Men's Day; Women's Day

Here in Russia we've been having a few holidays.  February 23rd was Men's Day.  It is actually Defender Day, but is commonly referred to as Men's Day and compares to Father's Day in the United States.  Elena made a card at school:

I managed to make a yummy breakfast of eggs with cheese and toast...and Matt managed to work all day long.  It was a great "day off" for him, eh?

March 8th is Women's Day.  Back in the 1940s this was all about women wanting equal rights.  These days it is more of a combination of Mother's Day and Valentine's Day...and really not even the romance part of it factors in.  It is simply about honoring women.  For example, Matt gives gifts to all of the women who work for him.

Since he left for Houston this morning, he will miss Women's Day.  When he explained this to his admin and told her I would come with the girls to give gifts for him, she first said "Oh, no, don't worry.  It is okay; you will not be here; you can do it later."  He then asked her if it is really okay to do that and she smiled and told him nope.

Therefore, I, the woman, have made gifts for the women.  Elena calls them "Daddy's Ladies".  Yes, I realize how this sounds.  Her Papa Jim has some wonderful ladies who work in his office and Elena calls them Papa Jim's Ladies, so it is only natural that she would refer to the women who work with her Daddy as Daddy's Ladies.

I have made Zucchini Bread, Snickerdoodles, and Chocolate-Chocolate chip cookies:

Then I have managed to come up with some creative packaging:

Tomorrow we shall deliver them and Elena will tell each of them "Congratulations" in Russian, which is what you say to someone on a holiday here.  Let's hope they like them.

And now, for your viewing enjoyment, Big Sister and Little Sister:

Preview

I've been getting things ready for our Valentine's Day party tomorrow. At last count, there were twenty-two children invited and approximately ten Moms and/or Nannies. We've lost three kids and two Moms due to illness...bronchitis and ear infections. Good times. Here's hoping the rest of us can remain sick-o-less and that we all manage to fit into the house at once!

We will be having snacks (thanks everyone for contributing!) so that we can ruin everyone's dinner (not the goal, but somewhat inevitable methinks), games so as to use up all of the "energies" garnered from sugar, and crafts to calm everyone down again. Not that we'll be doing things in that order, but you get the picture.

Or do you?

Let's see:

Conversation Heart Decor - Cause we're Classy.

70's Throwback Decor - complete with 'Hearts by E'

Mmmmm - Energies

Craft Idea Decor - Because it Takes Too Much Time to Think of Your Own

a.k.a. We Don't Want to Foster Creativity Up in This Place

Welcome to the Post Office (pochta in Russian)

Not shown: games such as the Heart Hop Relay, Valentine Day Bingo, St. Valentine Says, Take This Heart Singing Game (of course I had to...I was a music teacher in my previous life) and more (you know, 'cause it always takes way less time to do things you think will take forever...and it always takes forever to do things you think will only take a few minutes).

I hope this is a success...if so, I already have ideas for April Fool's Day.

If tomorrow wears me out we can all forget that I said that...

Happy Vvvveeeeeee Day; Take Two

I am sure you are all waiting with bated breath to find out what Rocket Man and I gave each other for Valentine's Day.

It was a joint gift.

A clue, if you will:

BrrRRRZRZrzrzZRZZZrzrzrzrzzZZRRZRZRZRZRZRZZZzzzz

"OOooohhhhhh."


BrrRRRZRZrzrzZRZZZrzrzrzrzzZZRRZRZRZRZRZRZZZzzzz

"Oh, wow."


BrrRRRZRZrzrzZRZZZrzrzrzrzzZZRRZRZRZRZRZRZZZzzzz

"Oh, man does that feel good."


BrrRRRZRZrzrzZRZZZrzrzrzrzzZZRRZRZRZRZRZRZZZzzzz

"This thing really works!"


BrrRRRZRZrzrzZRZZZrzrzrzrzzZZRRZRZRZRZRZRZZZzzzz

"Ahhhhhhhh."

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Electric toothbrushes, people.

'Cause that's how we roll.

Happy Love Day

There's this song I sing with Miss Thing. It is to the tune of the Oscar Meyer Bologna song. For those of you who know her name, here is how it goes:

My [first name] has a first name;
it's [spell her first name here].

