Did you know. . .

Jada Pinkett-Smith breastfed her son for 18 months.

Erykah Badu breastfed for 2 years.

Gwen Stefani for 13 months.

Even Pamela Anderson breastfed her sons for more than a year (after she homebirthed them : )

So, I am as trendy now as I ever was :p

I guess I can take those skinny jeans back , right?

Sully will be 15 months this coming week. I would have to say my goal for nursing was *at least* a year. . .and I told myself I'd play it by ear after that. At this point, nursing is a lifesaver when it comes to tantrums, naps, oops-i-ran-out-of-milk. . .-and food- moments, and pretty much the majority of parenting situations I come head to head with. It helps more than it hinders - and to be honest I totally love having an excuse to sit down and hold him. I love that he's willing to let me hold him. I love that he's by far the cuddliest 15 month old I've ever met. . .and its ME that he wants to cuddle. I love that even on days when he has nothing but fruit loops and crackers that he's still getting good nutrition. I pretty much just love it all. So, until I don't (or he doesn't) I'm stickin' with the trend.

First Day of School, Cont. (pics

Shelly called yesterday morning and asked if we wanted to go to the museum in the afternoon. She had invited a couple of her other friends who have kids close to our kids' ages - so I was excited to meet them. Plus, I like that it wasn't a full-day museum trip; just an hour or two before dinner.

I picked the kids up after school-and because I knew I had an hour to kill before picking up Kyle, we stopped at McD's. I got us all a chicken nugget combo to share and they played on the toys. Kyle called half an hour later and informed me that I *didn't* need to pick him up. I was still glad that we had stopped for a snack though - I think it helped the kids behave better at the museum. We got there around 3:15, just as Shelly pulled up as well.

The new friends were a lot of fun. They are from Canada -and have only been here in Guadalajara for a few weeks. Considering their short while here, they sure did seem settled and relaxed. I'm sure I wasn't so confident at that point in our own move here.

We came home and had an easy dinner (corn dogs, that I still managed to burn :p ) and the kids were in bed early. Sullivan was asleep by 6:15, Addie was asleep a little after 7, and G was in bed around 8:00 - but not asleep until 9 or so. . .still, it made for a quiet evening to get things done. I did a few loads of laundry and finally caught up on the dishes and floors.

I also FINALLY uploaded my pictures - so enjoy:

You're as young as you (don't) feel.

Sometimes I get on these kicks where I try to imagine my life through someone else's eyes. I don't necessarily sit around imagining what they think of me, in particular. I moreso imagine what they would think of themselves if they had my life. Make sense?? I guess its a game in self-evaluation. Where am I? Do I like what I've become? Where can I improve? You get the idea.

I kind of remember going through the same thing last year when the kids started school. Its like having all 3 of them at home makes my brain busy enough with mothering and domestic duties that it doesn't have much time for self-reflection (yeah, those of you with more than 3 can roll your eyes at me now), so I have to make up for the months when I normally would have been spring-cleaning my thoughts.

In all this evaluating I've realized that I'm really bummed that I have never finished school. I used to think that it was noble of me to work full-time while Kyle went to school and "my turn will come." (as I've said to myself and others so many times.) Lately though, it seems like I'm making excuses for myself or justifying my lack of ambition - so I pretty much avoid the subject if I can. You'd be surprised how often it comes up in the various circles I frequent. And it doesn't help my self-esteem when I realize that I actually know several moms my same age who *did* manage to get their degrees.

Last week I was invited to go to a brunch with the wives of the employees of the American Consulate here in Guadalajara. My friend who invited me apologized later for it being more of the older crowd - she had expected more young moms to show up. It was good for me to go (I always admire this friend for her ability to fit in comfortably in any crowd.) but admittedly awkward. My age, the number of children I have, my age, my lack of profession, my age (you get the idea). . .apparently these are pretty interesting topics.

So what are those other 25 year olds doing? (Oh my gosh, is that seriously how old I am??? Is it normal to feel 10 years older than you really are??) You know *those* 25-year olds? The ones who wouldn't dream of being married with 3 children at their age. I'll sheepishly admit that in my quest to feel better I like to imagine them all with empty, shallow, self-absorbed lives. I usually don't believe me though - so can someone please tell me what I'm missing out on?

