Birthday and School in Mexico

I don´t want this to be underlined, but I´m very short on time and don´t know how to fix it.

Lili had a lovely birthday. Thanks for your calls. I don´t know who called because my caller ID and my voice mail don´t work here, so I´ll just assume you all called and I thank you. We spent the afternoon at Augua Caliente, a gorgeous natural hot spring made into a pool, or five pools. We were the only ones there (besides three cute older ladies) for most of the afternoon.

The trees are painted like this there. Edgar says they think it´s pretty.
At our house. _Lili bought this guitar with the money from Grandma and Grandpa. She loves it.
Agua Caliente. Ruben said it was a kingdom of swimming pools without a king and queen and guards.
Lili, Edgar, and Marcos. Ruben preferred playing with some other kids at the kid pool.
Ruben was teaching Lili to swim. He´s a good swimmer. They had a ball racing each other.

Marcos in his new swimsuit.

The kids also bought balls with their money from Grandma and Grandpa. Ruben´s popped.

Things have not gone as planned today. Edgar walked both the kids to school. I was going to do some laundry if he would mop. The whole house is tile, and believe it or not, is more intimidating to clean than even the clothes. He came back from taking Ruben to school and told me they were having a meeting with all the parents from 10-12! I didn´t have time for that. If I had known earlier, I could have planned, but the meeting was in 1/2 hour! Edgar ironed my clothes and told me we could have sandwiches for lunch (two of Lili´s "friends" invited themselves to our house to eat), and that he would do the laundry (no loss without a little gain) if I would go to the meeting.

Lili´s friends are at our house now. On Monday, they helped her find the bathroom (they were the ones who asked me for toilet paper). On Tuesday Lili said she invited them to our house. I was surprised that Lili would and could do that in Spanish. I asked her what she said. She said all she had to say was "Si." They asked if they could come. They are in 6th grade and I guess they´re just intrigued with the new American girl (who doesn´t talk) and her chatty mother. Every day at lunchtime, they hang around while Lili eats. I wasn´t thrilled about having them come because I knew wouldn´t talk to them and that I would have to entertain them. Lili was so excited about it, though, and as I thought about it, I realized we would be speaking Spanish while they were there. I had wanted to blog this morning, but I had the parent meeting. It turns out, I left Edgar in charge at home. The girls were playing a ball game with Lili and I can blog for a spell.
These are Lili´s friends. They are cute girls. There names are Valeria and Roxana. Roxana lives with her grandma. The grandma met me today after school. I guess I didn´t understand her intention. I told her I would walk Roxana home later. I didn´t realize she wanted to see where we lived first (understandably). When Valeria finally finished jumping rope for her PE class (we had to wait about 15 minutes--she hurried as fast as she could and was all red-faced at the end), we took off. We had gone a few blocks, when Roxana said, "Can we wait for my grandma?" I hadn´t known Grandma was coming, but we waited for her to catch up. I tried to slow down so she could keep up. She was painfully slow. It´s tricky because we had to walk single file since the sidewalks are so narrow and there are a lot of pedestrians. We finally got to the house and I invited everyone in. Edgar was there and was as friendly as could be to Grandma. They got talking and she said, "I'm your tia!" I have learned that "tia" is not a strict term for aunt. It can be anyone with a familial connection. It turns out that Roxana´s grandma and Edgar´s grandparents were neighbors. We had a lovely chat and the grandma left, confident that her Roxana would come to no harm.

