2 months late!

2 months without an entry is a new record! This summer fly by and was quite hectic. School just started and two days in we were already having a hard time getting out the door in the morning!  This summer we went to the Bahamas and Cuba for our family adventure.  The kids loved the Bahamas and Cuba was...well... HOT! I love Cuba, but it was a poor choice for a family trip in the summer.  Basically the entire trip was a comedy of errors.  Our Airbnb host failed to pick us up at the airport and I - naive me - didn't have a back up plan other than some phone numbers to call.  It turns out that people often don't answer the phone because it costs them money, the phone system doesn't work, phones just stop working or people just really don't care enough to answer the phone.  So there we were stuck at the airport with no where to go so we hired some random people with a jeep to drive us around town looking for the house. 2 hours  and 2 buckets of sweat later we stopped at a hotel and paid $10 to access the internet so I could send the host an email. Anyone who knows Carlos knows he doesn't forgive easily so there was no forgiving the Airbnb host and we had to find a new place to stay.  It turns out that is really hard to do!  I was probably the only one who actually enjoyed the trip, but there were a few favorite activities for all of us like hiring old convertible cars in the evenings to take us around town once it cooled down a bit. Charlie took percussion classes and loved them and the small part of old town Havana that is renovated is gorgeous.  But it was only on our very last day that Carlos decided he liked it and might entertain the idea of going back this winter.

Going to the store was one of the most frustrating. Whole aisles would be empty or filled with random things. One time we went there was an entire aisle full of olives! olives! Diego was so excited!  Here was the frozen food section:


We stayed at Atlantis in the Bahamas.  I thought it was going to be soul crushing, but it was actually way less bad than I anticipated. We got upgraded to a 1 bedroom apartment in one of the newer towers so we could cook meals and enjoyed an ocean view and full rainbow.  Nevertheless it is pretty weird  - totally out of place and outside the resort there is a lot of poverty.

 

We also spent a lot of time this summer in Philadelphia as my mom is packing up her house. The boys went to camp at GA and they loved it. And we even fit in a trip up to Pine Orchard....

Memorial Day and more

I seem to be playing catch up in many areas and the blog is no exception.  For Memorial Day I took the kids up to Pine Orchard, CT where they had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.  Despite staying in a 7 bedroom house, my kids decided we should all sleep in one bed.  Charlie slept on one side, Diego and Sofia in the middle and I slept on the other to keep Sofia from falling.  Carlos stayed home.  Surprisingly we all slept decently.  As usual, the kids enjoyed relocating the rocks and searching for shells.  They filled up bags of shells, sorted and priced them for their store.  Unfortunately their store stayed open about 20 minutes before they got bored with the low foot traffic and poor response. We had a good discussion about business models and they agreed that popsicles by the tennis courts might sell better than seashells by the beach.  We had nice walks on the beach, trips to the pool and tennis lessons.  Pretty nice!    

 The end of school means the end of soccer and little league.  Carlos was pretty happy to finish his coaching duties for Diego's team, but we were sad to see the end of Charlie's season.  Instead of having a parent coach his soccer on the hill team, his normal soccer instructor (during the week) was the coach and most of the kids were friends from Brent.  It was a fun group and Charlie really enjoyed himself.  Coach David is always so positive and encouraging and all the kids adore him.  I noticed that Charlie isn't very aggressive during practice. He usually does much better during games, but he doesn't have the tenacity that some of the other kids have nor does he have the fine ball skills. I'm really amazed by some of the 6-7 year olds playing soccer - their ball handling skills are really impressive.

 In baseball Charlie is one of the best fielders on his team, but not great at hitting the ball.  I find it a bit of mystery given how much baseball he plays.  When the weather is nice Carlos takes the boys to X park before school to hit balls and it is the highlight of their day.   Charlie has been disappointed in his hitting during games and it makes me so sad.  I don't care that he doesn't hit the ball, but I do care that he is disappointed!  Diego smacks the ball no problem during his games though he needs a bit more strength to turn the hits into home runs.  I lost his mitt so he played his last game with out one, but the rockstar that he is, he was playing first base and caught the ball bare-handed for a nice out.

