Trinity is now 2! We can't believe it! Her party was on Sunday, June 3 (her birthday) and much fun was had by all. One of Trinity's favorite movies is Monster's Inc. and we wanted to try and do a theme party for her. Thanks to the lovely and creative ideas of Rai, I was talked into making a Monster's Inc. cake for the party. I tried to also order party supplies online to have Rai bring them down from the states, but because the movie was released in the year 2000, all of the themed items have been discontinued. As luck has it, we live in Mexico, and when the US gets tired of stuff, they ship it down here. Also lucky for me was Rai's eagle eye in spotting the party store near the Mercado that had all the stuff I needed: invitations, plates, cups, loot boxes, blowers, hats and buttons. Our babysitter Denis introduced me to a lady who makes piñatas, and I hired her to make a Sully piñata for us. All that was left to do was make the cake...

The Cake Fiasco...

It wasn't really much of a fiasco. The plan was to make a rectangular cake frosted with frosting that looks like Sully's fur, and make a ball cake, and cover it in fondant and decorate it to look like Mike Wyzowski. Mike was to be sitting in the center of the cake. I've been watching this tv show on the Food Network (thanks again for the dishnetwork, mom) called Ace of Cakes, and after seeing some of their creations, I convinced myself I was up to the task. Apparently I wasn't totally convinced, though, because I started having cake nightmares weeks before Trinity's birthday. It really reminded me alot of moot court during law school. My first attempt at fondant was from a recipe in the Joy of Cooking, and sadly, it didn't specify that it was fondant to be used as candy rather than fondant to wrap cakes with, so after several attempts at making it (and making a great batch, just of the wrong stuff) I turned to the internet and discovered recipes for "rolled" fondant. Those recipes were a breeze, the only problem is that fondant is not so easy to work with, especially in a hot humid environment. I hired Denis to watch Trinny for the day on Saturday, turned the a/c on high, and started my day by making multiple batches of buttercream to frost the cakes with. Yummm....there went my diet for the weekend. We didn't have any red food coloring (and couldn't find it at our local stores), so I wasn't able to make the Sully fur turquoise and purple, so I had to do it sort of turquoise and dark blue. The turquoise turned out to be really really green, but oh well. Then it was time to color Mike. The green turned out perfect, and I couldn't believe I managed to blend in the color so smoothly into the fondant. Then I rolled out the fondant.

My problem came in when I tried to pick the fondant up - it had started getting too dry, and by the time I was wrapping the round cake with it, it was cracking and falling apart. I chose the most messed up side to cut into to make his mouth and eye, so most of the rest of him looked okay. I couldn't belive I managed to get all the fondant teeth and eyeball to stick, and really, the cake did look great. But if I were doing this professionally, and believe me, I'd have to be paid ALOT to do it regularly, I would never have gone with my first attempt.

Beach Babies

The party was at our favorite Sunday morning hangout, Popeye's on Playa Larga. There's a baby pool that the kids could swim in, or stand in if they don't want to swim, and lots of sand and lovely views. The food is good, and we ordered lots of appetizers of quesadillas, camaronillas (shrimp tacos) pescadillas (fish tacos), breaded fish fingers and guacamole. We had, all told, about 22 adults and 14 kids. The best part (for me) was that I could totally enjoy myself, because my work was done. The restaurant cooked the food, brought out the drinks, and cleaned up the plates. After a week of making ice cream, fondant, and cakes, I was ready to chill out and enjoy the party. Trinity was an absolute champ. Normally she's ready for her nap by 1:30 or 2:00, and we ended up staying at the beach until 6:00 with Trin only having a few crying spells that didn't last long. Trinity spent the day playing in the pool with her friends, learning to make sand castles, and asking Daddy for more tattoos. We bought two huge sheets of temporary tattoos, one of spiderman and one of princesses, and they were the hit of the party. Andy was in charge of the tattoo station, and he was busy the whole day. Even most of the adults got tattoos. Trinity ended up with Spiderman on her right arm, a mermaid and a princess on her left arm, an arm band of something, and all the disney princesses posed together on her stomach. Lovely. Luckily they only last a few days.

Everyone loved the ice cream and cake (yay) and the piñata was a hit (no pun intended). Strangely, none of the kids wanted to break the piñata because they all really liked the movie Monster's Inc. We finally managed to convince two of the older boys to take out their aggressions on Sully, and in spite of breaking the stick into four pieces, they finally broke the piñata and got to the goodies inside.