Yesterday I spent the morning in Lili´s classroom. It was a zoo! I´ve been rushing to get her there on time, but I´m going to stop hurrying. Kids were streaming in for the first 20 minutes or so. Moms were hanging around, bringing in breakfast, and about half of the kids were eating breakfast until 9:00 or so. The first hour I sat at the teacher´s desk. Bless his heart! He said I could sit there, but that the back is broken. Indeed it is. He has very little to work with, it seems. There was a clock on the wall that doesn´t work. He has 39 first graders all jammed in the little classroom. My father-in-law told us that kids who get expelled from another school get sent to Lili´s school. It would be hard for anyone, and the poor man has no classroom management skills. Lili had told me that a girl was mean to her. Yesterday and today the girl (Cynthia) sat by her and they seem to be friends now. Kids were constantly getting up and running around, smacking each other, screaming, and always at least talking. About half of them never know what´s going on. Many are slipping through the cracks. He gave them an assignment and was going around trying to help them. They had to copy something from the board. I decided to walk around too and help. Some kids don´t even know their letters. About 10 are doing great and get done quickly and then have to wait for the others. Some never do the assignment. One of these, Kevin, was just sitting there. I asked him which column from the board (they got to pick) he wanted to copy. The boy in front of him said, "He doesn´t know his letters!" I said, "I´ll help him." I helped Kevin along and he loved me. The rest of the morning, if wrote something down, he´d run over and show me. Kids started calling me "Maestra!" and they showed me their work and told on each other. It reminded me of my student teaching days in Chihuahua, and I thought, "Maybe I should come and volunteer every day. They certainly need me." I eventually got a headache though. The constant noise and chaos is grating and I don´t think it´s good for Lili for me to be there. She came and asked me to explain everything in English. She came and told me she had to go to the bathroom. I told her to ask the teacher.

I took cookies for the class for Lili´s birthday. When I asked the teacher, he said, "We do that here too!" Ha, Edgar. The teacher spent about 20 minutes on her birthday. The kids sang both versions of "Las Mañanitas" and he showed a little computer birthday e-card to the class. I let Lili pass out half the cookies. Kids started hiding them and saying they didn´t get one. Then they asked if they could have one for their brother, etc. I finally put the rest of the cookies away. Kids kept asking me how old Lili is and if she speaks English. I think they think she can´t talk. Sometimes I think she thinks she can´t talk.

I wish her school situation were different. I thought about trying to get her in a different school, but the other one that is kind-of within walking distance is the one I called first and they wouldn´t allow her to come for such a short time. I talked to the teacher about their reader and how it´s above Lili´s level (by then I knew it is above everyone´s level). He said three of them can read from it. I know Lili knows as much or more about Spanish phonics, reading, and writing than most of those kids. I don´t expect her to learn anything academic there, but she is hearing Spanish for 4 hours a day. That´s worth something. I guess it´s the best we can do for now. Tomorrow she doesn´t have class. I wish we´d known earlier. We would have gone to the beach this week. We are going to go next Thursday morning and the kids will miss two days of school.



So this morning I went to Ruben´s school meeting. It is 100 times better than Lili´s school. There are 22 kids in the class. Quite a few. And they all seem to be around Ruben´s age. The teacher is a bit condescending. The meeting was an opportunity for us to see the kids in action and note where they are falling behind. She would point out students´faults to their parents. That´s a little awkward in front of everyone. I realized that she and I have very different goals for Ruben. I was thrilled when I came in to see a girl grab a toy truck away from him and hear him say, "Es mio!" He´s speaking Spanish! The teacher let me know he doesn´t hold his pencil right. They were doing a counting activity and she was counting for him in English. No, honey, that´s not what we´re looking for. The child can already count in English. I can´t blame her. She´s just trying to do her job and she just wants Ruben to know what´s going on. Ruben has already learned the routine. When the bell rang, he said, "Now we go eat!" His personality is so different from Lili´s. He left immediately to go eat and then play and I didn´t see him again until
I went and found him to go home. Anyway, the teacher is very in-charge and the kids are always engaged it seems. The teacher had several requests for us parents. We need to bathe our kids every day and clean their ears and teach them to clean their noses. The school is in need of more erasers and toilet paper (big surprise). Ruben needs to bring his own cup if he wants a drink (they hadn´t told us). It´s just a good thing we had the meeting. The parents here at both schools seem to have plenty of time to give to their kids´schools. That´s good. There were 18 parents at the meeting. Perhaps the rest of them had more notice than I did.

