pepe's first musical compozition

is called "The Lighthouse".
Pepe wanted to take his guitar to Walden Pond this afternoon, and we complied. As soon as we got to the beach, he took the guitar and started playing "The Lighthouse". I was unable to understand all the words, but it went something like "Boats pass the lighthouse.....You can press a button and the light comes on...Oh, the lighthouse", and the chorus was "bum, bam, bum, the lighthouse". He was very specific about what Chris and I had to do, sit down, stand up, dance. He loved having an audience and kept looking around to see whether people were watching him.I hear from Chris that he also composed "The other lighthouse" and "The Lexington toy store". I missed that, as I went for a swim.

toddler talk

Yesterday Pepe ran out of the back door, into the neighbours yard, without saying a word to us. I went to the porch, which oversees the neighbours' yard, and called to him:
AM: Pepe, come back.
P: __
AM: Pepe, come back.
P (playing with the diggers in the sandbox): Mom, I can't hear you, I am working....

***
Pepe's new favorite line, we have no idea where it came from:

"I thought you'd know what to do".

****
Pepe's favorite activity these days is to cuddle with mommy in mommy and daddy's bed, or Buni's bed. This is major roughhousing, and poor Chris is stressed out that someone will eventually get hurt. And we do get hurt once in while, like yesterday when Pepe bumped his head onto my ankle bone, and he bit my stomach along with the shirt... But overall, we have fun, scream, and tire out the toddler. Pepe likes to "wake me" and when he does, I tickle.

*****
My new trick with Pepe is using the watch to help him move on to a new activity - like going upstairs for sleepies. I explain to him when 5 minutes will be up, then give him the 1 min warning and we watch together the second hand is moving around and gets to 12 ("the red"). The Pepe excitedly runs up the stairs into the bed. Will see how long this will last.

******

Lots of guitar playing these days - favorites are "Cars" - mostly Route 66 and Life is a dream (pronounced Baba maghee - it took us a while, and lots of screaming on Pepe's part, to understand what his request meant), Peter Bjorn "It's a must". He plays the guitar, and I need to hold up my microphone (a banana) and dance around.

pooped over and about

I blogged a bit about Pepe's constipation last week, and about the enema experience. Last night Chris and I were all worried about his lack of pooping for the past 3 days. Pepe was playing on the porch, tagging his trains. At some point Chris went to check on him and ....I heard a; "Hon, Hon, Ana-Maria (he never calls me that!), we need help". I went on the porch and there was poop everywhere, Pepe's hands and face and clothes and trains and carpet. Chris looked overwhelmed and started showing me that he has poop on his arms (Chris gets easily overwhelmed by poop, as I discovered 3 years ago when I wrapped Pepe's first poop diaper and gave it to him as a present from Pepe), and gesticulating how I need to help and there is an emergency. Well, I do not get overwhelmed by poop and I have the European openness about pooping experiences, so I took Pepe to the upstairs bathroom and washed him and Chris helped a bit although the entire night he complaint about his arm smelling like poop (it did!).

Fast forward to this morning. Replay last night pooping episode, minus Chris's overwhelmed. This is called habituation, hopefully only for Chris.

Oh, and this kid will MAYBE get potty trained by the time he starts college!

Bye bye A Place to Grow

Today is Pepe's last day at A Place to Grow. We got gift cards and donuts this am, and made some cards for the teachers. it was a good place for Pepe but it is time to move on. I confess I am sad. I don't like transitions, and every transition means that Pepe is getting older. I do like to see him developing into his own self, and I like his independence, but I do miss the times when he was happily sitting in my arms. Now he almost never does that. I remember my mom telling me when Pepe was born, "enjoy it now, coz when they turn 4 they are not *yours* anymore". Well, Pepe is only 3 and I am already discovering that.

Pepe was all happy this am, as he has no idea that this is his last day at his old school. Oh, except when it was time to go, and he started screaming that he does not want to go...the usual. I hope he'll look forward to going to school when he starts the new one.

back to school

Pepe is back to good health. He went to school today, so he tried hard not to. I am a bit concerned about his constipation, but he has been eating lots of raisins so hopefully we'll see a poop soon (god, the things you are looking forward to when you have a child). I am also thinking of ways to ensure that he is getting enough dairy. No baba now, and he does not want to drink milk or even chocolate milk from a cup or sippy cup. He likes water and sometimes juice, but not milk. He does eat a bit of yogurt, and overall he eats much more solid food since giving up the baba. So that's a good thing.

