No, no Naomi....

...wrong mommy!

Sweaty hands

Here's a small thought I was having today, whilst feeding Naomi...



Sweaty hands pulling at your lower lip are never a bother, especially when they are followed by a baby's milky smile!

this video was taken right outside my house. I have other, louder videos of drumming, but I really liked the dancing in this one. Booty! How does she do it? I have been practising in front of my mirror every day since.

Actually, what is going on here is that it was the day to celebrate Saint Antonio and so four of the schools here came out to celebrate by doing a Nicaraguan battle of the bands. Basically, the girls dance and the boys play the drums. My friend tells me that this gender division is changing, but I wasn't seeing much evidence of it that day. It is loud and fun to watch though. Everyone stops working and watches as well. Naomi fell asleep in a particularly loud part. Nothing stops her naptime.

This is a video is of Maia enjoying her own brand new little umbrella. It works really well.

This picture...is ...well...a picture of Adam and the dead bat we found on the table at our place. I thought it was a piece of playdough when I first glanced at it. Perhaps that was a little trick my brain played on me, so that I could avoid the fact that THERE WAS A DEAD BAT ON OUR TABLE!!!!GROSS!

Ok, last but not least, one more pic of our little Naomi... she has her first two teeth and she's crawling a little these days. They grow faster than I remembered. Phew. She is sitting here with one of our new friends Melissa. Melissa and her husband Patrick also have a blog. I have added their blog to our page, so you can link directly to it. It is called the Chia Chronicles. My other friend Roxanne has a beautiful blog called The Art of Practice. I have also added the link to it on our blog. If you like good writing, you could take a gander. If any of you know of other blogs that you enjoy and you think should be added to ours, just let me know.

Love ya'll. Thanks for the weigh in on the soap. I will keep them in mind.

Emilie

The Soap Picture

Please read to the end of the entry that comes before this one, to understand why I am posting just a picture. Thanks! The last blog wouldn't let me add any more. Weird.

Un video y mis disculpes

This is a small video we took at the Convent across the street from us. Maia was doing her entrance requirements. We feel it is better to leave her there until she has reached the age of majority, which in Nicaragua is 21.

Ok, the convent hasn`t been used as a convent in a long while. It is now used as a museum. The next is a picture of Naomi, Maia, our friend Graciela and me. It is really beautiful inside, and we have been living across the street from it for weeks now and had never gone inside.

So I know that I have been promising more about our negocio...business and this will be the last I mention of it for a while longer. I think we want to wait until it is even more developed to let you in on the secret. No more for now. For that reason I am sending you mis disculpes...or my heartfelt apologies.

For those of you who know my husband well, you should be aware of his tendency to...shall we say.... exaggerate matters for the sake of making a good story better. The "incident" at the party didn't happen. Adam just wanted to keep you guessing.

In other news, I went to an aerobics class yesterday. It was great fun. I probably sweat more water last night out of my body, than I usually use to clean my body, but it was really good exercise. Novelina (the person I went with), told me that my face was really red. I guess she hasn't seen many people of Irish ancestry exercising. Let me give you a closer taste of our class.

Picture this, you are at one end of a small gym. All of the machines have been pushed aside and there are 9 women and 2 men, counting the aerobics instructor, placed as far apart as is possible. This means that I got kicked a few times by the woman behind me, and I think I punched my right-hand neighbour a few times as well. It's a good way to make friends. The music is really loud, but not as loud as the comments my friend Novelina and Manuel, the instructor are shouting at each other and their "sexy" (their words, not mine) friend working out on the machines next to us. Of course, I couldn't understand a word that Manuel was saying, but luckily I had taken many classes of a similar nature in the past, so I wasn't too lost. The woman beside me was there for the first time as well. She seemed to always be doing the opposite of what we were supposed to be doing, hence the punching. The entire experience has left me sore...sore because I worked out so hard and sore for more of the, what I felt, was an authentic Nicaraguan experience. What I mean by that, is that I was the only non-Nica in the place. I loved it.

Unfortunately, Adam didn't have such a great night. Naomi cried for 45 minutes straight, which in turn set Maia to crying for her Mommy as well. When I got home, I was immediately interrogated by Maia for my reasons for being gone for such a long time. Oh well, we will try again on Thursday. Hopefully it will go better then.

Tina, you should move here. Your Spanish is allready far more advanced than mine...Also, they REALLY need a framing business here. You could franchise. Come! You will love it.

Love you guys so much and thank you for all of your comments this time. Adam really is a great writer!

Oh yeah, one more thing...here's a picture of some soap that is made by a cooperative of women we met here. How does it look? Would you buy it? It is all made from natural products found on their land, like coffee and cacao and honey and cinnamon. The more people weigh in on this the better. Thanks in adavance. If you don't feel like signing up with a Google account, then just send a quick email saying yeah or nay.

Parties, Pat, and monkey Island

The girls and I hired a tour boat to take us around the Granada archipelago. You can see that Naomi is inspecting the stitching on that lifejacket. She is very safety conscious.

One of the islands is populated with a group of monkeys. Apparently some guy put some monkeys on the island a few years back and ofcourse they can't get off. The tourists keep the monkeys fed by bringing them fruit and cookies. One of the monkeys was preggers. (Congrats!)

We had a little party with some of our new friends. Good food and a few laughs were had. Everybody brought their kids so we had 10 kids in the house but they all played very well together except for the "incident".

Here is a good picture of all the kids. Swimming pools make a great party....better.

We have a frog who lives in the garden. We only catch a glimpse of him/her once in a while but he really enjoyed the fiesta and just had to make an apperance. His name is pat and he eats grasshoppers.

Moving to a new home can be very exciting. Moving can also be stressful and exausting but I have found opportunities arise that can change the lens to which one sees things. For example, when we moved into our new house I had a feeling of being lost. I knew where I was ofcourse but I felt like I didn't know which way to go.....so, I open the fridge. Perhaps I am hungry, after all it's morning and I am just getting out of bed. I don't feel hungry and I am soaking wet because I just got out of the pool. Nothing in the fridge but luckily Maia knows exactly what she wants...cereal. Under her direction I grab the milk and two bowls. I wipe the table quickly because the bats have left some half eaten fruit on it and we sit to eat. Maia digs into her cheerios with gusto and is very happy that I am eating the same thing. I don't know why the cereal isn't blowing my hair back and I sense that my tongue is mumbling for a distant routine. We finish our breakfast and Maia keeps the conversation quite entertaining as usual. When we leave the house for school I happily kiss Emilie goodbye and meander down the sidewalk. Maia and I take our time and take micro rests whenever we see stairs that we can sit on. And then I see it. The steam rising from the cup makes my mouth roll around the bed, stretching for the corners. I ask Maia if we can sit down for a minute and she agrees. She orders a fruit drink and I order a fresh cup of coffee. The coffee is delicious and I instantly feel at home. My senses perk up, but more interestingly, the feeling of being lost fades.

In all the excitement of moving to Granada and without the commercials, advertisements, and coffee shops on every corner I forgot that I like coffee in the morning. As you may have guessed by now, I really enjoyed my first cup of coffee here. It really is the little things that can make any location feel like home.