Delight Incarnate

Our son is three years old today. We celebrated with friends and family on Saturday the 3rd with a Cinco de Mayo-esque fiesta - 50+ people, a Taqueria lunch truck, and a refrigerator full of Mexican beer. I think this is the last year for our grand style fiesta - I've wanted to make the party as much a celebration of the community that supports us as it is of our son. But I imagine that next year ds will have more of opinion about how he would like to celebrate - like at a Build a Bear Workshop or something - and that's what we'll do.

I'll post a bunch of pictures from our party and they can tell the story. I'm grateful for all of them because they represent so much joy and will help us all remember this perfect day. Most of all I want to remember the look on ds's face when we sang him Happy Birthday and Las Mananitas (the Spanish language equivalent). He looked so sweet, shy, and delighted - my eyes filled with tears and I thought my heart would burst with gratitude to be present at that moment when he *got it* that he was the focus of the celebration. That *he* was the reason that we were all there in such lovely communion.

Let the Party Begin!



With my mom and ds's godmother:



So many friends:










With my mom and ds's godfather:



Everyone wants a piece of that pinata!













Here is the picture worth a thousand words. Here is delight incarnate:



We had a treasure hunt (featuring Ring Pops):












With Poppy Hoot (dh's father) and Papa (my father) - capping off a perfect party with Ring Pops:



The end of a perfect day. Asleep only 2 pages into Goodnight Moon:

Better Together

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary. This Spring makes 15 years that we have been together as a couple. Before I met dh I dated a wonderful man who asked me to marry him. He was a wonderful man but we did not share the same sense of humor and rarely laughed. He was so lovely in all other respects that I gave his proposal serious thought. I asked my mom if perhaps a sense of humor becomes less important over time. Wise woman that she is she answered emphatically, "It's even more important!" So I declined the proposal, broke up with the wonderful man and met dh soon after. On our first date we shared our favorite jokes - the ones that usually elicited groans from others, but brought us sheer delight. And 15 years later we're still cracking each other up. Tonight we went out and laughed so hard that tears came to our eyes and my stomach hurt. We've traveled over some rough road but it just gets better and better. I am so grateful I get to live, love and laugh with this man. I am over the moon for my sweet - and very funny - little family. (Can you see ds is wearing a Superman shirt and his own improvised cape?)

No Such Thing As Bad Weather

I've written before how our dog, Zoe, taught me over the years that there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing. It turns out my son is a very quick study. He loves to be outside and usually disparages what I consider appropriate clothing - say, a coat and hat when it is 30 degrees and windy. He loves his rainy weather attire, though. And is there anything more delightful than seeing a toddler in Wellies? We had a fine morning jumping in puddles, putting worms that had been washed into the road back on to the more forgiving earth and talking about the rain scenes in one of our favorite movies, My Neighbor Totoro. (Remember when Kanta gives Satsuki and Mei his umbrella? Remember when Totoro wears a leaf to cover his head from the rain?)

The Be-All-End-All of Birthday Cakes

For many, many years I have been making the Be-All-End-All of Chocolate Birthday Cakes for my dh. The original had 3 layers and frosting made from 3 giant Hershey bars, 2 sticks of butter and a whole box of confectioner's sugar. I took a break from making it the last 2 years - who has the 3 hours required of such a creation with a baby in the house? Dh bore the absence with considerable grace, but this year he asked "Do you think you might make my cake again this year?" and I knew how important it was to him and I realized I was happy to do it. I decided that any cake, though, had to be easier than the one I made all those years, and was intrigued by a recipe I found in the Oprah magazine, "a luscious and perfect three-layer blackout cake - a menage a trois of opulent, buttery filling, rich but not overpowering frosting, and perfectly moist cake." I mean, Come On, who could resist? And I'm glad I didn't - it is amazing, truly terrific, pure pleasure. I'm also glad it'll be another year before I will make it again. It was more time and labor intensive than the other one! It even calls for a candy thermometer, which I don't have, to get the perfect boil on the frosting. And then you have to strain it through a fine sieve! Okay, while I can't recommend this recipe for everyone, I was especially pleased and delighted to offer it as the quintessential labor of love for my sweetie.

We scanned some photos of The Cake from birthdays past: here it is in 1995. Dh is with friends from his college days.


Here it is in 1997. Dh is with a friend from his high school and who was my house mate in the early 90's in Chapel Hill. And then we all happened to converge in New Haven where he and I both attended graduate school at Yale. We haven't had contact with him in years and hope to see him on our doorstep or on a local street corner soon.
Here it is in 1999 when Zoe was just a pup.

We could have gone on for many more years, but you get the idea. Here it is, present day, in all it's glory. It only had one candle, but ds asked that it be lit and blown out again and again, almost approximating the number of years since dh's birth.

Happy Birthday, darling, we love you!

Lago Atitlan

A dear friend who now lives in San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico hoped to meet us at Lago Atitlan, but our dates of travel coincided with a trip he needed to make back to his home in Barcelona, Spain. He is an amazing photographer and today he surprised me by sending a photo he took of Lago Atitlan 10 years ago. It is without a doubt the most beautiful picture I have ever seen of the lake and comes close to capturing its magic at sunset.

