3 and 7/12

Charlie has always done very well in school. In fact at the beggining of the school year the teacher, Silvia, commented how well he participatesd in class which suprised us a bit considering how timid and shy he is usually with the people. However right after Christmas when he went back to school, something changed. One day the teacher asked me if Charlie was different at home because he had changed drastically at school. Before, he would tell everybody what he had done (including the time he fell done the stairs with Leo) now he just shrugged his shoulders and wouldn´t speak. Before he was very independent and now he would just sit in the corner and cry because he couldn´t zip up his jacket or find his gloves. We knew that the birth of Clark had affected Charlie but we didn´t realize just how much. We knew time was the best cure but we also decided to make an even greater effort to make Charlie feel special, including special play dates with mommy and daddy and prizes for being a good boy. We also decided it would be fun to celebrate Charlie´s birthday at school. Charlie´s real birthday is at the beggining of September but school here doesn´t start until the end of September so we didn´t have the opportunity to celebrate it before. Every time Charlie brought home a paper that said that he didn´t have to bring a snack because it was some child´s birthday he asked me when we would celebrate his. So in the end we organized it to celebrate Charlie´s at the end of March. At first I wanted to try to celebrate right at his half birthday mark but that didn´t work out so it was more like 3 and 7/12. We brought little sandwiches, juice boxes and homemade cupcakes to share with everyone. (There are no rules for only store bought items here) What made the day interesting is that normally there are 24 kids in the class but the night before and that morning it had rained a lot which I guess means a day off for a lot of people here becuase of the 24 kids only 14 showed up. I told the teacher that if kids didn´t show up if it were raining where I come from, then they would never go to school. In the end, we had fun and Charlie really enjoyed wearing the special crown, passing out the food and blowing out the candles even though he did have some difficulties.

As a special gift for the kids we made little necklaces and goody bags that Charlie got to pass out at the end of the day.
Charlie has made a lot of friends at school. He had talked to me about them so much that of the 14 kids there I knew everyones´name but two.

School update: Although Charlie speaks mostly Spanglish he is improving in both languages. He recognizes when he is speaking in English and when he is speaking in Spanish. He can also write his name with out any help and he recognizes many letters and numbers. As we walk around town he will tell us what the letters are on the signs and if it is in his name or not. In fact, at school they have taught him to spell his real name Charles so when he sees his name Charlie he says it missing the S and that he doesn´t have a I.

Make a Smilebox photobook

CARNIVAL FUN

You have heard of Christmas in July, but have you heard of Halloween in February? Okay so it wasn´t Halloween but it sure looked like it. Unlike the States, it is common practice to celebrate Carnival here in Spain. (I am not exactly sure the origins of Carnival but I know it marks a season of celebrations right before Lent. It is more common in Roman Catholic countries.) Of course the celebration is Cartagena does not compare to Rio de Janiero or even New Orleans but it gives the people a good excuse to wear a costume and have fun. Even in Charlie´s school they celebrated Carnival. This year´s theme was "fear" so each age group dressed up as something dealing with fear. Charlie´s age group dressed up as ghosts. Considering the location of the school and the set up the only way the parents could participate in the the activities was from outside the fences looking into the courtyard.

All the students in the courtyard participating in the parade of costumes.
Don´t worry Charlie is not in prison even though the fences do have barbed wire. (To keep people out, not to keep people in) Each class filed by the fences so that the parents could take pictures. Unfourtunately Charlie was walking so fast and there were so many parents this was the best picture I got when he walked by.

All the 3 year olds with their teachers as ghosts.

Charlie showing off his scary costume.

