Mexico 2010

Ahhh... another Autumn trip to the Mexican Riveria. We stayed in the Iberostar Paraiso Maya resort, the same one we did last year. We flew on a direct flight from Pittsburgh on USA 3000. Not your common airline. Even when we arrived at the airport, the sign that said where to check in for USA 3000 was practically home-made and also incorrect. One of the airport workers told us to go to the Delta line. The flight was uneventful. The kids ate some of their halloween candy during the flight and read or drew. Below is a picture of Asia and Zach fighting for the air-conditioning vents once we got on the shuttle to the hotel.

After checking into the hotel, we decided to talk to our rooms instead of waiting for the typical golf carts that can zoom you off to different destinations. On the way, we ran into a family of coatis. I remember seeing one or two last year, but their were tons of little baby ones this year.

In this picture, you can tell Asia is looking at something - the camera flashed off its eye.

In this third picture, I took a walk alone in the morning and the boardwalk was covered with these little coatis. Here's a video of them. You can either play cute music in the background or think menacing music as they sneak up behind me ready to attack!

Someone forgot to tell us about the early time change in Mexico. We were ready to go to lunch only to find they were still serving breakfast the next day at what we thought was still noon. It took us awhile to get used to having a later lunch and a bigger breakfast or multiple breakfasts. The main lunch buffet didn't open til 1 PM. Breakfast was served til 11:30 AM. We eventually figured out you could snack packs of cookies, fruit and granola bars from the breakfast buffet to save for munchies later on. I even grabbed some for the airplane ride back.

When it came to the meals, it would have helped to be able to speak more Spanish. I found that true in Paris as well. When you're in a restaurant and want to know the ingredients of a dish in a foreign country, basic language skills just aren't up to par. I stumped a few of the cooks/servers when I asked for soy milk one morning. I was shown the oatmeal and the dried oats. Eventually I learned to just ask the bartenders and drink servers for soy milk for my coffee instead of the line cooks. Another time I asked whether the eggs had milk in it and the server had to get another manager out who could speak English. He looked like a college student and his English was pretty good. He asked if I had a milk allergy and I nodded, not about to explain that it was really just a lactose intolerance. I basically learned to take lots of Lactaid pills or else avoid anything that had white stuff on it - assuming it was cheese or sour cream.

Some of the perks of the hotel room? Patio balcony of course. Jacuzzi tub - definitely. Stocked and often replenished mini-fridge full of water, sprite, beer, and other drinks.

Swim up bar.... Asia loved swimming up to that bar and asking for a kid's pina colada.

Reading poolside....

The wave pool....

The kids are wearing the funky blue swimcaps because they were in the kid's club. One way for the counsellors (aka babysitters) to know which kids were theirs.

The beach....

The food... Each night you could sign up for a different theme restaurant or just eat at the buffet. The star below is of fried rice - Japanese steakhouse restaurant. Unfortunately the kids were so tired this night that they almost fell asleep at the table, so we skipped out on dessert.

But most other times we helped ourselves to the appetizer and dessert buffets.

I don't know if you can tell, but the pastry to the right is in the shape of a swan - cream-filled. And the chocolate molten cake next to it was decadent. Not that I felt that great afterwards, but I couldn't resist!

Zach ate really well in Mexico - buffet-style always helps when you have a picky eater. Here he's enjoying some ribs while John flashes the big 4-1 for his birthday dinner.

Early morning walks on the beach.. John and I would trade off...

The scenery of course...

And the towel sculptures!

In this third picture, you'll see a towel birthday cake. John's 41st birthday. The kids made him cards and tried to keep John happy all day. A couple of times, Zach got grumpy over something like losing a chess game to John, and then Zach would remember it's a special day and give John an extra hug. Below is a picture of John reading Asia's birthday card and wearing a paper hat she made him.

Chess was a favorite pasttime for John and the kids. I played one game against Asia and she forked me twice, castled, and checked me once. I did eventually win but not without some cool calculations against my 7 year old. I played Zach twice. The first time, he checkmated me in about 3 moves. The second time, it took a few more moves before he once again checkmated me.

Asia even did her homework - half of it at least - while in Mexico. The little boy who shall remain anonymous forgot his homework at school so he ended up doing it all on the Monday that we got back. Luckily Zach's teacher only gave him a little homework. Mr. G had told me that he wanted Zach to enjoy his vacation. Asia, on the other hand, had gobs of homework that she spent most of that Monday evening finishing up what she didn't get to in Mexico. They only missed 3 days of school yet it seemed like Mrs. M had given Asia an entire week's worth of schoolwork.