(Gracias hermano por la foto y claro que nos encontraremos en otra ocasión muy pronto.)

Al Infinito y Mas Alla!

We're back! And it was an amazing trip. I have traveled to many, many different countries - most of Western Europe (Spain, France, Italy, Holland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, England, Scotland) and even a few Eastern European ones (East Germany, when it was East Germany, Czechoslovakia, before it was the Czech Republic, and Hungary), and huge tracts of Mexico, Guatemala and Ecuador. Learning about other cultures and getting to experience them first-hand is one of my passions. I just happened to marry a man who loves to stay home, and prefers to learn of other cultures, particularly ancient civilizations, from a good book. So it was a really big deal that he signed on for this trip. And it was a challenging one. (And that says a lot considering I lived for 6 months in the rural mountains of Mexico with no running water or electricity!) I think one of the most lasting impressions I will have from the trip is immense gratitude for my sweet little family. My dh and ds were the ones who really stretched out of their comfort zones and were so willing to follow my rather unconventional lead - and the fact that they did it with such goodwill felt like a huge testament of their love for me and for that I am very grateful.

The title of this post is from Buzz Lightyear's signature phrase in Toy Story, "To Infinity and Beyond!", but in Spanish, of course. The kids in our Guatemalan host family introduced us to their pirated version (dh and I had never even seen the original English version) and it was a huge hit with Carlitos (ds' middle name is Carlos). "Al Infinito y Mas Alla!" became the motto for our trip as every day brought great new adventures and it was fun to see the amused reactions we got when we were overheard, especially when families of young children chimed in as well. We also watched dubbed versions of Shrek, which was also very popular. A trip to the local market provided copies for us to take home and a Spanish version of Cars as a gift for the kids. (Since our return we have watched the movies many more times. It's clear that dh is continuing to improve his Spanish with every viewing. It makes me think of kids in Eastern Europe who learned English in the 1960's by listening to Beatles records over and over.)

Watching these movies with the kids was a definite highlight of our trip. It underscored how much we all enjoy the same simple pleasures. I really can't say enough positive things about the kids in our family - aged 8, 10 and 11. They were absolutely incredible. I think the greatest difference in our cultures is that Latino kids seem to genuinely enjoy spending time with small children. I have nephews who are 6 and 8 and they clearly want nothing to do with their young cousin. And who can blame them? He doesn't reliably share and he likes to tell you what to do. This did not bother the kids in our host family one bit. They were very interested in the toys ds brought with him, but when they saw he didn't want to share they were fine with it - even reassuring me when they saw that I was distressed that not only would he not share, but he would commandeer their toys as well - "Esta bien. No importa." ("It's fine. Don't worry about it.") Carlitos wanted to run around with them, seemingly endlessly, even interrupting their meals and yet they were always happy to oblige (grabbing a bite of their food as they came past their table). I found time to do things that were special interests of theirs - making jewelry with the girl and playing soccer with the boys - but it really was obvious that they accepted Carlitos for who he is and enjoyed him all the same and needed no other reasons to be with him. The host mom told me she hopes that when her kids are older they will be able to live in the US for a time as exchange students and I told her, whole-heartedly, that her kids would always be welcome in our home.

The hardest part of the trip was that Carlitos was definitely homesick for most of it. This really surprised me because he never expressed homesickness in any of our trips over the summer. It started the very first night as we sat on the bed in the room we were given in our host family's home: "I want to go home." Dh said, "Well, we are home." Ds, "Where are we going to sleep?" We said, "Right here on the bed." The funny thing was that the bed was a small double, and really was not big enough for all of us. The host mother seemed to have realized this as well and without prompting brought in a straw mat and pallet, ostensibly for Carlitos. Carlitos, however, has always slept with at least one of his parents and so he quickly made the assessment, "That's your bed, Daddy." And that's where Daddy slept. Didn't I say he was a trooper? Every day ds asked about his Grammy and our dog, Zoe, and said he wanted to go home and see them. This was touching and heart wrenching. So mostly we reflected back his sadness and validated it. Luckily, a friend (with 2 of her own kids and some experience with this issue) recommended that we bring a Bach flower remedy for homesickness and it really helped so much. After the remedy his sadness definitely had a lighter quality. I think the worst of the homesickness manifested after we watched Toy Story for the first time and ds remembered a Buzz Lightyear doll that my mom had given him a few weeks earlier, which had garnered little interest at the time. Now that he was introduced to the *real* Buzz he expressed more desire for that doll than I had ever seen for anything before. He was thrilled to be reunited with it and has been sleeping with it every night, just like the little boy in the movie.

