Pictures from Oscar's fifth birthday party:

http://cubansandwich.shutterfly.com

It's funny how easy it is to keep one of these blogs when your child is a little baby on whom you can easily project all of your ideas, neurosis, irreality, etc... Now that Oscar is older and a much more fully realized human being, I find it much harder to write about him. He should be writing this himself. I guess he will soon enough.

So here's a little story about a dream that he had:




Light bulb: Oscar's dream (word for word, as told to mama)

I was in a strange world where strange things happen and I saw a witch and I got littler so that I could fly into the inside of a lightbulb and not get caught. There was a tiny little door in it. Even littler. I got even littler so I could get in. Very fast. Vroom. (I got smaller in my dream because in my imagination I am stronger and I have magic in me. We all have magic and power in our dreams.) I was just a strange face inside the lightbulb. And then the witch disappeared into a tiger's belly. Because the tiger ate the witch. It was a bad witch. A bad guy showed that witch how to do bad things.

I was free. And I flew out of the lightbulb. And also I jumped out of the lightbulb like a bunny jumping out of a lightbulb. But then there was a hippopotamus who looked like a rhinocerous and he was my friend. The end. That rhymes.




The other day, he asked me out of the blue: "Mama, I wonder when I'll die." (A few asides: A couple of weeks ago, he started talking about "back music." We asked him what this was and he said is was an imaginary kind of music that makes people come back from the dead. Another oddity is that Oscar always says that all babies come from the river Styx and dead fish and other dead animals and people go to the River Styx/Manzanares--this mythology goes back to Stychimoloch--the name of one of his favorite dinosaurs and the first word that he wrote. We finally got some more fish for our tank and he wanted to put Spirata's shell in the tank to remember her. I said something like--"Now we can see Spirata whenever we want"--and Oscar said (in an incredulous tone): "No mama, that's just Spirata's shell. That's not Spirata. Spirata is dead and we can't ever see her again.")

We had a long talk about the subject (death/the human condition, that is) and started talking about memories and he told me that his memory is like a stamp. He said: I stamp and then it moves, stamp and then it moves, stamp and then it moves... It's as if he had a little bureaucrat inside his brain registering little snapshots as fast as he can and then filing them away for future use...

Today was his fifth birthday party with his friends from school at the neighborhood ludoteca (that's Latin for "play zone"). He had an amazing time. It was nice to see how well he has integrated into that group of kids, yet he is still quite different from them in many ways. It's not easy, as a guiri, even for a five year old... But they are really tight-knit now. He's been with the same group of kids since he was 2 1/2, with a few exceptions. If you talk to most adult Spaniards, at least a one of their closest friends goes straight back to preschool. Next Wednesday is his real birthday...

Oscar's last week of school. He's really coming into his own these days and school has been going really well. Lately he sometimes inadvertantly calls me Caterina. He told me that she is the Sun and he is the Moon and that they love each other. All of a sudden, he seems to have lots of girl admirers. He hangs out with a group of older girls: Carmen, Carmen and Candela. He lets them hold him and kiss him and hold his hand and carry him around and baby him. Today we met another older girl who has adopted him at school. Her name is Clara and we just figured out today that she is half-American and speaks English perfectly. Neither one of them had any idea that the other spoke English and they were completely shocked.

It's crazy how many people we now know through him. This place really feels like home now. The school is such a tight-knit little community and I think that he has finally managed to break into the "Spanish mafia" and become one of them. He is speaking amazingly well. No one would guess that he isn't Spanish by the way he talks, though they would by the way he acts. He's not nearly as stoic as the other kids. He's still quite the clown.

I have also broken into the Spanish mafia at my school as well... It just takes time to figure out how things work here. This year was quite the learning experience for us all. It seems like a bizarro world at times. The more my American expectations get eroded, the easier it is to get things done. It also helps a lot to know people who are in the same boat. My classes and exams are over now. The level of difficulty in a few of my classes was unbelievably high--beyond anything that I've ever encountered. We'll see how I do... In one of my classes, only a third of the students passed the exam the first semester (and one of them was me--just barely). And this seems to be the norm. We'll see how it goes...

Christian is still plugging away on this work visa. It's been one thing after another and now I think all he has to do is wait for approval (probably 3 or 4 months) and eventually go back to the US to apply for the visa in person.

He just got home from his gig...

Ah, and one last anecdote. Oscar was giving me a hard time about something and I told him that I wouldn't let him watch his Muzzy DVD if he didn't do X. He said, "That doesn't make sense." I insisted that it did indeed make sense. I said, "Muzzy is for boys who listen to their mothers." He disagreed and said, "No mama, you are wrong, Muzzy doesn't have anything to do with that. Muzzy is for boys who are interested in learning different languages like French and German and Italian. Mama, don't you understand? IT'S A D-V-D FOR TEACHING PEOPLE TO TALK IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES." He said the last line very slowly and deliberately as if he were talking to an idiot. I'm afraid the Cytron lawyer genes may be manifesting themselves...

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted in Oscar's blog! It must be because I have been busy being such a good papi every day, I hope.

The past few weeks have been good for Oscar. He really seems to be coming in to his own. He went on a day-long field trip last week to the zoo. Then they had a birthday party for his classmate Alicia at (of all places) McDonalds. He loved it. A couple of days later there was another b-day party, this time for two classmates, Guillermo and Pablo. Oscar had a lot of fun picking out their presents (Magnetic puppet theater/Helicopter/Forklift truck) and going to the parties. It is funny to think of his social life, but he really has one now.

The other day I was asking if he had a girlfiend and he said "Yes, Caterina. And also Isabel. And I have a boyfriend too, Joseph. I like everybody! Except Michael ... he hits" Michael (pronounced Mee-cha-el) is apparently the class bully. He is pretty big for his age and the other day we saw him riding a bike--without training wheels!

OK, Oscar has been obsessed with two things lately, so I have to mention them both.

First is a dinosaur "leap pad" module that Maureen got for him. It has these little cards that you can put in it and tells you lots of facts about 15 different dinosuars. Oscar has been studying them diligently and every day asks me "who am I today, guess!" I have to ask if he is a meat eater or plant eater and figure out which dinosaur he is. Then he stays in character the rest of the day, and prefers to be addressed as "Euplocephalus" or whatever. When he eats his breakfast he pretends to be eating whatever that dinosaur eats, etc. One of his favorites is a spiny-headed one called Stygimoloch. He has been drawing some pretty nice renditions of the dinosaurs from his book. The other day he drew a very nice T. Rex, and I had him write "T. Rex," spelling it out for him. He wrote "T. Rex" by himself the next time he drew a picture of one. I was impressed. Then the next day I walk into his room, look at the easel, and it is Stygimoloch up there. It really looked like him! More incredible still was that Oscar had written "Stygimoloch" beside the drawing. I went and asked Megan if she knew what Oscar had drawn and written. We were both shocked. The first word the boy writes all by himself, other than his name, is Stygimoloch? Tonight he drew another one and labeled it correctly, copying from another page. Can't help but think this is going to be interesting.

Second is Muzzy. Muzzy is a DVD for learning foreign languages, an animated series for kids. It started coming out as a supplement with El Pais a couple of weeks ago., and we started buying it, also with out usual sunday Kiosko purchases of the "Cuentos infantiles." It is in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. Oscar likes to listen to it in all the languages. It is pretty good. The German is funny. Oscar likes French and Italian. He has also been drawing Muzzy and other characters from the show. Tonight he also drew the logo for the BBC! Ha...

Have to see if Megan can post that Stygimoloch drawing. By the way, he was a plant eater from North America. His name means "demon from the river Styx." He stood about 5 feet tall and had 6 horns on his thick head. He was a member of the Pachycephalosaurus family.

We are are busy planning our summer vacation. Megan is doing her final exams this week and next. Oscar has 2 more weeks of school. Then a week off and 2 weeks of camp! (The camp will be at Nuestra Señora de la Paloma too). I am working on getting a violin teacher for him. He might start lessons next month. I am still pretty busy playing and teaching a bit of bass. It is getting HOT in madrid (95 deg) and we are thinking about breaking down and buying an AC this year!

well, that is all for now, friends and family. much love

Oscar to Christian, observing a flock of birds migrating:

"Look, at the sky, Papi. It's so beautiful. It's like a, a, a... a giant penis flying in the sky."


