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

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

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]

[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

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

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

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

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!