In spite of the homesickness, it was obvious that ds was having a wonderful time. (We were very fortunate that there was no real illness. Both dh and ds had a day or two of GI distress, but not bad, and I felt great the whole time.) He played with the kids for hours each day and loved that we walked all day everywhere. (Which really reinforced our wish that we lived in a more pedestrian friendly town!) The opportunities for public transportation were also a bonus - ancient and reclaimed American school buses are used for trips into and out of town and ds and I rode on one every morning. We'd get out in some small town and walk around a bit until he would say, "I want to get on the bus again!" and we'd catch another back into town. The biggest change in Antigua since I was last there 6 years ago is that now there are hundreds of little motorized rickshaws (imported from India) called Tuc-tucs that ds LOVED. Every time he saw them he'd call out, "Look, mommy! A Tuc-tuc!" This was a lovely sing-songy refrain we heard all day. We only rode one once after ds and I had walked for well over an hour to the outskirts of town and were both tired. (And a little lost.) They are so much fun as they dart in and out of traffic - both motor and pedestrian. Dh imagined that a great scene in a James Bond movie would have a high speed Tuc-tuc chase.

We loved our Spanish lessons - dh took 4 hours in the morning and I had 3 hours in the afternoon. Of course, Carlitos just had more opportunities to be the little language sponge he is. The only thing is I think he thinks "momento" means "right now" - the kids in the family would be helping him with something, like building Legos, and they'd say, "Momento, momento" meaning, "Just a minute." And he would always respond with "Momento, momento!" like, "Right now!" Again, the kids would roll with it, no problem. It was thrilling to see how much he understood and could communicate in Spanish. He's generally pretty shy with strangers, but will reliably answer "Carlos" (with a perfect accent!) when asked, "Como te llamas?"

I have only scratched the surface of our adventures and have only talked about our life in Antigua - there are still many stories from Chichicastenango (the city that transforms into a huge indigenous market every Thursday and Sunday) and Lago Atitlan (a huge, pristine lake surrounded by volcanoes that, to me, is the most beautiful place in the world). Unfortunately our fancy digital camera broke within 10 minutes of bringing it out for the first time and so we relied on a disposable film camera. (Of course I have a huge album of pictures from my previous travels and really not so much has changed, so come over any time to see them!) My greatest disappointment is that we only got 2 pictures of Carlitos with the children from our host family. But, again, I have great hopes that we will be reunited again, perhaps in the US! For now you can see a few here that really do capture some lovely moments from a very special time. Just click on the picture to see a full frame.

At Probigua, our Spanish language school.


Probigua is an acronym for Proyecto Bibliotecas Guatemala or the Guatemalan Library Project. The tuition from the students serves as a source of much needed income to finance the school's mission to provide books to libraries and schools across the country. They also ask for a donation of Spanish language books from their students. Thanks to our friends we were able to bring down a huge box of books. A special thanks to Gillian who owns the Reader's Corner in Asheville and donated a whole set of encyclopedias!


Carlitos with his new best friend Andrez. We called Carlitos his sombra, or shadow, because he was always following him.


And there he is with Maria Teresa. The kids would play for hours running around. The older kids would pretend to fall down and Carlitos loved giving them a hand up.

We stayed at the lovely inn at Santiago Atitlan. It offers stone cottages with working fireplaces - ds and I loved maintaining the fire at a hearty roar each night. (Dh was most excited that there was a private bathroom and he didn't have to sleep on the floor!)


Carlitos also LOVED the lanchas, or motor boats, that are ubiquitous all around the lake as they are the main form of transportation to all the surrounding towns.



Here we are with the volcano, San Pedro, in the background. Truly this is the most magical place in the world.

One final note: Our host family, the director of our school, and the owners of the inn all told us that tourism (and thus the economy) has been adversely affected by reports in the media of instability in the country due to the recent elections. We never experienced any cause for concern and I hope this post will encourage others to travel to this beautiful country. I know my dh and ds are very happy to be home again but I can't wait to go back and hopefully it won't be too long before I can convince them to join me again!

Bring it

About two months ago I made plans for my family (dh and 2 1/2 yo son) to travel to Guatemala. We leave Thursday (!) and will live with a local family and study in a school for 2 weeks. Last week I started having all these fears about it, "Ds is just starting to use his potty consistently - what will taking him away from it do to this pleasant new habit? What if he cries at night and bothers the family? What am I thinking, taking my non-vaccinated child out of the country?!?" Talk about Law of Attraction - I just kept attracting one fearful thought after another until I realized what I was doing. Then I got really clear about my intentions: I traveled through Guatemala extensively and I love the country, but I haven’t been back since 2002, and very much want to see the changes, reconnect, and share it with my husband and son. Dh wants to learn Spanish and I want to improve mine. I know we will have an amazing time and will always be grateful that we did it. I realized that I was creating my fears with my thoughts and I could *choose* a better feeling thought and happily found that the next one and the next one were right behind it. Now I just keep riding that wonderful energy and I get more and more excited. Of course I will report on the trip when I get back, but I wanted to write now about my intention that in the new year I find more opportunities to move out of my comfort zone. Christine Kane recommends that you skip new year’s resolutions and instead pick a word that will guide you throughout the year. My word this year is "courage", or when I want to smile I’ll say, "Bring it."