February Updates

Yesterday I went to Buenos Aires alone to apply for Gabe's Social Security number at the embassy, and then just cruised around for the afternoon enjoying the city. I took my camera so I could record my trip for my blog audience. I was peacefully strolling in the botanical garden, gazing up and about to determine the best spot to take a picture, when I almost tripped over something. When I looked down, I discovered a cat, in the process of dying, eyes bulging out and pulsing and leeking blood. I screamed, turned around and high-tailed it to the relative safety of the mall, so no pictures.

Instead I will have to placate you with random photo update of the month. Saturday we went to the temple in Buenos Aires to support a family in our ward who got sealed. While we were inside some friends watched Gabe and he had a great time playing in the flowers, the fountain, the grass...all the places you are supposed to gaze at tranquilly and not actually play in.

While we then waited for our friends to finish their session in the temple, we decided to teach Gabe to drive so that he could beat his cousin Colton, who at the age of eight is already allowed to operate the ranger (golf cart sort of thing) solo.
Gabe mostly just spends his days finding ways to stand up. It's hilarious to watch him crawl because he tries to crawl on his toes, rather than use his knees. He was quite pleased when he discovered that his bed has all these great knobs to grip while he hoists himself up. When he does achieve standing without having pulled a chair down on top of him, he stands on his toes, with the toes rolled under. I will try to get a picture to show you, as it's quite a talent.

His favorite place to stand is beside the bidet in the bathroom. He is not at all concerned that is is used exclusively for the cleaning of bottoms, he thinks it is a very fun toy and has even succeeded in turning the water on all by himself...which then sprays directly up and soaks the entire bathroom...
He has also shown himself to be quite efficient at unrolling mom's expensive toilet paper. (I'm the only person I know who doesn't buy the cheap, 1-ply, unquilted, scratchy toilet paper that absorbs NOTHING!)
But not to worry, toilet paper is relatively clean, and thus much less interesting than the bidet. If the bathroom door is closed to prevent him from entering, he also likes to tip over the garbage can in the kitchen.

Wardrobe credits from this photo shoot go to Cade. Thank you for donating all of your old clothes, clearly we use them!

No Morning Self-Discipline

Anyone who knows me, knows I am NOT a morning person. In high school I was supposed to attend a church seminary class at 6:30 every morning. I set my alarm every single night with the intention of going. I did not have enough attendence to be graded in any single year. In college the only class I got a D in and had to retake was a French class I mistakenly scheduled at 8 am and was unable to attend often enough to learn anything. One time my dad tried to get me to do his paper-route with him. After forcing myself out of bed and into the back of our van, I had to request the he pull over so I could vomit. Getting up early makes me vomit. It's true.

So, after spending 3 days with my very lovely and disciplined friends in California, I was feeling severe guilt about not working out regularly. I have been telling myself that finding a babysitter to go to the gym is just too much trouble, so I am excused. But they all get up FREAKING EARLY to work out, and do it 6 days a week!! So I got all motivated and decided that get up at 7am at least 3 days a week and go to the gym before Mario goes to work.

I've been home for almost a month, and once I got up at 8, and I wanted to vomit. I'm hoping the time change coming in March will help me make the adjustment.

Times and Seasons

When I moved to Argentina, there was a four hour difference between Rosario time and Arizona time. And as neither participated in daylight savings time, that never changed. However, when Mario called to wish his family Happy New Year, they all seemed to have gone to bed unusually early and we discovered that the new government of Cristina Kirchner decided to start daylight savings time. So all the clocks moved ahead one hour with the intention of giving people more sunlight to accomplish their tasks, thus less need to use the lights, which would supposedly result in saving energy.

It is now gets light around 8am and stays light until 9:30 at night. However, Argentines apparently don't allow the clock to rule them, but rather move in accordance with the solar rhythms. Thus people are still not eating until after the sun goes down, which means not until 10. All the beach towns are furious because that means that instead of having one seating of the vacationing masses about 8:30 and another seating of diners aroung 10, now everyone comes at 10, they can serve far less people, and their profits have been cut in half.

One province tried the change for a week, and decided they didn't like it, and changed their clocks back. So all of Argentina is in one time zone, except for a random province in the middle which is in it's own time zone.

