pepe's adventures as seen by us: June 2009

Summer is finally here, though you would not say this by the rather low temperature, loads of rain, and grayish skies...Nonetheless, the summer spirit is here. We started going to the town beach, where Pepe was so happy to see some of his school friends, and I was happy to meet some of the parents. Although Pepe has been going to ACC for a year now, I only know a couple of the parents; most importantly, until Sunday at the Rez, I hadn't met Pepe's best pal's mother, E. She and I had a great time chatting away, even though I was falling asleep after a morning spent competing in my first triathlon. We've had a few visits at New Castle, where Pepe got to play with his beautiful cousins. I hope some pictures from those visits will come my way. We had a concert date with Papi and MJ and saw Los Lobos in Lowell, while Pepe had a blast with his favorite aunt Jessy. We've gone to a barbecue Bday party where Pepe played with "silly Kavech", but mostly explored K's toys while the rest of the kids played.

We also played with "the girls" - our next door neighbours.

We went to Pepe's end of year picnic where Pepe received a beautiful placemat with pictures taken throughout the year.

So Someone played the guitar a lot...

*Pepe continues his obsession with traffic signals and crosswalks. He enjoys time on his favorite websites (you tube -wildhorseguy; trafficsignalmuseums) and is getting to be quite good at scrolling and using the mouse. He also started to enjoy drawing and coloring in traffic lights. Did you know that there are lots and lots of those and each has a different name....Lets just say Pepe knows them all..
Here he is, showing his snuggles all there is about traffic signals..

* Pepe's teacher K asked Chris one morning if it is true that Pepe likes to watch videos on you tube. To which Chris replied: "It's my wife's fault".

* At Pepe's school there are stop signs on the corridors (to help keep kids in line). His teachers told me that everytime Pepe goes on a corridor he has to stop at all stop signs. Then he does this movement with his arms symbolizing flashing colors and says: "Red, Yellow, Green, yee, o, yee, o" and starts "crossing on a crosswalk".

* His attention span and ability to concentrate on what he likes to do while ignoring everything around him is amazing....just like his dad's.

* A few weeks ago he started stuttering. I told this to a friend of mine who has some special ed expertise, and she reassured me that he is fine since he does not struggle pronouncing a word; rather, he says a lot of hm, hm, hm, before sentences come out. I noticed he does this: 1) when nervous, and 2) when he is doing more than one thing at a time and 3) when he wants to "milk it", as we say it in our house.

* He continues his pattern of going to sleep late and waking up late. The rule is that he has to be in his room at 8:30 (after we read stories and talk about his day), but he can turn his light on, read, etc. There are no toys there, however. Typically, we hear him running around. Since I am the "bad cop" in our family (aka, I have to get Pepe to do all the things that he just does not want to do, like getting dressed, transitioning into a less interesting activity, washing his hands and face...) I typically go upstairs stomping on the stairs so that he can hear me. As soon as he hears me, he runs into his room, turns his light of, and is in bed. Then sheepishly he says: "Who's there? Why did you come here?". He loves to go to my study and takes all the family framed pictures out along with my running bling and arranges them around the room; I think he may have conversations with them... So this is typical. And usually around 10 or so he falls asleep. On Friday night, however, we had our weekly game night with Charlie and Sonia. Pepe was v upset when I took him up. "This makes me sad. I am disappointed" (can you tell his mom is a psychologist...we talk feelings a lot). We looked over books, talked about his day, cuddled and as I was about to leave, he said: "You can't leave, I am still disappointed", which prompted another conversation about how it's OK to feel disappointed and I bet it is going to go away by tomorrow morning...I went down, we heard the typical movement upstairs, and eventually I went up, to discover that the floor of his room was covered with drawings of traffic signals. I look more carefully and notice drawing on the walls. When I say that we don't draw on the walls, he said: "But I ran out of paper. And I made beautiful decorations!". There you go. The incentive we needed to do some painting...

* He is also doing lots of art projects at school. Here is "A lion who is sleeping with his tail up so he can easily make pee pee". And next to it there is a bird. Can you tell which is which?