Have a nice day

On the whole, I'm happy being a mom and I love my kids almost everyday ....
But it's hard to be around them when they're having a bad day, which happened today. Especially with the three year old. I think she was alternatively crying/whining at least 70% of the time. Which is a lot. For my nerves. I ended up wanting to scream and cry myself. To give you an idea, they looked like this today (this pics were actually taken half a year ago)...





At the supermarket, C threw a tantrum. One of those that make other customers look discreetly towards you and your kids, but wishing you and your brats just disappeared. The woman at the counter had the audacity to say "have a nice day". I'm sure she, along with the other customers in line, burst out laughing when I was out of sight!



And at the end of the day, I looked exactly like the "portrait of mom" Cristina drew just a few days ago. YES, THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT AND LOOKED TODAY!!!! My hair, my mouth, I'm surprised my three year old could be so precise!!!



PD: Just for the record, the previous days were pretty good. Maybe I'm whining too??

Just some pics of the day

With C in the elevator...

A snack...

Watching tv...

The view from our terrace

The nursery school

I've been taking C to a very nice nursery school for the past 1.5 years. It's a big place, with nice staff, a spacious class, a dining-room, and C's favorite, a playroom with a house in miniature. They all love it, because they can play house with small beds, a tiny kitchen with a fridge, oven, table, and food (plastic, of course), a closet with an assortment of clothing and shoes to dress up and even a couch and a TV that does not work. When it's nap time, they have a separate room with beds, and the best of all, the nursery school has a big playground. Overall, it's a very nice place and not expensive at all. BUT, it's in the worst neighborhood. It's state-run (there are several in our town), and following a policy of creating good equipments in poor areas, they ended up building this nursery school in this neighborhood. I had never been there before enrolling my daughter there. I just knew about it from the news. When I read the newspaper and find something about drug dealers being arrested, it's always there. Over the years, it has become sort of a ghetto. Mostly gipsies live there. There's so much talk about immigrants and integration, but in there, you'd find a good example of a group of people born in the country who don't share the general rules. There are trash containers on the street, but you can find all kinds of rubbish on the ground, just a few meters from where they should be. I just don't understand it. Is it so hard to walk a few more steps and throw it where it belongs? Another puzzling thing: some mothers take their kids to the nursery school and don't bother to change clothes, so you see them in slippers and pajama walking down the street with the kid. Hmmm... I would be embarrassed but they don't seem to bother. And another habit: eating sunflower seeds and spitting the husk on the ground (is husk the right word?).... I remember when we told our families that C would be going to this nursery school... they were shocked. But we think it was a good decision. My daughter has always felt comfortable in the school, she's happy and I guess that's the best indicator... Anyway, next year she'll join her sister in another school (the one A is attending), it's only 4 more months! The worst part about the nursery school is the drive... it's in the farthest part of town... In the beginning, Hubby drove her in the morning and I would pick her up after lunch, but then he was diagnosed with epilepsy, and I took care of the driving....

Childhood story

Alicia: you know, mom, you don't have to take me to school everyday, I know the way, I can go on my own...
Me: Really?... Tell me, what if you're walking to school and someone driving a car tells you he can drive you?
Alicia: I'd go in the car and tell him where the school is!
she says that smiling, believing that her answer made her pass my "test", but I tell her never to do that, that she should never accept a ride from somebody outside the family. She looks confused, in part because she doesn't understand what some bad person might possibly want from her.


I'm writing this because Buffalo has a post that made me think about something that happened in my childhood. My sister (she was 7 or 8 at the time) once accepted a ride from a man we knew. Not that he was a friend, but he was a familiar face. She started to get scared when she noticed he wasn't driving towards our house. At some point he stopped and kissed her on the lips, saying they could pretend they were boyfriend and girlfriend. My sister was too scared to react. He continued driving and when he stopped again (a traffic light I suppose) she opened the door, jumped out and started running. When she told my mother, she didn't go to the police. Instead, she found out where the man lived and paid a visit. His wife opened the door and my mother demanded to see him. something in my mom's face told her this was serious, and she invited her in but she just told her to get her husband. When he came at the door he barely had time to say anything. My mother slapped him hard in the face, told his wife what he had done and told him she was going to the police. He begged her not to do it and swore he'd never do that to her daughters or any other kid. God knows if he kept his word... but I remember my sister was proud of her mom that night. We all were, even though that's not the type of behavior my dad approves. He would have followed the rational, legal way and gone to the police, but my mom's always been the temperamental one. Do you think she did the right thing? I believe she should have slapped him AND gone to the police, but that was about 34 years ago...

Per molts anys!

3 years ago...

Today:

I finally could upload two videos of the tió, so if you want to see them, you can click on these two links:
video 1
video 2
For some strange reason, I can't post them directly on the blog!
By the way, the song and voices are Catalan...

Bubbles and paint

Sometimes we tend to buy sophisticated toys, but among the gifts from the tió, the simplest entertainment proved to be one of the kids' favorites: this thing to make bubbles. They're always amazed!

Cristina was also fascinated with paint, as you can see. But this painting box turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. See what 3 minutes of unattended painting frenzy will get you...

Romance

Alicia (5 years old) got a present yesterday from a boy in her class named Aleix, who, according to Alicia, wants to marry her. It was a necklace, wrapped in blue paper, with her name written in childish letters. As She unwrapped it, he told her he had made it himself. She stared at the big, colorful beads and asked "Is it made of candy?" and actually bit it. Talk about spoiling a romantic moment!!

Me?

Cristina speaks with a lisp. That's kind of cute. Now, everytime we walk pass a particular public advertising on the street she asks the same question: "Iz that you, mom?"

She's not old enough to be sarcastic.

"Yes, sweetheart, that's me" (should I laugh or cry??)