nasty bug that Mateo brought home from daycare. He came down with it Wednesday afternoon and hasn’t been the same since. Andres got back in town in time to stay home with him on Thursday and take him to the Dr…who also diagnosed an ear infection. Love that he can now tell us when things hurt! If only he would warn us before he upchucks all over us! I got the treat of staying home with him on Friday, except by Friday morning I could barely get off the couch. I managed to catch it, along with a high fever (that no one else had). Needless to say we watched a lot of TV on friday…all weekend really. We can go back to limits and boundaries another day, sometimes its just about survival! 🙂 Andres was feeling very confident on Friday night, boasting to my parents that he managed not to catch it. Ha! Serves him for bragging. He got hit Friday night and into Saturday. I think we are all getting better…but none of us has eaten much this weekend. Poor little guy has lost nearly 2 pounds. 😦
This round of illness has made me very happy for the area rug we have in our living room. A couple of years ago I found Flor carpet tiles at a store that has since gone out of business. And then in search online for them I found out they are made here in GA and their only showroom is in downtown Atlanta. Carpet tiles rock! At least 4 of them came up and went in the dishwasher to be washed…weird, I know, but its what they recommend. They go right back down after they dry. Love it! Great product with kids. The carpet in Mateo’s room that I just spent my day off cleaning was not so lucky. Oh well. Maybe I should invest in a home carpet cleaner system…any recommendations?
Other than the illness we are doing well. We are starting to get our Spring and early Summer planned out. We are looking forward to those of you who are visiting us and also for those trips we are going to take. Just to remind us that Spring isn’t quite here yet we got snow today! Not too much and it was pretty slushy but fun nonetheless. Mateo wasn’t really sure what to make of it and I know he didn’t remember it from last year but he did get out and play for a few minutes. Sorry no photos…Andres didn’t come outside and I couldn’t run around with Mateo and take pictures.
My funny Valentine…
18 February 2009 at 8:59 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments
I had a nice long post strted this morning and it disappeared. 😦 Not sure if I can recreate it or not.
We made a quick trip down to Florida this weekend to attend the wedding of an old friend. I think I have known her practically her entire life! Her family lived down the street from us and the families have remained friends for over 35 years even though we haven’t been neighbors in probably 30. We reconnected via the internet as she has followed our blog for a while and then on facebook after that. Its so amazing how technology allows us to connect with old friends and make new ones. We were honored to be able to share her special day (and very much appreciate the 4pm post naptime start!). The rain stopped just in time for the outdoor wedding and it was beautiful.
I took advantage of the opportunity to take photos of Mateo. I don’t know about the rest of you…but whenever I get my camera in hand I have to have something to distract him or all my photos are out of focus pictures of him coming at me to see the camera. With the outdoor wedding, a horse drawn carriage, Papi and grandparents they were able to offer lots of distractions and I was able to get a few cute photos. Mateo loved the horse drawn carriage and managed to get 3 trips around the pond and even worked up the courage to pet the horse.
Of course my favorite photo is one that we almost missed. There were 3 adorable flower girls at the wedding and the youngest was just about Mateo’s size. Towards the end of the reception he chased her down to dance with him. They danced the whole dance hand in hand…it was so cute! I was busy talking while most of this was going on. My mom came and got me (and my camera) to capture the moment. I didn’t bring a flash to the wedding…but I think it turned out pretty good!
With daycare closed on monday Mateo and I decided to stay over and enjoy an extra day with the grandparents. I dropped Andres at the airport and headed back to the house. After naptime we decided to check out the playground at Tom Brown Park. I had heard wonderful things about it but we are always so busy on our trips down there we haven’t made it over yet. It probably been more than 20 years since I have been to this park so we ended up getting a little turned around and going in the back way. We came across the playground, which was nice, but I really didn’t think it was all that special. They did have a few cool things there though. Mateo loved this digging contraption although he had some difficulty working both the handles at the same time.
Slides are old hat these days…so we have to switch it up sometimes. There is the regular way and the alternatives. Some are successful, others…not so much!
One of our new favorite things to do is get others involved in our activities. He will take your hand and drag you where he wants you to go and tell you what you are supposed to do. Here Mateo is dragging DiDi onto the playground with him. Fortunately he didn’t make her go down the slide with him as he did me earlier in the week. 🙂
Mateo has also graduated from the baby swings to the big kid swings. That alone is pretty cool, but when PawPaw swings next to us its really funny!
And the other really cool thing here at this playground is the zipline. It took a few tries of us holding him before he finally got it but he ended up going both directions holding on all by himself. As you can see, helping hands were always nearby to catch him just in case.
