celebrating cultures (and respective mustaches) from around the world

Josu and Malachai (plus classmates, plus teachers, etc . . . ) helped to celebrate cultures around the world in this year's school Carnival festival - - Josu celebrated as a Mexican and Malachai as a China man. In order to get some pictures, I had to push my way through crowds of territorial, excited parents all of whom must have received some sort of recording device from the three kings this holiday season , because they were all taping all the processions - - whether their child was performing or not.
with a few strategically placed warm glances and and gentle requests, however,I was able to situate myself close enough to complete my parental picture taking responsibilities. enjoy:


there he is - - that infamous local legend - - Miel Otxin, in flames. After all the dancing, each class sent its representative to place the totems (the bad things - - attitudes or conduct that the students wrote down on pieces of paper) at his feet, to burn with him.

(yes, that produced some healthy conversation over our lunch table)

and today, the day after the festivities, I am very pleased that both Malachai and Josu have some left-over staches. Josu's is short and sweet and Malachai's is elegantly droopy.
I keep telling Josu to give me some leeto Mexican kisses; and he readily obliges.
Malachai has taken over the guitar. I had to stop a crazy rampage through the house earlier - - in which the sweet Mexican instrument was being swung over Malachai's head as he pretended he was an orc. don't ask me how he knows about orcs; he just does, ok? If you really must know inquire with Joshua.

one of the little ways that we are trying to love to our community is by regularly opening up our home (well, our home is always open, but this is more aggressive inviting) to Ana and Pablo - - the children of one of our neighbors.
When Ana comes over, she loves to feed Selma and decorate sugar cookies
When Pablo (one of Malachai's classmates) comes over, he loves to sing Christmas carols at the top of his lungs and and to incite Malachai to a state of excited frenzy (although, who are we kidding? Malachai doesn't really need anyone to do that for him; he gets there on his own)
Pablo doesn't really like to decorate sugar cookies, but sometimes we make him do it anyways. just a little. and then I let them be crazy.I wonder how some of you are showing love to your communities? please share!

speaking of soup . . .

so my Spanish friends often make what they call pure' - - where they boil up potatoes and carrots, zucchini, leeks and other vegetables of the sort, and then they blend it all together to make a nice smooth, creamy soup. I have made this, and enjoy it, but to tell you the truth, I like my soup to have chunks. every once in a while when I make my chowder I get it just right, so that the potatoes are soft, but not falling apart
the broth is thin, but it also has some sort of substance.
do you know what I'm saying?
but if I get it right, it's really quite by accident.
do any of you have to perfect formula?

an update on my morning

I hear this from the kitchen:
Selma: MA, MA, MA, MA, MA! (her excited, emphatic request for more food)
Rachel: Selma, you can't eat the butter off the bread and then ask for more; it doesn't work like that!
it's good to have a sister around to teach my kids the rules of food; I have a feeling my kids would be seriously messed up without their aunt Rachel around.

and I'm off to the kitchen myself now, to make the largest pot of potato corn chowder known to mankind, so that the next time I take a little nap and end up sleeping through lunch, Joshua doesn't have to feed the family peanut butter and yogurt sandwiches (not that there is anything wrong with pb&y sandwiches, mind you). good man.
and maybe I'll have some buttered bread while I'm at it.
and perhaps I'll put a double batch of butter on my bread now that I know I'm not supposed to eat the butter off and then put more on.

expectations are funny like that

There was once a time when I could take my knitting along to the pasteleria and knit idyllically as I sipped my coffee and chatted with Joshua; or sometimes I would just leaf through the newspaper, or journal all the profound thoughts spilling out of my clever mind. I loved that time!
and then one sweet child was born to us
and then another
and then another
what joy!
And I kept trying to take my knitting along, but I found myself frustrated (of the angry variety) as I would have to put my knitting aside again and again and again as one sweet child climbed up onto my lap, or when another fell off a chair and needed to be loved on, or when another stripped a toy out of the hands of a docile child at the neighboring table, and I needed to intervene.
And then I stopped bringing my knitting; I stopped worrying about getting anything accomplished.
and all of a sudden, I didn't mind so much when I had to coddle a crying toddler, or when one of my sweets climbed onto my lap with a huge stack of books, or when another repeatedly asked for help with his puzzle.
in fact, I kind of enjoyed it.