SICK OF BEING SICK

This month has been a rough month for our family in the health department. Both Charlie and Clark have been battling colds all month and recently Leo and I have joined them. Not to mention I noticed that Charlie kept on saying "what" a lot, like he couldn´t hear and he would tug on his ear and say it wasn´t working. We took him to the doctor and he had ear wax clogging both ears. We started putting some drops in his ears and that seemed to help. Soon after this however, about two weeks ago Charlie was the sickest he has ever been. Normally Charlie if full of energy and I am begging him to stop but for a week straight he was so sick and lacking energy I was begging him to lift up his head so he could sip some water at least. It all started on a Wednesday during the middle of night. Charlie started crying because he had thrown up in his bed and then several more times during the night. I took him to the doctor the next day. Normally Charlie does not want to go to the doctors and take medicine, but this time he was more than willing. The doctor said a stomach virus was going around and she prescribed some medicine to stop him from throwing up and a special hydration solution because Charlie didn´t want to eat or drink. Thursday was much of the same except now he also had a high fever. We started alternating fever medication but we also had to use cool towels to keep his temperature down. By Friday he conitnued to have a high fever up to 105 degrees and he was also suffering from diarrhea as well. Of course he didn´t want to eat or drink and he slept a lot. We couldn´t get the fever to break so we took him to the doctors again and it took three of us to hold him down so the doctor could see his throat. Consequently she could see that he had strep throat which was causing such a high fever. He had such a high fever for so long that his mouth was all white. She prescribed some antibiotics, as well as a suppository for the fever and medicine for the diarrhea. The poor kid was taking medicine every couple hours. Charlie finally regained his strength and started eating again on Tuesday and went back to school on Wednesday.

Clark on the otherhand has not come down with what Charlie had but he still continues to have constant snot which we have to clean out with a syringe and saline solution and he was also constipated so on Friday we finally had to give him an suppository which had results in less than 2 minutes. To add fuel to the fire, all this happened the same week I was in charge of decorating the church for a Valentine´s dance. I also had to buy the food for the party and buy flowers to make 60 small flower boquets all the while my kids were at home sick with Grandma . Thank heaven for Grandmas.

Not only do I write this post to leave record of a week I do not ever want to repeat again but experiences like these make you also reflect what a blessing our health is. It can be so easy to take for granted the bodies and health that we have but times like these make me realize how grateful I am to my Heavenly Father for my family and for our health. We should not take them for granted and we must recognize the miracles that they are.

Charlie and Clark´s medicine. From left to right: Snot and cough medicine, ear drops, throw up medicine, hydration solution, three fever medicines, , antibiotic, diarrhea medicine, Clark´s chest medicine and suppository. We kept the pharmacy in business.

Clark was very patient while I took care of Charlie. One time I set Clark down on the couch so I could go help Charlie with something and when I returned this is what I found.

Charlie on the rebound.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLARK

Clark turns 2 months today. He has been suffering with a cold and some bouts of colic but even with all this he is such a good baby. He sleeps from about 9-10 pm until 2am and then sleeps again until about 6am. Mom is very grateful for this. He is smilling and loves looking at himself in the mirror. He gets a little frustrated when I leave him alone too long as he likes to have company like his mom. He is also a good eater. We had his checkup yesterday and he is in the 95th percentile for weight and height. He is following his brother´s footsteps.

OUR LITTLE DEVIL, OUR LITTLE ANGEL

Charlie is a very good sweet boy, however he can be devilish just as he can be angelic. They say there must be opposition in all things and the two videos below prove this. In one, Charlie is singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Clark so that he will go to sleep. In the other video , I requested that he sing another song to Clark and for those of you who do not understand Spanish he said, "I DON´T WANT TO, I AM GOING TO GET ANGRY", but you probably got that with just the tone of his voice.

A DAY IN THE PARK

A couple of Saturdays ago, we decided to take advantage of the nicer weather and go to the park. It was nice and sunny, however it was also very windy. We invited Grandma Yolanda to come as well as our nephew, Javier. We also decided to take Charlie´s motorized SUV so that he could drive around in the park. Charlie received the car on his 1st birthday from Leo´s aunt but I can count the times he has driven it on my two hands. At first he was too little to drive it but now it is not a very practical toy when you live in an apartment. It is an ordeal every time we take it out because it barely fits in the elevator and it is also difficult to get in the back of our own car as we have to take it somewhere else because there is no where to drive it near our home. On a side note, the only place we have to store it is in our front entry way. I really miss garages or basements where you can actually store things. (But I digress, let´s get back to the story)

We wanted to also have a picnic in the park so we decided to go to the only park we know of in Cartagena that has picnic tables. Unfortunately when we got there, we found out the park was for members only. We then debated on which other park to go to. We headed to one that Leo had heard about nearby and we followed the signs for the "Ecopark" but when we got there we realized it was a recycling plant. We then headed for another park recently built. Charlie and Javi had fun playing around with their cars but as you can tell by the pictures the park was just gravel and dirt so since there were no tables and no grass we had to sit on a bench to eat lunch. It wasn´t the most ideal circumstances for a day in the park, but we had fun just being together as a family.

Javier, Chalie´s cousin, pushing the Winnie the Pooh car in the park

It was very windy at the park, but Charlie had fun driving around.