I know, with every post, I let more and more time go past without writing again. It's not because I don’t have anything to write about. On the contrary, if anything, I have so much to tell about that I don’t even know where to begin.
Day by day, Eric is changing so much. He still shows a lot of the qualities of the little baby he is, but he is also showing many traits of the big boy he is rapidly becoming. He has begun to learn many new things over the last several weeks, and is very eager to show some of them off, at least when it appeals to him to do so. (Of course whenever I try to catch it on video, he seems to be too distracted to do it all the way he usually does.) He has gotten better about showing people how he does "Palmas, Palmitas." In fact, not only does he clap along, but at the end, he sings along with us.
The song goes as follows:
Palmas, palmitas que viene papá, que trae un perrito que hace:
wuau wuau wuau wuau
Anyways, as you get towards the end of the song, Eric loves to sing the "wuau wuau" part. I think that maybe bringing him up with our dogs wasn't the best idea because "wuau wuau" is probably about the only thing he says. If we see a dog in the street, he automatically says it. Today, we heard a dog bark from a balcony above, and he kept saying "wuau wuau" and pushing me to bring him where the dog was. Of course, I could only take him to the place below the balcony, where he kept obsessively looking for the dog.
For a few days he was saying what sounded like "Sheena" to both Mauri and I. Leave it to Eric to call out Sheena before Mommy or Papi. Sigh. It is quite cute, though, how much he loves the dogs. Molly barely tolerates him and prefers to be by herself, but Sheena likes to try to play with him.
When I ask Eric about Sheena, he automatically responds to me with "wuau wuau wuau wuau."
Another one of his favorite things to do lately is to try to scare you. If you say “Dáme un susto,” he gives out a little scream, and waits for you to respond with an “Ay, qué susto!” Then he laughs. He finds it very funny, and it is handy to use when he is otherwise upset because it distracts him from whatever is upsetting him and makes him laugh. It also comes in handy when he meets someone new. Normally he doesn’t like to interact with strangers, but if we tell him to give them a “susto,” he does it, laughs, and gets over his shyness very quickly.
Open, Close, Open, Close...
Eric still isn't walking on his own, but lately has been much better about walking alongside us, only holding one hand for emotional support. He has been standing by himself for long periods, though, and he will let go and take a step or two, from time to time, to get from the coffee table to the sofa, for example. He is so proficient at getting himself around quickly by pulling himself around from place to place that he hasn't really found the need to walk on his own yet. There are times that I, walking, can barely keep up with him.
I found a piece of mommy's chocolate in a kitchen drawer, and it was yummy!!
I did finally get through all of his clothes, and now have them pretty well organized, but I finally had to admit that maybe a little bit of help around the house wouldn't be such a bad thing. Mauri had been pushing for it for quite some time, so, finally, I talked to a friend of mine who cleans houses to see if she would like to help me out for a few hours once a week. She had just finished up with another "contrato," and was, once again, without a job and looking for whatever she could find. Sadly, that's pretty typical here because the laws are so strict, to supposedly protect the workers, that nobody actually hires anybody anymore. So, people look for jobs, and find 3 month contracts from time to time, when lucky, only to find themselves without a job when the contract ends. She ended up jumping at my offer, and I decided that the only way to actually make the process work was to find a place to bring Eric so that I could actually work alongside her. I couldn’t imagine myself playing with Eric while somebody was cleaning my house.
I ended up bringing Eric to l' Escoleta because I wanted him to get used to spending time with other kids and to spend a little time without being attached to mommy 24-7. Overall, that has worked out well. The first day I brought him there, he was a little upset about not having mommy there when I first left, but then he decided to rely on his favorite Maite, who was only too happy to finally be his main focus of attention.
He seemed to have fun with all of the new toys there, and loved being able to open and close the doors of their playhouses. Opening and closing things is definitely one of his biggest obsessions lately, and he loves to open and close whatever he can, whether it be doors, drawers, Tupperware containers, water bottles…; the list is endless really. I have to be careful about what he has hidden behind the doors he has opened, too.
One day I turned on the washing machine, and it started to make a very loud, strange sound. I opened it to find that there was a metal box inside that I usually use to keep my refrigerator magnets on the fridge. Since Eric likes to play with it and the door of the washer, it wasn't difficult to guess how it got there. Another day I found my electronic kitchen thermometer in there, luckily, though, before I started to run the machine, destroying it.
Then, the other day I thought I had lost the shoes that Eric usually wears lately. I had looked all over the house and car, and had even looked at the Escoleta. Later on, though, I realized that they were hidden in a piece of furniture in the living room. Eric had opened the door and hidden them neatly inside. I should have known. Anyway, I'll get back to my story.
