Day 1: Bolivia or Bust

Bolivia? Yup, Bolivia.
Our trip started off well yesterday - no trouble in Austin, Dallas or Miami with the flights or connections. We settled in our fancy first class seats and headed south. Until about 3am in some other time zone that is. ..
I wasn't sleeping well - I know, I know. Leave it to Jan to not even be able to sleep in the fancy seats but whatever, my back was hurting and there was no sleeping to be had. (Unlike my sweet husband who was so totally gone that I could hear him snoring even across the divider and over the roar of the 777 engine.)
Anyway, so I began to notice more activity than usual up front. We had about 2 hrs until landing so I figured they were getting breakfast ready and all that jazz. Nope. Apparently some poor guy in the back was having or about to have a heart attack and they were trying to decide what to do. The pilot came on and said we were turning around and flying 45 minutes north to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Now, if I was having a medical emergency a middle-of-nowhere town in Bolivia would not be my first choice. But, I guess the 45 min trip back vs. two hours to Buenos Aires seemed the best choice. Ironically, there were two doctors on board and one was this guy's daughter. Our flight attendant joked that the guy was thinking that paying her medical school tuition was probably a good decision right about then.
Bolivia was pretty desolate. Basically, we saw dirt roads and a landing strip. They opened the door and a bunch of firefighters and medics ran on the plane all wearing face masks. Pretty entertaining! We were on the ground for about an hour or so. Then we headed on to BA. We arrived about three hours late but safe and sound.
We showered and went out for lunch. We ended up eating with the two women in line in front of us at the restaurant. They were here just for a day and about to fly further south to take a cruise of Antarctica. How fun is that!
Oh, and an FYI to anyone thinking of coming to Argentina. They are now charging a $133 pp Visa fee upon arrival. Surprise!
And for the record my husband’s favorite part of Day 1 was flying over Cuba. He got a kick out of that.
We took a nap and are getting ready to go have pizza for dinner. So, in summary, we're here, first class is pretty sweet, Bolivia is boring and I'm sunburned.

Pictures here.

Love to all,
Jan

Hmmm.....

We're off to a good start around here....

Yesterday Juan was doing a last-minute run to Sam's as we prepared to leave on vacation. Caleb and I were at home playing our new favorite game entitled "slide fake food down the boy tunnel and giggle a lot". If you haven't tried it then you should. Anyway, our fake food of choice was half of a hamburger bun that my toddler seemed convinced was really a pizza. Odd, because he doesn't like pizza. He slid the "pizza" down the tunnel and it popped up off of one of the metal rings shaping the tunnel and hit me square in the corner of my left eye. I have a nice goose egg and the beginnings of a bruise. Lovely.

Juan was looking for a coat at Sam's. It seems that somehow "we" managed to lose his in the move. No comments on that from the wife, just suffice it to say that we are completely unaware of the location of his coat. And he needs a coat if he wants to go tromping around glaciers. So, as I was recovering my my near blinding he comes traipsing in the back door with his new coat. And I laugh. It's a grey faux suede hoodie of sorts and in it he's a dead ringer for the Unibomber. Seriously.

So how are we going to fare tomorrow at the security check-in at the airport? Me sporting a black eye and sobbing uncontrollably because I've just left my precious baby behind and the Unibomber holding my arm? Just peachy, I'm sure.

And the icing on the cake? Juan says that there are no port-a-potties on glaciers. WTH people! How exactly am I supposed to pee on ice then? Sigh.

What a Difference!

One year ago.... and now!

Magical Pajamas

So, in my loser blogger-ness, I managed to miss posting on Thanksgiving, Christmas and now New Years. So, for the record:



Happy Thanksgiving.

Merry Christmas.

And wishing you a joyful and prosperous 2010.



Ok, that's done. Now onto the important stuff. Magical pajamas...

My pathetic excuse for not blogging in over a month is lack of sleep. During the month of December Caleb slept through the night exactly 3 times. Out of 31.