I have got to go. We are going to walk Lili´s friends home and visit some of Edgar´s family. Maybe if we visit them, they won´t visit us. The last three nights, we´ve hoped to have family home evening and get the kids to bed early. Without fail, someone from his family has come to visit. I eventually just put the kids to bed. Then I sit by Edgar and try desperately not to fall asleep. His Tia Bertha is our most frequent visitor. She is so much like his mom! They look alike, talk alike, and both enjoy giving unsolicited advice about any topic. She told us last night that Marcos must drink warm water before bed and walk a lot to help his bronchitis. As you can see, Marcos is taking her advice:By the way, for an unknown reason, I can´t get a signal on my phone today. Hopefully, tomorrow the phone will be better!

Isn´t this lovely? It´s our neighbor´s house. I love how people here have the inside part of the house that melds right into the outside part. It is gorgeous here and we are loving it.

I only have 8 minutes until I need to go pick Ruben up from school. I woke him up this morning by saying "Buenos Dias." He automatically said, "¿Como estas?" I told him he needed to get up. He said, "Why?" I told him he had to go to school. That was all it took. He sat up and said, "I LOVE my school!"

Edgar (surprisingly) has different ideas than I do. Last night we walked to the really old, residential part of town. His friend, Jose Cruz, lives there in a cement/rock house he inherited from his grandparents. They are so poor and very nice. On their street a teenager was riding a burro--right there in town. I wanted to take a picture, but Edgar forbade me.

Here are some pictures I was able to take. This is Sunday night show-off time when everyone gussies (is that how you spell it?) and walks around the plaza. I was surprised Edgar let Lili wear shorts. They didn´t quite seem formal enough.
This is the back of Edgar´s dad´s house, under the mandarin orange tree. They are so delicious. We brought home a bunch of them. Do you think the men in this family will ever learn to smile?

Finally, a toilet at the bus station in Guadalajara. We had to pay 4 pesos to use it. Toilet paper cannot go down the drain here. It will get clogged. I keep forgetting to put it in the little toilet paper basket. All Edgar´s family has a toilet paper basket in the bathrooms--even in the USA.
By the way, Edgar tucked some toilet paper in Lili´s backpack this morning. He said the school can´t afford TP. I can´t complain. They´re educating our child at absolutely no cost to us.

Laundry and School in Mexico

Do any of you regular bloggers have any advice? I can´t post more pictures here and I don´t know why.

Our trip here was challenging. Marcos was the main problem. He didn´t feel well. He had a fever and he cried almost constantly on the plane. By a tender mercy, he and I had a row to ourselves on the second (long) flight. That was good, but Edgar and I just passed him back and forth, over and over. The bus ride from Guadalajara to Autlan was the hardest. It was on very windy roads and the driver went about 40 kilometers (around 20 mph) an hour. It took about 5 hours. He started showing a horrible movie about vampires. At that point, Lili and Marcos were asleep, but Ruben was watching. I tried to get him to look out the window and I tried to read to him. I was waiting for the bus to stop so I could go ask the driver to change the movie. Edgar told me the bus wouldn´t stop again and that I couldn´t ask the driver to change the movie. I decided yes, I could, and I went forward. I was also trying very hard not to throw up.

The driver offered me a seat right by him and I stayed there the rest of the trip (about 3 1/2 hours). I asked if the movie could be changed. I told him that it was inappropriate for children, that my child was scared, and that I try to protect my children from such things). He said that if I´d asked earlier, he could have had another movie, but that the other passengers would be mad if he changed it at that point. He said, "Next time, talk to the driver first." It´s crazy that they would think it is appropriate to show a horror movie in a public bus, where children are present.

The driver and I talked the rest of the way about family and values and religion. I wished for a pass-a-long card. He was a nice man. He ate and drank as he drove and gave me a piece of gum. Lili got sick too and came up and sat with us. Marcos also got sick and threw up all over Edgar.

After Autlan, we took a taxi to El Grullo. Our kids couldn´t believe we STILL weren´t there. Neither could I. We had traveled for 22 hours. Edgar´s aunt was here to greet us and then another aunt, uncle, three daughters and a boyfriend. We were starving, grumpy, sweaty, exhausted, smelling like vomit (Marcos) and urine (Ruben had an accident). WE DID NOT WANT TO ENTERTAIN! They were just happy to greet us. They FINALLY left two hours later.

