On the first of March I had officially had my Blackberry for two years. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I LOVE electronics. Mind you that with a family, bills and other responsibilities, it's not often that I go out of my way to get some new gadget, but I drool over them more than most. I'm an APPLE lover, always have been. Something about them calls to me, probably because I love comics and Apple computers are known to have the best graphics of any computer in the market. While I've always had a soft spot for the iPhone for that very reason my carrier is Sprint and they've missed out twice on the iPhone sweepstakes. The closests I can get to it is the HTC Evo. A nifty little touch screen phone with all the bells and whistles. I've been drooling over it since it was released. So needless to say that when my two years came up it was like Christmas in March for me.
Crystal was nice enough to pick me up after work and head over to the Sprint store with me so that I could drool over phones and make my choice (though she already knew what I was dying to have). Now I get out of work at about 5:30, usually when I get out we have dinner and spend some time with the kids before they go to bed. So this was a bit of a change to the schedule they were used to. We were taking a chance but our schedules for the rest of the week didn't really allow for the trip to happen many other days plus Crystal actually had energy and we wanted to take advantage of that.
After a short deliberation the HTC got the nod. Usually picking a phone doesn't take long. It's the rest of the process that eats time. The paperwork, the additional things (A hard cover) that need to be chosen, the transfer of information from one phone to the other. You probably end up spending about an hour with just that stuff alone being done.
We were fine for about the first...forty minutes. Then Jacob decided he was DONE. He didn't want to crawl around, he didn't want to be in my arms or Crystal's. He just wanted out. He wanted to be home in his comfort zone and he wanted food...NOW.
We were only halfway through the whole process, it's not an easy little thing to do and stopping halfway through would be both heartbreaking for me and a PITA for the service rep. So we had to think fast on how to handle the little guy before things went south fast. We were already getting glances from other customers, not angry glances but pity glances (which is almost worst) and because he's cute people have even more sympathy and look at us like, fix it.
Usually he'll be thrilled with Saltine minis (life saving little crackers that they are) but nope, not this time. He didn't want his binkie either and we didn't think to bring toys with us, though by that point I don't think that would have helped either.
In case you didn't know I'm a diabetic. It's in check with meds and healthy (for the most part) eating but there are times when my sugar goes a little lower than it should and I get the shakes, the sweats and things like that. So for this reason Crystal always keeps something sweet around as an emergency stash. The last thing that we had in the diaper bag as an emergency stash was a ziploc bag of Chocolate chips (you know the kind you put into cookies) because they took little room and it didn't really matter if they were jostled or broken.
Drastic times call for drastic measures. Out comes the bag. We figure we give him a few, he'll take his time savoring them and he'll be happy afterward.
The little terrorist wouldn't hear of it.
He put the first one in his mouth, savored it and when he was done his eyes were HUGE and his little pudgy hands darted out for some more that I had laid on the counter. He wasn't taking them one by one, oh no, not this kid, he was grabbing two and three at a time. When they were gone? The bombing shelter siren that he keeps in his lungs went off again and out came some more chips.
It seemed like the more he saw, the faster he ate, the louder he screamed and the more I put out. This is in the span of twenty minutes mind you. Twenty minutes to finish the paperwork.
By the time we were done the little terrorist had eaten the remainder of the ziplock bag (about a fourth of it was full). His little eyes were huge and he wanted off Crystal's lap and onto the floor. The kid had rocket boots on cause he scooted the fastest I've seen.
You would think that a child who is only 13 months old would move on and not think about it again.
Well this morning Crystal's in the shower and it's just he and I. He's playing on the floor in the living room and spots the diaper bag. He makes his way over there, starts pulling things out of the diaperbag and finds the empty ziplock bag. Looks at it, makes his way over to me and throws it on my lap with an indignant cry.
He was looking for more.
With a sweet tooth bigger than he is, there is no doubt this is my son.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thank you in any language...
For those of you that don't know I'm hispanic, which means that I'm bilingual. I speak English and Spanish fluently and always felt that it's something that I should pass on to my children when the time came. (If you're wondering, I'm not mexican...regardless of the jokes that some people might throw out there) So when Jacob was born, it was natural to me to begin exposing him to Spanish. It's well documented that children that hear two or more languages early in development will have an easier time grasping them as they grow up.
Now I'd say that right now the ratio of English to Spanish in my house is about 80/20. It's not for lack of trying but in all honesty when we watch television, it's in English. Crystal's dominant language is English, she knows some Spanish and can understand me for the most part when I go off in Spanish but she worries that she isn't saying the words perfectly and refuses to sound silly. So for the most part the Spanish spoken is either me or one of the bilingual toys that Jacob has.