We tried various approaches. First, we caved and stumbled down the hall at 4:30 am (it is ALWAYS 4:30 for some bizarre reason) plucked him out of the crib and into bed with us. This was a great plan if you were Juan b/c all Caleb wanted was to lay on my chest and ram his big baby head into my wind pipe and sleep. Not so conducive for Mom's sleep.

The reasoning was that the entire month of December would be rough with grandparents visiting, holidays and general merriment. We thought we could just make it til January and then re-Ferberize after Juan and I got back from vacation. I mean, why go through the drama and wailing to just have to redo it again after we get back?

Well, just going with it worked until the week of Christmas but by then Caleb was waking up 2-3 times a night and screaming for Nana or Mama. Not cool.

So, we Ferberized. That kinda worked but then we all realized that there was a pattern forming. Caleb slept all night when he wore his fleece footie pajamas. He didn't sleep all night when he wore his normal pajamas. Eager to test our theory we tried the magic pajamas two nights in a row. He slept. We slept. Hooray for magic pajamas!

Was he cold? Not snugly enough? Is is a fluke? No clue. But you know who was at Carter's bright and early to buy more fleece footie pajamas the next day right? Yours truly.

We are now the proud owners of 3 pairs of magic pajamas. I'm not going to question what works people. Let's hear it for the fleece footies!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

P.S. I promise frequent updates while we're on vacation!

Ringa Ringa

Our evening routine is as follows:

• Dinner at 6:30
• Bath at 7:00
• Family playtime in Caleb's room from 7:30-8:00
• Bedtime is 8:00

We started doing the 30 min of family playtime a couple of months ago. Before then we let Caleb play in the play room with his toys until bedtime. We were having trouble with Caleb getting too riled up and putting up a fuss when it came time to brush teeth and go to sleep. So, thanks to Juan, family playtime was born.

The rules of family playtime are that we stay in Caleb's room and either read books or play and sing. We try to keep the wrestling to a minimum and the vibe calm. Well, as calm as an almost two year old boy can be at least.

Caleb's new favorite thing to do during play time is Ringa Ringa - also known as Ring Around the Rosies for those of you know not well versed in Toddlerish. He loves it and does a fabulous dramatic fall at the end. He also insists that we ALL play (no sitting out by Dada) and we ALL have to fall down. He then heroically pulls Juan and I back to a sitting position and it all begins again.

Family bonding at it's best. All three on the floor giggling, holding hands and spending time as a family.

I am so very thankful.

Owie

We have our first real injury. Caleb managed to stick the ring finger of his left hand in the door at school as it was closing about a week and a half ago.

Pinched the skin off of the pad of his finger (that's the right term, right?) and severely bruised the nail. Half of the nail now looks dead. I'm not sure what will happen as it grows out, guess we'll see.

And yes, a bruised finger is not an excuse for not being a timely blogger. I promise to try harder as we move into the holidays.

Clean Thursday

Today started off well. I worked for a few hours and then decided to run some errands before lunch. In an effort to be efficient I started a load of laundry and then headed off to Target. Found everything I needed there and was back home within 30-45 minutes at most. When I came in the back door Chloe had a major hissy fit. I fussed at her and told her to go get on her bed. She snorted and gave me a you-have-no-clue-do-you? look. I didn't. Until I walked into the laundry room to switch out the clothes and saw this:

Seems as though some little fingers pushed the spin cycle button until it got to extra high. And that brand new, totally full bottle of Tide on top of the washer? It spun right off! And onto the floor.

I stared in disbelief, ran to find the phone to call Juan, took a picture, laughed, and cleaned it up. Note: My husband said at least ten times for me to be careful and not slip and break an arm. I was careful.

The up side? My house smells Tide-fresh. My laundry room floor is clean. I wiped the baseboards down too for good measure.

The down side? I don't think the slippery-ness will ever go away. Oh, and we need more Tide.

Hope your Thursday is as clean as ours!

Halloween pictures coming soon....