The life and times of Oscar Marcos Perez-Cytron. Born Thanksgiving Day 11/22/01.
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If you want to add something to Oscar's baby-blog, send an email to megan@alpha60.com and we can set it up so you can post...
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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.
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