Stories of Sweet Lou

Louis still loves "The First 1000 Days", the baby journal i chronicled for him before he turned two. He still begs me to read from it and often too.  He finds the stories hilarious.  I guess it's what they say about children his age; they are self-centered (sounds horrible but they are) so what better subject than themselves!  As I read the entries to him, I realize that much of what I've written can apply to Sammy or any toddler under 2.  The developmental milestones are the same with timing slightly different (but who remembers when exactly when you are so sleep deprived!), I read the same books and sing mostly the same songs to Sammy so they've become his favorites as well.   Now with two kids, I have a lot less time to write.  I've had a cold for over 5 weeks which I don't have time to take care of!  The not finding the time to write part is a real shame though because the stories I could journal now are really "Louis" stories, stories unique to him & stories which are telling of who this wonderful little boy really is. Take last night for example.  I beat my kids to bed (only because I felt too sick to even give them a bath).  As I laid in bed, I felt little fingers stroke the hair off my face.  The hair kept falling back into place, over my eyes and the little fingers kept pushing the hair back.  I then felt a little kiss on my forehead, followed my another gentle kiss at the corner of my cheek.  Louis came to check up on me.  He didn't wake me, he didn't call me.  He just came to check on me.  Like i would on him but better. Last night made me think about how I often analyze my kids' moves, actions, words and I try to figure out if they've learned them from Peter, their teachers, their friends or worst, myself! Some things can't be taught.  Some things we are just born with.  Some things are just Louis... Wonderful, beautiful, Louis.

My summer plans changed

This was suppose to be the summer I started decorating our home.  You know, the fun kind of decorating where you spend money and you actually see it (unlike redoing the roof, replacing a drain for the bathtub).  This was the summer we were going to do some road trips now that we were out of the newborn phase.  This was the summer I was going to try a DIY project (painting a bed frame for Louis), compost in our backyard and make sure that my garden would live.  I was so looking forward to hosting dinners in our backyard. It's August now and not only am I not decorating, cooking or watering the plants at home, i'm  not even living there.  We're living at the Marriott Residence Inn, across from Ikea, while our home is being repaired. Our house got flooded.  I always loved staying at hotels (ok, I don't love the three-star ones off an Interstate highway in the US) but never in a million years did I think we would be hotel living for a month. It's kind of comfy here except for the bed (can't get a good night sleep) and despite having just two burners and no oven to cook with. And the laundry machines are in the basement and are coin operated.  In fact, those have been my excuses to cut down on cooking and laundry. Hubby says that the only people doing laundry downstairs is him & the other Chinese ladies.  I guess he married the wrong Chinese lady. Housekeeping cleans our rooms (yes, rooms...we have three here) every day. There's a sign that says they will do our dishes (by switching on the dishwasher and I can do that!) but for some

reason, we keep this place tidier than our own house. Just seems silly to waste the cleaning ladies' time & nasty intoxicating cleaning products every day.  I must admit though, I love getting our bed made. God knows I won't do it! We are testing a long term plan here: the boys are sharing a room.  It seems to be working out.  The other night, they must have said goodnight to each other 50 times while giggling away... Pretty adorable.  When Sammy screams for milk in the morning, we have Louis trained to run to the fridge to get his bottle but he still doesn't fully get the not-coming-to-wake-us-up part.  In a short period of time, Sammy is becoming the clown in this place.  He stands by the automatic front doors of the hotel and screams," Hoy moon!" which means open the door in Cantonese.  He can do that forever, really.  And when the sensor doesn't catch him, we get this deep Scooby-Doo- I'm-stumped sound coming out of his little body... pretty cute. Biggest annoyance this week is having to keep track of all our expenses.  We have to report every little spending to the losers.  Oh, the losers are otherwise known as the insurance people.  I feel like I need to justify why we buy wild blueberries, why my four year old prefers sushi hand rolls over McDonald's, why we go to Starbuck's more than we go grocery shopping (we're not proud but there's no other coffee option out here other than Starbuck's). It's like someone is watching our every move and it creeps me out!  We're suppose to expense everything that is costing us because we are out of our home.  Does a hair dye and facial count because since all this has happened, I am getting so much white hair and pimples due to stress.  I am resting more being here as I'm ignoring chores.  I feel like I'm a battery that is being recharged now so I can go back to fighting with the losers.  For now though, i will try and focus my energy on finding my husband a 40th birthday gift, doing some reading for my upcoming start of a new job (after 5 years of not working) and trying not to be too depressed when my best friend skips town on Wednesday.  So much to do before the end of summer.

Surprise holiday

Surprise, we're on holiday. No, really it's a surprise.  Just last Friday we talked about spending a few days in lake placid or trying a farm stay in vermont but this week we find ourselves in Bayahibe, Dominican Republic.  I say it's peter's fault that we're here and he says it was my idea.  Does it matter?  What matters is we are enjoying great sunny, hot weather and we are not missing the snow and chills of home.

