hola, isabel

Things I’ve learned from my friend May:

• Wearing a skirt in the summer is just like wearing shorts, except cuter and even more comfortable.
• Ira Glass and “This American Life” are the best things on the radio and will change your life (for the better) forever.
• It’s okay to let your kids have McDonalds for dinner.
• Although it’s not okay for your kid to eat more than one pickle a day.
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew in regards to a church calling.
• That it’s okay to say “no”.
• You might as well try for a VBAC.  (If it doesn’t work, oh well.)
• How to convert your long sleeved shirt into a short sleeved shirt.
• The most important thing at a party is the lighting.
• The second most important thing is the music.
• Marriage is hard.  But is worth it in the end.
• Don’t be afraid to try something you might not think you can do. (i.e.: sewing or knitting, etc.)
• How to make the background layer a color in Photoshop.
• Illustrator is way better then Photoshop when you want to work with type.
• How to throw a low stress baby shower.
• How to melt fabric to make it look like a flower.
• How to listen to music using Youtube.
• Where the “secret” beaches are in Orange County.
• Your talents should be shared.
• How to be pregnant.
• That you’re ready to become a parent when the thought of putting together Easter baskets and school lunches makes you excited.
• Yard work can be fun.
• Sometimes you have to rely on your faith to know the church is true.
• You don’t have to wash your hair every day.
• Or bathe your kids (every day).
• When you find something you want, try to see if you can make it before you buy one.
• Sometimes mommies use bad words too.
• All the amazing things you can do with Shrinky Dinks.
• Don’t let your baby fall off the couch.
• How to paint your house numbers on your house.
• How to make your own herb garden.

• Sometimes “Ensign” articles can rub you the wrong way.
• But listening to a conference talk a day helps to keep you grounded.
• Exercise is a necessary evil.
• Set goals.
• It’s way better to make your own Christmas cards.
• And Valentines for your kids.
• And “thank you” cards.
• The best gifts are those from the heart.
• Awesome bands:
  • Tegan & Sara
  • Camera Obscura
  • Mates of State
  • The Decemberist
  • Avett Brothers
  • Au Revoir Simone
  • Neko Case
  • Tilly & The Wall
  • Feist

And the most important thing I’ve learned from my friend May:

How great it feels to have a friend.

Happy Birthday May. Thanks for being such a great example to me.

Our nanny’s husband got into a great grad school on the other side of the county.  Apparently she’d rather be with him there then watching my kids here in Seattle.  (Crazy, I know.)

Nanny’s last day is Monday.

Rerun’s first day ever at daycare is Tuesday and I’m not looking forward to it.  It’s not that I have any issues with daycares in general.  Babboo spent his pre-Kindergarten years in a daycare and he thrived there.  In fact, Rerun will be going to Babboo’s same daycare.  It’s just that for the last 17 months Rerun’s had one on one love and attention from Nanny.

We first met Nanny back when she was in high school (or maybe just graduated, I can’t remember).  She had recently converted to my church and was full of sunshine and love.  She loved kids and made it very clearly that all she wanted in life was to be a mom.  May and I tried to dissuade her from “making any mistakes” by getting married super young and having loads of babies.

Nanny didn’t listen to May and me and she got married much younger then I would advise anyone.  Nanny really lucked out.  Her husband is grand.  He’s smart, handsome, a good provider, a great husband and a super dad.  I don’t like to admit it, but she was right to not listen to May and me.

As long as I’ve known Nanny she’s worked as a…well, as a nanny.  Up until we hired her she’d had a very lustrous career and worked with a number of wealthy families.  It’s clear that she takes the care of children very seriously and enjoys being around kids.  Which is why she had two of her own right out of the gate.  Once her second child was born she really wasn’t “hire-able” as a nanny.  Nobody wants someone watching their kids who has her own kids to watch.

Well, nobody except me.

Thanks to nobody else wanting to hire a nanny with two kids we got her for way less then she typically charges for her services.  Not only were we happy to have her as our nanny, we were happy for the price.  She’s been watching Rerun since the day I went back to work.  And her having two kids really hasn’t been an issue.  Nanny’s husband works swing shift and is home with their two kids while Nanny’s at my house getting Babboo off to school and watching Rerun.  There are only about 20 minutes between Babboo getting off the bus and me getting home where Nanny has all four kids.  Besides that Rerun usually gets her full attention.