Another part of the resort the kids liked was the mini kids club. You could sign them in during the day and they can meet other kids their age - many from New Jersey who had the week off or Quebec or Toronto. At night, there would be the mini-disco on the stage. One night, we found the kids doing the hokey-pokey on stage and then a game of musical chairs. John and I had gone out to the French Gourment restaurant that night which was adults only, so the kids went to the kids' club for dinner. I don't think they would have gone up on that stage if they had been with us, since they were with the club counsellors, they didn't have any choice but to participate.

Notice how many kids are starting out in musical chairs? Now watch the two videos to see the outcome of the game.




The final two had to run around their chairs as well as around the host. And the winner is?

The happy couple

episode

Bummer. Zach thinks he had a seizure last night. He has been sleeping in the living room because John replaced the outside door in his room (goes to an old patio above the garage) with a window and since it's so dusty and smells like chemicals. John and I went out last night to hear a concert and didn't get back til 1 AM so perhaps are coming back in the house messed up Zach's sleeping patterns. Or maybe it's because he didn't eat well that day. It's hard to say this time. But it's been almost a year since Zach has had a seizure! That's the good thing.

what am I raising?

Asia made a disconcerting comment today. Something that caused me to question how I was raising her.

She said, "Mom, I just want to be a talented mom."
"What do you mean?" I asked, thinking maybe she was trying to get at something else.
"There's so much I want to do and I want to do it all at home."
I was still confused, so I continued to prod her. "But you need money to live. How are you going to live?"
Her reply, "Oh, my husband can work. If I need to, I can sell some paintings."

Where did she get this? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being a mom. Or even a talented mom. Asia mentioned that she had many talents. I was thinking, maybe she was awestruck by all the mothers of her friends who are dedicated to their children and show up at their children's plays and volunteer? But this thing about not having to work and her husband can support her? Where did she get this? It's not like that is the model she sees in our house. I'm racking my brain thinking of any TV shows that she watched recently that might have instilled this notion of hanging out at home to do whatever she wanted while the husband worked. Now it's very possible that Asia meant she wanted to be an artist and work at home. And maybe she's the kind of artist that doesn't want to commercialize. It's intriguing. I'll have to bring up this subject with her again to see what she meant. Of course, she said all this as we were driving to pottery studio class. And who's idea was it to go? Mine, of course. And again, there's no problem with being a mom and wanting to stay home. Or even aspiring to be a mom and stay home. But I think most of us have aspirations to be something. And you want your kids to want to be something. I'll have to get to the bottom of this.

Science Fair

The West View Elementary Science Fair is upon us. Guy U and I have agreed to chair it again for the PTA. Not that anyone else wanted or asked us to do it. We just took interest in it last year after hearing some complaints about way things were run and we were willing to work with the teachers to make changes. At first, there was the fear of whether we'd get some backlash regarding any modifications, but surprisingly enough the teachers here are very accommodating. "You want to change the judging rubric? Sure! You want to split out the information packets? Go for it!" Of course, I did sense a little frustration when some of the changes didn't go as smoothly as planned, but we learn from our mistakes. We also have lots of volunteers who are very willing to help and have great suggestions. You never know if you're going to get stuck working with people who either don't give a rat's ass about the entire situation or fight you every step of the way. Even our temporary principal has given us the thumb's up for every idea.

Asia, as usual, wasn't sure what she wanted to do for the science fair. At first, she was going to show how to make a home-made lava lamp. Then she heard from me that there were some other kids that were doing the same thing. (Evidently other moms read the same Family Fun magazine that I do!) So Asia started to veer towards doing something with eggs. Last year she did a project in Mrs. S's class with turning an egg all rubbery by soaking it in vinegar. This prompted Asia to have her science project about what makes eggs the worst - Sprite, water, vinegar, Coke. You'd think it was the vinegar, but from the outside, Sprite made the egg look all cracked and bloated and yellowish. With the vinegar, at least the egg still looked like an egg. So this year, I looked for projects with eggs again and we found one where you can make an egg float by putting salt in the water. Asia then tried to see if she could get a glass bead or quarter to float. She used about 15 teaspoons of salt and no luck. John noted that if she put enough salt in it, the egg would definitely seem to float. It'd actually be sitting on a mountain of salt. I started trying to explain density to my dear daughter and she started to get flustered. This past weekend we finally agreed on what her science project would be - what cereal will get mushy faster. Of course, she wanted to throw Sprite into the mixture, so instead of what cereal will get mushy faster in milk, it was what cereal will get mushy faster in Sprite. I was able to explain to her that most people eat cereal in millk so it would make more sense to measure cereal in milk rather than Sprite. Thankfully she agreed.

