Keen

Pupusas and Hot Coffee

2009-12-25T23:46:00.005-05:00

It is about 10:00 a.m. and I am sitting at the kitchen table in my fleece pajamas, drinking a homemade orange mocha and eating what I have decided will be our traditional Christmas morning breakfast from now on, pupusas de chicharrón y queso, when my mother-in-law calls from the Midwest. She sounds flustered and launches right into what she wants to say before she stops herself and adds a hurried, "Oh, right, Merry Christmas." And then, "I need your interpreting services." I charge for that, I tell her. She giggles and stammers and I wonder if I need to remind her that I'm joking.

It snowed last night, she tells me, and it is fifteen degrees outside. It's Christmas morning, and there is a crew of men, all Latino, shoveling out driveways in the neighborhood. She's taken two of them mugs of coffee, but she wants to know how to ask if anyone else would like some.

She takes the phone outside and I hear her say, "Español." And then I am talking to one of the men, who sounds a bit skeptical. I tell him to please let my suegra know if anyone wants coffee. Con confianza. His voice brightens, and he assures me that he'll ask the rest of the workers. I hang up. And then I get a serious case of the warm fuzzies.

Merry Christmas. I hope you had plenty of hot coffee this morning, wherever it came from.

On Defense of Property and Other IEP Goals

2009-11-18T12:27:00.002-05:00

Here it is again, that thick sheaf of paper that comes home in Secondo’s backpack, held together at the top with a paper clip. I forget about it sometimes, when our days are filled with stories, shopping, trips to the park. The paperwork that reminds me that so much of what P and I do with the boys is deliberate, purposeful, reinforced daily by teachers at school, all of us working doggedly to accomplish specific goals, goals that are spelled out in black and white in excruciating detail. The paperwork that reminds me, lest I forget—oh, right!--that my kids are in special education classes. I close my eyes before looking at it, and, as I always do, will myself to remember as many of Secondo’s IEP goals as I can. I do know a lot of them, in general, but every time I open his IEP I am surprised, again, improbably, at the level of detail and the formulaic language. And there are always a couple of goals that I’ve forgotten.

This is Secondo’s progress report, sent home for us to go over before parent-teacher conferences this week. It is peppered with acronyms: ES for emerging skill. Even a few SPs for sufficient progress here and there. The category headers remind me just how different my boys are from other children their age. Social Language. Body Orientation. Acknowledging Glance. Verbal Turn Taking. Use Peer’s Name.

Then there’s my very favorite, Defense of Property, which sounds more like something I’d be likely to hear in court, not in an educational document. Secondo does not consistently show any sort of reaction when a peer takes something from him. He needs physical and verbal cues to react when a peer takes something he is playing with. By such-and-such-a-date, Secondo will use one or more words to express prohibition or cessation of a peer's action (i.e. stop, no, that's mine, etc) with no more than 1 prompt in 4 out of 5 opportunities over 5 consecutive sessions. This freaked out both Primo and Secondo’s evaluators from the very start—the fact that they weren’t too bothered about kids taking things from them. It was a Big Red Flag, apparently, and I watched as one teacher played a game with Primo in which they took a toy from each other over and over again, saying, “Mine!” And I was both kind of incredulous and kind of saddened that all of a sudden I had special ed teachers determined to teach my sons the concept of “mine.” But then I watch kids at the playground, like the boy who threw his entire body over a toy (one the boys had been playing with first but calmly turned over to him) so they wouldn’t play with it, and the other who screamed and screamed about how he WOULD NOT SHARE the instant Secondo showed some interest in the train he was playing with. Normal reactions for kids their age, to be sure. And I must admit I feel a little conflicted about this one—when these things happen, my inclination is to tell the boys to go find something else to do. Maybe I should be teaching them more about not being pushovers, but at the same time, this “normal” preschool behavior is something I’m just as happy not to have to deal with. (Most of the time, anyway—they’re no saints, and we’ve had our share of altercations over toys and the like. But I often suspect we have fewer issues than we would if our kids were typical.)

I’m looking forward to the conferences, even though highlighting your child’s weaknesses is never fun. There will be many, many strengths, too. And I will prepare by reading the progress report, the summary of goals, this document that reminds me of how far there is to go, still. And also of how hard we’ve worked to get where we are.

Musings from Primo

2009-11-10T23:07:00.003-05:00

PULL DOWN PANTS PULL DOWN UNDERWEAR SIT DOWN URINATE PULL UP UNDERWEAR PULL UP PANTS FLUSH TURN ON WATER GET OUR HANDS WET TURN OFF WATER ADD SOAP SCRUP TO 15 TURN ON WATER RINSE TO 15 TURN OFF WATER GET PAPER TOWEL DRY HANDS A STICKER.

THEN COMPUTER.

THEN PLAY WITH COMPUTER

[I think it's safe to say Primo--finally--has gotten the hang of using the potty. And he's definitely clear on the reward. One down, one to go.]

Helloooooo...

2009-11-04T22:59:00.003-05:00

So, I suppose November 4th isn’t exactly the right day to make an appearance on my blog shouting, Woo-hoo! NaBloPoMo! I’m totally doing it! Because really, I’ve failed before I’ve begun. Also, I have not been successful when trying to do NaBloPoMo in the past. But hey, that’s not the right attitude. If anything, that means the pressure’s off. So I shall dust the cobwebs off the blog and post a little more regularly this November.

On that note, I’ve just come back home after a week away and two little boys who are very happy to see me have started crawling into bed with us in the wee hours of the morning, which is a first for them. And on one hand, awww. So flattered. On the other hand: Dude. I need my sleep.

Good night. (When I say "wee hours of the morning, I mean 3:15 a.m. Yawn.)

Torta Chilena

2009-09-08T23:20:00.007-04:00

Our trip to Costa Rica was such a luxury, made possible through a long series of events and coincidences. The luxurious part was being able to stay there for so long--our last couple of trips have been so rushed that staying for an entire month was just sublime.

The fact that it was so long, though, plus the craziness into which I plunged upon arriving back home, has meant that reentry has been particularly difficult. I'm homesick for the first time in a long time and find myself daydreaming about all kinds of things we did on vacation, mostly the mundane ones, the time spent with my family.

Which brings me to the torta chilena. My mother is retired and lives on the beach, and after spending a couple of weeks there, we packed up the boys and hopped on the bus to San José. We had the driver drop us off on the outskirts of the city, where my brother works, and then just sat at the bus stop with our piles of luggage until he came to pick us up. My mother had to squeeze between the car seats. The luggage barely fit. I wouldn't be able to carry any bags on my lap in the front seat, my brother informed me, and pointed at a box he'd brought with him. I was in charge of holding the torta chilena, which he'd had a colleague make to celebrate our arrival.

Everyone seems to have heard of tres leches, but I don't think I've ever seen a torta chilena in this country. Just imagine about eight or ten thin rounds of shortbread cookies, about ten inches in diameter. Then just stack them on top of each other, spreading dulce de leche on each layer as you go. Dulce de leche is the glue that holds it all together. If you want, you can frost it with meringue. But you can also just top it with more dulce de leche. The meringue is never quite as good after the first day.

Then again, this torta chilena didn't last a day. My brother also pointed out that it was made with sweetened condensed milk, not dulce de leche. (Costa Rica: the land where sweetened condensed milk is sold in child-sized cans with pop tops so you can get your fix anytime you want.)

And so I sit here in a windowless office, on a slow day at work. I'm feeling that post-lunchtime heaviness kick in. And I sure could go for a cup of coffee and a slice of that heavenly torta chilena.

[I've never made it myself, but this recipe looks good. I just might have to make it.]

Primo: The short version

2009-09-04T22:55:00.002-04:00

A million years ago (wait—was it only last spring?), Primo was evaluated by the good people of our school district. The results, in a nutshell:

Cognitive domain: above average. The therapist’s jaw drops when he takes her book from her and starts reading, in English and Spanish.

Social domain: below average. This after he has been observed in his regular classroom.

Speech: He passed, but I’m not sure he should have, are the words of the speech pathologist after she scratches her head and we discuss things for an entire hour after the evaluation.

Do you even qualify for special education services if your only issues are social? I ask my friends. I really don’t know. I’m thinking no.

Apparently, you do. So Primo is assigned a special education teacher in the spring, Ms. J, a wonderful, kind soul I like immediately. The initial plan is for her to work with Primo in his regular preschool class once a week for an hour and a half. It all sounds good.

Then comes his IEP meeting. I go alone, since both boys are sick and P has to stay home. I went to his school and observed him myself, Ms. J tells me. It won’t be enough. She is kind, but her tone implies, it’s worse than we thought. He needs to stay in his regular preschool, she tells me. He needs to be with his typical peers as much as possible. But he needs more help, not just an hour or so a week. The two days he’s not in school, she suggests, he can be in a special education class like Secondo, at the same school.

My heart sinks, but it immediately sounds right to me. I tell them I want to call P before I sign the IEP. Then I sign it. And then I cry most of the way home. I try to calm myself down enough so I can see the road through my tears. A chipper, upbeat song comes on the radio, a song that sounds like it’s destined to be the feel-good song of the summer (I find out later it’s “I’m Yours,” by Jason Mraz), and I don’t know if I want to go home and download it immediately or if I never want to hear it again. And I curse this straight stretch of road between our house and Secondo’s school. Because it’s not the first time I’ve cried on this path.

And then I am just sad and conflicted, and it takes me a little while to get used to the fact that both of my boys are in the system. We get contradictory information from the school for a while during the summer. Secondo is changing schools. No, he’s not. Yes, he is. No, he’s not. My mind reels when I think of the logistics involved with two boys, two schools, three different classes, three different schedules. Not to mention work for me, home visits from teachers and appointments with the psychiatrist. I stop blogging for a while, because I can’t quite express what I’m feeling.

And then things just start to click into place in ways I could not have imagined, even if I’d been asked to think of the best possible scenarios. I get work that involves travel, Paul has to travel for a conference, and on the spur of the moment, we decide to go to Costa Rica for a month. The boys have tons of friends and family around, get to go to the pool every day and hang out on the beach. They watch all kinds of TV, in Spanish. It is great for their language skills. I drink piña coladas with my mother and sister-in-law, and watch movies with my brother. The word autism comes up maybe once or twice.

I get a call from P, who is back in the U.S. Are you sitting down? he asks. He got a call from a school administrator, who tells him about a new class they’re putting together. A mixed class, half typical children, half developmentally delayed. Ms. J spoke to her and lobbied hard for Primo, who she thinks would be an ideal candidate for the class. He would attend five days a week. His schedule would be the same as Secondo’s. Oh, and Ms. C, Secondo’s old teacher we love so much and to whom I said such tearful good-byes last year, is being moved up a year, so she’ll be his teacher again next year.

And so, as I download supply lists and prepare to head to Target for hand sanitizer and new fall shoes, I am filled with such hope, excitement, and happiness for both of my boys. I will be going to two open houses at school next week, and then school will start. The four hours—four hours!—I will have to myself every day, at least on days I’m not working, is just the icing on the cake.

I am still pinching myself and trying to ignore the voice that is telling me that this is all too good to be true. The year holds so much promise, for all of us, and right now, at least, I can’t help but think it will be a great one.

Multiple Choice (Also a Fun Game to Play With Your Spouse!)

2009-07-24T23:15:00.004-04:00

You are carrying five electronic devices and a sippy cup in your purse. (Note to self: Bad idea.) When the lid pops off and an entire cup of water is emptied into your purse, which gizmo bites the dust?

1. iPod Touch
2. Flip video camera
3. Digital camera
4. Cell phone*
5. GPS

Answer: Digital camera. Yes, I have a case for it. No, it was not in its case, but at least every other device was. Sigh.

*The cell phone doesn't really count since it's already mostly dead after it vibrated right off the top of the toilet into the toilet a couple of weeks ago.

Fire Trucks and Ladders

2009-07-22T00:09:00.002-04:00

I sit in the middle of our tiny living room surrounded by mounds of Fisher-Price toys, puzzles, bins of blocks and crayons and chalk. And also books. For the first time ever it occurs to me that P may have a point when he says we have too many books, because our crappy World Market folding bookshelf has collapsed under their weight. When I empty it and remove it from its corner, it immediately falls into several pieces and I curse under my breath before getting to work with the screwdriver, hammer and glue. Then I curse some more.

The shelves flap back and forth and the pegs refuse to slide into their slots. I’ve gotten glue all over me. The commotion draws Secondo over from the table where he was watching his brother play on the computer, and it occurs to me that trying to get this done while the boys are even awake was a stupid idea. Sure enough, Secondo grabs the shelves and tries to squeeze through the open sides. I grumble and shoo him away. Repeatedly.

Finally, he is content to stand and watch. Bomberos, he says. Bomberos, bomberos.

My mind is on the bookcase. Yes, Secondo, I think. A fire truck went down our street ten minutes ago, and I ran to the door and opened it so you could watch it speed by, the way I do every single time I hear a fire truck, because you adore them and I love watching you watch them. But they’re gone, and right now I’m in the middle of something that is really annoying me.

Bomberos, he says again. And then, escalera.

I stop and rub the glue from my hands. Escalera, he says, and touches the bookcase. And it hits me that the sides of the bookcase, with their rungs, look exactly like a ladder, and I laugh.

I don’t know if the thing will hold together. But I’m a lot less annoyed with it now.

Shopping With Primo [Or: When Your Early Reader Can Kind Of Be a Pain In the Ass]

2009-06-23T21:44:00.005-04:00

[Buying cereal at our local Trader Joe’s.]

Keen: Vamos a comprar Cheerios.

Primo: [Whiny] No son Cheerios!

Keen: No, no son Cheerios. Son Joe’s O’s.

Primo: [WHINY AND SCREECHY] No son Joe’s O’s! Son TRADER JOE'S HIGH FIBER ORGANIC O'S!!!

Keen: Sigh.

[The Cheerios bars made from said Trader Joe's High Fiber Organic O's were delicious. I think I liked them more than the boys did.]

Dandelions

2009-06-15T00:45:00.003-04:00

The boys' nanny quit unexpectedly a couple of months ago. While it definitely shook things up around here, I'm lucky that a) I'm a freelancer and b) It was a slow month and I had no work lined up when she quit, so I was able to take a month off. And that month was idyllic. I got to spend an entire month with my boys, and I loved it.

What will always stand out when I think of this spring is the dandelions in the huge field Primo and I walk by as we're walking home from school. He insists on picking them, and he refuses to blow on them himself but instead hands them to me. And every time, I am reminded of one of my very favorite poems ever, "La florecita de diente de león" by the Costa Rican writer Carmen Lyra:

Soy la florecita
del diente de león,
parezco en la hierba
un pequeño sol

Me estoy marchitando,
ya me marchité;
me estoy deshojando,
ya me deshojé.

Ahora soy un globo
fino y delicado,
ahora soy de encaje,
de encaje plateado.

Somos las semillas
del diente de león,
unas arañitas
de raro primor.

¡Qué unidas nos puso
la mano de Dios!
Ahora viene el viento:
¡Hermanos, adiós!

This Post Is Brought to You by the Letters S and E

2009-06-02T23:53:00.004-04:00

If you start typing letters in the search window in the upper right-hand corner of my browser, Google will helpfully suggest search phrases that begin with those letters for you.

If you type in the letters S and E, for example, one of the options is Sesame Street. Another is sexual intercourse.

If your computer-obsessed (and remarkably computer-literate) preschooler types in both of those letters for whatever reason, guess which option he will pick?

[Time for parental controls. I wouldn't have been so freaked out about it, except the kid can read and I didn't want him repeating that at preschool. Also, he'd clicked on the Google Images tab. I supervise him when he's on the computer, but he was fast.]

Excuses

2009-06-02T23:40:00.002-04:00

So, all I have to say for myself is that IEP season kicked my ass but good.

I’m still sorting it out, and there will be details. And I know that blogging will probably make me feel good after I do it, kind of like exercise, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to sit down and do it. (Blog. Or exercise, either.)

I don’t want this blog to be All Autism, All the Time, but that’s kind of how things have felt around here lately, so instead I’m silent.

And yet—there’s been so much good stuff, too. The extra time I’ve been able to spend with my boys since our nanny quit. The fact that my mom is here to lend a hand, and she makes the best piña coladas on this planet. The unbelievable progress Secondo has made lately. Firing up the grill on cool evenings for no real reason and enjoying time on the patio with a nice glass of white wine. Work, even, because it’s always interesting.

I might have to ease back into things with some fluff. Jump-start the blog and see what happens.

Books

2009-03-17T23:05:00.002-04:00

I am constantly on the lookout for children's books in Spanish. I find them in Costa Rica, on Amazon, on my online book-swapping site (I've had surprisingly good luck there), at library sales, at thrift stores and once, incredibly, at a yard sale. I often--though not always--use money from my own budget in order to avoid financial ruin. We have quite a library built up, and I love seeing the boys get all excited when I come home and announce I've brought them a libro nuevo.

I found the Latin Baby Book Club last year and was thrilled to finally find a place that had useful, thoughtful recommendations for children's books in Spanish. I'll be writing monthly reviews there, and my first one is up here. The book is called Poemas con sol y son, and it's one of our favorite books of poetry to read together.

Just FYI, in case anyone is interested!

Thanks

2009-03-17T22:38:00.002-04:00

Thanks you all--both my IRL friends and my friends in the computer--for your comments on my last post. (I left that support group meeting thinking, "Damn, I wish I could go have coffee with Kal and Christine.") I think people who blog regularly know this, but I hadn't quite realized just how much better I would feel once I posted about that meeting. Kal's comment provided some food for thought, too. This is Secondo's teacher's very first year teaching, so she's very enthusiastic and caring, and she is just so good with him. I don't even want to think about him moving up a class next year.

The flip side of the meeting was that it led to a discussion of IEPs that I found incredibly useful, especially since we will be redoing Secondo's next month. I need to walk into this one prepared.

My brain is mush right now, but I just wanted to say thanks.