He's been complaining and lamenting a lot about school lately. He seems happy when he leaves school, but then when he gets home, he complains a lot about the other kids and says he feels sad, etc. Today I talked to his teacher and she said he has more fun than anyone in class and that he was constantly laughing and playing, etc. On the way home, I asked Oscar whether it was true that he was happy at school and he said "yes." Then I asked him why he always told stories about being sad and focused on the negative and he said: "because that's a lie and lies and sad stories are more interesting." I just don't know what to do with him sometimes.

He's also still obsessed with where meat comes from, hunters, carnivores/herbivores, and the like. He wants to know exactly what process everything he eats experienced/underwent before eating it. He also wants to know if the meat in question came from an animal that ate meat. Before I crack open an egg, he wants to know if there's a dead chick in it! Oh, and with the sad puppy dog eyes: "but why, mama, why do they have to kill the pig and cut off his leg and make ham?" I dread these unanswerable questions.

Did I mention that we have fish? Four guppies, four neons, two little orange fish, and a suckerfish (chupalgas). He named one of the neons "flecha" (arrow), another Christian and I named Jawbox, one of the guppies is named "guapetón/Mr. Fancy Pants", and I like to call the sucker chupacabras. I'll admit, the fish kind of stress me out. First of all they live under water and that's a paradigm that I don't understand. Second, they are always moving. Third, they fight amongst themselves when they think we aren't watching. Fourth, they have a very strange and rigid social stratification amongst themselves that I find troubling.

But Oscar loves them. He comes home and tells them about his day at school. He feeds them. He likes taking care of them.

Lots more going on, but it's late, so I'll keep it short. I posted a few pictures of Oscar's school's Carnaval parade here:

http://cubansandwich.shutterfly.com

Tuesday, December 13, 2005 12:18 AM posted by Anonymous  
Today is Sunday and we are back in Madrid and recuperating from our almost week-long trip to Asturias. Since we had a week with two holidays, we participated in the Spanish "puente" tradition, basically a long weekend. In this case it was more of an "aqueducto" because it had two spans.

We rented a little house on the coast in a village called Oviñana, northwest of Oviedo. We left up from Madrid on Sunday, rented a car from Atocha (under somewhat sketchy circumstances), loaded up in front of our house during the middle of the Rastro (Megan was cussed out by dozens of people but somehow avoided the wrath of police and ambulance drivers). All this for 5 minutes of double parking. A mere 6 hours later we were checked into the house and getting set up. Lolo's worry inspired us to rent snow chains for the car, "por si acaso", but thankfully we didn't need them, although we did see lots of snow a little higher up when we crossed the two sierras between Madrid and Asturias.

The next day Jess came to Oviedo by bus from Salamanca. After picking her up, we met up with Bebita and Pepe at their house. We got to look at some photo albums they had of the American side of the family (mostly Garcias!, but some good ones of Aunt Jo and Uncle Trav.) Also saw the famous Lolo baby picture on the wall again. We showed her the album that Jon made from Lolo's funeral. Then we went out to a sidreria for some tapas. We had our first of many formidable cheese plates. Also sidra, chorizo, sardines, pulpo, croquetas... The chigrero was moroccan!

Tuesday the weather was bad and we spent a lot of time in the car searching for a place to buy groceries. We experienced a strange strip mall with a vast quantity of kiddie rides. Oscar rode in a monster truck that was impressive. We did get to
show Oscar some cows hanging out near a parking lot. Coming home we stopped in Cudillero, a cute little port town. We went to a sidreria and ate some excellent almejas (clams). found a small shop that was open and bought several kinds of asturiano cheese! At home we had a nice fire in the fireplace that night.

Wednesday we made the trek to San Martin de Oscos (the town where Lolo's dad came from). Bebita had given me the number of our relative there (Jose Luis) and I'd spoken to his son Manuel the day before. We arranged to have lunch at their
hotel/restaurant "La Marquesita" in San Martin. We got a pretty early start for us (10:30) and made one stop along the way at an Iron-Age fort (Castros de Coaña). The part along the coast was pretty fast, but once we started driving trough the mountains, we had to go slow. Oscar and Megan managed to keep their car sickness in check (some foreshadowing here). The farther inland we went, the farther back in time we seemed to go. Each little turn in the road along the riverside had another beautiful little village tucked into it. There seemed to be more tractors than cars, and lots of little viejos and viejas in their sweaters, either walking or sitting along the side of the road with their canes. After slowing covering about 20 miles in about 2 hours, we made it to San Martin...

So we arrive in San Martin, enter the hotel, I ask "Are you Manuel?" to the guy behind the bar and instantly we are absorbed into the family. Jose Luis is the son of Guillermo, who was the second son of Carmen. He is also Bebita's nephew and
Nonita's brother. He reminded us a lot of Nonita. Very friendly, cool, and talkative. His dad was born in Tampa! Not sure where, but probably Centro Asturiano Hospital, I imagine around 1914? Jose Luis is in his early 60s, his wife is named Mari Carmen, they have 6 sons, including a set of twins. They are dispersed around Spain. We got to meet two of them at the restaurant, Manuel the waiter/bartender (23) and Nacho (31), who is a cook. Spoke with Eduardo on the phone who is a gaitero (Asturiano bagpipe player). Another son lives in Gijon and the other is in the balearic islands and is a butcher. I think the butcher is married to a German woman. All the rest are unmarried, and no grandkids yet, though the possibilty of adopting a child was mentioned. There could be a chinese Perez someday!

We sat down in the restaurant and had a massive lunch. The cheese plate and assortment of cured meats (embutidos) was awesome. Everyone was pleased with Oscar's love of cabrales, the stinky blue cheese. We also had the best fabada I
have tasted--supposedly a recipe from Carmen (little sister of Luis Perez). We all had seconds. We had a hard time eating because we were talking and looking at photos so much. Could have used some help from a few more family members. We heard some great stories about the family, including the WWII ID-switch story between Luis Perez of Ohio and Jose Luis's dad. Saw a nice picture of Lolo's dad with his brothers Antonio and Ynocencio. On the wall we saw a great picture of Lolo's abuelo Juan Perez and his wife Josefa. Believe it or not, she bore a striking resemblance to Anky!!! Will have to post pictures or a link to our page of photos. Looking at other photos we saw Pat, Kathy, Mary Kate, Neil, Michael, and more people reflected in the faces of people generations upstream. Not to mention ears, noses, and even toes that mark some of our more special family traits. Check out that sketch by Guillermo Perez of the foot.

After the epic meal we got a tour of their hotel, which was once the family home, built around 1927. This page has info and pics

http://www.vivirasturias.com/asturias/turismo-rural/103086/23245/0/hotel-la-marquesita/index.html

It would be great to come back and stay for a few days in the hotel, or closer to San Martin.

Next we went on our mission. To sprinkle some of Lolo's ashes in the homeland. We got some advice from the relatives, including Mari Carmen (who wanted to call the nuns and ask them). In the end we decided not to bother the nuns, and not to got to the cemetery, since no close relatives were buried there. Instead we chose the bridge over the river between San Martin and Pesoz, because this is a place that Lolo's father and grandfather would have crossed many times, a river they would have swam in, and a beautiful place. Jose Luis drove us down and took pictures as we did the sprinkling. Megan recited some lines from a Manrique poem.

Nuestras vidas son los ríos
que van a dar en la mar,
que es el morir;
allí van los señoríos
derechos a se acabar
y consumir;
allí los ríos caudales,
allí los otros medianos
y más chicos,
y llegados, son iguales
los que viven por sus manos
y los ricos.

I said "Lolo always had a little bit of Asturias in him, and now a little bit of him is in Asturias too." It was was a nice moment. All of us were a little choked up, including Jose Luis. We had a good talk in the car on the way back to the hotel. Once there we said goodbye to everyone, they were all sad we weren't spending the night. We headed out of town through the less mountainous route, making it back to our rental house in about half the time it took to get there. It was a great day.

Thursday we met up with an Asturiano that Megan had met on e-gullet for lunch in a pueblo country restaurant. It was another super-size meal lasting 4 hours. On top of the previous day it was pretty decadent. Some of the outstanding parts were the chestnut soup, little flans of leeks and morcilla, and the jabali (wild boar). The desserts were also great, if you're ever in San Roman, check out El Llar de Viri, it's not Goody Goody, but you won’t be disappointed.

On Friday we had our most outdoorsy day. We drove, then hiked down a few km to a deserted beach called playa de silencio. Along the way we encountered lots of sheep, some goats, a horse, and maybe some more animals I can't remember. Earlier that day we saw a cow and calf suckling, then a sheep with a little lamb, cool chickens, and a goose that seemed to act like a dog. The weather was really clear and pretty warm. We drove down the coast a bit more to Concha de Artedo, and had a snack of clams and mussels at a seaside bar and homemade albariño wine. After that we went for a walk down the beach, skipping rocks and collecting the cool-looking ones.

