Ju-speak has gotten pretty good since we have been here - he is even able to respond to questions about the past - what did you eat for dinner, what did you play with... He also is telling me things about the past without provocation - in reference to the bear on his toothpaste tube "I watch this with Neta in my home" and in reference to a robin in the tree "I have a this in my Brasil" (he has a bird stuffed animal that is NOT a robin, but it is mostly black and yellow, which I suppose looks like similar colors to what we are looking at here).

Today we were swimming in the pool and I was trying to get him to try to touch the bottom on his own. Usually I have to grab him and shove him under because he doesn't know how to dive and go DOWN, just under a bit. I was telling him to just jump off the steps and point his feet so he'd go down and bounce off the bottom and he said "No! I don't have a pilla! Forget it!" ("pilla" is Ju-speak for "pilha" - battery). We also witnessed a bird flying into the window and breaking it's neck, so we buried it and had a little bird funeral. Yes, this is how I spent my childhood too.

We have spent our days hanging out in our pajamas until we feel like going in the pool and then spending time in our bathing suits until we feel like having lunch and then maybe showering and maybe going out to visit people when they get out of work at 5 or 6. There really is something to be said for spending your days doing NOTHING.

I wasn't really intending to post while in Michigan. I have hardly been online and haven't been keeping up with any other blogs or forums or anything I normally browse. Today Ju and I were to head up north. My mom has rented a cabin up there and we were going to spend the rest of the week up there, walking in the woods, going to nature centers and basking in the wilderness that is the U.P. We were supposed to leave yesterday, but some storms came in and I wasn't all that hot about driving in them, so I put it off a day. Everything was packed and ready to go. We started off and merged on to the highway and came upon a semi-truck in the right lane. I went into the left lane to pass it and in the split second I took my hair down and glance back at it, it had veered a bit into our lane. I swerved to not hit it and the truck started to fish tail. I have never fishtailed in this truck and I think I was over correcting for the center of gravity. I lost control and hit the brakes and turned the wheel. We started to turn around and I saw we were going to crash as it happened and yelled to Ju to hang on tight. We did a 180 in the median and tipped on our side, sliding about 50 feet, and came to rest on the incline towards the on coming traffic, which managed to tip us up right.

I saw the mirror come off as we slid backwards. I have no idea how I managed to keep my eyes open, but I watched the whole thing. We were lucky that we didn't roll over and over - going about 70 at the time we started fish tailing, that was what was most likely to happen apparently. I have to credit Christopher with the innate reaction to turn the wheel and hit the brakes to do a 180, which is what probably slowed the car and kept it out of oncoming traffic. We didn't even have any airbags deploy. I was still holding the wheel when we stopped and Ju still had his bagel in his hand. I turned around and asked if he was okay, and he said yes. I asked if he was scared and he said yes. "But are you okay?" "yes." Shortly after he finished eating his bagel while a nice man who stopped in the side of the highway called my dad on his cell phone and he told us to drive to a nearby supermarket to wait for him. The car still drove fine and I put it in 4 wheel drive to get out of the ditch, did a U-turn, and then a cop came so I stayed to talk to him before we both drove to the supermarket to wait for my dad.

The cop was very nice and talked to Ju and showed him the siren and the flashing lights. Ju was fine and very interested in the car and everything the cop said to him. After about 20 minutes, my dad showed up and we talked to the cop a while longer, he finished his report and told me that I would not have a ticket (thank goodness) and that if the car was driving, we might as well take it on home and deal with the insurance. It is now at a body shop in the village and I won't see it again before I leave. It needs 3 new panels, painting, some balancing and a new mirror. Still waiting on the estimate.

I still am amazed at how calm I am through this kind of thing. It was the same way when Ju got his stitches - my husband was freaking out and I was talking calmly to him, trying to make normal conversation. This was the same way; I as able to calmly explain what happened, tell details, remember reactions, and I think that cool reaction helped Ju to not seem to be freaked out at all. He didn't even cry, whine, or anything. He just kept eating like nothing had happened.