Support

2009-03-11T01:05:00.008-04:00

I occasionally attend a support group for parents of children with special needs. I was excited to find out about it, and even though it’s held on weekday mornings, my schedule sometimes allows it. I’ve met some very nice people, including the coordinator, a gentle soul I was drawn to the minute I met her, a woman who gives out her cell phone number so you can call her in the middle of the night about an IEP if you need to. They are a wealth of information and experience. Their kids are all older than mine. Many of their children have multiple disabilities and are autistic on top of that, a fact that humbles me. They treat me, the newcomer, with kid gloves. Your son was just diagnosed, they tell me. You’ll never be as vulnerable as you are right now. It will never be this hard again. It will still be hard, but it will be different.

And every time I go, I question whether or not I should go back.

The group is different every time, so we start with introductions. My son, Secondo, is three, I tell the group at the most recent meeting. He’s autistic, and he’s in the special-ed preschool class. His teacher is wonderful, and he’s made a lot of progress. She just told us we need to rewrite his IEP, because he’s mastered most of the goals in his current IEP.

I tell the group this, and it’s not like I’m expecting a fucking cookie, as my roommate used to say. But I am definitely not expecting the response I get, which is this:

Laughter. Followed by: “Well, enjoy it now, because that’s never going to happen again.” A couple of snorts. Taken aback, I look at the coordinator, who says, “You do know that this won’t happen again.” I don’t know if it’s a statement or a question. Her tone is gentle, her expression is compassionate, but she is speaking as if she needs to disabuse me, the Pollyanna in their midst, of the notion that my son’s progress in preschool means that life will be nothing but rainbows and fairy dust from now on.

“Oh, sure,” I laugh, because now I am on the spot, and I have to laugh it off. But I am hurt, really hurt. We move on to the next introduction.

The thing is, I know. No one has to tell me. I know things get hard, really hard. I know that parents hire advocates because they feel the system is failing their children and have knock-down, drag-out fights at IEP meetings. I think about junior high and about kids being cruel to my boy, and it terrifies me. I know Secondo will be autistic for the rest of his life, and I don't know what his future holds. I know that Secondo’s special-ed preschool class is a special little bubble, one in which in many ways, I don’t have to face reality. In this bubble I can concentrate on the good, and only on the good, if I so desire. I know. I know one of the reasons he’s mastered his goals is because they were so basic to begin with, and that things will become much more challenging. But I’d rather just be happy that he’s mastered these goals. Because if I really think hard about the fact that one of the original goals was to get him to respond to his name, it makes me want to cry.

But you know what? No matter how basic those goals were, I normally do find it easy to feel optimistic about things. Because the fact of the matter is, Secondo wasn’t responding to his name a few months ago. (Before he was evaluated, but after we’d shared our concerns with P’s parents, they came to visit and my father-in-law spent a great deal the visit yelling, “Secondo!!” and clapping his hands in Secondo’s face to get him to respond. I can’t even describe how stressed out I was, or the despair I felt right then.)

But he’s come a long, long way since then, and I’m prouder of him than I can say.

So, let me try my introduction again, here, on my blog. My son is three, his name is Secondo, and he’s autistic. He’s in a special-ed preschool class, and he’s doing great. His teacher suggested we rewrite his IEP soon, because he’s mastered most of his goals. They were basic goals, but they were things I couldn’t even imagine him doing only a few months ago.

Isn’t that awesome?

[And hey, if you want to leave a comment, at least you know what not to say.]

The iMix

2009-03-06T15:14:00.006-05:00

Here it is. Some of it is music I think would get anyone's toes tapping. Some of it I like solely due to the fact that I was raised in a Latin American country in the eighties. (Hey, I could apologize for the early Luis Miguel or Franco de Vita ballads, but I included those songs because I know EVERY SINGLE WORD and I can really belt them out, while my children either watch me, wide-eyed, or dissolve into giggles.)

Enjoy, whether it brings back memories, or whether you're just looking for a few catchy songs with a Latin beat!

Copying and pasting code now...wish me luck.

[Edited to add: Have no idea what any of these songs are? Definitely skip my sentimental favorites, but you might want to check out the more contemporary stuff: Mi primer millón, Cha cha, Te mando flores, Mi bombón, La flaca, and the songs by Juanes. Juanes and Jarabe de Palo are just good bets, period.]

New Gigs

2009-03-05T22:48:00.003-05:00

Given my, shall we say, lack of rigor when it comes to posting on my own blog, you might be surprised to hear I will be contributing to two new blogs. What can I say--I work well when I need to meet a deadline set by someone else. Also, they're Latina-oriented blogs, and I like them very much.

You can find my most recent post at Mi Cielito Lindo here, if you're interested. It's a short list of the catchy Latino music I listen to with my kids when I just can't take another minute of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" or "Los pollitos dicen." It's inspired me to create an iMix, which I'll post later if I can figure out how to do it.

Reentry

2009-03-03T22:04:00.003-05:00

We made it home, and everyone is healthy, happy, and sleeping through the night.

Our plane was delayed a couple of hours, so we missed our connection. Secondo and I were seated behind a nasty couple who complained to the flight attendant when Secondo had a dirty diaper right before takeoff (exact quote: "Gawd, don't you have an extra diaper? 'Cause your kid smells like CRAP."), and then again when Secondo kicked the seat in front of him a few times before I stopped him by putting up his tray table. I don't think I would have been so upset by the whole thing if it hadn't been for the fact that my kids were being SO GOOD. It was a long flight. Sigh.

We made it home at 2 a.m. I checked my messages to find out where I was supposed to be working that morning and found out it was a murder trial. I stopped by the cafeteria on my way upstairs, and one sip of the harsh, institutional coffee jolted me back to reality. I drank it anyway, to get rid of the throbbing headache, and at least it worked.

I expected to find the results of Primo's evaluation waiting for me when I got back. Instead, there was a ten-day-old message from the speech therapist on the answering machine asking me to call her so she could ask me a few more questions.

I put a huge dent in the driver's side of the car when I scraped past a barrier at a gas station on my way back from a birthday party on Saturday, which was both frustrating and really embarrassing because I was in the middle of telling my passenger all about how my driving KICKS ASS. P, to his credit, reacted by telling me in mock exasperation, "Don't you know all dents are supposed to be on the passenger's side?!" That side is, indeed, seriously dented. The most frustrating thing is that now guys in parking lots all over the DC metro area will probably not stop trying to get me to pay them to punch out the dents in my car.

Slowly getting back into the swing of things. More to come.

Copos

2009-02-23T00:54:00.008-05:00

My love of granizados, or copos, as they're called in Costa Rica, goes back to when I was a little girl. In fact, one of my most vivid memories from when we had just moved here is of losing my copos money at school. I was in the third grade at our local public school for a few months and was teased mercilessly, mostly because of my gringuita accent. Those were such difficult months for me, having been suddenly uprooted and dropped into a foreign country, having to wear a school uniform, make new friends and adjust to making Spanish my primary language, but somehow a copo made everything all better at the end of the day. The day I lost my money, I cried all the way home.

Back then, they were sold by vendors who had little pushcarts. On the carts were strings of bells, and like the ice cream man, you could hear them coming blocks away. Inside the cart was a block of ice, which they shaved with a metal box-like contraption--the sound of the scraping of the ice is one I'll never forget. On top of the cart were bottles of flavored syrup and condensed milk, which was drizzled on top if you wanted a granizado con leche. And a bag of powdered milk if you wanted dos leches, for a price, of course, but dos leches was the only way to go. My tío N found granizados repulsive, because the señor de los copos touched the ice, money, and God-knows-what-else with his hands--¡qué asco!--but I sure didn't care.

I think the señor de los copos may be a thing of the past, but I still make a point to indulge when I'm here. Some places make them in slushee machines (bleh), others crush ice to perfection with a machine. A layer of ice, a layer of powdered milk, another layer of ice, syrup, and sweetened condensed milk on top--it's amazing to me how a copo can still make me feel like things are all better.

Brothers

2009-02-19T08:40:00.000-05:00

I'm Still Here. Really.

2009-02-18T23:31:00.009-05:00

Except where I am is here:

The not-so-great part is that both Primo and P were terribly sick the day we flew, then Secondo got sick, and both of the boys have been having Major Sleep Issues, the likes of which we had not experienced for a long time. So my fantasies of leisurely catching up on blogging on the terraza while sipping piña coladas and reading one of the three books I optimistically brought with me have been replaced by fantasies of sleeping, anywhere, anytime, and preferably as soon as possible. And preferably, also, without a kicking, screaming toddler in bed with me.

Seriously, though, it's beautiful. Being with my family in the house where I grew up, or on the beach at my mother's, seeing familiar faces, eating gallo pinto and granizados, it takes the edge off the exhaustion. (As does the hard liquor we bought at the duty-free store. And the fact that I'm on vacation, so I can go ahead and make myself a rum and coke at noon if I damn well please.)

From the Planner of Keen

2009-01-25T21:53:00.003-05:00

Appointment #1

When: Tomorrow
Who: Secondo
What: IEP meeting to see if he qualifies for occupational therapy. He was evaluated a few weeks ago, and we need to get additional therapy for him, but it sure would be nice if he qualified for services at school. The only information I have about how his evaluation went is an offhand comment from Ms. C, who told me the OT was concerned about his fine motor skills.
Keen’s anxiety level: Moderate. Even though every IEP meeting so far has been positive, I can’t say I enjoy them.

Appointment #2

When: Tomorrow
Who: Primo
What: Formal evaluation by speech/educational specialists.
Keen’s anxiety level: Through the roof. I have such mixed feelings about this. Do I want him not to qualify for services? If he doesn’t, maybe it means his preschool teachers were wrong and he just marches to a different beat, which would be a relief. Do I want him to qualify? If he does, that means he’ll end up in Secondo’s special-ed class, which is a wonderful place for Secondo, but I’m not sure Primo needs to be there. These thoughts play in my head on an endless loop, and I have no answers. I’m not sure the evaluation team can give me answers. One thing worth mentioning is that a Spanish-speaking team will evaluate him, which is a relief because his Spanish is still definitely stronger than his English.

Appointment #3

When: Tomorrow
Who: Primo and Secondo
What: Dentist’s appointment
Keen’s anxiety level: Low, in that it will affect no one’s future and has nothing to do with developmental issues. High, in that I am not looking forward to wrangling two three-year-olds by myself at the dentist’s office.

Appointment #4

When: Tuesday
Who: Secondo
What: Appointment with the psychiatrist
Keen’s anxiety level: Mostly low, but high on either end of the appointment. I love Dr. B, though I still find it kind of surreal that we take Secondo to see the psychiatrist every two weeks. It initially seemed too often, so at one point we let three weeks go by without an appointment and then regretted it. It’s amazing how much we find to talk about. Sometimes I feel like they’re more about Secondo, and sometimes they’re more about us. Topics for discussion this week: Secondo’s newfound fascination with reflections, which I find a little unsettling. Occupational therapy. The fact that he's constantly bringing things over to show me. Ms. C’s reports of Secondo’s enthusiasm during circle time, and the way he’s been going up to his classmates and hugging them, or wanting to hold their hands while walking down the hall.
This will be the first time I go without P, however, which means that I have to drive there. I don’t enjoy driving. I have a lousy sense of direction. I’m a new driver--I’ve only had my license for a few months. And I will have to drive across the District, and nothing stresses me out more than driving in the District. Also, the clinic has the craziest, most overcrowded parking lot I’ve ever seen. Just thinking about it is bringing my heart rate up.

Appointment #5

When: Tuesday
Who: Secondo
What: Doctor’s appointment
Keen’s anxiety level: Low, low, low. After all that, taking one child to see the doctor is going to be practically enjoyable.

Christmas Eve

2008-12-29T23:31:00.006-05:00

It won't be that bad, I think. Everyone else had their kids' pictures taken with Santa ages ago. I'm sure I'm the only mother left who waited until Christmas Eve. And that way I can give the boys' nanny a ride to the Metro, and she can leave early. It'll be nice for everyone.

That is what I'm thinking as I pack the kids up and drive everyone to the mall, which of course is a madhouse, and I realize too late that I'm an idiot. We enter through the garage on an upper level and have to take the elevator downstairs. It is a huge glass elevator, and the boys love it. Primo begs to hold my hand, the way he usually does when something scares him a little but he's trying to be a trooper about it, like when I'm grinding coffee in the kitchen.

We reach Santa and the line is long, long, long. I try to prep the boys on the sidelines before we get in line, pointing out how other kids are sitting on Santa's lap and how much fun this will be. Santa notices us and waves obligingly. The boys ignore him completely. A woman comes by with picture samples and they are overpriced, of course, but the background and the poses also look slightly creepy to me.

What do you want to do? I ask the boys. Do you want to go see Santa?

Quiero el ascensor de cristal, they respond in unison.

So we go for a ride in the glass elevator again, and they are silent and filled with wonder. We head over to a pretzel shack and split a pretzel. They are amazed to see a pretzel that big. We hang out on a bench and eat it, and they marvel at the lights and decorations hanging in the atrium. Mira todas las luces, says Primo. Estrella, Secondo says softly, and points at a glittery star. The fact that my boy is pointing at things and naming them of his own volition is such a huge deal that it makes me want to cry, right there in the food court at the mall on Christmas Eve. I'm completely relaxed and at peace, even as throngs of people surround me. Even the trip back to the car in the plain parking elevator is fun.

And the only thing we bought was that pretzel.

Merry Christmas.

¡Feliz Navidad!

2008-12-22T20:22:00.006-05:00

[Phew.]

Banana Leaves

2008-12-20T23:20:00.004-05:00

Fourteen packages of them. Four days left before Christmas. You Latinas know what that means.

I am going into the kitchen early tomorrow morning with the family recipe my tía L gave me when I was eighteen. And we will have tamales for dinner on Nochebuena!

[The banana leaves are conveniently pre-washed and even pre-steamed. It totally feels like I'm cheating.]

Spaghetti

2008-12-19T23:40:00.005-05:00

I know that we’re supposed to pick our battles with our children. That when we do, we’re supposed to win every time. That some things are best not turned into battles in the first place. And I try to remember that, but some things just drive me batshit crazy.

With Secondo, one of them is eating with utensils. Or not eating with utensils. It drives me crazy that he often flat-out refuses to. That he will grab a handfuls of oatmeal and gleefully squish gobs of it between his fingers with obvious enjoyment and then wipe his hands on his shirt. That I’ve occasionally caught his overly-motherly Salvadoran nanny feeding him in order to prevent messes from happening, even though I’ve asked her not to. That my friend with the toddler who eats soup without spilling a drop makes comments about children needing to learn table manners and then glances pointedly at my kids. I tell myself not to get so frustrated about the whole thing, which is getting harder the older they get, because there are some things they should just be able to do by now, dammit, and it all ties in to my expectations for Secondo and my constant worry about what behavior is just your average three-year-old behavior and what isn’t. Because some of it isn’t. The autism, it always lurks, and it can mess with my mind.

I sit with Secondo and snatch his bowl of food away as he lunges at it with his hands. Con la cuchara, I remind him. Con la cuchara, he repeats, and takes a spoonful. Then he lunges with his hands again, and he’s really, really fast.

Tonight I take a different tack, something I’ve tried before, so it’s not exactly new. I will be positive, I will not let my frustration show. The boys are eating spaghetti, and Secondo takes a bite with the fork. ¡Excelente! I yell, and he looks at me and giggles. I’ve never been quite this enthusiastic, and I've obviously hit upon the right word. ¡Excelente! he repeats. Then takes another bite. ¡Excelente! I squeal, and this time I clap my hands and praise him profusely. Now Primo is laughing and wants in on it, too, so when he takes a bite: ¡Excelente!

And we are all having so much fun and laughing so hard that I don’t notice when Secondo grabs a handful of spaghetti, like a flash. I grab the bowl. It goes flying. There is spaghetti everywhere. I put my head in my hands and take a deep breath. Several seconds go by.

No tan excelente, Primo observes, finally, breaking the silence. His tone is sober.

Not so excellent, indeed. But at least now I am laughing as I clean up the spaghetti.

Look! A Picture!

2008-12-09T16:16:00.005-05:00

Kind of. Don't ask me why I'm so unwilling to post pictures of my boys on my blog but then submit them to other blogs. But I submitted a picture of Secondo to Faces of Autism. Here's the link, if anyone wants to take a peek.

I wrote in my blogroll post that I look at those pictures and see nothing but joy, but that's not entirely true. I look beyond the smiling faces and see families who have struggled, just as we are struggling. I see a tremendous amount of love.

But mostly, I do see the joy, and that's why I love that blog. Because I think that most people don't think the words "autism" and "joy" go together. But they do. Go see.

Look! A Blogroll!

2008-12-05T21:46:00.012-05:00

[Edited to add: The blogroll on the left looks pretty puny. I'll add more blogs as I think of them.]

All the posting I did this November seems to have jump-started the impulse to blog again. Even though I've been blogging for a year, I sure have been lackadaisical about it, and now I'm remembering how fun it is when I actually do it instead of thinking, "Oh, I should update my blog. Or I could wait another week. Or month."

So, in the spirit of getting my act together already, here is my blogroll. I keep tabs on many blogs via Google Reader, even though I'm constantly adding and deleting. These blogs, however, I've been following since the beginning, and deserve special mention. In alphabetical order, except for the first one, here's my short list:

Snickollet. I clicked on a random link one day and freaked the hell out when I realized my old friend was a rock-star blogger. All I can say is this: Even if I didn't know her in real life, I would be such a fangirl. To those of you who come here from her blog, she's an even more amazing person than you already think she is. To those of you who arrived via somewhere else, if you click on that link, you will not stop until you've read her entire archives.

KAL at Autism Twins. Because I can so relate to mothers of twins, but especially to mothers of twin boys. Because reading her blog makes me feel like I'm not alone. Because her boys are as cute as all get-out. And they happen to have autism.

Carrie at Bilingual in the Boonies. Because as a businesswoman, I think I could stand to take a few lessons from her. Because I wish I'd found her Los Pollitos onesies when my boys were still small enough to wear them. But mostly because she has an entire blog category devoted to dulce de leche. And because thanks to her, I was spared the disillusionment of finding out that dulce de leche Pop Tarts feel like regret. Carrie, thank you.

