Christmas Card Request

We recently discovered that while it's super expensive to mail us packages, "regular" mail is super cheap!  Mom was even able to mail us a book in a flat, padded envelope and it counted as regular mail and they didn't open it or charge taxes / customs fees.  So, there's a little leeway regarding what is considered regular mail. I would imagine if the padded envelope was bulky or bulged they would probably go ahead and open it to see what's in it, but a flat envelope is good!

As such, I would like to request Christmas cards please.  :)  I'll be doing them this year for a change, so anyone who sends one will get one too!  Of course, if I have your address, whether we get one or not, you'll be getting one.  Because kids on a Christmas card are too cute not to share.  :)  If you would like one for sure, please send me your address and I'll make sure you get one!

Here is our address for regular mail again, in case you need it.

Melody Maradiaga
PO Box 025331
SJO 160782
Miami, FL 33102-5331

Thanks everyone!!!  I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

Eduardo update

Last week we had parent-teacher conferences at Eduardo's school.  His teachers had nothing but great things to say about him!  They grade in a different way than I'm used to - students are rated 1-4 for various skills. 1 being not understanding, 2 = developing and is where most students should be for most skills at this stage in the year, 3 = proficient and 4 = exceeds expectations.  The thought is that by the end of the school year, students should be at 3's or 4's, but now, in the middle of the year, students should still be learning and so at 2's.  In line with where they are in the school year, Eduardo got mostly 2's.  However, in math he got almost all 3's and 4's!!  He's a math wiz like his dad.  To celebrate, we took Eduardo out for pizza.  It was our first meal out the four of us.  Our landlord opened a pizza place in the centro of Santa Ana so we tried it out.  It was really good!

 

Yum! Kaylynn wasn't as impressed.  :)

This week has been busy for Eduardo. Tuesday I went with him and the school on a field trip to a local Refugio (animal refuge) that's just down the street from his school. I was excited to get to go and he seemed really happy as well that I went. It's been hard to feel like I spend enough time with him with how much Kaylynn needs right now, so to be able to go and let him know he is worth our time too was really important to me. Plus, it gave Davie a chance to practice being on his own with Kaylynn. :)

It was neat to see Eduardo interacting with his classmates and to hear him ask questions - in English! - of the tour guide. He's so smart and learning so fast!  I've got lots of pictures of the trip.  If you want me to email you a link to them, let me know.  (I don't like to post pictures of other people's kids without their knowledge / okay.  :))

 

Eduardo and I at the refugio.

 When he got home from school Tuesday he was so excited to show me the new hole in his mouth.  :)  He had been working on this tooth for awhile.  I'm glad it finally fell out as the new tooth had already started growing in - behind the old one!  We'll need braces for this little guy for sure!

Bottom center tooth missing!

Wednesday Eduardo's school had a program to show off what the kids have been learning so far.  Eduardo did a great job!  Afterwards there was a Thanksgiving lunch pot-luck. One of my favorite parts was when someone asked what nationalities were represented.  It's one of the things I like most about his school - there are people from the US (of course) but also Nicaragua (Eduardo's not the only one either), El Salvador, Costa Rica, Kenya and Japan (or some combination of those based on where their parents are from).  The lunch was a great mix of English and Spanish and different accents. I love that it's a place that both Davie and I can feel comfortable.  When I had looked at private schools before the move, it seemed like all of the schools were either solely focused on US students or solely focused on Central American students.  It's really important to me that we have a place that is open to both, as that's what my kids are.  :) 

 

After the lunch, LuzMari, the other native Spanish speaker in Eduardo's class, came over to stay the night.  They are really cute as friends.  Thursday morning I had the kids help me make a tres leches cake for Davie.  It was a little interesting making the cake with the kids, but I think they had fun!

 

Eduardo and I are definitely still figuring each other out and learning how to get along and what to expect from each other.  He takes everything in and wants to know everything that is going on.  He's really cute to watch with his baby sister.  I think he's enjoying our life here!

Two months

We made it another month. I feel like this one was hard. Like, hardest month of my life hard. But I think we're on the other side. Mostly. :)

Breastfeeding has been really, really difficult. They don't tell you about that really. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but I wasn't expecting this. But when you are latched on correctly and there's no pain and I'm looking down, watching you eat, I'm so glad we've stuck it out and been able to get to this point together. It's one of the best things I feel like I've done in my life - to be able to nurish you the last two months. And you are a chunk, so I know you are getting what you need! :) But man, it's been HARD!