still under the weather

pepe is getting better, but he is still under the weather. we all got back home today after a weekend away - me, hiking with my bootcamp palls, chris and pepe at grandma's house. i felt a little guilt leaving while pepe was sick, and much appreciated chris's push to go. i had fun. on sat night chris called saying that pepe has still not pooped (since tuesday) and jim was concerned, and chris called the pediatrician who suggested suppositories. chris had wanted us to start pepe on those earlier in the week, but i still have the memory of getting those as a kid and how i dreaded it and how they stung... chris said pepe was fine, as they gave him one in his sleep. but it did not help. so this morning pepe had an anima, which actually helped. so all is regulated at the moment. i still feel guilty for having been away, but am working on it. i never go away on my own, for a full weekend, and who knew this would happen?

so back home, pepe is very testy, fussy, and difficult. hopefully just a phase, not the terrible 3s.

conversation

AM: What's your name?
P: Pepe
AM: And your last name?
P: Ofio
AM: And daddy's name?
P: Chris
AM: What does daddy do for a living?
P: He is a teacher
AM: What's mommy's name
P: Mommy. I mean Ana Ria
AM: What does mommy do?
P: She is a cocologist.

sick

pepe is resting at my feet, watching a thomas tape. he has been sick for the past 2 days. tuesday morning he felt sluggish all morning, chris says. we all left in the am toward my work, and the boys stopped at kendall to pick up a baby bjorn potty that we got on craig's list. pepe seemed his happy self, v excited about the trip. when i came home from work, he was hot and sleepy and cranky. chris and i held him all afternoon. he perked up a bit and chris took him to see diggers. he fell asleep in his crib, but was up at 12am, and chris and i took turns telling stories until i made the decision to take him to our bed, and he fell asleep pushing me almost completely out of the bed. this was 2am. i barely slept as i worried i might wake him if i move him towards the middle of the bed. i left at 5 am for bootcamp, and pepe and chris got up as well. i hear that they slept in the livingroom, on the floor, sharing a pillow. i called pepe from work and he seemed cheerful. but this afternoon when i came back he wanted to stay in bed, which we did, and he was v low energy. he managed to eat some pasta and crackers, and drink a little water. his fever is down thanks to the tylenol. he seems more comfortable now. lets hope for a good night sleep for everyone...and that i'll manage to be quieter tomorrow morning...

no baba..ok!

i could not find the baba tonight. i looked everywhere. i called chris but of course he did not answer - he'll tell me tomorrow that he did not hear the calls, the sox were too loud i guess. so no baba, and i anticipated a tough bedtime, particularly since i had to interrupt pepe's playtime to get his ready for bed. so i asked him to help me find the baba. we looked everywhere and pepe announced, "no baba, daddy has it' (thanks, i bet it is in the car, left there by DADDYYYYY). that was the end of it. we went upstairs, read stories, cuddled, and pepe accepted the two sippy cups - one with water and one with milk- that i put in his crib. he even wanted to share his milky - "have some, mommy, it is really good'. so after 5 minutes of ducky stories, the boy is fast asleep. nice work, mommy

p.s. i did not mention that pepe poured the water from a bottle onto my head when we were cuddling, and laughed hysterically thereafter. whose fault? of course chris's - they keep playing this game at the rez and in the bathtub, and the "poor kid" could not make the difference. yeah, right!

update on the 3 y old

Not much going on post the bday party. I think everyone had a great time. The weather was wonderful, the pizza nice and greasy, the cake(s) a toddler's delight. It was great to see the kids playing together, interacting, talking, running around. It was also lovely to catch up with the parents! I am still looking forward to those parties where you can just drop the kid off...maybe next year?

Pepe has been v busy with all the new toys and books. He keeps having conversations with his trains, diggers, backhoes..v sweet to watch.

Our plan with giving up the baba is not working. Pepe announced with a pout on his face that he does not want to give the baba to babies, "I still using it". There you go. So we still give it to him at night, 1/2 full, so that's progress. The potty training has stagnated. Pepe pees everywhere and loves to watch the flow.Once he peed in a dump track and was very excited about moving the liquid with his backhoe...none of that happened, luckily, as i got involved. Tonight he caught poopies in his hands, and transported them to the toilet, I guess that is progress, too.