For the most part when it comes to things to watch there's two catagories, kid movies and then everything else. It's pretty easy to find a kid movie, they saturate the market with things that they believe witll entertain a child for about 80 minutes in various forms. Anyone with chidlren will tell you though that each child has a preference for WHAT it is that's on the television. Knowing our kids the way that I do I'm always on the lookout for something that I think will tickle their fancy.
It's with this in mind that I found a copy of Megamind for them. Grace, thanks in large part to me I'm sure, has an enormous love for superheroes and the battles they wage against the forces of evil. So it was a no brainer to get the movie for her viewing pleasure.
In the last two years or so I've tried to get Grace to learn little bits of Spanish, things that I think will help her along. See in my mind's eye I hope that the kids do end up being bilingual and with the younger ones I have a better chance. With that thought I've told Grace that she should try as well since there's nothing worse than knowing your sibliings could be talking about you in another language while standing in front of you.
Six year olds though forget most everything in life except what they love and what they want to have. So I constantly get asked "How do you say (insert word here) in Spanish again?"
Jacob and Grace were being watched by Grandma for a little bit while I went into work for a couple of hours and when I picked them up I told Grace, "Come on, I've got a surprise for you at home!"
Now Grace is a brilliant kid. I don't just say that because she's my kid, she's REALLY a brilliant kid. She reads at the fourth grade level and is doing math at the second grade level.. she's only in first grade. She is only held captive by her own imagination and desire to learn. Obviously it didn't take her long to figure out what it was that I had waiting at home.
We head into the house from the car and I have to change Jacob's diaper. For Christmas one of our family friends was nice enough to give Grace a White board/Chalk board easel which she uses to play or write us notes.
So when I came back out into the living room with Jacob she had written:
Dear daddy-
I (heart) you. Thank you (in Spanish) for getting me the Megamind movie.
Grace
I've been focused on getting her to undertstand how to SPEAK in Spanish, usually when she tries she sounds like a Texan talking to someone from across the border (which is beyond hysterical because she's never been to Texas). So she wouldn't know how to write in Spanish at this stage. It didn't stop her from trying though....
If you're unsure why this is funny... Thank you in Spanish is spelled Gracias.. So even when she tries to spell in Spanish, she does it like a Texan.
Now I'd say that right now the ratio of English to Spanish in my house is about 80/20. It's not for lack of trying but in all honesty when we watch television, it's in English. Crystal's dominant language is English, she knows some Spanish and can understand me for the most part when I go off in Spanish but she worries that she isn't saying the words perfectly and refuses to sound silly. So for the most part the Spanish spoken is either me or one of the bilingual toys that Jacob has.
For the most part when it comes to things to watch there's two catagories, kid movies and then everything else. It's pretty easy to find a kid movie, they saturate the market with things that they believe witll entertain a child for about 80 minutes in various forms. Anyone with chidlren will tell you though that each child has a preference for WHAT it is that's on the television. Knowing our kids the way that I do I'm always on the lookout for something that I think will tickle their fancy.
It's with this in mind that I found a copy of Megamind for them. Grace, thanks in large part to me I'm sure, has an enormous love for superheroes and the battles they wage against the forces of evil. So it was a no brainer to get the movie for her viewing pleasure.
In the last two years or so I've tried to get Grace to learn little bits of Spanish, things that I think will help her along. See in my mind's eye I hope that the kids do end up being bilingual and with the younger ones I have a better chance. With that thought I've told Grace that she should try as well since there's nothing worse than knowing your sibliings could be talking about you in another language while standing in front of you.
Six year olds though forget most everything in life except what they love and what they want to have. So I constantly get asked "How do you say (insert word here) in Spanish again?"
Jacob and Grace were being watched by Grandma for a little bit while I went into work for a couple of hours and when I picked them up I told Grace, "Come on, I've got a surprise for you at home!"
Now Grace is a brilliant kid. I don't just say that because she's my kid, she's REALLY a brilliant kid. She reads at the fourth grade level and is doing math at the second grade level.. she's only in first grade. She is only held captive by her own imagination and desire to learn. Obviously it didn't take her long to figure out what it was that I had waiting at home.
We head into the house from the car and I have to change Jacob's diaper. For Christmas one of our family friends was nice enough to give Grace a White board/Chalk board easel which she uses to play or write us notes.
So when I came back out into the living room with Jacob she had written:
Dear daddy-
I (heart) you. Thank you (in Spanish) for getting me the Megamind movie.
Grace
I've been focused on getting her to undertstand how to SPEAK in Spanish, usually when she tries she sounds like a Texan talking to someone from across the border (which is beyond hysterical because she's never been to Texas). So she wouldn't know how to write in Spanish at this stage. It didn't stop her from trying though....
If you're unsure why this is funny... Thank you in Spanish is spelled Gracias.. So even when she tries to spell in Spanish, she does it like a Texan.
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