I'm on constant alert for signs of postpartum depression given my history of depression and the fact that I got off my meds so I could feed you. What I wasn't prepared for, but that I feel like has hit harder, was postpartum anxiety. The things my mind can conjure up that might go wrong are terrifying. Most of the time I'm able to redirect my thinking, but the anxiety is very new to me and caught me completely unprepared. In a lot of ways I feel like the jury is still out on whether or not I'm going to end up with PPD. I fight it every day so I can be the best Mommy for you I can be. But again, HARD!

We struggle most days with sleep. You did not get my love of sleep, that's for sure! :) We're working on it, but you sure do fight hard most of the time to stay awake. I know your dad and I are fun, but sleep really is too! :) I know one day you'll start settling into a routine, and thankfully your dad and I are able to both be home right now, so neither of us is doing things alone. I wonder if there's more I should try to be doing to get you into a routine. I did finally start swaddling you for naps, which made a big difference! We'll get there. Until then, I'm just a little sleep deprived. :)

For all the hard though, there have been some of the best moments of my life too. I love your smiles. And how you coo and babble when you wake up in the morning. I love when I can make you laugh. And watching your eyes every day to see what color they are is a favorite pastime of mine these days. (FYI - today they are both looking hazel. We went through a week or so where one was still blue and the other was hazel. That was neat, but I never could get a good picture of it.) Oh and I LOVE when I pick you up to burp after you are done eating and you've got your arms and legs bent out to the sides and look just like a little frog. It's so cute! And you are HEAVY in that position. You've also got eyelashes that don't quit. They've started growing in and they are going to be pretty! I hope they are as thick as your dad's and as long as mine. :) We'll be beating potential suitors off with a stick!

Your dad has been wonderful. He takes care of the house stuff and I'm on baby duty. We do help each other out occasionally as well and swap responsibilities. It's been stressful not having a job, but we really are so lucky to have this time with you! I could not do it without his support. And watching him with you is amazing. There's a lot of love there. We are lucky to have him! Your big brother likes to help too. When he stops moving long enough, he loves getting a chance to hold you. And he's great about trying to distract you if you get upset. He's going to really protect you as you get older!

You're officially a US citizen. We picked up your US passport and report of birth abroad certificate this month. And next month we'll take your first trip to the US!! I'm very excited. I wish your dad and big brother could go too, but your abuela (grandma) is looking forward to getting to see them so they are going to Nicaragua. She's ready to meet you too! When you are a little bigger we'll go visit your Nicaraguan family. I'm nervous enough about traveling to the US. I'm not quite ready to take you to Nicaragua. But soon!

Nicknames: Bullrider, little frog, baby girl

Pastimes: Singing The Wheels on the Bus and other songs, kicking your feet, making noise, being adorable :)

Half a Year

I cannot believe we have been here six months. I can still so clearly remember walking out of the airport May 15th, with all of my stuff piled high on a cart, and seeing Davie and Eduardo waiting for me. I gave Davie a huge hug and told him "We did it!" After months of planning and stress and wondering, we were ready to start on this adventure together. And what an adventure it has been! In six months we have:

- Learned how to be a family of three

- Eduardo has been in two schools. I'm so glad we made the switch to SEAS. He LOVES it and I just feel like it couldn't be a better environment for him. He is learning so much!

- Continued to work on our language skills. Spanish for me and English for the boys. I think there's been improvement on all sides. :)

- Suffered losses. Costa Rica will always be the place I leave Sweet Pea.

- Gained so much. It will also be the place that gave us our daughter. 

- Learned how to be a family of four. (Well, we're still learning this one. :))

To celebrate six months here, we finally decided to go to the beach. I don't know why it took us so long to go. It's not far - it was just around an hour to get there. I think it always seemed like a bigger excursion than it really is as it's not like going to the beach is a day trip in Tulsa. :)

We went to Doña Ana and Juanita and LuzMari, Melissa & David and their kids and Layla went with us. It was great to have so many people go too. We've made some great friends here and we really are very lucky. 

I took no pictures actually at the beach and the only pictures Davie took were of the monkeys. :) But here's Kaylynn this morning as we were getting ready to go. 

