Paulo - 5 Years

You are 5 years old Paulo!!

This year we had a birthday Party at home with some of your best friends from school - Harrison, Dexter, Luc, and Liam. We did tie dye shirts, you played hockey outside with daddy and we had cake, it was lots of fun!

Things you can do now at 5.... Pretty much anything. You are doing really well in school and you have only said you didn't want to go a handful of times in the 2 years since you started. You are doing really well in reading, writing, and you quite enjoy math.

Some of your favourite things to do are: riding your bike, playing soccer, Lego, Knex, Magna Tiles, and pretty much any building toy. 

One of my favourite thing about you is that you are very creative and resourceful. You may not paint the most "eye pleasing" picture in the traditional sense, but you are a very resourceful boy. You almost never get bored. As soon as you start feeling inactive you start looking for things to build, make, create. 

One of the great things I have discovered in you in these 5 years: you are a really "well behaved" boy (for lack of better terms). You are a good listener, aggreable, and self-controlled. We can usually give you our reasons for a certain decision and you will understand and follow our lead. You understand so much now that you are like a mini adult, and we realize now we really have to watch what we talk about (death, pain, illness, or anything bad) because you really understand it and take it at heart. 

You are so good, I feel like I can really trust you. Lately, I can trust you and your brother to go outside and play in the street and you know to stay where I can see you from the window, get on somebody's lawn if a car is coming, and to look after your brother. You often seem annoyed at his being all over your face, but you actually take good care of him. You comfort him, you help him catch up with us, and you even tell me to go tend to him if he is crying or upset. 

Most of all, you are a kind boy, you are intelligent, you are precocious, and loving.

I am so proud of you and who you have become. We love you immensely and feel a great responsibility to keep that precious heart and brilliant mind expanding.

Paulo - 4.5

Paulo, Paulito, Muneco,

You have grown so much! you are such a little boy now. You have just finished your 1st year of Kindergarten and you have moved on the Senior Kindergarten and French Immersion in September!!

First I want to say I am so proud of everything you have learned and the big effort you put into that school year. You had such a positive spirit about it. Not once did I hear you complain about not wanting to go to school, and even if some days you were a little sad and not staying at home, you still went and had a good time.

You have learned all your letters, to read and write them, and are starting to notice what words start with which letters. You can count to 100 with some assistance (basically all the 10s, 20s, 30s, etc, instead of saying "twenty-ten" for example), and you can also write most numbers, with the exception of the same ones I used to have trouble with, like switching the 2 for the 5, 6 for 9 etc).

But despite all the academics you learned, that was not the most important achievement in my eyes. I think you kicked butt at learning to make friends and coming out of your shell. You started out this quiet little boy, very shy and a bit afraid maybe of those older boys. But by the end of it you were just part of them and made some really good friendships like your best friend Jayden. You were also known with your teachers for being very kind, polite, sweet, and inquisitive.



And with age also comes a bit of light of what growing up will be like. You are indeed very inquisitive, very observant and analytic. You want to know why EVERYTHING. And you are now starting to notice what people do and say. You will often apply my logic when I am arguing with you. You will ask me what are "good words" and "bad words", why people use them, etc. You will ask things like "what happens when someone dies" and "is death like sleeping", "why does so and so have 2 moms", you will ask about body parts, and private parts :). For a while there you were OBSESSED with smoking: what is smoking, why do people smoke, why do they smoke if it makes them sick, can boys smoke, what happens if boys smoke, why do people throw their cigarrette butts on the ground, etc. Needless to say, some of your questions throw me for a loop, give me anxiety or just plain scare me.

One of your biggest challenges right now is to cope with your brother. When he pokes you, hits you, yells at you , etc, which is often, you just take it, and then come to me crying. It is hard on all of us because it happens all the time. So we are trying to work on getting you to express your feeling to your brother and to stand up for yourself by telling him to stop, and work out those little issues between the two of you. A big job and not easy. But sometimes you are very patient, and it is evident to me that even if he drives you nuts, you always look out for your brother and you do enjoy playing with him.

 One thing I have noticed lately and which I love, is that you have developed a little positive dialogue inside. As in, when I spill something on the floor and get mad about it, you will say "don't worry, it won't stain the floor", or if your dad breaks something by accident, you will say "don't worry daddy, it still works".

On the flip side, another thing we are working on is on helping you cope when you get a "NO". You are just not very used to hearing a no and accepting. You are always negotiating with us and you are so persistent, we have gotten used to giving in to a degree. However, we have realized that sometimes this is a bit harmful, since you just can't cope with a no, when we finally mean it. This is a tough one for you, but I trust we will eventually teach you there is life after a "no".