The thing that sticks out in this whole mess is the background feeling I had this whole time about something not being right with this trip. I was tense about the directions, where I should go, maps, GPS, the route, getting lost... If I hadn't been going up there to be with my mom, I would not have decided to make a drive like that on this trip, alone, with Ju. I have been really tense about it. The universe/God sends signs about this stuff, energies, feelings... If you don't follow them, you see what happens. This trip was apparently not meant to be for me this time around. I am supposed to stay close to home. So here I sit, no car, lots of food that I bought for up north, watching T.V. with Ju and walking around outside. There is something to be said for down time.

Last night we went to a Bobby Mcfarrin concert. I have to admit, when my husband said "we're going" to this concert, the night before I leave to visit the USA for a month, I wasn't all that thrilled. Yes, it was a late night and I am going to be extremely tired on the plane, but WHAT a concert! It was awesome! If you've never been and have the opportunity, do so - well worth the money. Our seats were in the 3rd row and people were invited to the stage to participate and he had local musicians up to sort of jam with him... I would go again in a second.

Now, I am off to the airport, flying to the USA. Not sure how often I'll post in the month I am there, just because I will be busy visiting people, but really what would I post about visiting the States when this blog is about me being in Brasil? Not that you could tell much about Brasil from this blog anyway, since it lately has become more about Ju. In anycase, it won't be much worse than my average one post a month I'm doing at this point. Not really.

Last night we went to the birthday party of one of my students. Kids birthdays here are often in "kid's buffets" where you can rent out the place for the evening for a certain price, have your choice of foods to munch on, pop, beer, etc. The places are decked out with big climbing toys, small time rides, ball pits, and video games (think Chuck-E-Cheeses but imagine you could rent the whole place and not have to help pay the bill at the end if you are a guest). It's usually a good time, the kids are reasonable safe (at least, usually one brings the nanny or the maid to keep an eye on them so you can socialize - I am not one of these people, however) and they get really really tired and totally crash at the end, which is nice.

So last night's birthday was at one of the venues near my house, so I could walk there with Ju without too much worry. I didn't take a purse or any valuables, as we would be coming back at 8 pm in the dark by ourselves. All I took was my key chain with the house keys. When we arrived, as it was a closed building, I parked my keys on a table out of the way of the main adult's area and followed Ju around as he played. About an hour later, I saw one of the guys who worked for the venue walking around swinging my keys, so I chased after him to claim them back. He told me he thought they belonged to the owner of the place. Whatever. I took them and left them on a bench near where Ju was playing. At the end of the night, they were still there and we got a quick ride home from a mom and that was that.

I didn't even think much about it until today when I got home and went to unlock my door again that I noticed the key chain was lighter. I used to have a small collection of key chains - a Korean mask given to me by an ESL student, a key chain I got as the end of year gift from The Impact (the radio station I worked for in college), a DI key chain I bought in Rio in March, a US Rowing rope, and a self defense tool that Ju thinks is a pen but is actually stolid steel that you can jab into the side of someone who tries to bother you (or where ever you want to jab it). After closer inspection of my key chain, I saw The Impact one was missing. My house keys had been on there. My house keys were now clipped into the belt loop clip of my DI key chain.

I am rather sad because it was a sentimental gift that was stolen, but still you can't help but appreciate the consideration of whoever stole it; they took the time to take BOTH my house keys off the and make sure they remained with the the rest by clipping them in. This is one of the nice things about Brasil - even the thieves are considerate like this much of the time. I hope who ever took it is happy with it, since it was a heavy duty thing and good quality. I took it as a sign that it was time to let go of all that clutter and I am now down to my DI key chain, the rope and the "pen." If I ever happen upon it out in the world, however unlikely, I might say something to the possessor, but I would not ask for it back.