Never say never.  I am not a spontaneous person (need my agenda to survive).  We booked online Saturday and left Monday (not surprising that lead to some confusion at the hotel check-in as they couldn't find our reservation).  As you can imagine, it was mad packing on Sunday ("Louis, try this on.  Does it still fit??").  I dug out my old bathing suits (note to self: get new bathing suits!) and didn't even get a pedicure (omg!  Actually I like going nude.  No worrying about my pedicure getting ruined on the trip!).   The real beauty of last minute traveling is there is no time to worry (and no time to shop which is probably why Peter agreed to this).

I said I wasn't interested in all inclusives.  I still don't think there is anything interesting about all inclusives but I'm not cooking any meals this week... Huge bonus.  I call this place the "compound".  We left the "compound" yesterday to visit a nearby tiny town called Dominicus.  There was a small coffee shop (latte was good as they used real milk and not the powdered milk as they do here in the "compound"), a few convenient shops (seeing the Fanta bottles made me reminisce about olden day travels to SE Asia), a few souvenir shops, a cigar shop and a handful of restaurants.  The town seems to exist to serve the ex-pat community working on the resorts.  We met a Tunisian man, Sofian, at the cafe who was running the diving shop in one of the resorts.  He spoke 7 languages, one of which was English so we were able to have a conversation.  Most people around here speak Spanish, Italian or French.  Very little English is used here.  Sofian described a very sad picture of Dominicans where the women will have several children with different men.  The men spend most of their salary on child support and the balance goes to drinking.  Not much is saved and there isn't a real notion of building a future.  He is obviously generalizing but the women I met working at the "compound" spend a good 15 hours working hard every day for maybe 7-10 days at a time before they get to go home to see their kids.  When asked who was watching the kids, they all said their mothers.  No mention of fathers at all.

We spent maybe 2 hours in the town but it did me good to get out into the "real" world.  If the kids were older, we would venture off to other towns.  The kids love the beach here (I think Sammy thinks it's all you can eat sand), the great big pool, and the pineapple juice!  Sammy seems to have my love for dance, rocking to bachata and salsa music in his high chair.  Louis is using "hola" and "gracias" as he makes new friends, young and old, every day.  Amazing to see how inquisitive and social he is at this age.  He made friends with an Italian boy, (their common language being soccer), a French Canadian boy (from Sherbrooke and doesn't understand a word of English) and lovely Dominicans who work here, Maira (he pronounces Maria and she wants a photo of him) &   Raymundo (the man who keeps reminding Louis that all the Louis he knows eats well).  Oh, btw, my little man is known as Luis here.

We are relaxed and probably more relaxed than any other vacation, near or far, that we've taken with the kids.  But a vacation with the kids is still relocation as there is a schedule to respect (+/- 2 hours!  Poor Sammy is exhausted), powdered milk to be given, and poopy diapers to be changed.  I see other couples here and I can't help but be a little envious as Peter and I are getting zero time alone (Luis demands that I sleep with him while Sammy demands that I be next to him every waking moment!).  The kids are happy, really happy so that makes us happy.  Perhaps next surprise vacation will be something for hubby and I?  For now, we'll enjoy the paradise we've found here at the compound.

I'm not sure if it's the boys who keep me busy or if it's me who keeps them busy. What I do know is it feels like we haven't stopped for days. Which is why I am writing about the weekend now. Which is why I just asked my husband what we did on Saturday.

Saturday was date day with Louis. Is is all boys who love buses and metros?? "mama, this is soooo fun!" as he was bouncing around on the bus like a popcorn. He is so light, he literally bounces off the seat. We went for a stroll downtown. When I told him we were headed a mall that was connected to the metro, he thought it was the most awesome thing. You have to love the fact that it doesn't take much to impress a 4-year old.

Sammy had his first sleepover at my parents' on Sunday. You would think that it would be easy to drop off the second child but I was still stressed.

Dear Louis & Sammy...

When I was pregnant with Louis (my first born), I picked up a sweet baby journal called "the First 1000 days" by Nikki McClure. It had cute paper cut illustrations and it wasn't one of those fill in the blanks journal (i felt like i was cheating buying one of those). In fact, I remember wondering if there was enough space in the journal for me to write about my baby to my baby. Well, Louis came along and we didn't sleep for the first six months. Just this week, he wanted me to read "his story" and when I opened up the journal, he asked why the first few pages were blank. I told him that no sleep equaled blank pages! It turns out, filling out the blank pages of the book wasn't that easy. Despite sleeping, motherhood, my full time job, is exhausting. I wasn't lacking material for Louis' story because every day with a child brings out something new and worthy of recording whether it's his first successful knock-knock joke (Louis' accomplishment this week), a little gourmand's plea to try foie gras (highlight of this weekend) or something major like walking ( my baby is finally walking this week!). Louis loves "his story", an often favorite at naptime. With two boys now, I barely can stay awake to kiss my husband goodnight, let alone write. I want Sammy to have "his story" recorded and I want Louis to have a second volume to "the First 1000 days" so this is it. At least I'm sure they will find the illustrations cute as they will mostly be featured in them.