Merry Christmas!

Christmas card

Here is Alex taking a break from his lunch to read a Christmas card from Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Jennifer. He really liked the pictures and asked me to read it to him.

He is eating so well on his own. When the fork doesn't work, he just uses his hands and he seems to get enough to eat that way. He is still on the small side, but we think that is genetics, not nutrition.

He has started saying house...ouse and when I put him back to bed in the middle of the night (after a snack) he says "gacias" or dah dooh (thank you). He is a sweetie...as if I don't say that enough!

Christmas baby

Here is Alex with our little tree. Last year we didn't even get a picture of him with a christmas tree! Everytime he goes by the tree he asks me for a candy cane.

christmas cookie party

This first picture is of Alex, before the cookie making partywe had yesterday. I was telling him that his buddies were coming over to play and he was already waiting for them is his p.j.'s.
So, yesterday we had our first annual christmas cookie making party. Dalit and Asher, Linda and Uzziel, Monica and Patricio, Me and Alex and Dalit's friend Jenny all came. It was really fun... except when I knocked about 30 cookies on the floor at one point!!! The good thing was that we saved about 20 by blowing on them... Everyone came early to bake the cookies, I had already made the dough ahead of time. I think only a few had ever made cut out cookies before so it was also like a cookie class.
We took turns watching Alex, Uzziel and Asher since Patricio is still pretty small yet. They played outside with dirt and on the swing and with the balls and shopping cart...well they fought over the shopping cart. They also played inside too. Everybody was here almost all day long since it took so long to bake and then decorate all the cookies. Overall we had a great day.

Uzziel and Alex

Uzziel came to play on Saturday with Linda, his mommy. He is 4 1/2 months older than Alex. I was amazed at how well they played together. They had alot of fun. They do really well together. When it was time for Uzziel and Linda to go home, Linda told Uzziel to get Alex because we were going to leave. So Uzziel went and took Alex's hand and walked all the way down the driveway with him, hand in hand. It was SO cute...but I missed taking a picture. I did get a picture of them once they had sat down on a doorstep at the end of our driveway.

playing with playdough

A friend gave me a recipe for playdough. I didn't color it since I was worried the food coloring would make everything colored, not just the playdough. He enjoyed it for a short time. He liked putting his spoon and fork in and making them stick.

new words

Yesterday he asked me for his gogu (yogurt). He has also been saying please (peahs) and thank you (gahsahs). It's weird, those two words are always whispered... He also calls peas, grapes, oranges, tomatoes and any other round food :balls. He sits eating peas and rolling them around saying ball. It's pretty funny. Daniel tried to teach him to say uva...which means grape but he'll say avu and then ball again.
When he's about to go off to do some mischief like pick up a coin he saw or take all the dvds and look at the pictures and then try to stand up on a stack of them he kisses his hand and says bye bye. and then he'll wave until I acknowledge that he is going away by saying bye back to him. Of course then I always follow him to see what he's trying to do.
Yesterday I was counting the cars for him...there are four (two are the tios' and two are ours) so I counted them : one...two...three...four... and then he counted... toh, toh, toh, toh...it was really cute.

buddies

Here's Alex and his buddy Asher. They had a playdate on Wednesday this week. It consisted of Alex forcefully taking back each of his toys from Asher then saying "gracias" very kindly and whispery. Asher is wearing no pants here because after he got his diaper changed he decided he didn't want to wear them anymore. Overall I think they had a good time. Asher put up with a lot but I'm sure the tables will be turned when we play at his house. Up til now he's been pretty tolerant of Alex though.

look who got a lollipop

me cepillo los dientes!

This is how I pretend to brush my teeth... I run around with the toothbrush in my hand and show my pearly whites.

Hey Grandpa, it's your day! Have a happy happy birthday.

Goin' shopping for Christmas

Alex is getting himslef a ball and a train :)

big boy

I took Alex to see the doc on Friday to check if there was a physical reason for his night wakings. Apparently he is perfectly fine, and now, thank God, he has stopped getting up at 1 in the morning. He wakes up at 4:45 for a little bit but thankfully goes back to sleep until 8 a.m. The rest has made us all a little less irritable and given us more energy.

The great news is that Alex has jumped back on the growth charts...he was hanging out below the bottom rung and now he is at 50% for height and around 10 for weight. The doctor told me to stop worrying about his weight and told me to just try to give him pediasure to give him some extra calories. But overall he said Alex is developing normally and seems to be fine. And once again I breathe a sigh of relief...

ashes ashes...I'm gonna fall down!

