Today was one that started like any other. Cold, but not quite as cold as other days this week. The kids were their normal chatterbox-y selves. I threatened taking recess away about 11 times. They saw right through me all 11 times.
Recess came and went. We were trying, big emphasis on the trying, to get down to business, when the word to evacuate quickly came. Here we go. Teacher hell. Right up there with Halloween, bomb threats make poking your eyes out with a toothpick sound enjoyable. But, since we (I) here at the Casa Alvarez blog like to find the humor in things. I give you the following.
Plus sides to Bomb Threat Day:
-Impromptu suntanning (burning). When am I ever just standing in the sun for two hours. This would obviously be way better without 1200+ 2-12 year olds running amuck and with a beach and a sangria, but sometimes you have to take what you can get.
-Impromptu half-day. I swear, I'm going to start thinking that the first mom who arrives has got to be the one who made the call. How is it possible that we haven't even finished evacuating the building and they're already there to take their precious cargo home? Do they wait in the parking lot all day?
-Watching Super Model wannabe moms stumble through the rocky/grassy field in 5 inch stilletos. Some call it dismissal when the music rings at 2:00, I call it "Who can wear the tightest pants, lowest cut blouse and highest heels." Fine when you only have to walk in the hallway. Not so fine when you have to navigate a soccer field full of 50+ groups of students to find that diamond in the rough that you call your child.
-At least its the soccer field and not the cactus garden. At the AS world, we are moving up. I say this because not very many people have witnessed much along the ways of improvements in these parts. My first bomb threat corralled 300 some-odd students into the schools 30 square foot cactus garden at 7:30am. Yep, kids and cactus = great idea.
-Confidence that the school is safe. (Not funny, but true) There is 24/7/365 security at the school plus an alarm system. So, basically if you're not supposed to be there, you won't be. It's nice to know that even if someone wanted to plant a bomb at the school (which what kind of person would?), they couldn't.
So, on that note, let's move along to this evening. After such an eventful afternoon at school, AV decided to rest for me for about an hour and a half, a miraculous, gift-from-God, afternoon nap for her. After, we played, we took and walk, we had dinner and we got the bath ready. A normal evening in the Alvarez house. Until....
Ana Victoria decided that she would rather have a jacuzzi than a bathtub. I'm with you on that one sister, I would settle for a shower that was actually warm for more than 2 minutes. What I am not, however, supporting is that she decided to manually make the bubbles go. She tried a little too hard and one of those jacuzzi bubbles came out with a prize. Actually three prizes
Everybody clear the pool. Brown trout.
Needless to say, bath time was cut short and followed by a serious talking to about when and where we move our bowels.
In the words of the late and great Dave Niehaus, My, Oh My.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Guilt-driven parenting
I'm going to go ahead and assume that if you're reading this and you're a parent you have at some point, and most likely at many points, made parenting decisions based on that fabulous thing we like to call guilt. If you're not a parent yet, then you can roll your eyes at me all you want. What do I care? I can't see you. But, mark my words, when you have your own children, you will make guilt-based decisions, and you will think of me. And, on that day, I will say, I told you so and feel very pleased with myself.
Guilt-driven parenting could be a totally new craze. If I had the patience and train of thought longer than like 4 minutes, I would write a book about it and make millions. Eat your heart out attachment parenting and babywisers- GDP isn't gross domestic product anymore (thank you whatever class in high school taught me that) GDP is THE new way to parent.
My GDP started when AV was very young. I thought that anytime she was awake I needed to be talking, interacting, playing, etc with her. I felt guilty when I would put her down to do something or another. Not to mention, God forbid, put her in the car and take her somewhere. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Then, of course, my guilt-driven thinking took over and I started thinking if I would like it for someone to be talking at me and playing with me and not giving me a second to look around during every second of my waking hours. I concluded that that would be obnoxious (something I do well). Then, the GDP took over on the other side. Oh jeez, I haven't been letting her be her own person. I haven't taken her places. GDP, baby.
GDP worked wonders when going to work, too. The wannabe stay-at-home mom in me thought of what horrible irreversable damage I was doing to the poor creature entrusted to my care by abandoning her to the loving arms of grandparents for 6 hours a day. Tears, hugs, and all sorts of get rich plans abounded from GDP and the working mom. Then, guilt-driven thinking told me that if I didn't work the baby wouldn't have a house to call home, wouldn't know her family in the USA and wouldn't have the education she deserved. GDP told me that I should head back if only for the tiny silver lining every 15th and 30th called payday.