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

building immune systems

um. I'm pretty sure she pulled that pizza crust out of the trash. I won't ask.

in just five minutes . . .

what I made my family for dessert last night:

Sugar, modified food starch, cocoa processed with Alkali, disodium phosphate (for thickening), contains less than 2% of natural flavor, artificial flavor, tetrasodium pyrophosphate (for thickening) mono and diglycerides (prevent foaming) red 40, yellow 5, blue 1, artificial color, BHA (preservative)

but it sure tasted a whole heck of a lot like chocolate pudding.
Joshua kept asking for more. I think he only stopped so that he could save some for a treat later.

You too, can be a fun, quirky family that keeps a carton of milk out on the porch! here are five simple steps:
1. have your baby chuck her last pacifier on the sly as you go for a walk. promise her that "that's the last one you'll ever loose, little lady!"
2. hear the baby scream at night (give her extra snuggles, but don't give in)
3. move the baby's crib from the room next to yours, to the kitchen. Assure her that "this is in your best interest, and you'll thank me someday!"
4. live the trauma of having to send your boys to school without breakfast because the baby's sleeping in the kitchen and you don't want to wake her up.
5. learn you lesson and plan ahead. put the cereal and the bowls in the living room. keep the milk cold and accessible by putting it on the porch.

there you have it! (I said the steps would be simple, not easy, ok?)

everyone doing their part

Last night, part of our Christian community (some of them are traveling this weekend) spent some time together . . .
Joshua: prepared and taught a really fantastic study on Luke chapter 7, provoked good dialogue
Brett: brought the wine and cheese, asked some really good questions, participated actively in dialogue about Luke 7.
Naomi, Rachel: cleaned the house and prepared the dinner (except for the wine and cheese), answered Brett's really good questions, participated actively in dialogue about Luke 7
Malachai: participated actively in dialogue about Luke 7 (a little too actively, in fact. Joshua had to ask him to stop answering all the questions and to give everyone else a chance), fell asleep on the couch when the dialogue went too long.
Selma: slept. that helped the dialogue.
Josu: flipped through every single page of the five children's bibles that we own.
every
single
page
that's 2,469 pages
(I did the math)

The Picture Bible - - the timeless stories of the Bible, in full color! (it's what the cover says)

remember the The Picture Bible? I seriously used to spend hours upon hours pouring over this comic-style bible ("how could Jezebel be sooo beautiful and yet so eeeeeevil?" I would ask myself, "and were those things hanging around her face earrings . . . or part of her headdress?")
Well, fantastic Rachel tracked down a copy of this classic for Malachai and, of course, he loves it.
So I pulled him and the bible up onto my lap last night (one of my unwritten, unspoken, unprocessed resolutions for 2009 is to stop making my kids have to beg me so much for me to sit down with them and read them their bibles), and I read him the account of when Elijah throws his cloak onto Elisha - - calling Elisha to follow him. Well, if you remember, Elisha is willing but asks if he can first say goodbye to his Ma and Pa, . . . and . . . Elijah says yes.

"very interesting", I thought, "doesn't Jesus say the exact opposite to his followers? weird."

At some point later on in the evening, Joshua - - who had, the whole time that I was reading to Malachai, been sitting across the room translating some book into Spanish, said to me,"I wonder if Jesus' call to the disciples was purposefully juxtaposed to Elijah's - - blatantly identifying his person as greater and his call as higher than Elijah's."

Joshua's pretty awesome that way.

he doesn't just wonder about the mystery, he finds an answer.

I think I want to do more of that in 2009 - - So I there's my other resolution for 2009 (and look, I'm writing it down!)

p.s. yes, I know I had to write down my first resolution to tell you that it was unwritten; just gloss over that part.

just in case all you've ever wanted was to know how to make a sword and shield out of a cardboard box and duct tape, look here.
you're welcome.