Maybe that's why I wish I had a good ol' degree under my belt. Then it would be like this certificate that said I had lived my own life, instead of just bumming a ride while Kyle lived his. (I get this image of me riding piggy-back while he's running a marathon. Like I'm too lazy to run it myself, but I don't want to miss out on the thrill. LOL.)

I know what I do is VALUABLE. I mean, if I didn't take care of the kids and the house, then it would be that much harder for Kyle to do what he needs to do to get through school. But at the same time, the wife of a medical student is at least as much extra work as she is extra help - and from seeing how the single medical students live, I'm not sure I can even say that my help outweighs my work. Now you can add 3 kids into the mix and maybe you see what goes on in my head most days.

I'm having growing pains. You know those little periods of re-adjustment when you realize that everything in life has grown just a little bit, so you're building up the muscles that help you deal with it all. In a couple of weeks I'll be stonger/desensitized (or drunk :p ) and it will all feel normal again. We've just got to get this darn USMLE step 1 behind us.

All of that aside though - I'm ready for their first full week of school. I have BIG plans tomorrow. Last week for the 3 days they were in school I kept busy. Wednesday I had our lunch group, Thursday the Consulate brunch, and Friday I drove to the Centro with a friend to buy some fabric. My big plans for tomorrow include yoga pants, a ponytail, a LONG early naptime for Sullivan and maybe (if I'm feeling saucy) a few loads of laundry (a few loads out of the 10 that await me.) Laundry and centerpiece construction are 2 of the tasks I never want to get *too* good at. That might mean I'm so comfortable in my home-based role that I'll lose my drive to do more.

I've died and gone to housewife heaven.

Before I gush too much about the coolness of the day, let me outline the last few days for ya'all.

As we all know, I met with the Director of the school on Wednesday and officially enrolled the kids. I was given a list for each of the kids filling an entire 8.5''x10'' sheet of paper in size 8 font. I immediately set out to find each of these items, the majority of which I had never heard of in English or Spanish.

My first task was to translate the list for myself. I knew I would have a harder time locating these items if I couldn't at least put myself in the right area of the store (hardware vs. paper supplies, etc.) After only 3 trips to Walmart, 2 trips to the shoe store, 2 trips to Office Depot, and 2 trips to the uniform supply store (actually, it will be 3 because I have to go back tomorrow for their P.E. clothes and Adeline's sweater.) I finally found myself able to cross off the majority of the items on the list. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for accomplishing all of this, and my friend quickly reassured me that most of the kids probably wouldn't have everything on their first day anyway; no worries, right?

My original appointment to meet the teacher and entregar mis utiles was Monday - one flat tire, one crying tantrum (on my part. . .Sully was really calm about it ;) ), one heroic husband, and one whole day later - I found myself sitting down with Adeline's teacher, Miss Monica. Imagine my horrow when she whips out a CHECKLIST to make sure I've got all the supplies. This means that it will be blatantly obvious that I failed to obtain *Everything* on my list - the entire size 8 font, letter-sized page of it. I was pretty grateful for my gringo accent and U.S. citizenship at this point - I used both as an excuse for my lameness. I left the classroom with a list of the remaining items I needed and armpits full of sweat. This kind of thing just REALLY stresses me out.

Of course I had to repeat the torture in Guthrie's classroom. Now I could feel the sweat actually dripping down my back.

It turns out they have a bookstore upstairs at the school - so we venture up. $350 USD later I have obtained all the books the kids need and have miraculously managed to scrounge up almost the rest of the supplies. (Thanks a lot American Academy for offering me that useful bit of information earlier. . .who knew you could buy most of it there?????)