Finally, some of your favourite things are definitely sports, building toys, and art. Most of your time is spent either riding your bike, which you LOVE, playing soccer (which you are very good at), swimming, etc; You also spend a lot of time playing with your Lego, Plus Plus, Magna Tiles, or any kind of building toy; also, painting, making collages, or folding/taping paper is also right up on your list of things you enjoy doing. All this has developed your little imagination and I can proudly say that you prefer any of these things way more than watching TV, and you will often ignore or flat out turn off the TV to go play one of these things.

Paulo, I could have a job talking about all I love about you but I will finish here, just to tell you, you are a sweet, silly, happy and smart little boy. You are persistent, friendly, confident, kind and easy to get along. I love you muchisimo my little guy :).

Paulo the bike rider

Paulo can now ride a bike without training wheels. It happened over the Easter Long weekend on April 3rd, when in the morning, I took his training wheels off and took him outside to ride the bike. He got on the bike, and I went the whole speech again:

- You WILL fall down many times. You just will. But you have to stay strong, get up and try again. Every time you get back on your back you will be better at it. 

- If you start feeling wobbly it means you have to pedal a little faster.

- watch the road. 

So he went on the bike, I held the back of his seat. He started pedaling but kept forgetting to steer the bike and kept going to the side of the road. We stopped, talked about why that was happening. 

He got back on the bike, started pedaling, and soon he was riding very stable on a straight line. I started loosening my grip on his seat, and he was fine. Then I let go. And he just kept going. For a long time. I ran in front of him and put my hand up showing him he had done it, and he was riding by himself. And then he had a huge smile on his face. That whole thing took 10 minutes, at most.

After that, he never fell fell down. Next we taught him how to start on his own (without a push) and he mastered that within minutes as well. And ever since then, he has been riding the bike non-stop every afternoon, and riding it to and from school every day. I have now started riding my bike with him when I pick him up from school and Emilio is napping. 

I have also noticed (and this might be a coincidence or not), but ever since his learning to ride the bike without training wheels, he seems to have gained so much more confidence in everything. He has made better friends with the boys at his school, talks to his teachers, talks to our neighbors, etc. I really do notice a big change in him in that respect.

Paulo is almost 4 and a half years, and started riding his balance bike since he was 2 years old. :)

Paulo - 3 years

Dear Paulo,

It is so hard to believe you are a full 3 years old. It has been almost two weeks since your birthday and I haven't had the time i wanted to dedicate to you here, but i may as well get on with it because busyness seems to never go away these days...

You are without a doubt not two anymore. You are definitely a little boy now in everything you do. You are still the cutest little big headed boy. You run around looking diwn at your feet like you cant believe how fast you're going. You still love playing soccer and basketball and pretty much anything that involves a ball, and you are quite good at it.

You are now much more inquisitive and the "why"  questions go on and on. You are very sensitive, not only in that your feelings get hurt if I just raise my voice (and God forbid if you daddy gives you trouble for anything, which you are definitely NOT used to), butalso in that you can always tell if somebody ( that is me, haha) is mad, sad, frustrated or angry, and you always ask: "que paso mama?" " porque estas triste mama?".

Your English has also exploded in the last six months or so. I think your going to playschool has something to do with that, but also the fact that your Nanna now lives with us and talks to you in English all the time, and you cant get away speaking Spanish to her like you do with daddy. I have noticed lately that when you play on your own, you speak English now, which in my eyes is both bad and good. Good, because you're getting more confident in your English skills; and bad, because your English may be starting to dominate your brain, marking the beginning of a language battle.

Your sleep has come a looong way since your second birthday. When you turned two and your brother was born, I remember having a really hard time putting you to sleep if he was awake. I had to sit on the edge of your bed and you would beg me to lie down with you. It would take you so long to fall asleep without me being right there against you. Then when we first moved to Ottawa we had some really ugly battles at nap time, which were totally emotionally draining for both. Now, you cooperate very well, and after reading a couple of books together you lie down on your own and fall asleep if I stay around your room. Sometimes you even ask me to leave the room and shut the door! At night, however it always takes forever to get you to sleep, and you stall, and stall and stall, which makes it really hard on daddy. However once you are asleep you pretty much stay asleep even if we wake you to cover you up, move you or anything else. You still wake up once a night though around midnight and come into our room, where we have put a little bed and blanket next to ours, which we call " la cama de los enanitos" and you are usually pretty happy just staying there.

You are a very determined little guy. You definitely have a very defined personality now. Youare very  inquisitive, super well behaved and obedient as long as you're kept busy and have people's attention. You can be shy but when you warm up you have no problem talking to others. Yu definitely are most comfortable playing with older kids and adults. You are such a sweet little boy, so sensitive and love to cuddle and kiss. You are full of "i love you"'s and " thank you" s and " p,ease"s . you even thanked me for dinner once without anyone telling you to!! Your do battle a lot with your brother....pretty much All.the.time. Which can be very frustrating, but I haven't lost hope that you two will be the best of friends when you grow older.