Pepe is so eager for peer acceptance. At school he is super popular and all kids want to play with him (or so I hear). At the rez, however, he gets kinda lonely. He tries to butt in to other kids' (older) plays, building with them, talking to them, but he is rarely successful. Kids are not v acceptant of a younger kid (dahhh!). This afternoon the situation got to him. Both Chris and I watched him from a distance. A bunch of older kids were building one of those water dumps, and Pepe wanted to get involved. He tried talking to them but they did not pay attention. He got a little bucket and started pouring water like the older kids, but he got yelled at a few times. All of a sudden I see him banging the bucket into this older kids who gave him a hard time. It was an easy one, but still, the kid got mad, went to his mom crying. Mom immediately went to Pepe, and I sent Chris along as well. Chris started telling Pepe that he should not have done that, and the mom mumbled something, too. Immediately Pepe hugged the kid, said sorry, it was an accident, and went his marry way. Good social skills, but obviously nothing internalized. And it was clear to me that this was all related to the frustration of not being included,and not having the language and ability to express this frustration. i tried to talk to him this afternoon about it, not sure how much sunk in. i really hope he'll have it easy on the social realm. there is nothing worse then the feeling of not being accepted...

digger cake....pepe's fav part? the dirt

petru is turning 3

It's been an amazing year for Pepe and us! In the eve of his bday I look back on last year's events and am mesmerized about how quickly time went by, and how much change I witnessed, both in Pepe and in myself. The major milestones have been the toddler typical - language, temper tantrums (really we have been lucky in this department, and there have only been a couple of months when Pepe was about 2 and 1/2 when the tantrums were frequent - i guess this is bc we have always encouraged Pepe's independence, and ...he has mostly been getting his way), ability to understand and comply with social norms, manipulation (e.g., crying on demand, pulling a "I am scared"). Interests have changed. This has been the year of diggers, backhoes, front loaders, bulldozers and excavators, trips with daddy to "Robert's yard", a construction site close by where the boys befriended the owner, countless hours of Bob the Builder, Thomas & Cars. Pepe has also continued his love for music, and played his guitar and drums and mini piano on the tunes of various kids songs. He was also found repeatedly singing the lyrics of various non kids CDs that we frequently play in the car. He went to library concerts and took a "Music Together Class". This year we said good bye to running with mommy in the jogging stroller, although Pepe keeps asking about it from time to time. We registered him for a couple of kid dashes, but he ended up doing none, as there were always major distractions at the start line, like a playground or a digger or two. Definetly not mommy's genes in this department. This year also represents the end of Pepe's fear of water. The daily trips to the town beach and the fountain have transformed Pepe into a water baby - we had to pay close attention at times as Pepe kept heading for the deep water. Pepe continued to love taking the bus and the train, going to the video store where now he is able to pick the videos he wants, going to the pizza store where he is known as the california boy who does not look like his parents, going to the playground, and just going out "to see what's happening". He continues to love going to Toys R Us and Henry bear's Park and play with their toys..
Pepe is still needy of his baba and blanky, still wears dipers - though he prefers to be naked, but we prefer not to have pee and poop all over the place. He continues to be strong willed, but has also developed a quiet understanding and ability to comply with things that are not his first choice, but are part of the routine.
Recently Pepe has developed a fascination with monsters, with hiding, being "found" by mommy or daddy and screaming with delight. He loves to "cuddle" in mommy and daddy's bed. He loves to hear "ducky stories", where we recall the day's events for him (and now with him) but his friends the duckies (with whome he also talkes at times) are always present (and have ducky babas, ducky cribs, etc).
This year we started actual outdoors play, aside from playground. We can kick a ball together, throw a ball, play a bit of baseball, and run around after each other.
Pepe has finaly learned to give kisses - he still turns his head so that others can kiss him when asked to give kisses, but with mommy and daddy he is now giving proper kisses.
This year Buni stayed with us for over 4 months during which she solely took care of Pepe - drove him in the hammer, took him to the playground and toy store and indoor playground, and spoiled him like only a Buni can. Grandma Margaret took Pepe over weekends at a time, to teh Children's museum, the beach, and the playground. Papi, Jessica and Dan were over on several occasions. Jessy was our babysitter extraordinaire on a few occasions. Uncle Radu and Aunt Ilii have always asked about Pepe and saw them as soon as they could. Godparents Ioana and Charlie kept up with Pepe's developments via this blog (Ioana) and weekly visits (the nearby Charlie). Pepe spent lots of time with his cousins Bianca, and more recently Isabella and Michael and Margo and Fuffy. Pepe hang out a lot with Helli & Pillar, the neighbours, as well as with Michael. At school he played well with Antoine and William, and more recently he kept saying that Jeffrey is his best friend.