I thought I would use the time that my friend helps me clean to better organize Eric’s room and the office, but instead find myself working right alongside her so that we can talk pretty much the entire time. It’s incredible how much time we’ve ended up putting into the house, when you add up the time each of us has spent individually, and sometimes it seems that that house isn’t that much different. At least, though, I know that certain hard to reach areas that hadn’t been touched in awhile are now nice and clean. So, as I do the things that I really need to do myself, like clean out the fridge or organize the kitchen drawers, she helps me clean the kitchen windows or stovetop. It’s nice because many weeks I can’t get to the tasks that I really want to because I am so busy with the everyday tasks of picking up after Eric, vacuuming up dog fur, etc. etc. I could go on, but you can get the idea. I still have to do the everyday things, but don’t have to spend so much time on the weekly all-over cleaning, and can dedicate that time to actual organization. Plus, it is much nicer to look forward to cleaning with somebody else than trying to do it by yourself, or, worse yet, trying to do it by yourself as Eric is pulling everything apart as you are tidying it. There were certain tasks that just weren’t getting done because I just couldn’t do them with Eric around, but I was afraid to do them while he was napping because I didn’t want to wake him up. So, for now, it’s working out. The last two weeks have been great, and I do feel like I have finally been able to accomplish something. I have moved most of the things-I-need-to-find-a-spot-for to the office, and I’m not looking forward to trying to organize that. Other than that, though, and going through my wardrobe filled with numerous sizes of clothes, I’d have to say that the rest of the house is once again pretty well organized.
Happy Halloween!
Eric’s visits to the Escoleta the last two weeks have been great because they allow him to socialize with the other kids. On Halloween, we went for their party, and I noticed that he was going from kid to kid, taking their toys away to play with them himself. If anybody tries to take something from him, though, he throws a fit!! So, I think a few hours a week there will be good for him. It might not be all perfect, though. We both spent Friday night vomiting from what was likely a virus going around. Being at the school means that he is more likely to catch whatever is going around. Supposedly the last few weeks a highly contagious virus has been keeping lots of kids out of class. It usually lasts several days, and affects all parts of the digestive system. In our case, though, we were only vomiting, and it only lasted one evening. Both Eric and I had our appetites back the next day; so, hopefully we were lucky and got over whatever it was quickly.
He’s also gotten over the teething tantrum stage from a few weeks ago. There were a few days in which there was nothing I could do to keep Eric happy. I tried to play with him, and he would just get angry and throw the toys around and scream. It was right around the time that he was getting his upper incisors. They had been slowly coming in over the last few weeks. The upper right came in a couple of weeks ago, and the left upper was following right behind, but didn’t actually break through the gums until last week. It looks to me like there are other teeth that are ready to come in too. Hopefully they won’t bring back the teething tantrums.
The Feber tricycle that we ended up returning. What good are rearview mirrors without actual mirrors anyway?
I’m trying to remember some of the other things that Eric and I have been doing. We ended up buying him a tricycle with some of the money that people had given us for Eric’s birthday. It seems to me that the toys here are so much more expensive than their US counterparts, and are often of really bad quality. Maybe I’m wrong, though, and it could be more of a problem of the times and not a regional one. Let me explain. At first we spent around 100 Euros on what appeared to be the best tricycle of the toy store. We had one of the girls who worked there help us out because they didn’t have any of the tricycles actually set up and on display. From the boxes, it was difficult to tell if the tricycles were going to have rubber or plastic wheels, if they were going to be of high or low quality, etc. After about a half an hour of help, we chose the “best” tricycle in the store, a Feber Maxi Trike, and went home to put it together. After wasting a couple of hours putting the thing together, I decided that the quality was really inferior. For 100 Euros, you’d expect a tricycle that should stand up to a kid playing with it for several years, especially when you choose a model that is supposedly good for ages 1-3+. It was really plastic-ky, though, and when we tried to maneuver the optional handle for parents to push it around, a necessity for Eric at such a young age, it felt like the handle was going to break off.
New Berchet tricycle; much better!
So, I spent another couple of hours taking it back apart, trying to fit it back into the box, and taping it all back up again. I was very careful about getting everything perfect because stores here tend to be very particular when it comes to taking things back. We were met by the very same store clerk who had sold us the tricycle a day or so before, and she seemed very surprised that we were back with the tricycle. She almost seemed offended that we would bring it back after she had spent the time on helping us choose that particular model. I described the problem, and she made sure to tell me that nobody else had ever complained before. So, I felt the need to tell how I had done some internet research and had found that many other people were just as unhappy with this model, and that others had also chosen to return it. I said that I wanted something that looked like it would hold up to a child playing with it; something not so plastic, and even a customer had to chime in with her comment that they are all plastic nowadays and she gave us a “you are such whiny complainers” look.
