babies kissing mirrors

babies everywhere, I think, kiss themselves in mirrors.
when Selma kisses herself in the mirror, she kisses herself two times - - one kiss for each cheek. I wonder if this phenomena is common among all Spanish babies? I think I'm going to have to ask around.
(are you a Spanish mom? does your baby do this?)

can't you just see it?

remove bicycle.
replace with vespa:

friendship fusion

Brett had a birthday recently.
(you know Brett, right? - - part of our Christian community - - doctoral student in a local Spanish university?)
Brett runs in a cool, university crowd - - these architecture students spend their birthdays weaving through the labyrinth of Pamplona's old town streets - - picking out their favorite pinchos at every bar along the way, a different friend taking turns paying for the selection of food and drinks . . .

we run in a different sort of crowd.
we run in the "make a birthday cake and invite some friends over to play some silly games and then relight the candle three times so that we can sing happy birthday in English, Spanish, and Euskera (it keeps the kids happy and refines their language skills, you know?)" sort of crowd

Brett invited us along to his birthday celebration anyways (partying differences be darned!), because we're his church family, and he believes that neither he, nor we, (nor you for that matter) should compartmentalize our friendships and gatherings into "Christian" and "other".
we agree with Brett - - and he's our family; and so, with this kind, purposeful invitation, out we went, at 9pm with our three sweet ones in tow - - toys and snacks packed in the stroller,

and ate good food
and met and re-met some of Brett's friends (some who now, in fact qualify as our friends)
and had some good conversations - - some trivial, some significant
and were glad that Brett had invited us
and glad that we had said yes
We made it home by 2 am - - very early by Spanish standards.
(we're kind of new at this)

well then, try it again, this time in Spanish

Recently, when Josu and Malachi were in the midst of some swordplay,
Malachai developed an elaborate plan of attack
which he tried to explain to Josu.
When Josu didn't understand,
Malachai explained it again - - but in Spanish

I don't think that Josu understood it that way either,

but it made me smile

(mullet - - bottom right corner)

Pamplona rocks the mullets.
it's true.
we giggled a lot about it when we first got here, but, quite honestly, over the years we stopped noticing. In fact, I -- the Smith family hairdresser -- have plenty to do around the house and am quite willing to overlook my boy's hair as it starts growing over their collars. ("when in spain . . . . " if you know what I'm saying . . . )

So when my brother Noah came to visit this summer, his fresh eyes reminded us of the startling quantity, quality, and variety of mullets in Pamplona; and we all had a good chuckle at the expense of Pamplona's hair tendencies.

Malachai approached me today - - concerned that he had a mullet (indeed he did)
I snipped that bad boy off in a heartbeat
Thanks, Noah, for keeping us in the know about appropriate fashion across the great blue sea.
p.s. what about temporary tattoos? are those cool or not, because Malachai got one, and he said that he thought that you would say "I liiiiike that"

Josu, Spanish-ized:
if you ask him for a kiss on your cheek, he insists on kissing the other too.

I think our weekend might look like this:

the weekend
"I was at home all day long laying down because I was sick"

pulled out of Malchai's school portfolio from last trimester
p.s check out his sweet rendition of the couch. the armrests are almost identical to the originals

enjoy, my boy, enjoy!

disfrutar: to enjoy
yo disfruto: I enjoy
el disfruta: he enjoys
ellos disfrutan: they enjoy
vosotros disfruteis: you all enjoy

Malachai lounged on the kitchen bench yesterday and told me:
"mama, I'm just going to sit here and disfruit this snack before I go and do more puzzles"

disfruit, huh? it feels good to raise a bilingual child. it will bring him many advantages in life.

wine country

Malachai was waiting for me out in the hallway to take him back to his post-siesta classes this afternoon when I overheard this chitchat going on with our next door neighbor, Ana:
Malachai: "I'm taking some grapes to share with my class"
Ana: "oh! of course! it's the vendimia!"
me: "wha? . . .
Malachai: "yeah, the vendimia - - the first day of the grape harvesting; did you know, Ana, that the grape harvest this year wasn't as abundant as it was last year?"
Ana: "yes, but the quality of the grapes is better"
Malachai: "it's because we didn't get as much rain as we did in 2007 . . . "
aaaahhhhh. the vendimia. that explains his passionate plea for me to buy his class some grapes when we passed by the market earlier today.
explains it perfectly!

