Winter fix :)

Snow or not for Christmas, we got our winter fix! We visited some friends for Thanksgiving up in the mountains and we were rewarded with beautiful scenery. While the very good and abundant food did not leave time for a snowman, Catalina enjoyed the snow at least for few minutes.

Waiting for the real deal in our backyard as well!

Fairy tales

     Getting bigger also means for kids that they have their own convictions, very deep embedded in their beautiful little heads. This year Catalina (and 99% of all the other girls) wanted to be Elsa (as in the Frozen movie) for Halloween. I dreaded the idea. My beautiful olive skinned girl dressed in a skimpy light blue dress, she and all the other girls on the street. I was very ready to give in though, it was definitely not a battle I was going to pick with the little stubborn daughter of mine. We searched for Elsa costumes everywhere, but nothing below $100 (!!!!) looked at least pretty, forget about quality...
     Luck came my way when during one of our many shopping trips we found a fairy costume in s store. It was gorgeous, very well made. I showed it to Catalina and asked her (with very little hope, I admit) if she doesn't want to be a fairy instead of Elsa. Without even blinking, at the sight of the pretty costume she said yes! And this is how, for Halloween we got our own little fairy in the house!

   Daycare events lacked the glamour they had in the past, there was no parade os costumes, just some singalong, mostly by teachers, while the kids were checking each other out. Catalina was mighty proud of her outfit, so mommy was happy!

We were expecting guests in the evening, so we started trick or treating early. Catalina was excited beyond words! She went to the houses on her own (yes, my very shy girl!!) and said out loud trick or treat! She got compliments, she repaid them with smiles.

The bucket filled quickly and I kept asking her if she needs help carrying. and this is when she put big smiles on our faces too : "a fairy never gets tired" replied my witty girl.

A month later, we still have candy from Halloween. And many many smiles on our face :)

A little piece of heart flying to the sky

    This week was hard. My heart and thoughts took often trips up there, in the sky, where everything is  green and beautiful and happy. A very dear uncle of mine, nenea Lica, took an unexpected and way to soon trip to Heaven. All those dear to me had their hearts shattered. Because my uncle was an amazing person. He was somebody that I truly regret Catalina will not remember from her own memories, but only from stories. And this is why this post found its way here, in a happy place, where Catalina will learn one day of the good things and people that surrounded her in her childhood, that helped her mommy believe in good.

    Nenea Lica is my mom's brother, elder to her by 2 or 3 years. Out of of my uncles and aunts he seemed to me he was the one who enjoyed life the most, who looked for happiness everywhere and did everything in his power for those around him to also have smiles on their faces. He married a beautiful woman that he praised and took care of. He took pride in treating her like a lady. It was among the very few times I heard a romanian man taking pride in making coffee for his wife early in the morning, so she can enjoy a slightly longer sleep. He respected her and he respected women. They lived far away, on the other side of Romania, so every time they visited it felt like a holiday. My uncle liked to wear light colored clothes, which was quite different from how men dressed in Moldova, "my" part of Romania. To me, this made him look sophisticated and somehow rich. He spoke with a fancy accent that brought him even more charm. And I believe this is a very good word to describe him. He was a charmer. People around him liked him, loved him and praised him. He inspired trust. And he deserved every little bit of it.
   He did not visit often, once or twice a year, so I did not grow up with him. But every holiday there was a phone call, every time there was an emergency nenea Lica was there and took charge. During my childhood, his visits were associated with either very happy or very sad events: somebody getting married or somebody passing away. But one feeling was always there, that he will take care. He helped every person who needed help without being asked. He was there every time we needed him. His presence brought peace and a sort of stability. My grandma took a lot of comfort in his presence. We all did, he was our family's rock.

  Our family will not crash without our rock, we'll find a new one, or maybe all of us will be little pebbles to support each other. We still have our rock watching over us from above, that I am sure of. I will also be sure to tell Catalina all the nice stories about her grand uncle who saw her and thought she's beautiful. Who, given the chance, would have taught her that every little girl is a princess and every woman is a gift to the world.

  He stays in my mind the way I last saw him, with a big smile on his face.