My [first name] has a second name;
it's [spell her middle name here].

I snuggle with her every day,
and if you ask me why I'll say:

'Cause [first name] [middle name] is the best
with whom to S-N-U-G-G-L-E.

Lately she has taken to singing WITH me. As in, we both sing at the same time. While this may seem normal for all of you, it is a recent development here. She knows this song and will request it from time to time.

This morning, Rocket Man woke up with her and let me sleep a little bit. That is, until he attempted to go to the bathroom and thought that he could shut the door for some privacy. Miss Thing quickly pointed out his mistake and managed to wake me up in the process.

I tried to get back to sleep, unsuccessfully, and when I came out she was watching (who else?) Mickey Mouse. Watching him is apparently quite involved, so she didn't see me when I first woke up. She was on the floor and I came over to sit on the sofa. When she did see me, she got all excited and immediately climbed up to sit with me.

By with me I mean on me, of course.

Then? She did the cutest thing ever.

She leaned over and rested her head on me and said "Snuggle!"

So we sang.

Together.

Happy Valentine's Day, Mama.

V is for Vicious

Grammie and Pop-Pop sent Miss Thing a valentine gift.

It is...well...you can decide for yourself.

She enjoys it, but to the point that letting her play with it means that when she is done (read: we tell her she is done) she cries and carries on as if the world has ended. It is quite a lot to deal with.

The dog sees it as an imminent threat. We are all about to die, he just knows it. He attacks, although he isn't sure which end requires his attention, so he alternates between the two. That is quite a lot to deal with as well.

Needless to say, it spends a lot of time "hanging out" somewhere in the depths of our closet.

And it looks so innocent....

Best Method for Snaggin' a Man

Apparently we are having as close to a real winter here in Houston as we can get. It all began in December when we had snow.

Yes, snow.

It began innocently enough, but soon it was coming down pretty heavily:

Miss Perpetual Motion and I spent much of the morning indoors watching it fall:

"What do you see, Perpetual Motion?"

"Snnnnnnnoooooooooooow!"

Due to the fact that we had been enjoying the book Frosty the Snowman, Miss Thing only says the words snow and snowman in a high-pitched and long, drawn-out voice.
Yes, it is too cute.

After some of the white stuff had accumulated, we donned our wimpy winter weather gear and headed out to inspect.

Thank you, PM, for pointing out the snow.  I never would have found it without you.

She wasn't too thrilled with touching the snow; nor was she happy when her hands began to hurt.  Yes, we have mittens, but will she wear them?  Of course not!  How silly!

"Snnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooow!"

Inspecting her Winter Wonderland.

Now the weather people are calling for a hard freeze. At one point it was snow and then a hard freeze, but I do believe the snow is not on the forecast any longer. Due to the fact that nothing in these here parts was built to standards that allow for freezing of any kind, I just spent some time covering the plants that cannot withstand the temperatures and insulating our pipes.

Good times.

Now on to other things, like PM's Best Method for Snaggin' a Man.

Today she had a great day at school. She was really worried on the way there, but we talked about who would be there and what she would get to do and how I would come back after everything to get her. Once we pulled into the parking lot she was fine and when I set her down at the door to her classroom, she stomp/marched her way in, holding her Dog-Dog like she was going to chuck him at someone.

That's it, you know.

Chucking Dog-Dog at people...usually men.

When I returned this afternoon, I noticed that her classmate's Dad had already arrived. By the time I got to the classroom door, PM had already deposited Dog-Dog at his feet, and by deposited I mean she threw him, or practically body-slammed him. Not only that, but when she received no attention, she walked away and was on her way back, pointing out her "Dog-Dog!" to him when I walked in.

This 'method' is her way to entice men. She spent our entire Christmas holiday doing just that with Grand-Dad. The poor man couldn't get a hug or anything simple like that. Nope, she would see him, go get Dog-Dog, and follow Grand-Dad around, chucking the animal at him so that he would pick it up and come back after her.

It worked splendidly; she always got her man.

