Thanksgiving and others

We've had a busy few days off work. On Wednesday we had Godmother Ioana, Jeremy, Joe (Jeremy's dad) and their 6 months old son Landen over for dinner and some cousin play time. Pepe was intrigued by Landen. He waited and waited by the window and kept asking about him. I told him that Landen is a baby and he does not talk and Pepe needs to be understanding of that. Not sure how much he got of that. In any case, he did pretty well. He built a couple of towers for Landen to knock over (though he knocked some over himself), and watched Baby Einstein with him. At some point Landen gently grabbed Pepe's hair, and Pepe was a bit shocked and came over to tell me about it. He does not remember all the hair he used to pull... It was nice to meet Landen and see everyone so happy! We saw those guys again on Friday for Landen's baptizing - we were late bc we did not realize it was "Black Friday" and we got stuck in traffic around 3 of the Malls on the way. Pepe went upstairs as soon as we got there, and we ended up watching the ceremony from the stairs. He kept asking: "Where are this boy's toys, when do we play with them" so we were happy to find some kind of a press the button toy, which kept Pepe occupied upstairs for a while...Chris reminded me how boring adult gathering are for kids, and I do remember how I would keep asking "Can we go" over and over during visits to relatives. So we did cut the visit short for short for him.

(I just lost a paragraph of writing, hhhhr)

On Thursday we went to Grandma;s house for a lovely Thanksgiving. Great food, great company, nice relaxed time. Pepe played a lot with Ning, went to the playground, looked for lighthouses and ...had a tough time settling down. Oh, and he had pizza for Thanksgiving:) At night Margaret, Chris and I watched "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" and although Chris kept telling Margaret "C'mon, mom, you like this" I don't think she did. But it was nice to watch something together.

Today we went to the Fells where Pepe and Chris hiked and I ran an 8 mile loop as part on the Skyline trail as part of the Fells race and I WON! The the entire day I kept saying "Did I mention that I WON THE RACE" and "I WONNNNNNNNNNNNNN" . Of course, Pepe does not get any of this.

Speaking of Pepe, he is ordering us around these days and also trying some splitting. Like this evening:
After watching a video.
P: I am going to go upstairs and watch "Liz".
AM: No, it's bedtime, no more TV tonight.
P: I go to bed after I watch 'Liz'.
AM: Nope.
P: I go ask daddy. DADDDDYYYYYYY, I need to watch TV and you said (what???) I can watch TV.
If that's not splitting, I don't know what is.

Before nap:
AM: So after the nap we can go to the Mall.
P: The alligator mall? (Burlington Mall with the Rain forest Cafe)
AM: Sure.
P: And after the alligator mall we go to the cars mall (Arsenal Mall where they have cars...)
AM: You need to pick one, we can't go to 2 malls.
P: Yes we can. We go to Alligator mall first, then to the cars mall. OR, if you want, we go to cars mall and Arsenal Mall.
AM: Nope, we go to one mall.
P: Nooo, I ask daddy when he comes home.
AM: And what do you think daddy will say?
P: He will say, "OK Pepe, we go to 2 malls......no, he will say we go to 5 malls"......

Stuck in traffic on the way to...the alligator mall.
P: "Hey, move, that car is blocking us, did you see daddy, he got in our way, that's not good...".

At Landen's baptizing.
P: " This baby does not have any toys and he also pulls my hair. He needs to learn that you can't have friends if you do that. Noone will play with you. It's not nice."
I wonder where he heard that...

OK, gotta sign off. Oh, did i mentioned I WON the race...

conversations

In McDonalds, after I spilled a milkshakend Chris was teasing me about it
P: "It's OK, mommy"

To Grandma, over the phone.
P: But I am asking you, do you have a McDonalds?

At a crosswalk, after he pressed the button and the "walk" sign came on, a car stopped on the crosswalk, not in front of it.
P: Jesus Chris, Jesus Christ, you do not do this, I can't walk, you has to stop before, you has to.
(screaming at the poor guy, holding an embarrassed mom's hand).

After waking from a nap
P: It's dark out, why, I don't like this, it's not sleep time.

P: I want something, something else.

school conference

Last weekend we had parent-teacher conference at Petru's school. We received a report on Friday, and Saturday we were scheduled for 15 min to talk to 2 of the teachers. The report was all positive, mostly a development check. The conference was also most positive. Pepe is very affectionate, hugs and tells teachers that he loves them, entertains everyone with his crosswalk stories and sounds, etc. We wanted some help with potty training, but it appears that Pepe has no interest in the issue (true, he keeps telling us "I am not ready, I don't want to be potty trained"), and perhaps wait until summer when there are less clothes, training easier, and hopefully Pepe more interested. They also mentioned Pepe's stubbornness when it comes to certain toys, and his means to get the toys, e.g., pushing, grabbing and biting. They did say that this is likely bc Pepe is the youngest in the class, and feels the need to compensate. They are working with him on this. Interestingly, he does no longer do any of these at home, so this is progress. Also, during the past week the teachers kept praising Pepe about his good behavior, waiting for turns and sharing. I'd like to think it is the "talk" I had with Pepe about this, but I am not a full, I know it is the legos and other toys that have been acquiring in our house during the last week from Toy R us, neighbours and Bracket.....

the passion for legos begins

Pepe is in love with legos. He has been getting in trouble at school lately because at 'choice time' he always wants the legos, and, if he does not get them he throws a tantrum that includes biting and pinching and scrathing and pushing. And he is very open about what he does....

