what we do on rainy days...

Yep, still raining. Elvis heard an (unofficial) statistic that said that the average rainfall this week has been 2 feet per day. We rigged up Suzy's swing in the laundry room, we play with a lot of Play-dough, and here's some more of our typical rainy day activities:

Draw with chalk on the play mat while the sidewalks are wet. Suzy's always asking me to draw crazy stuff: the monkey from Dora, mangoes, planes, grasshoppers, etc. I like to stick to flowers and moons, although I have perfected a pretty good Elmo.

Suzy works on her "laptop". (I love her creativity- she turned over her Leap Pad book thing one day and said it was her computer and started typing away)

Fit into small spaces:
Anybody got any more ideas out there????????

a much-needed night out...

Elvis's work is killing me. I know it's killing him more, but I'm really struggling with it right now. The never knowing what time he will get off work, the working 9 pm-1 am Sunday night, the fact that he gets to see Suzy like half an hour every night, the fact that phones in general are strictly prohibited at work meaning that I never know what time he will come home....oh and did I mention no over-time pay nor comp hours? Yeah. I'm a little bitter right now. Sorry.

Plus it's been raining here literally non-stop since Sunday. School has been cancelled the past 3 days due to rain (staff still had to show up...shucks) Apparently one tropical depression passed through at the beginning of the week and another started today. I love the rainy days (when i'm inside the house) but we're all feeling a little cramped being inside and not being able to go outside and play. Plus, this is more than just a little rain...today the president declared a national emergency due to the fact that over 4,300 people and their homes have been affected by the rains, lost bridges, mudslides, flooding, etc. Newspapers are saying that 5 have already died.

When Elvis got home last night (2 hours late), I decided to surprise him with a mystery date for when Suzy went to bed (don't worry, Dinora was at home....we didn't just leave her there by herself). I realized i've been complaining an awful lot about his job and getting mad about it instead of trying to cheer him up and distract him so we went out to the moooovies last night to see "Le Concert", a really perfect French movie which included all my favorites: comedy, music, and getting to root on the underdog who wants to live out their life-long dream. Here's the summary according to the IMDB:

Thirty years ago, Andrei Simoniovich Filipov, the renowned conductor of the Bolshoi orchestra, was fired for hiring Jewish musicians. Now a mere cleaning man at the Bolshoi, he learns by accident that the Châtelet Theater in Paris invites the Bolshoi orchestra to play there. He decides to gather together his former musicians and to perform in Paris in the place of the current Bolshoi orchestra. As a solo violin player to accompany his old Jewish or Gypsy musicians he wants Anne-Marie Jacquet, a young virtuoso. If they all overcome the hardships ahead this very special concert will be a triumph.


I have no idea if this movie is out in the States or not, but if you can get a hold of a copy, you should definitely watch it. It will cheer you up....it sure did us! Maybe the giant box of caramel popcorn helped a bit too.....

To have a piñata or to not have a piñata....

...that is the question. I think we stepped into a time warp and somehow Suzy's 2nd b-day is quickly approaching. I have no idea how this happened, since just last month we were in NC, celebrating her 1st bday. Here in El salvador, a typical b-day revolves around the child's favorite cartoon character, of which they buy a piñata (or numerous pinatas) to later be smashed to smithereens while other children (and their competitive, high-heel clad mothers) dive under a swinging pole wielded by a tot that is probably already on a sugar high in order to grab cheap candy. I think I may have just found the root of the gang problem in Latin America: violence against piñatas. On the plus side, here, we typically do not use blindfolds on the child smashing the piñata, which must lower the casualty rate by a large percentage.

Oh, and you have to serve homemade chicken salad sandwiches and horchata (a drink made of milk, cinnamon, rice, and spices). I've ruled out horchata from suzy's bday celebration already due to the fact that i am highly, highly allergic to it (think Hitch x 10), something i realized only after downing a huge glass of it on one of me and elvis's first real dates. Nice move, ash. Morph into a hive-covered, vomiting distortion of yourself with lips that Angelina Jolie would be jealous of in front of the guy who wants to marry you. I knew Elvis was a keeper when he didn't get freaked out, not even when it happened again a month later. So, all that to say that we will not be following the tradition of having horchata at her party.