Christine at Day Sixty-Seven. Because I feel like I could have written her first few posts, just not as well. Because this post explains exactly what I'm feeling right now.

Faces of Autism, which is exactly what you think it is. I'm trying to find the right picture of Secondo to send in. I look at the faces of the kids on this blog and I see nothing but joy, which is as I think it should be.

Latin Baby Book Club. It's as if I thought to myself, "I wish I could find a group of great women who shared my passion for children's books in Spanish and could recommend new books." Then, poof! This blog appeared.

Stimey at Stimeyland. Another mom of boys, one of whom is autistic. When Secondo licked the chairs at his big appointment, I was thinking of this post. And this post about growing up with a brother with special needs made me cry and made me feel so positive about the boys my toddlers will become.

Karen at Teaching and Learning Spanish. Because she's constantly on the lookout for Spanish-language resources, and I've learned a lot from her. Soon, I will introduce my boys to Pocoyo!

The Local Dialect. Through this blog, I get to visit China. Also, baby Dylan is one of the most adorable babies I've ever seen.

Thank you, ladies. Others may come and go. But I'm keeping you all on my blogroll.

Turkey Soup

2008-12-04T23:00:00.005-05:00

I got home from work today and after reading a few stories with the boys, headed straight for the kitchen. I don't usually cook when I get home, because it's virtually impossible. The boys are demanding and pull me every which way if I try to get anything done in the kitchen, so we either have something in the Crock Pot or something ready to go in the oven, or P cooks while I take care of baths and bedtime.

Today, though, I was bound and determined to make my mother's turkey soup. The carcass from our Thanksgiving turkey had been waiting in the refrigerator for a week and I didn't want it to wait any longer, and we had no Plan B for dinner. It doesn't require that much prep work, so I snuck into the kitchen while the boys were distracted with their toys and got to work.

A few minutes later I was dicing a potato, completely lost in thought, when I realized something. The music on the CD player had stopped. It was completely quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you deeply uneasy when you have three-year-old twin boys. I dropped the chef's knife and ran into the living room.

Secondo was on the couch, Primo in the armchair. Both were peacefully reading a book. Secondo looked up when I appeared in the doorway. "Mi semana," he offered softly, by way of explanation. "My Week!" Primo chimed in.

I went back into the kitchen. They went back to their books. I could not believe what had just happened.

And the soup was absolutely delicious.

Fax Is a Four-Letter Word

2008-12-01T20:38:00.007-05:00

Primo is obsessed with the fax machine in my office. I keep the door closed, but he knows it's in there. Fax. Fax. Mama va a mandar un fax, he says as he points at the door. Vamos a escribir fax, he says, and then spells it out on the board with magnets. Fax, fax, fax.

Which is why, after he perfectly intoned a certain four-letter word I uttered in frustration yesterday when he and Secondo were working my last nerve, I tried mightily to convince him that what he'd heard Mama say was fax.

No dice.

I'm so embarrassed. And also, I need to start using faux swear words.

Going Out With a Whimper

2008-11-30T23:04:00.006-05:00

So, next year I will not be so naive as to think that I will actually post every day in November. However, I would like to point out that I will have posted 21 times this year, up 3 posts from last year. That's about 66.66 of the time, according to my calculations. (P will give me the exact figure as soon as he reads this post. I, on the other hand, am all about approximations.)

It's a cop-out, I know, but I'm going to end the month with a one-word meme I saw and liked. It's kind of amazing I didn't resort to more memes this month, anyway, so I'm not feeling too bad about this one.

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Your significant other? Kitchen
3. Your Hair? Curly
4. Your Skin? Dry
5. Your mother? Firecracker
6. Your favorite thing? Sons
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your favorite drink? Wine
9. Your dream/goal? Happiness
10. The room you’re in? Living room
11. Your ex? None
12. Your fear? Loss
13.Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here
14.Where were you last night? Home
15.What you’re not? High-strung
16.Muffins? Bran
17.One of your wish list items? Wii
18.Where you grew up? Costa Rica
19.The last thing you did? Ate
20.What are you wearing? Fleece
21.Your TV? Huge
22.Your pets? None
23. Your computer? Mac
24. Your life? Busy
25. Your mood? Mellow
26. Missing someone? Family
27. Your car? Dented
28. Something you’re not wearing? Makeup
29. Favorite Store? Ross
30. Your summer? Humid
31. Like someone? P
32. Your favorite color? Blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? Tonight
34. Last time you cried? Tonight

Three, Three, Three

2008-11-29T23:02:00.004-05:00

My boys are officially three years old. I think I'm supposed to write my boys a sweet letter on my blog or something in honor of their third birthday, but I'm feeling nowhere near that inspired.

I got to hang out in Secondo's classroom for his birthday celebration during snack time last week. I took cupcakes. They were made from a mix, which I found in my pantry, and the frosting came from a tub, also from my pantry. Secondo missed the bus that morning, which meant that I had to drive him, which meant I was frosting the cupcakes as I was running out the door. Then I dropped the container several times in the parking lot, so those were some sorry-looking cupcakes. I wasn't too bent out of shape, because of course, the kids didn't care. Secondo bent his head over and tasted his cupcake with the tip of his tongue, then decided he was done, just as he'd rejected a cupcake at a friend's birthday party the week before. The boy has finer tastes; one of his more frequent requests is "pan con Nutella, por favor."

Because of the holiday break, Primo's celebration will be next week. His teachers suggested muffins instead of cupcakes, so those will not come from a mix. I make good muffins.

At home, we bought cupcakes from our awesome local place, one of the runners-up in the Washington Post's cupcake wars. Things were quiet because of the holiday, but we had two friends in town, so we figured that was enough for a party. We didn't have birthday candles, so we lit tea lights instead. It didn't matter, because they refused to blow them out, anyway. We sang "Happy Birthday" and "Cumpleaños Feliz." They got a couple of gifts, and like their last two birthdays, the evening couldn't have been more low-key. I figure soon enough--probably next year--they will know about all about birthdays, expect parties and gifts and more elaborate cakes. Which is why I enjoyed this one so much.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T23:51:00.003-05:00

On Thanksgiving three years ago, I was nearly 38 weeks pregnant with twins. My c-section was scheduled for the following Monday. We had been invited to spend Thanksgiving in the District with a group of friends who weren't traveling that year.

Somehow, all of them were either vegetarian or didn't care much for turkey, so it was decided that if P and I wanted turkey, we needed to bring it ourselves. Which is how we ended up wandering the streets of Georgetown after finally finding parking several blocks from our destination on a freezing-cold, windy night in November, with me in my flip flops because they were the only shoes that fit my swollen feet, carrying a turkey.

It was a wonderful evening. I parked my huge self on the couch and barely moved all night. I requested a half-glass of wine (because I could finally see the end in sight) and someone got a picture of me balancing it on my belly. P left after a while for Union Station to pick up a friend who was arriving from New York.

After that night, P proclaimed that he would never again take a turkey anywhere and that if he was going to make the turkey, people needed to come to us. So that's what we've done ever since. He makes amazing baked rockfish to make sure the vegetarians have something to eat other than tofu and side dishes. Some friends have been here every year, others come and go. My friend from New York has come every year and always makes tres leches for dessert. It's become a tradition and has replaced pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving. No matter what you have for dessert.

Things That Are Long Overdue

2008-11-24T23:56:00.004-05:00

So, I was sick a couple of weeks ago. So sick that I had to cancel work, which I'd only done once before in nine years. I only canceled because I was physically unable to interpret--if I'd had a desk job that didn't require that I talk nonstop for half an hour every hour, I probably would have toughed it out. And on the day I stayed home, I started having trouble breathing, but I decided to wait and see if things got better the next day. I used to have allergic wheezing fits as a teenager that put me in the ER every so often, so this didn't seem that bad.

Things weren't better the next day, so I called my PCP and made a same-day appointment for later in the morning. I only did it because this time work had canceled on me, and the boys' nanny was at the house, so there was nothing standing in my way. And even then, I wheezed and coughed my way through Primo's parent-teacher conference before my appointment. (His teachers didn't seem to notice. As P said the other day, they don't exactly give me the warm fuzzies.) The short walk there and back had me gasping at my front door.

I made it to my physician's office, and after the nurse took my blood pressure three times because she thought her reading must be wrong, people in the office dropped everything and came running. A nebulizer treatment brought it way down. I was given a breathing test, an inhaler, antibiotics, and a chest x-ray. In the end, it was bronchitis, not pneumonia. My doctor patted me on the shoulder and gave me a little pep talk as I was about to leave. "I can't believe that not coming today was an option," I told her.

Not exactly a near-death experience, but it kind of shocked me into action. When I went back the next week for follow-up, I scheduled a physical. My last one was about six years ago, even though I've had a couple of issues I should have had checked out. I've packed on weight, which at this point can no longer be attributed to the twins. It was easy to think I was too busy, that I had no time. But we're all busy. Who has time? I realized I've been an idiot, and completely negligent. So my physical is tomorrow, and even though I could stand to get in shape, take better care of myself, I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.

Totally Cheating

2008-11-23T23:52:00.003-05:00

I've apparently resorted to cheating in order to try posting most days in November. You know, when you start a post one night, save it and then finish it the next day so it will post with yesterday's date. Maybe you don't know, maybe it's just me. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to cheat. NaBloPoMo officially has me crying uncle, even though I blew it early on so I suppose the pressure was off, really.

Ah, well. I am enjoying it, and will soldier on until the end of the month, even if I don't quite make it every day.

Musings on the Boll Weevil

2008-11-22T23:52:00.005-05:00

[Edited to thank my friend Noelle, for pointing out that it's boll weevil, not boil weevil. I'm shaking my head in amazement that I could be SO WRONG about a word for SO LONG. Even though I looked it up beforehand just to be sure. Sheesh.]

This is the best English/Spanish dictionary ever. I am a translator and an interpreter, so I have shelves full of dictionaries, but this is the only will not travel without. I bought it for myself as a graduation gift when I got my MA, and it's what I always recommend to people looking to take the next step, when they find that their average bilingual dictionary is no longer all that helpful. It is by no means comprehensive, but in in you will find all kinds of useful general and technical terminology, like end borrower, input-output, straddle carrier. And of course, boll weevil.

For some reason, whenever I open this dictionary, it seems to fall open at gorgojo, which is a boll weevil. The entry is near the top of the page, and after so many repetitions it felt like the word had been burned into my brain. Ha ha, I would joke to myself. If it ever comes up, I will be ready. I will be ready, and I will dazzle everyone by coming up with the right word for boll weevil without so much as batting an eye.

And then, of course, it came up. I was interpreting at an informal gathering for a few Latin American visitors who were doing a Q & A session with a high-school class. One of the students mentioned the boll weevils, and of course, I could not for the life of me remember what the hell it was. I motioned desperately to my colleague, who helped me out, but my moment had come and gone. And I was bummed, even though remembering the word for boll weevil is less important during an informal chat with high-schoolers than it is during, say, a highly technical conference about the boll weevil.

That's how my job goes. Sometimes a word I know, a word I know well, just won't come to me when I need it. It's one reason you need to be good at looking things up on the go, it's why you need to have good colleagues backing you up, and you have to be able to ask for and accept help if you need it.

The nice thing, though, is that it works both ways, and I often experience the flip side, like I did the other day. An attorney who was questioning a witness asked him if he was colorblind. That word often stumps me, since it doesn't come up that often. And yet this time, the word daltónico just rolled off my tongue. Good thing, too, since it came up many times and ended up being an important issue.

[The link to the glossary will take you to the Google Book Search page, which I just discovered, and I love it. If you're interested, it will allow you to peruse a pretty hefty chunk of the book. Pretty amazing.]

[I'm done geeking out about dictionaries now. Good night.]

On Co-sleeping

2008-11-20T22:52:00.002-05:00

When Primo and Secondo were newborns, we only had one crib. The boys slept in it together, and we thought that would last a while.

Then Secondo started scooting around on his back in his sleep. Just a little, at first. But when thee boys were eight weeks old I woke up one morning to Primo's cries, went to check on them, and realized the reason he was crying was because Secondo had scooched over was kicking him in the head. Obviously, that could not continue. Not so much because I felt bad that Secondo was beating up on his brother, but more because when you have newborn twins, anything that interrupts their (and your) sleep is a very, very bad thing.

P did some hunting around on Craigslist and came home with a beautiful Pali crib a few days later. I was so happy I could have kissed his feet. We separated the boys as soon as we could put the crib together. But it made me sad that we had to do it so early. What about that twin bond? What about being so close together in the womb? Weren't they supposed to feel comforted by each other's presence? Obviously not, because they didn't seem to care and they definitely slept much better. So did we.

When they turned two, though, Secondo decided he wanted to be with his brother in his crib. Even though he could be completely oblivious to Primo's presence all day, he whined and cried until we put him in there--and then Primo whined and cried, because though Secondo doesn't kick him in the head anymore, he loves to stomp on him and sit on him, and there really isn't enough room for two hefty toddlers in one crib.

When it was time to move them out of their cribs and into big boy beds, the choice was obvious: We moved them into my old queen-size futon. Partly because it was already in their room. Partly due to space considerations in our tiny condo. But mostly so they could be together. It's worked out beautifully--it's big enough so that they rarely fall out (and it's close to the ground when they do), and it's the perfect spot for reading bedtime stories. And even when they start out at opposite ends of the bed, they always end up moving towards each other. One's head will be nestled on the other's shoulder, or they'll hold hands. Tonight they are in the shape of a T, with both of Secondo's legs resting comfortably on Primo's belly.

I know this will end eventually, too, and when they're old enough, we'll move them into bunk beds. But I'm enjoying this while it lasts. And if I'd known how much they would enjoy sleeping in the same bed as toddlers, I might not have felt so wistful when they were eight weeks old.

Things I Like This Week (Or: My Brain Is Fried and This Is the Best I Can Do Tonight)

2008-11-19T22:40:00.006-05:00

The aforementioned brioche and Nutella. Our local bakery makes the best brioche, and we don't get it often, but when we do it's a huge treat. P keeps trying to convince me to do weird stuff like turn it into French toast, but I maintain that the only way to eat it is with Nutella. End of story.

The Radiolab episode about the War of the Worlds radio program seventy years ago. I had some general idea about what the whole thing was about, but I found it so fascinating that I'm listening to it again. I had absolutely no idea that someone thought it would be fun to try it years later in Quito, Ecuador. People died. Crazy.

Listening to Pandora while I'm translating and spending a couple of bucks a day on new music.

The prosecco you can get at Costco for $10. I have no idea what it's called. But if you like sparking wine, try it.

Eric Herman's The Elephant Song. The boys have been obsessed with it lately, and I can't get it out of my head. "Gotta like frogs, running through a maze for some cheese."

Good night.

ABCs

2008-11-18T23:37:00.002-05:00

It started when Primo was about eighteen months old. I remember because my brother and sister-in-law were here for a visit, and she and I noticed that Primo was downright engrossed in a book about numbers. We started to point at them and name him for him. Then, for fun, we asked him, “Where’s the eight?”

A pause. Then he slowly pointed to the eight.

“Where’s the zero?”

Another deliberate pause, and he pointed to the zero.

From there, it was on to letters and the sounds they made. All before he was two. Then we started on syllables. I found an old Spanish first-grade reading primer at a book sale and he was as engrossed in that as he had been in the number book a year earlier. Mi mamá me mima has become one of his favorite phrases.

He loves to type on the computer, using this awesome program for Macs I’ve mentioned before. A couple of months ago, my mom and I were sitting with him, egging him on. Mama, he spelled. Daddy. Nana. Words he knew. Words we knew he knew. “Qué inteligente.” my mom praised him. And then as a joke, she added, “Spell inteligente.”

ENTELIGNTE, he tapped out, rendering us speechless.

He’s just taken off from there. “Spell calabaza,” I urged the other day. C-A-L-A, he typed. Then he looked at me and asked, “¿Con B o con V?”

“Con B,” I told him, completely floored, and added, for good measure, “y con Z.” Pleased, he turned back to the computer and typed, CALABAZA.

He spells words out phonetically, in Spanish, even when they’re English words Island becomes AILENT. Nancy becomes NANSI. IKEA becomes AEKIA. Recently he threw a major fit before bedtime because he wanted me to spell words for him on the Magna Doodle. I finally gave in, and after we wrote a few words together, he settled right down and went to sleep. He often greets our friends by spelling their names. His preschool teachers told me that he refused to go to the playground the other day until he spelled EXIT with wooden letters. He spelled CAT, one of them told me, starting with the T. He didn’t spell it backwards, he just started with the T and worked his way back. He’s reading complete sentences as quickly as I can write them on the Magna Doodle, an activity that makes him giggle delightedly.

When he first started to show an interest in letters and reading, I promised myself I would only encourage him, never push him. But he's insatiable, and as much as I give him, he's always ready for more. And now he’s taken the next step by himself—I noticed a shaky PR on the Magna Doodle the other day when I came back from work. Later, I watched him write it several times.

I don’t mean for this to be an obnoxious bragging post. It’s just that I’m truly fascinated by the whole thing. And to be honest, when I’m in a bad place, I’m slightly worried about it. If we’d never had that intervention with his teachers, I think I would feel nothing but pride, I’d be thinking my son is brilliant, it never would have occurred to me that anything might even be wrong. I wish I were utterly oblivious. But he does echo language a lot. I have a hard time getting him to answer questions. The letters are bordering on an obsession. P and I used to joke that Primo showed more of the “classic” signs of autism than Secondo. When he was younger he had this need to line up toys, straws, silverware. I completely disregarded the best advice I received—and followed—early on with Secondo, which was, “No obsessive Googling, it will just freak you out," and found out about hyperlexia, which--you guessed it--freaked me out.