Ashes Ashes: Last night our friendly neighborhood volcano gave us a wonderful ash shower... Some people get snow...which I don't envy them...we get ashes, don't envy us either! It's not fun to breathe it in or wipe it off the cars and floors... yuck. Hopefully this was our entire experience with it this time around. What do I expect...it is an active volcano.

I'm gonna fall down: Mr. Alejandro has decided he likes to scream every night around 1 a.m. and when we try to console him...he blows us kisses and asks to be picked up...then when we try to put him back to bed he screams again. So, for three nights in a row, one of us has had to sleep in bed with him. Daniel and I are both ready to collapse.

Stand still so I can take your picture!

Everytime I get out my camera, Alex runs away! I think he thinks I'm making a video and he has to be doing something. It's hard to get his smiling face on a picture these days.

Where are your arms?

playing in the car

birthday fun

Today was McKenna's birthday party. Here are me and Alex with McKenna and Vanessa.
Daniel found a good way to keep Alex busy...he stuck him up in the tree. Alex didn't want to come down. He is ALL boy. (and part monkey) He just stayed up there making his bird sounds..kind of squeaking and squealing with joy.
He had a great time at the party. I think it was the first birthday party where he actually wanted to play with the other kids and eat the cake. He also sat down with the other kids to watch McKenna open her presents. There were a lot of older kids there who played with him. They had a game of soccer going but were really patient with Alex when he cut into their game to kick the ball. They even tried to help him play. He got a lot of attention and loved it. At one point though, there was a boy not so much older than Alex who decided he wanted to wrestle. I looked up from my conversation to see him slam Alex down to the thankfully grassy and not so hard ground and then I heard Alex saying "ya ya ya ya ya" which in Spanish is sometimes used to mean, "enough, or stop". He didn't cry, he basically just told the other kid to get off. Alex is now saying a bunch of new words... more, please, amen (after we pray for meals), and I can't think of the other ones...oh yeah, he was already saying bye bye before I wrote the other list of words. He says "ya" alot now. He hears us saying it so he'll repeat it.

Happy Turkey Day

Two years ago on Thanksgiving I was calling a ton of people to say I was pregnant. I can't believe how fast the time has passed but I am much more thankful now than I was on that day! Now we know that the little apple seed sized baby that was beginning to grow in me was this incredible little person who we'd name Alex. What a huge gift he is to us. I can't even say how thankful I am...but I thank God every single day for this sweet little boy and I ask God everyday to help us parent him and direct him and love him as best we can.

Sunday again

Here's Alex driving with Tio Pepe in the back yard. He always lets Alex climb in while he parks the car! Alex loves beeping the horn and turning up the radio.

Here's el principe in his swing. It has started to droop so he's not been allowed to swing since the day we took this picture...I think it was on Wednesday. We have to fix it to make it safe again. Anyway, Alex is still coughing up a lung but seems to be doing better. He is sleeping all night! So, we're not as dead, but now Dany bought the whole first season of LOST so, instead of being up because Alex is up, we are up watching like four episodes every night! It's so good, by the way. We didn't get it here last year and now the show has just come onto Mexican tv networks, but it's dubbed in Spanish and it's last season, so we just bought it on dvd in english to watch it all. (ANYWAYS...enough about US!)
So, Alex is such a gift. Honestly, I was almost in tears yesterday as I watched him running around the playground in Burger King. He is a miracle really. Just to see this little living and breathing person we were blessed with. He really makes me smile. There is a little tinny sounding piano as part of the play area there and he kept banging on it and clapping for himself. Then a little girl came up and shoved him out of the way, as he tends to do to smaller kids. So he just ran around doing other things. He is so laid back...how did that happen??? But his temperament is starting to show a little more and he does pitch a fit every so often. He gets pretty upset when he wants to do something he can't figure out how to do, like get the drumstick out of the empty water jug. (after he dropped it in to see what would happen.) We're still stuck on the taking out/putting in phase... I tried to get him to color the other day but he preferred eating the crayons. We'll try again later on.
He is talking more everyday now. He has his repertoire of words in each language.
Spanish: agua, mas, pato, mamá, papá English: ball, pooh, balloon, banana, more, cheese, fish, shoes, quack, yeah( sounds like aaah) Both: no He also says Alex sometimes, he says it like this: aah-es He still doesn't say so many words but he understands a lot. If I ask him to throw something away, he will do it and then he'll make sure the top of the trash can is on straight too.
Yesterday I bought him a pooh poster at the "dollar" store (it's called Wald0's mart and everything costs 13 pesos.) It's pooh and tigger playing soccer. I put it up on his door and he LOVES it :) He really loves winnie the pooh. I have practically memorized every movie we have from hearing it over and over again. I keep telling Dany to buy a new one! They only cost 3 dollars anyway (bootlegged copies...shhhhh, we're not selling, just buying :).

smile!