Megan and Oscar made a little driftwood boat and floated it in the river that was emptying into the ocean. After watching some surfers hit the waves, it started to feel colder, and we headed to Cudillero to watch the fishing boats come in. We parked in the marina and watched a bunch of little boats come in from the open Cantabrian to their safe harbor. We eyed some good looking merluza for sale on the docks. As the sun set we walked around the outer wall of the harbor, passing by fishermen, watching the little lights of the boats heading for home, guided by the lighthouse at the mouth of the harbor.

Saturday we checked out early and headed for Oviedo, determined for Jessica to see at least one of Asturias's famous pre-romanesque churches! Feeling slightly adventurous, we decided to take the more direct (and more mountainous route)
from Oniñana to Oviedo. After a couple of warnings of "Mama, Papi, my tummy hurts," Oscar barfed up his breakfast... Megan and Jessica did their best to clean things up, I tried to find some clean clothes in the tightly packed suitcases in the trunk... All in all, it could have been much worse. We were impressed with Jess's coping skills. I took the curves a lot slower the rest of the way. About 30 minutes and we were circling Oviedo, trying not to get lost...

Santa Maria del Naranco and San Miguel de Lillo are two 9th century churches just outside of Oviedo on the mountainside. They were built during the time that most of Spain was ruled by the Moors. We got to take a good look at them from outside, but unfortunately, they were both under renovation and locked up, one was even fenced in... Still was a beautiful day and a nice place to be for a little while, on the mountains overlooking Oviedo. Next stop, bus station, said goodbye to Jess until we meet up again in a week or so. We had a really nice time.

One more stop before the road home to Madrid. Bebita's house to pick up the photo album of Lolo's funeral that I had forgotten when we were visiting a few days earlier. We had good parking karma and found a spot right in front of her house. So we went up for a quick visit. Of course she had prepared something for us to eat... We could not refuse, so as we recounted our travels around Asturias she fed us her asturiano version of caldo gallego, more cabrales for Oscar, and a little baggie of snacks for the road. We discovered that she spoke Gallego growing up, as surely her parents and Lolo's did too. So we enter into a new family mystery could we truly be gallego? The Oscos part of Asturias went back and forth, supposedly. Hmm, more food for thought.

I think that about covers it. We made it home safe and sound, even though we got stuck in a 2-hr long traffic jam 10 miles outside of Madrid. Somehow found a parking spot in front of our house to unload, and miraculously I managed to return the rental car without getting into an accident, though I had three or four close calls in a 15-block drive. Must be the power of Lolo. Oh, forgot to mention that robbers tried to break into our home while we were away on vacation and were mysteriously unable to force their way in...

P.S. Photos are here for viewing...

http://cubansandwich.shutterfly.com


Friday, December 02, 2005 7:15 PM posted by Oscar  
Thanksgiving came and went. In an ongoing family tradition, we had several medical crises. Christian went to the emergency room on Thanksgiving. He couldn't hear anything and had a horrible earache. Earlier in the day, he had gone to the doctor down the street, who has never accurately diagnosed any of us. It's a typical neighborhood gabinete--a doctor's office in an apartment building, usually within the doctor's apartment itself. The doctor is ancient and creaky and inaccurate. He told Christian he was basically fine. When he got to the emergency room later that night, the doctor told him that his eardrum was about to blow and that the appearance blood clots and and pus were eminent.

Jessica arrived on Wednesday, just when all of this was taking off. I was worn out, Christian was sick and Oscar was cranky. On Friday, we figured out why. He had a horribly inflamed butt crack! Of course, we figured this out after the doctor's offices were closed for the weekend, so off we went to the emergency room again. Oscar told everyone he met about his butt problem in great detail (sangre, culete!). He told the whole story to the florist across the street. I tried to stop him before he got to the really gory part, but she told him that she thought it was better to be open about these sorts of things. That sure made me feel puritanical. He told the cab driver who seemed quite concerned. He also told the cab driver that he really liked a girl named Isabel in his class. The cab driver advised Oscar to tell the other boys in his class that Isabel 'es mio' (she's mine!). Somehow this sounds psycho in English, but made some kind of poetic sense in Spanish. We arrived at the hospital and waited for a good long while. During the time that we waited, it seemed that the butt problem had also spread to his left eye. Cross-contamination, said the emergency room doc. Don't want to think about that too much. Salves, drops and ointments were prescribed. All is now well.

Friday night we celebrated Thanksgiving with the guiris (that's Spanish for gringo) at Jeremy's Plaza Mayor apartment. He lives in a five--though I swear it's more like seven--story walk-up looking out over the Plaza Mayor. It was a great feast of Americana. All the stuff you would expect, though dinner started around 10:00pm, Madrid style. Oscar and Christian fell asleep on Jeremy's couch.

Bridget's baby--Beatrice--was born that night. I'm now an aunt!

And now it's my turn to have this nasty bug. We're off to Asturias on Sunday for a week. More soon.


Wednesday, November 23, 2005 1:27 AM posted by Oscar  
Oscar's fourth birthday! We've been building it up for months. Compiling lists of things he would like: a bike, rollerskates, a robot, a cd player, a violin, a book about dinosaurs, a book about crocodiles, a lego hippopotomus, a little doll that wets itself (as seen on TV), etc. In the end, we bought him the bike, hippo, cd player and a kiddie piano. He loves the piano. It has a Mr. Microphonesque component and he was singing happy birthday to himself over and over (and over) again.

Pictures here: http://cubansandwich.shutterfly.com

We've decided to keep the celebration going, because Jessica is coming to visit tomorrow, then we'll celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday with some other expats and then have a family Thanksgiving on Saturday with the Perez contingent.

Otherwise things are going well. Oscar's teachers say that he never stops talking (a parlanchín). The same is true at home. His English is getting Spanglishy again. He has trouble describing stuff that happens in Spanish without using Spanish words (I do, too).

He went to a zoo-like place in Madrid called Faunia (a biological park--as they call it). He loved it. They loaded the kids onto a bus and Christian got all choked up when they pulled away and Oscar waved from his window. Luckily I was in school, because I just can't take that kind of stuff. Ever since seeing that movie the Sweet Hereafter, every time I see a school bus, I picture it plunging into an icy Canadian river. His class is researching the sea, so they went to see the seals, sea lions, penguins, and sharks. They also got to watch parts of Finding Nemo.

So it went almost an entire year without raining, and finally the rain came this month. There were a few days when the kids couldn't play outside in the 'patio', so they apparently put on some Pink Panther cartoons for them to watch. They also did this once when we had a parent meeting at the school. All of the kids love the Pantera Rosa (that's Spanish for Pink Panther!) and think this is the greatest thing ever. They sneak around furtively, humming the theme song--duh-dun, duh-dun, duh-dun dun dun dun dun...

What else? We went to Covarrubias with Dan this past weekend. He and Jeannie have moved back to the US, so he was closing up his family's house in the pueblo. Covarrubias is a tiny Castillian town south of Burgos on the Arlanza river. This part of Spain is thought to be the cradle of Castillian culture. El Cid passed through there after he was kicked out of his home. It's really like a fairy tale medieval village--perfectly preserved and surrounded by farms and vineyards. We had a great time, met some really nice folks (a lot of characters up there) and ate great food. We got to see a flock of sheep. Oscar got blessed by the parish priest, because he didn't have a candy to give him--and he (the priest) concluded that in the end, the happiness derived from sweets is fleeting anyway. We lit some candles in the church, looked at a statue of Cristina of Norway (who apparently never made it to Covarrubias while she was alive), watched the falling yellow leaves drift into the river, bought blood sausage and some of the best honey I've ever had, cracked walnuts, kept the fire going...

Off to bed with me. I have an early class--twentieth century Spanish Literature. We're reading Lorca....


Saturday, November 12, 2005 2:30 PM posted by Oscar  
Lost a few months... Once school started up, everything got a little crazy. First off, poor Spirata III was never quite the same after laying those eggs (which dried up and never hatched). She never was able to get back what she put into those eggs and seemed to develop some sort of mite problem. We gave her baths every day--which she liked, but she lost interest in eating and she finally died this week. This time we gave her a proper send-off. Her shell has been retired to our flowerbox on our balcony. She was always my favorite...

But Happiness lives on... long live Happiness.

Otherwise, we are all busy. Christian playing lots of gigs in clubs, me studying and reading and working, Oscar going to school. He's doing really well this year. He seems to have gotten over his social quirks from last year and been 'assimilated'. You just can't fight Spanish culture, either you adapt to it, or it rolls right over you. He has an extra music class now that he loves. He's listening to lots of music at home. His favorites right now are Doctor Octagon, Funkadelic, a mix that my friend Gabriela did called 'Disco Fever', Manu Chao and Jose Luis Orozco.

I'm having a harder time adapting to school. Some of my classes are impossibly hard and I'm not sure I have the will to work hard enough to pass them. Heavy duty boring Spanish linguistics and the dreaded Latin translation. Time will tell. I should find out in a month or two if they accepted any of my transfer credits. If they don't then I'm dropping Latin for sure!

More later... we're off to have lunch with a friend--Jeremy--who lives in Plaza Mayor.


Wednesday, September 14, 2005 1:08 AM posted by Oscar  
Well Spirata III and Happiness III have sealed the deal. Last night, I checked on them before I went to bed (they are nocturnal and are always doing interesting stuff at 2:00am). They usually like to hang out on opposite ends of the terrarium (unless they are getting it on). Last night, they were in the same corner, but Spirata was turned sideways. I could tell something was up. I know these snails! As it turns out, Spirata was laying eggs while Happiness watched. Dozens and dozens of white eggs.

Now we are faced with a moral conundrum.... Do we put the eggs in the wilderness and risk causing untold destruction to the environment? Do we destroy them (I shudder at the mere thought)? Do we flush them down in complete ignorance of whether the sewage system is hostile or friendly to communities of snails (leaning in this direction)? Do we keep a few, just to see what happens?

I have to admit, I've grown fond of these snails. After laying the eggs, the volume of which seemed larger than Spirata's shell, Spirata was completely spent. Tonight when I checked on her, she had retreated deep into her shell. I picked her up and put a drop of water on her, just to see if she would move and she did. It took her a full fifteen minutes to unfold herself and come out of her shell. I gave her cucumber (her favorite) and water.

Maybe I'll ask Oscar's teacher if she wants some. Oh, yeah, and Oscar went back to school yesterday. He's happy to see his classmates, but has been completely worn out the past two days from playing and running around. And he told me he's tired of speaking Spanish and doesn't want to speak it with me anymore, because he already speaks it too much. I know the feeling.

After school today we went to the Retiro with Dan and Jeannie and got to meet Kike Ramon, their brand new little baby. He's adorable and Oscar loved getting to meet him. It was nice to just sit under the trees in the dappled light and eat and relax. I'll miss these lazy days when things get crazy again, but I definitely need to get back to the beehive...

Aside from the guitar, another big quality of life improvement has been the introduction of "Heidi" into our lives. This is a 52-episode Japanese series from the 1970s that people in Spain love and for good reason. The design was done by Miyazaki--same director who did My Neighbor Totoro, the best children's movie I have ever seen. We are on episode 10 and Oscar loves it (and so do I). I never read the story as a kid--though now I'm really looking forward to reading it with Oscar when he gets a bit older.

It's the story of a girl whose mother dies (don't they always?) and she gets shuttled around until she ends up on top of a mountain in Switzerland with her crusty old grandfather. Everyone thinks that she will be miserable in such an isolated setting and with such a seemingly unfeeling old guy, but Heidi loves the freedom of learning to tend the sheep and running in the meadows barefoot, sleeping on a bed made from hay, watching the seasons change, communing with birds and deer and listening to the fir trees whisper deep philosophical advice to her. And, seeing Heidi's way of being and her total unaffected joie de vivre, the grandfather finds that humanity isn't as hopeless as he had previously thought. And all that is just in the first ten episodes.

So Oscar is so taken by all this, that he begs us constantly to pretend that we are in the story. He says "Mama: you be Heidi, I'll be Copo de Nieve (snowflake, a small goat)/or pitchi a little bird, Papi: you be Pedro el Cabrero (Peter the goatherd)." For one whole day he didn't say anything much beyond "naaaa", staying almost entirely in character. It's hard to pretend that you are in the Alps when you live in the middle of the city, but somehow we manage with tall buildings standing in as snow-capped peaks; fountains as waterfalls; and people as herds of goats.


Sunday, September 04, 2005 1:48 AM posted by Anonymous  
I am trying to get back into writing here a little more. Megan has been doing a good job keeping it up, and I have enjoyed reading her entries so much I've neglected to add much. So here goes.

Recently Oscar has been making more advanced creations with his legos, then naming them. A few days ago Megan purchased a little sculpture of a "surrealist thing" from a street artist in the neighborhood (for 1 euro). It looks vaguely like a penguin, and its arms move, and it has a magnet where its feet would be. Oscar was captivated. Maybe this surreal thing inspired him to take his creations further.

We have been playing our guitar a little bit. We are learning "You Are My Sunshine" "American Pie" and "The Times They Are A-Changin". Megan is getting pretty good, but is suffering from sore fingers.

We are all keeping our fingers crossed for cousin Jonathan, maybe Oscar's recent drawing will help somehow...


1:07 AM posted by Oscar  
Last night, the cafe downstairs--Cafe San Millan--had a fire and Oscar came to sleep in our bed, because the firemen were pounding on the walls and it sounded like a giant water lizard was coming to get us all.

This morning Oscar woke up yelling and told me that he had a dream that a "caballero me ha pinchado en la espalda con una espada" (that a knight stabbed me in the back with a sword). He has such vivid nightmares... Later in the day, he told me that there were pirates with swords, as well, and that in the end, he herded them all into a rocket shut the door and sent them into space. He also told me that the water lizard's teeth fell out, because he didn't brush them and that everything was safe now.

In the afternoon, we went to see Ludmila. She and Gullermo were visiting Madrid and we really wanted Oscar to see her. He misses her so much. She was at Complutense with her capoeira group. It was fun getting to see them do their thing and Oscar loved seeing her, but cried when it was time to say goodbye. They definitely have a special connection.

After, we went to Principe Pio to walk around in the air conditioning and bought Oscar some clothes he needed for school. He has gained some weight this summer, staying home with us and eating more. As have we. He's still pretty small for his age, the effects of which are exacerbated by being the youngest in his class. I hope he has a growth spurt soon and catches up a bit.

Still no word from Jonathan in NO... though we do know that the building he was in was evacuated yesterday via helicopter. Even though we haven't watched anything on TV, just talking about the flood and hurricane has scared Oscar. We keep trying to reassure him that he's safe here, but he somehow picked up on the scope of the disaster, even though we try not to talk about specifics around him. He got so upset about it, that Christian told him to go draw a picture of it (a tactic we now use when he gets upset about something that we can't really do anything about). He drew a perfect spiral hurricane that took up the entire page with waves of flood all around it and then drew a helicopter with Jonathan in it. More "Natural Disaster" art.... We'll send it to Jonathan when he has a home again.


Thursday, September 01, 2005 2:59 AM posted by Oscar  
I think I lost a post or two...

This is a strange time. With too much time on my hands, I have suddenly gotten up to date on what is going on in the world and--as the fish in the Cat and the Hat says--I do not like it, not one little bit. I'm very heartbroken about the hurricane in New Orleans. That city has always been special to me--it's where Christian and I went on our first roadtrip to Jazzfest together and really fell in love with the place and each other. And it was our cultural haven when we lived in backwards Baton Rouge.

Christian's cousin, Jonathan, lives there and decided to ride the storm out and we still haven't heard from him. Though we do know that he was staying in a highrise, which is some consolation, given that 80% of the city is now under water. Just two days before the hurricane, an art show that Jonathan curated opened. It was entitled "Natural Disaster III". The third in a series that called on artists to contemplate nature, impending doom, and the reality of living below sea level. Prophetic.

And catching up on the news has been troubling on so many other fronts that I won't get into right now. I find myself cursing George Bush several times a day, as if he were some sort of gremlin who mucks up the philosophical works of the universe and causes nothing but chaos to issue forth. I need to get back into school so that I can retreat into 15th century Spanish literature again. And this is proving to be a gargantuan task. I still don't really know what I'll be doing this year and I won't know for quite a while. In fact if all goes as planned, I won't find out what I'm doing until two months after I've started.

Wait, this is Oscar's blog and I'm just rambling on about myself. Oscar is doing well. He can't wait to start school again and asks about it every day. He misses everyone so much. I know he feels like he is in exile here at home with us. When we go to the park or even just out for a walk, he goes around asking every kid "¿quieres jugar?" (Do you want to play?).

I can't remember if I posted this before, but we have two new snails: Spirata III and Happiness III. They are very happy snails and have been with us for a month now. They love to eat cucumber and melon. Happiness is the bigger and more sociable of the two. Spirata loves cucumber and eats a hole through the middle to make it doughnut shaped. And they love each other, too. A lot. In fact, we've caught them in the act several times. Snails are hermaphrodites, so it is really something to see. So far they haven't laid any eggs (shame on them for not procreating as god intended!). Their little cage has Oscar's rock collection in it along with a bit of cork tree from our "belen".

In other news, we bought a guitar to compensate ourselves for living without AC this summer. It has been great to have it around and has improved the quality of our lives a bit. I'm learning lots of songs. The little I knew before is coming back to me.

Christian is playing lots of gigs. Oscar likes to play his little harmonica that Shannon and Patrick gave him while Christian is practicing.

Right now Oscar has lots of preoccupations. The biggest embodiment of his many fears is a character he has invented called "the water lizard"--a.k.a. la lagartija del agua. I suppose you could say he is Oscar's "George Bush," except with the added terror that he eats human beings. I don't have any idea where this all comes from, but we're trying to work through the whole thing. This morning, I myself had a dream about him/it. In my dream, Oscar was running around in a circle chasing something. I, being somehow bigger than I normally would be, stepped on the thing he was chasing. I asked him what it was and he said "that was the water lizard, mama." I looked down and just saw a reptilian skeleton on the ground. Then I woke up. I told Oscar later about my dream and asked him whether it was bad or good that I killed the water lizard and he said it was "very good" in a somewhat awestruck voice.

Well that's all for tonight. It's 3:30am. I'm on a whacky schedule these days. Got to go do the Spanish crossword puzzle to put myself to sleep.


Sunday, August 07, 2005 12:45 PM posted by Oscar  
Yesterday we saw March of the Penguins--Viaje del Emperador--maybe one of the best love stories ever committed to film... Oscar wants me to write something here about the "bad bird" who ate the little baby penguin and then went away. He has a real tendency to be drawn in by the morbid aspect of life. Speaking of which, Spirata has retreated deep into her shell. It's very, very hot right now. I'm not sure if she's going to be able to survive this Saharan heatwave...

It's making me pretty cranky, but I know it will be over in just a few weeks. It just slows your metabolism down. Everyone moves like elephants. The sunny side of the street is always empty. We toyed with getting a little air conditioner for our front room, but decided to stick it out. We've got all of the blinds and awnings (persianas y toldos) snapped down tight. The Rastro is still going on outside... I can hear a guy playing that Brazilian instument with the long string (what is it called? Christian isn't here to ask...) and a river of people moving by.

Off to play with "dough" (or is it "doh")...


Saturday, August 06, 2005 2:30 PM posted by Oscar  
Woo-hoo. It is hot in Madrid. There's a heat wave from the Sahara that is emptying out the city. The verbena for San Cayetano started a few days ago. Last night we met up with Sunny and went to Plaza de Cascorro to check it out. This week we may go to Galicia to escape the heat. David and Santi are up in A Coruna at her grandmother's place. We've always wanted to go...

I'm finally getting some of our recent photos up online and hope to get some older one's up, too. Given that my job involves dealing with photos so much, I just haven't been able to motivate myself to put them up here the past year... From here on out, most of them will be here:

http://cubansandwich.shutterfly.com

They are pretty high resolution, and you can order copies of the photos from the site, if you want.


Sunday, July 31, 2005 11:43 PM posted by Oscar  
We just adopted a new snail (Spirata II). We got him/her (they are hermaphrodites) at a fish stall in the market, along with two other snails. The other two were both named "Happiness" by Oscar. As in everyday life, Happiness was short-lived (as was Happiness II). We're all hoping to find Happiness again, but will probably try to enjoy our time with Spirata II before we try again.

Yesterday Spirata ate a whole slice of cucumber and took a giant poop. Today she ate more cucumber (as did Oscar--he loves it since having it right out of the garden at Dad's in STL) and then buried herself in peat. She didn't touch the eggshells that we gave her, which concerns us, since we know--after extensive internet research--that she needs extra calcium to maintain her shell. Since she was an "eating snail" from the market, she probably had a weird diet for the last weeks. In many cases, they feed them herbs like rosemary or thyme to try to improve their flavor. We spritzed her with water--the rest of us drink tap water, but we bought bottled water for the snail--and this seemed to invigorate her. She then undertook a heroic and harrowing (at least to watch) journey toward the top of her terrarium. So far we've managed to keep her alive for over 48 hours... we're all starting to get quite attached.

In other news, we spent the afternoon with Jeannie and Dan. Her due date is this week and somehow they still managed to make lunch for us. It really should have been the other way around, but we're so focussed on the snail... We went for a nice walk/paseo after lunch to Plaza del Oriente. Not having that daily walk may have been the thing that I missed the most while in the US. The way that everyone eats and then pours out in the streets and outdoor cafes to socialize... The first week when we were in the US, Oscar asked to go for a "paseo" every day. Then he kind of forgot about it and started wanting to watch more TV. When we came back, it was just the opposite, but now he's back into his Madrid rhythm.


Monday, July 25, 2005 12:11 AM posted by Oscar  
Back in Madrid and very happy to know that we don't have to get on a plane anytime soon. By the end of our trip, Oscar was an accomplished traveller. He got so used to driving and flying that he actually seemed to enjoy it. That said, he seems happy to be back in "la latina." Today we walked around the Rastro a bit and then went to the Retiro to watch Czech puppet theater.

We had a great time in St. Louis and at the beach in FL and, inadvertantly, Philly (and subsequently the Costa Brava). I'll write more soon and post photos. We're all still a bit topsy-turvy from jet-lag and travel fatigue. It hits much harder going from the US to Madrid.


Thursday, June 23, 2005 9:54 PM posted by Oscar  
Tomorrow we're off to America... Haven't started packing yet and it's 10pm. Oscar had his last day of school today. He brought home a little project that he did about an extraterrestrial named Lara. He's "evolving well" (evolucionando bien) and is finally catching up to his other classmates. He said goodbye to his beloved babysitter, Ludmila last night. She got a good job on the coast (she's from Bahia in Brazil, so I think it was very hard on her to live so far inland) and is moving to Marbella in a week. We're all really going to miss her.

We also saw Jeannie today. She's nine months pregnant! And David came by to wish us a good trip. We sure are going to miss Madrid, even though it's been almost 100 degrees all week with no AC...


But it will be great to see family in the US. I'm worried about the plane travel (after a horrendous experience going to Menorca). First we go to St. Louis for a week and a half. Then to Florida for another 10 days. In between, I'm going to do a stopover in Chicago.

Time to start packing... Oscar is eating pan de higo con almendras--a little fig loaf with almonds. I hope we can find him some satisfactory white beans to eat while in the US--he sure does love his judiones.


Sunday, May 22, 2005 6:04 PM posted by Oscar  
I'm procrastinating... I have a test tomorrow that I should be studying for... I went to Tampa last weekend for Liz's wedding. It was a crazy whirlwind trip, but great to meet Jim--Liz's now husband--and see Bridget and Liz. I also got to spend the night with Lala. We talked late into the night about the meaning of life and poetry and we ate Cuban food with Robbie and the triplets. It was surprising how normal it felt to be there... I didn't really experience culture shock--it just felt so different to be by myself away from Christian and Oscar that maybe that was over-riding the Americanness of it all.

I'm in the midst of exams and still trying to figure out my educational destiny next year. Oscar and I spent the day together today. We listened to music, sang, danced. We listened to Purple Rain, the Magnetic Fields, Manu Chao, Celia Cruz, Stevie Wonder. He loves music so much--he just goes through our big CD case pulling stuff out and putting it in the CD player. Sometimes he'll bring one over and ask me to clean off a "pawprint". We made an omelet with camembert and jamon and ate cherries from the Valle del Jerte.

Spirata--the snail--is no more--long live Spirata. As seems to be my way, the minute I noticed Spirata and started taking care of her, her quality of life declined significantly and before we knew it, she was a mere empty shell. This has been a source of much soul searching for all of us. Oscar and his class went on a field trip to a farm somewhere on the outskirts of Madrid. He came back wanting a horse and a cat. I told him we may be able to start off with a few very small fish...

What else? Our neighbors Ester and Alex had their baby--Sofia. The prince and princess of Spain are expecting a baby--in the daily free papers here the day after they announced that Princess Leticia was pregnant, they showed a picture of a fetus that was the same age as hers. Another paper published an article showing Leticia wearing high heels a week before the announcement with an admonishment from several physicians about the danger of mixing pregnancy with "tacones lejanos."

It's actually rather hard to keep this journal for Oscar now, because he has such a strong personality of his own that it's not so easy to project my own thoughts on to him... He's so sensitive and boisterous and contrary and sweet and tempermental and intense and flighty and imaginative. He has the Cytron photographic memory of places and things--it's frightening at times the things that he can recall. Just this weekend, he saw a bottle of shampoo that we got from a hotel in Zamora back in December and said "that's from Zamora." And then he also has the lack of common sense. He still gets the words for "table" and "chair" mixed up in English and he just finally learned how to go down the stairs properly. He's really speaking "Espanglish" these days. It will be good to get him into an English speaking environment for a few weeks this summer, because he can be lazy with us. Today he told me that Spanish was more beautiful than English. I have to say, I concur...

He is very adamant about saying "I am American" even though he has no idea what that means. Yesterday he saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty and thought she was a Mexican buddha (she does kind of look like Guadalupe). His childhood is quite mixed up--I wonder how he'll make sense of it all. The kids in his class are from all over--probably over half are Spanish and the rest from Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco, Argentina, China, the Phillipines, etc. They all speak Spanish like typical little Madrilenos...

This past week was the Festival of San Isidro. I missed the beginning of it, but there were puppet shows all week in Plaza de la Paja and Plaza Humilladero. We saw a Czech version of Snow White (Blancanieves), Punch and Judy, and an amazing Chinese dragon and kung fu puppet show.


Sunday, May 01, 2005 10:14 PM posted by Oscar  
Oscar has a little pet. It's a snail and his/her (they are hermaphrodites) name is "spirata". He/she lives out on our balcony overlooking La Latina. Today she ate a tomato slice. It's getting very dry and hot here, so we don't know how long we'll have her/him with us... I think we'll need to get him a real pet soon.

So long since I've written and I'm too worn out to really catch up. We've had some great visits from Harry and Deepak and Gabriela and Claudia. We loved having everyone--especially since we won't be able to get back to DC this summer.

Oscar officially got diagnosed with flat feet. He is supposed to walk on his tippy toes as much as possible between now and his fourth birthday. If that doesn't help then he may need special shoes to help with all the tripping and general uncoordination. Most of our other respiratory/sinus issues have finally gotten better. The otorrinolaringologa (ear, nose and throat doctor) told us we should go to the beach, which we are doing in June when Bridget comes to visit and in July when we go to Tampa.

Madrid is so beautiful this time of year. Today was the day of the worker. Lots of communist/socialist rallies demanding better work conditions. Since it fell on a Sunday, we'll get Tuesday off. Monday is May 2nd--another celebration marking the day when Madrid rose up against Napoleon's troops.

Suddenly everyone is out in the street. The terrazas (outdoor bars/cafes) are all open again. The sunny and shady spots are taking on more significance. And all of a sudden we've lost our big city anonymity. Madrid is such a city of little towns and everywhere we go we run into people we know--professors, classmates, expats, kids and parents from Oscar's school, neighbors... just a sea of humanity out in the streets.

Oscar has become quite antisocial--a little misanthrope. I think it's the influence of school, being the smallest and youngest in his class has hardened him quite a bit. I'm hoping he will grow out of it this summer... He and I have been having some power struggles.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do next year. All of my efforts to study History at Complutense are being thwarted. So I'm thinking about studying Spanish Literature, since it is more relevant to what I studied before and I may be able to use my degree to enter the program. We'll see...


Monday, February 21, 2005 8:25 AM posted by Oscar  
Aye mi madre, where to begin?

Our world went topsy-turvy again this week. Before I launch into a protracted explanation of our adventures into the depths of the Spanish medical system, let me first reassure any of Oscar's worrysome family who might be reading along--all appears to be fine now.

Bett and Dixon--Christian's mom and stepdad were visiting us this week--and oh what a week to be here. They arrived off the plane tired and sick. They spent a couple of days recuperating. We had just recovered from our flu and were feeling pretty good for the first time in a while. The day before they arrived the Basques had bombed a building in Madrid. A few days later a huge skyscraper basically burned down to the ground in a sort of omen, perhaps.

Then on Wednesday--just as I was about to leave Oscar with his babysitter to go meet them at the museum--Oscar had a seizure. It was five minutes long and exactly like the one he had when he was a toddler. Except this time, he didn't seem to have a fever or appear sick at all--though he was exceedingly cranky the day before when we went to Toledo and didn't appear to be himself. We held on to Oscar until it subsided. Both of us were in shock, but knew what to do (unfortunately--Ludmila's husband just had a brain tumor removed this year and suffered from seizures, as well). I was very thankful to have her with me.

I called Christian and told him to come home. When he got here, we went to the emergency room. They checked Oscar out and he had a low fever. They ran more blood tests and determined that he had some kind of bacterial infection (even though he was not sick at all at the time). They felt that even though there was no high fever at the time, it was a "febrile" seizure like his last one--which is not serious and is actually quite common in young children. They sent us home with antibiotics.

Before we got a chance to dose him, he had another seizure at home, just as he was falling asleep (also very common). We called the hospital and they told us to come back if he had another. Afterwards, he had a higher fever. We gave him his antibiotics and ibuprofen. He hasn't had another seizure since. But he did finally get sick with a bad sore throat and quite high fever. Which was actually a bit of a relief, because it provided a more rational explanation for the seizure, since they very often occur right at the beginning of an illness.

The next day we took him to the neurologist at the hospital to check him out. She said everything seemed fine--and agreed that it was most likely a febrile seizure. But just to be sure ordered two tests, an EKG (I think) and a CAT scan.

Ah, but that's not the end of our odyssey... Yesterday morning, we went to the Prado with Bett and Dixson. Oscar has been begging me to take him to see the Velasquez painting--Las Meninas. So even though he wasn't feeling great, I took him along. He was really cranky and we realized when we left that his fever seemed to be skyrocketing again. When we got home, he had a temperature of 103.5 and really looked bad. He actually asked to be put to bed, which is completely unprecedented. He was also complaining that his neck hurt--pointing at the back of the neck, not his throat--one of the symptoms we were supposed to be watching for to make sure that he did not develop menegitis.

So we decided to call Sanitas--our health insurance company. Oscar had been on the antibiotics four days and seemed worse, not better. They sent someone to do a house call. He didn't like the way that Oscar looked and was concerned about the neck thing. Off to the emergency room again...

At this point, we had spent several nights hardly getting any sleep--not taking our eyes off him for a minute. So, we were totally exhausted and frazzled and I personally hit the wall--mainly because I wasn't even clear on what I was supposed to be most worried about anymore. Unfortunately, the only thing I know about menengitis is that kids die from it very quickly. Christian's coping mechanism sends him deep inside himself at these times--you kind of have to reach him as if you were yelling to someone down a well. I guess we complement each other well in that way.

The doctor at the emergency room took a look at Oscar and she pretty much instantly knew he didn't have menegitis.

----------------------
An aside: this is a big cultural difference here. Doctors here still speak with a certain authority. An authority which comes from the fact that they are not worried about getting sued if they are wrong. So instead of getting the American waffling:

"All indicators point toward a negative diagnosis, though in some cases, blah, blah, blah, horrible scary stuff, blah, blah."

A Spanish doctor would say:

"He doesn't have menegitis."

-----------------------

A huge relief. By that time, the ibuprofen had kicked in again and he was more himself. For the second time, he got one of those IV things poked into him. He yelled "ay, guayaba!" ("Ay Guava!" a line from a Puerto Rican Willie Bobo salsa tune that he likes)--I told him he was brave and he said "I am NOT brave. I'm just a boy who is happy."

They took another blood test to compare with the one from Wednesday to see if he was worse or better. Even though he seemed worse, he was better. His white blood cell count was lower and the infection was more under control--which ruled out menegitis definitively.

All of this transpiring in a foreign language (not once has anyone here ever spoken English to us) and while being morbidly frantic/down-a-well would be comical if it weren't so damned traumatic.

So, home we finally went again.

Of course, we can't get enough of that place--Hospital San Rafael--and were back there again today for Oscar's CAT scan. I told him what it would be like, but he still got quite scared. He's been through so much the past few days.I think he thought that he was going to get stuck again. The put him on the little table that went into the huge doughnut-shaped thing and strapped his head down and put two big sponges on either side of his head to keep it still. He cried and cried. I tried to think of everything I could to calm him down. I told him he could have doughnuts when we were finished and that he could go to a toy store and pick out a toy horse or more legos (Why a toy horse? I have no idea... Maybe I was thinking of my own canister of toy horses that I had as a kid. I remember lining them up endlessly from biggest to littlest. Pondering just how to classify those that we lying down or rearing up...). The toy horse reference was strange enough that it got through to him and he instantly calmed down. The test lasted no more than five minutes. I told him he was brave and he said "I am NOT brave. I'm just a sponge."

When they let us go, Christian was waiting outside. Oscar asked where his toy horse was. We took him in a cab to El Corte Ingles to go to the toy department. He ended up picking out a Tigger doll--the toy horse was forgotten, more evidence that it was more for me than him. He never did get over the fact that we lost his Tigger somewhere in the streets of Madrid last summer and often asks about him and wonders where he is and what he's doing. And sadly, the same happened at the hospital with "baby Spiderman" his favorite sleeping toy. Someday we'll have to write a story about all of these on-the-loose toys wandering the streets of Madrid.

He played for a while on an old carousel that they have outside. He seems to have turned a corner and is feeling much, much better today and finally got a good night's sleep last night. He's happier than he has all week. Right now, he and Christian are taking a big, long nap.

So on Wednesday we are going to see his first neurologist again. The one who put our mind at ease about his motor skills--which, incidentally, seem to be getting much better. He's going to run a test on his brainwaves (EEG? EKG? I can't keep them straight...) and check him out. He ran one of these tests a few weeks ago and all was well, which is a good sign. The CAT scan results will be available next Monday. The first neurologist thought that the CAT scan (ordered by the hospital neurologist) was total overkill--una tonteria, he said. But since it was already scheduled, we decided to go ahead and do it.

So we're all doing okay now and aren't too worried. The fact that he has a history of febrile seizures is a strong indicator that the same thing happened this time. And these sorts of seizures are not serious at all. Christian had one as a child, too. They don't do any damage to the brain (in fact, in a study, kids who had seizures had higher IQs than those that didn't).

I can't help but notice that once you enter into the medical system, it won't let go. You can keep getting test after test, but what can they really tell you? They're just like little snapshots in the dark. A flash of information that might make you feel better or worse temporarily, but won't really enhance your understanding of what life really is.

I take maybe eight Ibuprofen a year and feel best when I don't deeply ponder how the body works. Normally, I try to live under the assumption that all is well and that things will work themselves out on their own... But once this notion gets undermined, it's hard to get that feeling back. And with a child you are much more insecure and vulnerable.

So to recap for any masochist who has read this whole thing (Dad? Bett? Mom? Any other worry-worts out there?). There's really nothing to worry about at this point. No doctor has indicated that there is anything serious to worry about. And all who see Oscar think that he is very healthy (though quite loud-mouthed and gabby) and doesn't have any signs of any neurological problem at all. I mostly wanted to get this all down somewhere for future reference, since we'd like to begin to forget about the whole experience as soon as possible and get on with life.


Monday, February 07, 2005 7:09 PM posted by Oscar  
We're all finally on the mend. Last week was hellish, with all of us suffering from exhaustion, high fevers and even higher levels of crankiness.

All mixed up with this, was the issue that I alluded to in my last post... A few weeks ago, Oscar's teacher brought it to our attention that Oscar is quite a bit behind the other kids in his class when it comes to running, jumping and climbing the stairs. We had also noticed that he trips a lot and is just a general clutz. I chalked it up to his Perez genes--there aren't a lot of stellar atheletes in the bunch and a lot of them run and walk like ducks (sorry familia, but it's true!).

So we took him to the doctor to have him checked out. She didn't see anything obvious, but referred us to a neurologist so that they could check him out further. The neurologist didn't seem terrible concerned, but sent him to get some blood tests to make sure that there wasn't some kind of "pathology" causing the problem. Of course that set the wheels of worry into motion... We had to wait over week to get the results of the blood test--then we got the results on Friday and had to wait all weekend to see the neurologist to find out what they meant. I worked myself up into quite a frenzy of neurotic fears, envisioning problems that mostly didn't even make sense in retrospect.

To make a long story short, all the tests came back fine and he doesn't have anything wrong (no tiene absolumente nada). Aside from the fact that he's still pretty clumsy, has one flat foot (pie plano) and is behind the other kids in his coordination. I can certainly live with that.

Keep in mind that we had do do all of this in in Spanish, which we now understand very well, but still speak like crazy immigrants. The wonderful thing is that the doctors here are light years beyond their American brothers and sisters when it comes to bedside manner. They actually treat you like a human being and take the time to talk to you rationally and practically. I think this experience would have been more stressful in the US. Oscar now loves going to the doctor. I hope he isn't turning into a hypochondriac.

Christian and I wonder if the problems don't stem from being pushed. Oscar doesn't like to be told what to do. I don't know where he gets that trait from. One of his favorite tactics is passive resistance. He'll just flop around like a fish or start acting like a vegetable when someone tries to get him to do something he is averse to doing. So we've decided to stop fighting with him so much and get off his case about little stuff. We don't force him to walk as much anymore. He's been in a much better mood and so have we....



Friday, February 04, 2005 1:49 AM posted by Oscar  
So as to prevent this blog from being a repository of entirely positive, pollyanna-ish maternal reflections...

These have been trying times... We have all been sick with the flu for a whole week. Oscar has been going through some pretty intense "control" issues. He's having some "aggression problems" at school. He's having some kind of motor-skill meltdown that causes him to have trouble climbing stairs and walking.

At times, we feel stretched to the limits of patience and human goodness. I'm sure it's just another phase, but it's a hard one. We've been to lots of doctors about the "motricidad" issue. We should find out more tomorrow.

This is the hardest stage that we've been through with him yet...




Monday, January 03, 2005 1:21 AM posted by Anonymous  
Oscar watch 2005

Happy new year! We brought in 2005 right here in our apartment, ate 12 raisins (should be grapes, but we didn't have any), one with each toll of the bell at midnight, watching the craziness at Puerta del Sol on TV... Oscar almost made it to midnight, but not quite. He ate his raisins before going to bed so he'll still have good luck all twelve months. We're speculating as to whether eating the raisins instead of grapes will have some "side effects." Megan thinks it may make our luck more "concentrated."

Lots of fireworks, too. Every time Oscar would hear a firecracker go off, he would say that it was a balloon that popped! He had some new experiences with balloons a couple of weeks ago... He saw a clownfish "nemo" balloon when we walked by cortylandia last week that he has been asking about. Today he told me he had a dream about a baloon. He's been talking more about his dreams recently...

We've been doing some fun stuff during our vacation. Have gone to see some early animation silent films, with live piano accompaniment by a friend of mine. Oscar's favorites have been the puppet shows at El Centro Cultural de la Villa, we've been to two different ones. The first was called Animales, it was a one-man show, he did little skits with very simple props and his hands... The kids loved it. The other one we went to was a group from Barcelona, the show was titled "Poemas Visuales" and it had to do with words, letters, and sounds. At some points the three puppeteers worked together in synchronized movements that were so beautiful it was like watching a ballet. It was pretty conceptual at times, but Oscar still enjoyed it immensely. Most of the other kids in the audience seemed to lose interest... Megan was frustrated with the other kids lack of "home training."

It really seems like Oscar's English fluency has been getting developed since he's been home for the holidays. He's been expressing more complex ideas. We've been speaking a lot at home and it seems to be making a difference. Sometimes I wonder what it's like for him at school, if he has trouble expressing himself, whether that leads to social difficulties. The teacher usually has good things to say, and his report card was very positive, so I guess I shouldn't worry too much.

Other Brief notes on Oscar behavior
Sanitas "machine mask"
Spider man mask (45 minutes on the timer)
Loves Dora
Kiko snacks
Lego animals getting more elaborate
Belenes!
Playing his flute (good rhythm!)
Trying (pretending) to spell words

Will post more after 3 kings day. We are planning to attend the big parade and watch the show from jer's place at Plaza Mayor.

Love to all, and a happy new year...


Tuesday, December 21, 2004 5:01 PM posted by Oscar  
Hmm, I think a few of my posts disappeared.... destined for the ashbin of history, I guess (or until my long-term memory of these moments kicks in and I remember these lost weeks).

Today at Oscar's school, the kids put on a little performance. The three year olds "sang" two songs. One in Spanish that I didn't recognize and "we wish you a merry christmas," which I almost didn't recognize through the thick accent of his English teacher. It was very cute. We had to make Oscar a little elf costume.