I proudly jaunt back downstairs to turn in the items I was missing before. Of course I'm about to leave my piles of books on the teacher's table when she informs me that I can't leave them because they need to be covered in plastic. I learned last year that this is something that schools here are completely anal about. All books, notebooks, folders, etc; MUST be wrapped in a protective plastic. The small paper stores all have signs up offering this service for a fee - but of course I am thinking I can do it quickly and save us all some money. 2 trips to the papeleria later (the first time they were out and asked me to come back later.) and I'm ready to begin. It took me over 2 hours to cover their books in this crap. Seriously, 2 hours! And, will someone please tell me why Kindergarteners need 10 books EACH! OY!

In addition to the forrando (your spanish vocabulary word of the day) of the books; I also hemmed two pairs of pants, made brownies for our lunch group, made lunches, washed dishes, and packed grocery bags with the LAST of the FREAKING supplies on the list. It was a little after 1 a.m. when I crawled into bed.

It was soooo worth it all. We were able to get ready quickly this morning, and even had time for a pancake breakfast courtesy of our in-house cook. (me ;) ) I dropped the kids off at 8:30 and they hardly looked back to tell me goodbye. I think they were actually more excited than I was. As I walked out of the school (normally I don't have to go in, I can just pull up to the curb and they have attendants who unbuckle the kids and take them in - but I, incorrectly, assumed the kids would want me to be there on the first morning.) I felt a small pang of emotion choke me up. Its rediculous that I should feel weepy over them going to school this year. After all, they went all last year, right? But, I did/do.

I spent the morning cleaning, Sullivaning, and attending our lunch group. I left straight from there to pick the kids up. I totally love their pickup/dropoff situation. I didn't have to get out of the car (which is a total pain because I would have to unbuckly Sully to go in and get them.) I just pull up and they announce into a microphone that "Kyle and Addie" need to come to the curb. They even buckle them in!!

The kids talked excitedly for an hour. I gathered that they like their teachers, they both have friends and the kids speak Spanish, even though the teachers speak English.

I'm seeing a pretty good year ahead of us.

On a side note: my eye has been twitching for hours. What the heck???

Dreamy Roast

Yesterday ended up being one of *those* days. Nothing happened, particularly, to make it tough; yet, I found myself begging for bedtime to come around.

We made it to church on time, just to sit in the chapel for 15 minutes waiting for the rest of the ward to show up. I can usually make it through all of sacrament meeting with the kids - but yesterday Sullivan was experimenting a little too loudly with his voice, so I took him out to walk around when there were still 15 minutes left of the meeting. Of course, Adeline followed us out.

During the 2nd hour of church I walked and rocked until Sullivan was asleep in my arms and sat down to the last 20 minutes of Sunday School. I had just loosened the baby carrier and got comfortable in Relief Society when I heard a familiar cry and looked back to see Adeline at the door. Shelly saw me with the baby so she went to help her, but I figured I would go check to see what was wrong. I was almost out the door when the R.S. 1st counselor announced that I am giving the prayer. (This is something that drives me NUTS about church in Mexico. They never pre-arrange prayers - just throw you on the spot. I don't speak church-Spanish very well, so I really appreciate 10 minutes or so to do a quick translation in my head before I have to pray. . .not to mention that I was flustered because I was worrying about Adeline.) I went and gave a really embarrasing nonsensical prayer and then rushed out the door.

I found Adeline and Andrew (her little American friend.) sitting in their classroom with the teacher, her friend, and Shelly (Andrew's mom and my friend.) They weren't teaching a lesson, they weren't playing, they weren't singing. They were kind of all sitting there looking at eachother, with someone occasionally stopping to chastise one of the kids for playing with the chairs. Of course, I'm confused because they *should* be in sharing time with the other kids. I made the mistake of asking why, which quickly led to me understanding that this is something that has been plaguing Shelly for a while. Apparently, our ward has some reason to believe that Sunbeams aren't supposed to go to sharing time. ARGH! This would be fine if they had some other activity planned for them that hour, but honestly they were just sitting there expecting the kids to do nothing and behave while they did it. Finally Shelly offered paper for drawing and they were happy to do that for a little while. It turns out that Shelly has previously brought it up with the primary president and it really offended her that someone was implying she was not doing things according to church policy. I'm not sure *what* I'm going to do about it at this point - but there's no way I can handle Adeline acting out like that each week at church ; and its obvious that she's going to act out if she's subjected to that kind of boredom each week.

