Morning Marathon

This morning was a bit chaotic ... to say the least.

After breakfast, before the girls and I could finish getting ready to get out the door, I had to send a very important, time sensitive, work email. Typing the email took me 2 seconds, but unfortunately my mailbox was so full that the message could not be sent out. You got to be kidding me, I thought. Could this possibly happen at a worst time? I frantically started deleting as many emails as I could, and kept checking to see if the email was sent.

In the meantime, Sofia yelled from upstairs that she needed my help.

"I need 5 minutes to do something for work. This is very important", I said.
"But I want a t-shirt and I can't reach it", she protested.
"You are going to have to wait, or pick something else you can reach. I really need to finish this first", I said.
"It is also important to help somebody who needs help", she said.

She had a point, but she was still going to have to wait.

In the meantime, Isabella was running wild downstairs. She started pulling our placemats from the kitchen cart where we keep them, and threw them all over the floor. "Bella, NO!", I said. But she did not care. She then moved on to the living room, taking toys out and spreading them all over the place.

All along I was still trying to get that message sent. It was 20 minutes later when I finally finished with work, and by then it was already late. So we got ready as fast as we could, and got out the door to officially get started with our days. We left our mess behind. We would deal with it at the end of the day.

Parent Teacher Conference

Yesterday was my very first parent teacher conference at Sofia's new school. Unfortunately it was at 3:15pm, so Lionel could not come along.

The conference went really well. The teachers told me that Sofia has come a very long way, especially considering that she had a really difficult time at the beginning adjusting to the new school, new friends, new routine. They said she no longer cries at school, takes a lot of pride finishing her work, and even tries to help other kids as much as she can. They also said that Sofia is always very concerned about others, which was no surprise to me as she has always had a very motherly instinct. They said that when she sees couple kids fighting she tries to intervene. If they do not listen to her, and one of them clearly has the upper hand, she calls the teacher for help. Apparently she also notices right away when one of her classmates is absent, and makes a point to ask the teachers why he or she is not there.

The teachers also said that initially Sofia tended to only choose activities she knew she could do easily, such as art projects. But now she is also comfortable choosing work that she knows will be challenging and has really gotten into subjects such as geography and math, even giving math lessons to kids struggling with it.

I was glad to hear that she is doing well learning all her subjects, but  I was ECSTATIC to hear that she is now a happy, confident little girl in her new surroundings.

Carving?!?

Sofia is very interested in learning how to read. She is constantly asking us: "How do you write this? How do you spell that?" The other day we were having dinner when she asked me: "How do you spell mom?" to which I promptly replied "In English, it is M-O-M. In Spanish it is M-A-M-I".

"M-O-M", she repeated. Only then did I notice that as I was telling her how to spell it she was CARVING it, with her fork, on the kitchen table.

Lionel and I were not happy with her. But we were certainly happy she at least expressed her artistic desires in the old kitchen table Vs the nice newer dinning room table. Needless to say, this reinforced why, although we certainly need it, we are not getting new furniture anytime soon.

Mi prendedor

Lately Isabella is talking a whole lot more. Not only she knows more words, but she can also pronounce them a lot more clearly. But from all the things she knows, I think the one I hear the most day in and day out is "Mami, cargue", or "Mami, pick me up". She is at that stage when she wants to be glued to me. She wants me to walk around the house holding her, she does not want me to put her down even to wash my hands, and wants to have dinner sitting right next to me, if not sitting on my lap.

Yes, sometimes it is annoying because that does not really give me much freedom to do all the things that need to be done around the house. And I could probably just ignore her and put her down. BUT, I know this stage won't last forever. And since I spend so much time away from them when I am at work, I am Ok with spending every minute with them when I am at home.

Happy baby. Cranky baby.

Last week Bella got sick. She started running a fever on and off Thursday morning. She couldn't go to school on Friday, and given that she was still running a fever Saturday morning we ended up taking her to the doctor. Unfortunately there was nothing they could do for her. They told us it was probably a virus and we were just going to have to wait for it to run its course.

Fortunately, Saturday morning was that last time she was running a fever. Unfortunately, she has been cranky ever since her symptoms started. Even though she went back to school yesterday, her teachers said she was pretty much out of it. She was not smiling, wasn't paying attention, and wasn't playing with her friends. Same thing at home.  She is just not her usual happy self. I don't like seeing her that way. I am dying to have my happy girl back.

Politics

Lately work has not been fun at all. My organization was split into two, with most of the people I have worked with throughout the years going to the other side of the house. And despite the fact that we all worked well together, developed friendships, and trusted and had respect for each other, it appears that all of that has been forgotten. Overnight, just like magic, those good work dynamics have been replaced by suspicion, by constant push backs, and a "not me" attitude. That makes me sad, angry, and disappointed. But above all, it makes me mentally exhausted. I don't like playing those games, and I wish people realized that we spend far more energy pushing back than it would take us to just get the work done to begin with.

Halloween

Lately I've been so busy and tired that I have not really had a chance to write. So as much as I would love to write about Halloween, the girl's costumes, or our very first time carving pumpkins, the following pictures will have to do the talking for me.