I told Secondo’s new doctor, Dr. B, about Primo. “Trust your instincts,” he tells me. “They’ve been great so far.” The thing is, I don’t know anymore. My instincts do tell me that Primo is just fine. That he’s smart as a whip, a brainy boy, a boy who likes taking books to the playground, nothing more. And then I hate myself for doubting that, because I'm insanely proud of him and amazed by how smart he is. But his teachers planted that seed of doubt in my mind. And then I think of P's friends, whose son was diagonosed with PDD-NOS. They didn't catch it until he was older. He was reading, his mother tells me. We just thought he was smart. And if it weren’t for Secondo, I think I would find it really easy to laugh it all off, call his teachers crazy. But there is Secondo. So I’m heeding the advice I give other people, which is, It can’t hurt. Even if you're wrong, at least you’ll know.

Tomorrow

2008-11-17T23:40:00.003-05:00

I have a long translation due on Thursday, and after being sick for a while and having a house guest, I started to freak out about finishing it. Today, thankfully, it started looking like meeting the deadline would at least be humanly possible--I wasn't so sure about that earlier. So I'm sneaking in five minutes to blog.

The translation includes autopsy reports, and my background research has been interesting. I found out that the three top hits and the most easily available autopsy reports are those of Nicole Brown Simpson, JonBenet Ramsay and Terri Schiavo. I also needed information on fingerprinting corpses and found many graphic images I wish I hadn't seen--and I say this as someone who doesn't bat an eyelash when interpreting for a medical examiner. I was, however, incredibly excited to have the original reports in Spanish, because it cleared up a lot of outstanding questions I had about the terminology I already knew in English.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be cold, and I heard flurries mentioned on the news. I will be happily holed up in my office translating, in my fleece pajamas and slippers, sipping a latte and eating brioche and Nutella. And even though I'll be working very, very hard, I'm looking forward to that.

Another Midnight Post

2008-11-15T23:52:00.005-05:00

So I missed another day. I'm not making excuses, just stating the following facts: An old friend is in town, we've eaten delicious Ethiopian food for several meals in a row now, and drunk good wine. Plenty of it. We've hung out and she's also looked after the boys for me, because I've been working doggedly on a translation that's due on Thursday.

Also, we've been googling old articles from the Onion that we remember from way back. So I'll leave you with this one. Even though I'm opposed to the mere mention of Christmas before Thanksgiving, this one cracks me up every time. And considering it's the Onion, it's surprisingly G-rated, too.

Goals

2008-11-13T23:54:00.004-05:00

Our meeting with Miss C today was wonderful. I was glad I'd skimmed Secondo's IEP. His progress was evaluated using a series of codes that I can't remember. But he did get a couple of Ms for Mastery of a skill, a few of his skills were considered Emerging Skills, and he should be on track to meet those goals by the end of the year. I'm not so interested in the goals, exactly. What matters to me is that he seems like a different boy than he was when he started school, he's much more engaged, there's less echoing and his language is so much more purposeful than it used to be. Miss C is a new teacher, and I sing her praises to anyone who will listen.

We also met with his speech therapist for the first time. I had no idea that she speaks Spanish fluently, and she told us she often uses it with Secondo during their sessions. I could have wept, I was so excited.

[Anyone notice how I often get my November posts in right under the wire, before midnight? I think this one will still count for my Thursday post, even though it's now Friday.]

Preparation

2008-11-12T21:36:00.004-05:00

I will be working at a conference tomorrow morning. The timing was perfect--the place where I was originally supposed to work tomorrow canceled on me, and I'm busy in the afternoon, so a few hours of work will fill my morning nicely. The only information I have is the name of the organization where I will be working, a link to their website and the name of my colleague. I like knowing details so I can read up on the subject and prepare a glossary, but tonight I've been wading through pages and pages on their website and I have no idea what information is relevant.

Tomorrow afternoon we have a parent-teacher conference with Miss C, where we will discuss Secondo's progress in meeting the goals set forth in his IEP. I've heard a million horror stories about IEP meetings, but ours went swimmingly. I do realize, though, that that's because it was our very first meeting and we were not evaluating his progress, we were setting goals, goals that sounded good to me so throughout the meeting I nodded enthusiastically and occasionally chimed in. Goals that I no longer remember. So tonight I dug out Secondo's IEP and reread it in preparation for tomorrow. I was reminded that his progress will by measured using the very specific, numerical criteria established several months ago, even though it's obvious to me that he's progressed by leaps and bounds.

When Interpreters Dream

2008-11-11T23:16:00.002-05:00

I spend a lot of my time looking up words.

When I translate, I have plenty of time to research terminology. I’ve gotten good at Google searches, I have several specialized go-to dictionaries, and in a pinch, I can e-mail or call colleagues from a particular country and ask for their opinion. Sometimes, even when I think I’ve researched something thoroughly, the perfect word will come to me when I’m editing my work, after I’ve set the translation aside for a little while.

Interpreting is different that way—you do it on the fly. If I’m working by myself, I can look things up as I go, or weave words in later or correct myself if I need to. If I’m lucky enough to have a colleague who’s got my back, he or she will jot down words for me and help me out as I go along.

And sometimes, picking someone’s brain is really the best solution. No matter how many dictionaries you own or how many search results you find online, the results can be unsatisfying. There’s nothing like asking your audience. Your clients are, after all, experts in their field, and they can often clear things up for you in an instant.

A difficult word came up recently, one I’d had to interpret many times before. I’d found acceptable—and correct—solutions, but I still wasn’t happy. The conference was on sexual violence and the word was “advocate.” When it’s a noun, you can use the words defensor, partidario, or you can turn the word into a phrase, which can be clumsy, not to mention difficult to fit in your interpretation. When it’s a noun, you can use the word abogar. The problem is, those words can be confusing if the context is legal, because a defensor can be a defense attorney and an abogado is an attorney, whereas the word advocate has a different connotation. I’ve searched message boards and there are long threads devoted to the word, but no one has the perfect answer.

After the role of an advocate (in the context of rape and sexual violence) had been described at the conference, I went up to the women who were my clients. “See that woman over there?” I asked, pointing at one of the advocates. “In your field, what would you call someone who does her job?”

One of them then proceeded to give me the perfect word, a word that had never turned up in all my searching. It was such an elegant solution, so smack-yourself-on-the-forehead obvious, a word that was a complete revelation. I immediately jotted it down in my steno pad and thanked the woman profusely. It came up many, many more times that day, and I loved having the perfect word to use.

And then I forgot it.

I have absolutely no idea what it is. I know from experience I won’t find it online, though I’ve looked, hoping I missed something the first time. I look at the stack of dozens of steno pads in my office and am daunted by the prospect of looking through all of them, and I curse the fact that I didn’t label the pad, that my system is so haphazard. I’m always hopeful that someday the word might just come to me again, or that it will reveal itself to me in a dream. Seriously.

Lesson learned. Ever since, I’ve recorded those notes on my iPod Touch when I’m on the go, so I won't forget them again. But I still mourn the loss of that perfect, perfect word.

Books, Books, Books

2008-11-10T23:36:00.004-05:00

My dad was a big fan of celebrating special occasions. He especially loved celebrating them on dates that were not the actual dates of the occasions. I’ve mentioned before how we used to celebrate Thanksgiving whenever we felt like it, sometimes several times a year, and rarely in November. Christmas was often celebrated whenever my dad came back from a trip to the United States. It’s hard to describe just how incredible the ritual of the Opening of the Suitcases was when I was growing up. There were special gifts like walkmans and cassette tapes, magazines, Hershey bars and all kinds of assorted candy that was locked in a trunk and rationed throughout the year. My dad always milked it and made the most out of each reveal, so that my brother and I were always craning our necks practically drooling in anticipation while we waited for him to pull out whatever was hidden beneath the dirty laundry in his luggage. Christmas was always a fun time—tamales! rompope! huge manger scenes!—and an important holiday, but gifts were not big part of it. Nothing could have compared to the Opening of the Suitcases.

And my birthday, which was in May, was always celebrated in July.

There are a lot of bookstores in Costa Rica that sell books in English now, and there are even used bookstores which are full of books that tourists have left behind. But when I was growing up, there was only one. It was called simply The Bookshop, and it was so small and cozy. And they had a huge sale every year. In July.

My dad took me every year. It was my birthday gift, and I was allowed to buy stacks and stacks of books. After I was done picking out my favorites—books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madeleine L’Engle and James Herriot, the Great Brain books, Trixie Belden and every book in the Oz series—my dad would always steer me towards the saleslady and ask her what else she might recommend for a girl my age, and I would add some more to my pile. When I got home, I would spread them all out on my bed and look through them carefully, and deciding which one to read first took an eternity.

My parents passed their love of reading down to me. The yearly shopping spree at The Bookshop is the only time I remember money being no object. When I outgrew my own books, I moved on to my parents’ books. They had an aversion to fiction, so I read many, many memoirs, written by teachers, actors, doctors, books about the Cold War and about Holocaust survivors. We took to initialing the inside of the front cover of the books we’d read, so it was easy to keep track of who had read what. Even though we watched some TV every night, it was always turned off at some point so we could all have some peace and quiet while we all read in the living room together.

And now, I'm making every effort to pass that love of reading on to my boys. I didn’t start reading to them as early as they say you should, but I felt silly reading to them when they were newborns, just like I felt silly talking to them when I was pregnant. (Also, they got to hear my voice half an hour per hour while I was interpreting. I figured it didn't matter that what they were hearing were court proceedings in Spanish.) Once they could sit up, though, there were always board books strewn around the floor along with their toys. When I started reading them stories at night, I had a captive audience—their room was so tiny that there was only enough room to wedge a chair between both of their cribs. I would sit and read to them every night while they stood in their cribs and peered over the top.

When they were that small and had no say in the matter, I read to them almost exclusively in Spanish. That ended once they were big enough to grab a book and bonk me in the head with it insistently until I agreed to read it to them, so I began reading to them in English as well. What I’ve found, though, is that we keep coming back to the books in Spanish again and again, to the point that even P often reads to them in Spanish because those are their favorites and those are the stories they want to hear.

This has meant I’ve become quite passionate about children’s books in Spanish. I’m always on the lookout for them—new on Amazon, used at library sales, from friends and relatives who come to visit from Costa Rica. P often comments that our place looks like a bomb went off in Barnes & Noble. And while we started with Buenas Noches, Luna and the Eric Carle books in Spanish, the boys quickly moved past those (though I won’t say they outgrew them, because we recently went through another Eric Carle phase and they seemed to enjoy the books even more than they had before), and I’ve discovered many, many wonderful books since the days of La oruga muy hambrienta.

I’ve added an Amazon widget to my blog that reflects our current favorites, just for fun, and I’ll comment on what we’re reading occasionally as well, both for my own benefit as well as in hopes that it might lead someone else to discover something new.

Sick Days

2008-11-09T23:00:00.003-05:00

So, I obviously took a couple of days off from blogging. Damn--I would have liked to make it through NaBloPoMo successfully! But other things took priority, like breathing, which I was having a hard time with for a few days. The good news is, I was able to cancel work, see my doctor, and get better. Also, it was decided I don't have pneumonia, which definitely qualifies as good news.

Back to work for me tomorrow, and more posts later.

A Little Fluff

2008-11-06T07:33:00.001-05:00

I spent one morning this week at a fancy law firm interpreting for an interview. It was very emotional, boxes of tissues were passed to people. And then, I stood up to leave and reached across the fancy conference table to shake the hand of one of the attorneys. And proceeded to knock over my entire glass of water, covering the entire table. At least it was only water, not coffee or Diet Coke (both of which I’d been drinking), and no attorneys, laptops or documents got wet.

What I said, in a feeble attempt at levity, was, “Hey, at least we’re not in federal court!”

I didn’t finish the entire thought, which was, “Because when you spill water all over the defense table in front of a federal judge in the middle of a big trial, now THAT’S embarrassing!”

Trust me. I know. I am a klutz.

[I have a feeling NaBloPoMo may include several more mindless anecdotes. At least until the shakes from my fever subside. And until my ISP gets its act together. Curse you, Verizon! I don’t mind missing a day, but not if it’s Verizon’s fault. It’s 9:28 on Wednesday and I'm sure I'll be going to bed before things are up and running again.]

Notes From the Couch

2008-11-04T20:42:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm parked on the couch watching the election results roll in. Who isn't? The wine has been flowing freely (I'm sure that will go nicely with my Theraflu later). Not the good wine, though, not just yet. The last time we prematurely opened a bottle of the good wine was during Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series, and we all remember how that worked out. At least, we Cubs fans do.

The fact that Primo, at the age of not-quite-three, can read and spell is a topic for another post. But here's what he wanted to type on the computer today, over and over. His mama is so proud.

A Perfunctory Post

2008-11-03T22:35:00.003-05:00

It's November 3rd, which I'm pretty sure is too early in the month to post a token blog entry. But the boys are sick, I'm sick, and with the time change, we were all up early in the morning. All I can think of right now is the Theraflu that is sitting on the kitchen table, Theraflu I plan to take as soon as I can heat up the water. Tomorrow's job will be a very stressful one, so I'm going to conk out and hope things are better in the morning.

And also, I need to get out of here early tomorrow morning and VOTE!

Hello, November

2008-11-02T23:00:00.005-05:00

A year ago, NaBloPoMo inspired me to start a blog. I thought it would motivate me to start out, since the concrete goal would be to post every day. I posted 18 times that month, which wasn't bad, for me. Since then, I've only posted a few times a month (or once a month, in some cases), but this year, I'm going to challenge myself to ramp up the number of blog posts. I'm going to unoficially do NaBoPoMo again. So, here goes.

One of the reasons I started to blog was because I felt so strongly about teaching the boys Spanish and I wanted to chronicle their language development. And then I held back, because it became clear that Secondo's language development was delayed, and I felt guilty posting language-related stories because most of them would have been about Primo.

One year and one autism diagnosis later, I'm over that. Things are what they are. Primo's language development continues to amaze me, and Secondo's language development has become a cause for celebration, not a source of worry like it was last year. That is a huge relief, and overall, I'm feeling optimistic and ready to tackle November.

I have to say, October kicked my ass. It's not all doom and gloom around here, though. Many of the events I'm writing about occured a few weeks ago, and I'm over them and am moving on, but I need to get them out. So there will be more posts about autism, because it's become a big part of our lives. But there will also be more posts about language, about the wonderful books we're reading. About my work and other things going on around here. Things that have seemed unimportant lately, things that have taken a backseat to autism.

But you know what, here's to the unimportant stuff.

More tomorrow.

My Other Son

2008-11-01T23:55:00.002-04:00

In my career as a translator and interpreter, I’ve discovered that Spanish speakers often start sentences with the words “Por una parte…” It means: On one hand. It is a phrase that just begs to be completed. And the speaker will ramble on and on, and I wait and wait for the por otra parte. The logical conclusion, on the other hand. But most of the time, it doesn’t come. I’ve come to realize it’s just a quirk of the language, and it’s so common that I usually just omit it entirely so as not to leave the English-speaking audience hanging.

I look back over my last post, which I only wrote a few weeks ago, even though it feels like much longer. There was also a Diagonosis: Part Two, which I composed over and over again in my head. It was, in a nutshell, about the fact that Secondo was officially diagnosed with autism. It was about the kindness of friends and how the simplest of gestures made things better. I may post it later, but lately I’ve been thinking about how I left the audience hanging.

The thing is, por una parte, there’s Secondo.

Por otra parte, there’s Primo.

It is noon, and preschool is out. My mom has taken Primo out into the hallway, and I am shuffling around the classroom, waiting for his teachers to finish up so we can talk. I have been out of town for two weeks and they have already talked to my mother, and to P. But I have asked to talk to them because I am Primo’s mother, and I need to hear this for myself.

We sit around a table, the three of us. The chairs are tiny, and I remember them from when I was a student teacher in a kindergarten classroom. I learned to sit in them, but what I really remember is the bruises. I always had a line of bruises from the knees down, from all of the tiny furniture.

Primo doesn’t make eye contact, they say. He doesn’t talk. When we talk to him, he parrots back exactly what we’ve said. He doesn’t participate during circle time. He doesn’t even sit in the circle. He sits in that little red chair, behind the circle. He plays by himself on the playground. There’s another little boy who tries to play hide-and-seek with him, but Primo just wanders off, he’s not interested. You know, it’s fine that the knows all of his letters, but that’s not the only important thing.

We really think he needs to be evaluated.

We’re not saying this because of the issues you’ve had with your other son.

What they’re saying is not news to me, because I heard it from my mother and from P. But their tone is flat and defensive throughout, like they’re eager to get their grievances off their chest, and like they can’t believe they have to repeat this a third time. I can’t really remember what I say. I do remember telling them we’re wondering if we should leave him in preschool another month, and I ask for their opinion.

Well, one of them shrugs, he’s not disruptive.

And suddenly I feel the tears start to well up. I try to hold them back, because the fact that I’m starting to cry makes me mad. Not because I mind crying in front of others, necessarily, but because I have been bombarded by negative statements and this last one makes me realize that they have not said a single positive thing about my son. Nor have they shown a single shred of kindness, which would have made this so much easier to bear.

One of them points me in the direction of the tissues, and thanks to Snick’s comment on my last post, before I even reach for one I think, I’ll bet these tissues are FUCKING SCRATCHY, and I am right.

I leave the room, scratchy tissue in hand, and run into the director, who is happily chatting with my mom. It is obvious that neither one of them expected me to emerge in such a state. The director touches my shoulder and tells me I can call anytime, and I can tell she means it. She also sends me down the hall to talk to an education specialist who happened to be observing Primo’s classroom this morning. I tell her the story, give her some background information.

A week later, I am on the phone with someone from the county school system. She remembers who I am, which I find both comforting and depressing. I schedule an evaluation for Primo. And I can’t believe we’re doing this again.

Diagnosis, Part I

2008-10-12T03:10:00.005-04:00

We sit in the waiting room in the Psychiatry Department, and we wait. Considering that it took us so many months to get this appointment, the waiting room here is not as nice as I thought it would be. It’s actually kind of sad. There is a worn train table, but there are no toy trains or cars to be seen. There is a chipped plastic musical toy that even Secondo, who adores anything with buttons that plays music, only tries out once before he loses interest. I have his favorite book, one about a school bus, in my purse, and I hold him on my lap and read it to him over, and over, and over again. He wanders over to the double doors occasionally, and I follow to make sure no one opens them and knocks him over.