GDP is at work right now in the mother's milk factory. This mama cow's supply is dwindling. My poor child will no longer be one of those magical, mythical creatures who are closer to angelic than they are to human, whose poop, literally, does not stink, who will never be obese, who will get a 1600 on their SAT's the first time without studying, who can most likely speak in complete sentences at 5 weeks old. She will be thrown to the proverbial dogs and become one of those alien children who drink.......formula......eeeewwww. I'll let you all shudder and shun me by shaking your head at the computer. (It's okay, it's all a part of the GDP process.) In my desire to not send my child to the dark side of baby nutrition, I tried everything I could to make more milk. Then GDP started working its magic. What does this GDP mom really want: a starving unhappy breast-fed baby, or a health strong bottle-fed one? When it comes down to it, formula (eeeewww) was invented for a reason, so that babies could grow strong and healthy when their mothers could no longer give them what they needed. It sounds a little less nasty now, but only just a little. GDP, in all her glory.
GDP, you might be realizing is just a fancy way to find balance. I shouldn't tell you that, because now my non-existent book won't sell. As parents we do the best we can with what we have. We trust our instincts and make choices every day so that these tiny humans under our charge grow into some semblance of normal, healthy and hopefully, good-looking, smart and successful adult humans. As long as the GDP thinking is evenly weighted with pro's and con's, the parents have a pretty good chance of making the best decision for their children. (pretty good chance is a very technical term, you need technical terms for your method to sell) That isn't to say that I won't look back in twenty years and think about all the things I should have done differently, but I will at the very least, be able to tell my children that I thought through, and probably overthought, every single decision that involved them and their development.
I will be accepting your pre-orders for the GDP book. Let me know how many copies you want.
Guilt-driven parenting could be a totally new craze. If I had the patience and train of thought longer than like 4 minutes, I would write a book about it and make millions. Eat your heart out attachment parenting and babywisers- GDP isn't gross domestic product anymore (thank you whatever class in high school taught me that) GDP is THE new way to parent.
My GDP started when AV was very young. I thought that anytime she was awake I needed to be talking, interacting, playing, etc with her. I felt guilty when I would put her down to do something or another. Not to mention, God forbid, put her in the car and take her somewhere. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Then, of course, my guilt-driven thinking took over and I started thinking if I would like it for someone to be talking at me and playing with me and not giving me a second to look around during every second of my waking hours. I concluded that that would be obnoxious (something I do well). Then, the GDP took over on the other side. Oh jeez, I haven't been letting her be her own person. I haven't taken her places. GDP, baby.
GDP worked wonders when going to work, too. The wannabe stay-at-home mom in me thought of what horrible irreversable damage I was doing to the poor creature entrusted to my care by abandoning her to the loving arms of grandparents for 6 hours a day. Tears, hugs, and all sorts of get rich plans abounded from GDP and the working mom. Then, guilt-driven thinking told me that if I didn't work the baby wouldn't have a house to call home, wouldn't know her family in the USA and wouldn't have the education she deserved. GDP told me that I should head back if only for the tiny silver lining every 15th and 30th called payday.
GDP is at work right now in the mother's milk factory. This mama cow's supply is dwindling. My poor child will no longer be one of those magical, mythical creatures who are closer to angelic than they are to human, whose poop, literally, does not stink, who will never be obese, who will get a 1600 on their SAT's the first time without studying, who can most likely speak in complete sentences at 5 weeks old. She will be thrown to the proverbial dogs and become one of those alien children who drink.......formula......eeeewwww. I'll let you all shudder and shun me by shaking your head at the computer. (It's okay, it's all a part of the GDP process.) In my desire to not send my child to the dark side of baby nutrition, I tried everything I could to make more milk. Then GDP started working its magic. What does this GDP mom really want: a starving unhappy breast-fed baby, or a health strong bottle-fed one? When it comes down to it, formula (eeeewww) was invented for a reason, so that babies could grow strong and healthy when their mothers could no longer give them what they needed. It sounds a little less nasty now, but only just a little. GDP, in all her glory.
GDP, you might be realizing is just a fancy way to find balance. I shouldn't tell you that, because now my non-existent book won't sell. As parents we do the best we can with what we have. We trust our instincts and make choices every day so that these tiny humans under our charge grow into some semblance of normal, healthy and hopefully, good-looking, smart and successful adult humans. As long as the GDP thinking is evenly weighted with pro's and con's, the parents have a pretty good chance of making the best decision for their children. (pretty good chance is a very technical term, you need technical terms for your method to sell) That isn't to say that I won't look back in twenty years and think about all the things I should have done differently, but I will at the very least, be able to tell my children that I thought through, and probably overthought, every single decision that involved them and their development.