I spend a small amount of time everyday thinking about how different Ju's childhood is from mine. And probably how completely different it is from my husband's as well. Culture is such a big deal, traditions... everything is all mixed up in this house. It's like a 3rd culture is being created right here. I wonder how much impact it will have on him later in life. Will he want to move to the States? Go to college there? Will he look fondly back on his childhood in Brasil and remember when he could swim naked in public or pee in the bushes and everyone would laugh, or will he lament that we didn't have the money or access to go to things like theme parks and libraries (well maybe that last one is my own personal lament based on my childhood memories)? Have I taught him to love books enough? Will he be polite? Will I ever get him to eat by himself instead of feeding him, as happens with most kids until age 5 or 6 here? Am I going against my own traditions and upbringing by adapting to these things that I so strongly disagreed with while I was pregnant and until I was working full time?

Just a side note - I have become obsessed with this style of shoes. We have named them "chinel-botas" - sandal boots - for lack of a better name or proper term. I'm sure there is one, but I just haven't caught it in the right context. I now have them in brown (pictured), black (identical to pictured), and silver (in the back ground of the picture). I have seen and drooled over them in purple, but can't bring myself to pay a chunk of money for shoes that will go with 2% of my clothes. Red might be practical, or green. But I love purple. I haven't seen the like of them yet on sites based in the USA, so I hope I won't look too out of place as I tote them all over MI this summer when I visit.

Warning to my conservative readers - there are naughty words in this post. Also, children should not be present for viewing of the video if English is their native language.


Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to my water bike class. It's at an academy near by our house and everyone goes there - my husband, Ju, and me - a various times during the week. We have a good relationship with all the teachers and the owner and it's been a great experience going there.

I need music to exercise - like most people. My usual water bike teacher downloads things online and brings mix CDs to play during our classes. She even went so far as to find cool down stretching music to play at the end. She has really been going all out.

Today was an exceptionally hard work out with bike, abs with leg weights on, and trampoline in cycles. In the middle of the class, right about the time I started my second abs set, a new song began to play that I had never heard before and I began to laugh so hard that I was unable to do very much. The main lyrics of this song consisted of something along the following:

I wanna lick your pussy
Put your pussy next to mine
my pussy likes a big hunk of meat in it

Then it changed:

You wanna suck my dick
I wanna lick your pussy
I wanna fuck your pussy


Mind you, as this is playing, blasting across the pool, there are numerous 7-14 year olds in various states of swimming or listening to teachers, parents, nannies, all sitting there listening to this song. I asked the teacher if she had any idea what was being sung in the song, which of course she didn't. I told her to ask my husband to translate it for her the next time he went to swim, because I just did not have sufficient slang Portuguese to do it justice.

This video about sums it up.

Ju independence story number one:

About a week ago, I was chatting with my mom at Ju's request on the webcam. He enjoys seeing himself on camera and likes to show "gamma" things in the general vicinity, like toy cars, beads and sippy cups. For some reason (which we can speculate was that he wanted my undivided attention) he decided to take a whole mouth full of water and spit it onto the laptop.

Having a friend who is now on laptop # 3 due to similar accidents (that she was at fault for, having no kids to blame it on, although she has cats), I was quite concerned that this might completely fry my laptop and put Ju in time out on the couch while I tried to dry between the keys with a paper towel. By some stroke of luck, I did not have it actually plugged into the wall at the time, so there seemed to be no immediate danger. Ju began to cry sitting on the couch because he knew I was upset with him. I was mean while trying to talk to my mom about how best to deal with the problem but I could not hear what she was say and was afraid to type on the wet keyboard, lest I force some of the water through into the circuitry. I told Ju if he was going to cry, he would have to do it in his room upstairs, and took him up there and set him on the bed to continue his time out.