Reasoning

Dinner conversation with my daughter:

Catalina: Mommy, are vampires real?
Mommy: No
Catalina: Mommy, are ghosts real?
Mommy: No
Catalina: Mommy, are dragons real?
Mommy: No, sweetheart, they are not.
Catalina: So none of the scary things are real
Mommy says nothing, mommy doesn't want to talk about the scary things that are truly real.
Catalina: This means you are the only scary one who's real!
Mommy can't stop laughing. Catalina laughs too, she has no idea what was so funny. Mommy truly hopes that the scariest thing Catalina knows in her life is a scary mommy who yells "We're late! Hurry up and finish your breakfast!"

There is nothing like the wisdom that comes out of our children's mouth.

Festivals

We were busy lately celebrating fall. With lots and lots of festivals around us, opportunities abounded and took advantage of all.

Catalina takes ballet classes at an Ukrainian center and they advertised an Ukrainian festival with lots of good food, games, music. Ukraine borders Romania, so I was hoping to be a very good event, to transport me at least for a couple of hours to my home beautiful home country. That it did. It also transported me in time, in a communist era when nothing worked properly, everything was ridiculously expensive, bad quality and over advertised. The festival had 2 games, a single dish (sausage with cabbage) and 5 rides. The rides were ridiculously dangerous, you could hear the metal on metal screeching. There was a "fun" house that was shaking so hard and made terrible noises that Catalina started screaming and asked to leave. The other "attraction" Catalina dared to try (only if I joined as well) was a ball pit/net climbing area. The problem was that half of the balls were broken, so jumping into the ball pit was dangerous. The really scary part came when we had to climb out of the ball pit on a net that was really rotten. I encouraged Catalina to go first, thinking that if the net breaks with me at least she is safe. She was so scared that I had to go with her. Till the last second I thought we'll both fall and break our legs (It was a >10 feet high net). We survived, but after that I told Catalina we'll only try games and popcorn. That pleased her immensely.

Before we knew what lays ahead of us....

Sorry baby, mommy was scared too!

Leaving the ball pit/dangerous net assembly on a metal slide....

one of the screeching rides

Finally!!! I can enjoy this :)

 Oh well...we went home and did not say anything about our experience. We just packed more courage for the next festival.

A neighboring community has a nice Harvest Festival. Most activities are free, there are some local businesses that give out cute freebies to kids. We enjoyed this event several times since Catalina was born. With daddy in school on Saturdays, mommy took Catalina and one of her friends from work. It was cold, and rainy so the events started late. It took a while till Catalina wanted to join in the fun.

There is a small little train at this festival. Kids and parents can hope on, and Catalina always loved trains. 2 years back she cried so hard that she does not want to ride it, that we were asked to step off tha train. This year our experience started the same. Luckily, she's older so she doesn't scream anymore, just whines :). Well, once the train started she had fun!

As the events were only starting to be put together, we wondered around for a while. There was a girl trying hard to attract kids. She sang, made jokes and tried to capture the kids' attention. Catalina visited her for a while then she got bored. I think even the singing girl understood.

And then, the fun began! Painting a pumpkin proved to be what broke the ice for Catalina. Mommy was happy to avoid the mess at home. Catalina made a smiley pumpkin and was happy to take it home.

 With a pumpkin in the basket and our spirits up, we continued our celebration of a rainy fall. There were some "scary" exhibits and Catalina loved visiting and talking to each. She ran and ran and ran.

When she got tired we went to the hay pile to look for treats. Catalina was VERY happy to find a small plastic goat among all the other candy she picked. She was so proud of that toy, she kept showing it to everyone. Mommy smiled a lot inside her heart seeing her silly girl so happy

It was getting late, we had visited most of the events, Catalina was DONE celebrating in the rain. So we hoped in the car and Catalina demanded to have dinner at Panera Bread. It was warm and toasty inside, Catalina had hot soup and mommy had hot tea. It was lovely to share a meal with this beautiful daughter of mine.

Just when Catalina thought she can't have any more festivals and farm visits, we took her again to one. She was NOT happy to leave her dolls. Guess what though, she was happy enough to meet her old friend Alex. They had lots of fun telling each other stories and smelling each other's feet. Yes, kids are weird :)

No complaining about having her picture taken, this time....

When we say "plum", you go daddy. When we say "pumpkin" you stop daddy. The instructions led to many giggles :)

To top off the fun we had, we went on a farm trip organized by Catalina's daycare. Last year mommy almost cried with emotion when all the kids hopped on the school bus for the first time. We anticipated a fun trip. And plenty of fun it was!
We had a warm, sunny day. We started with big smiles on our faces!

On the school bus!

The second we got off the school bus we were boarded on another ride. The hayride! Mommy sneezed and sneezed, Catalina laughed and laughed.

Taking pictures is always more fun with a friend!

Trying to align 24 kids when there are pumpkins and plenty of running space around is like raking leaves during a tornado. Literally :)

Mommy, I don't like corn mazes!

Well, if I get to pick corn I might like it!

I like it even better with a friend!

Look how tall and pretty I am, mommy!

 The kids all tried hard move that pumpkin. Young age, always thinking there is nothing they can't achieve!

Friends

On a beautiful, sunny day, even the spiders are pretty. Even mommy was brave enough to get close and take a picture.

We left thinking of Halloween and all the fun that's still ahead of us. So many holidays and smiles to look forward to next to our miracle girl.

A Nobel Prize for my mom

    I was driving today to work and listening to NPR about the Nobel Prize for peace, how that beautiful and courageous girl went to school amid serious threats and real danger that in the end got her shot. And the more I listened to the story, the more my mind was overridden with the memory of a different story.

  In a small village, in a big poor family of 6 (at that time) the oldest girl really wanted to go to school. Her two older brothers were already of school age, so she couldn't wait to start as well. When time came, she loved every second of it. The novelty, the excitement, the fact that she was spared the many house chores she was given. But fall in the country side comes with a lot of labor, field work, house work, preparations for the hard winter to come. So, the girl's mother told her she has to stay home to care for her younger sister and take care of some chores. Yes, a 6 year old was expected to do that, not because the parents were child abusers, but because there was no other way to survive in those times. Pretty much all families expected that of the children.

  The difference comes in the children here. Most of the kids in the country side loved the idea of skipping school. But this tiny girl (she was short and skinny and awfully pretty) decided that she will go to school, just like her brothers. So she ran away from home to go to school and learn. The teacher (who had received a note from the parents that the girl will be out of school) was perplexed. The teacher talked to the parents and convinced them to let girl come to school. She just wanted to be educated. And educated she was. 12 years later, after she finished high school, her parents expected her home to work the land. She worked hard the whole summer and then she asked permission from her parents to go to the city for a week to spend it with a relative. Where did she go instead? She went to a bigger city to apply to a Math college. Few days later, in the small village her mother gets congratulated: "you must be so proud, your daughter will be a student at one of the best colleges in the country"! Should the mother be angry at the not-so-obedient girl? Should she be proud? I think she was both. And like this, from a tiny cute girl in a small poor village emerged a very much loved and esteemed mathematics professor.

  This is the story of how my mom chose her profession, always running and fighting to get the education others took for granted. Just like Malala Yousafzai. True, she was not in an Arab country. Believe me however, my grandma can be as scary as the talibans :). My mom continued her life spreading the love for science and education, not only to my sister and I, but to anyone who cared to listen to her. For this and for so many more, even if only in a smaller community and without the 8 million swedish kronor I am awarding my mom the Nobel Prize for peace. For love as well, but that is not a "thing" yet :)

To mom, for running away from home to go to school

Our first pet

    I am an animal lover, but not a pet lover. I like cats and dogs and animals in general, but on a farm, where they can run freely and do things they were meant to do. The idea of keeping an animal in a house for the sole enjoyment of an adult (or worse, to teach a kid responsibility) just seems silly to me. Also, I am not a big fun of cleaning fur/hair/urine smell on a daily basis without any hope of a remedy (except of course the cruel hope of animal death). It is universally accepted in our household that we will not have house pets. If at any point we'll own a house with a garden, we might have a small dog/cat that will live outside (or in a shed in the winter days). But most probably not.