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

fusion. fashion fusion

this what we call fashion fusion: Joining the classic styles of yesterday with the modern trends of today:
mary janes and skinny jeans. yeah baby.

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.

wash day (has to be pretty much every day in Spain)

the average load capacity of a Spanish washing machine is (in my humble volume evaluating opinion) about half of the average load capacity of a typical American washing machine.
this used to drive me a bit mad. but really, it all makes sense
this is how I see it all fitting together:
Spanish living spaces are small
the typical installation point for a washing machine is in the kitchen. the kitchens are small.
people just. don't. own. dryers. (I'll reserve my thoughts on that for my exciting "drying clothes in Spain" blog entry - - yer excited, aren't you?)
the most common location for your laundry line is on the teeny tiny porch just off your kitchen
there isn't much space on your tiny line (on your tiny porch) to hang many clothes
so really, it wouldn't make sense to be able to wash a large load anyway.

wherever you are, whatever you are doing . . .

we are housing Ricardo - - Brett's new roommate, for a few days (until they sign the papers to move into the apartment), and yesterday we had such a very nice breakfast with him. I mean, the breakfast itself wasn't so fantastic - - all I had to offer was toasted day day old bread (I convinced myself that it was guest-worthy by putting out two varieties of jam and honey) but the time together was good. there was this fantastic dialogue going on - - good questions, good thoughts, good challenges. And all the while there were so many distractions going on - - Selma toddling in, climbing up laps, and then climbing down, toddling out and slipping on the way . . . and the boys wresting in the hallway, and coming in for parental intervention, and getting a snack on the way out . . .
it was all
so
crazy.
and
I
loved it.
Because pursing truth isn't reserved for only the quiet, calm times; it isn't reserved for a specific place, or time, or volume level.
it's just
part
of
every day life.

January 6th, three kings day

I found this delightful little treat waiting for me when I got up this morning:there is Herod, off to the side, refusing to worship
and the kings (you know, the magi), doing what they should be doing.
yeah.

because it didn't get finished for Christmas morning

the kings (or "the men dressed up as kings, although we don't really know how many there really were" as they are known around our place) come tomorrow and leave the good little Spanish boys and girls all sorts of goodies to open up early the next morning.
I am doing my share

letters to a sister

Dear Abi,
These past few days as I have been going about some of the menial tasks of keeping home (like cleaning out that corner that all the odds and ends got tossed into while you were here - - because our precious hours together couldn't be wasted by doing too much tidying!) I have lovely memories to feast my thoughts on, like . . .

the runs we had together (just so you know, I totally let you and Gillian beat me up the gigantic hill)
you guys letting us drag you out into the cold night to see the Olentzero parade
the cheese platters (hooray for Gillian for bringing five varieties of French cheese across the border to us!)
the ice skating (how could it not make my heart glow to see Josu hanging gleefully between you and Nathaniel)
the late nights playing games
the dancing (by the way, those brown cords looked so much better on you than they do on me; I hope you took them with you)
the conversations - - the big group ones as well as the two or three huddled in a little corner sipping tea onesSelma bypassing everyone, every day to get to Nathaniel's lap
cooking together
and then the washing up
(and that time that you and Nathaniel called out for pizza on the day that I crawled into bed for a wee nap and ended up there for five hours)
haircuts in the kitchen
just being together
yes.
it was perfect!
aaaaaahhhhh, yes.
I knew your visit was going to be good, but it was even better than good.
Malachai summed it up nicely today when someone at the coffee shop asked him about his Christmas holiday, and he said that his favorite bit had been his aunt and uncle visiting.
yes.

much love from our home in Spain, to yours in England,
Naomi

p.s. we miss you. and you guys are missing out on the great family fun that happens around here on a daily basis, like when Malachai stuck his finger down his throat last night and threw up because he was "just trying to see if he could touch the back of his neck"

p.p.s. we forgot to make fresh gingerbread; blast!