Argentina's daylight savings experiment will end sometime in March, when all clocks will return to their previous time. I am glad only because a 5 hour difference with my family and a 6 hour difference with California makes it even more annoyingly hard to place phone calls.

Excuse me, is that a bathing suit??

Me, Gabe, and the questionable swimming outfit.

In the last week we have been to two different public pools. The first was last Wednesday when we went to spend the afternoon with the church youth at their summer camp, and then on Saturday we went to a camp ground with a great pool with a bunch of friends. Both pools had prominently posted rules that included things like no running, no eating or drinking mate in the pool, and bathing suits required at all times. I'm not sure if this last rule was to prevent people swimming in clothing, or naked, but whatever. At BOTH POOLS I almost got kicked out because no one here has ever seen a tankini, so they didn't think I was wearing a bathing suit!

Females in Argentina determine what kind of bathing suit they will wear by their age. If you are under 65, you wear a very small bikini, that is not exactly a thong, but definitely exposes at least half of your cheeks. If you are over 65, you wear a very matronly one-piece with some kind of horrible tropical print. Your body shape/size and the amount of cellulite dimples in your butt are completely irrelevant in making your bathing suit choice.

At the second pool, when the lifeguard called me over to question me about my unidentifiable covering, Mario accompanied me. When he asked what I was wearing, Mario helpfully jumped in and said "it's not from here, but it something that pregnant women, or women who just had a baby wear." So apparently, even my husband thinks I am incredibly frumpy and should not be exposing myself in public just yet. So would wearing a bikini and exposing my muffin top make me look more young and chic?? And does no one consider that simple thing called modesty??

Mario going down the very fun slide.

Me, cute pregnant Carolina, and Gabe, who btw, stood up for a full 10 seconds holding on to NOTHING while we were there. I am not happily anticipating his walking stage...

Gabe and Mario in the pool. Gabe looks rather pensive here, but he really loves the water.

8 new things for being 8 months old

1. New clothes. As he now weighs in at 22 pounds an 30 inches long, he is quickly outgrowing his current clothes. According to the chart here, that puts him in the 97% percentile for height and weight. I don't have any idea if the scales are the same, anyone want to inform me??

2. Lots of babbling ma ma ma, da da da, pa pa pa, myriad other sounds and singing. He is especially chatty when he's ready to go to bed at night, and often sings (moans? we're not sure) to himself for a good 20 minutes in bed.

3. Eatings lots of new foods...he doesn't seem to care too much for chicken, but loves squash with rice.
4. Gabe has discovered books, and one of the few times he actually sits still is when I read to him. He even makes random grunts as if he's laughing at Dr. Seuss.

5. 1st TOOTH! After approximately 4 months of "signs of teething", his first actual tooth popped through. I discovered it when he climbed up on me and bit my nose and I realized it wasn't just gums... which brings us to

6. climbing. Gabe is under the impression I am a climbing wall. He wants to be held all the time, wants me to be standing while holding him, and he wants to try and scale me. In a light practice run today he suceeded overcoming the mini-wall in the bathroom and joining Mario in the shower.

7. After several weeks of getting on all fours and rocks, Gabe is officially crawling. He still isn't exactly proficient at it, especially not in long pants and socks on our slick wood floors, but get him on the carpet at church and he goes like crazy!

8. STANDING!!! I went in to get him up from his nap today and this is what I found:
He is so proud of himself. Notice that the bed is already too short - which is a whole new post, or a continuation of an old post, however you want to look at it.

Can I request that my baby stay a baby just a little bit longer???

Looking For Love In Random Places

I am a dork. I have been wondering all week what I can blog about now that I’m back to the mundane, and was all excited to blog about my lunch today, packed my camera in my bag, arrived, told everyone I was going to take a picture so I could blog, and then never did it. So, above is an old photo from Halloween of my compatriots Janette and Stephanie. Today the three of us got together with two more Americans-married-to-Argentines for lunch. Their stories are kind of interesting so I thought I’d share them with you.