I need to write more--especially about yesterday, but I need to leave now. We have to go visit Edgar´s friend. I want to post more pictures too, but I don´t know if I´ll be able to.

Edgar told me his mom has a washer here in her house. I was glad. Today I learned that there are washers and then there are WASHERS that also RINSE and WRING. I knew I´d be hanging clothes out on the line, but that´s no problem. I mean, I used to be The Laundry Queen. Well, I´m still the queen, but it is a whole different kingdom down here. It takes a lot more to rule with these laundry tools. This is the "washer," and I use that term very loosely. In this "washer," we add soap and turn it on for up to 19 minutes, depending on how fragile the fabric is. It agitates, and that´s all.

This is the washboard, where we scrub the clothes against the cement indentations to get the soap off. We also douse the clothes with water from the bucket (which we don´t go far to fill--it´s just right here in this basin).

I only had one hand here so I could take the picture. In reality, it takes at least both hands and maybe a foot or two. Marcos was taking a nap and Edgar (after doing the first half of the laundry load), went to pick Lili and Ruben up from school. Next time, I´ll go for the kids. This is intense work.Then we wring out the clothes. This also requires two hands. Edgar used Lili´s blanket when Marcos threw up on the bus on Saturday, so we had to wash it. It was so heavy (flannel and all). After I finally got it somewhat wrung out, I hung it up on the brittle rope and the rope broke, spilling all the other clothes on that line on the cement floor. I tied the rope back up as well as I could, but it was falling apart.

Finally, we hang the clothes on the old brittle ropes. With my first light pair of pants, I didn´t think of wiping the rope off first. They got a little grimy. Later they fell off during another line break, when our clothes were too heavy and pulled the nail clean out of the cement wall. I´ve decided that clothes are going to have to be pretty darn dirty if I´m going to wash them here. Those pants finally got clean, but it took a lot.

I don´t mind the view. Those flowers just grow spontaneously and the blue sky goes all the way up. There´s also no wind.

Since we had some line breakage, I ended up hanging some clothes up on some random nails on the wall. That was only one load of clothes. I might do another load--next week or so, when I get up my courage. I had to take a nap after this. I hope I will always appreciate my washer at home that does it all. I´m sure such washers exist here too--we just don´t have one.

I didn´t sleep well last night. It was the kids´first day of school. I was so nervous. Lili didn´t go to sleep until almost 11. We still are affected a bit by the time change (we´re two hours later here). She was exhausted when I got her up. We had corn flakes and "creamy" milk (it´s whole milk and Ruben said it was very creamy--that it must come from a "real cow" with bananas). Edgar went shopping Saturday night, and we didn´t have much. Tomorrow I´ll do a better breakfast. We went shopping while the kids were in school. I was loading up the cart and Edgar kept telling me I was getting too much stuff. I told him I don´t want to go to the store everyday. My usual shopping experience involves Super Wal-Mart and my mini-van. As we were paying it dawned on me: we have to carry all these groceries home! Fortunately, Edgar´s a big, strong man. He had Marcos in our hiking baby-carrier backpack and had both hands. We made it home.

Anyway, Lili was very excited. When it came down to it, the boys weren´t ready (we had to wake Marcos up--which I hated to do, poor child), and Edgar said I should just take Lili to school. I was a little nervous about that. We walked by the school yesterday, but I´m terrible with directions and Spanish is not my first language, you know. I wanted to be there with Lili, though, so we went. We were late--we left just a few minutes before 8, when school starts. There were other mothers walking their children to school. I didn´t think there could be too many schools around, so I started following a nice-looking mom and her daughter. She started talking to me about getting to school on time. I asked her if we were going to La Escuela Las Pilas (Lili´s school). "Oh, no," she said. We had passed it. We had to turn around and run back two blocks and up another street.

