The Great Lollipop Shakedown of 2010

Animalia, on her regular trips with Nana and Tata, visits an assortment of thrift and other stores and sometimes banks on a fairly regular basis. Many times, on these visits, she is given treats like lollipops by people working in these places. That is the backstory.

The real story is this:
Animalia walked into the credit union and asked for a lollipop. They didn't have any that day. She fake cried. A little while later she walked into a thrift store. She again asked for a lollipop. When she was told that they also had run out, she shook with rage. At both places, the person working at the counter apologized profusely. Terrible.

Easter 2010

April 4th, Tia Lupita's house, playing with cousins, egg hunting, eating Eegee's, posing with Nana.

Teeny tiny train vacation

Leave Tucson at approximately 10:30 pm by Amtrak. Animalia is overly interested in the train, asking if it's her train and if she's on the train. Also, she needed to go potty. Many times. Midnight lecture was necessary. I think I told her that she needed to go to sleep around midnight in my most exhausted threatening voice. Then she asked me if she could talk. I said no.

Arrive in Los Angeles at approximately 7:30 am. No sleep, or very little, since Animalia was hogging. Drop off luggage, eat breakfast at Olvera St, deal with unanticipated issues, take bus to museums where Animalia sees dinosaurs, animals, airplanes, roses, and other happy things. She keeps asking if we're in California.

Check into hotel, conveniently located near many delicious foods in Little Tokyo. Animalia loves the hotel. Eat an early dinner. Buy some pastries. Head back to the room. Animalia falls asleep early, before dessert.

Next morning, wake up, get dressed, get coffee and pastries, head to Santa Monica. The beach! The rides! This is Animalia's happiest part of the whole trip. Hotel, naps, wandering around, late dinner.

Next morning, wake up, eat breakfast, go to large Japanese supermarket, check out of hotel, head to train station. Train departs at 2:30pm. It's slightly delayed, then we're delayed en route. Animalia has good times. Spends time in the observation car which she correctly names unless she's calling it the raisin car. Home at 12:30pm (about an hour late). Asleep by 1am.

Spend the entire next day tired, though Animalia was missing the hotel, train, and Japanese food. Have I mentioned that she loves Japanese food? Miso soup, sushi, cucumbers only slightly pickled in vinegar, soba noodles. All of it.

Miss Dramatic

Getting Animalia To Sleep. Capitalized, as if it were the title of a nightly drama, played out by yours truly, Daht, and starring Animalia. I now think it's payback for having such a blissful infant and whenever friends would tell me that theirs wasn't sleeping, I'd smugly say "Animalia only wakes up once or twice per night." Well... now her brain is working like crazy maybe, or maybe she just likes driving me insane from sleep deprivation because she's been waking up several times per night giggling, calling to me, or talking about princesses. So I'm tired. But I hear her and I give her a stern "Es tiempo para mimis" and what does she say? "I understand Mom... I understand" in her most dramatic, saddest, most manipulative voice. Drama.



In the meantime, Nana and Tata have started to have the same problems with naptime. When Nana firmly tells her that she has to take a nap, Animalia wails, "Nana... why are you so mad at me?"



Drama.

Mandingo

"¿Como te llamas?" Nana asks.
"Aya Castillo Mandingo," Animalia replies, laughing hysterically.

And it's all Nana's fault.

Preschool Search '10, part 2

So I thought I loved the second school and then decided, after someone else visited the next day and reported that the bathrooms were filthy and some other major stuff, that I don't love it anymore. I'm not a clean freak by any means but filthy bathrooms are a deal breaker. Also, a certain elitest private school attitude that won't serve us well as we're hoping to put Animalia in public school for 1st grade. At least that's the current plan. Have I mentioned that this is really hard?

Left message at two other schools. One will get back to me when they have their Reggio Emilia-based program completely in place, the other, a well-known and -respected place, hasn't bothered to return my call.