Back downstairs, I found I could pry some of the keys off and started drying up the water that remained. Ju continued to cry for another 10 minutes or so. After he had calmed himself, he came to the top of the stairs and called down "Mommy, I'm not crying anymore. I'm all done" and came back down. Still feeling angry at him, I ignored him and continued cleaning the computer. After a while he started asking me to put on Bob the Builder and when I told him that he was still in time out until I was finished drying the computer, he started to cry again. I ignored his crying and next thing I knew, he had gone back up to his room to finish his crying again, and then reappeared when he was finished. I didn't have to tell him anything.

The laptop survived okay, it seems, at least (knock on wood) there was no damage.


Second Ju independence story:

Weekends are for the family, parent's quality time being after Ju goes to bed. Late one night, as we were discussing our plans for the evening with Ju playing quietly in the living room, my husband mentioned he wanted to watch "the penguin movie" in reference to "March of the Penguins" which he hadn't seen. Ju has his own "penguin movie" ("Happy Feet") which he enjoys watching from time to time.

Unobserved by us in the kitchen, Ju proceeded to get his DVD case out, take out his Happy Feet DVD and jam it into the VCR. I think when nothing happened, he realized his error and started trying to get it back out. This resulted in both the DVD and his finger getting stuck inside and by the time I was able to get both out, he was quite freaked out and the DVD had a long scratch that now prevents you from watching beyond the first 40 minutes of the movie.

I have had this conversation with my husband before - that I would prefer Ju to know how to use things like the DVD player and the stereo to that if he decides to try to do things himself, he won't hurt himself. This argument was lost when he broke the last DVD player we had and almost got two tapes stuck in the VCR at the same time, so when we got a new DVD player, I never bothered to show him how to use it, not wanting to be blamed if he broke it. Now, at least, I think I have proved my point that he should be taught how to do things like this, if for nothing else than to prevent fingers from getting stuck in places they should not be. After he got over his fear of being stuck and fear of being reprimanded for "breaking" his DVD, I showed him which buttons to push. As of today, he's still afraid to do it on his own, but he is happy watching March of the Penguins instead of Happy Feet. He says he likes the music.

"Papai, mamãe did a bagunça all over!" (Daddy, mommy did a mess all over)

"É, isso mesmo. Espero que você não seja igual mamãe." (Yes, that's right. I hope you don't turn out like mommy)

Oh, and I forgot to add - Turkey, Cookies, and Chocolate sound like the same word in Ju speak. Had a hard time figuring out what he wanted to eat for breakfast this morning.

I'm sure I've said this somewhere along the way already, but living in Salvador is a little like living in a giant college town. People drink and drive all over the place, there is a constant party atmosphere, and even in the middle of a family residential area, there may be a party that lasts until the sunrise with no apparent regard for others sleeping or consideration for the general population outside the house where the party happens.

Last night, or rather, this morning, there was a small party (like of 6 or 8 people) at a house across the street here. Not only was it loud and took place mostly on the upper veranda area so the sound carried over the entire neighborhood, but at about 4 AM they decided to step it up a bit and turned up some Justin Timberlake full blast and scream at each other over it as one guy danced drunkly. This neighborhood is completely silent at night for the most part - we don't even have much traffic noise and the bars on the corner are not loud or rowdy, so this sudden burst of song was enough to get me out of bed and glaring at the partiers across the street. And I know they can see directly into my bedroom, as they can see everyone's in our condo. I'm almost positive that they woke up at least half of the residents this morning. It makes me want to light bottle rockets aimed at them to scare the crap out of them. Or get my stereo going full blast and point it at their veranda now, to blast them out of bed with their hang overs. But of course, I am more considerate than that. And I only want to annoy them, not my neighbors.


Happy Mother's Day!

Actual conversation this afternoon -

Ju - "Mommy, I wanna piranya." (referring to the hair clip)

Me - "Okay honey, you can play with one."

Ju - "Mommy, I wanna see a enwins."

Me - "The what?"

Ju - "I wanna see a enwins, in there." (pointing to the closet area)

Me - "You wanna see an engine? I don't think there is an engine in there."