Janette is a California native, who was blissfully enjoying San Diego life when one day a handsome Argentine disembarked from a sailboat and floated into her life. German had left Argentina several years earlier and, had been living in Italy, and sailing all over the world. When he met Janette, he invited her to sail with him down through the Panama Canal and around to some other places I don’t remember, and by the time the trip had finished he had decided to give up his nautical life and marry Janette and stay in California. 10 years later he was working for some kind of IT company that needed to out-source their labor to stay in business, so instead of heading to India they sent German and Janette down to his father-land to run things on this end. They’ve been here just over three years.

Stephanie is also a California native who was committed to staying single the rest of her life. However, while hiking the Inca Trail in Peru with a girlfriend, she spotted a very strapping and sexy man that so called to her sub-conscious that she brushed off her dusty knowledge of Spanish to strike up a conversation. So stricken with the Argentine, at the end of her trip she changed her ticket and moved directly to Rosario to be with him, without ever returning home. They married about 8 months later and I was there to witness the vows.

Gabriela is an American of Argentine descent. Thus her growing up years were split between the United States and Argentina. At about 18 years of age she happened to be living in Argentine at the time that she met her would-be husband. However, by Argentine law parents have to approve marriage until you are 21 years of age. So for two years they traveled around the country with their band (they are both musicians) until she finally realized that they could go to the US and get married there! He moved back to the US, the married, and now 15 years later they have decided that Rosario beats New Jersey and moved back to make this their home.

Judy is new to Rosario – she’s only been here about a month, and I think I love her story the best. A couple of years ago, in her early 50’s, she was helping to plan her class reunion and on classmates.com miraculously found her old high school boyfriend – who during their senior year was a foreign exchange student from Bolivia. She got in touch, now they were both divorced, and the sparks flew once again! He works for a Bolivian company in their offices here in Rosario, so she has moved here and they are looking to buy a house to create their life together here. We expect wedding bells in the not too distant future!

Just goes to show, you never know where you’ll find love! (and Argentine men are sexier than average!)

Highlights - continued

We also loved:

Seeing Christmas lights - some on trailers, some on houses, some good, some entering new paradigms of tacky.

Playing with grandpa
getting loves from Nana

meeting my Gabe's only living Great-grandparent
Shopping with aunties
Kayaking with Matt and Lindsay (way better than Kayaking in Hawaii with Jeff Wycoff. Sorry Jeff.)

Playing with cousins.

Learning to golf.
not riding real bicycles.
Playing pee-wee golf with Ashley in stilettos.
Going out to fondue courtesy of Matt and Lindsay while they also watched our baby.
And taking family pictures was a surprisingly good experience. Annie Randall did a GREAT job, and if you are in Arizona I highly recommend her!

Okay, I think I'm done updating about my trip.

The Highlights -California

Wish they all could be Cali-fornia giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirls......................

After our trip to Utah/Las Vegas, we spent a brief three days in Arizona before heading off to California. I love California. It is where I was born, where I lived the majority of my life, and where my heart feels at home. Maybe because it has the greatest weather ever. Never too hot nor too cold, dry enough to not ruin your hair, moist enough your skin doesn't crack and look overly wrinkly. And if the hair/skin issues aren't enough to convince you, there's also the Pacific Ocean, the amazing shopping, the gorgeous coastline....

It was also the site of my fabulous friends rendez-vous this trip.

Tammy, Jessica, me, Paige. They are beautiful, witty, intelligent, funny, brave, fashionable, loyal and inspiring and I'm eternally grateful to have them in my life, and I write more about that right now because I'm in the sad part of re-entry and will get too sappy for a blog.

We had such a great time talking, shopping, chatting, eating, gossiping, site-seeing, and talking. Tammy has me decked out in Katie Holmes sunglasses because I am sunglasses impaired, and I need someone to put them on my head and make me wear them.
Here Mario has departed from the world-renowned Argentine method of bbq over coals to perpare us dinner on Tammy's beautiful gas grill. Comparing this experience to the 3 hours it took him to make 5 hamburgers at my firend Janette's house here in Rosario, I'm guessing he's fully converted to the efficient gas method.
At Tammy's we also discovered Guitar Hero. It's already on our list for the next trip. Mario has found his inner rocker. Maybe it will inspire him to loosen up enough to not tuck in his shirts.