We wait, and we wait. I am sick of the book about the school bus. After about an hour I hear the receptionist whispering animatedly on the phone. Tell her she’s got a patient waiting, she hisses loudly enough for me to hear, then hangs up and tells me the doctor is on her way down.

I can tell you all are really busy, I say, trying to sound sympathetic.

This place is CRAZY, she says, shaking her head, and I nearly start to laugh, considering where we are and all, but she doesn’t seem to realize what she’s said.

Dr. A rushes in, finally, and greets us warmly. She had an emergency upstairs. She disappears in the back for another twenty minutes. I assume she’s reading Secondo’s chart, or at least I hope she is, because filling out all the paperwork was draining and took P and me hours.

She walks back out, this time with an entourage of about four other doctors, interns, who knows. I don’t remember. They all stand in a row holding their clipboards and though she introduces them all, I am disconcerted by their presence and their names don't even register.

We go to the playroom. The carpet is dark and the room is small and bare, except for a table and chairs and one large window, which I later realize is a two-way mirror. Dr. A and another doctor (the others have disappeared behind the mirror, I assume) break out a bin of toys and watch Secondo play even as they’re grilling us. They ask P and me probing questions that throw me for a loop, questions about breastfeeding and baby blues, our marriage, high school. Secondo wanders around, not so much into any of the toys with the exception of a hot pink Barbie convertible. At one point he gets up and starts licking the armrests of every chair in the room. I am so taken aback that I can’t even speak, because I’ve never seen him do this, ever, and it makes me feel deeply uneasy. Absurdly, a clip from the movie Airplane! starts playing in my head: Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home. Secondo never does this at home. But I don’t say that, because he's doing it now. Instead I distract him and he moves on to something else.

Dr. A is full of positive comments. It’s always hard to diagnose children who’ve received good parenting. You have a gentle touch with him. I think your instincts are good. She needs to see Secondo a few more times, she says. She and the second doctor talk for a minute about repetitive behaviors they've noticed. It’s just such a relief, I tell her. It's such a relief to have someone NOT dismiss my concerns. And all of a sudden I am crying so hard I can’t speak. Someone passes me a box of tissues that is on the table. I hadn’t noticed it when we came in. Of course they keep them right there, I think. Duh. And as I try to regain my composure I am reminded of all of the witnesses I’ve ever interpreted for who have cried on the stand as I’ve stood next to them, waiting, sympathetic but detached and professional. There’s always a box of tissues right there, but they never notice it until someone nudges it in their direction.

I know this is hard, Dr. A says gently, and that’s when I stop crying. No, I tell her, wiping my eyes. This isn’t hard. The hard part was taking him in for that very first appointment.

This is what I’ve told people for many months now, and I’ve firmly believed it. And yet, today, even as I’m saying it, I realize it’s not true, at least not this time.

Because it is hard. Even when you see it coming, it’s hard.

A Note to Ms. C

2008-09-26T20:40:00.000-04:00

9/26

Ms. C,

An update on Secondo’s appointment—we met with Dr. [Big Fancy Psychiatrist] at [Big Fancy Hospital] today. No official diagnosis, because she wants to see him a few more times in the upcoming weeks, but in her words, he’s most likely on the autism spectrum.

I know Secondo isn’t so big on the fruit I send to school with him, but I keep trying anyway!

K.

Open House, Part Two

2008-09-09T00:13:00.003-04:00

The thing is, I used to be against preschool.

I just didn’t think it was necessary for my kids. The boys have a nanny, who I’ve known since I was in high school, and I’ve loved and trusted her from day one. The fact that she is from El Salvador and speaks no English was a huge bonus to me. It meant the boys would be exposed mostly to Spanish, and I wanted to keep that going for as long as possible. Plus, preschool for two children would be expensive, and who needs that? I watched several of my friends research schools last spring, tour them all, get on waiting lists and then agonize over the decision. Oh, hell, no, I thought.

But then Secondo qualified for the preschool class at our public school, and P and I started feeling a little bad for Primo. He would be lonely without Secondo, probably. We don’t have too many playdates, so he doesn’t see other kids all that often. And he’s such a cheerful, outgoing child that he would probably love being with other kids at preschool.

So I contacted a preschool. It’s a short walk from the house. That was seriously my only criterion. Primo and I went on a tour, and he walked into the classroom like he owned the place. My guide talked the school up. That’s okay, lady, I thought. As long as you aren’t torturing small children in the basement, really, I’m good. But I just nodded. Since this was just last month, there was a waiting list, so I put Primo on it and crossed my fingers.

I got the call fifteen minutes after Secondo’s open house was over. It was last minute, the director said. There was a parents’ meeting that night, and an open house the next day. I got the wrong information about the class would be in, so we went to the wrong open house. I was bummed—again--when I found out there were three Spanish-speaking parents there, too. Primo will be in the other class, the one for younger children, starting tomorrow. In the end, it doesn’t matter. He loved it. It will be good.

Today was Secondo’s first day. We were going to take the bus, Primo, Secondo, their nanny and I, so I could show her how to get there if she ever needs to pick him up. But the bus was late, so we had to pile into the car and rush over. P was waiting there. We all walked in, and Secondo headed for the toy school bus again. I kissed him goodbye and told him I was leaving. It didn’t seem to register. Then we closed the door behind us and I looked through the window for just a few seconds. When he looked up and seemed to realize I’d left, I quickly moved away so he wouldn't see me. Didn’t you cry? my friends asked me later. I would have. No, I said. I just wanted to get away from there to make life easier for him and his teacher.

P told me his was just fine, if clingy, when he picked him up. Ms. C told him Secondo named several foods and ate a rice cake. That was the summary of the day. I looked through his daily log as soon as I got home from work. Great first day! it read in neat script. Secondo used lots of words! Underneath was a little list: cracker, raisin, more.

That is a good first day.

One Day Only

2008-09-06T01:32:00.003-04:00

I'm mostly shy when it comes to my blog. I haven't even put up a blogroll yet. And I definitely haven't posted any pictures of my kids. So I don't know what came over me when I sent a picture of the boys to The Dad of Looky, Daddy! for his Month of Mastheads.

It's perfect, really. Anyone want to see a picture of the boys? It'll be posted there today, and then it will be gone. Maybe someday I'll decide to post pictures, but not for now.

But I will get my blogroll up. Really.

Open House

2008-09-06T01:20:00.002-04:00

“You’d better get a three-ring binder,” the teacher told me a month ago, as we left the IEP meeting. “You’re going to need it—you’ll have that much paperwork.”

The events regarding Secondo the past few months have been a blur. Not because there’s been that much going on, or because things have happened at lightning speed. But it’s all kind of fuzzy in my mind. He was evaluated at home, several months ago. It took an hour. And after that, we got a report in the mail. Even though I read it many, many times, I can only remember a few phrases. Developmental delay. Special education. And the only one that actually scares me a little: Social communicative disorder cannot be ruled out.

Which is how P, Secondo and I finally find ourselves at the open house for the special education preschool class he will be in starting on Monday. It is so bright and welcoming. The children’s names and birthdays are written on construction paper balloons and stapled on the bulletin board. When I see Secondo’s name up there, I am happy and excited and wistful and think I might cry.

Secondo, unfazed, makes a beeline for the toy school buses. His little yellow school bus is his favorite toy at home, and he immediately starts rolling this one back and forth. We parents and the two teachers alternate between making small talk and refereeing squabbles over toys, of which there are many.

“Secondo,” I chide, when he instigates such a squabble. “Tiene que compartir.”

The other little boy’s mother stares at me. “¿Hablas español?” she asks me, and then we are chatting away at a speed that English speakers find unnatural.

“Does your boy speak Spanish?” I ask.

She lowers her eyes. “Well, I speak to him in Spanish,” she says. “But he doesn’t talk too much.”

I could kick myself. “I know,” I tell her. “Secondo’s the same way.”

Her little boy is Ramón* and I am deeply bummed to find out that he and Secondo won’t be in the same class. But his mother tells me she’ll be going to the support group meetings for parents. I remember the flier, which is buried deep in a stack of papers and will be until I get that three-ring binder. I hadn’t really given it much thought, but now I decide I’ll go whenever I can.

We get ready to leave. I gather up Secondo so that he’s at eye level with his teacher, who he’s ignored for the past hour. “Secondo,” I say in English, for her benefit. “This is your teacher, Miss C.” Nothing. “Secondo.” I gently turn his face with the palm of my hand. And then he looks at her, really looks at her. And I can tell he doesn’t quite know what to make of this. So I tickle him and get a huge smile.

“He’s a beautiful child,” Miss C. murmurs.

And I’ll bet she says that to all the parents. But he is a beautiful child. I take him by the hand, and we walk to the car. And I’ve come away with such a great feeling.

I can’t wait until Monday.

*Names changed, of course.

Embarrassing Stories

2008-08-12T10:35:00.002-04:00

A few years ago I was at a professional conference, surrounded by translators and interpreters. I love attending conferences—they’re expensive, but I need the continuing education credits to keep up my certification, and I always enjoy the experience. I come away feeling invigorated, at least for a while.

We sat down to lunch in the big ballroom and listened to the keynote speaker tell a story, a story about a gaffe he made when he was just learning Spanish. He’d done something or other and was feeling embarrassed about it, so he said, “Estoy embarazado.” Funny! Because (false cognate alert!) embarazado does not mean “embarrassed,” it means pregnant. Oops. The crowd tittered politely, but I was unimpressed.

The thing is, that happens to just about everyone who’s learning Spanish. When people who are learning the language tell me that story, I always laugh, because it is indeed funny and the fact that it happens to everyone doesn’t make it any less embarrassing if it happens to you. And it makes for a good icebreaker. But I was in a room full of interpreters, so my thought was, really? That’s the best you could do? Because interpreters can tell some really good stories about the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to them.

Here’s mine:

I used to interpret for a lot of anti-terrorism courses--definitely not the kind of work I ever imagined I’d do when I was interpreting in a nice, quiet booth in graduate school. It involved lots and lots of time on the shooting range. I loved the work, even though it was physically demanding. There was a mechanical precision to everything on the shooting range, and a rhythm I got into when interpreting the instructors’ commands, barking short, neat orders into my radio transmitter to all of the students on the firing line. No one did anything, anything at all, unless it had been ordered by the instructor.

We stood uprange one day, the line of students preparing their magazines and weapons for the march up to the firing line, an instructor and I behind them. The students had loaded two or three pistol magazines with ammunition, checked their gear and awaited the order, which finally came.

“LOAD YOUR WEAPONS!” bellowed the instructor.

“¡CAGUEN LAS ARMAS!” I shouted, just as forcefully.

And then I watched helplessly and turned beet-red as the rigid, perfectly straight line of men fell apart as all twenty-four men in fatigues doubled over in laughter.

The instructor, a former cop who was twice my size and who intimidated the hell out of me, turned to me and asked, “What did you say? What did you say??”

It was a slip of the tongue, I explained. I left out the r. Carguen las armas = load your weapons. Caguen las armas = shit on your weapons.

I underestimated the instructor. He wasn’t angry or even exasperated—he was mostly horrified and intrigued that leaving out one letter could make that much of a difference.

I had developed a rapport with the group during the course, which meant that they teased me mercilessly all day. I thought I’d never hear the end of it.

Qué embarazada.

Transitions

2008-07-17T23:44:00.002-04:00

Apparently, I have a hard time dealing with the fact that the boys are ready to give some things up, to move on, grow up. What’s worse, I think I’m mostly freaked out because in my mind, I just know the transition will be rocky. It will cause extra work. We’ll all lose sleep. I’ve got a translation to work on tonight. Let’s all just stick to our usual routine.

Examples:

A few weeks ago, Secondo, he of little spontaneous speech, plucked his binky out of his mouth one morning, handed it to me and said, “Adiós, chupeta.” I was floored. He loves his binky. It’s a fluke, I thought. He’s totally messing with me. He can’t be ready to give it up. Let’s just see what happens. Then he proceeded to do the same thing every morning for about a week. You would think I would have jumped at the chance to get rid of it, to follow his lead and say good-bye to the binky for once and for all, but I didn’t. So the binky is still with us.

Another morning, Primo looked at me and said simply, “Quiero hacer caca.” I whipped off his diaper and with no fanfare, he used the potty like he’d been doing it forever. When I tried to make a big deal out of the whole thing like all the parenting books say you’re supposed to do, he looked at me like I was crazy. Again, that would have been the time to go for it and start potty training in earnest. Instead, I was so intimidated by the thought of really potty training that again I thought, let’s just see what happens. He hasn’t done it again since.

The boys are back from their trip to see their grandparents. There was only one pack ‘n play there, so the two of them rotated between that and a double bed. At bedtime tonight, Secondo whined and tried to climb into his crib, and once I put him in there, was asleep within five minutes. When I put Primo in his crib, he tried to climb out and said, “La cama grande.”

The boys love La cama grande de Sofía, a book I bought them to help them transition to the big bed. Primo has asked for la cama grande before, but again, I’ve been unwilling to deal with it and have put him in his crib instead, over his objections. Tonight, finally, I decided to go for it.

And it went well. I stayed with him—and about twenty books—on the bed. I refused to read to him, explaining he’d had enough stories and it was time to go to sleep, but I did let him “read” his books, figuring he would fall asleep when he was tired enough. He leafed through Harold y el lápiz color morado, reading to me as he did. “Pasteles,” he said. “Globo. Policía.” He looked at me after each page, not continuing until he got confirmation from me.” After a while, I kissed him goodnight, went downstairs and proceeded to forget about him for two hours.

When I finally went back and checked on him, he was indeed asleep in the middle of la cama grande. And he’d pulled every single book off the bookshelves in the room. Some were on the bed with him, most of them were on the floor. But he was asleep, and he hadn’t made a peep all evening.

I count that as a success, and I really think he may finally be done with the crib now. It did prompt me to have a quick discussion with P about reading in bed. I started reading myself to sleep when I was old enough to read. And it was always a covert operation--I read with very little lighting, under the covers, because it was against the rules. Whenever I was busted, I got a lecture about how I was going to ruin my eyesight that way. (My eyesight is bad, indeed, but you’ll never convince me it was because I read under the covers.) But there was no stopping me, so I figure there’s no stopping Primo—why fight it?

Here’s hoping the rest of this transition will be as easy as it was tonight.

Required Reading

2008-07-15T15:05:00.001-04:00

This article in the New York Times about Erik Camayd-Freixas is required reading--for interpreters, for anyone interested in our justice system or in immigration, for everyone.

Like Mr. Camayd-Freixas, I am a federal court interpreter. The article hit so close to home that I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it last Wednesday, and I still haven't quite been able to sort out how I feel.

I’m reluctant to blog about it, but it’s a fascinating article. There’s a follow-up editorial here.

Budget? What Budget?

2008-07-13T23:39:00.002-04:00

I was feeling a little (and only a little) sorry for myself today, stuck inside in front of the computer when I could have been outside (or inside, really) doing something else.

So I placed an order for some books for the boys on Amazon. I'd been trying to fight the urge for a long time and finally caved in, budget be damned.

My order:

Abuelita fue al mercado
Cha-cha-cha en la selva

We own a couple of other books from Barefoot Books, and they're huge hits. So I have high hopes for these.

Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet In Spanish And English

I love Alma Flor Ada. Period.

Las pulgas no vuelan

I forget how I heard of it, but it sounded interesting.

¡Hola! que me lleva la ola

Because the boys love children's poetry in Spanish. So do I--and I swear it's boosted my vocabulary. We have a couple of wonderful books of poetry, and I also have high hopes for this one as well.

Total damage done (love the 4-for-3 promotion on Amazon): About $30. Makes me feel a little better about staying inside.

I'd Suspected This for a Long Time

2008-07-13T23:13:00.002-04:00

Now I know for sure that I’m too lowbrow for the New Yorker, because I just cannot see how this is sophisticated political satire. I'm not even feeling deeply offended or indignant, just confused. Because...why?

I’ll be in the corner reading the Family Circus or something.

YouTube Break

2008-07-13T13:54:00.002-04:00

And now, the "One Semester of Spanish Love Song."

Because I'm curious to see how hard it is to embed video in my blog. And because this cracks me up every time I watch it.

Back to work for me.

Au revoir.

Home Alone

2008-07-13T13:29:00.003-04:00

P and the boys are visiting his parents for the weekend. For the first time in three years or so, I am home alone.

I had many, many plans for the weekend. I would watch Netflix movies. I would rent a machine and clean our furniture, which has seen our boys grow from newborns to toddlers and is much the worse for wear. I would spend time in the kitchen, make and even freeze my favorite muffins and granola bars so that I'd have plenty around for us to grab for breakfast in the mornings. I would organize the office, clean out the boxes that are stacked along one wall. Our nanny would work one day and help me scrub the place from top to bottom, and it would be clean for the first time ever. I would sleep in the mornings until I could sleep no more. I would blog to my heart's content. I would sneak in a matinee, at one of the multiplexes at an outlet mall, even, not just our local theater.

Instead, I got work that was too good to turn down. Damn you, work that is too good to turn down! The crappy offers, I can pass up in a heartbeat, but you, never. Even if it means giving up my weekend. So the place is still a mess, and the Sunday Post I bought this morning is on the couch, neatly folded and unread.

It's still good. I am still alone. It's still quiet. I have set aside some time to do a few things, I took a long bath last night, and I am enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of not having anyone else around.

Did I mention it's quiet? I'm liking that, quite a bit.