Your all-time favourite  things for a while now are 1. Balloons, 2. Balls, 3. Rockets and 4. Jellyfish.

Paulo, We love you so much. You are such a huge deal to our family. Our love for you multiplies every single day. Te quiero mucho enanito precioso!!

Paulo - 2.75 years

Paulo! you are only 3 months shy of 3 years old! I can't help but look at you in awe of everything you do now, all the new skills, the improvements and the changes. But then of course part of me is incredibly sad to watch that little toddler fade away, as you slowly turn into a little boy.

You are living such an exciting part of life, and we are so lucky to be watching you so closely. You have definitely mastered riding your strider bike. It is insane the turns you take with it, how fast you go with your feet and how well you balance. You definitely turn heads and bring up smiles on people's faces when they watch you go. Your favourite toy all along is definitely your bike, right up there with your ball, although you have developed a strong liking for cars and your newest obsession, rockets (along with the usual balloons and umbrellas).

Little devil on his bike

You never walk, you always RUN everywhere. It is so darn cute. I will be so sad when you start slowing down.

 

Your soccer skills are also up there as well, you can kick, you are improving at catching, and you always work on new soccer moves like the fake falling (haha!) and the long kicks. We have spent so much time this summer outside in the driveway just kicking the ball around.

Your fine motor skills are definitely developing as well. You now have an interest in building blocks and lego towers (you used to only be interested in knocking them down!), but now you seem interested in balancing them on top of each other and see how high they can go. You are sure building some high towers for a little guy!

Your little personality has blossomed so much in the last few months. Your language continues to get out of hand. Our greatest challenge as parents is that you have learned to use the word "Perfect"/ "Perfecto". And with that, our world has become so much more difficult. We have so many battles with you over something because "No esta perfecto!!"/ "It is not perfect!!", be it your pillow, your cape, your toy cars, or whatever you are playing with.

 

This last point brings me to my least favourite trait of yours. I would say that in general you are a very well behaved boy. You are most times obedient, you are sweet, you are generally not aggressive and you have learned to be polite. However, when you don't get your way or we don't do things exactly as you wanted them, hell brakes lose. It is not so much that you get angry, but the fact that you scream in anger so loud and with such a passion that you even shake, and our ears DO NOT appreciate it. We are now working on it though and whenever you through a fit we gently tell you you will have to go to your room for a few minutes to calm down, and that sofar has been enough to stop the madness.

 

In contrast, one of my favourite traits in you and that you are different. I'm sure all moms feel this way, but I really do feel like you appreciate things that are different from the typical. Sure you like cars, and rockets, and dinosaurs, but you also like things that I think most little boys may not like so much. I am not sure how to explain it. But for example, you like things that are scary. You like monsters and thunder and lightening. You like eyes that pop up in the darkness. You like balloons that pop and blenders and vacuum cleaners and things that make a loud noise that startle people. You like watching people fall. You like spicy foods and bugs. I think you may even be a bit curious about vaccine shots! People would probably think you are weird... and I guess you are a little but I think you like all these things with a bit of humour.

Moving on to how you are with your little brother, you are still jealous of Emilio. I think there are some deeper positive feelings growing, and you seem to enjoy it when he laughs at your every move and you ask about him when he is no there, as if you missed him. However you still get angry if he comes near your toys and God forbid him pulling your hair or accidentally scratching your face. You seem to know very well though that if you hurt your little brother there is going to be big trouble, because you have not attempted it yet.

Another new found love in the last few months has been a fascination with your Nanna. You have of course always liked Nanna, but in the last month or two you want to go with her to the basement all.the.time. That has come in very handy for me when I am trying to put your little brother to sleep and you get impatient, as that buys me a few minutes. You sure seem to enjoy talking and playing with her all the time.

You have started Playschool this week and I can't wait to see how you are going to love your new little friends and activities.

Paulo, I love you so much and I am so happy to be your mom. I hope I can bring as much happiness to your life as you bring to mine!

This is what I get when I ask for a smile now

 

 

Paulo dice asi.../ Paulo says it like this...

You will find that most , if not all of Paulo's conversations start with a "No!"...ahhh toddlerhood...

Me: "Vamonos Paulo, es hora de dormir"/ "Let's go Paulo, it's time for bed"

Paulo: "No!"

Me: "Paulo, quieres dormir con mama o con papa"/ "Do you want to sleep with mommy or daddy"

Paulo: "No! I want to sleep with the Ipad"

"Tengo una idea!" /"I have an idea!" -- I'm pretty sure he has no idea what having and idea means. I think he think it means something about getting a surprise present or something, because every time he says that he starts searching my purse or doing things like these:

Daddy: "Paulo, stop pulling my shirt from the irnoning board" "No papi!!! It's an idea!!!" Hahaha, too funny, God knows what he's thinking...

