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After our busy baptism day, we slept quite soundly. Craig awoke at 6:45 am as Yoselin patted him on the back. By the time I woke up she was already in bed between us. This was our favorite time with her; before anyone else was awake, when she was still sleepy, quiet, and cuddly. We laid for quite a while, talking softly with occasional nose beeps. Eventually we heard a quiet "Stephanie?" and Paulina peeked her head in. She laughed as she saw Yoselin. She had been looking all over for her, under the bed, at Humberto's mother's house, at Humberto's brother's house, etc. We laughed and said from now on, check here first. We explained that she had done this every day so far, but today was the earliest.
We played in our room for a while and then went next door to breakfast. We had corn flakes with a few Choco Krispies sprinkled on top for sweetening. We also enjoyed extremely fresh orange juice made by Paulina's father. Craig went to take a shower after one of the kids, but found that the valve was broken. Mario (Humberto's brother) stopped his work on the new rooms and immediately got to work in the bathroom. Since we hadn't showered since the lake yesterday, and I had little plant bits in my hair, I decided to wash my hair in the sink. It became a spectator sport as the girls huddled around me. (The same phenomenon happened when Craig shaved each morning). When I was done, Yoselin and Aracely washed their own hair as well. Humberto was going to have a test for his class, so he and his "mates" had a study date in his office. We hung out at the house. Rocio, Neli, and Josue (who was Mario's son) came by as well. Aracely was being very territorial with her peers, Neli and Josue. Craig and I were sitting on chairs watching the kids play and Neli came over and touched me. Aracely was right behind yelling "No! Mio!" Mine! Neli tried to climb onto Craig's lap and Aracely, who hadn't had much contact with Craig today aside from a morning hug, would say "No!" and climb onto his lap herself. Josue seemed to respect her authority. At one point he sat in her tiny wooden chair, but when she came back he didn't even wait for her to complain, he just immediately vacated the chair to avoid trouble. Aracely may be the youngest in her immediate family, but she is the boss among the toddlers. Neli is definitely in the "terrible two's", grabbing anything she can get her hands on and declaring it hers, being defiant, and crying and whining a lot. Aracely doesn't cry much unless she has hurt herself or is trying to nurse. It was obvious on this trip that Paulina was trying to wean her, but she gave in to her often I think so that Aracely wouldn't be cranky for our brief visit. We were playing outside and Aracely was in the house with Mom. Aracely pushed the curtain back from the dining room doorway and called "Mira Mira!" Look look! Meaning that lunch was ready. Lunch was sopa verdura, salad, and fresh tortillas. Aracely drank the last sips of soup from her large bowl, and when she put down the bowl, she had a noodle stuck to her forehead. We all got a good laugh out of this. After lunch we played some more. Craig and I were the "caballitos" (little horses) and the girls sat on our laps while we bounced them up and down. They would shriek and giggle, and offer us imaginary quetzales as payment and "propina" (tip). Craig complained when I consistently got better tips. Yasmin brought us dulce de leche lollipops from the store. Craig just looked at the lollipop and all of a sudden he looked rather green. He had some warning and I was able to signal to Paulina that he was going to be sick. She ushered him to an area of the construction and he was sick. She told the kids to leave him alone for a few minutes and it was obvious to them she was serious about it. Aracely got a little bit scared and she approached as Craig was cleaning up. I picked her up and brouught her over to him so that she could see that he was ok. She was worried about her padrino (godfather). Craig and I went into the room so that he could take a little rest. Yasmin came in with a flower bud for him. What a sweetie. After a short while Craig felt better and we sat outside, but we told the girls that he couldn't do caballito (horsey) games anymore, bouncing them on our laps. Yasmin and Paola were swinging their little purses around and Yasmin's strap broke and the beads went rolling along the cement. She got upset and we calmed her down and re-threaded the beads. Rocio helped me and we were 3/4 done when Aracely came over and bumped me by accident and the whole thing fell and the beads rolled away again. The kids gathered them up and we re-threaded them again. Humberto came back from his study session. He had made a cd of us of photos from his camera (his nephew took photos at the baptism) and was now late for his class. Mario had by now finished the concrete in the bathroom and covered it with plastic sheeting, so Humberto took a quick shower and was then on his way to his exam. In order to finish off the re-threaded purse, we needed to shorten the strap a little. Yasmin was disappointed that there were extra beads (we had had to shorten the strap a little bit to re-attach it) until I suggested that she could make something with them to match the purse. She went to get some thread. She cut a small piece, threw it away, cut a huge piece, cut that into three, discarded two, and then threaded the beads on the third. She asked me to tie it around her neck. Neli and Josue played with Aracely, and we had the traditional afternoon bread and Rosa Jamaica tea. The girls traced some pictures from the Richard Scarry book and asked us to do some as well. We drew with them, and eventually it was just Yasmin, Yoselin, Craig, and myself. Aracely was napping and the older girls were playing at another neighborhood house. Craig taught Yasmin and Yoselin to make paper airplanes and we flew them to one another. I gave them the sheets of stickers we had brought for them. The girls squirreled most of them away, trying to keep the best ones for themselves. I made them a folded paper finger game and they played it with everyone they could find. All of a sudden chaos rolled in. Paola and Vanesa were back, and so were just about all of the boys and girls. Luis, who is always very polite, asked if he could use the camera, so I let him take some photos. The toddlers went into our room, and as they came out I scooped Josue up. He let me do so, which was surprising because he usually gets scared. Craig and I got a photo with him. Paola called us for dinner. It took a while to disengage from the throng of kids, and we knew we wouldn't see them again on this visit, so we said our goodbyes. Dinner was fried plantains with cream, frijoles, and scrambled eggs with coffee to drink. During dinner, Yasmin asked when we were leaving and when we'd be back. We said we left tomorrow. Everyone looked solemn, but we said that we'd be back in July. Vanesa lit up when she heard this. Yasmin counted the months. Yoselin and Yasmin went into their rooms and came out to regally present the stickers to their sisters. They had Vanesa and Paola count to twenty and when they opened their eyes the girls yelled "Sopresa!" (Surprise) We had to butt in and make sure they shared all of the stickers. Yoselin got very cranky about this and we realized that she was really sad about us leaving. Last time she hadn't had to deal with saying goodbye because she was already asleep before the kids found out we were leaving in the middle of the night. She went to her bed crying. Craig and I went in and comforted her and convinced her to come back to the dining room. She realized that she had decorated Paola's notebook by mistake instead of her own and she started to cry again. We put her stickers onto her own notebook but it was clear she was a mess. I held her for a while and then Craig held her and she fell asleep on his lap. We put her to bed and gave a kiss goodnight. The other girls drew pictures for us. Yasmin added a baby chick to hers. Vanesa drew a baby chick, wrote "baby chick" on it and then wrote "Para Craig" . Craig said "Para mi?" (For me?) and she corrected him "pollo" (chicken). Then she understood what he meant and we all had a good laugh. We chatted with Humberto and Paulina for a while and the girls played in their room with the camera. After a while, the girls came back out. We said our goodnights and went to our room at 11:30. We were asleep by 12:30 after packing, but I didn't have the energy to write. |
     
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