Rerun loves Nanny.  One of his favorite things to do is fall asleep while she holds him.  He’s recently started calling her by name and it’s so sweet to hear.  Rerun also loves Nanny’s son, who is only about nine months older.  Due to Rerun being so big and Nanny’s son being so small the boys are close in size.  They love to wrestle, play ball and their current fave; asking each other to run errands for them.

“Get me that ball!”

“Thank you.”

“Go get me that car over there.”

“Thank you.”

And on and on.

I hate that Rerun is too young to understand it when I tell him that Nanny won’t be there on Tuesday when he wakes up.  I wish I could tell him why he’ll never see Nanny’s little boy again.  I want to tell him that it isn’t because they don’t want to be with him but that they have to leave for greener pastures.

Thankfully Babboo is old enough to understand.  While he doesn’t want to admit it to anyone I know he and Nanny are special friends.  She’ll play a round of Mario Kart on the Wii before he has to catch the bus but also make sure he gets his homework done.  A friend of mine recently told me that he had told her that he wouldn’t want to marry Nanny’s daughter, but that he’d like to marry Nanny.  I think that’s the greatest compliment a six year old can give.

Earlier in the week I asked Babboo if he’s sad that Nanny is moving. He told me that he’s sad, but only for Rerun’s sake.  I don’t buy it.  I know he’s going to miss her too.

I know she’s going to miss them.

Today Nanny texted me this photo with the caption “I’m sure going to miss this smile.”

Come Tuesday when The King drops him off for his first day at daycare I know he’s not going to be smiling.  And he’s going to wonder where his Nanny is and why she isn’t there to help make his day better.

I wish I could make him understand why she left.

We had spaghetti for dinner last night.  Like most toddlers Rerun was eating it by the fist-fulls.  He was making a mess of himself and the rest of the kitchen. (You’ll note the beach towel over his chair.  Once he started eating it became clear that I needed to cover the entire chair to protect it from flying red sauce!)  The King, Babboo and I were laughing hysterically at him and, I’ll admit, egging him on a little.

I turned around to get a picture of a my Sweet Babboo and said, “smile, this is your last picture as a five year old!”

He woke up this morning as a six year old.

Things have changed a lot in the last six years.  My life is pretty much the exact opposite as it was before he was born.  Our house is noisier.  We have a far larger Lego collection.  I no longer find shower time relaxing.  And I’ve never been so conscience of someone else’s  bowels.

He’s changed a lot too.  That precious sleeping baby he once was has turned into an amazing kid, albeit a sassy one!

(Shown here modeling the hiking pack my folks sent him for his birthday.)

I love My Sweet Babboo more then I ever imagined possible.  I’m thankful that we’re a forever family and I thank my Heavenly Father everyday for allowing me to be his mom.

Happy Birthday to my favorite six year old.

• Rerun has the best manners.  Anytime someone hands him something he responds with the sweetest little “dan dou” which is Rerun-speak for “thank you”.  I find myself handing him cracker after cracker just to hear him say it.  He also refers to any type of treat as a “kiki”.  Which, again, is Rerun speak for “cookie”.

• My Sweet Babboo’s speech therapist told us this week that his speech is improving by leaps and bounds.  She also told us that he’s “SO smart!” and creative and artistic.  It’s clear that she thinks very highly of him.

• The King turned forty a few weeks ago. We had the most amazing party to celebrate him and his many accomplishments.  Babboo and I worked for weeks on a photo booth that we set up in our office.  He took great pride in talking to each and every guest and making sure they had their picture taken.  He then made sure they all signed the guestbook.

The photobooth was a success.  We got some really great pictures of our friends:

And some questionable ones too:

• We’ve left the photo booth backdrop up.  Rerun keeps wanting to go in the room and take more pictures.  He’ll stand in front of the backdrop and say “hat” or “glasses” and wait for me to hand it to him.  He will then hold up the stick, but not long enough for me to get an actual useable picture.  (Except for this one that I took after church on Sunday.  ADORABLE.)

• We’ve been letting a balloon from the party go every few days.  Rerun likes to stand on the front porch and watch it fly away until he can’t see it anymore.  He says “goodbye balloon” and waves.  He now does this anytime we go outside”.

• The King and Babboo let go another balloon this morning before he caught the bus for school.  Babboo asked his dad how long until the balloon got to Utah.  The King told him it didn’t look like it was headed in that direction.  He then asked how long it would take for it to get to Canada.  I like to think that he actually knows Utah and Canada are in completely different directions.  He’s so smart.

• Babboo is reading books.  Real ones.  It’s been amazing to see how much he’s learned since that first day of kindergarten.  He’s so smart.