So yesterday I decided it's time to buy him his own set for home. He does have the big legos/blocks, but he no longer likes them. This little legos have a base to built on, and they truly are fun. So Pepe and I went to Toy's Us yesterday and after the usual play with the card and the trains, we got a large set of legos.


These legos are for 4+ aged kids, so no wonder Pepe had a tough time playing with them by himself, until we put away the little pieces that kept getting him in trouble. Now he is a happy boy. I hope he'll have an easier time sharing legos at school, now that he has his own set. Not sure if this was the best way to teach him about sharing, but you do what you can and what's easiest and quickest.

Check out the beautiful lighthouse he made. It's got a door and a little room up top for the keeper, who in this picture is checking out the waves from the top of the lighthouse....

in love with ABBA music

Chris got me an ABBA CD from the library - I fell in love with the music after seeing Mama Mia (I know, cheezy cheezy..). In any case, he loves singing and playing his guitar along with the CD. His favorite song is "Money Money" and he knows the lyrics by heart.

Pepe's first photos

No, we do not look this bad.. Pepe got his little hands on the camera....

visiting Karl, Michelle, Rowan and Rosie

We've been wanting to visit these guys for a long time, but we kept putting it off for fear of a disastrous experience with no sleep and kids fighting over toys...


We left on Saturday am after Petru's piano class. The drive was easy, as Pepe slept 1/2 of it. We got there around lunch time, and Pepe immediately warmed up to the toys and Rowan, their 6 y old, and we did not see him for a couple of hours. Rowan kept coming upstairs but Pepe kept saying: "Rowan, I hear you, come back". Rowan was very patient with Pepe and Pepe followed him around. Later on we took a walk and Pepe was excited about the New Haven crosswalks (of course). After dinner the 3 kids played some more, and the 4 of us played Boggle and chatted away and ate a yummy dinner. Around 8 we started to put the kids down, a couple of stories and then hop in bed. I asked Pepe if he wanted to sleep with us or the kids, and he immediately said "with Rowan and Rosie". But he was super wired, and kept jumping in the bed, and talking, and yelling, and laughing. So we decided to take him downstairs, for more stories in hope of quieting him down, but it did not work. Finally I fell asleep with him around 11pm. It was an interesting night as Pepe would open his eyes, lift his head up, and jump on me while switching positions and going back to sleep. My heart would jump with him hoping he would not wake up.

In the am we went to the park, and only there did I get it together to take some pictures...

Park - we exhausted the kids...so we had to carry them..

Walking slooooooowly to the park, Pepe and the like a bike, Rosie and Rowan on scooters..
















Playing in their backyard.

















The ride back was uneventftul. Oh, we did have to listen to "Victor Vito" 5 times, but otherwise we were fine....looking forward to another trip!!!!!

the looks

I remember having a talk with Chris a while back, and coming to a consensus that good looks make life much easier. This was all before taking social psych in grad school and learning that this is indeed a fact. We want to be around good looking people and we give good looking people a break.

This is what is happening with Pepe. His teachers (OK,except M,who Pepe says: "I don 't like her") cater to him and find him no fault. Today when I picked Pepe up from school, I saw him literally pulling a chair from under a kids's tushy, and then grab a toy from him.The teachers intervened, but mostly comforted Pepe who also got to keep the toy. And it is not like the teachers saw me. They all rave about his music skills,and guitar playing, and how he sings all the time, and laughs all the time, and is oh so funny. Very different than last school. No wonder Pepe no longer complains about going to school...And today, when I got in and made Pepe give the toy up, one of the teachers said: "It's been a rough day, we stayed inside because of the rain". What can I say? Lets just hope that all of this is not going to make him "nose up in the air", literally speaking, cause in reality he's got mommy's nose and it goes nowhere but down:)

Nr 5

I might have mentioned here that Pepe is fascinated with the number 5.

He counts: "1,2,3,4,5.....GO".
He wants "5" of everything (I have been known to cut cookies or candy in 5 pieces, since he wants 5 o them).
He wants to press the button at the crosswalk 5 times.
Today he did not want to take a nap, so Chris had the brillian idea to take his bball shirt, which has a nr 5 on it and transform it in a pillow, and I heard that worked magic. When I got home, Pepe announced: "I have nr 5 on my pillow, mama".
He wants his hot dog slices arranged as nr 5.
We make a 5 with the syrup on his morning waffle.
What can I say, 5 is the way to go.