Remember to put candy out of this kid's reach

Pepe comes in our bedroom this morning
P: Mommy, mommy, I ate all of these...
(shows me an empty box of tic tacs; i remember leaving it on my nighttable last night)
AM: When did you eat these?
P: Last night, you were downstairs, didn't you hear bang, bang, clunk, clunk????
If he tells me he has a tunny ache today, I might actually believe him....

Cape Code long weekend

Our next door neighbours, K, Z, and their lovely daughters H and P invoted us over for a long weekend on the Cape. We fought the traffic on Friday and managed to get there around 2pm. After a yummy lunch we went to the "bay", where the ocean was calm with warm water, and I managed to take a swim while the kids played. Awesome. Yummy dinner, icecream, kids asleep, a game of Quidler - perfect evening! Saturday I was up early for my long run, and met everyone later for another day at the beach, this time at a site with huge waves. The kids and I had a ball, jumping in the water, running away from the waves, splashing and making a big tunnel. Pepe refused to wear his suit, and so the girls took their off, which made for some cute naked kids playing on the beach. No pics though:) Since we had such a great time, we decided to stay another night, and left Sunday after breakfast. Such a great trip.

Pepe was in his element during the trip. He had a hard time falling asleep alone in a new room, but once I told him that we would see lighthouses when he wakes up, if he sleeps well, he immediately obliged. He was up for a brief moment at 6am stating "I had the best sleep, now can we go see lighthouses?", and thankfuly fell asleep again. We did go see 2 lighthouses though, which was v nice. It was interesting to see Pepe playing with the girls. He adopted some of their playing style (since all his trains, tracks, etc were at home), and played doctor, and dentist - v cute.

I forgot to mention that on thursday we visited uncle Radu to celebrate his 72nd birthday! So good to see him and enjoy his company and a great meal. We also saw cousin Bianca who grew up so much!. Here is a picture of the cousins:

Pepe's first camping trip

Friday broke New England's rain streak. And so, we were off camping. I think Chris was secretly hoping that it would rain, and I would back out, as he was a bit "worried" (I hear from Papi that it's a Sofio gene) about how Pepe would handle the excitement. Sonia and Charlie, kidless kind souls joined us in this adventure. We were so lucky to have them. They took care of all the logistics: they rented the camp site, got directions, started the fire, cooked all the food, and cleaned up. Pepe did very well. He had tons of energy running around with some new friends, digging on the beach and even going into the water up to his neck along with a couple of kids. Yay! On Saturday we went into town and hit the dollar store where Pepe scored a gold set, some markers and paper, and bubbles, which was money well spent given that they bought us a couple of hours of guiltless kid ignoring time reading/napping on the beach. Pepe refused to go to bed at his usual time and everyone ended up going to bed at 9:30, both nights. Pepe slept v well in between Chris and I. Chris noted some difficulty turning from a side to another, for fear of disturbing Pepe. Not me! Fun was had by all. And for the $15 a night price, you bet will do it again. But next time we'll get some kiddos for Pepe to play with!

Here are some pics

randomness

Last night...we found Pepe reading his catalogues in our bed at around 10pm.
AM: Pepe, you need to go to your bed.
P: But, why? I am here to keep you company. We are a family!

Later on...playing with his penis...
AM: Pepe, you can do that in your own bed, when you are alone, not in public.
P: But, but, ....show me yours and I'll show you mine...
AM: ???????
(This conversation prompted Chris to ask lots of questions about where Pepe might have heard that sentenced.....no relevant answers, though).

####
AM: Pepe, how can you be so cute, what's your secret?
P: Well, I smile a lot...

####
AM: Pepe, this makes me feel sad..
P: Oh, don't worry mommy, I will draw you a picture when we get home.

####
P: No, you can't tell me what to do. You are not the teacher!

Catching up

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...

Time flies when you watch youtube videos, color walls, and much more

*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?

* He found Chris's glasses today and I could not help myself from taking a few pics...

Finally, can you say this boy has been doing lots of growin? Check out his pants!

A chip of the old block

Last weekend Pepe, Chris and mom cheered me on as I ran the Heartbreak Hill Half Marathon in Newton. It was a tough race, but seeing Pepe at the finish line gave me the kick I needed to break 1:43. Pepe had a blast running accross the finish line himself while everyone cheered him on, and the entire afternoon he kept saying: "I am fast. I am the fastest runner". He and our next door neighbour pals did a lot of racing in the afternoon.

Pepe loved cheering on runners along with other friends he made that day.

He also loved the trophy mommy got for running so fast: