Monkey See, Monkey Do

When Max and Rudy are together it's a strong case of Monkey See, Monkey Do. And although Max is usually the first to do something and Rudy the follower, it does sometimes go the other way.

This weekend we all got together at Bill & Renee's house. Max and Rudy had fun. It's a good thing Bill & Renee don't have any living room furniture - much better for running around. Max was actually heard saying "Stop copying me." To which Rudy replied, of course "Stop copying me".

The boys both had applesauce (good thing Chris & Patti brought an extra for Lucy that she didn't eat.)




Then we went out for water ice. Rudy had picked out apple as the flavor he wanted but then I asked Max what he was having and he said orange water ice of course Rudy changed his mind to orange also.




Lucy had fun playing with bubbles. As soon as she starts walking she is going to be part of the Monkey See, Monkey Do group too.




And she and Rudy played with chalk. (Patti I hope the chalk came off your pants!)

Rudyisms

Rudy is just talking up a storm lately. Commonly heard phrases include
"It's mine. Not yours."
"That's funny." (or "Rudy funny.")
"Thank you. Thank you." (Said to his imaginary audience after he dances or performs.)
"'Cue me, Mommy." (Said when Mommy and Poppy are talking and he wants attention - of course when we stop and ask him what he wants, he has nothing to say.)

This morning when he woke up he started reading the book he had in his crib - Green Eggs and Ham. So this is what I heard as I woke up - Rudy reading various pages of his book.
"A train. A train."
"Could. Would. A Car."
"Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss."
"Thank you, Thank you."


Tonight as he went to sleep I heard him yelling at Mario, our cat, to get down and saying no. I let it go for a while but as it continued and the yelling got louder I went to check on him. Mario was sitting in Rudy's window and Rudy was not happy about it. So I removed Mario from the room. Of course then Rudy wanted me to come back up so I heard "Mommy. I right here." I guess that was in case I had forgotten where I had left him!

Tortuga

These were sent to me a few weeks ago by the husband of Rudy's babysitter. They found it in their yard. Although Rudy's enthusiasm doesn't really show through in the pictures, he supposedly was scrambling to get his shoes on so he could go outside and see it.

FFF - Summer Lovin'

The topic for Favorite Foto Friday is very broad - Summer Lovin'. So I just went through and found some good pictures of summer (my favorite time of the year - I much prefer being hot to being cold!).

Our first visit to Guatemala.





Family vacation in MD. This year there will be two more little ones.





And what is summer fun without a pool?

Sure is Crowded in Here

I took this about a week ago when I was closing Rudy's room for the night. When I put him to bed, he was lying by himself with gato. The other animals were all in his crib but not lying next to him. So sometime before he fell asleep, he felt the need for some company. Between the animals, books and how big Rudy's getting, he won't if tin the crib soon!

Pearly Whites

Rudy had dental surgery today to have caps placed on his four front teeth. The surgery was much quicker than they said it would be and Rudy was a trooper. As the nurse was taking off his blood pressure cuff and removing the pulse monitor, she left the IV tube for a while and he was not happy about that. Every time he would look at his arm he would start to cry again, so she finally just took it out.
He was a little like Sybil the rest of the day (of course he's always like that - must be the age - but today he was 100 times worse), one minute he was happy and laughing and the next crying over some little thing. And once home he would not take off the medias from the hospital (which were adult size so they kept sliding off his feet) or his bracelet.
Here are some before pictures.







And after.







It really changes the way his smile looks. The teeth look bigger and even make him look a little older.

Busy Weekend

Saturday morning we went to a train display downtown. As you can see, Rudy was fascinated.



There was a photographer there from the local paper who took a lot of pictures of Rudy (and some with Paul and Dad in them too), so maybe they'll be in this week's edition.

Then we drove up to Chris and Patti's for primo Lucy's party.




The cousins all enjoyed cake and cupcakes.







On Sunday Rudy and I went to the Children's Museum for a while where Rudy pretended to be an octopus and played with some grande bugs.







Later we met Paul for dinner where Rudy had a hot dog and his first milkshake. Too bad he doesn't seem to be enjoying it.

Antigua, part 5

I thought I was finished with our trip to Antigua but today I was remembering our last day. Our flight left very early from Guatemala City, and Antigua is about an hour drive from Guatemala City. We asked for an early wake up call and informed the workers at our hotel that a driver would be picking us up very early (I think it was 4 or 5am). As I mentioned, the hotel is VERY small, so the wake up call is really a person calling and telling you "buenas dias" and what time it is. We woke up and Paul got in the shower. A few minutes later there was a knock on the door - the man working at the front desk, who had given us the wake up call, was standing there with 2 glasses of juice and 2 cups of coffee - just what we (especially Paul) needed to get going.
Our driver came to pick us up and once again we drove through the mountains in the dark. While the drive in the dark both ways was a little scary, I often wonder if it's even scarier when you can actually see - Guatemalan drivers are not known for being cautious and slow! Part way down the mountain there were some police officers pulling vehicles over and of course our van got pulled over. The police asked our driver for some sort of paperwork - with our limited spanish we believe that the officer claimed our driver did not have a permit for having us in the vehicle. After speaking with the officer for a few minutes, while Paul and I sat quietly and unobtrusively in the back seat, our driver got out and was out of our view still speaking to the police. At this point I am thinking "what happens if they arrest us? We won't understand anything they say to us" and trying to figure out where the business card of the translator and travel agent we used was and how she would be the first person I called if something happened. Fortunately our driver soon reappeared and off we went. We assume he must have had to pay a bribe, but if I recall, he wasn't particularly fluent in english so we didn't communicate much on the ride.
Needless to say, we were very grateful to get to the airport and prepare for our flight home (and another long layover in Fort Lauderdale).

Antigua, part 4

The funniest thing our sweet little boy did in Antigua was spit. He would lean over the curb and just spit. We couldn't believe it the first time it happened. He definitely was copying someone and he knew what he was doing - he never spit on the sidewalk. Sometimes he spit food out too. The irony is by the time he came home he wasn't doing it anymore and now we can't get him to spit properly when brushing his teeth.

While we were in Antigua I was emailing with a friend who had been contacting PGN for us to find out the status of our case. So we were able to get a little bit of good news while we were with Rudy. Damaris spoke to someone who expected our file to be approved very shortly, within the next few weeks. I think this definitely made it easier to leave Rudy this time - knowing, hoping, praying that we would be back very soon to bring him home.

Our last day with Rudy we took a long walk to the edges of the city to see a church and monastery. It was nice walking around the grounds and I took one of my all time favorite pictures of Paul and Rudy there.



This was our last family picture taken while in Antigua.





After Rudy went back with his foster mother Paul and I decided to take a walk up to Cerro de la Cruz (Hill of the Cross). It is a walk to the top of the hill that over looks Antigua. Because of crime towards tourists, the local police lead a walking tour up there twice a day. It was a cloudy day with a few rain sprinkles but it was also a very long and hot walk, so the clouds and rain were welcome. The view from the top was amazing and we could pick out all the places we'd been in the past week. It was a perfect ending to our visit.

Favorite Foto Friday - Poppy and Me

From beginning to present day - no words needed.













You can see more FFF blogs at http://kissthefrog4me.blogspot.com/2008/06/favorite-foto-friday-45-my-brudder-and.html

Antigua, part 3

While we were in Antigua there was a mayoral election going on. Cars with loudspeakers were driving around town broadcasting the candidates' messages. We nicknamed Rudy "el presidente" because he loved to walk around parque centrale and shake hands with people, smile and wave. This is a long video but it shows a typical day at the parque.




The park was a life saver because it was a place we could go, there was shade, Rudy could run around, see stray dogs, and play with bubbles and we could sit on the benches and people watch (okay, one of us could sit and people watch while the other followed Rudy around).





One day we took a walking tour of Antigua. It was given by a woman from the US who had moved to Antigua as a teenager and stayed there. Her name was (I think) Elizabeth Bell and she has written several books about Antigua. She gave a great tour - we visited several churches, a jade factory, the municipal building from which there was a great view of both Volcan Agua and Volcan Fuego. There are volcans (volcanos) surrounding Antigua. Occasionally you can see them smoke and some lava coming out. Antigua was at one time the capital of Guatemala until the town was devastated by a volcano and they capital was moved to Guatemala City. Rudy came along with us on the tour and did wonderfully. One part of the tour took us to a hotel that also has several museums on the grounds. They have scarlet macaws that live there and Rudy was just fascinated with the birds.




This is a model, that was in the Jade Factory, of what the streets look like during Semana Santa (Holy Week).



At this time Rudy was used to being carried and was usually perfectly happy to be carried as long as we were moving somewhere. If we stood still for too long, he wanted to get down.



Taking a rest at Hotel Santo Domingo which was beautiful.