Two Years! And so much joy!

​Dear Little Elephant,

Two years ago today, at three am, I awoke with my water breaking. I wasn’t sure it was real, that a few hours later I would be holding you in my arms to nurse. Now, two years later, you are an independent, smart, opinionated, stubborn little person– but I still love cuddling you up close, allowing you to nurse, and holding you in my arms. Your smell has changed. How you ask to be cuddled has changed ( now you do it with words, “Mommy! Cuddle!”). The shape of your face has changed. My love for you will never change.

June 2011,                                                 June 2012,                                                    April 2013.

You, my dear, are a social butterfly! You have no fear of strangers. You love being with friends. You thrive groups. For your birthday party, we invited five of your closest friends, all two and under, over to finger paint. You love to finger paint; but this time you played with your friends. You particularly like putting your hand print on their diaper or backside. What a mess! And yet,what a wonderful, wonderful way to celebrate two years.

A selection of the children’s art work from the party.

Lisa, our nanny, says that you are the newspaper of the neighborhood. Every day when I come home, we go upstairs for “Milk” and you tell me what everyone is up to. So-and-so poops. So-and-so upa table. Trucks. So-and-so pushed. Little elephant pool. Swim. Cheerios and strawberry. By the end of your discussion, I know all of the comings and goings of the day.

Two days before your birthday, while cuddling on the couch with books, in the wee hours of the morning while Daddy slept, you announced, “I love you”. My eyes filled with tears at these words coming from your mouth for the first time. It’s not like I don’t know it. You say it with your actions, running to me hen I come home from work, hugs and kisses not asked for, inventing boo-boos for me to kiss, the way you smile when you look up at me while nursing. I know it. But hearing the words… Sheer joy. And then you said it in Spanish too!

You are developing the concept of “mine”. Luckily, at he same time, you are practicing the concept of turns. At the park, you announce X turn now, Y turn now, to keep everyone in line. Sharing can be hard, but your are generally good. You do, however, have a sense of fairness. Th girls up the road who don’t hare well- you don’t like sharing with them. The twins you play with at the park every night- sometimes you don’t want to, but you do always share with them.

There are two boys in the neighborhood that you spend your days with. Twins, a girl and boy, you wait or everyday after dinner. When the twins are coming,you yell “A coming! O coming! Stroller! Yay!” You are liberal with your kisses and the most vocal of the group. Sometimes, with M, you run and and hand.

You are the only kid on the planet who likes time out. First of all, Olivia, the pig, has time out. Second, time out is a moment to cuddle with Mama, talk about your feelings, or have Mama explain he myriad reasons people get sad or angry. It is okay to get sad or angry, we just need to work on constructive ways to express these emotions. You like talking about feelings because you worry when other kids cry. You often ask or posit why so-and-so is crying. You like to give hugs and kisses to make their pain go away.

I suppose I should have expected it, but you have started to throw tantrums. We keep repeating that you need to use your words. I love the idea that’s won’t ave to guess at hat is ailing you. The other day, you wanted milk. I was carrying you up stairs to our glider, but not fast enough. You were wailing! Finally, t the ends of frustration, you used your words: “Mommy. Little elephant crying!”

Your vocabulary is growing I all three languages. In fact, because of you, I can say “bugger” in Albanian. A current fun sampling of your words/phrases includes:

• fragrante
• delicious
• awesome
• mommy no want that
• mommy hold that Pooh.
• tiger jump.
• kiss boo boo
• change ( meaning need new diaper)
• share!
• more milk!
• flours! (when you want to get flour for pancakes)
• Shoes off! Socks off! Shoes back on now!
• Playground.
• Yay stroller!

My dear little elephant.  You make every day fuller, every moment more joyful.  Like the line in one of your favorite books.  ”You know, you wear me out, but I love you anyways”.  And I do.  Each and every moment. Forever and ever.

-Mommy.

This is Kazakhstan

Hello! Someone (or someones) found my blog yesterday 49 times by googling the words” Where is Kazakhstan?” Just in case you didn’t figure it out, try to imagine the point on the map where China and Russia meet. That is Kazakhstan.

And, if that doesn’t give you enough of a mental picture, here are some actual pictures of Almaty.

Wonderful friends and the Beatles statue!

Photo Wednesday: Rear View Mirror

The rear view mirror on of a water taxi in Venice.

Photo Wednesday: Patterns

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This photo is the floor of San Marco in Venice. I loved the patterns

Photo Wednesday:Sunflower Fields Forever

Here I am, standing in one of the hundreds (or thousands) of fields of sunflowers in Nisporeni, Moldova. This is 2003 and the kids are my students. Today, these same kids are adults, with families and university degrees, but they are still just as close to my heart. To my left stand Ana and Mihaela. I don’t know what has become of them but I hope to one day find them again. To my right, Galina and Mariana. I am so thankful to be in contact with them again.

More Venice Photos

Because I just can’t help myself, here are some more photos from our trip to Venice. Check out my teaser post and my intro post for others.

What the perfect backdrop and so many things for Little Elephant to point at and exclaim: “Agua”

As the city flooded, the municipality set up raised walkways.

San Marco Square under water. The tourists were loving it! (So were the boot sellers).

Isn’t this just beautiful?

Check out my post on Venetian masks: http://claresays.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/little-known-secret/

 

Have you ever been to Venice? What did you think?

Trip to Venice

A while back, I promised an update on our trip to Venice. The truth is: I travel a lot and find myself rarely impressed with new cities. Its not that I don’t love visiting place, wandering through the corners of unknown places, breathing in the difference and the similarities,  and sampling the cuisine. But, most places, in this cosmopolitan world, don’t feel THAT different from other things I have seen before. Admittedly, it is fun seeing new places through the eyes of my husband and daughter, However, nothing leaves me speechless anymore. Except Venice did.

I think Venice did because it was fundamentally different that other places I have been.  The canals, taxi boats, and picture perfect touristy gondolas, spoke to me.  What the city touristy?  Yes.  Did we do lots of tourist things?  No.  We had a toddler.  We wandered.  We stopped for coffee and gelato.  We got ourselves lost.  We unlost ourselves.  We boat tall rain boots.  We giggled as we had to push our way around the city on raised walkways.  I admit, living in Venice would be hard and annoying; however, visiting for a few days and seeing the splendor of this sinking city was wonderful.  And, I walked around in awe of all the beauty and joy as my daughter learned the word “AGUA” and got to use it often.  Rain = agua.  Canals = agua.  Floors = agua.  Water at the coffee shops = agua.

Loved the little canals where you could see real people living.

Loved Venice at night with all the lights reflecting in the water.

Love the paintings on the walls and was incredibly impressed at how much work it must take to maintain in this damp climate.

Loved how everyone had their own boat.

Loved the food.

 

Loved turning a corner just to be met with a water dead-end.

Vacation is over

I spent the last two weeks enjoying family and sun in Chile… Now it is back to the real world. Hopefully tails of my travel will follow. But first to 1) dig myself out of my work email and 2) get the toddler over jetlag.

Club de Campo Coya, Rancagua, Chile

Cobbler

THE MINIMALIST; Easier Than Pie: Make It Cobbler
By Mark Bittman
Published: September 6, 2006 in the New York Times

FOR most of us, the two-crust fruit pie is a thing of the past, a calorie-bloated hassle that buried its contents under a mound of dough, and so dry that it begged for ice cream the way some cookies need milk. Tarts, in which the crust is enriched by an egg or two, are preferable, but they require work, patience and even a bit of practice.

Enter the cobbler, in which a very rich, quite sweet crust is spooned over sweetened fruit and baked until browned. The topping resembles cookie dough and turns golden as it bakes. Though the results are undeniably inelegant, they’re completely irresistible.

A cobbler can be made with nearly any fruit, with the exception of the most delicate, like strawberries and raspberries. Late-summer peaches and nectarines are fantastic, as are early fall apples and pears. Perfect, at this moment, are blueberries, which have a tartness that perfectly complements the sweetness of the dough.

I produce the dough in a food processor, but you can easily make it by hand. Soften the butter a bit first, then cream it with the sugar, stir in the egg, and then mix in the remaining dry ingredients all at once. In the food processor, this takes 3 minutes; by hand it might take 5 or at the most 10.

A few options: You can spice the blueberries with a little bit of cinnamon (no more than a teaspoon), or with a mixture of cinnamon and other ”sweet” spices, like ginger, allspice, ground cloves and so on. Better, to my taste, is to add a teaspoon or more of grated lemon zest to both blueberries and dough.

No matter how you season the cobbler, though, it will remain so moist and rich that ice cream becomes a luxury rather than a necessity.

Blueberry Cobbler
Time: About 1 hour

4 to 6 cups blueberries, washed and well dried, or other fruit (I like to mix fruit and berries– I know that apples, pears, peaches, plums, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, currents all work as does adding some candied ginger).
1 cup sugar, or to taste (I use less because I never mix the fruit with sugar. I only put 1/2 cup in the dough)
8 tablespoons (1 stick or 120gr) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits, more for greasing pan (ou don’t need to Greece if you have nonstick or enamel pan)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch salt
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F or 190 celcius. Toss fruit with half the sugar and spread it in a 1 1/2-inch-deep lightly buttered 8- or 9-inch square or 9-inch round baking pan.
2. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, salt and remaining 1/2 cup sugar and pulse (or mix by hand). Add butter and process for 10 seconds, until well blended. Beat egg and vanilla together by hand and add to mixture.
3. Drop mixture onto fruit by tablespoonfuls; do not spread it out. Bake until just starting to brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Serve within an hour or so.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

I usually make this in a long rectangle pan and it never lasts long. For a 9×13 pan, I make a double recipe. I have successfully used: blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, peaches, mangoes, apples, pears, and plums. Frozen fruit will work as well.

Here are two cobblers before going into the oven. These were made with fresh strawberries and peaches. Notice how the batter doesn’t cover the whole cobbler– no problem it will melt and get everywhere once cooked.

 

Tirana’s Cablecar

Mom and Dad in the cable car— don’t they look calm?

My mother loves to tell the story of riding in the Cablecar over Cerro San Cristobal in Chile in 1996, how my father and I bruised her hand and arm by holding on so hard.  How she tried and tried to explain to us that she had no magical powers and if the cable line broke, our holding on to her would not save us.  We both remember how she rocked the car making the fear all the stronger, like our grips!

That said, I blame my Grandmother who passed her irrational fear of heights to my father.  He then passed his irrational fear of heights to me. Thanks Dad!

The view from the bottom of the Cable car

I am trying not to pass my irrational fear of heights to Little Elephant, so we all took her up the cable car in Tirana, the Mt. Dajti Express.  In 15 minutes, this Austrian built cable car took us 1230 feet above sea level and about 2/3 of the way up the mountain.   The view is spectacular.  At the top, there is a very nice restaurant (we had pizza, pasta, and salad), a hotel, a play ground for kids, and some bunkers. For $7.00 USD roundtrip, it was quite a nice day.

The view from the top (and through a window– sorry, should have gotten a better shot)

More on the bunkers another day.