• Netflix has a ton of the old “The Adventures of Tintin” episodes right now.  For some unknown reason both boys really like watching it.  When anyone mentions turning the TV on Rerun will perk up and say “Tin Tin?”

• Rerun’s been successfully using his little potty for the last week.  He’s gone both #1 and #2 (BIG NEWS in any home of a toddler).  I dream of the day when I don’t have to shell out a gazillion dollars for diapers every month.

• He hated every minute of it but Babboo has successfully learned how to tie his shoelaces.  He’s become quite an expert lacer and expects only perfectly looped laces from himself.

So tell me, what are some things you don’t want to forget right now?

I took an advanced placement Art History class my junior year of high school.  Everyone else in the class was a senior.  It was a really small class and we spent a lot of time outside of school studying.  By default we all became very close.  There was a big difference between a junior and a senior and even though some of them were only six months older then me it felt like a decade.  They had more life experiences, more schooling, had read more books and had been in the dating pool longer then I had been.

Again, by default, instead of seeking our friends my same age I find myself gravitating towards people with kids the same age as my kids.   It makes playdates, babysitting swaps and birthday parties easier that way.

I had my first kid weeks before I turned thirty one and my second when I was thirty five.  To the outside world (at least here in Seattle) this seems to be the average age.  But in the Mormon world, of which I’m a part of, this is on the late side. The very late side.  For example my way-younger-then-me cousin has been married four years and has two kids.  I don’t think his wife is twenty five yet.  This is totally normal and acceptable in the Mormon world.  When we’re around my cousin and his family I feel connected to his wife, not because we’re close in age (because we SO ARE NOT) but because we both have small children.  To be honest, I don’t think she sees it that way.  I bet she just thinks of me as her husband’s super old cousin who lives in Seattle and who waited way too long to have her kids.  I admit this is how I would see myself if I were in her shoes.

We invited a family we know from church to our house for Sunday dinner last weekend.  They are new to the area and we figured they could probably use some friends.  Their daughter is three so I thought our kids would have fun together while the adults talked and got to know each other.  The kids got along great.  The little girl loved all of Babboo’s pirate ships and Legos and my kids loved having someone new to play with.  When I asked the wife’s age she told me she was twenty four.  That means she was FIVE YEARS OLD when I graduated from high school.  If Teenage Isabel thought hanging out with the seniors in high school was crazy, just imagine if I was hanging out with kindergartners.  I could have gone to jail.

In reality I don’t really have anything in common with this new couple.  I’ve had way more life experiences, more life-schooling, have read more books, and have been married longer then they have.  It felt weird when I realized that The King and I are the ages of their older siblings, who could very well have teenage kids themselves.

I don’t think I’m going to start only hanging out with mom’s my own age.  I don’t know anything about tweens and they’ve long forgotten the sleepless nights and how to change a diaper.  I guess I’m just not going to bring up the fact that the New Kids on the Block was my first concert or that Bon Jovi was the first cassette tape I owned.  And I for sure won’t tell them that I remember the first season of MTV’s “The Real World”.

So tell me, do you hang out with people who are your age or people who have kids that same age as your kids?  (And do you remember season one of “The Real World” too?)

Remember how we spent a month in Europe with the kids last August?  And remember how I told you all about our time in Germany but then forgot to tell you about the other three countries we visited?  Well, it may have been six months ago, but I know you want to hear all about Italy.  Right?

RIGHT?

Good.

We left Berlin and flew to Pisa, Italy.  Our plan was to stay in Pisa one night, just long enough to see the Leaning Tower and take a train in the morning to our next stop, the Cinque Terre.  We got to our hotel, threw our bags down, got a map from the front desk and walked to the tower.

The King really liked it, but I have to admit it just wasn’t that exciting to me.  There we SO MANY PEOPLE there that it took away from so much of the magic of being there.

(We’ve typically traveled to Europe in the winter.  Best thing about traveling to Europe in the winter is NO CROWDS!)

We hung out for a bit before heading back to our hotel.  We knew we’d be coming back through Pisa on our way to Spain, so we figured we’d climb the tower then.

We arrived, by train, in Vernazza.  I had found us a room to rent online and our first order of business was to figure out where exactly we were staying.  My instructions were to exit the train station, find a shop with a sign that says “enoteca” and ask for Paola to call Anna, who would then come and get us to take us to our room.

Yeah, that took longer then it should.  Anna was too busy to come and get us, so we were given directions and told to walk to our room.  On our way up the street (the only street in town) we passed a little park.  That made Babboo pretty excited.