Me: "Paulo, estas feliz?"/ "Paulo, are you happy?"

Paulo:"No mama!! estoy enfermo!!"/ "No mom!! I'm ill!!"

(Playing cars)

Me: "Puedo poner el carrito en esa puertita?"/"Can I put the car in that little door?"

Paulo: " No mama, este juego esta muy chiquito para ti / "No mom, this game is too small for you".

Paulo: "Voy a trabajar en el Ipad"/ "I'm going to work on the Ipad" (meaning, he can't be interrupted)

Paulo 2.5 Years

Paulo, hermosho pisioso, bonito, cosita linda, chiquito hermoso, enanito, mune, munequito. You've turned 2.5 years!! and you have changed soooo incredibly much in the last 6 months. I can barely remember the early months, almost as if you have always been this old.

 

You are a tall, skinny, curly little devil, and we are having so much fun at this age. You have been through so many changes since you turned two, it is no surprise to me that you have made temper tantrums part of your daily routine. You definitely are a bear in the mornings and after your naps and I have to tiptoe around you until you're a little bit awake.

 

You have had a tough last few months with our move away from Calgary, your leaving day care, and the birth of your little brother. I am starting to bounce back from severe separation anxiety from being unable to pay 100% of my attention to you 100% of the time. You in turn, have learned to be a bit more independent, and play by yourself for longer stretches of time.

 

It took you a while to get used to your little brother, but you are slowly starting to care more and more for him, which is really cute to watch. You will now randomly hug your little brother and say : "estoy cuidando a Emi" (I'm taking care of Emi"), or give him kisses and bring him things once in a while. That being said, you still almost 90% of the time will take toys away from him, including rattles and other baby toys, haha.

It is no surprise that Emilio follows you with his eyes ALL the time and lights up every time he sees you. You are always on the go, being a busy little boy. I love watching you run around from one place to the other, always in a hurry, with your cute little stiff run.

 

You have become quite strong headed and you must ALWAYS get your way. Everything is a fight with you and sometimes you bring me to tears, it is so exhausting to stretch my patience so much. But I am glad that more and more now we are starting to get have peaceful days and smile more than butt heads.

 

 You absolutely LOVE your strider bike. We go bike riding almost every day now if it's not rainy, and you have now started to go out on bike rides with daddy. You certainly can pick up a great speed and you go around the neighborhood turning heads everywhere you go, you look so ridiculously cute. Other than your bike, your other favorite toys are still balls, cars, and lately the train table we recently got you. Oh, and I should not forget umbrellas...oh boy, your love (obsession) for umbrellas!

 

One thing that has become really obvious to me in the last few months, though, is your mastering language. You are definitely learning more English and becoming more confident at speaking it now that your Nana is at home, and that daddy is making a bigger effort to speak to you in his language. You love speaking English and using all your new words. Your Spanish continues to be amazing, learning new vocabulary every day and starting to sound more and more like me, which I don't know if it is funny or scary. The other new thing from the last few weeks has been your ability to "create" new words in Spanglish, which basically means taking a word in either language and adapting it to sound either English or Spanish. It is very funny, but this is one of those cute traits that I do care to correct because I want you to be able to communicate well.

 

Last but not least, your imagination has sparked and exploded in the last month like never before. I think for the first time in your life, you are starting to use your imagination, mostly with pretend play. You will pretend that you are a cat, make up stories, pretend you are Jake and I'm Captain Hook, and you even pretend you speak a foreign language now, which always makes us both laugh, it is so silly.

 

Paulo, I love you so much I could have never imagined I can love you even more every day. You make me try so hard to be better for you every day, and yet sometimes I am so disappointed in myself that I can't be 100% the mother you deserve. You are such a gift in our life, I will never be able to explain it enough.

 

Te quiero munequito!!!

 

 

Slipping...

So, we finally moved into our new house. It has been a crazy too weeks, trying to unpack everything, getting this house into a livable state, making too many trips to Ikea (enough to take the fun out of it :( ) , and getting everything from health cards to driver's licenses and everything in between, setup here.

Sofar I am loving the new neighborhood. As would be expected, we all need a bit of getting used to. I do miss our "old" life, the familiarity of it, the knowing where I'm at and where I'm going. But all things considered, our start in this new city has been great. People have been extremely nice, especially our neighbors have been very welcoming. Our street is a dead end that backs into great green fields and horse stables, so we see horses being ridden right behind our back yard on a daily basis. Being a dead end street means we get zero traffic, so I don't get particularly worried if Paulo stays outside while I bring in the groceries, or get Emi inside in his car seat. We can play soccer on the street, we brought the basket ball hoop out as well, and we can go for bike rides and let Paulo go as fast and far as he wants to go.

