January 26 - February 9, 2019 – 4 years 7 months: Barra de Potosí, Mexico, Part 2

The best quote…. after I had my hair braided with cornrows…

Me:  Te gusta mi pelo así, Kadito?  (Do you like my new hair style Kadito?)
Kadito:  No.
Me:  No? Porque?
Kadito:  Porque mis amigos in Miss Charity's class van a laugh at me.
Me: Porque?
Kadito:  Porque you are so beautiful.

Said to me in the bathroom at Chula Vida, the night of the Super Bowl, January 2019

January 9 - 26, 2019 – 4 years 7 months: Barra de Potosí, Mexico, Part 1

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May 1-9, 2018 - 3 years 10 months

Proud Mama moment… I ordered breaded green beans for us at the Sheep Creek Lodge as a lame attempt to provide my child with a vegetable and guess what!  He not only loved them but peeled the greasy breading off and ate only the green bean part and said, "Yummy!!"

Later on, a band started up, playing fun rockabilly and lounge music and Kadin said, "Too loud" and would only watch from outside.  (Can you spot him?!)

My little helper these days… "Me help Mom, ok?"  And he cleaned every window on my car, including the sideview mirrors.  He started to try to wash the entire car, and I managed to convince him that he had already helped out plenty.  

OK, this might be one of my favorites… picturing him as a 30-year-old intellectual in his university office… absolutely too cute!

We must have spent over an hour playing in an old log pile, climbing up and down, "catching fish in the lake" (the bottom of the pile was the lake, sticks were our catch), and getting Bucky to follow him down the rabbit hole.

Buckarooni!

Our new favorite bathing spot on the 2nd floor of the Fairview.  It's my favorite because, one, I can get in the tub as well, and, two, they let me order a drink and bring it up to the bath.  Heavenly!

Kadito, Buck, and I had a great time just playing in the hollow across the street from our house.  Kadin would throw the ball down into it and we would sometimes have to give Bucky directions to find the ball – and he got it!  Gee (right), Haw (left), Uh uh (nope), Da Vuelta (turn around), and Sigue, sigue (keep going).  Kadin won't let me take many photos but he loves showing his talents on video!

January 17-18, 2018 - Mahahual, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

Kadito found two more friends!   They played for over an hour, running around with "Bebe" the chihuahua puppy, sharing toys, climbing things, pushing me in a hammock, etc. 

Yum!  After you drink the coconut water from a young coconut, you can eat the coconut on the insde.  It's softer and slimier than mature coconut and tastes great, especially with a bit of chile sprinkled on it.  Kadito doesn't like the coconut water but he actually liked the coconut with chile.  This is his first time starting to like a little bit of spice to his foods.

On a side note, with no picture to document it, Kadito found an open bag of Flamin Hot Cheetos on the beach with a few Cheetos still in it and he started to eat them before I could say anything (either about it being "trash" or it being spicy!).  So, I let him eat them, figuring they'd be way too spicy for him, and he LOVED them.  Must have been the MSG.  

Oh, and here's the ingredient list so you see why I don't normally give him these things:  

Enriched Corn Meal (Corn Meal, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil (Contains One or More of the Following: Corn, Soybean or Sunflower Oil), flamin hot seasoning (Maltodextrin, salt, Sugar, Monosodium Glutamate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Artificial Color (Including Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Cheddar Cheese (Cultured Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Whey, Onion Powder, Whey Protein Concentrate, Corn Syrup Solids, Natural Flavor, Buttermilk, Garlic Powder, Disodium Phosphate, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Caseinate, Lactic acid, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, nonfat milk, Sodium Citrate, Carrageenan) , salt.

This was hysterical.  We met a nice woman visiting from another part of Mexico who agreed to take our picture.  I have 6 pictures with various poses of me trying to get him to face the camera.  Ridiculous!  But at least it was silly and fun and he was laughing instead of actually pouting like he usually does.  The woman said she was watching me earlier and thought I looked like the epitome of a woman thoroughly enjoying motherhood. ❤️

Afterwards, we played chase around the letters with me trying to catch him in a photo.

That same afternoon, we took an afternoon stroll along the beach by our camp and encountered two kids by the pier.
One, the girl pictured, was a French Canadian girl who didn't speak English.
The other was a local boy.  He's the one who thought of the great idea to bring a broken beach chair into the water to play on.  Unfortunately, soon after, his father or grandfather showed up, furious that he had wandered down the beach all by himself!!

Our one fully rainy day.  We went on a bike ride, got completely soaked, and then played in all the puddles along the Malecón.  All of the benches were painted – this one had the characters from the Jungle Book.

January 14-15, 2018 - Mahahual, Mexico (3 years 6 months)

Look Mama, you can't see my thumb!

Listening to the ocean waves…

Mahahual's beaches were mostly calm with lots of sea grasses and shells and other treasures for my budding naturalist.  

Showing me his treasure – a barnacle and sea grass covered shell of some sort.

Of course, if there is a puppy around, Kadin wants to be his best friend.  This cutie was about 9 months old and named Luna.

Yum! Octopus!  He loved it and mostly liked to eat off the suction cups.  Whenever we'd go to another restaurant, he'd say, "Me want eat pupu!"  Of course, pupu is pulpo, Spanish for octopus, but it made a few people turn their heads. ;-)

Same meal.  Kadin decides to paint his fingernails… with ketchup.  He was very proud of it and was happy to let me take his photo.

My little funny face, I love you so much.

Here's our campsite at Mahahual.  Definitely my favorite.  Right on the beach and not too crowded and there was even a bar and restaurant right there.

January 5-8, 2018 - Tulúm, Mexico CAMPING at KUKULCAN (3 years 6 months)

Last year, he wouldn't let me bury him.  Now he's buried up to his waist!

He only let's me take a picture of him these days if he is making funny faces or doing something he's excited about.  

This was our first campsite – at Hostal Kukulcan.
Small and friendly but a bit too far from the beach and a bit too much concrete for my taste.  Kadito had a love/hate relationship with the little puppy, depending on whether she was nipping his heels or not.

Yummy ice cream!  He was so thoroughly enjoying it that another customer asked me if she could take his picture as the epitome of ice cream enjoyment.

October 1 - 15, 2017 - 3 years 3 months

We went out for sushi and Kadin did a great job with his chopsticks!

ARGGH.  He LOVED the calamari.  He actually ate everything but wasn't too excited about the raw salmon.

As a surprise reward for being so good in the restaurant and in Value Village, I let Kadin pick out a toy and he is super excited about his new pirate ship!

It even has little mini wheels so it can smoothly sail the concrete seas.

Soleil's Birthday Party!!! Soleil is the girl to the far left.  

Mr. Monkey Acrobat in the bath.

In aerial yoga, this would be the orangutan pose.

Throwing rocks and sticks and leaves and watching them sink or float down the coast like a pirate ship.  (Everything is a pirate ship these days!)

It took Kadin over an hour to finally work up the courage to approach Sparky, the fire dog.  Sparky was quiet and patient and eventually Kadin wanted to show him all of his toys and art.  He even started to "read" the fire activity book to him!

We visited Wendy for a lovely tea and biscuits and a fun romp with her dogs.  Kadin found a feather on her window sill and he let me put it in his hair.  I love his facial expression in this picture for some reason.  

Yes, he's still running around naked.  But the awesome thing is that he had watched me mop the floor a few minutes prior to this and then immediately picked up the mop, mopped the floor, and used the squeegie thing to get the water out.  Kids' amazing ability to watch and imitate never ceases to surprise me.