So when I picked him up from class, I asked him if his classmates enjoyed the grapes. "no! we didn't eat them!" he told me
"oh no?" I asked "what did you do with them?"
"we're saving them for later so that we can stomp on them with our bare feet to make wine!"
nice.

something you need to know . . .

if you want to be a two year old with any social standing whatsoever in our local park, it is necessary - - absolutely necessary to own one of these little plastic motorcycles (called motos); everyone who is anyone has one.
if your parents don't want to dish out the fifty bucks to buy you your own moto, make sure that you know someone who does own one (in this plaza it tends to be the lovely little Jaquelyn); stand next to it, eying it wistfully and reaching out a longing hand towards it until the mother of the moto-blessed friend pushes it towards you and urges you to get on and do a little loop.

on raising boys in Spain

So. the June Cleaver of Spain doesn't have chocolate chip cookies and a glass of ice cold milk waiting for her boy when he comes home from school;
It has come to my attention recently that the Spanish mom that's really on top of it greets her boy at the end of his school day with a fat bocadillo de chorizo (that's right - - a piece of nice crusty baguette with a few slices of our favorite cured pork sausage tucked insde).
I'm slowly figuring these things out; it's hard work learning how to be a perfect mama in two cultures.

in Spanish, there are two ways to relate an event:
there are cuentos - - stories (the fictional kind)
and there are historias - - histories (you know, the true kind)
I like it; I like that in a world where the distinction between the real and the imaginary is too often muddied, there exists a way to differentiate between the two - - that within the vocabulary itself, I'm offered the possibility to tell my boys the STORY of how Jack slew the giant (uuuhhhh . . . althoughI have to admit that in my version Jack doesn't actually slay the giant, he returns good for evil, and wins the giant over to be a dear friend . .. I'm a dork, I know . . . ) and the HISTORY of how David slew the giant Goliath.
It's nice, don't you think?

on a different, though possibly equally important, note - - I think I'm becoming an old woman.
I like blue cheese
I like walnuts
I like blue cheese and walnuts together.
growing old is actually kind of pleasant.

we had our first snow flurries last night; for some reason this strangely excites me (is that just because I have always lived in snowless Mexico, Texas and California? or does that happen to even regular snow dwellers?) And this morning, all snow vanished, we took a family trip to the Malachai's school to make up the parent teacher meeting that I completely forgot about last week (ummm . . . the one in which I was planning to apologize to Clara for slacking in so many of my parent responsibilities this school year). Clara expressed some concern that Malachai was having a hard time sitting and finishing his class work, and she wondered if maybe this was the result of him not attending class in the afternoon. have I mentioned this before? Although most Spanish children attend class from 9-4:30 (with an hour and a half break for lunch), Joshua and I have decided to send our boy to class only in the mornings - - a decision that, although scandalous among teacher and parent alike, the school has permitted us since legally, a child is not required to be escolarizado ("schooled") until he is six years old. Clara has been nudging and prodding towards us bringing Malachai in the afternoon for a while now, and although we still think it best to have him home with us in the afternoons, we did assure her that we will be working with him at home with some more structured activities. This seemed to satisfy Clara . . . and she was gracious about the missed appointment.

on raising boys in Spain

When we came back from spending a leisurely morning in downtown Pamplona to pick Malachai up from school we were rerouted by school personnel to the local emergency room. We did find him there; he had just finished up his pineapple juice - - bought for him by his teacher after he had tried convincing her that he needed a cafe con leche.
It turns out he had been playing toritos - - one of his favorite recess games in which one child, with fingers up as horns chases after a group of running, taunting boys; and he fell. five stitches baby.

. . . and we made sure that the school got our cell phone number.