Capitol Hill Classic

Last weekend was the Capitol Hill Classic which is always a fun, community event.  Carlos added a minute to his time and Charlie shaved off 10 seconds.  The kids loved cheering on the 10k runners and then Charlie was super excited for his 3k race.  He got to run with his friends which was fun to see.  In the end he was the fastest 6 year old running 9:46/mile but by age 7 kids are running 8 minute miles!! wow!  Diego didn't really like the fun run. It's too crowded so I don't really blame him.

Sofia is a force of nature.  I love to see how she bonds with her favorite 2 year olds: Quinn and Maeve.  It's hysterical to see them carry on quite a profound relationship with such limited vocabulary.  I don't however love her temper tantrums and the battle of wills we go through every evening. I stopped nursing her on Friday May 15th and two weeks later she is still looking to nurse - that's how determined she is!  I find that I often continue clearly unsustainable activities until one day I hit a breaking point and veer in a very different direction.  Friday May 15th was that breaking point for me and nursing.  I had thought I'd have this romantic nursing sendoff with a halo image of me with Sofia the last time I would nurse her.  Instead it ended with me so frustrated that I put her in her crib screaming while I made dinner. All those "no cry" weaning blogs make me feel that my weaning was like a failed "pintrest" birthday cake.  That particular Friday she was mad from school pick-up all the way through the Yards Park concert - a good 4 straight hours.  Finally I gave up and decided that was the end of nursing.  It hasn't solved much in terms of her attitude, but at least she is off breastmilk....

On a more positive note, we borrowed a bike seat from Cici's family and Sofia LOVES it.  I traumatized her at first because I wasn't used to the weight and when I first put her in the seat the bike nearly tipped over.  For the entire first ride she screamed "I fall, I fall, I fall."  But after a few rides she has come to love it.  Because of road closures I had to bike with all three kids to Anacostia for Charlie's soccer game at 8am and then bike over to Diego's baseball game on the other side of the Hill and then bike to a birthday party and back home.  After all that, Charlie was disappointed that we weren't biking back over to the other side of the Hill again for his baseball game.  I swear these kids must be in calorie deficit most days.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day we tried to take a mini-hike on Roosevelt Island but it turned out everyone and their mother (literally) had the same idea. So we kept going to Turkey Run park, an exit off George Washington Parkway that I've passed for years and, to be honest, never even been curious about.  But we decided to give it a try and had an awesome hike.  Apparently no one else is curious about the exit either because we were the only people there.  The Potomac Heritage Trail guides you along the river with many places to stop and - if you are my children - find good rocks to throw in the water.  The trail isn't well traveled so it is narrow and overgrown at times, but the kids loved it and ran/walked the 3+ miles.  The part Sofia loved most was an old bridge which she must have crossed at least 24 times.  

The hike salvaged an otherwise comical mother's day which started with Carlos waking up late and saying "why don't I make some breakfast?....oh wait...we don't have ingredients to make the one thing I can make....how about some toast?"

We hosted Charlie's little league team recently which ended up being a lot of fun.  The kids made a clubhouse out of the 3rd floor.  They watched the Nats game while simultaneously playing their own baseball game with cushions as bases.  From the first floor we could hear the wild cheering as their favorite players got up to bat.  Overall little league has been a lot of fun for Charlie, but it has made me remember why I don't like baseball.  His games last two hours; I'm really just interested in seeing him play but he only touches the ball a few times (at best) an inning!  Maybe if we can get Diego and Charlie on the same team there would be enough density of action to hold my attention.

Sofia is a lovely terror :). Similar to the way Diego always has to go poo in the worst possible places, Sofia seems to sense the worst place to start screaming and let's me have it.   Swim class is my least favorite activity of the week - as in I really, really can't stand it - and of course she reserves her worst behavior for that time.  By the time I get home I want to crack a bottle of wine over my head.  On the other hand she is usually pretty sweet during tennis class, primarily because she has found some poor older girl who let's Sofia boss her around.  In the photo below she has stolen the girl's journal and is writing her own notes.  They have become strange friends and the girl keeps wanting Sofia to come over to her house for a playdate! Sofia's best friend is named Quinn and they are hysterical together. They can barely talk to each other but seem to communicate at a deep level....  Sofia calls her "Kinn" and calls her mom "mama."  In fact I seem to be the 3rd mom: Sandra is mom, Quinn's mom is mom and, lastly, I am mom.  If it weren't for the fact that I am STILL nursing, I think she'd consider me dispensable.