Petru on marrige

P: Mommy, I think I am going to marry Carly and Grace. Because, you know, you can't marry boys.
AM: Who said that?
P: Just kids...
AM: Actually, you can marry a boy if you want to.
P: OK, good, then I will tell my friends
(oops!)

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P: Mommy, when you are my married, Buni will be your mom and my mom?
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FEB and March 2010

We are riding out winter here....it's been springlike the past two days, so we look forward to being outdoors (and warm) soon! This is a hodge-podge post (my second, I think), so beware of my rambling narrative and ubiquitous three dots.

There was a lot of sledding at Robbins Farm Park - some scary downhills, but no fence to run into at the bottom (like the one at our neighbors' hill)...Petru learned that snowboots and warm tights have some merit (vague memories of the struggles to get a hat on his lil' blond two year old head emerge). Other sledding happened with Michael, Helly, and Pillar in the backyard, but aside from this fun, winter seems to have shut us in (so bring on the spring!).

How else did we break up the winter malaise?? There was a train trip to N. Billerica on Presidents' Day - only three railroad crossings, but those three left a lasting impression. And there were excursions on the subway - once to visit Nana at the hospital and once to just get out of the house and wander around Boston Common and the Flower Garden. Petru also started tumbling with his Tumble-bear friends on Tuesdays. He is the tallest Tumble-bear and having a lot of fun (though he is keenly aware of gravity and potential not-so-soft landings). Hopefully, his Romanian spirit and enjoyment of the group will build his confidence. He's certainly flexible and does well imitating certain body movements - jumping along the long trampoline with legs out, then in. Soccer starts today at the Y and I know he's got a strong kick in those wiry legs.

Petru has spent less time drawing than he had been. We usually only get 2 pix from school, usually of RR crossings - sometimes they're like little maps with roads and rails, but mostly he shows the details of gates and lights. His art has really evolved in the past 12 months. His preschool I teachers first alerted us to his interest when the class did an animal book and Petru spent an hour or so making detailed ridge's on his alligator's back. Last summer there were literally hundreds of pix he made of 1) lighthouses 2) traffic lights 3) bridges. He even began copying lighthouses from one of his numerous lighthouse coloring books, doing an entire book's worth (40 pix) in one evening (there was a time when we let him color as much as he liked for special bedtimes - before we realized his true, tortured-artist, up-til-dawn nature).

Last note before signing off here...Petru received several lighthouse calendars for Christmas (we have six 2010 lighthouse calendars!) and is very fond of perusing them, learning their names and locations etc. Last Thurs. he wanted to look ahead in the calendar on the fridge and we saw that April's featured lighthouse is Cape Disappointment Light (in Wash. state). Petru wondered why it is called that and I said something like "maybe there was a shipwreck there or??" and Petru chimed in that "probably a boy went to the lighthouse and saw that it was on a little island, but he couldn't get there, so he was disappointed".

Chocolate fondue and preVday party

We celebrated V day at Charlie and Sonia's house. Adelle and Sandra came as well, along with their 2 daughters. Sherinne is Pepe's age. He is not into girls, so I did not know how the 2 of them would do together. Well, you'll see from the pics. We had a great time dipping anything and everything (from cheeze to strawberries to Lacota's butter cookies) into dark or milk chocolate. YUM! Of course, Pepe managed to dissapear in the kitchen a couple of times coming back with large pieces of the 4-lbs TJ's belgian chocolate! Good times were had by all!
Sherine and Pepe dancing away....

Chris started to flip the kids over....Sherine watching Pepe getting flipped over by Chris...

And to top it off, tonight Charlie and Sonia and spending a few hours with Pepe while Chris and I get to enjoy dinner out! Do we have the best friends or what!!!

Back home

After the cruise life got back on track. Work, school...Buni stayed with us until the end of January. I think she was bored a lot, bc I tend to work evenings while at home. She and Pepe had lots of trips to McDonald's playground. She tought Pepe some romanian words including; "cam tampit", "dreptul, stangul", "gata". Pepe had a hard time when she left, and kept asking about her daily. Now he knows that he is going to Romania in the summer. I have a conference there in September, so hopefully the entire family can go (meaning Chris, too, even though he, hm, hm, dislikes travelling).