I will be accepting your pre-orders for the GDP book. Let me know how many copies you want.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Chores
Saturday and Sunday are Chores days around the Alvarez household.
I thought Saturday and Sunday were the weekend, but apparently, I was wrong.
Now, the more I do chores, the more I realize how terrible chores are. I've heard people say that chores are a way of loving your family. But, let's be honest, I would much rather love AV and Ramon over a box of white chocolate Oreo's. I think they'd feel the love way more, too, because I wouldn't be righteously annoyed.
Chores suck, plain and simple. Here's why.
They are never actually done. You spend all day, sometimes night, and sometimes even the next day if you live in a dryer-less world like I do. Sunday night you finish the laundry and have every sock put away, but inevitably you have to take off the clothes you're wearing. The empty white basket is now one step closer to full again. It just makes you want to scream sometimes.
Sweeping and mopping are also lame-o. Mexico is the dust capital of the world. So, once the floors have been swept and mopped you can already see those stupid butt-holey dust specks starting to settle back down in their place. I can hear their tiny dust voices whispering, "Nice try, Sssuuuccckkkaaa."
Now, let's talk about the kitchen. The kitchen is usually clean for about 10 hours a day. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Except for the part where 8 of those hours are when the entire house is sleeping and no one can enjoy it. The second you wake up, someone needs to make breakfast. That someone is 99.9% of the time, me. I don't have one of those magical dish hiding places that other people have been known to call dishwashers. The dish washer, again, is 98.4% (we'll give Ramon a little more credit on this one) of the time me. After washing all the dishes, without fail, you turn around to find one lone cup or spoon who defied the instruction to be washed and stored. Whatever, that jerk gets to sit all night alone in the sink and think about what he's done.
Don't get me started on the bathroom. I've decided it's going to be Ramon's chore. I hate cleaning the bathroom. The second you finish, you always ALWAYS have to go the bathroom. And if you live in a house like mine, you don't have any other viable or appropriate option other than to dirty up your nice clean bathroom. It's not so much the going that bugs me as much as it is the washing hands part because the nice clean shiny sink now has drip marks. Since I'm unwilling to give up the handwashing part of the bathroom experience, I just have to resign myself to the fact that the bathroom will never be perfectly clean.
Some parts of cleaning are, however, extremely satisfying. I love the feeling when you think, 'Oh yeah, that's what that coach looked like.' or 'That spot wasn't permanent? Sweet.' But, come on, that doesn't happen often enough to outweigh all of the negatives.
They say a woman's work is never done. I think that phrase should more appropriately be changed to read, "Chores suck, but you still have to do 'em."
I thought Saturday and Sunday were the weekend, but apparently, I was wrong.
Now, the more I do chores, the more I realize how terrible chores are. I've heard people say that chores are a way of loving your family. But, let's be honest, I would much rather love AV and Ramon over a box of white chocolate Oreo's. I think they'd feel the love way more, too, because I wouldn't be righteously annoyed.
Chores suck, plain and simple. Here's why.
They are never actually done. You spend all day, sometimes night, and sometimes even the next day if you live in a dryer-less world like I do. Sunday night you finish the laundry and have every sock put away, but inevitably you have to take off the clothes you're wearing. The empty white basket is now one step closer to full again. It just makes you want to scream sometimes.
Sweeping and mopping are also lame-o. Mexico is the dust capital of the world. So, once the floors have been swept and mopped you can already see those stupid butt-holey dust specks starting to settle back down in their place. I can hear their tiny dust voices whispering, "Nice try, Sssuuuccckkkaaa."
Now, let's talk about the kitchen. The kitchen is usually clean for about 10 hours a day. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Except for the part where 8 of those hours are when the entire house is sleeping and no one can enjoy it. The second you wake up, someone needs to make breakfast. That someone is 99.9% of the time, me. I don't have one of those magical dish hiding places that other people have been known to call dishwashers. The dish washer, again, is 98.4% (we'll give Ramon a little more credit on this one) of the time me. After washing all the dishes, without fail, you turn around to find one lone cup or spoon who defied the instruction to be washed and stored. Whatever, that jerk gets to sit all night alone in the sink and think about what he's done.
Don't get me started on the bathroom. I've decided it's going to be Ramon's chore. I hate cleaning the bathroom. The second you finish, you always ALWAYS have to go the bathroom. And if you live in a house like mine, you don't have any other viable or appropriate option other than to dirty up your nice clean bathroom. It's not so much the going that bugs me as much as it is the washing hands part because the nice clean shiny sink now has drip marks. Since I'm unwilling to give up the handwashing part of the bathroom experience, I just have to resign myself to the fact that the bathroom will never be perfectly clean.