Social Niceties

2008-06-29T23:39:00.006-04:00

It is a hot Saturday morning, and I am at the park with Primo and Secondo. We are multitasking--P is running errands and I am letting the boys run off some steam. Secondo, however, is in full wandering mode, which means he takes off every so often, oblivious to where I am, inspecting trees and strollers, drinking out of other kids' sippy cups before I catch up, fed up and frustrated. Not because what he's doing is so bad--in fact, he hasn't wandered like this for a while--but because my running after Secondo means that Primo is alone on a crowded playground. And mostly because it seems wrong that I have to trust Primo, who is all of two-and-a-half, to be OK by himself while I chase after his brother. Not just today, but a lot. I fear I am burdening him with that responsibility already.

We head back towards the playground equipment, where Primo is, in fact, OK. He and his brother have a grand time running back and forth on a little bridge between slides. They are soon joined by a little girl who looks to be a little older then they are. And in his haste to get across, Primo pushes her.

She looks at me, wide-eyed. "No pushing!" she yells, in the tone of a child who has heard the phrase a million times before. And she is right, of course. I grab Primo by the shoulders and give him a good scolding, in Spanish. And then I switch to Spanglish. I turn him to face the little girl and say, "Diga I'm sorry."

And then I hold my breath, and cross my fingers. Because he's never said that before. I've never made him say it before. He knows lo siento, but that isn't going to cut it with the indignant girl who's just been pushed. So I give it a try.

"I'm sorry," he says, contritely even, and I breathe a sigh of relief and give him a hug. Again, he's come through for me. Again.

The incident did get me thinking. Though the boys get English from their father, they get so much Spanish from their nanny and from me. Which I love. But I've realized lately that that has meant that they don't even know how to handle basic social interactions in English. Sometimes they'll say "bye-bye," but mostly it's adiós. And while the women at our local shops have found their greetings of "¡Hola, señora!" charming, it's time for me to make a concerted effort. So in the past couple of days, we've been working on hello, excuse me, and of course, I'm sorry. We'll see how that goes.

A Meme in the Meantime

2008-06-25T22:14:00.003-04:00

I think I'll do the meme I saw on Snick's blog while I work on the post on children's books in Spanish. So far, it's very, very long.

Four Jobs I Have Held
1. Cake decorator (my parents were my employers, and it was my weekend/summer job FOREVER)
2. Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali, West Africa
3. Spanish interpreter at the Mayo Clinic
4. Produce girl at a mom-and-pop shop in Saint-Malo, France

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over
1. Big Night
2. Airplane!
3. Any of the Pixar movies
4. Monsoon Wedding

Four Places I Have Lived
1. Heredia, Costa Rica
2. Makandiana, Mali
3. Nantes, France
4. Monterey, California

Four TV Shows I Like
1. The Amazing Race
2. 30 Rock
3. American Idol
4. How I Met Your Mother

Four Favorite Foods
1. Doritos
2. Jamba Juice smoothies
3. Gallo pinto with scrambled eggs, Salsa Lizano and a dollop of sour cream
4. Molten chocolate cake

Four Places I Would Rather Be
1. I’m actually on the Acela Express, which is a place I like quite a bit—especially since I just discovered there’s a beer cart. I mean, snack cart. With beer.
2. On the beach near my mom’s place in Costa Rica, eating ceviche and drinking beer (again with the beer)
3. Reading bedtime stories on the big futon with Primo and Secondo
4. On the couch, watching a movie, eating a nice, home-cooked meal and drinking a glass of wine

I Only Wish I'd Had My Camera

2008-06-16T22:49:00.004-04:00

I was taking a new bus home from work today in an unfamiliar neighborhood, hell, in an unfamiliar state, anxiously keeping an eye out for my stop. And then I saw something I couldn't take my eyes off of.

It was a phone booth. An actual, honest-to-goodness, freestanding phone booth, not one of those little phone cubicles you find at the mall (if you look hard enough). It even said Verizon across the top, so it couldn't have been all that old, but it looked kind of decrepit and run-down.

And then my eyes were drawn to the person standing right in front of it, a twenty-something guy dressed in a nondescript t-shirt and jeans. Who was talking on his RAZR. In front of the phone booth. He hopped on the bus and sat down across from me, still chatting on his cell phone. The bus pulled back out into traffic and I felt like things had snapped back into place.

I found my stop with no trouble and headed home. But I couldn't stop thinking about the phone booth.

A thank-you of sorts

2008-06-15T00:30:00.003-04:00

P and I have lived in the Washington, DC area for about five years now. We moved here from Boston, where we met, and where we lived as newlyweds. He was offered a job here, and I was ready for a change. Even if I had not met him, I’m sure I would have moved here sooner or later, because I traveled here for work enough that it would have made sense for me professionally. When we did move here I was very excited about it because I already had several friends here. Imagine, moving to a new place and not having to worry about making friends. And then I made new friends anyway, friends I’m lucky enough to work with, friends who are excellent colleagues, who have bought me sangria when I was down and who threw me a baby shower in my happiest time.

And then there’s the area itself. Boston it is definitely not. I do miss Boston, the history, the beauty of the city, the fact that I have traded living in a quaint neighborhood for living near a strip mall, which is just as convenient but nowhere near as charming. I miss my friends, Copley Square, afternoons spent reading out in front of the public library, the North End, burgers and martinis at The Harvest, sandwiches at Chacarero and shopping at Filene’s Basement, where I bought my wedding dress for $99. Dating and falling in love. But when I miss Boston, I miss it knowing that what I miss is the past, which I can’t have back.

What I have is this place, my present. And on the surface, to me, Washington seems to have more warts than Boston ever did. Let’s talk local politics. Or crime. Or traffic. Or schools. People usually spit out the word Washington with disdain, or disgust. You never hear the phrase inside the Beltway is never spoken in a positive context. So many neighborhoods seem generic and artificial.

And yet. I somehow can’t believe how much I love it here. I love the opportunities it’s afforded me professionally, which have been all I ever could have hoped for. I love the colleagues it’s been my privilege to work with. I love the majesty of the monuments, the fact I that my commute routinely takes me down Pennsylvania Avenue or across the Mall and I get to gaze in awe at the Capitol, which I always do. I love the museums, and the fact that so many of them are free. I love Tai Shan, who was born just before my boys were and who will always be Butterstick to me. I love the fact that my sons were born here and that we bought our first home here. I love the Washington Post much, much more than I ever loved the Boston Globe, even though I have to admit I always crack open Style before looking at the main section. (The recent imagined Clinton/Obama VP text messages? Funny.) I love that for all its (many) problems, the Metro is so damned clean, and it pissed me off anytime I see anyone eating on the train. I love that we got a National League baseball team just after we moved here, especially because it means I can go watch the Chicago Cubs play when they come to town. I love the feeling that barring anything unexpected, I plan to make this my home for the foreseeable future. And I love feeling like I’m a part of it all.

I love catching a glimpse of our local celebrities. Look! There’s James Carville at a Nats game. Look! There’s Newt Gingrich at the Pentagon. Look! There’s Sandra Day O’Connor at the Supreme Court. Look! There’s John Kerry, just a couple of blocks away from my house. Look! It’s Adrian Fenty, looking cool and chatting people up in front of a sidewalk café.

Only once, though, have I ever been so star-struck and overcome with excitement that I had to go up to someone and ask for an autograph. It was the first time I’d done that, ever, and only because I was so excited about it in the office that my colleagues needled me and practically pushed me out into the hallway, where I walked up to Tim Russert and asked him for his autograph. I sputtered and hemmed and hawed and said something really lame in the end, and he was classy and nice and wrote P a personalized autograph for me, whereupon I turned beet-red, turned tail and ran back into the office.

What I wish I’d said was this:

Thank you. Your show will always remind me of lazy Sunday mornings when I had nothing more pressing to do than lounge around on the crappy little futon on the floor in our first apartment with my coffee and French toast and sections of the paper strewn all around the living room. Then we had twins, and there was no more TV for us on Sunday mornings, and we were at a loss until we discovered Meet the Press was rebroadcast on the radio in the afternoons, and again very late at night. Then we listened to the show over a glass of wine, not coffee. And even later, I started to download the podcast. Last week’s show is still on my iPod, unwatched.

Thank you for making me enjoy politics, for making it interesting and fun, the way my Political Science professor never did.

Thank you for being one of the best things about my new hometown.

I'd like my teeth brushed in English, please.

2008-06-11T23:05:00.010-04:00

Brushing a toddler's teeth is a royal pain. When I hadn't found a good way to do it yet I searched for advice on the subject and found suggestions on blogs, my local parenting listservs and the like. There were all kinds of crazy suggestions, but the one that seemed to be common to all of them was: Hey! Pretend there's an animal in your toddler's mouth! Tell him you need to reach waaay back there with the toothbrush and "get" the tiger that's hiding in his mouth!

I guess that worked for some people, or they wouldn't have suggested it. But I didn't even try it because it just sounded silly, and our evening teeth-brushing sessions degenerated into wrestling matches. (I love, love, love having twins, but one petty reason I'm slightly jealous of mothers of singletons? They only have one set of teeth to brush at night. I've always been somewhat overwhelmed by TWO sets of toddler teeth.)

Primo, though, is obsessed with numbers, and one night, I happened upon a brilliant solution, which consisted of, Hey! Let's see how high Mama can count while brushing your teeth! It worked. That boy is so enamored of the number one hundred that I think he would endure practically anything to hear me count that high. And Secondo, who was watching the merriment in the next crib over and giggling all the while, wanted in on the action, so the method worked with him too, although his limit was always around fifty, not a hundred.

The other day, though, Secondo rebelled and clenched his teeth together right after I started brushing. So I moved on to Primo, and started with my usual enthusiastic Uno! Dos! Tres!

Except he was having none of that, either. Instead, he grabbed the toothbrush from me and commanded: "English!" So I started over, in English, and we counted to one hundred, as usual. And though Secondo doesn't have the "English! Español!" thing down the way Primo does, he let me know by exclaiming, "One! Two! Three!" that he would like his teeth brushed in English too, please. I obliged, and I'll be damned if it didn't work.

I'm such a stickler for speaking Spanish. But for now, the boys apparently want their teeth brushed in English. So I'm going to go with that, if only for the sake of dental hygiene.

(Did I just write an entire post about brushing toddlers' teeth? I think I did. Anyone reading might want to just skip this one. Yeah.)

Things Interpreters Don't Like to Hear

2008-06-11T16:27:00.007-04:00

In lieu of an update, here's a short list of things that speakers say that are a sign for interpreters that things are about to get pretty dicey:

I will now quote Shakespeare.

I will now quote the Bible.

I will now recite an inspirational poem.

Let us pray. (This one is a little easier because for years and years I listened to my Abuelita say beautiful prayers before lunch, but it’s still hard to make a prayer sound beautiful on the fly.)

I will now tell a really funny joke. This joke is SO FUNNY. You won’t BELIEVE how funny this joke is. I sure hope it translates. (Yeah, it only does about half the time.)

I will now blow through my PowerPoint slides at the rate of 100 slides per minute. (Okay, they don’t actually say this. But they do it.)

Let's watch a video. I shot it myself with my camcorder, so the sound quality isn't very good.

Oh, I don’t need to wear a lapel mike. I’m sure you all can hear me just fine, right?

People tell me I usually talk really fast, so let me know if you need me to slow down. (Something I’ve learned: You simply cannot control how quickly or slowly you talk. You can do it for maybe a minute, no more. I’m sympathetic to this one, because I tend to speed up when I’m excited or nervous. Court reporters have told me to slow down and I feel mortified when they do, because I consider them to be my kindred spirits.)

Let me tell you about each one of the parts of this extremely complicated device. In great detail.

I will now read this prepared speech word for word as quickly as I possibly can. (I guess they don't exactly say this, either.)

We’ll have a working lunch before our next meeting starts.

And Mama does a little jig

2008-06-05T23:43:00.003-04:00

I have a post brewing about the boys' favorite books in Spanish, and how I'm obsessed with finding new books for them. I read to them in English as well, but a lot of their favorite books to read with me are in Spanish.

We have a few books that include a Spanish and an English version of the story. And in very few, select cases, I sight-translate books for them--that is, the original is only in English, but I read it out loud in Spanish. (Yes, another form of translation/interpretation, a kind of hybrid.) I do that with some of the Little Quack books, because we do have two of them in Spanish and they're so repetitive that the ones in English are very easy to sight translate. Also, they've been favorites of the boys since they were about a year old.

But this post is about a small victory tonight. I was reading Little Quack's New Friend to the boys in Spanish before bedtime when P walked in the room. Primo grabbed the book, took it to his dad, and requested, "English!" P read it to them in English and then left the room. Whereupon Primo brought the book back to me and happily demanded, "Español!"

Primo has been code-switching depending on who's around for a while now, and Secondo has started to do so as well. But tonight you could have knocked me over with a feather.

My one thought was: Wow. This is working.

Yay.

Look Ma, more bullets!

2008-06-04T22:47:00.002-04:00

No blogging! No time! No motivation! Deadlines! So what else is new? But I miss blogging and wanted to finally get a post in, so here are a just a few things from the last two weeks.

I think I worked an 80-hour work week last week, give or take a few hours, which officially ended this evening. I was working on a long, involved translation project and learned many lessons. One of which was that I can work until 5:00 a.m. if I have to. Two days in a row. I also learned that after you’ve done that two days in a row, 3:00 a.m. the next day doesn’t seem so bad, and 1:00 a.m. after that is a piece of cake. However, I don’t recommend it and I hope not to do it again anytime soon. You’re really not meant to do that after a certain age, I think, especially not if you have energetic twin toddlers, no matter how supportive and helpful your husband is.

Storms! We had some pretty powerful storms in the area today and I was positively giddy as I ran back to work in the pouring rain after lunch today. My father used to tell me he always thought of me on rainy, dreary days because I love them so much. I suffer from the opposite of seasonal affective disorder, if there is one—sunny, warm days bring me down. Strange, I know.

Two wonderful women from our county school system came to our house yesterday to evaluate Secondo. It brought up a lot of feelings and fears for me and gave me a lot of food for thought, which will be another post.

Tomorrow I am treating myself with an entire day of rest. Absolutely no work allowed, especially since I have plenty lined up for the rest of the month. The boys’ nanny will be here and I plan to do the following:

Sleep as long as I want to, which may be all morning.

Get my eyebrows waxed for the first time in three years.

Blog and play on the computer.

Go shopping, maybe hit DSW for fun and go ogle furniture at World Market (and yet not spend more than the cash I have in my wallet, which is what my weekly budget allows).

I swear, I feel like tomorrow is Christmas.

La Compu

2008-05-16T11:30:00.003-04:00

A couple of days ago, Primo climbed up on his chair at the dining room table, made himself comfortable in front of my MacBook and then yelled:

"¡No! ¡La compu no! ¡No toque el monitor! ¡Hay que esperar! ¡Bájese de ahí!"

(Translation: No! Not the computer! Don't touch the monitor! You have to wait! Get down from there!)

Then he looked at me expectantly.

Me: Dude, I was going to let you use the computer. Sheesh.

I wasn't sure if I should be impressed that he strung so many phrases together, because really, it was nothing more than a perfect impression of Mama.

[That boy loves my computer, my cell phone (though I have to be careful because he racked up $20 in cell phone charges one month), calculators, the digital camera, and, needless to say, the iPod Touch. Both of the boys love looking at photos on the Touch and especially love flicking them back and forth on the screen. I got them toy cell phones in an attempt to reclaim mine, but they were not fooled for an instant.]

My day in bullets

2008-05-13T23:51:00.006-04:00

(Is it true that a blogger that blogs in bullets is a lazy blogger? Because if so, I’m afraid I might be one. There will be non-bulleted posts later, but not tonight.)

I’m finally out of the house again. Today and tomorrow I’m interpreting, and my colleague is a good friend who gave me a ride home, brought a bottle of wine for us to drink during American Idol, and proceeded to swoon over David Cook with me. We didn’t even ask to work together, it just worked out that way. I wish it always worked out that way.

We drove around practically the entire Beltway (and then some) to get from meeting to meeting today. It was a long day. In Fairfax, we noticed streets with names like Random Wall Street and Random Hills Way.

[Keen:] Is this for real? Whoever named these roads apparently just couldn’t be bothered.

[Colleague:] Oh, I’ll bet they were just drunk.

We were given wireless interpreting equipment by the organization we were working for. The best kind, the kind I’d like to invest in someday, so kudos to them. But they get points deducted for neglecting to include earphones. I get points for remembering that both my colleague and I had our iPods with us, and fortunately, only two people needed our services. It kind of cracked me up each time I looked over at one of our visitors and saw the white Apple earbuds. But hey, it worked.

I usually open this program on my MacBook (invaluable if you have a Mac and toddlers who like to bang on your keyboard, I say) so the boys can play on it, but this morning I forgot. Thus, a job report I was working on was edited by Primo to read: “I believe that the perceptual changes can be summed up by 098765hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” I’m sure my program officer will be pleased.

I had to get out of the house really early today and take the Metro way, way out west. So early that P and the boys were still asleep when I left. So early that I didn’t have time to make coffee. In fact, today was the first day in approximately two years that I hadn’t had coffee. Not a good thing. We were each then given a nice travel mug as a gift at our first meeting, which I planned to fill up at the first Starbucks I came across—and I didn’t see one all day. When has that ever happened? I mean, seriously.

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T00:09:00.006-04:00

P is out of town visiting his parents. He'd been looking forward to leaving me alone with the twins, since I travel for work occasionally and have left him to hold down the fort with the boys many times. I was looking forward to being alone with them for a weekend, though not so excited about the fact that I had to finish up some editing for a project due tomorrow. In fact, I underestimated how long it would take me to do, but the turnaround time on the project was pretty short, so there wasn't much leeway. I was up until one on Friday, and last night I finally threw in the towel at 4:00 and distracted the boys with stickers that they had received in a care package for an hour or so this morning so I could finish up my work. That worked incredibly well--I don't recommend it, but thankfully, it worked.

