Workarounds

Creative Genius

Being down here with a toddler has brought out the creative genius in both D and me.  Well, maybe not genius, but we do have think of new ways to do things.  Case in point: Avery's meal time.  For a while, we propped her up on a new bag of diapers on a dining room chair and put her at the dining table.  That worked all right, but felt a bit less than safe given the surrounding surfaces are all very, very hard.  The other day, I saw a little plastic chair while we were in town, so we bought it.  Now, Avery sits in that little chair, we open up the doors under the coffee table, scoot her under and we have an instant toddler sized table.

For the cupboards that contain glass items or things Avery shouldn't get into, we are using her hairbands to rope around each of the cabinent knobs thereby preventing toddler thievery.  For the super long blind cords, we are using her hair clips to clip them up and out of the way.   Turns out hair accessories come in very handy down here.

Shopping

We went art shopping in town this morning.  We are required to decorate our home with art in order to be in the rental program.  We are fully aware that our place will likely not be rented for a very long time, but there are other benefits to getting in the rental program sooner (e.g. then we don't have to pay the property management fees).

We may have found a painting we like well enough for the living room, but have to tape out measurements on the wall to see if it's the right size.  We thought we found a table runner for our dining room table, and purchased it, but the colors are too muted for our tastes.  Hopefully we can use it in the upper bedroom.  Among other actual purchases today: a pitcher and a square bowl.  Yep, we didn't make much progress.

I was pleased with us both as we did negotiate for the items we did buy.  Now, I'm quite sure we still got ripped, but given we don't speak Spanish (a fact which becomes more and more embarrassing each passing day), I was just pleased we both successfully bartered the price down from the albino gringo price to the fair skinned gringo one.  I will be content to reach the well-tanned gringo price.

Avery

Avery is still having a wonderful time.  It's rather endearing that she started using Mommy and Daddy regularly pretty much on the day we left Portland.  She had said them before, but they are now fully a part of her daily vocabulary.  D will be upstairs and she'll says, "Mommy?" and I'll say, "Yes, Young One?" and she'll then say, "Daddy?" and I will say, "He's upstairs right now."  She then says, "Ohhhh," and knowingly nods her head.  I kid you not.  It is so freakin' cute for about the first hour of the day.  Then it starts to get a little dull having the same conversation over and over.  But then she says bubble and it's cute all over again.  I love when she says bubble.  It's my favorite word of hers.

Also hilarious, is her consistent use of the words thank you.   She's very good about saying it at the proper time.  But she also uses when she picks up something she shouldn't have (e.g. the remote control).  She picks it up, looks at me, says dank koo, and the toddles along her merry way until I take it away from her.  Cracks me up. 

She also officially knows what the beach is and why it's fun.  At some point during the day she starts to say beach over and over.  Then she'll start repeating words that she associates with the beach: hat, bubble, bath (because of the water), shirt (because she puts on her sun shirt to go to the beach).  When we do go to the beach, it's tough to get her out of the water.  She loves the water.  Mostly she likes to pretend that she's swimming from Daddy to Mommy and then back.  She also loves to watch the birds fly above, or watch the pelicans dive for fish. 

Quite confusing to Avery is that pelicans are not ducks.  She keeps insisting they are ducks.  We say, no, pelicans, but she just keeps on quacking and signing for duck.

Her sleep has basically normalized.  We don't follow a strict schedule here, but she sleeps through the night fine and is now going down to sleep and for naps without too much effort.  It is so much easier to be down here with her at this age than it was just six months ago.

 
DVDs

Bringing DVDs down here was a stroke of genius.  We have finished season 1 of The Wire.  I so wish we had bought and brought the other seasons.  D is watching Firefly without me; I am watching The Office season 1 without him.  We have a Bones DVD that I imagine we'll start watching tomorrow night.

Weather

Tomorrow is supposed to be 98 degrees, but it says it will feel like 111.  Egads.  However, it's not as bad as it sounds.  In the mornings, it's a tolerable 70-85, then we spend the hottest hours back at the casa where there is lovely air conditioning and when Avery needs to nap anyway.  The evenings cool down a bit more, too.

 
General Goings On

We went to the farmer's market in town on Sunday.  As much as I want to be a person who thrives in a foreign market environment, I am simply not.  I'm curious to see them, but once I'm there, I just kind of freeze up and can't wait to get away from the crowds.  I had the same feeling when we went to the bazaar in Istanbul - I was so uncomfortable.  I don't particularly enjoy farmers' markets in the US, either.  I like them once in a while, but find it difficult to be there long. Anyway, there were a lot of people and it was hot and we didn't bring Avery's stroller and we don't speak Spanish and ... end result is that D had to do all the purchasing while I waited on the sidelines with Avery.  In addition to food, we bought Avery a ball, as well as a little stroller for her doll.  Both of these items thrilled her.  It is also good to know this is a place where we can get a lot of functional items.  They sold food, of course, but it was like a big Goodwill with many used and unused items being sold by various folks. 

Other than that, not much to report.  We're just hanging out and having a good time.  Life is good.