Arrugas

The first wrinkle was actually exciting, because I’m the sort of woman who can really appreciate the gift of living long enough to get a wrinkle.  BUT, the second, third, and fourth wrinkles that quickly sprung up in the following months were NOT charming in any way.  Even less so when I started being able to notice them in photos (I had to zoom in a bit, but still, they were there!)  

Now I come from a long line of fantastically-aging women and have always had a young look; I’ve been off caffeine for months, I drink plenty of water and tea with antioxidants; my diet is varied and healthful; I rarely even see the sun… but I don’t feel I have any time for more than one step skincare routine and haven’t since, oh, before college.  Could that be it?  Tell me what to do, dear readers!  I can’t have more wrinkles than kids!

Aniversario de Boda

Q: How do you celebrate a wedding anniversary with three kids age 2 and under?  

A: You exchange presents at midnight- so no one but you and your husband is awake, and so you don’t accidentally forget- juggle work and kids all day long, and then you get your favorite Mexican take-out for dinner, which you eat together in pjs after the kids are back in bed, and then you cuddle up and watch a movie.  And all the way, you are so happy in the choices that brought you to this moment, thinking that you would choose this man all over again and again.

 

 

El Debut

The first installment of Multi-Culti Mami’s up!!  Read it here.

6 Cosas…

Caroline tagged me a while ago with a 6 Things Meme and I’ve been waiting for inspiration to do it.  Today, though, I came up with a theme I haven’t written about.

First, here are the rules:

1. link to the person who tagged you
2. post the rules
3. write six things about yourself
4. tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

 

Now, as far as the theme.  Here are 6 things I’d like to do someday.  (I keep a much longer list, crossing anything I can off if I get to do it, but here’s a sample).

1.  Attend a film festival.  When my husband and I started dating, he worked at a local movie theater and we’d go to see between 3 and 5 free movies a week.  Movie-watching and discussing has been a part of our relationship ever since, and I think it would be lots of fun for us to go to any kind of film festival.

2.  Start and keep an art journal.  I think an art journal would keep my melodramatic-journal-writing-voice in check while still satisfying my desire to keep a journal.  I’d love to keep a journal that looked like one of the ones featured on the Moleskine site.

3.  Learn another language.  I’m fluent in Spanish and English, and I’ve taken a little bit of French and Latin.  I think I’d either like to learn French better, or, more likely, learn Arabic, so I can better understand the Jarchas Mozarabes or Portuguese, so I can better appreciate the Sergio Mendes the kids and I like to listen to in the kitchen. 

4.  Volunteer as a farm worker.  I’d like to have a better appreciation for how food’s grown and harvested, and for the people that do this work.  I’m hoping that maybe someday our family can volunteer at the farm where we have our CSA this year.

5.  Attend a Gatsby-like party.  In spite of the fact that I don’t really like parties, particularly big parties, I’ve had a yearning to attend a mythical party since I first read The Great Gatsby years ago.  It would be nice to be in a beautiful dress, eating beautiful food, taking some air on the grounds of a mansion just (although not more than) once.

6.  Run a 5K or be capable of some other physical feat.  My body is a temple of sloth, in shape only from pushing a triple stroller and doing other housework.  I’d like for this to be different.

 

I tag anyone who wants to take the meme!

Paz, Música

I spent the last few days getting ready for my column debut (May 11th, don’t forget!)- sending out press releases, emailing people, etc.  On the one hand, it’s hard for me to promote myself because, although I’m proud of my work, I’m a shy-ish person (not shy enough to not engage in self-promotion, just shy enough to feel anxiety about doing it).  On the other, it’s fantastic to hear back from people with words of encouragement.  (My favorite note so far of several really positive ones was from one of my former Spanish Lit. professors, who was very complementary about my work and sent an “abrazo cariñoso” not for me, or my husband, but for our kids.  That’s exactly why she was my favorite profesora.)

Anyway, in addition to this work, I’m also embroiled in final preparations for our upcoming move.  I loved the house building process, but the home decorating process?  Well, it’s not that I don’t like it, just that there never seems to be enough time in the day to do all that needs to be done there.  Just today, I spent literally 90 minutes trying to figure out what size mattress to buy and then what bedding would work in the master bedroom.  And Thursday, I’ll be choosing fabrics for window treatments.  I know we’re lucky to be in this position, but still I grumble a bit that my time’s spent on these tasks when there’s so much that’s begging me to write it.  

I’ve learned how to de-stress quite a bit in the past few years, purely out of necessity, but some of my best de-stressors are things that I feel I don’t have enough time for right now (yoga) or things that would wake sleeping kids up (music, loudish).  Someday, soon we will be moved, and settled, and I can have all the time I’d like for paz y música.

Mis 3 Pollitos

For our baby girl’s recent birthday, I ordered some t-shirts from the wonderful Los Pollitos Dicen.  Since our kids are so close in age (meaning: with minor personality variations, they all enjoy the same sort of toys and activities), we always make sure that, upon each of their birthdays, everyone also gets a sort-of-matching smaller gift too.  I particularly love these shirts for the way the designs capture each of their personalities…

Our oldest daughter- the life of any party!

 

Our son- sweet, and easygoing.

 

Our baby girl- the best eater in this house of good eaters.

 

Donde Estamos y A Donde Vamos

It’s a funny time for our family right now… and by funny, I mean we’re just beginning to get used to it and I haven’t figured out a better way to describe it yet.  After lots (3) of adoptions in not a lot (2) of years, lots of travel, lots of transitions, and lots of diapers later, it seems we’ve gotten through the “survival mode” period of parenthood.  Our oldest son and daughter are both over two and our baby girl just turned one.  Maybe it sounds like we’re still in the thick of it, but relatively speaking, we’re not, and my husband and I are spending a lot of time looking at each other, awestruck, as our kids independently do suprising, “big kid” types of things.  And so, enough of my attention can be freed up to begin to turn to things like our family identity, our traditions, and the course and joy of our lives together.  

I’m lucky because I get to do much of this through my writing- I’ve got a new, year-long column debuting on Literary Mama on Mother’s Day (don’t worry that you might forget, I’ll post a ridiculous amount of reminders), and I’m working on a novel in addition to various other smaller pieces, all of which contain traces of my multi-culti experience, as a daughter, and now as a mom.  

I’m also lucky because this means I get to be part of the resource selection.  When I was growing up, I sought out stories about other bilingual kids, or kids living abroad, or kids with parents from more than one country.  I sought these out to know that I wasn’t the only one, to know what other people did, to laugh and cry and nod my head in recognition.  Even still, that’s what I seek out as an adult.  That’s what I want for our family- to find those sort of narratives and friendships and connections with others and to provide them for others, too.  

I look forward to writing this new blog and to reading all your comments.