Anyway - we did get through the rest of church, with no small amount of irritation on my part. We changed into casual clothes and I finished up the beans and corn to go with the roast in the crockpot.

We spent the evening with Kyle's friend from high school who is in Guadalajara on business. After we took him back to his hotel, I put Sullivan and Adeline to sleep and tried to relax.

I spent the night dreaming about food and restaurants. Everytime I woke up I thought I was smelling a REALLY great meal. Our bedroom window was open, so I was left to wonder who and why and what and where was smelling so wonderful.

Finally at 8 o'clock this morning I was heading downstairs and I realized that it was *my* house that smelled so wonderful. This whole sequence of events returned to my memory and I realized that I had filled the crockpot with water after I pulled the roast out. It had so much dried on roast bits that I thought it would make it easier to clean later. Well, I left it like that for the entire evening yesterday and all through the night. I'm *so* glad I put as much water as I did because it had almost nothign left in it when I checked it this morning.

It was kind of like my own candle burner (you know those hot plates that you put your jar candles on to release the scent without burning the wick.) Do you think I could make any money by offering up my "Day-old burned pork roast" scented candle??

Random Pictures of the kids

They're being cheesey before church a few weeks ago.

I just love him. punto.

This is a picture courtesy of Guthrie. It reminded me that I never told anyone about my near-fatal accident. (it happened right when we got back to Mexico and we didn't have phone or internet for a month after that.) I tripped on a toy on the stairs and fell onto the top landing. I was pretty darn grateful for that top landing, because if it had been in our old house, I would have fallen all the way down. As it was, I hit my head on the wall and messed something up in my foot - but nothing was broken. It was swollen and purple for about 2 weeks, but I only had to wear my little casty-bracey thing for a few days.

In my mom's kitchen in Gilbert, Arizona. He spent a fair amount of time in this little booster on the floor. We had another booster on the chair next to him for Caelan (Ashely's daughter.)

Is he the man, or what? Who else do you know that could study for the board exams while simultaneously calming a crying preschooler. His efforts rocked her right to sleep. *LOVE this man!*

I'm not sure what this expression is all about, but I love it anyway.

I'm pretty sure this is right before Kyle rocked her to sleep in that picture up there. Too much swimming, not enough napping, and WAY too many people giving her what she wanted = crabby Addie.

LOL! her face!

Pictures of our Family Room

I took these pictures for my mom to show her how we arranged our new family room. Its pretty darn cozy (ie. SMALL compared to our last house here in Guadalajara) but we have really liked living here. Here's hoping we can skip our "annual June move" and stay here until graduation June 2009. *fingers crossed.*

Pictures in Pinedale

Sully-man.

She seriously fell asleep like this and I had to drive for about 20 minutes balancing my neice on the front and a limp Addie on the back.

He thought he was pretty cool.

Another view of sleepy Addie.

I'd like you to meet dirt. . .and his friend the popsicle.

This is one of the many faces of Sullivan. He does this furrowed-brow thing that is supposed to melt our hearts, but instead we crack up at him. When he's teetering on the edge of a tantrum, our laughter usually doesn't help.

We spent a few days in Pinedale, Arizona where Kyle's parents are building their dream cabin. Dirt, treats, dirt, freedom, and dirt ; what else can a kid ask for??

We took the Ranger up to the peak of the mountain to see the fire ranger in his tower. It was quite the drive - and as you can see, we had a great view. Yes, that is Sullivan's carseat strapped into the Ranger. :p

Its shadowy, so its hard to see - but here the kids and I are at the top of the fire ranger tower. We had an awesome view of the towns around, but I'll admit to being paranoid that Sullivan was going to jump out of my arms.

This is my Sister in law and her girls. We took the kids for a ride to distract them from the dirt for a minute. It worked. . .for exactly a minute.

While waiting. . .

I've been putting off updating because I'd like to do it with pictures. Unfortunately, I need Kyle's laptop to upload, and the man is a studying-machine- so I may not get the chance for a while.