Some parts of cleaning are, however, extremely satisfying. I love the feeling when you think, 'Oh yeah, that's what that coach looked like.' or 'That spot wasn't permanent? Sweet.' But, come on, that doesn't happen often enough to outweigh all of the negatives.
They say a woman's work is never done. I think that phrase should more appropriately be changed to read, "Chores suck, but you still have to do 'em."
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
If Strollers Could Talk
To start, my stroller would have an awesome accent. Something to drive all the babes wild.
Then, my stroller would get a little more serious and probably tell me the following things.
Dear Owner,
I was not made for what you are putting me through. I was happily shipped to Babies R Us USA where there are sidewalks and paved roads and ramps and crosswalks and all sorts of other amenities of this sort. If I had been informed upon my purchase that I would soon be exported, I most likely would have objected very loudly. I would most definitely have objected had I known that you were going to be my owner. Every night, I sit alone and cry, "Why me?!" I think you deserve to know why.
1. Your child, while extremely cute, (I might say that she is the cutest baby I have ever seen in my entire life, and strollers have been around for a while, that's saying something. But, I digress.) is not even seven months old yet and has already puked on me and peed on me more times than I can count. That, dear woman, is gross. I do not like to have any bodily fluids other than my own, which I have none, on me.
2. Focus, woman. Your child was barely 6 weeks old when you burned the living crapola out of one of my wheels. I understand that lights in the floor is supposed to be something modern and interesting. However, my wheels are plastic. Plastic melts. Even if the streets were paved in gold, my ride would now be just slightly wobbly because of your lack of general awareness of your surroundings. Next time when you smell something burning, check my wheels, it's probably me.
3. I am not as small as you think I am. I am a travel system. We are the SUV's of strollers. We take up entire trunk spaces just because we can. We have no qualms with taking the space of things like groceries. We are that important. Please, understand, come to terms, and begin respecting this fact. Stop trying to force me through spaces between buildings and telephone poles. Stop taking me to crowded market places. You can pretend you don't see the dirty looks when you push me into the ankles of those in front. But, the baby and I? We feel those scornful looks, and frankly, it hurts.
You are very lucky that your baby is so cute, because if she were one of those weird-looking alien babies that are out there, I would have rebelled against you a long time ago. I just ask you to open your eyes, ears, nose and work on your spacial awareness. If not for my sake, for the sake of the precious cargo I transport, I don't know how much more we can take.
Sincerely,
Your Stroller.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Wait, what?
Wait, what? This is an all too common phrase that is most often accompanied by a raised eyebrow and confused face and it can most likely be seen on me when trying to decipher my students' work. Once I figure out what the child is trying to say, the confused usually turns into a smiley laughing face.
Want some examples? I though you would.
We are dead for food.
Translation: We were dying of hunger.
It was a week very heaviest.
Translation: It was a very tiring week.
The convencion durate to one week.
Translation: The convention lasted one week.
The sending is the aple richen large that whit spon and spar centing cente.
1st Response: WTF? What is this?
2nd Response: (Just hit me in this moment 3 weeks after reading the work) AAhh, she has tried (big emphasis on the tried) to copy from the book to answer the question: What is the setting?
Translation: The setting is the castle kitchen, large pots with spoons are placed center stage.
Define Shellfish (not my student but definitely share-worthy)
Answer: Shellfish is when you only care about yourself.
Use Majesty in a sentence.
I say to the teacher Majesty because I want more recess.
Response: Nice try.
Use porridge in a sentence.
The people want porridge.
Response: Give the people what they want, I say. Their demands aren't outrageous.
Use peasant in a sentence.
This school have a peasant to do the school nice.
Response: Oh, is that what we're calling janitors and gardeners now?
By far, best sentence I have read in all of my five years of teaching.
Drum Roll, PLEASE!
Use dungeon in a sentence.
This person are bad they kill chickens and are in the dungeon.
Response: After I stopped laughing, read it again, laughed again and stopped again, I thought "Chicken Killer? Really? That's what you have to do to get sent to the dungeon?"
PS Yes, we read a story about a king, so, no, these vocabulary words aren't weird.
Want some examples? I though you would.
We are dead for food.
Translation: We were dying of hunger.
It was a week very heaviest.
Translation: It was a very tiring week.
The convencion durate to one week.
Translation: The convention lasted one week.
The sending is the aple richen large that whit spon and spar centing cente.
1st Response: WTF? What is this?
2nd Response: (Just hit me in this moment 3 weeks after reading the work) AAhh, she has tried (big emphasis on the tried) to copy from the book to answer the question: What is the setting?