Random Update

Man do I not envy the delivery people this time of year. Things are crazy for them. I was just putting the child affected by cabin fever down for the night when the dog freaked out. A gift had arrived at our door; it was 7:30 pm. I think that is the latest I've received a package before. I am sure that some people are very grateful for the extra jobs created by the holiday gift shipping rush; for that I would be grateful as well. It is interesting to watch those who haven't done it much, though. I have a note on my door telling people not to ring the doorbell, but to knock instead. Most delivery people with experience just leave the package, especially if they hear the dog, with no knocking. I guess they realize that I have my own warning system in a twenty pound bundle of energy. Newbies set the package down and knock really loudly and then hang around for a bit to be sure they see me in the house before walking away...which I don't really understand because what are they going to do differently if I am not home? Also, this means that twenty pound bundle of energy attempts to expend all of his energy RIGHT THEN.

Cabin fever is absolutely real and it can affect even the smallest of individuals. The child had Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (aren't you jealous?) this week. Apparently she was channeling some super hero who doesn't feel pain, though (Jenky, I'll leave it to you to tell me who that might be), because she never acted like anything was wrong. For those of you who are unaware, this disease (virus) causes open sores in the mouth and throat, blisters around the mouth, and small blisters (that usually don't pop and look like a rash) on the hands and feet. And usually with the very small, it causes a similar rash all over their behind. So yeah. I would be all wimpy if I got it, that is for sure. And this doesn't even take into account the fever, etc. that can come with it. Anyway, she just looked really icky this week (and still kinda does), but acted like things were cool, so there's a blessing for you.

Yeah. Christmas photos? Not until the creepy spots go away.

Where was I going? Oh, yes. Cabin fever.

Well. Combine the disease with the fact that Friday we had snow, and therefore we didn't get out a lot this week. Yes, snow in Houston. The world is ending.

We spent all of Thanksgiving week with people. The first part of the week we were together in Baltimore, and then we went to a far off land of no pavement and bonfires to visit with college friends at the end of the week. There was a lot of attention. This week, there has only been me. To say that she is getting tired of me would be an understatement. She does come over and snuggle with me a lot, though and I think that is because she is missing physical contact from others, including Rocket Man.

Where oh where is he? In the land of vodka, cabbage and potatoes. And cold as well as snow. Brrr.

She-child missed school on Wednesday due to the infestation on her mouth. We left the house today to return some items at a couple of stores and we had to drive through the neighborhood where her school is located. We pass through the area and continue on our way when I hear her saying her teacher's name over and over in the back seat. I can't wait to tell her on Monday; she should be pleased.

Talking is coming along splendidly. Um, except she speaks Andalucian English. What is that, you ask? Let me explain the Andalucian part, as I am sure you all know what I mean by English. Right? In Spain, Castilian is the official language. That would be espanol for all of you over here. Yes, it is different than central and southern American Spanish. As it should be; they are oceans apart. Within Spain, the southernmost region is called Andalucia. We lived in that region while we were there. The Andalucians have a way of shortening all of their words/phrases: they chop off the first part and the end of words/phrases and then smoosh whatever is left all together. This makes it difficult to understand, especially if you are not a native. Basically, this is what my child does when she attempts a phrase. She can say: "How are you doing" as well as "Where did it go?", among other things, but unless you are adept in hearing Andalucian English, it is difficult to catch. It reminds me of that game where you read the card, things are spelled out phonetically or they use different words to make up the correct phonetics for a phrase and the idea is to listen to one person read the card quickly and see if you can make out the mystery phrase...anyone know what that game is called?

Moving along.

She dances. By picking up her feet in this stompy kinda way and stomp/running all around the room. She will usually dance to the music, but occasionally she listens to the music, and when it stops she takes a little time to dance to it, then pushes whatever button to make it all happen again. It was so funny to watch her learn to pick up her feet.

Um, a video camera is on the Christmas list. One of those small ones that immediately loads online for viewing pleasure. So you can all see the dancing, of course.

Christmas presents are going to kill me. They will never be completely purchased/made/acquired/shipped. I am tempted to say you're all getting nothing, but that is no fun, so I'll just continue to slowly expire. Hopefully I will be unlike the advent candles of Rocket Man's past and make it past the 25th.

Happy Wedding to A and B!!! We wish we could be there!!! Blessings to you and your marriage!!!! Here are some extra exclamation points for you: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm out!

!!!!!!!