Well, I haven't written anything this week because Alex is sick again and I'm tired of writing about it (him getting sick!). I'm just plain TIRED. He wakes up at least four or five times at night coughing and wanting comfort and hardly naps during the day. All of us are exhausted. I just keep praying that tomorrow he'll be better. But once again...he plays as hard as ever...so thats a good thing. I made him some guava juice today which he drank down. It's supposed to be the fruit with the most vitamin c. I guess it helped a little at least.
So, anyway...here in the picture is my sick little Alex and his papa.

At the table

At about 2 out of 3 meals a day, Alex has decided that he wants to sit at the table instead of his highchair. Here he is at lunch today, eating his peas. Notice the sticker on his hand he got for swallowing his medicine. I still had to sit on him so he wouldn't knock it out of my hand!

pa rum pa pum pum

Abuelita gave this drum to Alex. It's a real LP conga for kids. It was going to be for Christmas but she couldn't wait. He loves it! He is a true musician.

getting stronger...

Alex is getting better again. We finally found out last Friday afternoon that he has an intestinal "buddy" who has been causing disatrous things in his little tummy :( So, now he is once again on antibiotics to kill the sucker. He HATES his medicine. I have to practically sit on him and dump the meds down his throat. But I found a little trick that seems to help. I give him two small stickers after he takes his medicine...one for each hand and he walks around afterward, so proud, showing off his decorated hands. He likes the pish stickers the best (pish=fish) I hear him talking to himself as he plays: "pish pish sh sh sh".
So, Friday is the last day for medicine and then we'll have to test him again to see if we got rid of mister entamoeba histolytica (to give the exact medical term). Hopefully this is also what has caused his lack of weight gain...but we'll see what happens.
He is so active despite the battle going on inside of him. We are so proud of him, he is a sweetie. He gives real smoochy kisses now...and sometimes he wants to give them smack on the mouth. It's so cute. When I kiss him and put him to bed at night...he makes a little kissing noise and then rolls onto his tummy with his bum in the air. so sweet...

mi casita

Today we built a house out of the floor squares. Alex "invited" me to come in and play. I asked him where his bed was and he lay down on the floor and showed me.

Here's Alex playing with his blocks. He is wearing his favorite rugby shirt from his uncle Andrew and aunt Souraya. As you can see, he also likes to play with an empty wrapping paper tube and an inflatable pool ring... He is not exclusive when it comes to toys.

One step forward . . .

Well, I haven't had time to update lately since Alex got sick AGAIN! We went to play with his buddy Asher on Saturday without knowing that Asher had some sort of stomach bug. So, of course Alex, Daniel and I have all had it this week. Poor Alex, he started having tummy troubles Sunday night and as I was cleaning him up, he looked up at me sadly and said "no- no- no" in such a sweet and pitiful little voice. But now I think we are all getting better finally. Alex woke up hungry today, which is a good sign since he hadn't been eating almost all week and barely drinking anything at all!
Even though he has been feeling sick, he wants to run and play. He will just lay down on the floor every so often though to rest....poor guy.
Alex's abuelita taught him the word for more in Spanish. So, now if he wants us to push him more or if he wants more cheerios, or more book reading or more of anything he says "mas". It's so cute, he tends to leave off the 's' sound though. He has also started saying no-no when he is doing something he knows he isn't supposed to do. He will walk over to the exhaust pipe of my car ?? which he loves to stick his little hand inside!! and he'll wag his finger like you do here to say no and then says no no no. It is so cute. It's hard not to laugh, I try to be serious but it is so difficult.
Alex has also started making up his own sign for the word butterfly. We have a ton of butterflies because of the flowering bushes that divide the neighbors and our property. Well, I'll ask Alex if he sees the butterflies and he will raise his arm and wiggle his fingers. The other day he was in our room and I saw him standing by the nightstand making his sign for butterfly. I asked Daniel if there was a butterfly in our room and then I noticed a butterfly candle holder on the nightstand that Alex was looking at! Isn't he a smartie :)

One...Two..Three...Besos!