I remember when science fairs were less about consumer science and more about your usual science basics. Our family did projects such as how birds fly and a model radio kit. I have a picture of my friend Denny holding a huge conch shell to her head. Now the popular science projects are what popcorn pops the fastest or what diaper holds more water. I even found some science fair suggestions like what food makes you produce gas. Anything to make science more interesting for kids these days!

Today we started Asia's project by choosing the cereals for her experiment. She almost took the opportunity to buy all sugary cereals like Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Lucky Charms. I got her to agree on Froot Loops, Total, and Cheerio's. Right away, she thought that Froot Loops would get soggy last because it has a coat of sugar. I like how she knew that it was a sugar bomb. Then it was a toss-up between Cheerio's and Total. She doesn't usually eat Total corn flakes and she said she has had Cheerio's before when they were mushy. Based on past experience, she was going to choose Cheerio's as the first to get soggy but then after I insisted she look at the two cereals and munch on them first, she thought the Total will get soggy first because it's so thin. Tomorrow or this weekend, we start the experiment and we'll see just what cereal gets mushy first.

Zach's project is going to be on what cleans stains off glass better - Windex, Vinegar, or Soap and Water. The tough thing is we were going to use a pane of glass or something and put some hard stains on it - dried jelly, marker, but I was hoping we'd have something in the basement to use. I haven't found anything yet so I'll have to keep looking. I asked him to write in his journal today because it's required for experiments and he wrote one line - I hypothesize that vinegar will work better. Then he got carried away on to something else. It's tough drawing the line between how much you help your older child when you think he should be able to do some of these things on his own. Yet he sees how much time you spend with his younger sibling and you hope he doesn't read into that.

Well we'll see how things go as our science fair experiments progress.

Mothers Day

Yet another bittersweet Mother's Day. It's always tough around this time of the year because I usually have a band concert and Asia has a dance recital which is what brought my mom to come and visit one weekend two years ago so that she would get to see all these great things along with Zach's musical. She did see Zach's performance and Asia's dress rehearsal and dance recital. Unfortunately she had a heart attack before she could make it to my band recital. So every early May, a little part of me is really sad when I'm playing at my band concert or watching Asia's dance recital.

Sometimes I applaud my kids' teachers because I think if they didn't force their students to make a card for their mothers for Mother's Day, some mothers wouldn't get a thing for Mother's Day. Asia made this cute card with a little pin that had her picture on it. Her card reads:

"Roses are red. Violets are blue.
Look at the Sky. The sky loves you.
When the violets are blue I love you.
When roses are red that's when I love you as much as a circle is round."

Zach wrote a poem on a cut-out heart but thought it didn't look that great so he put half the poem on a heart card.

"No matter the cost
I am always there
I know what you're thinking
Your heart will not tear."

Where do they come up with this stuff? They're so good! You have to cherish this stuff now. Here's the two scenario's I envision when my kids are teenagers.

Scenario 1: Zach walks in my office and tosses me a card. "Here mom." He leaves quickly so that he can return to his computer game. It's a Hallmark card signed simply "Zach." My daughter walks into the room and gives me a flower, saying: "Happy Mother's Day! I'm going to the mall. Can I have some money?"

Scenario 2: I walk down the stairs to the smell of food cooking. Asia yells out, "Mom, have a seat at the dinner table. Enjoy a glass of wine!" Zach pulls out the chair so I can sit down. John is cooking something fantastic at the stove. Both children and dear husband sit down and we enjoy a delicious home-cooked dinner over great conversation. Relaxed. Unforced.

Ha ha ha! I can dream. Or I can start training them now for scenario 2! Kids, get in the kitchen now and cook me some food!