Actually, Suzy went to a party for one of her neighborhood buds, Emma, last weekend. The pinata action was pretty chill, probably because Emma was turning 1 year old, and so Suzy decided she wanted to actually hit a pinata for the first time. Well, maybe "hit" is not the correct term. "Tap", "rub", "gently knock" might better describe what she did, while commenting on how pretty the Pony's eyes and nose were. I love that she inherited her Papi's gentle nature!

Emma, the b-day girl, who Suzy plays with in the neighborhood almost every day:

We probably will not have brownies at her party, either. Last night, we had some American co-workers over for a taco night, and so Suzy helped me make some brownies. She helped me put mint chocolate chips in the brownies (one in the brownies, three in her mouth...) and then she had a couple of bites of a brownie after dinner. I'm not sure if that was the trigger, but she threw up about 5 minutes after i put her down to sleep last night. Over the monitor we heard, "Uh oh, blankie! Uh oh blankie!" I knew she had her blankie with her, but i went to check it out when she kept getting more upset. Apparently she had thrown up on her blankie which caused the distress, then said "Uh oh mami shirt!" when she threw up again on my shirt. After getting all cleaned up, we laid her down in our bed to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't get sick anymore. A close friend of ours just took her 2 yr old son home from the hospital this weekend after spending 5 days in there with what they suspect may be H1N1. Apparently there's been another outbreak here and I wanted to keep a close eye on Suz.

She's not much of a snuggler, but rather likes to flop around in every direction in the bed. At one point, however, she flopped into my arms and snuggled up to me. I took one arm off of her so she wouldn't feel smothered, but she took my arm and put it back around her. By this point, this Mami was in heaven, and then she clapped, as if to say, "I love being right here with you, feeling so safe and comfy." It lasted about 3 more minutes before she wanted to wiggle around, but in those 3 minutes, I realized how little I cared that she had thrown up on me, how tired I was, how much our lives have changed in the past almost-2 years; it is so worth it.

Ooga ooga

That's what cavesmen say, right? Well, something like that. Friday was our annual Children's day celebration at school, which is our excuse to get to dress up in October (Halloween is definitely not allowed to be celebrated at school). You may remember when I dressed up as one of the 7 dwarfs, pinata head and all...8 months pregnant. This year's theme was "Time Travel" which meant that we had to dress up from some past time period. Today was super special because I took Suzy with me to the celebration! You see, she was an essential part of our group's costume. We were cavemen:

And Suzy was Pebbles!!
All the students were like, "Miss! How long did it take you to get your hair like that?!" and I'm thinking...."Um...approximately one minute, thanks." At least they noticed a difference from my normal hair. And I guess I'm lucky that i didn't have to pay for a wig.

Here were some of the other costumes:


The younger kids' theme was the "Farm", which for some reason included a kangaroo. And of course, someone always dresses up like a fairy. Maybe she misunderstood "dairy farm" and thought they said "fairy farm". Anyway, Suzy's favorite part of the day was going down to the pre-school to check out the playground and play with the other kids. And they thought she was the coolest thing ever...everybody wanted to hold "the baby" (they were only 3 years old hehe) and they called her Pebbles until Suzy told them that her name is Suzy. I think Suzy is going to love preschool one day...well, at least recess.

making friends and Suzy's WIWM

So I've noticed that some bloggers are doing this WIWW thing..."What I Wore Wednesday" to show off their cute style. Don't worry, I'm not trying to do that. But Suzy decided she would show you her WIWM..."What I wore Monday" to prove that a true diva can in fact wear brown with black shoes, and that it all goes with navy too. Who said these colors clashed? You just got to know how to work it!

