Everyday is dress up day at our house. Blankets become capes, mops and brooms transform into horses, the dining room chairs have a part time job as a train, and our trash is recycled into helmets, crowns, shields, swords, and masks. The boys play school, "animal doctor", chef, pirates and house. Alejandro does get a bit upset when Dante's imagination doesn't follow the same story line that he had in mind or if Dante doesn't like the pretend food that Alejandro made him. Pretend is a dirty word in our house though. "I'm not a pretend fish, I'm a really fish." Alejandro and his friend, Ella, got into a physical fight over an imaginary treasure they found at the park with both bawling not wanting to share something that wasn't even there -- except in their minds. Dante fancies himself Tarzan as he stands from his bed, grabs the curtains and swings across the room. I have no idea how he hasn't pulled the rod off the wall yet.
I don't have much of a life outside the kids these days but, they manage to keep life interesting. I found a dozen cookies with one bite out of each one. "Dante did it!" Dante proudly tells on himself with a smile. I never would have noticed if he'd eaten 2 or 3 whole cookies. He also finished off half a can of pringles, leaving the empty container and crumbs in the cupboard for me to find. While Dante lives for junk food, Alejandro passes on offers on cookies from people on the beach. Instead, he finds people with watermelon or mango and stands by their beach blanket until they'd offer him some. Then he'll take Dante over to get some too. (I really try to keep my kids from mooching off of strangers but they are faster than I am and people here love to dote on kids. So it just keeps getting reinforced.) Alejandro is a chocoholic like a true Conrad though. Once Alfonso bought vanilla pudding instead of the chocolate that I buy. When I tried to feed it to Alejandro, he took one bite before declaring "Vanilla is nasty stuff for grown ups like beer and coffee."
After a month of Jewish Holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot), Alejandro was so excited for Halloween when we got to celebrate one of "our" holidays. At school, they had been making crafts associated with the holiday so I'd have to keep getting on-line to see what bumble bees, apples dipped in honey, pomegranates, fish heads, chickens on sticks, and some lemon-looking-citrus fruit had to do with anything. In the mean time, we did our own month of craft projects at home with bats, spider, pumpkins, ghosts and witches. With only three American houses on the street, we had the kids knock on both the front and back doors to double the trick-or-treating fun. The pumpkins were closer to white than orange and the rinds very thick as they are for cooking not decorating. But the Jack-o-lanterns turned out just fine.
Two American families had their little boys baptized at Yardenit, the site where John baptized Jesus where the Jordan River flows out of the Sea of Galilee. Alfonso took the boys as I was sick (again) and said it was absolutely beautiful. He was standing up above taking pictures for our friends so there was no one to pull Alejandro out of the way. So he stood right next to the babies while they were getting doused with water -- wearing a paper crown made from a cereal box. I hope they are able to crop him out of their family photos!
Alfonso is getting bored with his guitar so he's taking up the Oud instead. Really he just went and made small talk until the owner let him try. (My little guys learned to mooch from the best!)
Not much else is new. Right now we are just counting the days until Mom and Dad come!Love always,
Debi