All in all, it was a fabulous party, if I do say so myself. What made it fabulous, really, is that we have so many great friends, with such lovely kids, and it was such a pleasure spending the day with them. Having said that, I'm glad Trinity's birthday only comes once a year!

I've already mentioned how quickly Trinity is growing up. It's just so fascinating to see her personality shining through as she does it. One of her favorite words right now is "tattoo". We bought tons of temporary tattoos because she just loves them, and clearly wants to have them on her. She has also requested very specifically on more than one occasion that she have her bellybutton pierced. I think 2 years old is a bit soon, so we'll pass on that for now. So aside from tattoos and body piercings? She loves to sing and dance. I think we definitely have a future musician/dancer/artist/whatever on our hands.

Trinity is a very interesting mix of Andy and me, and we can see it in everything, from the way she plays with her toy kitchenette set to the way that she eats. Eating and sleeping have been my biggest issues over the last number of months. I thought that Trinity had a problem, but now I'm coming to realize that I just didn't know what I was doing and have gotten us into our current mess. As far as eating goes, Trinity was doing great, until she started feeding herself. Then the only thing she would eat was bread, rice, tortillas and the occasional slice of ham while we were shopping at Comercial Mexicana. (Her favorite breakfast food is toast with bovril on it, which she refers to as "poo." I do correct her whenever she calls it that, but I can't help laughing, not being a fan of marmite or bovril myself.) But now I see where the problem is - it is not that she doesn't want to eat, it's that she can't be bothered to feed herself when there is so much going on. If I cut up pieces of omelet, and shove them in her mouth as she passes me by during breakfast, she eats the entire omelet, asking for more after she's finished each piece. The same goes with slices of beef, chunks of chicken, and the occasional piece of vegetable (she is her father's daughter, after all). The other night she ate almost all of my grilled salmon. But if she had the choice, milk alone would sustain her, and it would be injected or fed to her while she slept, so she didn't have to miss anything important wasting her time consuming fuel. This is almost exactly her father's approach to food, although he's learned to enjoy my cooking over the years, and actually takes time out for meals nowadays. We still let Trinity feed herself, but I'm realizing that she eats better if I help.

As far as sleeping goes, we are almost over the trauma that I created by ignoring all the parenting books I read. When Trinity was little, I just couldn't fathom waking her up after nursing her to sleep so that I could put her in her crib and let her cry and finally fall asleep on her own. All that crying and drama just seemed unnecessary. But when the nursing to sleep approach stopped working last November, I realized I had created a bit a of problem. We started a new routine in December with Andy reading to her, but she still wouldn't go off, so he ended up driving her in the car until she dropped off. That started taking forever after a while, so I took over again in February, after she had been weaned, and after she read a bit with Andy, I would lay down with her on the day bed until she fell asleep. It took a while, but we finally got fed up with all the effort, and gave in to the "cry it out method." The first night didn't go so well. Trinity cried up a storm for the entire 3 minutes I was out of the room each time I left, until the 4th time I was out and she threw up all over her bed. The next two nights didn't involve quite as much tears, drama or vomit, but since then, it's been up and down (with several more vomit incidents). However, last night Andy and I went out to dinner and left the babysitter alone to put her to bed, and Trinity didn't cry at all. And the previous 2 nights I had put her in her crib with Teddy and she said "no cry" and I left, and she fell asleep quietly. Phew!

So in spite of me having no idea how to be a proper parent, Trinity seems to be overcoming the hurdles and learning how to eat and sleep as she's growing up. Thank goodness! I thought for sure I had screwed her up for good, but I suppose children are designed to be more resilient than that.

As Trinity's birthday approaches, I'm having loads of fun organizing her party and getting all the party supplies lined up, but I'm sure if I just gave her a bunch of temporary tattoos and some toast with bovril on it, she'd be happy enough. Maybe I did screw her up a bit after all!

I know everyone goes on and on about how quickly their kids grow up, but the amazing thing is that it literally happens in huge leaps and bounds. We noticed it when Trinity went from being a baby to a toddler, mainly because it happened right when she started to walk. Literally overnight. One day she was a floor-bound baby, the next day she was walking and a toddler. And now we understand the term toddler, because they truly toddle about when they are first learning to walk. What has just recently shocked me though, is that Trinity is no longer a toddler - she is quickly becoming a little girl, and I don't really know when it happened. Our friend Sabrina pointed it out the other day, "isn't it interesting how Trinity and Ginger are little girls now?" and wow - that's when I realized it was true. She doesn't really have any more baby fat (other than the cute tummy pooch) and her legs are these beautiful, sculpted muscular things that are just a smaller version of a woman's legs. Trinity has mastered the walking thing to the point that she runs, jumps, spins, spends hours just walking on her tippy-toes, spends a fair amount of time only walking backwards or sideways, and spends a few minutes each day nursing skinned knees because she pushed it too far.

Her changes are happening rapidly in other areas too. One day we were swimming at Hotel Irma with Ginger, Maya and Sabrina. Trinity was doing her usual thing of jumping into the water into my waiting hands. Ginger put on some water wings, flung herself in the water and started swimming about on her own. The next day when Trinity and I were at Comercial Mexicana, she saw a package of water wings, pointed them out, so I bought them. The next time we went swimming, it took all of one or two jumps into the water before she realized that she could be totally independent of me, and could swim around just like Ginger. Now our Sunday family beach trips have moved away from the baby pool and into the grown-up pool so she can jump and swim with more ease.

I guess what it is is that she's paying attention to what's around her, and then tries to copy it. She saw the tail end of an episode of Gray's Anatomy last week (because I was watching it during her nap) and the very next day I walked in on her with the babysitter, Denise, laying on the floor, having her tummy examined by Dr. Trinity and her stethoscope. Upon a second glance, I saw that she was using Bijou's old cat collar, but it was obvious what she was trying to do. (It might be time to get her a toy medical kit.) She's also really absorbing all the educational toys we have around the house. Her favorite thing lately is to try and sing along to the alphabet song, and when daddy writes letters on her chalkboard table, she names the letter and tries to sound out the word. So far she's working on cat, moon, pool and mummy, but when she sees the letter, she knows it and knows the sound it makes. Is that normal? She's only going to be 2 years old in a few weeks...Andy reckons that she'll be actually reading by 2 1/2 at this rate. Well, if that's true, we'll need to get some more books. I guess it's time for an amazon order.

Anyway, I'm happy to join the ranks of parents that are amazed by the pace with which their children learn and grow. It is so fascinating watching her enthusiasm for everything she learns and encounters and it makes life just a bit more exciting for us too.

Just another example of how strong a role genetics plays in a person's development, and most importantly, quirks. Yesterday, Trinity had spent the entire day running around and refusing to stop and eat any meals, because she was far too busy playing and coming up with new things she wanted to do (sounds familiar). Before I drove Rai and Norma to their respective homes, I filled a snack cup with Pepperidge Farms Goldfish, which is Trinny's newest favorite treat. She was so hungry in the car that she started stuffing handfuls of goldfish in her mouth all at once (also sounds familiar). I realize her little hands are tiny, so a handful of goldfish is only a few, but her mouth is proportionately tiny, so it filled up quickly. She was so hungry that she kept stuffing more in before she had bothered to chew and swallow what was already there. Slightly concerned, Norma took the snack cup away and told her she had to swallow what she had before she could take any more. She did, or tried to, but instead managed to throw up the whole lot of it. After a long day of work with us, poor Norma found herself in the back-seat of our car with a handful of pre-chewed cheesy goldfish. Yuck!

Anyway, for some reason, the goldfish incident reminded me of a story that Andy once told me. When he was in college in London, he had treated himself to a packet of Mr. Kipplings Chocolate Cupcakes. Apparently they are similar to Hostess Cupcakes, with the layer of chocolate frosting on the top. His favorite way of eating them was to eat the sponge cake first, and save the tops with the frosting for the end. He made his way through the packet of 3 cupcakes, and after eating the sponge, he methodically starting stuffing the 3 chocolatey tops into his mouth, savoring the flavor, and allowing the chocolate to melt in his mouth. Unfortunately he was listening to a comedy radio show at the time, and something extremely funny happened on the program. He started to laugh, and the melted chocolate sort of snorted up into his nose. His roommate, known as "Big Rich" at the time, walked in on Andy just as he started cracking up and a bunch of melted chocolate was shooting out of his nose. Rich simply said all that could be said, which was "that is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen!" Upon reflection, Andy says that it was probably a nicer thing to experience than to watch.

So, I guess that the goldfish incident is just a hint of what's to come!

Here are some photos, courtesy of Rai, from Trinity's birthday party. This first one is Trinity having a moment with Tru. Tru just had a fabulous hair-dye job done by Dawn.

The second photo is Trinity having a look at her birthday cake. She doesn't quite know what to make of it.

The third photo is when Trinity opened her present from Norma - a Winnie the Pooh.

