Playing Tourist

It FINALLY feels like Spring! It was a long winter that seemed to push its way into Spring. Seriously, 3 months of winter is too much at times, but adding a few more months has been painful! Here, our winters are full force. We get heavy snow storms, cold and I mean COLD temperatures, wind, ice, and frost. So I always look forward to the warm weather.

We have had pockets of nice weather. One day we were tempted with temperatures in the 50s and we were in heaven and the next day it would be windy, snowing and cold again.

It seems that Spring has finally arrived so we took that opportunity for our family night and decided to be tourist in our own city. It was fantastic! We only had time to explore the #1 tourist attraction in Salt Lake City, Temple Square. Perhaps we will have more nice days and play tourist at other sites. Any suggestions on what you would like to see?

Eduardo and Livy at the true center of the city. This is where the entire city is mapped out from. For those who have been to Salt Lake City, you may remember that the streets and city blocks are very square and large.

Temple Square was filled with gorgeous gardens. If I could only get my gardens at home to look this good! Of course they must have several gardeners to do the work.

Livy and I in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
A vibrant orange Iceland Poppy.

Must have learned it from the dog!

My sweet Livy certainly gives me a "run for my money." She is a "trouble maker" "social butterfly" "busy bee" and has more energy then a room full of California Seagulls getting ready to feast on Mormon Crickets.

Today as I sit here working on my computer, Livy is in the living room making more messes and causing more trouble. She is taking LARGE sips of water out of her cup, spitting it out on the coffee table and then licking it off of the table.

I am happy that she is active and wants to explore, but licking water off of the table!? What will people think when they come over? They will either think that I haven't taught her how to drink from a cup or two that we let her run wild. Neither of these are the case.

The only thing that I can say is "This is my child that we are talking about!" At this point, not much really surprises me.

Why should it matter?!

I am in an bi-racial marriage. Of course, I NEVER look at it like that. I do not see Eduardo as being anyone except for my companion, friend, and husband. I have never worried how people would view me by being in this kind of relationship and I honestly don't understand why it should matter. It is not like Eduardo is an alien with a tail.

When we first married and started to try for our family, I worried that my children would be treated differently. I wondered if they would be teased in school for having a Hispanic last name or for having darker skin. (Olivia's skin is as fair as mine.)

I have worried if Eduardo would have problems finding a good job because someone couldn't face the fact that he wasn't born here. Even though Eduardo was born and raised in Venezuela, he is an American Citizen (and proud of it), a college graduate and an honestly good person.

Again I never really worried about how I would be treated. Today, I learned that I have been hurt by someone being prejudice against me. It would have happened nearly four years ago and I am just now learning of this. I can't give any specifics because some of you know this person.

I do want to say that I am hurt that someone could treat me differently because of who I married. It shouldn't matter if we looked different when we first moved in. Why not get to know us and see that we are good people. I'm sure that we have proven ourselves by now.

And to stress my point and for a reminder for everyone, not all Hispanic people are Mexicans. Please stop calling them Mexicans unless you know for a fact that they are from Mexico. Remember that there is good and bad in every community and you can NOT judge an entire "race" by the deeds of one person.

Feed the birds

On Monday we feed the birds (Canadian Geese, ducks and California Seagulls) and had a little bit of park time as well.

Baby Sign

I have always been obsessed with parenting. Years before I had children I would read parenting books & magazines and take classes. I would say it was for daycare, but I really was doing it for my future children. Odd, I know! I knew that when I was finally blessed with children that I wanted to teach them as much as I could. I was intrigued by different videos that I checked out from the library like teaching your baby to read and on baby sign.

A small part of me was hesitant about teaching baby sign and felt that it was one more thing for me to do to produce another "super baby." Naturally as a mother I want my baby to be the smartest, but I realize that she is only 13 mns and has a long time until she is expected to do many things. As I read about the benefits of teaching your child sign, I knew that I wanted to do this.

According to Eileen Ladino, here are 5 reasons to teach sign language to hearing children.
1. help babies talk sooner . . . and boost spoken vocabulary
2. empower babies to direct adults' attention to what they want to talk about
3. reduce frustration
4. provide a strong foundation for early literacy
5. stimulate intellectual development

Signing for us hasn't been a very easy task. Last September, Olivia (when she was 6 mns) and I took a 12 week Baby Sign Language course at the University. By the end of the semester, Olivia had one sign; music. I honestly felt very disappointed that she wasn't signing more and thought that possibly because her verbal language is through the roof that she wouldn't sign. Heidi, our sign teacher, told us about one of her students that could understand sign but refused to sign back. I continued to sign as much as a I could. Some days more then others. It always seemed that when I would start to slack, Livy would sign a new word and I would be motivated to sign more. At first she would add a new sign once a month or so and now it is nearly every day. It is so exciting and rewarding to see her communicate with me. Frustration levels are down and we are all much happier then I could imagine without sign. Just the other day she took my hand and headed to the pantry and signed more. She wanted a snack.

She can sign: pig (her latest), horse, cat, dog, cow, bear, bird, duck, phone, fan, baby, stinky (as in poopy diapers), music, ball, brush teeth, brush hair, more, book, milk, please, bath, mom, dad, wash hands, and bye-bye (that's a sign right?!).

I mainly try to sign different things throughout the day. It is recommended to teach your child three basic signs to begin with: more, eat and milk. I also will turn on the Signing Time videos once in a while. My only problem with Signing Time is that the songs are super catchy and I will wake up humming them at 2am!