Halloween Day; Take Three

Some friends of ours were getting together on Halloween night to grill hotdogs and then trick-or-treat together and we were lucky enough to be invited. There were six kids there in total and they were running, climbing, riding and having so much fun!


Perpetual Motion saw this tricycle and immediately had to get on. She had a really tough time pushing herself forward, but didn't seem to mind.


This car was a huge success. She loooooved it; she even had some trouble allowing others to play with it. As in she would be done and get off and go do something else. Then another kid would go to play with it and HOLY SMOKES she needed to be on that car RIGHT NOW. So, we had some practice with sharing and taking turns and being upset when we don't get our way.


This little girl is only a few months older than Perpetual Motion. She has two older siblings and therefore knows how to do many things that PM doesn't have a clue about. I would show you other photos of all the children, but seriously, they were moving soooo fast that I couldn't get any good shots! There were a couple of rock stars and some super heroes.


We had dinner, which consisted of PM grabbing the hotdog off of the plate before I could cut it up and downing it in less than two minutes. She may have been hungry. Then we changed into costumes, and her first reaction was What is this?


Then she got into it a little more and stomped around like we had been announcing her and applauding.


And then? THEN we got the PUMPKIN. THAT was THE BEST EVER.


Oh, yeah. We all dressed up. I figure we should for as long as we can manage it. So here we are, The Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, and Alice. Considering I sometimes feel like I must be living in Wonderland, it is all very appropriate!

PM had a good time trick-or-treating. I could only convince her to go up to the first door by telling her that there was a dog that lives there. Then, once we rang the bell and the man opened the door, she totally tried to just walk right into the house and love on the dog. She cared nothing about anything else...until he put some candy in her pumpkin. That was A-mazing. She took it out and put it in and then decided that she just HAD to hold one piece while we walked from house to house.

Mmm - warm melty chocolate.

She was very good at saying Thank-you. She rang the doorbells, sometimes more than once, and finally, at the last house (we only went to about five or six), she said Trick-or-Treat.

All in all, Halloween was a success!

Halloween Day; Take One

I apologize, but I must interrupt our regularly scheduled posting to fill you in on our very busy Halloween Weekend 2009:

This past weekend was a very busy one for all of us here at casa Clementina. For starters, a play house that friends of ours dropped off a week ago was finally put together on the patio for Perpetual Motion to enjoy.


She found it fabulous. It took us a week to put it together because Houston was Rain Central last week. Boy, was it fun to be stuck inside all week long. Since the rains have stopped, we've been outside every day multiple times.


This house? It is great for her. She can open and close the door, the shutters, and there is even a small tunnel-like exit in the back of the structure.


Then there's the grill. Those knobs? They click and clack when you turn them and that is so much fun to do! There's also a phone inside, WITH BUTTONS, and she loves to pretend to be on the phone as well as pushing buttons on anything that has them.

I must tell you about a birthday party we received an invitation to. It says Calling All Superheroes and that costumes are encouraged.

Well.

We don't have any superhero costumes, but Rocket Man had a very good idea. We are thinking she can go as Aqua Woman:


Oh, yeah.

On her head is one of the bottoms to a bathing suit she wore this summer. I think she can wear that as her hat and then we'll just make up the rest of the outfit as we go.


So that was our morning. Aqua Woman made an appearance, and then we played on our slide and in the house outside.

Take Two is on its way...

The Gun Show

Late, late, late one evening, just after we returned from Virginia, but just before we all looked death in the eye (thank you, rhino-virus) Rocket Man received a special delivery:


It completes his trifecta of workout equipment.

He began with the Iron Gym:


and was given these to amp up the work-out goodness:


By way of family, we used our Christmas presents (The campaign: Money, Please in '08...which a few companies and/or banks took as their motto as well it appears) to purchase these fabulous weights:


They come in 5-pound and 2.5-pound increments. We, and by we I mean he, opted for the 2.5 version just in case I am ever inspired.


Overall, he is very happy with everything.

Oh. So. Happy.

Your invitation should arrive in the post any day now...

A bunch of hooey

Since we've been back in the states, there are quite a few things that surprise us. Not that we didn't know about them before or that we weren't aware of them or anything like that...it is just that we never really paid attention to them enough to see what was going on.

