family of four: The malecon at night, and normal life, lately

Tonight, as we have many nights, we went to the malecon. Usually we bring the kids' vehicles (bike + scooter) but tonight we rented "carritos" and a bananabike. We stopped for ice cream too. Kids get little popsicles and we got ice cream of interesting flavors, like nuts and "chongos" which I still don't know what it is, but I think it's my favorite.

When we're walking without vehicles, the kids like to ride piggy-back, or hold our hands and swing. We made up a new way yesterday, where Noah is holding each of our hands, and we count to three and then fling him ahead and he runs. Since we're flinging him, he calls it "woofling" and he likes that a lot.

Noah is very concerned with fairness, and wants everything to be fair. If Aviva gets to press a button, he needs to also. If she turns something on and off, he feels he has to also, to be fair. Anything she does, he is determined to do also, just to make it fair.

The malecon at night has been a fun thing to do. There's a playground and ice cream, but also we see people doing parkour and walking on slacklines, and lots of little children who sometimes like to play with ours, and wagons selling corn or other Mexican foods. We went out a few times around dinner time but more recently we realized that it doesn't start happening until 8:00ish. The playground is empty until about that time, when it's packed until 9 or later.

Elaine came to visit!

We rode bananabikes on the malecon

When we were at the malecon a couple nights ago, there were some men talking to each other, and for some reason, Noah wanted to talk to them. He asked if he could tell them how to spell his name.

Very often, Noah is playing with something or talking to people or demanding attention in some way, while Aviva is very happy playing by herself. She's talking and singing to herself, and sorting rocks or something, and she'll do that for a very long time. She's completely occupied and busy.

Josh is really good at making relevant consequences for things, and also solving problems creatively. One thing he started that works so well: he'll tell Noah he has to get dressed before he counts to 5, or else he'll be in big trouble. But he talks about what trouble he'll be in, and how he'll be so mad if it's not done, and while he's explaining this, Noah is really quickly getting dressed. Noah always wants to be done before Josh starts counting. He thinks it's so funny and so surprising, even for the seventeenth time. Shira and I have been trying to do Josh's trick, but we can't do it like Josh can.

We've gotten into a schedule for weekdays. Kids wake up at 7 or 7:30. Sitter comes at 9 - there's Andrea and Myra, who are daughters of the managers of our airbnb. With the sitter, the kids play with playdoh and books, play at the pool, or go to the beach across the street. We adults take laptops to a coffee shop a couple blocks away and we work there 3 hours. We come back and have lunch together, and then either it's naptime, or we swim and run around first, and then take naps. From 4 or 5ish until dinner, we either swim at the pool, play around the house, or go for a walk or an exploring adventure. Then dinner, and then malecon afterwards. We come back past the kids' regular bedtime (of 8:00ish; we come back around 9 or 9:30) and then get ready for bed. The kids are so tired at that point, that it's been relatively easy to put them to bed. We watch a Daniel Tiger video while brushing teeth, then snuggle in bed a little, and fall asleep.

Also, Aviva is mostly potty trained. She's not wearing diapers during the day and she's sitting on the potty throughout the day. She earns raisins for sitting (but she calls them "rains") and she's really proud of her pee. She wants everyone to look at it. She's having accidents sometimes, but she's mostly trained. That was easy. Check that off the list.