Suzy also wanted to share some pictures of some of her new friends...she really likes making new friends, as long as Mami and Papi are around too. She's not so keen on the nursery at church yet, even though her bff Pacita is always there. She likes to know we're in the same room. And she seems to like hanging out with older kids. She and Pacita are so close in age that sometimes their hanging out times turn into I-want-whatever-toy-you-have-right-now-even-though-I-haven't-paid-it-any-attention-in-6-months times for both of them. I really like our little neighborhood because every afternoon, when it isn't raining, we can go play in the street (literally) with the other neighborhood kids. Here's one of her friends from the neighborhood, Diego....gotta watch out for this little ladies man! He likes to walk her home after playing at the park:This is another random little girl Suzy met at the park on Sunday and became immediate friends with:



Here's another new friend that came over Sunday night:
And I'll share this little "wipey" dance party with you in case if you missed it on facebook....Suzy and Elvis were looking for the wipes and broke into a spontaneous dance:

sliding, swinging, kicking, and tumbling

The rest of Mom and Dad's visit consisted of lots of playing and lots of eating. Elvis's mom made us yummy homemade pupusas one night, and mom and dad made sure that Suzy got spoiled as much as possible =) While Elvis and i were at work one day, they took her to get donuts for the first time at Mister Donut. You see, since Independence Day is in September, Mister Donut celebrates each year by offering buy-one-get-one-free donuts. People go nuts. You would think that they were offering buy-one-donut-get-a-million-dollars. People line up for hours, the whole month of September just to get their 2 for 1 donuts. But the thing is that their normally only about 80 cents, so the savings isn't that big of a deal, but it's the best publicity ever and people (myself included) literally start craving donuts starting about the last week of August even though I would never think of buying one any other time of the year. Anyway, all that to say that there is a continual line at Mister Donut during the month of September, but mom and dad decided to brave the line one day with Suzy. They tell me that as soon as they walked in and asked Suzy which donut she wanted of the hundreds that were displayed, her eyes lit up and she started yelling "candy! candy!" and pointing at the sprinkle-covered donut. Wait a second, how does she know what candy is if she's never eaten it before?? And how does she know that word, in english, if I've never taught her that word?? My only conclusion is that kids are born with an innate concept of candy. Anyway, mom and dad say that during the whole 30-minute wait for the donuts, Suzy was dying to eat that candy and kept the whole line entertained. All of Suzy's grandparents together for massive spoiling:
Playing at the park:








Here's a video of my little soccer player, after running non-stop for about 45 minutes. It's OK if you laugh at the wipe-out at the end of the video....I do too because I know she didn't get hurt!

Suchitoto

On Saturday, mom and dad and Suz and I picked up Elvis from work and headed on to a little colonial town named Suchitoto, cobble-stone streets and all. It actually used to be the capital city back in the day. It has a big, lovely lake, but it started pouring down rain as soon as we got to the lake, so no pictures of the lake. You'll see that Suzy fell asleep in her stroller, she was so worn out. This may seem not so interesting, but it was the first time in her entire life that she fell asleep in her stroller! She takes awesome naps, but only when she is in her room in her crib with the lights off. If we're out and about, you can usually forget about it...she's way more interested in checking out what's going on around her. That's why I had to document her sleeping in her stroller, and her sleeping in the hammock at the beach!











The picture you see above was painted on the walls outside of a large majority of the houses in Suchitoto...it says, " In this house we want a life free of violence towards women." Each family that has decided to stand up against violence has painted this on the outside of their homes. I love that!

just a few more beach pictures...

So I had to take mom and dad to the airport this morning....not fun. But i am so thankful for their week here with us and for the opportunity for them to love on our little girl in personal for a few days and not just on skype. They're taking home with them a lot of funny Suzy sayings such as "More Papi getcha!" which is a hide-and-seek tag game, and funny memories, such as our Latin dance aerobics class with a spandex-loving, shimmying male instructor. Thanks Mom and Dad for everything!!