So that's Pepe's 3rd year in a gist. Still can't believe that he is the little boy who jumped up on my stomach 3 years ago, in a hospital room at Brigham. I've been enjoying the ride almost as much as Pepe.

rainy day...happy day

Rocking along with the Thomas CD from uncle Ed..

new school

We had orientation at Pepe's new school on Tuesday. I took the day of so I could go with the boys. I felt we got special treatment coz everyone knew Chris or about Chris. W met the teachers and Pepe was mesmerized by Molly, with her energy, charm and playfulness. We visited Pepe's new room - he will be in Preschool I - confessed about the potty issue (and got reassured that they'll help with that), the fine motor skills issue (they will work with him), and became part of the classroom for a while. I was very impressed with the facility (large space, huge playgrounds with lots of tracks, slides, cars, sandboxes, sheds, playhouses, etc), the curriculum, and all the teachers. Pepe received a book with pics and notes about daily activities and has been asking us to read it everyday. He keeps talking about wanting to go to the new school, and I think this is also because most of his old buddies have already moved on...

adult toddler talk

Pepe played with his trains this evening. All of a sudden we hear:
"Edward, state your problem!".

more potty talk

we moved into using m&m's for potty treats (yes, i remember blogging about how i do not want to use food as treats, but we really want to get this done, so there you go). so tonight after dinner we explained everything to pepe. he will get 2 m&ms when he sits on the potty, and 5 when something comes out. as soon as we finished he ran to the potty and sat on it for a couple of minutes - the rule is that he needs to sit at least a minute. he got his m&m, went playing, and immediately after he finished the m&m's he ran to the potty again..."more m&m's". .. so we had to reset the rule to include space/breaks in between sitting on the potty....men, the toddler mind, so primitive, so sophisticated, so goal oriented...

pepe the hiker

we took pepe to the fells again this afternoon. this time we followed the reservoir trail, an up and down 6 miler I had done with my boot camp group earlier in the week. we got caught in the rain, but we had a blast. pepe did amazingly. we hiked for 45 minutes and decided to turn around, in spite of pepe's persistence that we had to keep going. he jumped over the rocks and tree roots, and basically ran not walked the trails. he kept talking all thw way, repeating what chris and i were telling him about keeping his eye on the ground so not to fall. i was so proud of him and i envision nice vacations camping and hiking in new hampshire, which are really my favorite types of getaways....next year for sure.

You'll be all right

Everytime someone gets hurt and Pepe sees that or hears someone crying, he tells us, or goes to the kid and tells him; "You'll be all right".

Yesterday our twin neighbours were screaming around bed time.
P: It's Helli and Pillar, they cry coz they needs their mommy.
AM: Yes, maybe they need their daddy..
P: No, they need their mommy...
AM: OK
P: Sometimes at school I get sad and cry bc I miss mommy and daddy.
AM: Yes, and do the teachers hold you?
P: No
AM: What do the teachers do?
P: They tell me - You'll be all right".
AM: And what do you do?
P: I stop crying...
AM: Good, coz you know mommy and daddy come get you really soon..
P: Yes...

little monkey

For a while now Pepe has been into imitating whatever we or others say. Chris and I use "hon" or "baby" when talking to each other, so Pepe now calls us "Hon (Baby) can you come here, Hon, can I have a baba?" We still have a hard time restraining from having little arguments or discussions in front of Pepe (so tough to change a habit) , and he butts in and repeats what one of use said, "Yes, mommy, you need to turn the lights off", "Yes, daddy, we need to pain the porch...".

The boy is also bossy, and loves to be in charge. Like yesterday at Toys R Us, during my Pepe shift (Chris and I took 1/2 h shifts Toys R Us/Starbucks), at the train table, he bossed this 2 y old around telling him where his train needs to go, and making up Thomas stories. The boy loved it almost as much as Pepe. As soon as one of the adults said something, Pepe kept repeating, "Yes, the trains go over the bridge, Yes, be careful, Yes you need to go now".

toward easier times

we have officially transitioned into easier times with pepe. bedtime is a breeze, transitions are much easier, as pepe repeats the warning we give him and tells us what is going to happen next. he in much more understanding of rules, of bribery (you need to have 3 bites of dinner if you want to watch tv), of other's property. hew. terrible 2 and 1/2s might be gone...

charlie

charlie is pepe's godfather. he and his wife sonia have been our weekly game night friends every friday or saturday night, keeping up our social life from the moment pepe was born. he has always shown interest in pepe, but more recently pepe has been showing lots of joy when hearing that charlie is coming over. 2 weekends away pepe gave a 1.5 hours concert when charlie and sonia were here. he is usually shy playing music around others, but when charlie picked up the banjo, he picked up his guitar, instructed charlie how to "just touch the cords", and started playing. everyone had a ball. yesterday after dinner pepe and charlie played with the trains and the automoblistix cars, had conversations, traded tires, etc. at some point charlie lay down on some pillows on the porch and pepe did the same thing. it was such a sweet moment.

i think charlie will be our "if you don't want to tell us something but you need confidential advice go to person" when pepe gets older.