So back to reality, I spent some time on Mother's Day reading a book and relaxing on the couch. Not unlike most Sundays. I was reading "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" for my book club. Of course, I get to the part where the dad dies. It is just so well written and I know so well what narrator Francie is going through. She realizes that her Papa is gone. That she will never hear him come walking up the stairs singing a song. That all she has left of him is a shaving cup with his name on it. I couldn't help but get teary while reading that section. Then to top it off, later on John and I were watching the end of a movie on the Reel channel. It was an old movie with Ann-Margaret. She has 10 children and lives on a farm, but then she gets some kind of cancer that only gives her a little time left to live. Her husband is an alcoholic and has a hard time keeping a job, also because of his arthritis. He's not a bad dad but they know that he can't take care of the kids, so she decides to find parents for all ten children. Little by little she gives away each of her children. The hardest to find a home for is her 6 year old who has epilepsy. She ends up having to bring him to a children's home for retarded children. Just before she dies, she takes one last bus trip to see all of her children. You can tell that she's in a lot of pain and she is travelling, but she tries to hide it from her kids. As a somewhat happy ending, the 6 year old boy is adopted by a family who has already adopted one of the younger sons. And at the Mom's funeral, all the kids crowd around their dad because they realize now that he feels he has no one and they want him to remember that they're always a family. Gotta end in a happy note, right? Anyway, J and I were bawling our eyes out. Can you imagine having to give your kids away because you know you're dying! You have to watch Spongebob or something after that just to cheer yourself up.

Crazy Snow!

I don't know how much snow we got last night and this morning but it snowed everyone in. Anything that was supposed to happen last night and today was cancelled. We couldn't get out of the driveway. Asia, Zach and I shovelled all day. We were finally able to get out at around dinnertime with John carefully backing the van out of the driveway and then gunning it at the last bit to get out onto the road. He went around the block while I shovelled some more. Against all odds, the kids and I drove to Giant Eagle at McIntyre Square. The main goal was to get out of the house. Second was that Asia won a coloring contest at that Giant Eagle so I took her to get a prize. Problem is we got there and the kid's club had closed early due to the snow. Probably 15 minutes ago. Third thing was that I wanted to reward the kids for helping me to shovel. They both picked out stuffed animals at the store.


Here's some pictures of Asia shovelling the backyard. We gave up on it quite quickly to save energy for the driveway. But it was funny to watch. And you get an idea of the amount of snow. I think I'm going to be in major pain. I'm popping Ibuprofen like there's no tomorrow. Earlier on my arms felt like they were on fire. It reminded me of my college days when I helped with church summer camps and we'd go canoeing near Mansfield, OH. One time, I don't know if it was because the water was really deep and fast or not as deep, but I must have rowed alot because my arms hurt really bad the next day. I remember looking through the bathroom cabinets in the house I was staying to find some kind of pain reliever because my wrists and arms were so sore.
Also Asia wanted to try out the swing. Ha!

it's a snow day, it's a play day

I remember reading this baby mickey mouse book with Asia and Zach. It was one of those picture books where there was one sentence per page that rhymed throughout. This one had baby Minnie, baby Donald, baby Mickey and baby Pluto. They were having fun in the snow. "It's a snow day!" I thought of this book because it's snowing like crazy outside. It's quite beautiful. All the dead plants and weeds and eye sore broken sidewalks are covered in white. I can't even see our front pathway. Here's a picture of our backyard. The only one who's been out is Jersey. Hopefully the kids and I can have some fun outside making a snow fort tomorrow, though we'll see. Both kids have birthday parties to go to tomorrow. And Asia has pottery class. We like to keep our kids busy. Less time to spend in front of the TV or computer.

asia birthday

Asia got her birthday present today - an electric guitar. Hannah Montana style. Only because it was a better quality and cheaper price. John searched online for different child-size electric guitars. I just heard Asia yelling upstairs - "I've been waiting my whole life for this!" This has been since she went to play at her friend Paige's house who also got an electric guitar and microphone for her birthday. Asia, Lydia, and Paige will rock out and created a rock band called something like Hannah Montana Girls. I don't think Asia has even watched a Hannah Montana TV show or movie.

We also had a small birthday party for her in honor of her real birthday. Her actual party will be in a week. Gives us more time to get the kitchen ready since it's under construction. Asia and I made the ugliest cake ever. She wanted two layers to it and purple on the top with blue and stars all around. So we made stars and letters out of white chocolate. Then the first layer of the cake was strawberry and the top half was pumpkin. That was because I only bought one box of Strawberry cake mix and happened to have another box of pumpkin cake mix in the cupboard. We were making this cake more for fun anyway, not so much to eat it. We're not a big cake-eating family. Pies though don't last more than a few nights with restraint. Berry pies. Pumpkin pie. Apple pie.

Here's a video of the small party we had.