We went in and I asked a teacher where we could register. I´ll take pictures of the school another day. It´s different. There is a big metal fence all around it that is only opened when kids come in and go home. Every room opens to outside and the walls to the rooms seem to just be metal mesh or something. It´s never too cold here. I went to the director´s (principal´s) office. I said I needed to register Lili. A guy (whom I found out later is the computer teacher) told me they were all full and we couldn´t register. I told him I had called the director a month ago and that he had said we could. I looked at the group there and said, "I don´t know who the director is, but . . ." and they told me he´d be back soon. Meanwhile, I looked at the wall of pictures of teachers. Most of them looked like glamor shots--it reminded me of Uncle Rigo (is that his name? Napoleon´s uncle?). The director came. His hands were wet, so he offered me his forearm to shake. He said, "Oh, yes, from the United States?" and went to find a teacher that would take us. They didn´t need her birth certificate or anything. Because we´re just visiting for 3 weeks.

We went to her classroom. It was very full. There are 20-30 kids there. The teacher is Maestro Ramon. I was expecting a woman (I even brought a gift for "her"--lotion. How´s that going to work?) He has a very kind face, and that made me happy. He had Lili sit down by another little girl--they share a little table right in the front. They were in the middle of something (we were late), so I didn´t get to talk to him as much as I would have liked. He told me I could come back at 11 to pass Lili her lunch throught the fence. School gets out at 12:30. Even better than I thought (1:00). As soon as we got to the classroom, Lili became a turtle. She huddled into me. She was no longer excited. I helped her get to her desk. I told her to be brave. I told her I´d be back soon with her lunch. Then I just had to leave. I tried to hold back my tears until I left the school yard and walked past the director´s office, but then I cried openly on the street. I haven´t felt so helpless since we had to leave her in the NICU everyday after she was born and we couldn´t even hold her. I feel mostly in control and in charge of her happiness, and today I felt out of control. It was 6:30 at home, so I called Cor. She told me she cried each time she left her kids for school--and that was in Wells. She told me to wait until I left Ruben. I told her I wasn´t as worried about him.

Ruben´s excitement in going to school never waned--especially when he saw the swingset (Lili´s school only has a place to play soccer). And, he will talk to ANYONE in English. He doesn´t care if they understand. He knows how to say "Can I go to the bathroom, please?" perfectly. Everytime we practiced with him, and asked him his name or how old he is, he´d ask to go to the bathroom. Last night he said, "I know one thing in Spanish. ¿Puedo ir al baño por favor?" What a nut. His school is for kids about 2-5, and he was excited to be there. We talked to the teachers. We have to pay 25 pesos (we thought that was what they said, which would be less that $2.50) for the month. Edgar went to pay and we found out it´s actually 250 pesos (more like $25 for the month--that makes more sense). Edgar was embarrassed though because he didn´t have that much money with him. Ruben had no problem when we left and seemed to have no problem the rest of the morning. His school is from 9-12 and they feed him (for 5 pesos a day--less than 50 cents).

Edgar and I (and Marcos) got to Lili¨s school 20 minutes early to give her her lunch. She is a brave little sport. We sat and waited forever. Finally, at 8 minutes to, I stood up by the fence and watched for her. The sun was very hot. The lady with the key had helped us in the morning and when Lili finally came out, the key lady directed her to us. She ran to us, and said, "Mommy!" She was so thrilled to see us. Lots of parents were there, feeding their children. It was interesting. Some of the kids sat down and ate on the cement sidewalk. I talked to Lili. She said she was okay and that she liked it. I asked her what the girl´s name is that shares her seat. She didn´t know (still doesn´t). She took her lunch and said, "Bye, mom." Then she went about 20 feet away to a bench in the shade and ate. Edgar and I (and Marcos) stood there in the hot sun and watched her from the other side of the fence. A few girls talked to her, but she didn´t answer them much. Then they moved on. I wanted her to go to the bathroom, so I asked some older girls if they knew where it was. They kindly took her. (It was so weird to be separated by that fence--like she´s an inmate or something. I guess it´s for safety.) Soon one of the girls came back to ask if I had any toilet paper. What? What kind of school doesn´t provide toilet paper for the inmates? I had a leftover napkin for her lunch. We kissed Lili through the fence and told her we´d be back in about an hour. She looked like she might cry, but she was brave and went off. She had about 8 minutes left to play.