Pepe drew a lot! Chugged trains and cars a lot! Lets just say that living room and dining room are taken over...

The cruise

Buni, Pepe and I went on a cruise again this year. We met Radu, Ilii, Ioana, Jeremy and Landen in Miami where we spent a couple of days at Joe's house. The weather was great, and it was nice to celebrate New Years there. We missed Chris, but he had a blast back in Boston where he got his fill of friends, concerts and good food. Win, win for all.....well, not really. Read on and you'll see what I mean.

The next day in Miami I got sick. Some stomach bug, I think. I vomited an entire day. There are few things worse than vomiting. I'll leave it at that. But then I felt better, which was a huge relief. You don't want to get on a boat with a stomach bug. We cruised from Jan 2nd to Jan 7th: Buni, Pepe, Radu, Ilii and myself. We went from Miami to Ocho Rios (Jamaica), Grand Cayman, and back to Miami. The weather was not particularly great, but we still got to see the sun, wear T shirts and basing suits. Pepe was ...a little difficult. Thank God for the kids room over there, which he loved. He was not tall enough for the water slide, which I had thought it was going to be a huge hit, and kinda got bored on the ship. His sleep was completely off and it was a huge struggle to get him down at night. Lets just say that I missed Chris the most during those sleep struggles....Having Buni there helped a lot, but Pepe knows how to get what he wants from Buni, if you know what I mean... Anyhow.... here are a couple of pics...
Below, Pepe with Jeremy, Ioana and cousin Landen. Pepe had a breakthrough in the pool and was very comfortable in the water!

Really bad pic of me and Pepe, but you all know that we are mucho gorgeous in persons. Below are my mom and Radu, the sibs! Can I please look like my mom when I get to be in my mid sixties?

Better late than never

OK, so this is what happens when one person has 2 blogs, one gets left behind (and not my running blog). Chris did promise that he is going to take over or at least help, but will see about that one...

OK, so lets has been going on, which will likely require more than one post.

First, it was Christmas...

Buni visited for 2 months, and was with us for Christmas. She decorated the tree and the entire house. It was beautiful.



We celebrated Christmas 4 times. On Christmas Eve Dragos, Kim and cousin Bianca came over the dinner. Pepe was v entertaining talking about traffic signals and cars. At some point he started explaining about the difference between lights in CA and MA, and what happens when you go on a red light, and such. I made the mistake to entertain this conversation, as a proud mom, trying to show off my boy. I started asking what you do at a red light, a green light, etc, and then I said: "And what do you do if it is a green light and the car in front of you does not go", to which Pepe replied: "You say, What the F$#%!". Yup, Christmas eve dinner. My 9 y old niece was not the only one who was entertained. So yes, someone around here needs to watch her language while driving, and it is not Chris!

Christmas day we drove to New Castle and had Christmas with grandma and paca Jim. We ate panettone, drank tea and opened presents. V relaxing. Next, we drove the Marblehead for Christmas dinner with cousin Bianca, and more presents for Pepe. The following day Papi and Mary Jane and Jessie came over for more Christmas presents. Wow! Pepe started to get used to getting presents daily and he was not happy to hear that this can't go on.... Of course, Buni did not help with the transition as she kept buying him whatever he said that "I need"!

Sick

Pepe and I have been sick. For Pepe, it started the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He was cranky when I picked him up from school at 3:00 pm for the drive to NH. He had fever that night but was fine, albeit low energy the next day. This kept going on until Friday, when I came up with symptoms. We both transitioned into runny nose and now are sporting a pretty bad cough. Yuck! For me, the worse is this feeling of lethargy, like I don't have energy to do much, and can't really eat. Today was much better though, and we are hoping we turned a corner. I don't think this was the swine flu, because I did get the shot and we also did not have the vomiting and diarrhea symptoms, but you never know.

Buni is coming tomorrow and I am hoping she won't get sick. We are excited to see her!