So I spent a good portion of Mother's Day feeling really tired, and yet it was the best day ever. I made myself a strong latte and some pumpkin waffles for all of us. By the time I got breakfast--or brunch-- on the table, it was 10:30 and the boys were so hungry that Secondo ate 3/4 of a Belgian waffle and Primo ate a whole one, and then I had to give him another quarter when he stole mine off my plate. Damn. Secondo and I played with his trains on the floor and he chatted up a storm and used all kinds of phrases I'd never heard him say before, in the right context. Primo played "The Yodeling Veterinarian of the Alps" over and over again on the CD player just so he could giggle hysterically when Mama showed off her yodeling skills. I paid no attention to the mess in the kitchen, or the mess in the living room, for that matter. We never even got out of the house today, because I was too tired in the morning, and it poured in the afternoon.

I put them down for a nap at one and took a nap myself, even after the latte. When the boys nap, they nap HARD, hard enough that I have to wake them up if I want them to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but today we all slept until five. They woke up before I did. I napped hard myself, so hard that when I looked at the clock, I was so disoriented that I thought it might be morning. We had dinner, read from their favorite book of poems, and Secondo, as usual, insisted on sleeping in his brother's crib with him. Bedtime wasn't until nine, though I usually don't mess with their 8:00 bedtime, and I heard them read books in their crib until over an hour after that. And my 35-pound boys are now one sweet, snoring tangle of limbs in a crib that is really too small for the two of them to share.

I don't set much store by Mother's Day. Today didn't even really feel like Mother's Day--I didn't even think to call my own mother, because in Costa Rica, it's celebrated on August 15th, so that will always be the real Mother's Day to me. But I can't imagine a better one. And I think that ten, twenty years down the line, this is one that I would probably give anything to relive.

A Little Break

2008-05-07T13:30:00.014-04:00

It's been a pretty productive few days. I stuck to my schedule, most of the time, and I've gotten a lot done. My biggest problem is that sitting at home working on translations in front of my computer is seriously boring me. In the past few days, my only original thoughts have been:

These new lounge pants from Costco are super comfortable. Hey, I think I'll wear them again tomorrow. Because I can.
I'd forgotten that run-on sentences in formal Spanish documents can go on for a page and a half. Wow, making sense of those is challenging.
I'll bet that frozen burrito I just ate for lunch was really, really bad for me.
I'm so glad I invested in a couple of really good legal dictionaries.
Do not, do not check Google Reader. Bad Keen. Wait for your break.
I sure wish I remembered how I did my page numbering on my last translation. For a translator, I sure can be an idiot when it comes to Microsoft Word.
Since I'm not spending money out this week, and instead am spending so much time inside listening to my music collection, I think I'll buy a couple of albums from iTunes. (Jeremias. I'm kind of hooked. And I'm obsessed with Jarabe de Palo. Why hadn't I heard of them before?)
I can't wait to go to the store and buy milk. Just ten more minutes until I get to go downstairs. And two little boys are waiting for me.

PSA

2008-05-05T00:15:00.002-04:00

I’m going to consider this a public service announcement, since this is something most people don’t know: Translation and interpretation are not the same thing. The difference between the two is simple. The written word is translated, the spoken word is interpreted. (If there are any translators or interpreters in your life, they will likely be very, very impressed if you know this.) Thus, there is no such thing as a court translator or simultaneous translation. When I work in court, I am interpreting for people all day, not translating, and when I’m at home translating documents on the computer, trust me, it is anything but simultaneous. The fact that so few people know the difference is kind of a pet peeve of mine, although I suppose I can’t really fault them, since I didn’t know the difference myself until I decided I wanted to get into the field and began researching graduate schools.

My first year, I studied both translation and interpretation, and my second year, I was faced with the decision to specialize in either one or the other. I chose interpretation. This was partly because I couldn’t see myself in front of the computer doing translations all the time, and partly because my professors advised that I would really benefit from the specialized training in interpretation that my school offered and that I would be unable to find anywhere else.

But mostly, it was because I loved interpreting. Once I started interpreting, I was hooked, quite simply. I love the adrenaline rush that I get from interpreting. When I interpret, every speaker is different and it’s like I’m on a ride at the amusement park—I have no idea if it will be the equivalent of the merry-go-round, predictable and kind of boring, or if it will be like one of those insane roller coasters with all the loops that will make me feel nauseated and regret I ever got on in the first place. I love the variety of jobs I do, and the fact that virtually no two days are the same. I love that I’ve interpreted in the strangest places, at conferences, on shooting ranges, for weddings and during births, during trade negotiations, at a hootenanny in the Ozarks, the World Trade Center, in jail, in court, hospitals, museums, for people who are household names and for countless others who are not. It requires a specific set of skills, including diligent preparation and the ability to think on your feet. And there are many advantages, such as getting out of the house (don’t laugh, I’ve been stuck in the house for days at a time), but mostly the fact that once you’re done, whether you were absolutely brilliant or merely adequate, you’re done. You can go look up the things that gave you trouble later (and if you’ve made an embarrassing mistake, trust me, that word will be burned into your brain forever and EVER), and you can correct things on the spot if you have a colleague to help you out, but usually once the words are out of your mouth, you’re done and you can’t go back.

Translation, I’m discovering, is an entirely different animal. I’ve only started doing more of it in the last year or so. And it requires a completely different set of skills than interpreting does. It requires the ability to sit at your desk and stay on task, and the ability to move on when enough is enough, because really, if you’re earning cents per word, spending one hour obsessing over one word, a word that may not even be all that important in the grand scheme of things, does not make much financial sense. Even though I feel like I’m never quite done with a translation, I’m always working against a deadline and at some point I have to turn it in. (Though I’ve always been happy with the work I’ve turned in, I think that you’re never really done with a translation). And though I think every translator has his or her own style, I’ve discovered that I need to just finish my translation and take a break and do something else for a while, make sure there’s a clean mental break, because when I go back and edit my work later, the distance between the translating and the editing makes a huge difference and a lot of things become much clearer the second time around. There are many advantages as well, such as the fact that I can sit at home and translate in my pajamas, I don’t have to rushrushrush in the morning and run to catch the bus, I have no commute so I get to spend more time with my kids, I can work less during the day and more at night if I have to (and often I have to), and I can work translations around interpreting jobs.

The whole reason for this post? I’m looking at an entire week of translating, without a single interpreting gig to break it up, for the first time in my career. I’m working on an interesting project, so I’m looking forward to it, but as I said, I’m new to the hard-core translating. I feel like I need to set some goals for myself. I am not the most disciplined person, so I think this will help.

I will treat this as my full-time job for this week. I will manage my time well. I will start at 8:00 a.m. I will stop at 5:00 p.m. I will limit my use of the Internet to work-related sites for research purposes (oh, this is a hard one). I will take a break for lunch, and I will take two 15-minute breaks during the day, which I will use to go downstairs for coffee, check my e-mail and aimlessly surf the Internet. This all may sound obvious to full-time translators, but I need to get this all straight so I can stay on track tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll post an update tomorrow. During one of my fifteen-minute breaks, of course.

If you buy a box of drinking straws...

2008-05-01T23:23:00.007-04:00

My boys are so different that I sometimes find it hard to believe they're brothers. Primo inherited his father's looks and his scientific mind. As for Secondo, well, to hear my family talk, he's a lot like me. And although they can't quite have long, involved conversations with me just yet, I watch them play and have fun imagining what's going on in their little minds. I brought a box of drinking straws home the other day for them to play with, and I think their thought processes went something like this:

Primo: Oh, cool, straws! Hmm. I'm going to line them all up on the floor. Nice and straight. First, I'll sort them all by color. Wait, but first I have to count them all. First in Spanish, then English. Hey, I think I'll use them to make letters. Look, I made an M! But if I walk over to the other side, it's a W. And if I remove a straw, it's an N. Oh, and if I remove one more it's a V, but if I put one across the V, it's an A. How cool is that???

Secondo: Oh, cool, straws! Hmm. I think I'll chew on them.

Random searches

2008-04-29T23:50:00.005-04:00

When people post about the weird Google searches that have led people to their blogs, it always kind of cracks me up. And it’s also a little frightening. I mean, if I’m not careful about what I post, I could lead all kinds of unsavory characters to my blog.

How about my own Google searches and browser history, though? Since I’ve been slacking in the blogging department and a long update would be boring even to me, I thought maybe some of my own searches would neatly summarize what I’ve been up to recently. So, here goes:

pumpkin waffle recipe [These are amazing. I love, love, love my new waffle iron.]

Trout Fishing in America [I’ve been to two of their concerts, and I didn’t even take the kids to the first one. I love these people that much. And they’ll be back in town in June!]

www.paperbackswap.com [It’s how I get rid of all my old books and get new reading material. I love this site. There’s even a business dictionary on its way to me.]

kaboost booster [I think I’m getting two of these. They look like they’d work really well.]

Suni Paz [I’m always looking for more children’s music in Spanish for the boys. She’s charmingly retro.]

www.amtrak.com [Because a crazy week was made even crazier by a last-minute trip to New York for work.]

www.netflix.com [I added Freaks and Geeks and Arrested Development to my queue. I’ll upload them to my iPod Touch and my commute will be a lot more fun. You know what’s not doing so well since I got the Touch? My knowledge of current events. I need to start reading the Washington Post and The Economist a lot more.]

federal sentencing guidelines safety valve provision [I love working in Federal court.]

convert pdf to word [Because I have a huge translation coming up, but the source file is in pdf format. Since my love affair with Wordfast is still going strong, converting it to Word will make my life a lot easier. Adobe Acrobat is so expensive, but I’m considering investing in it and deducting it as a business expense.]

children’s national medical center [P got the ball rolling, and once we fill out a ton of paperwork, we should be able to get an appointment there.]

big balls [I swear, I had to research this for a translation I’m working on. It was not one of my most prudent Google searches. In fact, you shouldn’t really Google this unless you absolutely have to. And God, now anyone looking for big balls is going to find my blog.]

Business as usual

2008-04-29T11:32:00.002-04:00

It’s pretty much been business as usual here the past few days. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in work, both in court as well as translations I’m working on here at home. It was a fun, busy weekend. We took the boys to the park and had a cookout with friends. I feel like last Friday’s appointment was both momentous and no big deal. Secondo is still Secondo. I still have deadlines to meet. There is still laundry to be done. I am still very excited about taking a break from work and watching American Idol tonight.

Secondo’s appointment was only a basic initial evaluation. About two minutes after we walked in to the room he obliged us by engaging in the single activity that worries us the most: He grabbed his toy truck and lay down on the floor, oblivious to the doctor and her toys, rested his cheek on his forearm and began rolling the truck back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. When I put it like that, it sounds kind of silly. There are other behaviors that have raised little red flags for me, but this one is somehow representative of all of them.

Now we hurry up and wait. P has been making phone calls and there is paperwork to fill out and appointments to be made. In the meantime, the specialist told us to do something I’ve been making a point of doing anyway, but I really liked the way she put it: Show Secondo that the outside world is more fun than his own. This morning, when he grabbed his toy car, I gently took it from him and turned it into a game, rolling it to him and helping him roll it back to me, and he dissolved into giggles. It was a good way to start the day.

Playdate

2008-04-25T22:51:00.004-04:00

Primo and Secondo had a playdate last week. That was a huge deal. Mostly they’re at home with their nanny, and when I’m at home I don’t have a car, so they really don’t get out much, at least not during the week. We see tons of other kids at the park, and we go to birthday parties and gatherings at friends’ homes, but those are all chaotic and the whirlwind of kids makes it pretty overwhelming, for them as well as for me. Having a specific playdate with a friend here at the house was different.

My friend came over with her son, S, who is about a month younger than the boys. We both work, she has a new baby, and it had been a while since we’d seen each other. It was a beautiful day, the first day I the boys and I wore short sleeves all year, so we grabbed sippy cups, crackers and cans of sparking water and walked over to the park.

I was completely unprepared to witness just how famously Primo and S got along. They chased each other up the slide, down the slide, around the park, shrieking and laughing the whole time. Primo shrieked in Spanish, and S gleefully repeated whatever he said. S made up words, and Primo imitated him, too. When S got on the swings and his mother pushed him high into the air, Primo wanted to be pushed too, even though he’s never enjoyed the swings for more than ten seconds at a time.

I watched the two of them so obviously enjoying each other, and my heart broke just a little. Because then I looked over at Secondo, who was at the other end of the park, wandering around and paying no attention to his brother, his friend, or to me, and my heart broke just a little more.
---------------------------------

Today Secondo had his appointment with a developmental specialist. (Is that even a title? I’m not sure it is. I’m not quite sure what her title was.) She watched Secondo play and asked us questions. She used words like special education, autism and IEPs, and then gave us a stack of referrals.

I don’t believe in mother’s intuition. I've been wrong too may times when it comes to the boys. But for the past nine months or so, I’ve been stuck in a cycle of worrying about Secondo one minute and being convinced that everything is fine the next. Waffling, back and forth, questioning what I saw and felt and listening to people pooh-pooh my concerns whenever I brought them up. And also, wanting so badly to be The Mother Who Does Not Freak Out. Because I am, usually, and I take great pride in that. Nor did I want to be accused of comparing twins, and feeling like I was, in fact, comparing them caused me some grief.

His appointment today was wonderful, in that a professional told me, I see what you see, and I can see why you’re concerned. We walked out to the waiting room when we were done, and I sat down and breathed a huge, huge sigh of relief. I hate the word journey, because it makes me think of stupid reality-show contestants, but it feels like we’re embarking on one, regardless of whatever I want to call it.

Secondo is young, and anything can happen. Who ever knows what will happen, anyway? All I know is he’s my beautiful, blue-eyed little boy, who has cheeks so scrumptiously pinchable that I finally understand why adults want to pinch them. He loves playing patty-cake and Itsy-Bitsy Spider, and being flipped upside down makes him laugh and laugh. He loves cars, trains and fire engines and can sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and he knows the words to Sur Le Pont d’Avignon in French. He’s shy and not too fond of strangers, and he only recently worked up the courage to slide down the slide. His very first two-word phrase was Quiero Primo, because he loves his brother, even though he doesn’t always show it. He is constantly perched on my lap, saying otra vez, otra vez, otra vez, whenever I finish a book. He has a stubborn streak a mile wide.

And he gets lost in his own little world sometimes.

Cool! Cool! Cool!

2008-04-08T17:06:00.002-04:00

So, I have a break between jobs this afternoon and finally read the article about the Jennifer Lopez/Marc Anthony twins in that issue of People I’ve been carting around in my purse for a couple of weeks. After everything I read about it in blogland, I had a feeling I wouldn’t enjoy it, and I was right. The fancy strollers! The questions about conception! The gushing about having twins! Everything so hunky-dory! But I read it, because I like to read about twins.

I don’t have much to add, but I do have to say, they lost me from the very beginning of the article with the following quote: “It’ll be 3 in the morning and we’ll be like, ‘Next feeding in 30 minutes! Okay, cool!’” After that, I was unable to take any of it seriously. I feel like I have to preface this with all kinds of disclaimers about how much I loved my babies, even though the beginning was pretty rough, but never, never once did I think, “Cool!” after settling one baby down and realizing the second one was sure to wake up within the half-hour. I thought many things, but never that. In fact, the things I thought were not very nice.

I do sometimes miss the days of tiny, snuggly babies. But I do not miss the sleep deprivation. And the cute, tiny babies been replaced with funny, affectionate toddlers, which is pretty cool.

They’re challenging, too, but at least I’m getting more sleep.

Jumping the crib

2008-04-01T23:55:00.000-04:00

Last weekend during the boys' naptime, I heard a huge crash upstairs. Then silence. Then what sounded like a stampede. I made it up there just as Primo was starting to toddle downstairs, giggling the whole time, he was so pleased with himself.

People are always telling me it gets easier as they get older, and in many ways, I agree that it has. I like not having to carry them around all the time (though they sure are heavy when I do have to carry them), they can now climb into their booster seats at mealtimes, or go get the book they want me to read, and I can mostly trust them on the playground equipment at the park. But Primo can also climb out of his crib, apparently, they both move our dining room chairs all over the downstairs so they can climb and get things they want, and they're not afraid of walking downstairs by themselves now, which they're not quite ready to do. Watching them every single minute so that they don't hurt themselves only to watch them hurt themselves anyway while I'm standing right there takes a lot of energy, and it's plenty frustrating. As wonderful as they are at this age, I'm ready for that part to be over, or at least improve.

They're currently in our tiny bedroom, which is barely big enough for two cribs and a changing table. This weekend, they get to move to the bigger bedroom. Though Primo hasn't jumped out of his crib again, I guess toddler beds—or mattresses on the floor—will be part of the deal. I'm not ready. I wish I could ignore it, kind of like the way I'm ignoring the two potties that were purchased months ago and are now gathering dust in the bathroom. I'm definitely not ready for that.

Button Bellies and Pound Cakes

2008-03-31T23:56:00.000-04:00

My entire life, it seems, people have made fun of my accent.

When I was growing up in Costa Rica, the kids in school made fun of my little gringuita accent. And as a Costa Rican, I can’t roll my r’s to save my life and I am teased mercilessly by other Latin Americans. I lived and worked in France, and the French had plenty to say about my accent there. Then I joined the Peace Corps and lived in a French-speaking African country, which made my French accent so wacky that the French didn’t know what to make of it. So yes, I know what it’s like to have an accent. Even though I’m used to the teasing and am pretty good-humored about it (or try to be), in principle I think that making fun of someone’s accent is not very nice.

But the thing is, my mom’s accent is so frickin’ cute. It matches her personality: She’s a native Spanish speaker, a (maybe) five-foot-tall Latina who talks a million miles a minute, always excitedly, never without using her hands, and she taught me all the swear words I know (at an early age, too). More than the accent, though, the word combinations she has been known to use in English have become part of our family’s lexicon. I blame my dad; even though he was mad as hell whenever someone made fun of his very gringo accent, he found my mom’s quirks so endearing that he never corrected her and in fact, encouraged her.

She was convinced the word for navel was button belly.

She used to ask for her leftovers in a baggie dog.

She was sure my dad suffered from rage road.

She refuses to say the word turtle anymore because it’s hard for her to say and we’ve all given her such a hard time about it (not that the word turtle comes up very often in casual conversation).