Translation: The setting is the castle kitchen, large pots with spoons are placed center stage.
Define Shellfish (not my student but definitely share-worthy)
Answer: Shellfish is when you only care about yourself.
Use Majesty in a sentence.
I say to the teacher Majesty because I want more recess.
Response: Nice try.
Use porridge in a sentence.
The people want porridge.
Response: Give the people what they want, I say. Their demands aren't outrageous.
Use peasant in a sentence.
This school have a peasant to do the school nice.
Response: Oh, is that what we're calling janitors and gardeners now?
By far, best sentence I have read in all of my five years of teaching.
Drum Roll, PLEASE!
Use dungeon in a sentence.
This person are bad they kill chickens and are in the dungeon.
Response: After I stopped laughing, read it again, laughed again and stopped again, I thought "Chicken Killer? Really? That's what you have to do to get sent to the dungeon?"
PS Yes, we read a story about a king, so, no, these vocabulary words aren't weird.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Cookies or Crackers?
I have an amazing oven.
It's amazing for many reasons none of which include its ability to cook food. I don't know how old it is, but let's just say that if we ball park it in the time frame of older than me, younger than dirt.
I will give it this, though. It is the first oven that I've had in Mexico with numbers. I'm talking real temperatures, people. My first oven went from temperature minus sign (-) to temperature plus sign (+). Your guess is as good as mine, or maybe better because I always guessed wrong with that baby. My second oven was way more high tech; it had a scale from 1-5. Again, your guess, probably better. This one has temps, in celsius, which, even after 5 years, still means very little to me.
The door doesn't close properly. Handy Fix-it Man Wally Hickey rigged up a nice latch system for me when he was here in April which took the oven's usability from zero to functioning. To use said latch, you must push all your weight against the oven door and then latch. Though, when the oven is on, this means that you will burn your leg and fingers because the door and latch are just about as hot as the inside of the oven.
Everything around the oven gets hot when its on. Note to self, plastic should not be close by. Learned that lesson the hard way.
Oh yeah, that part about how the oven has temperatures? Big, fat lie. The temperatures mean nothing. I set my oven to less than 350. It heated up to over 500.
The point is this: I now have 60+ chocolate chip crackers.
Anybody hungry?
It's amazing for many reasons none of which include its ability to cook food. I don't know how old it is, but let's just say that if we ball park it in the time frame of older than me, younger than dirt.
I will give it this, though. It is the first oven that I've had in Mexico with numbers. I'm talking real temperatures, people. My first oven went from temperature minus sign (-) to temperature plus sign (+). Your guess is as good as mine, or maybe better because I always guessed wrong with that baby. My second oven was way more high tech; it had a scale from 1-5. Again, your guess, probably better. This one has temps, in celsius, which, even after 5 years, still means very little to me.
The door doesn't close properly. Handy Fix-it Man Wally Hickey rigged up a nice latch system for me when he was here in April which took the oven's usability from zero to functioning. To use said latch, you must push all your weight against the oven door and then latch. Though, when the oven is on, this means that you will burn your leg and fingers because the door and latch are just about as hot as the inside of the oven.
Everything around the oven gets hot when its on. Note to self, plastic should not be close by. Learned that lesson the hard way.
Oh yeah, that part about how the oven has temperatures? Big, fat lie. The temperatures mean nothing. I set my oven to less than 350. It heated up to over 500.
The point is this: I now have 60+ chocolate chip crackers.
Anybody hungry?
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Never seen that before.
Sometimes living in Mexico gets old.
Like on the days when you have to push a stroller on what can only be loosely defined as sidewalk, and more accurately can be described as blocks of concrete of varying heights, super steep driveways, with telephone poles in the middle that require you to take aforementioned stroller into traffic to go around aforementioned pole.
Mexico can get old when you realize that you've been cut off by the same bus three times in three blocks because it speeds up to get in front of you then pulls over and stops to let people off.
Somethings don't get old.
Like seeing a man walking down the street carrying three GIANT bags of cheese puffs. I'm talking bags that are almost the size of the man.
Now that, my friends, is funny.
Like on the days when you have to push a stroller on what can only be loosely defined as sidewalk, and more accurately can be described as blocks of concrete of varying heights, super steep driveways, with telephone poles in the middle that require you to take aforementioned stroller into traffic to go around aforementioned pole.
Mexico can get old when you realize that you've been cut off by the same bus three times in three blocks because it speeds up to get in front of you then pulls over and stops to let people off.
Somethings don't get old.
Like seeing a man walking down the street carrying three GIANT bags of cheese puffs. I'm talking bags that are almost the size of the man.
Now that, my friends, is funny.
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