We found our room (that’s our room on the main floor) and were happy with it.  Our bathroom was down the hall, but we didn’t have to share it, so that was great.

The King and I later admitted to each other that when we first arrived in Vernazza we thought, “what in the heck are we going to do here for FIVE DAYS?!”  The town is super duper tiny.  It has about 600 residents and only the one road (where cars are only allowed to drive on EARLY in the morning.  There are two little grocers, but again, they are only open in the morning for a few hours.  There are a ton of bakeries and little places selling pizza and seafood and a few sit down restaurants.

The main reason people do to the Cinque Terra is to hike through the five towns; Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.

Wikipedia says:

A walking trail, known as Sentiero Azzurro (”Light Blue Trail”), connects the five villages. The trail from Riomaggiore to Manarola is called the Via Dell’Amore (”Love Walk”) and is wheelchair-friendly. The stretch from Manarola to Corniglia is the easiest to hike, although the main trail into Corniglia finishes with a climb of 368 stairs.  The trail from Corniglia to Vernazza is steep at certain places. The trail from Vernazza to Monterosso is by far the steepest. It winds through olive orchards and vineyards and is rough in places, but offers the best view of the bay and the spectacular approaches to both Monterosso and Vernazza. It takes approximately 5 hours to walk it. There are fees to use the more popular walking trails

We had to take into account that we had both kids with us and that I’d be carrying Rerun.  We got up one morning and did the trail from Vernazza to Monterossa, which you just read was the steepest.  It is also the one with the most breathtaking views!

You can see Monterossa  behind The King and Babboo in this next picture.  This was about the half way mark.

Once we got to Monterossa there really wasn’t anything to do so we caught the ferry back to Vernazza.  Babboo was pretty excited about taking the ferry and told us he’d never rode on a boat before.  (I can neither confirm or deny that claim.)

The rest of our time in Vernazza was spent at the beach.  Babboo couldn’t get enough of the sand and the water.

And Rerun loved just sitting on the blanket with me, in the shade of the umbrella Anna let us borrow.

With pauses for occasional dips in the water.

Since Babboo liked riding in the ferry so much The King decided to rent a kayak and take Babboo out in it.  Rerun and I waiting on the beach and I tried zoom way in to get some pictures of them.

Another thing that The King and Babboo did together was hike up to the top of the watch tower at the Doria Castle.  Apparently it was used a gazillion years ago to protect them from pirates.  ARG!

They were able to get some nice views of the town from up there.

The King and I celebrated our 11th anniversary while in Vernazza.  We got some bread, cheese and meat and celebrated with a little picnic near the tree outside our place.

The King was cutting the cheese (tee-hee) and sliced up his thumb.  I tried to talk to him into becoming Blood Brothers with me, but he wouldn’t go for it.  (He spent the rest of the trip with a pretty huge gash and in a lot of pain.  Poor guy.)

Towards the end of our stay we decided to do one more of the tails. We chose the Via Dell’Amore trail since it’s the “Walk of Love” and it was our anniversary

The King and Babboo really liked this trail.  I admit there were some beautiful views.  But the walk was SCARY.  Check it out.

Can you see that the walk is hooked on to the side of the sheer cliff?!  CAN YOU SEE THAT?

Long time readers will know of my disdain of sheer cliffs.  Yeah, I don’t like them at all.  At all.  Not even a little bit.  (When we were about to the end a car started to come up the walk.  A CAR.  I was pretty sure the walk couldn’t hold the weight and that we were all going to fall to our death.  Alas, we didn’t.  Although I did almost have a heart attack.)

In the end The King and I both agreed that we could have stayed five more days.  Vernazza was amazing.  Seriously one of the most amazing places we’re ever been.  We were sad to leave.  But we had a train to Pisa to catch and then a plane to Barcelona the next day.

What makes our time in Vernazza so bitter sweet is that shortly after our trip it was almost completely ruined by flash floods filling the streets with rocks, mud and debris up to 12 feet deep.

I can’t look at these pictures without crying.

Ciao, Vernazza. We hope we can visit you again.

We spent one more night in Pisa. Our plan was for The King and Babboo to buy tickets and climb to the top of the Leaning Tower.  (I had no interest.)  We walked over to the tower and The King went to buy the tickets.  Sadly, you have to be eight to climb to the top.

(One more reason why “it’s great to be eight!”)

Babboo was quite bummed about the whole thing and to this day will tell anyone who asks that he does not like Pisa.  But we made it up to him by buying him dinner at McDonalds.

Next stop, Barcelona, Spain.