Ju - "No, a enwins. There's enwints in there. I wanna see."

Me - "Ants? There are ants in there? I don't see any ants."

Ju - "No, a enwints. In there! The enwints. Enwings! I wanna see!"

Me - "Ju, I can't figure out what you are talking about. I don't see an engine and I don't see ants."

Ju - "Enwings! Enwingts! Da ... eawings. eawings!"

Me - "Oh! You want to see the earings in the box? Okay, now I understand..."

Ju is now 3 years old. Time just flies by, doesn't it? We had our normal big hoorah on Thursday - a feiJUada. About 50 people came with kids of various ages. There was feijoada, salad, rice, kibe, pao delicia, brigadeiro, bonbons, etc. I spent some 3 hours putting up my home made train decorations (I spent an entire Sunday making engines and cars that had 3 and Ju all over them out of paper and colored puffy paint) all over the walls and by the pool, blowing up balloons and making the quebra-pot. Part of the simple beauty of the decorations included strips of crepe paper in purple and blue. They blew in the wind in a relaxing way and made the whole area look very festive. As an after thought, we added pieces of it to the backs of the chairs as well.

About an hour into the party, a sudden cloud passed over and it rained all over us for about 5 minutes. The kids were all playing train by crawling through several boxes taped together and they stayed inside the "tunnel" for protection for the duration. I didn't think much of it as it was happening, but as the minute passed, I noticed that the color from the crepe paper was running down freshly painted white walls all around us. At first I laughed until the possibility that the dye might STAY there was mentioned and then I promptly began worrying about the cost of having to repaint the entire outside walls of the condo. This basically dominated my thoughts for the remainder of the party as I followed Ju around, cleaning up trash as I found it and trying to keep Ju's toys from being lost in the condo as our living room was invaded by the party and the kids discovered them and consequently began wandering around outside with them. A kid I don't even know but who came with one of the kids we invited wandered around and had torn down almost all the decorations before I saw what was going on. No adults stepped in to stop him, of course. This made me incredibly sad.

At about sunset, I couldn't stand it any longer, found someone else to keep an eye on Ju and started looking for ways to remove the dye on the walls. I quickly discovered that there was no Veja or bleach or even Q-Boa in the house (how did that happen?), so I took out a bucket and dish soap and a dish scrubbing sponge and a bit of water and started scrubbing away. Surprisingly, the dye did actually begin to come off with a lot of effort, and I was quite relieved. Someone came by and said something to the effect of "good thing you're doing it now, if you left it longer it might not come off" - which unfortunately killed my plans to quit until the party was actually over, so I kept on scrubbing. I was soon joined by the nanny of one of Ju's friends and my nanny's sister and my friend the Lion who was nice enough to bring me a Guiness but I had not been able to stop and enjoy it with him. We continued to scrub our way across the wall for about 2 hours, and with the help of some borrowed Veja someone got from another household and some steal wool (which I think actually took a lot of the paint off the wall along with the dye), we managed to get most of the marks off the walls. At least it seemed that way in the dark, and I actually haven't had the heart to go out there and see if it's really gone in the daylight. After the walls were done, we had to do the chairs as well.

This entire process meant that I didn't socialize AT ALL, for the entire party. It seemed like every time I started talking to someone, Ju would wander off, or someone else would show up and need to be greeted, or someone else's kid would be trying to throw more of Ju's toys into the pool (where do these parents get off to when the kids are invading someone's house I wonder). At least Ju had a good time. The party only really got fun for me when most of the guests had left and the remaining few and their kids all crowded into our living room to watch Woody Woodpecker and play in a more controlled manner. Some of the people I love the most were those who stayed, so it was nice to have their company and relax at the end of the evening (the older kids even helped Ju finish opening his presents, which was fun for everyone).

Things I learned from this birthday -

NO crepe paper on the walls, no matter how pretty it looks - it has ALWAYS rained on Ju's birthday, every year.

