Going for the gold

Parenting any child should be an Olympic sport. Parenting toddlers should come with a salary, sponsorship or at the very least, intense psychotherapy. There are so many ups and downs, so many steps forward and even more steps backward.

Yesterday was another awful day at preschool. Ira was in fairly good spirits, but kept hitting and trying to bite other kids. As close as I was supervising him in the classroom, you would think I could have headed off any conflicts. However, my little rascal is so quick, that before I could get up off the floor and spring into action, it seemed he was already on top of another kid. I was mortified, feeling like the parent of the only bad kid in class. Perhaps I should have left with him sooner, but after three separate incidents, I decided we'd call it a day. We left promptly after snack time. No playground time, no circle/story time. If he didn't learn the lesson of "if you can't play nice, you can't play," then I learned the lesson of "if you can't hack it at preschool, leave." We came home and I went online to seek out some support from other parents going through their hitting phases. I was so annoyed and angered to find so many other parents (with angelic kids, of course), saying that hitting wasn't normal and even speculated that kids who hit, do it because they're from abusive households. Oh, dear. Heylove, I need a hug.

Even with all that, Ira woke up this morning with the cutest chatter. He's been stuttering something awful the last week or two and we've been working with him to take a breath and slow down. I'm chalking the recent impediment up to a breakthrough with language and applying complex English syntax. Case in point, I heard him use the word "because" rather effectively (for a two and a half year old) this morning.

At breakfast, pontificating about fruit: "Watermelons have seeds because...they grow in the ground. Mangoes are green, then orange. I eat the mama one!"

Then he did some cute singing: "Party every day, oh yeah!" I think he was trying a Kiss/Ramones mash up. And then came this chant: "You got a heart! You got a heart!"

I do love this kid more than I thought I could love anything.

Neon takes Mexico

Oye, look at this guerita! So pale next to these mujeres in their huipils. There's nothing like being in Mexico that makes me feel like the whitest American out there. I am about as Mexican as you all are British, German, Hungarian or whatever. My family has been here in the states for 5 generations now. Over the years, we've lost a lot of the Mexican traditions and most regrettably, the language. Only my aunt can still speak it, but that's because she traveled in Mexico when she was younger. Everyone else only knows food Spanish (burrito, taco, tamal, menudo, tripas, etc.). Just last Christmas at a family gathering, I shuddered when I heard a relative ask someone to warm a tortilla on the comadre. Oh brother. He meant comal, which is the cast iron tortilla warmer thing. A comadre is a lady friend. Like an old lady friend. A comadre would use a comal, but they are hardly the same thing. That's how Mexican we are.

Moving on! We had a great time on our much needed, long-planned, 5 year anniversary vacation. The weather was great, hardly humid, very warm and mostly sunny. We got in a good day at the beach, worked on our tans (which I can't even show off because of the arctic weather here), drank, ate and saw some sights.




I ate a lot of stuff that looks like this. This is a huarache, which was like a big, soft tostada. Being a vegetarian in Mexico basically sucks. I ate a whole lot of beans, cheese and tortillas. I know, wah, wah! I had it so rough.


Check this out. Leon BEER!



And Sol beer? What's next? Levy beer? This is a chelada. It's just like a Sacramento Treat except it's made with lime juice instead of lemon. Oh, and it's got salt. I'm in love.




Look who we got to hang out with on our trip! Yay, friends! It was so nice to see them. They're having a baby this fall and we're super excited for them. What a cute little fam.



One of the days, we went to Tulum. This place is fascinating! Ancient Maya ruins on the coast. Just look at that water! We had a cute little tour guide, but man did he turn my brain into mush! He could speak English, but since he knew I could speak a little Spanish, he kept asking me to translate to my friends. Ordinarily, I might have been able to, but he had a bad lisp and he was hard to follow.



Here are some locals on the pier. I love this lady.


There was some tequila action happening here, but I didn't get in on it. I didn't want to stray from my precious cheladas.




We ate at this cute little place one morning, outside the tourist area. Check out my fruit plate! The staff there were really nice. I had fruit, fresh orange juice and two huge panquques for about $2 usd. Unfortunately, right after this we took the world's fastest, bounciest ferry ride to isla Cozumel and I had to experience this breakfast all over again if you know what I mean. Ugh!




Cozumel was gorgeous. I liked these horse and carriage guys.


Everywhere we went, there were beautiful colors.




And jungle!



We did some snorkeling. It was only a little scary.


For our last day, we stayed in Cancun. Our flight the next morning was super early, so we decided to stick close to the airport. Our hotel, El Rey Caribe was way outside of the hotel zone and extremely hard to find. We had to ask at least a dozen people how find it. Finally I spotted a lady with the hotel shirt on and she walked us ten feet down the street and boom, there it was. Phew!



The courtyard was beautiful! The area the hotel was in was kind of lame, so this place was a real sanctuary.



We left in the morning at dawn and began our long journey home. We had a six hour layover in Houston, but it really didn't seem that long. We walked around, played in this cool echo dome they had, conducted races on the moving walkways and read our books. It wasn't until we saw the TVs playing the news that we learned about the swine flu drama, which had unfolded during our vacation. We hadn't even heard about it in Mexico. And now we're back! We totally missed Ira while we were gone, but didn't regret leaving him with his grandparents. He had a great time, too. When we got back, we got the best hugs from him. My heart just about melted when he said "I'm so happy you're here!" It was pretty sweet.