Living in another country exposes you to so much, both wherever you go and wherever you come from. It makes you take a moment to realize what is really happening in terms of your daily life and things that ordinarily you either take for granted or simply don't pay much attention to.

I highly recommend it to everyone who gets the chance.

One thing that we didn't really have in Spain was television. Well, we had about six and a half (don't ask) channels of Spanish television, and the game shows - oh so interesting. Also the commercials - I thought many of them were kinda silly and or dumb.

Then we came back here.

Oh, how our commercials are the same. Silly and or dumb pretty much sums up the lot of them. Either that or they are just a bunch of hooey.

Yup: hooey.

For example: have you seen the Wal-Mart commercial that has a bazillion employees at the check-out lanes flipping the light switches to coincide with a recording of Carol of the Bells?

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Haaaaahaaaahaaaahaaaaaa.

Excuse me.

It is just that I have never ever in my life (which is only 29 years, but we've had Wal-Marts for about as long as I can remember) seen that many employees at a Wal-Mart ready, willing and smiling even as they wait to help you.

Usually you're lucky to have a couple of people up there when the check-out lanes are slammed, and because of this, the employees are not so smiling. And if they have to turn on a light....jeepers! You might as well get out a sleeping bag and take a nap 'cause you're going to be there a while.

Have any of you ever been to a Wal-Mart like the one in the commercial? Or is that just another tale we tell at Christmastime?

Happy Turkey Day!

The Day After The Night Before

Now THAT's a title.

My apologies to everyone; there will be no costume photos.

Ummm...a gassy fussy baby and a Halloween costume do not make for a nice evening.

Not that we found out the hard way. Once the gassy/fussy bit was unveiled to us around 6 pm, I made the executive decision (Vote for me!) to nix the costumes.

We may put them on today and take a family photo just 'cause...but we'll see.

ANYWAY.

In regards to last night - we had fun!

Well, the first few trick-or-treaters were itty bitty children and they were oh so awesome. We had a particularly cute little girl dressed up as a chef; très imaginatif in this day and age of princesses and such.

My FAVORITE little guy was oh so talkative. I didn't have any tea lights to put in our jack-o-lantern,

Meet Jack-O-Lantern:


so I used a tiny jar candle from illuminations that had the scent of Pumpkin Pie. I opened the door and My Favorite Trick Or Treater was talking to me and suddenly he says "Oohhh, something here smells fresh."

I am telling you, he said it with the italics.

His little brother decided, as all little siblings do, to imitate him and so he told me something smelled fresh too!

Someone must bake in that family, 'cause where other than "fresh out of the oven" would he get that word choice? I don't really care, 'cause it was excellent indeed.

After a bit, LMIB worked some things out of her system (I sure hope THAT isn't what smelled fresh...although it is an interesting way to describe it...may have to adopt it) so we decided to go outside with Jack-O-Lantern and our candy in the hopes of attracting more customers.

Meet Candy:


This did not really work. Apparently if you live on a side street, the children, they just sorta bypass you.

I made another executive decision (Two! In one evening! Vote for me! I promise not to call you!) and we moved around to the side of our house which faces a main street in our neighborhood. This was good decision of the night number two because we found our neighbors all sitting together in an excellent one-stop-shopping manner of candy-giving. The three of us went over there and spent the evening chatting with our lovely neighbors and handing out Candy.

They have the right idea, let me tell you. They all sit in a semi-circle, and beverages are to be had while we ohhh and ahhh at the costumes.

Well, that and we chuckle at some of the people. The BEST was this guy who is either new to the neighborhood or is about to move into the neighborhood (I couldn't tell which he was saying) and basically he was lost. LOST! He asked which way to such-and-such street...he'd been dragging his wife, who was pushing a stroller - and they were all in costume - all over the neighborhood! They both looked exhausted!

Little Miss Itty Bitty was a favorite of the evening - of course - and she was passed around quite a bit. There was much chatting and laughter. We had so much fun that here was Jack-O-Lantern at the end of the night:


He either got into the beverages, or Candy was a tad too enticing.

Or both.

This morning, I found him hovering over the kitchen sink:


I think we can all learn an important lesson from Jack-O-Lantern...