After 5 days of preparing different flavored ice creams, chocolate cake, cupcakes and papaya burgers, we celebrated Trinity’s first birthday last night. Trinity was in top form after her 3-hour nap, although a little discombobulated by the arrival of so many little people. We had 7 children (two were younger than Trinity) and 16 adults that came to join in our celebration, in spite of the constant rain due to the tropical depression in our region. Everyone seemed to have lots of fun, and Trinity is still beside herself with the joy of new toys to play with.

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I spent the better part of 10 hours at Oakland’s Kaiser hospital waiting to push Trinity out into the world. She has been a constant delight and joy ever since then. And I know I’m biased because she’s my baby, but I’m not the only one who thinks she’s a truly awesome creature. Check Rai’s blog at http://isahrai.com/quixotic to see a couple of recent photos of Trinity and also a video of her singing debut.

Happy Birthday Trinity! It’s been a fabulous year, and we look forward to many, many more!

Exactly a year ago Andy and I were staying at Julia and Carter’s house in Oakland. I was extremely pregnant and woke up with a seriously bad cold. Andy popped out later that day to get me some hot chili and a cold frosty from Wendy’s. (Wendy’s is a bit of a novelty after so many years in Mexico. There were definitely no fingers!) He also gave me a lovely card with a drawing of a fabulously dressed pregnant woman on it, wishing the Mom-to-be a Happy Mother’s Day. It was a great day (except for the cold) and was filled with excitement about our future.

Today, Trinity woke me up at 6:30. That’s unusual for her, normally she sleeps in until 8:00 am, a much more civilized hour, but she has a stomach infection and I’m sure her little digestive system is messing up her sleep patterns. It was hard to get up because I stayed up too late last night – watching Dr. Who and also an episode from last season of Grey’s Anatomy. However, when she smiles that little toothy smile and points at the ceiling fan and says “dat”, it’s hard to resist giving her pudgy cheeks a kiss and getting up to play with her. While Andy slept in for a change (lately he’s been getting up with Trinity while I have a bit of a lie in) I decided that I had to have blueberry pancakes. Thanks to mom for bringing those boxes of Bisquick on her last visit, I was able to quickly make a yummy breakfast.

Instead of doing yoga during Trinity’s morning nap as I normally would, I decided to catch up on some sleep myself. I had a delicious 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Because Trinity slept for 2 1/2 hours herself, she had a hard time getting off to sleep for her afternoon nap. I spent 50 minutes in the rather warm sun of Zihuatanejo, walking in circles around the neighborhood until Trinity finally fell asleep in the stroller.

Now that she is napping, I’m trying to decide what to do this evening. I think I’ll have Andy go out to pick up some Chinese food for dinner (mu shu pork, Shanghai chicken, bbq pork ribs and spring rolls - not as good as we get in San Francisco, but it'll do). Perhaps I’ll watch another few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. Or maybe I should invite Rai to come over so we can see last week’s episode of Alias. Whatever I end up doing, what I primarily feel right now is that I am a mom, and I couldn’t be happier.

Let me start by first saying that Trinity was never actually missing. I have to say that, because people like my mother will be reading this and having their own personal heart attacks until they get to the end and find out that everything was okay.

Last night we came back from having a fabulous dinner at De Donde Eres, and while Andy was giving Rai a ride back to her house, I was getting Trinity’s bath ready. We were in the kitchen and I went to check on the bath water, with Trinity following me. I turned around, and she wasn’t there. I went back into the kitchen calling her name, and she wasn’t there. I walked more quickly to my office and didn’t see her. Then I checked the front terrace, to see if she walk out the entryway, but she wasn’t there. That’s when the adrenaline kicked into high gear. I ran back into the bathroom to see if maybe she was under the sink, and I didn’t see her. Then I ran to the kitchen and checked behind the high chair. Then I ran to my office to look again, now calling her name frantically. There was still no sign of her. I decided to run upstairs to see if she decided to climb the stairs by herself, which she never does. As I was heading out the entryway, I was screaming her name in a voice that had become uncomfortably high-pitched and girly. Just as I was about to climb the stairs I heard her plaintive cries. She was somewhere in the downstairs living room. I ran back in, following the cries and finally saw her. She was sitting in the corner behind the water bottle. She had been quietly watching the show of mom running from room to room. She only spoke up because she thought I was going to leave her alone downstairs.

I quickly picked her up and hugged her close to me while I tried to get my breathing back to normal. As I wiped the tears away from her face and told her everything was okay, I was doing all I could to not burst into tears myself. The whole episode only lasted a matter of minutes, but my heart was still racing, and I had seriously high doses of adrenaline pumping through me. I already knew it, but it had become clearer to me last night: the walking-thing is going to be challenge.