Monday, June 29, 2009

"If you are bored then you are probably a boring person." (Quote from 10th grade English class.)

I grew up in Chula Vista, which was recently named The Most Boring City in America by Forbes or some magazine. I'm not even kidding.

When the report came out, I figured the research was done by a bunch of ignorant white folk. I mean, yes, Chula Vista may be lacking in quality music venues and fancy restaurants, but it's a lot more interesting than the quiet suburban neighborhood where I live now.

In Chula Vista you hear so many different languages all the time. Spanish at the supermarket. Tagalog at the mall. English at the gas station. And you can find spices and foods from all over the world. The music blasting out of the cars can have beats or accordion or both. The people are different shapes and colors, unlike north of Del Mar, where I am often the most "ethnic" person at the party.

And for this reason I love going to Chula Vista's neighborhood beach, Imperial Beach, more than the ritzier La Jolla Shores or Coronado. Yes, IB gets a bad rap for being so close to the border and, yes, it's had water contamination problems. (But so has Mission Bay, people.)

IB is where we went for our first beach trip of the year this past weekend, and it was perfect. Front row parking, no more than 50 steps to a spot with wet sand for ultimate castle-building. Mexican kids playing with gringo kids. Lifeguards cruising on ATVs and waving to the girls.

Ella hasn't been to the beach since she's been able to walk and she didn't know what to do with so much open space. For the first 10 minutes, Marina and Ella ran in circles on the sand and then went straight for the waves.

Marina had more fun knocking down castles and jumping over sand hills and burying Matt's toes. Ella diligently worked on tiny little "cakes," filling a bowl with sand and then turning it over to reveal a perfect sand cake.

It wasn't boring. It wasn't boring at all.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

The new look

So I was home one day on furlough, procrastinating the mess I had to clean up, and started tinkering around on the computer. That's how this blog got a new look.

Really, it's just a picture of the day the girls were on the Seaport Village merry-go-round on election day.

I like the blurry lights in the picture, for sure. But I also like how this is a snapshot of a memory because that day everyone was in a good mood and excited. We had a pizza party and Marina was running around singing "I got McCain! I got McCain!" just because it agitated her dad and grandfather and uncle and mother.

And, as we did not get McCain, it makes the picture that much more special.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

June update

So this month hasn't been quite as tragic as some past Junes (but there's still time!).

Even so, I've been light on the blogging because Marina is going through a phase. Or, at least it better be a phase. It's kind of an awful phase.

She's being so, so mean.

In the morning, she comes in to Ella's room all sweet and cuddly. She gives us hugs. She may even give Ella a little head pat. But then: mean.

She'll take Ella's pacifier out of her mouth and throw it under the bed. Mean!

She'll take Ella's blankie and run around the house just to hear Ella cry. So mean!

She yells at Matt if he doesn't press the right song on the Yo Gabba Gabba play mat. Meanish.

She screams at me if I poured a litte or medium amounts of orange juice/water/milk instead of a lot. Spoiled!

So that's our kid at the moment: a meanie.

Yet when I read this over, some of the things she's doing sound sort of like the things I did to my own brother. And I'm slowly starting to realize, this isn't a phase, it's payback.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Diseased

Ella has something called hand, foot, mouth disease.
Who would name a minor rash something so awful like that? Seriously.

Friday, June 12, 2009

It's all happening

We rented a jumpey for Marina's birthday party.

We don't even know what time her party is or what we're doing or anything.

All we know is that for a few hours we are going to have a pink and purple princess castle jumpey in our backyard and no one else can jump in it if we don't want them to and it's going to be awesome.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Enough with the videos already

When Ella was just a few months old, I told people that she was the nicest person I'd ever met.

Everyone was like, whatever, of course a baby is nice. But maybe this is that "mother's instinct" thing people keep talking about because I insisted it was different, unexplainable. She is just really, really nice.

And she is proving that maybe I do have mother's instinct after all (which I doubted because I never felt, like some people say they do, whether I was having a boy or a girl until the Ultrasound told me).

Yesterday, while hanging out in the living room, Ella walked up to me and said "besos." And then she gave me a kiss. She did the same to Marina, though Marina didn't see this as nice at all.

Then, Ella walked up to me and said something I'd never heard her say before, so it took a minute to figure it out: ovu.

What? Ovu?

Wait. Did she just say I love you? She did!

She said Ovu and then gave me a kiss. And then she said Ovu to Marina and gave her a kiss.

Sooo nice, right? Right?

(And props to Marina for not saying "don't love me.")

Friday, June 5, 2009

That one Friday we had pudding for dessert

It started off so innocently.



I didn't stop them because, you have to admit, it was kinda cute.



Especially when Ella laughs like this:



And the grand finale, in which, I swear, I did not tell her to sing that song.
(If you only watch one video on this post MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THIS ONE.)

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

"Don't Cry To Me"

It just speaks for itself, really




Afterthoughts:

1. I recorded this at a stop light.
2. Don't be alarmed by Ella's screaming at the end, she's fine. (She had something foul in her diaper, if you really want to know.)

Genetics

Anyone who knows me relatively well knows that for a variety of reasons, I hate June.

Yes, Matt tried to fix it by proposing to me in the London Underground on June 1. And it helped tremendously. But still, my fear of June is practically an automatic reaction.

So on Sunday, when I realized the next day would be June 1, I said to Marina, "tomorrow is June."

I swear, that's all I said. I didn't even say it all dramatic or huffy or sad. So I was super surprised when she said:

"I don't like June."

!!!

If there's ever a way to prove a kid is mine, it looks like she just passed the test.