Sullivan is walking all the time now. He wins the award for the slowest walker out of my kids. He was 14 months on the dot when he decided that walking upright was a worthy goal. He also wins the award for the fastest to reach the goal once it was set. He went from first efforts to fulltime walking in just a couple of days. Its adorable to watch and I feel sad when I see the novelty of it wearing off. I feel like I'll always watch him toddling around and just glow with pride - but I know soon enough it will be old news and we'll all move onto something else.

*HE* is already moving on to something else, as evidenced by his recent trick of dead-lifting his body onto the coffee table. I wouldn't call it "climbing" as there really isn't climbing involved until the last possible second. He spreads his arms over the top of the coffee table (narrow-width wise) and grips both sides (can we say monkey-arms?). He then arches his back while simultaneously pulling with his arms (Think of those guys that can grip a light-pole with their arms and then pull their body into a full horizontal position.) Just when I'm sure he's going to collapse from the effort, he'll bend his knee and clammer the rest of the way up and sit on his bum with the mose elated grin you can imagine.

I think walking really agrees with him. This little guy is happy for hours at a time - and if you knew his disposition prior to walking, you would know that's a big deal for me. He just wanders from room to room trying to see what the big kids are doing. He also chases me around the house asking to nurse - but he's definitely started to space that out a lot; something I never thought would happen.

The last few nights he has slept through the night. YIKES, can it be real??

Adeline and Guthrie are back into their good ol' Mexican habits: begging mom to go to the museum EVERY day, sometimes twice a day if I make the mistake of taking them too early and not staying long enough; watching every movie we own for short clips throughout the day; kicking and fighting; whining about being hungry just minutes after I clear the table; you know, the usual.

They start school on Wednesday, the 22nd. They can hardly contain their excitement - and while I'm better at holding back my glee and joy, I'm sure my own happiness outweighs theirs. I have a mile-long list of supplies to go buy them:

An Abacus - abacis - abawhatevertheheckitscalled. . .one of those counting things
A feather duster - why??
25 large black garbage bags - I'm pretty sure that we are supplying their janitors as I can't see any occasion for this in the course of their schooldays, and this would be 25 bags PER STUDENT.
your various and expected crayons, markers, pencils and pencil cases
etc., etc., etc. . .

I also have to go get them uniforms - which I was lucky enough to see a sample of. VERY mexican, homemade looking - but what do I care?? I'm just glad that Addie can't fight me everyday on what to wear. Blue skirt or pants, white shirt. . .or would you like *this* white shirt??

They both need school shoes, and heaven only knows where I'm going to get those. I'm *so* not good at shopping in Mexico and have done pretty well to avoid it over the last 2 years (other than groceries).

Anyway, with their preparations I'll be busy for the next few days.

Kyle will be taking his board exam on September 22nd, which means he'll be flying to Arizona and I'll be staying here with the kids for 3. . .WHOLE. . .DAYS. . .ALONE. Not sure how I feel about that. (although, if you caught the inflection I was intending with those ". . ." and the capital letters, then you can probably guess how I feel about that.) He's studying every spare minute of the day, but I've managed to salvage our Friday night date nights. This means that tomorrow night I get a dinner out. (thumbs up :)

Overall things are good. We had a decent time in Arizona. I loved seeing my family and spending time with them. Kyle and I didn't really do much together as he was studying that whole time. I got to spend 3 weeks with Ashley, whom I hadn't seen for a year. (another thumbs up.)

So there - I updated. Sooner (hopefully) or later I'll get pictures up, but in the meantime, I'll just enjoy all of yours. So go post them!!

Back from techno-less land

I cannot believe I get to finally log back in to my blog. Its been over 2 months! AHHH!

We've been waiting and waiting for the local cable company to get their shorts moving and hook our neighborhood up with the 21st century. Unfortunately, we get to keep waiting. In the meantime, we found a little thing called e-go. There was a kiosk in the mall so we went for it, knowing well enough that it probably wouldn't work in our neck of the woods - BUT IT DOES!!!

I can't wait to post pictures, catch up, and read around my friend's and family's blogs - but for now, I'm off to clean the kitchen.

Good night - sweet, beautiful, cherished, darling blog.