The trees in the neighborhood are old and tall and full of variety. And the weather... oh the weather! nothing like getting away from the cold and unpredictability of the mountain weather and get some REAL SPRING heat. I haven't bundled the kids up to go out in almost 2 weeks, and half the time I feel like I'm back in Mexico. Sure there's lots of creepy crawlies too, which frankly I didn't miss... but hey, you can't have it all, right?

 

Despite everything going so fine and dandy with our move, I feel like on the family front lately I've been.... slipping. There have been some challenges lately that have gotten me borderline depressed, and it all peaked yesterday with some sort of anxiety attack that brought me to writing this post.

 

What has caused this? well, lately I have been working WAAAY too hard at being a mom. I know being a mom is a 24/7 job and that's all there is to it, sometimes there is just no way around it. But added to that, I seem to have an incredible ability of holding on and holding on and holding on, until I just can't take it any longer and then I explode. Rob often tells me I have to rely more on him and take a break and ask for help. But sometimes that is hard to do when you don't have any family to rely on, and your husband is working his ass off as well. It is just hard to be the one to add yet another thing on his plate. I know it isn't really, and that it is better to take care of yourself first, blah blah blah, but it is just hard to do when you feel like you're dropping a ball. That's how I feel sometimes about asking for help ... maybe it is a personality thing.

 

Anyway, there are a few things that have been particularly bad, and I guess it starts with the fact that Paulo's sleep has been just terrible lately. He has never been a great sleeper, but we had reached a point where he was sleeping through the night pretty consistently. Now, since we started packing for the move, and after Emilio was born, he has been waking up every single night without fail and climbing into our bed. This wouldn't be such a big deal, if only our bed wasn't a queen, my son wasn't a bed hog; if we weren't partially co-sleeping with Emi, and Paulo didn't wake up with nightmares in the middle of the night, screaming and kicking. This all results in him waking Emilio up, Rob having to go to sleep somewhere else (because he needs to go to work the next morning and he is a bad sleeper as well), and me getting sandwiched between two kids, getting no good sleep and sometimes, getting just pissed.

There has been at least a couple of occasions where I have just been exhausted from working all day unpacking and looking after the kids, and when I finally go to bed, this circus starts, and it drags on until the middle of the night, where I just finally lose it and explode on Paulo. Half a second after I explode and make him cry, I feel extremely guilty and not only feel exhausted, but also too guilty to get any sleep even if they'd let me. When this is not the case, I just get depressed that I just can't even get a break at night, and I start to cry. Last night, this is what happened, after a long, exhausting day when Rob was stuck at work, didn't make it home until late, and I had to put both kids to sleep (which is CHAOS) and Paulo just would not go to sleep until almost midnight. I was able to keep it together enough to walk out of his room without losing my cool, but after I came downstairs to tell Rob he needed to take over, I went completely into anxiety mode, which now makes me feel like a total loser.

 

I know this all sounds like it is just a sleep issue. But frankly, the fact that Paulo is doing this every night, sometimes throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of the night, makes me feel like I have absolutely no control (not a good feeling) and even manipulated. I certainly do not appreciate the fact that night after night I have been sleeping completely sandwiched between my bed hog babies, and I cannot remember when was the last time I woke up with my husband next to me. I appreciate even less that I cannot remember the last time I had a good night sleep.

 

Of course I constantly feel like crap all day. I am cranky and Paulo irritates me easily. I look at myself in the mirror and I see a skinny, tired face with circles around the eyes. I see myself getting old. And I see my life slipping by with nothing left for me.

 

I know I don't always feel this way, and I keep telling myself that I hope (I REALLY hope) this is just a phase that will go away. Please let this be a phase. For now I will go to sleep, for the sake of sanity.

 

And on a more cheerful note, some pictures of our neighborhood....

walking down our block

Brothers

biking in the neighborhood

 

Mother's Guilt.

Well, the 2nd week after Emi's birth was... challenging. To say the least. The reason being that Paulo has been a complete MONSTER for the whole week. I mean, Paulo has just turned two, and granted, he's been sick with a bad cold (for the millionth time) and had pink eye, and stopped going to daycare (which he loved) ... oh, and yes, he also just got a little brother and got his world turned upside down. So I understand he has had enough reasons to be grumpy, angry, rebellious, whatever. But seriously, is this behaviour normal??? He has turned the word "NO" into pretty much all the vocabulary he has used in days. And when he doesn't get his way (which is whatever the opposite is of what we ask or want) he just fully BLOWS UP. And by blow up I mean scream and cry, bites his own hand, throws himself on the floor and looses control for waaay too long. Like, I think he forgets what he's fussing about and there is no stopping him, convincing him, bribing him, or ANYTHING one can do to calm him down.