All in all we spent at least an hour…probably longer at the playground and he had a blast. We decided to drive out the other way and only then did we realize…that was the old playground. The new one that I had read about was in a different part of the park. Oops! I had planned to pass by it and come back another trip but Mateo spotted it and kept saying, “Vamos, parque!” So of course we had to stop there too. I don’t have pictures of it because we had only planned to stop for a couple of minutes. The sheer size of that (and enthusiasm of a 2 year old) made it impossible to leave quickly. Its a very cool playground and I highly recommend it if you need an activity to wear out your kids for the day!Â
We drove back on Monday and stopped in at the zoo. It was really crowded but we got to see a few favorites and of course ride the train a couple of times. I have some other funny stories I need to post soon but this post is already really long so I’ll wait a couple of days.
Daycare vs School
3 February 2009 at 9:39 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 CommentsWe are trying to figure out what we are going to do with Mateo in the fall. Hard to believe we have to decide now. And whichever way we go I think it will be fine. We love Mateo’s daycare. They are convienent…less than a mile away. They adore him…how could they not? And he has done so well there. He is learning so much and becoming so articulate. But at the same time we are wanting to make sure he grows up speaking both English and Spanish. He understands a decent amount of spanish and prefers some spanish words to their english counterparts. But lately I’ve noticed that even the spanish favorites are slowly being replaced by the english version and we have to remind him to use the spanish version. With Andres traveling I can only do so much with my limited spanish. We do watch DVDs and listen to music in Spanish. Some of his favorite shows have pretty decent spanish language tracks…the voices aren’t too different…so we take advantage of that as often as we can.
Last year when we came back from Colombia with Mateo we found a program that offers multilingual education. They offer spanish, french, english, german and mandarin. You can take one each day or up to 4 days of a single language. They start as early as age 1 (half days) and age 2 for full days. Its a pretty cool start up program. They have offered up to 1st grade this year and are expanding to all elementary grades next year. They are also using the International Bacculareate (IB) program of study and are working to become a certified program under the IBÂ standards. If you have a child who you want to raise in a more culturally aware environment that emphasizes languages and cultural differences and similarities I highly recommend looking into the IB program. They offer elementary, middle and high school programs at both private and public schools.
At the time they were too far away going to opposite direction from my office and they didn’t have afterschool care. They are supposed to be moving closer…but we haven’t been able to see the new facility so we are still waiting to make our final decision. Since it is a school and not a daycare we will have to keep the daycare as a backup for school holidays/workdays and summer break. And since he is only 2 I don’t really want him in “school” all the time. Plus, like I said he loves it there and they are great to him. So for now he is staying where he is and we are trying to decide what to do in the fall.
Over the holidays I ran into Mateo’s teacher. Our schedules rarely overlap as she comes in just after I drop off and leaves before I get back. She was telling me she wished she had a camera sometimes because of some of the things Mateo does. At her request he made an airplane out of blocks…but she couldn’t get anyone to bring her the one camera the daycare has before it got broken. She suggested bringing a disposable camera in and she would take some pictures for us. I got to looking and thinking about it and decided the best thing to do was get a relatively inexpensive digital camera that I could leave there during the week. We made a deal that I would leave it on Monday and pick it up on Friday and I’d even burn the pictures to cds from time to time for the other parents in the class. I figured if I got a handful of cute shots a month I’d be thrilled. So far we are on week 3 and I have several shots that are too cute. Since I don’t have permission to post the pics of his classmates I can’t post a couple of the really cute shots of him with the other kids….but I’ll share a few of just him.
Off to school...looking so professional!
You can't see the girl I'm racing...but I'm cruisin past her with only one leg!
I have no idea...
Seems like as good a place as any to sit for a while.
I can see you...
This month was all about transporation...today we made train cars.
My favorite activity!! READING!!
Panda Poo Poo
12 January 2009 at 9:42 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 3 CommentsMateo has gotten particularl chatty lately. He is talking so much more from one week to the next. Tonight on the phone his grandparents asked him what he saw at the zoo yesterday and his response was…lions, elephants, zebras and panda poo poo. I had completely forgotten that when we walked up to see the pandas the Papa Panda pooped right in front of us. Apparently Mateo did not. 🙂 Ever since we went to the zoo after Christmas he has been talking lots more about the animals so I took advantage of Andres going out of town to take Mateo back yesterday. Even tonight before bed he was still talking about all the animals and the train. Because it was so cold, not all of the animals were on display…but it was still fun and we saw plenty to make the trip worthwhile. Already looking forward to the next trip.
From our first trip
I also wanted to add a few photos from the holidays. Last year we took a similar photo on our front steps for our holiday card. This year we didn’t quite get around to the card (we took the photo on Christmas Day) but I did want to get the shot so we have a collection of them as Mateo grows up.
And now Christmas fun…
More coming soon…
laura & andres' adoption adventure 