  That being said, this morning I realized Catalina has a pet. Few days back I took inside the house a small rose in a pot. The plant had beautiful flowers for a while, and then, little by little it lost all of its leaves. I suspected some sort of disease, or pesticides from the lawn, or some nasty mosquitoes. So I brought the plant inside with 3-4 remaining leaves. Last night, right before we went to sleep Catalina showed me a small, disgusting worm that was crawling on the plant. Catalina thought it's the cutest little worm, she named it Tiny and talked about it quite a bit. It was late, I was tired and I did not want to think about a creepy creature in my kitchen. So I did the best and most expected thing: I ignored the worm and went to sleep. This morning, Catalina jumped out of the bed and ran to the kitchen to see what the worm is doing. She was so excited to see Tiny! And what do you know, Tiny was still on my plant, but the last leaves were not. Darn little hungry caterpillar! Pretty angry at our newly acquired pet I took a paper towel and tried to "send it to a beautiful farm". This did not go well with Catalina who started to wail that she loves Tiny. What to do...right?
   So, I did what every girl does when she's in trouble. I called mommy. Meaning that we called bunica Milica, had a nice chat on skype so Catalina can show off her beautiful pet. We then talked about what Tiny will eat and we explained to Catalina that we need to give Tiny more leaves. Catalina wanted to bring more leaves from the tree in front of our house. But mommy had a better idea: how about we put Tiny on a leaf and then he can eat as many leaves as s/he wants. Catalina agreed happily. Mommy was happy too.

This ended the first pet episode in our household. Now, I'm hoping for some new leaves to grow on my once beautiful plant :)

It's a colorful life!

Summer left from our neighborhood some time back and took with it the long days and (thankfully) the heat and humidity. We had a pleasant summer this year, so not much to complain. But I was still happy to feel the first breeze of the fall. Or, to wait for the leaves to change color and then marvel once again how beautiful is the nature around us.

We took several trips to farms around us, got fruits and vegetables to last us a whole winter. And then we finished everything in a week :)

Yummiest peaches we had in US. Juicy and full of flavor!

My cute pumpkin

 On one of our visits to Styer farm Catalina carried her butterfly net. needless to say, I really hoped no butterflies will get next to us. Oblivious to mommy's butterfly phobias, Catalina looked for bugs and made Marius exercise a little as well :)

And look what they got in the end! The world biggest bug in a container... Happy Catalina tried very hard to convince mommy to admire it.

To stay true to our tradition, we visited again the Hellerick farm. This year, not such a big hit. Maybe it was the hot day, maybe allergies, maybe the outrageous entrance fee they charged us (for Catalina as well!), but we did not have the fun we anticipated.

Catalina was in a good mood, so at least somebody had some fun

Yes, the duck race was there again. It did not help for our spirits to know that the ducks are $2 this year...Catalina was very happy though, and after she "won" the first couple of races she decided that mommy can win now as well ...

 Once again, the reason we visit the farm every year: our daughter's growth chart:)

The corn box was still there...

And here we were ready to say good bye to the farm. If they don't decrease their fees, we probably won't return next year. But it still holds some nice memories for us!

     Since on Saturdays mommy and Catalina spend the whole day together, the fun we have is never boring. In one of our trips to went downtown to meet one of mommy's grad school friends. By the time we got dressed and ready, we obviously missed the train. The good part about being only the two of us, was the fact that mommy handles changes of plan much better than daddy. So, we had an absolutely delightful delay at Dunkin Donuts!

I absolutely love the city, in all its glory. I could live without the urine smell, but tall buildings do put smiles on these faces :)

Our date was at the Academy of Natural Sciences and Catalina had plenty of fun digging for dinosaur bones

 Then, some fun with the pictures:

And, just to prove that fall is not all about fun, let's talk about the "back to school" part. Catalina restarted her ballet classes and this time she seems to enjoy it a little more. Still shy, but no more cries before the start of the class

As for the real school...well, mommy got scolded for bringing Catalina in too late, so now we try to get there before 10am :). And this is the first morning Catalina decided to acknowledge the end of summer and actually wear something different from a summer dress

And when we were not at a farm, or in school, or in the city, we had fun around the house. Lots of fun, as this is the non pretentious, spontaneous kind.

Now, in the middle of the season we are getting ready for Halloween and even more colors. Fall is beautiful with this girl!