 

Whenever he has done this at home it is not such a big deal, since once we realize there is literally nothing we can do to calm him down we just let him be and walk away until he is ready for a hug or a cuddle and slowly comes back to normal. However it just terrified me to think he could pull one of these when I took him out with the baby and then what would I do?? well, soon enough it happened, and it wasn't pretty.

 

Our day was going so well. I had managed both kids at breakfast pretty much on my own. Managed to put them both down for naps. And then came the afternoon. I felt pretty confident that I could take them both to the park by myself. The day was warm and sunny, they were both well rested. Well, to make the long story short, we made it to the park with smiles on our faces, Emi wrapped up in the sling and Paulo in his balance bike. And then hell broke lose. I will not waste time on the details (I think it still makes me sweaty to remember it), but basically it finished with me trying to drag Paulo across the street on our way back home, with the baby in the sling, the bike in one hand and a fighting Paulo on the other. He eventually threw himself on the ground in front of me, I tripped on him, slipped in the ice, and fell flat on my front. Yes, with the baby wrapped on me. Needless to say, the baby hit himself in the ice, squealed in horror, and I was so terrified at what happened that I don't even want to remember whether I really landed on top of the baby or not. I was so scared to think the baby might be hurt, and soooo increadibly angry at Paulo for causing that. I got up in tears, left the bike where it was, and just grabbed Paulo by the wrist (he was still in full on tantrum mode, screaming and crying) and pretty much dragged him home.

 

 

The little daredevil on his balance bike - pre-tantrum.

Once we got home I checked Emi, who had stopped crying, and couldn't see anything obviously wrong with him, so I calmed down a bit that he wasn't hurt. But man, that scene was just.not.pretty. Paulo was still going insane, and probably was scared because of what happened too. But I was totally shaken, and I felt guilty too. I know that part of me acting that way was because I thought Emi could be hurt. But I also recognize that I completely lost my cool and that I had never acted so desperate and angry at Paulo before... I don't think. He just got the worst of me and I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done to handle things differently...

 

The truth is, I felt (and still feel) really guilty for what happened. Paulo is only 2, he is going to a great deal of changes and I think I have to really understand that and be SUPER EXTRA patient with him. I really do think my children are such amazing, precious gifts of God, and although partly justified because I DO have to discipline him and I should not give in to that behaviour (especially if it puts any of us in danger), that is not the way to handle such a precious gift. And to add to that, I fell really, really short from the type of mother I'd like to be.

 

Eventually Paulo got over the tantrum and we huged and kissed and I tucked him to bed and we were back to normal. But my scar was still there and the whole thing just had me really upset. At the end of the day, I felt so emotionally drained... all I wanted to do was to go to bed and start from zero again the next day.

 

The last few days I have been trying my best to just avoid tantrums as much as possible and give Paulo as much attention as I can. I think he has improved a little and although he has still had a tantrum pretty much every day, it has been at most one and they haven't been such massive meltdowns.

 

However, that feeling from the other day has still managed to linger, and that just adds up to the guilt I feel for not being able to give Paulo 100% of my attention anymore, and to have to split myself between him and his little brother. Funny, how a mother decides to give her first born a brother so they can have each other's back in life, and this very thing that you are doing, partly to make him a happier human being, sometimes ends up making you feel like you are falling short as a mother... Mother's guilt I guess... and this is just the beginning.Sigh....

37 weeks and counting.

Christmas came and went this week and it's hard to believe I am already at 37 weeks in this pregnancy (!!!). Right before Christmas Paulo got really sick with a nasty cold and cough. He had really high fever for a day and completely refused to play (he would cry if I tried to do anything other than lying down or watching videos), spent all his awake time watching the Winnie The Pooh movie over and over again, refused to eat or drink ANYTHING (even his milk, which he loves), and spent much of the day sleeping for hours. I was very worried about him, as I had not seen him like that except for maybe once or twice in his 2 years... I made sure he drank as much liquids as possible, even if that meant having a tiny sip of water every few hours or try as hard as I could to have him eat some apple sauce, yoghurt or even ice cream... anything that would get some liquids into him. It was really hard to watch him feel so crappy, but fortunately by the end of the day, after all that sleep, he did eventually have a big bottle of milk -- HUGE relief. The next morning he woke up feeling and looking sick, but much better. He is still a bit sick now, but fortunately he recovered quite well. His appetite is ssssloooowly coming back and he is definitely back to his playful self. The bad news is that now of course Rob and I are pretty sick ourselves with the same nasty bug. I was pretty sure I was going to get it (as always happens whenever Paulo comes down with something), so I figured I would embrace the illness and hurry up and get it over with, instead of delaying it until I have this baby. The LAST thing I need is to feel miserable with a cold in the middle of labour :S.

