This is the first vacation we’ve taken post baby.  And while we’ve gone to the beach a few times, it’s definitely a different vacation experience.    First of all, our days are ruled by M’s naps.  He still takes 3/day, so we often try to be in a place where he can sleep.  Secondly, when we go to the beach, Fabio and I can’t go in the water together, as it’s too cold for M (it’s also too cold for me, so this isn’t really a problem). But we now have to bring a sun umbrella with us, as well as all of M’s gear.  Third, we (I) are in bed early, because M gets up early.  Usually, we’re in bed around 8:30!  Vacation?!

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. It is 10:30, so I’m up past my bedtime. I can feel sleep tugging at my eyelids, but Fabio has asked me to stay awake until the ball drops.  I’ll try my best.

I can’t complain about our stay; the weather has been beautiful and we’ve eaten well.  I guess this is how our vacations will be for the coming years…

“We see that you have been a bilingual teacher in the past.”

I replied, “Yes, I have.”

“That’s great,” they said.  ”We have an opening in K-4, for a bilingual teacher.  Would you be interested?”

“I would be interested, but I did bilingual (or immersion, if you want to be picky) with French.  And I imagine that you want someone for Spanish”.

“You’re right.  It is for a bilingual Spanish/English school.  But…do you think you could do it anyways?”

WHAT?!?!??!

I sort of laughed and said I didn’t think my Spanish was strong enough to work in.  The lady I was talking with said, and I kid you not,

“Are you sure you don’t just want to try?”

My Spanish couldn’t get me from a school to a post office…how am I going to teach 25 4 year olds in the language?

I told her I was flattered, but that I really didn’t think I was the right candidate for the job.  She said that if they ever opened a French school in the district, she’d know who to call.

Oh la la!

Last Friday, I was in a 1st grade classroom.  I spent some time with a little boy (who has earned a reputation as a trouble maker, based on the teacher’s notes and the secretary’s info when I walked into the school). This little boy desperately wants to be able to read!  He picks out these giant books with tons of words, sort of like encyclopedias.  

When he called on me to help him read, he and another student were in the midst of dinosaurs.  They couldn’t read any of it (neither could a 5th grader, I’m guessing), so I read some and summarized it for him. I told him that dinosaurs ate different things, depending on their jaws.  Then I said, “do you know what your jaw is? Show me your jaws.” 

Now…say that aloud. What I put in quotes, say it aloud to yourself.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. This little boy thought I wanted him to show me his ‘drawers’.  (If you’re a foreigner, that means underwear!).

He looked at me, quizzically, put his hands on his belt, and I said “NNOOO!!!  Your JAW!” And pointed to my own.

Can you imagine what could have happened next????

Oh la la.

We Ferberized him. If you don’t know what that means, you probably don’t have kids. Dr.Ferber has published books on his sleep method.  We let him ‘cry it out’ at nighttime, as he was waking up 5 or 6 times/night. He now wakes up 1 or 2 times/night, which leaves us all better rested.  He can also put himself down for naps, and takes longer naps, now that we’ve trained him on this method.

Its a very controversial method…in fact, our pediatrician basically told us not to do it.  And some of the mommy groups I belong to told me the same thing.  But having a family that sleeps well at night means everyone is nicer to each other during the day.  I think its worth it.

On a different note…we joined the Y today. And Matteo went to the daycare.  Not one tear!! I worked out, went to get him, where he was in the arms of a daycare teacher, happy as a clam.  Phew!

Here’s to more time to do more posting…and more interesting posts to boot.

We just spent 5 days at the sea; me, Fabio, Matteo and Fabio’s parents. It went well, Matteo slept some and screamed when we put his feet in the water.  We got some sun, some relaxation, some good food…well, the food was good, according to me. These picky Italians always had something to complain about!

Matteo has been adjusting to the time zone and culture.  He now goes to his grandparents without crying,which is nice.  It took hin a few days to adjust to the time difference…and were going back home soon, so he’ll have to readjust. That’ll be our life for a while, I guess.

I took some pictures, and hopefully I’ll get around to uploading them soon.

Fabio and I were grocery shopping today. We were doing the self check-out, where Fabio was scanning all of the things we were buying. He likes doing this, and likes to think that he is more efficient than those who are trained for this job.

A little girl came up to him, while he was scanning items, and said,
“Excuse me? I’ve lost my sister and my dad.”
Fabio, still scanning the produce, didn’t even look up and replied,
“Yah. Okay, umm, just one second. Let me finish with this”.

WHAT?! Is this the any-day-now-to-be-daddy that I married 10 months ago?

Just a second? Let me finish ever-so-efficiently scanning my items while you are lost in the grocery store? Come on. Really?!

I, mother-to-be-any-day-now, side-stepped my husband and started talking with the little girl. As I was walking her to the customer assistance stand, she heard her sister calling her and turned around. The little girl who was lost asked her sister,
“Where’s dad?”.
Momentarily, neither girl knew where their father was. I was bringing them both over to customer assistance, when their dad called to them from 50 yards away.
They ran to him, and that was that.

As I asked Fabio what he was thinking, telling the little girl that he just wanted to finish checking out his items before dealing with her situation, he said,
“Come on. It was clear that it wasn’t urgent. She wasn’t crying. Why did she ask me, anyways?”.

Moral of the story: If you have something you want Fabio to deal with on the spot, you better start crying.

This first picture is Fabio’s dinner of house-cured sausage with something else, that I can’t remember.  He left pretty hungry…:>)

Fabio considering another plate of food…

The cheese dish we ordered for an appetizer.

(Sorry, I tried my best to get this picture to be right-side-up, as I was able to do for the other pics in this post, but wordpress tells me it’s mot possible. Go figure.)

The vegetarian plate I ordered…came with 3 pieces of grilled bread and 4 different vegetable sauces to spread on the bread. This was delicious!

Seeing as I can take pictures of my food, I can surely take pictures of my belly. It’s really hard to miss!  I will work on that this week.

These are my coworkers, protesting today, outside of a fundraiser for Jeff Stone.  Scott Walker was attending the fundraiser, so 6 of my coworkers (one was taking the picture) headed to this rally after work to do their 2nd job.

For some reason I can not make the picture any bigger but their sign reads “You break the law but we’re the thugs?”.  I love it!!

Kudos to you all for fighting for what’s right!