The other morning Bella woke up early and started to “pretend give me a tatto” while I was on the computer writing an email before heading off to my class (I will tell you about the class in another post). Anyway, she loves tattos and can’t wait to have a “real one”, she loves Miami ink and can’t understand why the tattos we let her wear don’t last long and wants the one with the “needle” (Ok, so she’s a bit weird, but those of you who know her know that she is 4 going on 20).

Ok, where was I going with all this, oh yes, ok, so she loves to pretend draw on my arm or anywhere and pretend to give me a tattoo..This particular morning, I was running late and not paying much attention to her and she proceded to give me her pretend tatto..I let her so she wold leave me alone and as soon as I finished typing the email, I headed off to class.

Half way through the morning in my class the guy sitting next to me says to me “Nice Tatoo”, and I say “Excuse me” (well, in Spanish) and he said, “It’s very original”, and I say again “Excuse me???”, He then grabs my arm turns it so I could see and to my surprise, little miss Bella, had decided that this morning she would use a real marker!! not even a pen a MARKER!! The next thing I know is that the entire class is getting up to admire my tatoo and yes, laugh at me..

When I got home I had to take a picture of it and thank Bella for the lovely artwork…Well, at least we know she will have an artistic profession.

Bella learns how to crawl, check, learns how to walk, check, learns how to ride a bicycle, check, and now we can say bella learns how to swim, check!! Yes, a 15 day intensive swimming course and she is ready to go… Isabella is a very quick learner and our neighbors joke around that if the Olympics were not next month she could have easily entered and won a medal..hahaha, other predict she will be walking on water by the end of the summer.. But for now we are just happy she knows how to swim.

She is very scared of the water (we think, it’s the only thing she is afraid of), so it took her longer to let go and get swimming, but her fears are slowly going away, so let’s see what she will do next week!!.. Above is a quick video of her new achievement..

 
Sorry it has taken so long to write again but the last week of school was full of activities, parties and many, many more activities..The kids had their end of school performance where Bella danced, Marco did a Judo exhibition and played the guitar. My dad and M.T were here visiting so they got to enjoy the long… performances.. hahaha.

Bella danced a Flamenco and a Hawaiian dance.. She did great.. At the end she bowed so long she wouldn’t get back up. Marco did a Judo exhibition where he earned his orange and green belt, and played the guitar with his guitar class. Over all, we were very proud of our little performers and we are glad they have no fear of being on stage. You can view all pictures and videos HERE. 

Part one

I finally had to video tape Bella cooking..as you can see here she carefully breaks the eggs, puts salt and slowly starts to beat them.. Matt came in so I had to stop recording..

Part 2

I missed the part where she pours it in the pan, but trust me she did it herself perfectly..

Part 3

Here she carefully turns it, with Marco by her side in amazement…

Part 4

She finally gets it out of the pan and voila an omelete is made…

I always write about how Isabella is so smart and so ahead for her age…well, with all that comes another side of Isabella that many of you who know her know what I’m talking about. This next story happened yesterday in a shoe store, where I attempted to buy her a pair of shoes…

Everything was good until we got to the store and I told her she needed to try the shoes on.. She said she had an “pupa” in the back of her right foot and refused to try them on.. she started to cry, then scream and yell NO, NO , NO, I explained to her that we would only try on the other foot..But she was not going to give in.. the more I tried to put the shoe on the louder she screamed.. The sales lady attempted to help by telling her she had a magical cream, but that just made her yell even louder saying“NO!! cream, NO zapatos…….” Everyone was staring at me and couldn’t wait for me to get the hell out of there.. Out of desperation I bought the pair of shoes and told her we were leaving.. But she refused to get up or put her shoes on… I told her I was leaving and prented to leave.. hiding outside..

I waited a few minutes and I could hear her yelling from the top of her lungs!! (I’m surprised you coudn’t hear her), I decided to peak in to see if she was coming when I saw shoes flying!! yes, she decided to get a hold of all the shoes she could and throw them up in the air…At this point I had two choices.. run away, or deal with it.. As the good mother I’m, I went in, apologized, put the shoes back, picked up Bella like a sack of potatoes, and walked out…it was the longest walk to my car I have ever experienced. As soon as she sat down in the car she stopped crying and screaming and said “my pupa doesn’t hurt anymore”.