On the positive side, it was great to be able to stay at home for a few days and catch up on all those errands I was struggling to get done. We finally managed to settup the baby's crib in our room, settup some plastic drawers on the side to keep diapers and other supplies handy, organize the baby's clothes in the closet, pack the back up suitcase in case we need to go to the hospital, and a big plastic bin with all the supplies for the home birth. I even managed to do a bit of tidying up in our storage room and cleared out lots of toys to donate.

And then there was Christmas. This year we had a very quiet Christmas at home with Paulo's Nana. She came over for breakfast and spent the whole day at home with us (it was -30C outside all week, so the thought of going outside for walks or playing in the snow didn't even cross our minds). We spent all day opening the presents, playing with Paulo's new toys and preparing our first, very own turkey dinner, which turned out great. 

As for the presents, this year we decided that rather than getting individual gifts for each other we would get one big family present, which this year would be a tablet. For us two it would be just a toy, since we already have smartphones and a laptop. However, we thought it would be great for Paulo especially, as he could play some age appropriate games in it, watch YouTube videos, and most importantly, play with it when we travel to Mexico in March (and keep our sanity on the airplane!). It actually took us a long time to decide to go ahead and buy the tablet, as we had concerns of Paulo being too young to handle and/or play with a tablet . We certainly didn't want him to be glued to the thing all day, which happens sometimes with our cellphones. So one rule strict we did come up with was to never allow the tablet to be used during meals, and also to limit the time he spends in front of that screen. We also got some fun stocking stuffers for each other. I got some small camping gadgets for Rob from his favourite store, Mountain Equipment Coop; he got me some treats that I love (candy, fine cheeses, magazines, etc) and we also got Paulo some books from the Mr and Miss series that he loves. Paulo got lots of presents from his Nana and grandparents in Mexico, and other members of the family. As always, it was the most fun watching him play with his new toys, the big winner being his washable Crayola felt pens.

 

Paulo playing with his new Crayola markers

 

 

Playing with Melissa and Doug's train sound puzzle

 It was a great, very laid back week for our family and it was just nice spending so much time together, especially with Rob, who has been working really hard in the last few months.

Paulo and Rob reading

Fortunately, he has been off work for that and this week, and although I had to be back for my last couple of days at work before I go on Maternity Leave, it has made things much easier to have him around at home to help out with making breakfast and lunches in the morning.



   I can now focus on enjoying the last few days of my working, professional life, and move on to the next chapter of my life: becoming a full-time, stay at home mom. Wish me luck!

Birthday #2

Happy Birthday #2 Paulo!!! Since you arrived, there has been nothing more important to me than putting a smile on your little face, and being worthy of that smile. You have made my heart explode with happiness on a daily basis, and have made me love you even more when I didn’t think it possible. You have made me experience life for the first time all over again. I love you and what you have done to my life so much. Feliz Cumpleanios enano!!

 



March 2012 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

 It was Paulo's 2nd Birthday last week and we had two small celebrations, one before his birthday with my friends and their babies , and then one on the day of his Birthday with Rob's family. Paulo had tons of fun at both of them, mainly just playing with balloons which are his all time favourites. It has been one week since his last party and he is still obsessed with the only surviving helium balloon :).

 

Thanks to all the preparation that comes with birthday parties I had no time to think about what it felt like to have my first born turning 2. But now that the wirldwind is starting to quiet down (although not completely due to a very busy Holiday Season), I can't help but think... holy cow! 2 whole years have gone by since that first night we finally had our little baby in our arms...

 

Once again one of the things that amazes me as a parent is all the changes that a little baby goes through in two years. Paulo has not only become a whole different person physically, but he has developed his own personality in this short but busy time of his life. Not to mention, I myself have gone through my own transformation, just thinking about the type of person I had no idea I would become once I became a mother.

 



Paulo's 1st Year Photobook from Picaboo.

Since Paulo turned 2, I feel like he looks different to me just knowing that he is no longer a little baby. Not only is he officially a TODDLER, but he is becoming a little boy. I can't put my finger on it, but just looking at the new skills he has acquired, the confidence he has in his movements, his learning to communicate and make his own choices are just some of the constant reminders of how fast he is growing. Thankfully, I will not completely forget about this stage since I have accomplished at least my most important New Years resolution from 2011-- to finish Paulo's 1st Year Photo Book before his birthday (or before the 2nd baby was born). I am clearly very proud of myself considering the amount of time and effort it took me to get this done. I got it on a discount from Picaboo, which made it so much easier to design it than it would have been to do everything manually, which was the original plan. I am pretty happy with the result and hope one day he will be too.