Purple crepe paper dye is easier to scrub off than blue (which leaves behind a pinkish tinge) and black.

Do not leave the house open, as it is next to the pool, the party will inevitabley spill into it if I don't lock the door.

Hide all toys and objects that I don't want to wander around with kids.

Don't expect parents to keep an eye on their kids or ask them to not do things like tear down my sweat and tears hand made decorations. Or better yet, don't hang them low enough for kids to reach.

Since eventually the majority of the party goers were in or around the pool, concentrate things in that area next year to save time and clean up area.

Don't stress about not getting to talk to many people because I think I am just not meant to socialize until Ju is older. How much older, who knows.



The sad thing is, many of these things I should have learned last year. This year was supposed to be easier. About the only thing that was easier was the setting up the decorations.

Ju says "You don wanna eat a my bala!" Like a subliminal message - it's not that he doesn't want you to eat it, it's that YOU don't want to eat it. Not sure if it's a confusion based on English chunks or if he really means to say that.

Getting ready for the big number three here. I've been making trains out of poster board and puffy paint for the decorations, and have gotten small blisters on my fingers from stuffing balloons with candies and small toys for the balloon pop game. This year we opted to have a feijoada instead of a churrasco to save some money and feed more people, but since it's a four day weekend, a lot of them are traveling anyway and won't come. I am thinking for good karma, we will have to take some of the left overs and give them out on the street.

The big present this year comes from the grandparents - a real bed. Sure will beat sleeping on the crib mattress on the floor. At the moment, he wiggles around so much, he is usually on the floor by morning.

Back in January (like 2 days after the new year, when I was still on the island, not taking the ferry back because we didn't want to wait in a line all day) I broke one of my molars on some churrasco salt. It was kind of a freak accident and actually I think it had been broken for a while, since it was sensitive to hot and cold for a couple of years, or had had a hairline crack or something, and the salt probably did it in. It took me a while to figure out that it was really BROKEN, so it was only about a week later that we called the dentist to figure out what to do. My dentist was booked up until after Carnaval, so I made a quick visit to one of my husband's student's offices and she put some putty in the hole and took out the broken piece so I could at least drink liquids without pain. About a week later, she squeezed me in between some appointments and put in a temporary fill with some semi-hard putty, and took an x-ray of the tooth.

Two weeks after that, still having pain, there was an opening for my dentist and I went with all the info from the previous dentist to see if I could have it fixed for real. She took another x-ray and decided it would be best to do a root canal and then a crown. But she doesn't do root canals. So off I went to a friend of her's office who does to make an appointment to do the root canal. This friend didn't have room for another two weeks. So two weeks later, I did half the root canal, but she didn't have time to finish before the next patient, so I had to come back again two weeks after that. Now that it was done, I could finally go to my dentist and do the crown. I made the appointment and was able to get in about a month after the root canal was finished. She took the mold of my teeth to send to the lab to make the crown and prepped the tooth, but I had to make an appointment for two weeks later so that she could request that my dental plan liberate this procedure. This was on Wednesday of this week.

Then yesterday I got an "emergency" call when I got home from my dentist's assistant telling me that there was something wrong with the mold for the top teeth and could I please come in and do it again right now because my dentist was going to travel for the holiday and the whole thing would be delayed by a week if it didn't get done. So I left directly from my water bike class (still wet, having no towel), amazingly got a bus that took me to Itaigara (a mall near her office) and rushed up to do the mold again.

I was in a hurry to get home and liberate my nanny (who has already stayed later three days this week because of all this mess), so when I missed one bus (Campo Grande R1) and the second one wouldn't let me on and I saw the state of the complete gridlock traffic of rush hour, I just decided to walk home. It's not that far of a walk (about 25 minutes) and there were plenty of people out and about. On the way I passed a guy dressed in rags and his shopping cart full of cardboard listening to an MP3 player, eyes shut, bobbing his head to the music. On another street I encountered a pair of shoes, one partially broken, left sitting neatly together near a wall for anyone who might want them. And as I was almost home, I was nearly run over by none other than the bus (Campo Grande R1) that I had missed back at the mall. So all in all, I didn't loose any time by walking, and in fact saved myself R$2.