Last night, we were using a calling card to call Costa Rica, which involved punching in a long string of numbers and symbols. The call wasn’t going through, my mom had had enough and began yelling, “Pound cake! Pound cake! Are you sure you pressed the pound cake?” When I looked at her and started laughing, her response was, “Well, don’t you think it should be called the pound cake?”

Well, now I do.

Such a sad, sad comment

2008-03-18T22:36:00.002-04:00

The U.S. invaded Iraq on my sister-in-law's birthday. I called her that night and we joked about it. Ha, ha, now I'll always remember your birthday!

This year, I did forget all about her birthday. Until I heard about the anti-war protests that will be going on to mark the 5-year anniversary of the war, and then I turned to my mother and said, "Hey, we have to call SIL tomorrow."

It's not so funny anymore.

The Week in Movies

2008-03-15T02:35:00.001-04:00

Number of times I went to the movies last year: Two. Pan’s Labyrinth and Ratatouille.

Number of times I went to the movies last week: Three. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Juno and The Orphanage.

Miss Pettigrew was frothy and entertaining. I enjoyed Juno more than I thought I would. And The Orphanage freaked me the hell out. I came back to my hotel and wandered down the deserted hallways by myself sliding last-minute paperwork under people’s doors. which did not settle my nerves any.

The next time I go to the movies, I’ll watch something a lot more relaxing than that last one. Though given my track record last year, it’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

Three Days

2008-03-15T02:33:00.000-04:00

Yesterday: Last day of meetings. Government officials tagging along. Everyone on best behavior. Thinking about going home. Difficulty concentrating on interpreting. Dinner. Two cosmopolitans. Fighting over check. Live music and lots of laughing.

Today: Final evaluation. Formal speeches. Formal goodbyes. Congratulations, thanks, posing for lots of group photos. Evening. Informal goodbyes in hotel hallways. Set 3:30 wake-up call.

Tomorrow: Insanely early cab to airport. More goodbyes. Nonstop, cross-country flight. Window seat. Travel pillow. Sleep on plane. Finally see my boys.

Don’t leave them again for a long time.

In a city that shall remain nameless

2008-03-10T05:12:00.000-04:00

At the checkout counter at a grocery store:

Man behind me: Ugh. I’m going to a really boring meeting. I wish I could take wine. I don’t understand why they won’t let me just take wine. It’ll be a really boring meeting. I think I should be allowed to take wine.

Cashier [to me]: He’s from City Council.

Keen: Oh.

Notes from the road

2008-03-10T03:57:00.004-04:00

I often get asked if I speak Mexican. And every time, even though I’m used to it by now, I never quite know what to say. I’m very polite about it and I guess I hem and haw and come up with some kind of answer that doesn’t make the asker feel like an idiot.

Nights like tonight make me feel sorry for the people who ask that question. Tonight, I spent the evening with:

A jovial Nicaraguan, who is the class clown and keeps us all laughing on the long, long bus rides.

A Costa Rican, who is more of a serious guy and is needled mercilessly by the Nicaraguan but takes it all in stride.

A preppy Peruvian, who constantly talks to his wife on his cell phone.

An Argentinean, who has become the group mother and has proudly shown us all pictures of her children, who she obviously loves and misses more than anything.

A Bolivian, who seemed so reserved at first but has loosened up so much that everyone else is joking about the coca leaves he must have stashed in his luggage.

A brassy Honduran woman, who tells us about the tough times she’s going though.

An man who is, in fact, Mexican and proud of it, who plays the sax and has a wonderful singing voice.

A super-classy Ecuadorian, who is a total fashion plate and always has a million-dollar smile for everyone.

A Salvadoran woman, who is shy and sweet and a great dancer.

A Venezuelan, who has beat the odds to get where she is professionally and tells us all stories about what life in her country is like.

There was music, dancing, and singing, lots of talking and joking around. The two songs we all knew the words were “Querida” by Juan Gabriel and “Un Buen Perdedor” by Franco de Vita, and we sang them--loudly--for all we were worth.

They are attorneys, judges and law professors in their countries. Yes, we all speak Spanish. Not Mexican. No, we are not all alike. They have to explain their legal systems to each other and I often have to ask them for clarification when they use terminology from their countries that I don’t understand. I have more in common with the Central Americans and less with the South Americans, but we understand each other and learn from each other. It is a never-ending learning process for me—for all of us—one that started when I first became interested in interpreting. I love learning the vocabulary they use, hearing stories about life in their countries firsthand.

I miss my boys terribly, and I try not to think about it too much and instead focus on the fact that I’ll be home in less than a week. In many ways, traveling and being away from them for so long is such a sacrifice. But in many others, it’s such a privilege.

Signs

2008-03-08T01:10:00.002-05:00

I saw a sign at a meeting today that said: Wait here.

Underneath was the Spanish translation: Wait aquí.

Hey, they got it half right.

Bad translations get to me. Bad translations were done either by bad translators or by Babel Fish (which is an endless source of entertainment to actual translators). Either way, I can tell you that the target audience isn’t going to understand the translation and I refuse to translate a translation for them from Spanish into Spanish, because I’d only be guessing. You know what the better option is? Don’t translate it at all. Please. Just have me do a quick sight translation for them. It’s more time consuming, sure, but better for everyone involved.

The sign that makes me cringe every time I see it is in a courthouse where I sometimes work. All of us have said something about it and I feel it’s actually insulting and should be removed. One of the courtrooms has a computer monitor outside that says Small Claims. Or, in Spanish, Little-o Dinero. Hyphen and all. Please. Don’t. That sign says to me, I don’t give a s**t. Here, this looks like it could be Spanish. Why don’t you learn English? Or go back to your country? OK, that may be me reading too much into it, but those are all sentiments I’ve heard about the people I interpret for at one point or another.

Little-o Dinero. Even Babel Fish would do a better job than that.

Bad, bad blogger

2008-03-03T16:40:00.000-05:00

One post for the month of February. Kind of embarrassing—even I didn’t think I’d be so bad. But I want to keep going, so here we go. It’s hard to know where to start. I actually did write a couple of posts, one about work and one about the boys’ language development, but I wasn’t happy with either one so I trashed them. Maybe I’ll retool them later.

I’m on a 3-week trip interpreting for a group from Central and South America. They’re here to learn about the U.S. judicial system. Funny, I usually take these jobs to get away from court, so when I found out what this job would be about I was both bummed out and excited. To be fair, this is nothing like court. For one thing, I’m working with extremely intelligent professionals and getting to talk to them informally about their own legal systems and ask them questions about legal terminology is an incredible opportunity. Plus, they’re a riot. Half the time we’re crammed in teeny buses together or traipsing through airports and they crack each other up.

We were in Washington for week one, so I left P and the boys yesterday. So far I haven’t had the time—or the inclination, yet—to miss them. That will change and by the time the two weeks are over I’ll be desperate to get home. But for now it’s just me in a cozy hotel room somewhere in Michigan, which is, well, quiet.

I like quiet.

Reasons I Haven't Posted

2008-02-05T22:34:00.000-05:00

1. Several translations and editing jobs. These involved project managers sending constant e-mails that read: Are you done yet? Are you done yet? How about now? They also involved calls and e-mails from me to my Colombian friends asking: What the hell does this word mean? and responses from them that read: Dude, I have no idea. It took some outside help and some serious Googling, but I got it done. Dictionaries are useful, but knowing people from many different countries is often even more useful. Needless to say, there was also plenty of caffeine, and swearing, in the equation.

2. I realized I had several other non-resolutions I wanted to make good on. One, I’ve been back to the gym. Not often, but whenever I can. Two, as a consequence of all the translating at home, I’ve come to the kind of sad realization that my interpreting work has been my main social outlet lately. There are many things about translating at home that I love, like the fact that I can hang out in my slippers with a cup of coffee by my side when it’s snowing outside, but I need to be around people. I was starting to feel seriously isolated. I’ve since had a few girls’ nights and feel much, much better. It had been months. Many months.

3. A two-week long court assignment, which involves a long commute. Fortunately, I caved, bought an iPod touch (love, love) and can watch video podcasts on the Metro. Awesome. I’m also really excited about the work, which is challenging and very interesting. I can’t complain, my work has been pretty varied as of late, so I’m definitely not bored.

4. A toddler who is still having major sleep issues. Not fun. ‘Nuff said.

Now I’m happily settled on the couch with a glass of wine, watching the primary results roll in. The biggest decision I have to make now is whether or not to wait for California--but I think the wine has decided that for me, and I’ll hear about California in the morning.

And it's kind of an annoying CD, too.

2008-01-19T00:16:00.000-05:00

I often feel for the boys. They’re both so vocal (they’re at very different stages in their language development, and they both have such different approaches, though that will be another post), and yet so much of the time, I have no earthly idea what they’re trying to tell me. I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen. I thought my status as (Omniscient) Mother meant that I would automatically understand everything, and I would interpret what they said for everyone else, the way other mothers seem to do.

And yet, I seem to miss a lot, even when what they’re saying is so unbelievably obvious. Especially when they bust out with something I’ve never heard them say before. Take the exchange I had with Primo today, in Spanish:

Keen: Primo, what kind of music would you like to listen to?

Primo: Arroz Leche.

Keen: No, you just had milk. You’re not having any more for now. What CD would you like Mama to put in the CD player?

Primo: Arroz Leche.

Keen: No, no milk right now. How about some music?

Primo: Arroz Leche.

Keen: No, NO MORE MILK! MUSIC!

Primo: Arroz Leche.

Keen: Ohhhhh. Arroz con Leche. [The same CD we just finished listening to.] Oh. Right. OK, then.

My penance? Listening to the Arroz con Leche CD about fifteen times today, once for every time it was requested. OK, that’s an exaggeration. But only a slight one.

Motherly love...

2008-01-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

...is when you look at how little milk is left in the jug, sigh, and dutifully fill up your boys' sippy cups before you add copious amounts of it to your coffee.

That, and jumping in front of a train or something to save their lives. Right now, though, the coffee thing is feeling a whole lot more relevant.

A little break

2008-01-10T13:34:00.000-05:00

Today, I have the day to myself. I'm using it to clean, organize, put away laundry, and unpack the bags from our trip. (Yes, we got back two weeks ago. Ahem.) It's unbelievable how much there is to be done, but whenever I'm busy with work, I just let things pile up around me.

Just a few questions/comments:

Why is sorting out the boys' clothing such a pain in the ass? I feel like that's all I do. Outgrown/too big/give away/sell/winter/summer/this year/next year. For someone as organizationally challenged as I am, it's totally overwhelming.
I just discovered this music site. I like Pandora a lot, but the Latin music keeps me moving. Our local station seems to be all-reggaeton-all-the-time, and I can only take it in small doses.
I totally found my SmartTrip card. Yay! I missed it. A lot.
Controlling my Internet breaks throughout the day is challenging, but necessary if I want to get anything done. The same goes for when I'm working.
While surfing, I found some cool crochet patterns, though. Even though it's still unseasonably warm, it's crocheting season for me. The only thing I've made this year is an orange stole I wore to a wedding. Today I found the most awesome pattern for a baby afghan. There was a deluge of pastels around here when the boys were born, and this is just the opposite. I even have the yarn for it, so I'm going to start tonight.

Intervention!

2008-01-07T22:59:00.001-05:00

When the twins are having sleep issues, it just really sucks. I can’t complain most of the time, since they do really well overall. People who have stayed with us sometimes seem really surprised that once the boys are down for the night at 8:00 or so, they’re down until the next morning, no matter how much of a ruckus we make down here. (Not that we usually make much of a ruckus.) They sleep really well and I like having my down time in the evenings—I don’t know what I would do without that.

We’ve recently been enabling Primo a bit, though. He was sick, and we were on vacation in a strange place. ‘Nuff said. He started waking up between 2:00-4:00 a.m., and we started bringing him into bed with us. Two weeks later, he’s still doing it almost every night, and I knew this would happen. The thing is, I also knew breaking him of the habit would take a little work, and who wants to deal with that at 2:00 a.m.? Taking him to bed in the guest room is just easier. (As an aside, here’s the one thing I didn’t know about parenting that became obvious to me once the boys were born: All of the things I thought I would or would not do kind of flew out the window and I made a lot of decisions based on whatever would let me get a little MORE SLEEP. If I’d known that, I could have saved a lot of the time I spent reading baby books while I was pregnant.)

In the end, I stayed up past 3:00 this morning. Two good things came of it. Although I could have done some work on my translations today, I really, really wanted to be done, and I did finish my work. Also, when Primo woke up at two, I was wide awake and able to deal with him. I staged a little intervention of sorts. Every time he cried, I went back in there and settled him down. I must have gone in ten or fifteen times. Sometimes I just patted his back and he would go back to sucking his fingers and would curl right back into his sleeping position. Sometimes he would throw his lovey out of the crib and I would just give it back to him without making a fuss. I would explain to him that everyone was sleeping and that he needed to sleep, too. Sometimes my tone was soothing, sometimes it was a lot firmer.

In the end, he stayed down. I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself, though we’ll see what happens tonight.

Whatever gets you through the night

2008-01-07T00:15:00.000-05:00

For me, that would be:

-A nice, strong latte with a splash of mint, to keep me awake.
-Two slices of crusty artisan bread generously slathered with Nutella. Mmmmm. Good thing I didn't resolve to lose weight this year.
-A can of sparkling water, to keep me hydrated.

I'm burning the midnight oil, editing several translations I worked on this week that are due tomorrow. Fortunately, my translations are pretty good, if I do say so myself, and don't require major editing. (Thank you, Wordfast! I love you! You cost me a bundle and I may hate you once we have our first major falling-out, but for now, I love you!)

Another thought keeping me going tonight: If I get it all done now, I can come home from court tomorrow afternoon and take a looooong nap. Mmmmm.

Low. Low Tech

2008-01-03T15:15:00.000-05:00

My beloved Palm Pilot bit the dust in Costa Rica. I have no idea what happened: one day it was working, and the next, it wasn’t. Somehow, it made me feel better to know that I was not obviously at fault, unlike, say, the time I dropped my camera off a cliff, or the time I drowned my cell phone in a glass of Zinfandel. At least this time I couldn’t really be mad at myself. It’s kind of amazing it lasted as long as I did.

I adored my Palm. I bought one of the old black-and-white ones waaaay back in the day, and then P gave me a snazzy Zire 71 for my birthday a few years back. It was how I kept track of all my jobs, contacts, expenses, birthdays, and things to do. I loaded two very good bilingual dictionaries on it, one general and one legal, that came through for me many a time while I was interpreting. And when things got boring, I snuck in some Solitaire and Bejeweled.

Seeing as how I can’t be trusted to remember, oh, anything without it, I need something to replace it, and pronto. Funny how this happened just as we put ourselves on a budget, no? Also, I don’t really know what I want. I don’t particularly like the Palm software or the way it works on my Mac, so I don’t think I’ll be getting another Palm. What I would love is an iPod Touch, but I want to wait awhile. I don't like being an early adopter, though that thing looks amazing.

My solution for now? I think I'll go out and buy an honest-to-goodness paper planner. I feel like I’m back in high school. It’ll be cheap, and it should work. Unlike my PDA.

P pointed out that I can't exactly play Bejeweled on a planner. But I'll also be carting around a book of Sudoku puzzles, for when things get boring.

I’m just like e.e. cummings. No, wait. I’m so not.

2008-01-02T19:25:00.000-05:00

I just finished a big translation project. It was an awesome job. Good pay, flexible deadlines. Also, I wasn’t working through an agency. I was working with a group of colleagues I really like and respect. We were organized, kept track of who was doing what, and then edited each others’ work. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I got one of my translations back, though, and was mortified. I apparently can’t capitalize for shit. I was all over the place, and my colleague/editor sent me a very kind e-mail in which she quoted the Chicago Manual of Style extensively. I sent back an e-mail in which I joked about my Excessive Capitalization Syndrome.

It wasn’t such a huge deal, I suppose, but I was really annoyed with myself for being sloppy. I’d even looked it up online, where I got conflicting information, so I went with my gut. Ha.

Whenever I doubt myself, I try to remind myself that I’m just demanding a lot of myself. I want to turn in good work, which is a good thing. But obviously, I need a style manual. It’s kind of appalling, given my reference library, that I don’t own one. I suppose you can’t go wrong with the Chicago Manual of Style? Definitely something I need to look into when I get back.

Oh, and when I doubt myself, I start to have issues with hyphens and apostrophes, too. And I tend to overuse commas. Yeah, I need a style manual, pronto. I think I need to read it cover to cover. Or maybe I mean cover-to-cover. See?

Just One More

2008-01-01T23:15:00.000-05:00

Oh, look, I still have time to squeeze in one more non-resolution:

I will make sure my slow cooker and I become better acquainted with each other this year. I say this because last night, I decided to throw some steel-cut oats in there, along with some cream, dried berries, maple syrup and a pinch of salt. The result was so delicious I could hardly believe it. Getting up and finding a nice, hot breakfast ready for you feels downright luxurious.

New Things

2007-12-31T15:11:00.000-05:00

I’m not really into New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I had all kinds of good intentions, and as it turned out, I had my hands full just dealing with my family and work. There were visits from friends and family, and we went on a few trips, but there wasn’t much room for anything extra.

This year, though, I do have a couple of things I’d like to work into my life. For one thing, P and I are going on a budget. We’ve only been on it a week so far, so it’s too soon to know how that will go, but I like the idea of a little self-imposed discipline. I’m hoping it will reinforce some of my positive money-management skills and curb some of my unhealthier impulses.

The second thing I want to do is read The Economist on a somewhat regular basis. Oh, I’ve been down this road before. We were strongly encouraged to read it when I was in graduate school, to keep up on current events. I subscribed for a while, but it was hard to get through and I didn’t read it often enough, what with having twins and all, so I canceled my subscription. I’m not sure I would have paid to re-subscribe, because it’s not cheap, but then I found out I could use my extra frequent-flier miles. So this week’s issue is now in my purse. Along with my issue of, um, Entertainment Weekly. Right. But once I get through that, I really will read The Economist.