Little One

Lately I have had the urge to write more about the dailiness of living with Paulo, taking pictures and anything that helps me not forget the time when it was always just the 3 of us. I guess I haven't really been that good at even keeping track of every little thing. Perhaps just the big milestones and even some of those have escaped me. I think I have probably trusted my memory too much, and just thinking that I will never forget what those moments felt like and what they look  like in my head, makes me become less disciplined when it comes to writing.

However, now I realize how much life has changed in just 23 months and how much more it will change when the new baby arrives. Will my memory become foggy again? will I forget everything that happens while I am sleep deprived again? Will having two kids make it impossible to pay attention to any particular milestones or daily happenings?

But with the purpose of remembering the little things that Paulo can say and do now that make every day so special,  I have written down a list. Of course it would take a full time job to be able to write everything that I think is cute about him so I will write whatever comes to mind at this time:

• He will randomly look  at me with the sweetest look, come to me, hold my face with both hands and give me a very very soft kiss in the face (almost if if he thought he could hurt me :) )
• whenever he wants something, he will tell me as if he is asking himself and then respond: i.e. he'll say: "quieres quesito? si!" ("do you want cheese? yes!")
• He will sing songs to himself completely out of tune, but still sounds so sweet to me. Obviously he can't sing every song word by word correctly yet, so he sounds like someone who is learning a new language and only immitates the sounds, but has no clue what he is singing
• Whenever he sees me coming into a room, or first thing in the morning, he will smile at me and tell me in the seetest little voice "Hola 'mune'!! (short for "muneco/doll" which is what I call him sometimes)
• He pretends to count "uno, dos tres, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, cinco, dos, tres..." haha
• Paulo loves to "read". He loves the library, loves looking at one book after another and lately he even loves looking at the newspaper with me. We will both sit on the couch and I will read the headings and he will look at the pictures on it :). Some of his favourite books have been read to him so many times, that sometimes I will catch him saying the words to himself while he plays
• Paulo's other favourite thing to do is to play with balls. Soccerballs, footballs, rubber balls, sponge balls, bouncy balls, etc. Big, small, tiny, it doesn't matter, he loves them all. It is also amazing the soccer skills he has developed, as he'll spend probably 60% of his play time kicking a ball around and back and forth with mama and/or papa.
•  Sometimes he has little spurts of independence and will actually kick me out of his room when I am putting him to sleep for example. Other times, like last night, he will playing cars with daddy and when I come to see what tey are doing he says "vaya mama!" / "mama go!" - he wants me to go away and let them play alone! I could feel sad but I just find it hilarious.

These are only some of the things that melts my heart on a daily basis. They are the type of things that make me smile like a goof when I'm sitting at my desk at work or riding the bus to work. They all melt my heart and make me think how lucky I am to have suck a special and loving little boy.

 

 

Amazing little moments

It has been a while since I last wrote anything to myself about this great experience of watching Paulo grow.

Last night he came to my bed (his daddy is away) and we slept there until this morning. When he woke up with his usual mischievous smile he heard the birds on the tree outside my bedroom window and said "pajarozzz!" (birds!). Wow. It is not that I am amazed at his recognizing the birds chirping, or that he knows the word for this animal (he has been saying "birtzzz" and recognized the word "Pajaro" for a long time now). It just amazed me that he used the Spanish word for the 1st time, and also used the plural form correctly. It is hard to explain, but it is not just the use of this particular word that surprised me (although I must say, my English speaking husband has been trying to say this word correctly for years and still hasn't mastered it!). It is the speed and frequency at which all these little moments are happening. This week there has been an incredible amount of new words he has learned to say and I have noticed he has been using more of the plural forms lately. Like, for instance, the other day he said "delfines" when he saw more than one dolphin. Again, WOW.

This is not to say that MY little guy is a genius. Yes I think he is a genius, but that is the way I feel about ALL babies. It is amazing to see that these creatures are thrown into this world knowing NOTHING about how this universe works, and yet from the very first day they have to learn to eat, breathe, recognize faces, and put together all those pieces of the puzzle that will help them survive. They are learning machines. My baby just happens to be really good with language. Other babies are good at physical things, others at socializing and maybe some others have faced other challenges since they were born, but they all have their incredible milestones. Us parents know that. We know how it feels when your heart half-stops when a moment like this occurs. When my son said "pajarozz" this morning, I just sat there in bed and I swear I must have looked around in the room looking for somebody to acknowledge how amazing that was. If this had happened with other people around I probably would have had to stop myself from telling everybody out loud how exciting this was and would have gotten lots of funny looks.

I just needed to write down how wonderful it is to be a child, and how great it is to be a parent to witness it. It just makes me want to stop everything for a moment, breathe deeply and think to myself what a blessing my son has been in my life.