Oscar got his "grades" this week and he is making great strides--I'll have to scan them and post them--though not in his English class, which is clearly doing more harm than good in his case. Thankfully it is only an hour a week.

Tomorrow the three kings are going to come to Oscar's school on horseback. I can only imagine that these city kids are going to go crazy.

On Sunday, we took the train out to the mountains. It was a beautiful sunny day in Madrid. The closer we got to the mountains, the cloudier and mistier it got. We took the train to Cercedilla and then changed to the "nature train," which went straight up the mountain. We took it to Cotos at the end, got off, felt the cold, wet wind and decided to get right back on after playing in a dirty drift of snow for ten minutes or so. We went back to Navacerrada on the other side of the mountain (which is a ski town a bit later in the year). We climbed around a little, picked up pine cones, sticks and moss (for our belen) and then ate a huge meal of judiones (huge white beans that are a specialty of Segovia), bacalao filled peppers and wild mushroom omelet. Oscar loved the train ride and it was nice to get out of the city. It's amazing how quickly the terrain changes from arid and barren to mountainous and green. We are going to try to take more little day trips.

Christmas in Madrid.

So much to tell, I'll just have to work on it all week. Chestnuts, sweet potatoes, and corn roasting in the streets. An unbelievable bounty of sweet treats like marzipan, turron (Spanish halva?), mantecadas (enlarded ones), polvorones, roscones, etc., etc. Lights all over downtown. The biblioteca nacional (national library) was in charge of coming up with words to put up in lights over Paseo de la Castellana (a main street) and it's quite surreal. The crowds are legendary. Like Times Square on New Years Eve for weeks.

Cortylandia
Ah, Cortylandia. El Corte Ingles is the huge department store in Spain. In Preciados (near Puerta del Sol--ground zero for shopping), they have taken over four buildings. On the back of the flagship store they mount a huge spectacle called "Cortylandia." This year, it is a mouse village and on the hour and half hour the music blares, the mice move around in a relatively limited way (we're not talking about sophisticated animatronics here) and the kids go nuts. The furry animal beggars are there. The balloon guys are there. There's a theme song that gets lodged so deeply in your consciousness that you wonder if you'll ever stop singing it: Cortylandia, Cortylandia, vamos todos a cantar... Of course Oscar loves it. He's laughed, he's cried (learning about the transitory nature of balloon animals). Photos to come.

Belenes
There's also a quite extensive belen on the back of El Corte Ingles. A belen is a nativity scene, but not as we Americans know them. People here divert all of the creative energy that Americans devote to decorating with lights and Christmas trees to their nativity scenes. It is truly over the top. First off, you have to go to Plaza Mayor to buy a big piece of bark from a cork tree. Then you buy some huge chunks of moss. Then you assemble a surreal group of characters who are not necessarily restricted to those from the Christmas story (in fact, there's one guy--the caganer--who is traditionally hidden amongs the hordes relieving himself). You may need to get some battery-operated little flickering lights to make campfires, wood-burning ovens, lanterns, etc. You need to make little bundles of sticks. Adobe islamic looking buildings. It just goes on and on.

Plaza Mayor and Dia de los Innocentes
The other thing going on in Plaza Mayor is the sale of items related to the "day of the innocents." This is the day when Herod killed all the babies. But, of course, that's gotten all mixed up and here in Spain it is celebrated as something like April Fool's Day meets Halloween. People play tricks on each other and generally act crazy. So in Plaza Mayor, you can buy whoopee cushions, fake dog poop, and fluorescently colored wigs. Why the wigs, you might ask. No one knows. Every year it's something slightly different, I think.I started noticing people wearing the wigs about a month ago. I honestly didn't think about it too much, because it happened gradually. Now if you go out in the streets at night, about one in every ten people is wearing one.

Three Kings
Santa doesn't have much cred here. It's all about the kings. Kids get their presents on January 6th. There's a big parade and the three kings march through the city. The kids put their shoes outside their bedroom doors and when they come back there are presents.

I'll have to finish this post a bit later...more to tell and Christian and I are going out tonight to do some shopping...


Thursday, December 09, 2004 4:35 PM posted by Oscar  
We are back from vacation...that is, if you can call traveling with a three-year-old a "vacation". Zamora was cold, really, really cold (un frio de carajo, as they say here).

We were so happy to come back to Madrid that we all practically kissed the sidewalk in front of our apartment. It really feels like home here now.

Zamora was beautiful with dozens of 800 year old churches, one 1300 year old church, a very nice bridge over the River Duero, and lots of good wine from the nearby town of Toro. The drive there took forever, because of traffic jams related to the ETA terrorist attacks (they blew up gas station bathrooms to punish vacationers from Madrid). On the way back, everything was obscured in a thick fog, except for when we crossed the mountain to come into Madrid and we were above it all for a split second. Along the roads were signs telling us how many people had died on the roads the previous year during the same holiday and also "volver es lo importante" (returning is most important). Morbid folks, the Spanish. We did see a horrendous crash that gave us pause.

We drove around a lot, because it was warm in the car and we're not used to having one. We saw miles and miles (I mean kilometers and kilometers) of nothing but tiny farms, strange stone fences that seemed to have no purpose, sheep, cows, grapevines, etc. This is certainly a complex country. It was good to get another piece of the puzzle. We drove to Arribes del Duero--a canyon between Spain and Portugal. We were in Portugal for a maximum of three minutes when I turned the car around, because none of us really felt like being in Portugal. We also drove up to the lakes of Sanabria, which were totally and hilariously obscured by fog. So we had lunch and drove back to Zamora through more obscurity and fogginess. The best part was seeing all of the stars in the country when the air cleared. It has been ages (years?) since I have seen so many stars. I almost forgot it was possible. Oscar stopped complaining for a bit and appreciated it (he is suffering from yet another cold and cough). We picked out some constellations and made up a few imaginary ones.

The highlight of the trip for me was the visit to San Pedro de la Nave--a tiny little church outside of Zamora that dates back to the 700s. The church was originally located 30 km away, but they had to move it in the 1930s, because the government was building a dam and flooding the valley. There are lots of hydroelectrical plants all over Spain and probably many underwater treasures like roman bridges, aqueducts, churches, etc.

As is typical, the church was locked. You have to go ask around in the village to find out who has the key and will open it up. Conchi (con el capuchin morado) came and told us all about the history and significance.

It is a Christian church that was built by the romanized Visigoths during their brief reign, just prior to the arrival of the Muslims in Spain. The architecture is interesting--influenced by muslim and jewish churches, with horseshoe arches, and also nordic pagan temples. But the most impressive part were the carvings on the capitals of the pillars. Strange, crude and emotive little depictions of stories from the bible. Very primitive, especially compared to the beautiful and harmonic art and architecture that the Muslims brought with them right around the same time. But also very interesting to see what Christianity looked like in Spain before the Roman Catholic church had a strong foothold.

The other two architectural highlights of our trip were the colorful portal at the very intact 11th century romanesque cathedral in Toro and the romanesque church of Mary Magdelene in Zamora.

We had studied these places in my art history class, which is why I wanted to go to Zamora in the first place...

The day after we got back, I promised Oscar that we would go to the park and have some fun, because he was really cooped up over the long weekend, since it was too cold to do much outside. We went to the little park behind San Francisco El Grande--a beautiful church in our neighborhood. It was a very warm and sunny day. Oscar played and played with the kids in the park. He has gotten very good about sharing his toys and is still really outgoing. We gossiped with the other parents in the park while the kids played.

We heard a woman speaking English and then another and another. It's the first time we've met any English speakers in our neighborhood and we found out that they get together at the park from time to time on the weekends. One woman is an ex-pat American who has lived in Madrid for 15 years and is married to a Spaniard and has two girls. The other woman was Scottish. Not sure about the third. We went to have drinks with the American woman and her husband and daughters afterwards. They live just down the street from us were very interesting. We're going to try to get together with them sometime, it would be nice for Oscar to have some bilingual playmates.

Last week, Christian met his English teacher at school. I think they have English class once or twice a week. She said that Oscar doesn't speak any English at all in class! I think he is confused as to which language she is speaking, because she has a very thick accent. He is speaking English very well now, using the past tense, future, and expressing lots of complicated ideas (like the concept of "not yet"). I think his Spanish is equally good, though I don't speak it with him a whole lot now. He has taught me some new words (mofletes) and even a few songs (hace, hace, plom). He's even learning some songs in Portuguese from Ludmila.