Extra! Extra! I am craw....creeping!

Prepare everybody! Now i can get my own paper if i want too!!!!......Hold on people! where did my "chuping" thing go? stop cleaning around me!!!

noises, noises...

it is kind of fun "to see" and hear all the noises around here....except, when you have a baby that haven't hear such noises before, or even a little child like emily....what's that mommy??!!!!

first we have "el panadero", it means bread maker, but he actually just deliver fresh bread to homes...warm yummy bread of many kinds, like french, whole grain, snail, yolk, horn, etc, to name few, the girls love them!

he starts very early in the morning, first at 5:00 am and 5:30 am (he goes around just one time), then from 6:00 to 7:00 am, he goes around many times playing his bugle...can you see it under his hand?...he also goes around 6:00 pm (tea time).

I ask him for a picture, i told him i will send it to my friend who has never seen a panadero before (he wanted to see how he look in the picture and he blush)... then he said: is she married?....i say yes!!!!.....then another customer came and i went home, almost running....

then comes the ones who sell fruit, strawberries, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas..umhhhh i am getting hungry..... it is a little bit more expensive, so most people prefer to go to the market that is just 2 blocks from my parents house (there are quite few markets like this around-kind of farmers market)….can you see his microphone and amplifier so everybody can here them?

Then we have the mototaxi, this are motorcycles adapted to carry 3 people sitting at back, they do taxi up to around 10-15 blocks, without crossing main streets….people use them to bring their children to school, to go to the farmers market and bring their shop bags, or just to don’t walk 3-4 blocks anywhere….

Then comes the people who sell ice cream!, Emily was very happy to discover this!, this heladeros, like the panadero, goes around the streets with the bugle, and plays a special song that just means: I have icecream!
From 1 to 3 pm we have “la movilidad” this are guys with their vans that bring back the kids from school, so they honk for the parent to get their children…and they are very persistent…
While I was waiting for the panadero I came across with the recyclers (they were checking the garbage) and the guy who bring the gas tank to your home (on his bike-we use this gas just for the kitchen)….they don’t make any noise though…

At around 7 pm comes the garbage trunk and they also honk a lot, they come everyday…and finally from midnight we have “security guy” he transit the streets of our neighborhood watching for ladrones (thief-they can get to your house usually at night and steal anything), and this watchmen has a whistle and use it every hour just to remain us “he is around”. This ladrones can steal even your laundry, even if it is still wet…..we were robe twice when I was growing up, once they took all my wet clothes and the next time they took the gas cylinder and the blender….that is why houses look like this now...my parent's house is the one in the middle, i will show you how it look 35 years ago when they first buy it!

there comes more....

during this week i also got a preschool for emily, this was great because we both like the place and her miss gabriela...emily goes from 9 to 1 everyday, i love the exercise, walking or running (she loves to run!) and talking to her while we go to her school. it is 5 blocks from home and the weather during the day it is not so bad, its spring, but we still have cold early mornings and nights, although some days can get very nice and shiny!...

we also got some classes for sophie! kind of Gymboree class, we are in the "no crawlers" group... there we do massages, exercises and dances (cumbia songs) in 1 hour, it is fun, just 2 times a week.....surprisingly, this class is a little more expensive than a gymboree class in USA, but emily's preschool is 6 times cheaper!....my pocket is very thankful!

during this time sophie wasn't eating enough, just 2-3 onz of milk, she didn't want to breastfeed as usual, just few drinks...so, she was mad most of the day....and solid food was worse than ever, she complete refuse it.... and then came

day7: i will always remember this day.....all morning was as "normal" as it can get, sophie went to bed around 6pm (she wakes up at 6 am/and twice in between), we use white noise to avoid all the peruvian noises (i write about this later)...and then, around 8 pm we had a blackout in the area...i couldn't believe it...i was reading emily's book and everything went black....emily got scare and ask me to turn on the lights... luckily she has a "ladybug" that reflect stars in the roof, its pretty nice, it save me from emily's petition....i didn't hear sophie, so i run to the shop to get some batteries for the white noise machine and candles for the house....the shop it is just three houses from my parents house, so i got back on time just when sophie woke up.....that night sophie woke up so many times, my arms hurt, my back hurt, my side (from my surgery) hurt even more, around 4 am, i just couldn't do it anymore, she was in my arms arching and crying, half awake half sleep....so i cry in silence, let her in her crib, and ask for some rest.....and we both got it....

first days...

day1: its so cold!...outside and inside the house....i don't know how much, but i need my jacket...i have 2 blankets to sleep, and i still feel cold....i need my husband!....i got home at around 1 am in the morning, i was in bed at 2 am....sophie woke up at 3 am and i slept with her in my bed, finally i was warming up, though she didn't like to sleep with me till around 4 am...then we had 4 hours of sleep.....it was great....but a need to find my old heater!.....as you realize, the house has no heating, in peru just new houses are starting to have this privilege....and sadly, in the mountains, where temperatures gets as cold as in nebraska, is even worse, because their houses are rudimentary....

day2: the water heater is not working, well, the one from the shower because we don't have hot water it in the faucets....i got scare, but my daddy fix it during the day....

day3: the microwave is not working...oh well, we didn't have one when i was growing up...we will do just fine...right?!

day4: the washing machine is not working!!!!!, just kidding...but it doesn't work as it should...we have to watch how much water we are getting into the machine because the hose is broken.....i wanted to cry after 2 hours of getting my first laundry.....but my mom is a timer now, she knows all the cycles....and after i flood her laundry room by my second wash, we realize that she will be in charge of that....hurrey!

day5: sophie got fever....i got an appointment at 3:00pm..i didn't got the call, but when i got to the doctor they told me there was no one and i had to wait till 5:30 for the next doctor???!!!....and we wait...sophie had sore throat (viral), and the doctor give me one thing for her mucus+tylenol, something else just with ibuprofen, and if the fever didn't went down, something else with just tylenol????....anyway, it wasn't bacterial, so i just give her tylenol during the day and ibuprofen at night and forgot the rest.... she was better next day....

day6: emily got fully potty trained!......i cant believe it!....we had a really bad time training her to the point she was holding number one and number two.....at age 1, 1 1/2, 2 1/2....we had to go back from zero....but last year, when we came to peru for a visit when i was 5 months pregnant, i gave her one car (from the movie cars) for every pee pee i got from her...two days was all we need....and one year after, she was hugging her tummy, i ask her and she said it hurt...first thing in my mind was food poison, so we run to the toilet....she was like: i need my diaper!, and i told her there is not time honey.....she protest a little bit, but after she felt better.....luckily it was not food poison, just something she ate she wasn't use to it......but she still jokes about it and tells me: mummy i need my diaper!, uppss i forgot, i need the big potty!!!!...she got a new bike from her grandparents for her big success (well they owned her four year old gift from last month anyway)....

i thought everything and anything what happened this week was nothing, i got the greatest gift...you parent know what i mean.....but i guess i talked to soon..

beggining...

i never knew it was going to be so hard to start...i thought, like magic, my problems will go away....day by day i finded really hard not to say, what i am doing here?...but at the same time, with every weird day over my shoulders, i find my family beside me, my girls smiling, i love them...i also got new "challenges", things that you just dont expect anymore, like my 4 year old asking me to go to the toilet with her and help her wash her hands, and watch tv with her, go with me to the kitchen, bathroom, to open the door, in other words, to be my shadow....dont take me wrong, i loved to do those things when i was in lincoln, but here it is very hard to watch her and my 7 month old sophie at the same time....and i tell you why, because this is peru....