The clerk seemed to be looking for reasons not to take it back. (“You mean you actually put it together and you are bringing it back?”) So, she called over another clerk to look it over and make sure it was all OK. Luckily the other clerk was much nicer, and she took us to see if we could find something more to our liking. She pointed out another trike that was a couple of Euros cheaper because it didn’t have some of the extras like the sun shade and the music on the Feber tricycle, but it seemed to have a sturdier, mostly metal construction. In actuality, neither of those extras was very worthwhile to begin with anyway. The music of the Feber sounded like bad, old, off-key Christmas lights, and the sunshade was much too low and brushed against Eric’s head even at its highest position. The wheels on this new model were also entirely rubber, and not plastic with a rubber center like the other. When we had chosen the first tricycle, I had made a point to say that I didn’t care about music or a sun shade, and that I preferred a quality tricycle; luckily this new clerk understood me and pointed out a better model.
So, we put the new tricycle together, and I was relieved that we were very happy with it. I didn’t want to have to deal with making another return! Eric loves riding around in his tricycle, and it is so much easier to maneuver around than the first one was. Plus, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to fall apart. As he gets older, we can make the tricycle bigger because it has several different size settings, and we can take off the parent handle, unblock the pedals, and Eric will be able to pedal it around like an ordinary tricycle.
Our other challenge lately has been Eric’s eating habits. He is becoming more of an individual and likes to decide for himself when and if he will eat something. It is very difficult to feed him some foods that he used to love. He is also uninterested in pureed food anymore. That makes it difficult to get him to eat proteins in particular because he still has a hard time eating meats, but doesn’t want the pureed versions that he used to happily eat. He also prefers to eat when we are eating, and he prefers to use our larger silverware, and shuns his baby-sized plastic spoons. Luckily he likes to eat eggs, and he loves a little bit of protein powder mixed in with his Greek yogurt. We’ve also found that he will eat some chicken meatballs I found, and hot dogs, but I prefer not to give him those very often. Little by little we are finding new foods that he likes to eat. He likes to exert his independence, though, and usually prefers foods that he can eat himself. His favorite foods are bananas and yogurt, and sometimes I’m tempted to just keep giving him those foods, especially when he hasn’t been eating well, but I know that he needs to get used to a variety of foods. It has been easier to take him out to eat again lately, and one place where he has been happily eating is our favorite Chinese restaurant. He especially loves the shrimp flavored appetizers, but also enjoys their fried rice, egg rolls and desserts, of course.
I guess I should add a little bit more about the rest of us before I end this post. Mauri has been doing well, and the doctor told him he could start to walk around using only one crutch. He, of course, took that to mean that he could walk around without his crutches sometimes, and does just that. Hopefully he is at least careful about it. I’ve realized that nothing I can say will make him do what his doctor tells him to do, so I let him do his own thing, and hope all is OK. If all stays as is, he will not need an operation. He has been keeping busy with the boat, and they spent their entire month of time off for the biological stop to fix up boat things, as usual. So, pretty much every day last month from 8AM to 8PM he was gone to that; back to reality, I guess. On Nov. 30th, he has another appointment with his doctor, and more x-rays, so we will know more again soon.
I’ve begun working on his baby clothes quilt and a couple of other projects that I will write more about soon. I’ve also been having fun making books from online publishers and making Eric t-shirts from transfers. We got a new printer, after my old one broke down, and I’ve been playing with that. I made Eric a couple of t-shirts, having printed out transfers from pictures I found online. Then I started to be concerned about copyrights, and decided to make my own art. I’ve been learning a bit more about how to use Photoshop and have been playing with it a lot more lately too. So, I made Eric an Andy Warhol inspired Sheena t-shirt, which makes Eric say “wuau wuau,” of course; and a photoshopped comic of Eric and Sheena. He seems to really like his new clothes.
Well, this post has gotten long, and it’s getting late. So, to make sure that I will publish this ASAP, I will publish now with pictures and only a couple of videos. In the next few days, though, I will go through and find some more videos to upload and add to this post, or maybe add to a new one. So, make sure to check back and look them up.
I have also started to get together a YouTube playlist of the various Eric videos I've uploaded so that you can see them more easily whenever you like. Here's the link to the videos I've added so far. I'll try to keep adding more as I go to keep things organized.
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