Later, when Edgar went to pick her up, the teacher told Edgar she can read. That´s good to know. Edgar asked if I could go and observe. He explained about our homeschool and how hard it is to get authentic materials. He told us we can keep Lili´s reader. That´s great news. It is HARD. It has so much writing on each page. If it were English, Lili couldn´t read it too well. I feel like she must be way behind. He did say she can read. Anyway, I get to go on Wednesday (Lili´s birthday--I´m so glad). I´m going to pay a lot of attention and see if these children really read this book. Lili read two paragraphs to the teacher, and otherwise they were all reading "silently." She wrote numbers and an assignment on the board. At the beginning they went outside to play some kind of ball game. Lili started crying because she wanted me. The teacher took her back to the class. Lili told us all this later--not at lunch. Despite it all, she can´t wait to go again. She said she loves school and she made a friend (it´s her seatmate--whose name she doesn´t know). Some older girls asked if she wanted to play with them, but she said no, because they weren´t in her class. I told her she can play with anybody and that maybe tomorrow she can ask to play with them.

I also want to take treats for the kids on her birthday. Edgar said they don´t do that here. He also said you can´t complain about movies on the bus or volunteer in the schools here (I´ll be going to Ruben´s school anyday I want as well, BTW). I guess Edgar hasn´t learned yet that he has an outspoken, American wife. Well, maybe he has.

H and G

Jennifer has my children so that I can get something done before our big trip. We leave Friday for Mexico. I thought I'd better say good-bye (not that I ever really said hello). It is good to get the hot cocoa-winter wonderland motif off my blog. Though we woke up to fresh snow this morning, we are heading south where Edgar says it was 85 degrees on Monday. It sounds like it will be a lovely, warm, maybe even sweaty, 3 weeks.

Here are a few pictures to catch up with. On Christmas, we took some 4 generation shots.

Ruben comes by his 4-eyes quite honestly.

Ladies in red. Big guys in plaid.

The children in their new Christmas church duds.

Little Marcos got his first haircut on Saturday. The baby look is gone. He's all toddler now. He's even starting to toddle. He mostly prefers to walk at the Johnsons' house and for the Johnson family, but he'll walk here once in awhile too.

Isaiah turned seven and Lili will next Wednesday. We celebrated on Sunday. I made these giant cupcakes. Lili really wanted to help decorate. I let her work on her own cake, but Isaiah's was all mine. I know I need to let go and let Lili try to do more things. I haven't let her scrapbook yet, but what's the big deal about a cake? It was eaten in a few hours anyway.

Lili's new dress she's getting for her birthday. We're not taking it to Mexico, so she tried it on here. Also, we wanted pictures of it to show Hannah. Hannah made Lili a paper doll for her birthday that looks like her (looks like Lili, not Hannah).

Well, good-bye then. I'm planning to blog in Mexico, if possible. I'm also planning to volunteer at the kids' schools, do family history, walk to the top of the hill over-looking El Grullo everyday, and take Marcos to the library. We'll see if I get half of it done. I will be on vacation, you know. Now, Jennifer, I will go and make use of this gift of time you've given me. Hasta luego.

O Christmas Tree!

Hurray for Christmas! Yesterday we went to cut down our tree. The day was sunny, but freezing cold.

Marcos, Me, Lili, Abby, Saul, and Ruben. Abby and Saul are our neighbors who came along for the fun.

Edgar the Chopper.

Ruben and Lili helping Edgar carry the tree.

Marcos had to go into his exersaucer--though he's too big for it. He wanted to eat the tree--and the camera!

Ruben and Lili were very excited about putting ornaments on the tree.

You can't even tell that most of the ornaments are at Lili/Ruben height, right? Also note that all presents will remain above our cabinets this year. Marcos loves to tear wrapping paper.

I love sitting by the lit tree and breathing in that pine smell!

Christmas Season!

I had to get a new Christmas look for my blog--for all two of you who are out there reading. I just have to make note of the fact that I'm back to the Cutest Blog on the Block. They just had a lot more options for the blessed season than Hot Bliggity Blog. It's time for school, so I will post something later (it might not be until next year), but at least I'm current with my background.