So another tax day comes and goes. I didn't file... Again... Haven't actually done it since I moved here. I know I should. I know it's probably easy. But for some reason I just can't bring myself to do it. Even with the "economic stimulus package" attached to this year's return. If we ever move to the States, I'll have to file a lot of back returns. Not sure what the implications with that are.



Yesterday on the way home from school, we passed a large traffic jam going in the opposite direction. It had been caused by some kind of incident with a large truck full of plastic crates of 1 liter beer bottles, perhaps swerving to avoid a car or actually running into one, the result of which was at least 10 of the cases falling off the truck into the street and onto the cars behind it. The whole area was littered with broken brown glass and beer. Cars had windshields smashed in. The entire TWO lanes of traffic (on a major road that connects one end of the city to the other) was completely stopped as no one wanted to drive over all the broken glass. It seemed to have just happened when we were going by - the spilled beer was still foamy. I didn't bother to watch the news yesterday, so I have no idea how long the traffic jam lasted.

Part of Ju's prepping for school is working with his fine motor coordination. He has loved to paint and color since he was 1 and he has been beading with pony beads for the last 4 months. About a year ago, I got him some plastic (yes, even the blades) safety scissors to practice with, but after a few runs, they wouldn't cut anything anymore, so I started letting him use the pink handled kid's scissors that Sheila left here two years ago. Mostly, he would just cut little pieces off the edges of papers and that was interesting for him and I let him make little messes all over. Then they disappeared and he went over a month without cutting anything. This past weekend I bought a new pair of standard kid's school scissors for him and now it seems somewhere in this month of no-cutting-time he has matured to a "cut strait lines through a piece" stage and is now making many paper strips here at my feet.

Now having been a victim of credit card cloning in Brasil, I had to take a day off work today to go use the notary at the American Consulate in Salvador to file my affidavit for Visa. For those of you unfamiliar with our consulate, it is only open from 8:30-11:30, Monday through Friday, which conflicts with most work schedules for those of us who work full time. So I set out at 8 AM to get my stuff taken care of, with the loose plan to head into work when I was done. Once I got there, filled out the form I discovered that the fee was R$54 and I had only brought R$52 with me. So I packed everything up and returned home to retrieve R$2, walked back, paid my fee, and was finished with the whole thing by about 11. Now, however, it was a bit late for me to go into work, so I just stayed here and took care of Ju because our nanny is sick. I also hoped to do some report cards, but again, I cannot seem to access the H drive at school and so here I sit....

Today I wandered around a toy store, looking for new things for my classroom. Ju came. He was reasonably well behaved and left without a tantrum AND without getting anything. It was amazing. Now... could I risk taking him into Toys R Us next time we visit the States? hmmmmmm.......

A conversation with Ju at 10 pm last night (he napped from 1-about 7, so he went to bed very late):

"mommy, what's this?"

"It's a shell."

"A shell. It's a snail?"

"Well, there was a snail in it, but it's dead now. It left."

"It's a snail there. See the antena? It's not dead anymore."

"No, it's gone. That is the point on the shell, not an antena."

"It's a point on the shell. The snail is gone."

"Yes, it's gone. Put it to your ear. Do you hear the ocean?"

(he puts it up to his ear)

"I hear it. I hear the ocean in the shell. I hear a car."

"I think you heard the car pass by on the street. But do you hear the ocean?"

"Yes, I hear it. The ocean's in there."

"The ocean is in there?"

"Yes, the ocean is coming out. The ocean's coming out of the shell. It's in there."




Kids are so cute! This comment goes right along side the day he saw the window open and the rain was coming in on the floor and said "It's raining, mommy. It's raining in my house."