The New Evil Knievel

Well, it's official. We have an 8 month old daredevil on our hands. As I mentioned in the not-so-distant past, Isabel is crawling at warp speeds. Turn your head for a moment, and she's in another room.

Yesterday she began her training for professional rock climing. What, don't believe me? While I may be known for occasional over-dramatization to improve a story, this is no exaggeration. The child cannot even walk yet. She can't stand without the aid of sturdy objects or a helping hand. But she's climbing into chairs and on top of boxes. Still don't believe me?? See for yourself.


Oooh, look at me trying to climb on Mommy's Avon box...





Did I say TRYING? What I meant to say was, "Look at me while I AM climbing on Mommy's Avon box."




Oh, you thought that's the only trick I had, huh? How about climbing on my bouncy seat?




I'm practicing my balancing skills for surfing. Santa's bringing me a board this year. Like, TOTALLY, duuuude!



So there you have it. Daredevil Isabel. Nicholas never climbed like this. Of course I kept him penned up until he was around 2... maybe it's time to pull out that old baby gate again!

Squeezes & Smacks!
(Hugs & Kisses)

Return of the Mack (Mama Monkey)

Well, blog-land can't get rid of me that easily! For those of you who have followed along, you know that I started this blog several weeks ago then was shut-down, locked out, evicted (whatever you want to call it) by the blog bots. They called me dirty names like sp@m. Vicious animals!

Well I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Now didn't you all miss me??

So what's new?

Isabel is a competitive crawler (we've been timing her laps and are considering putting her on the pro circuit.)

Nicholas is 4. Apparently the age of four comes with a serious dose of hearing loss. I swear I can repeat myself 4 or 5 times without any acknowledgement. Do they make ear drops for this???

Carlos still works ALL OF THE TIME and we rarely see him. The up side to that is that he "brings home the bacon" - plenty of it. Down side is that Nicholas is now 4 (see above) and realizes he's not seeing much of Daddy. And guess who gets to hear him whine/yell/complain about that? Your favorite caped crusader - MAMA MONKEY!

Other than that, all is pretty much "normal".

I would like to ask that everyone say a prayer for a family friend from the great state of PA named Doris. She just had pretty serious surgery and is in ICU. Doctors say she's looking good, but please pray for her. She is one of the craziest (read: wild) women I've ever known. But she also has a good heart. She and her husband Roy were 2 of the most generous people I knew growing up.

So I'll dedicate this blog to Doris & her well being. God bless, you huzzy. Hugs & kisses.

Easter Rhymes with Keester

Knocked flat on my keester (that's my hiney, for anyone who's grandfather never used the word keester.) I don't eve know if I'm spelling it correctly. Can't say I recall ever seeing it in print.



Whoa, sidetrack much? To say that I am tired today would be the understatement of the year. I had a rotten night's sleep and I'm quite grumpy this morning. Fortunately, Princess Isabel woke me up fairly nicely. Simple quiet crying was all I heard over the monitors. Definitely not full-on screaming "Get in here and change my poopy diaper, you crazy lady" that the diaper situation I found called for. Let's just say that when my sweet precious angel doesn't have a bowel movement for 24 hours, you DO NOT want to be on diaper duty when things start moving. It took 30 minutes for me to build up an appetite for breakfast afterwards.

Enough about poop. 3 days until Nicholas' birthday. Apparently backwards counting is really not his thing. I finally had him ready to admit that yesterday was 4 days until his birthday. I asked, "How many days will be left until your birthday tomorrow?" To which he promptly answered, "Five!"



He's still asleep, by the way. After all his excitement to search for Easter eggs, the kid is still in the bed. His sister and I tried to wake him up earlier. He cracked one eye open and promptly covered his head and rolled over. Maybe he had a late night partying while he's still 3 (for 3 more days, for those of you who aren't following...) Maybe I'll try to stuff & hide the eggs while he's still asleep.

Here's my question for the day: Does anyone out there actually hide hard-boiled eggs instead of (or along with) plastic eggs for Easter?

Ciao for now!

Blogging Rhymes with Jogging

Once upon a time in a faraway place, there was a Mama of two monkeys. She spent her days at her Marketing job and her nights as a zookeeper at the Esparza Family Zoo. An old friend invited her to check out her blog on Blogspot, and... well, here we are. Ok, so once upon a time wasn't too far into the distant past. Good marketing is sometimes misleading. What are you gonna do?

So here I am, wondering if this will be a project I start and then never return to. Sounds cool now, but turns into a lot of work for a woman without much free time on her hands. I guess we'll just have to wait it out and see if my life is actually interesting enough for my friends to check in and read about it. (That will also be a test of whether or not my friends' lives are interesting enough to keep them too busy to have time to ready about my (possibly) interesting life.)

Still with me? Yes answers are a good sign...

So today is Saturday. Nicholas turns 4 in 4 days. Try explaining this to an (almost) 4 year old. Yesterday it was 5 days, so naturally my (almost) 4 year old spent the morning arguing with me that his birthday is in 5 days, not 4. Of course this is the same child who will tell you that his sister was in my tummy 2 weeks (ahem, 7 months) ago. If I had his sense of time, my boss would have fired me 2 weeks (uh, 2 years) ago.

Isabel is growing like a weed. I hear that's a common symptom of most infants. To be so small, the kid can put away some food. And I'm starting to realize we pay as much for her food as we do for our own. Quite disproportionate, really.

Easter is tomorrow. We have no significant plans made. My mother is not doing her traditional Easter dinner, so the kids and I are just hanging around the house. Carlos has to work, but that's no surprise. I bought a small pack of plastic eggs to fill with coins and hide around the back yard. I think Melissa might come over to watch him find them. Maybe I can convince her to go out for a late lunch/early dinner with us.

Ok, here's my question for the day - in your family, is it custom to fill the eggs with candy, money, or both?

Ta-ta for now!