Who wants her for a weekend? Any takers????

photo flickr by jenkin

Isabella was given a school project on Friday called “La maleta viajera’ (the travelling suitcase), each week one of the kids in her class has to take this traveling suitcase and fill it with anectodes of the weekend. This is the first time Bella received the suitcase and was very excited. She wanted me to detail everything she did. So this past weekend we documented a day in the life.. hahaha..

She posed for pictures and directed everything she wanted me to say.. She told me what pictures to use, and basically just ordered me around.. You can see the pictures in our photo album for the month of April. I will let you know what the teacher thought or our little weekend report.

As I told you in an earlier post, Isabella is very domestic and likes to help out around the house. Since she wants to learn, I have decided to teach her little things here and there.. (Don’t worry ironing wont be one of them.. not yet…). I have figured out she likes to wash dishes and she does it very well.. So now, I don’t have to make breakfast of wash the dishes.. What do you think about that?

Poor Bella, this morning bright and early, 8 am I had to take her to get her blood drawn. It seems the doctor thinks she is a bit skinny for her age and because she doesn’t like to eat much except chocolate and “chuches” (candy), she needed to have some tests run. Isabella currently weights 13 kilos (28 pounds), I guess that is skinny, I’m not sure…

I didn’t tell her where we were going so as to not scare her but this morning as soon as we got to the doctor she knew something was up.. We had to wait a while but the only thing on her mind was getting to school because today she was “la encargada” (the one in charge, the leader who calls everyone’s name for attendance). This is a very special role which doesn’t happen everyday, so she just wanted to make sure that we got to school on time.

When we finally went in a she saw the needle she immediately began to scream a the top of her lungs (she has some powerful lungs) and it took three nurses and me to hold her down.. she kept telling them “malas, malas” (mean) and she told them, why do you want to drink my blood, don’t you have water? hahaha… After it was all done, it was my turn and she said to me “don’t cry mama I’m right here to hold your hand”…

By the way the picture I have posted is of her new look!! what do you think.. I will keep you informed on the test results.. Is she too skinny??

Those of you who have met Isabella know she is not your typical little girl. She is now 4 years old (just turned) and thinks she is twenty.. She surprises us everyday with her “talents” (for her age)… One of the most surprising things she does is that she loves to cook, it started with her play kitchen but now has moved in to our own.

She is very agile and climbs our kitchen cabinets with ease.. She has figured out how to make breakfast for everyone and when she wakes up goes straight to the kitchen to make it.. She knows what everyone likes.. Marco likes a glass of milk with chocolate and cupcakes..She takes the mug from the cabinet, gets the milk out of the refrigerator, pours the milk, opens the microwave heats up the milk, pulls out the “cola cao’ from the cabinet, gets a spoon and stirs it, gets the cupcakes and plate and a napkin and hands it over to Marco.. She does the same routine with my coffee (heats up milk and puts the coffee powder) and with cereal and so on… and doesn’t leave any kind of mess.. (the dishes are left for me although, she has on occasion washed a couple of them)

Now when I wake up in the morning my breakfast is ready.. I’m starting to teach her to iron see how that goes.. (just Kidding!!!!).

Today we went to Burger King, which we hardly ever go here in Spain becuase first of all there are not as many as there are in the states, secondly we don’t really want our kids eating junk food to often and third of all it is as expensive or more than a regular no fast food place here. And the price is not the only difference here in Spain, here you could order a beer with your meal.. How about that? ..I would like a kids meal with a beer..hahha. but don’t laugh that is what I ordered!!

The kids also like to go there because they have outside little play areas where they can jump around and go through tunnels, although, today the outside area was closed due to heavy winds we have been having.. so the kids just got to eat..but hey, they were happy with that.

phot by flickr by girl least likely to