Mario on the beach near La Jolla.
Gabe in front of the temple in Newport Beach.
Gabe having his first touch of the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla Cove. He was fascinated by the roar of the waves and was just staring curiously at the water, but was a little fearful, or perhaps just rather cold? when I put his feet in.

Our visit was not longh enough.

The Highlights I

I'm back. I've been gone so long I've probably lost all my readership, and my stats are going to be terribly depressing, but the longer I wait the worse it will be, right? I intended to blog while on vacation, but it just didn't seem to happen, so my re-entry blogs will be about the trip (it was too long and there are too many photos for only one blog, and I'm pretending someone cares enough to see all these details). I will blog about re-entry later, it's not over so I don't have perspective yet.

The trip is hellishly long - approximately 28 hours door to door. But Gabe was an amazing traveller. We got the baby basinet on the flight from Buenos Aires to New York and he slept from as soon as they gave it to us until they started serving breakfast in the morning. On the connecting flight, I stood up to ask the people in front of us if they would switch us places as our arm rest didn't raise and we wanted gabe to sleep across our laps. As soon as I started to ask the third person in the row mumbled "oh please say no" so I sat down in shocked silence. Everyone in Argentina LOOOOOOVES babies, and never seems to be inconvenienced by them in any way. That was the first time I had a reaction other than adoration and it was a bit of a surprise. Mario laughed and grumbled "welcome to the USA!"
Gabe (and Mario) got an overdose of family on this trip, but that is why we went and it was really wonderful to get to spend so much time with my family. Here he is Christmas Sunday with his dad and Grandpa.
We all went to Josh & Misty's house in the mountains for Christmas. "Babe" and Cade calls him, loved his cousins and they loved him. Cade was particularly physically demonstrative with his affection.
Ashley and I have particularly good memories about Christmas' past and performing the nativity with the Thomas family in California every year. As we now have nieces and nephews old enough to coerce, we enforce the re-enactment annually. I'm not sure they enjoy it as much as we remember enjoying it, but I'm sure if we continue to talk about how great it is some day their memories of the Christmas nativity will be as great as ours!

Gabe seemed to thoroughly appreciate his first Christmas - as we opened his presents, thanks his aunts, uncles and grandparents, he played with the same piece of wrapping paper the entire time.

Some of you will be surprised to know that there actually IS snow in some parts of Arizona, and we had a white Christmas that inspired all to put on all the clothes they had at the same time, go out to sled, and return within 20 minutes because, p.s. snow is cold, and when you sled you have to WALK up the snowy hill! Mario, Josh, Lindsay & Matt take photo evidence before returning to the house.

We also made gingerbread houses, but don't look too closely because more candy was consumed than used to decorate.

The day after Christmas Mario surprised me by saying he WANTED to go fishing with my dad. He has never been fishing, has never expressed any interest in fishing, so I'm pretty sure he just wanted to get out of the house. He had to walk a long distance wearing lots of heavy clothing then stand for several hours alongside a stream in very cold weather. I think his face relays his sentiments.
A couple of days after Christmas, we went to Utah to spend a week with Mario's brother Enrique and his family. A definite highlight was everyone sitting around enamored with Gabe, who would just smile and squeal and giggle.
It was insanely cold (at least for us) in Utah, so that limited a bit what we could do. But we did get to visit beautiful temple square, Park City, and varios friends and family.
Including my unvle Ken, Aunt Jayna, and cousin Tyler who happened to be in town. So fun to see them!

Mostly we just spent time with one of the most fun families ever. They have seven kids, we were there one week, and NOT ONCE did the kids fight! Seriously, amazing. We love them so much and are so grateful to have had that time with them.

On the way home from Utah, we spent a couple of days in Las Vegas indulging Mario's fascination with the bright lights. Truly, Vegas is over the top in every single thing they do, and it is fun to visit every once in a while. For Mario's birthday this last year I got us tickets to "Le Reve" and the Wynn hotel while we were there. It was truly a spectacle, we were completely awed at the imagination, creativity and technology that went into it, and we don't feel the need to spend that much money again.