And here's a monkey. The monkeys were part of the reason I picked Doña Ana. We hadn't seen monkeys yet either!! Gotta see monkeys in Costa Rica! :)

And here's Kaylynn crashed once we got home. We don't have much of a routine for her yet, but anything we had was completely NOT followed today. :) 

We ended up cutting our beach outing a little short as it started pouring after lunch. Next time we'll bring a tarp we can hang from trees to keep our stuff dry! Had it not rained, I do think I would have gotten a few shots of us actually at the beach. :)

I think I'm finally accepting this move and where we are now in our lives. It's taken almost the whole six months, but I got here. :) I've started really job hunting again and getting my name out there and I think that helps. The next six months promise to hold even more adventure as I, hopefully!, start working again and we settle into a(nother) new routine and as we continue to be more diligent about exploring our new country. I'll also have my first trip back to the US next month! 

I'm excited to see what the next six months brings!

Happy Halloween

Before I get into our Halloween celebrations, I forgot the best part of the story of getting our fingerprints on Thursday. The lawyer gave Davie the temporary papers giving us residency and said to go get our fingerprints taken. (I don't actually know why we had to get fingerprints or what they'll do with them, but it's part of the residency process so we did what we were told!) She didn't say we would need anything else, but of course we got there and it turns out we needed a copy of Kaylynn's birth certificate, which I had been meaning to put in my fancy multiple passport holder I just got but hadn't yet, and passport sized pictures of ourselves. Getting a copy of Kaylynn's birth certificate ended up being a hassle, but we got it done. The funny part was the passport pictures. When we told the security guard at the entrance to the fingerprinting office that we didn't have the pictures, we were pointed to the end of the building where a guy was sitting on an empty spool that probably held wire or something once upon a time. He had a small portable photo printer set up and took our pictures for 2,000 colones each (around $8 total) and we got six pics each. We took turns sitting on the spool and he took our pictures with the white wall of the building as the back drop. All I could think was - only in Costa Rica would this be normal! It was pretty funny, I thought!

Yesterday Eduardo had two play dates - it was a teacher research day so no school. So Melissa from school dropped her boys off around 10 for pool time and then LuzMari, the other mainly Spanish speaking student in Eduardo's class, came over around 11:30 and stayed until 6:30. It was a big day for Eduardo! I think it rubbed off on Kaylynn some and she ended up not taking a nap most of the late afternoon / evening so that when it came time for bed she had a total meltdown. Note to self: don't let her go six hours without a nap!! Mom fail! :)

I got it in my head around 7 that she should try her costume on. It didn't go over well. :) Melissa the photographer gave us the tiger costume as she has a son who is two and a September baby. They had gotten the costume from her friend who also has a September baby. I'm very glad she thought of us and brought it to us when she came to do Kaylynn's newborn pics. I wouldn't have bought a costume otherwise and it really was so cute, even with the tears! Eduardo was Hulk. Davie did a really good job cutting up / tearing a shirt and pants for the costume. 

Today Melissa the photographer invited us to a Halloween party at an expat's house in Grecia, a town in the mountains that I've been wanting to visit as I've heard good things about it, it's in the mountains which I want to explore and it's supposedly cooler. :) I was nervous about going as it was our first big outing with Kaylynn, but it ended up beibg a fun party and we made it there / back without getting lost once! Pretty sure that's a first for me. It was 23 miles to get there and took us an hour. It was all twisty roads with huge potholes that were barely wide enough for two cars....and sometimes weren't! Coming home it was pouring and the traffic was crazy. It's a good thing I was driving so I didn't get car sick! Everyone else seemed unaffected as they all fell asleep, even Davie!

Eduardo and Kaylynn while I got our stuff ready to go. They are so cute!!

I didn't end up taking that many pictures at the party, but here's one. There were a lot of people / kids and the hosts had done a great job of having activities, including trick-or-treating at various places throughout the yard. Eduardo loved it! He was nervous at first to go play with the other kids, until he figured out most of them spoke Spanish and English, then he was all over it. :)

After we got back home. Me with my little tiger cub. 

Tiger, exhausted Mommy and Hulk. It was a good day!

I just love this picture. Major milk coma. :)

Seriously Mom?

Repin'. And somebody found her hands this week. The slurping is crazy! :) But also way cute.