Chopsticks

A little random but I felt like telling someone. I think that I have finally mastered chopsticks, the eating utensil, not the piano song. I told Richard but he wasn't very impressed. And considering he has been using chopsticks longer than he has lived in the U.S., I guess I can understand. We ate Asian food twice this weekend and I completed both meals with out resorting to forks once. The first meal was Chinese food with the in-laws and I realized soon into the meal that the sticks felt "right." That had only happened once before and I lost the feeling soon after I realized that I had it. The second meal was even more impressive to me because it was Vietnamese soup and the noodles were very slippery at first. But I got the hang of it and enjoyed the soup very much. I know, a little silly but it feels nice to know that I can walk into an Asian restaurant and say no thanks to the fork and spoon that they only break out for the children and the white folks.
I just realized that we have been having a lot of Asian food lately. Two weekends ago we ate Japanese food with the in-laws too. Does that mean that we are going to have Thai this weekend? Yum!

Rigoberto Ruelas

I usually avoid depressing posts and have never posted a news story, as I recall, but this one is different. I have never met Rigoberto Ruelas or even heard of him before today, but his story intersects mine in three ways that will have me contemplating life for a few days. First, he was a teacher working for the same district that I do. Not that interesting because it is a very large district but I might not have heard of his death if he worked somewhere else. Second, the school that he worked at was in the same area as the school I worked at for the last 3+ years. Third, he lived in the area that I work now.
The second and third points are really what are causing me to obsess about this news story; I'm sure that LAUSD teachers die often enough that it really isn't that news worthy. The fact that it was an apparent suicide and that the suicide may have been caused by an unsatisfactory rating by the LA Times recently do make it news worthy, although I'm not really thinking too much about that. What I am thinking about are the students.
The elementary school that he taught at is very close to the high school that I taught at. He was there for many years so it is very likely that some of the students that I taught had him as a teacher. The community that I teach in now is a stable and predominately Hispanic community. The news stories seem to indicate that he not only lived there but had family there. He was very likely raised there and knew and was known to many families. I will not be surprised if I go to work tomorrow and find that several of my students have some connection to him and his family. I might even be teaching a younger cousin or niece or nephew.
I would have felt some sympathy for him and his family any way, but now I am wondering how many people that I know and love (or learning to love) will be hurt and personally saddened by the news of his passing.

Who's your daddy?

Today Joshua announced that he has a different father than Nathan. After reassuring him that they both had the same father, he then insisted no and that his father's name is Joshua. Added to that, apparently I'm not his mother either. His real mother is some woman named Elizabeth. When I asked him who I was then, he said that I was the babysitter. I then asked him when his real parents were going to come pick him up because the babysitter was done.

Richard's Father's Day Present

In the week before Father's Day, our camera died. Actually, it could probably be fixed, but last time a tried to get a camera fixed, they wanted to have me take it back to where I bought it and it was still rather expensive to fix. We couldn't remember where we had bought our most recent casualty, and considering the expected expense, it was actually probably better to just buy a new one. Unfortunately, Richard had wanted something else for Father's Day. Fortunately, Richard didn't mind too much about getting a camera instead (and I hadn't bought the other gift yet either).
It's not the DSLR that we had wanted for our next camera, but I think that it turned out to be better. The best thing about this camera is that it has a 26X optical zoom, which turns out to be much better for the types of pictures that we like to take. I'm pretty sure that all of these pictures were taken from at least 20 feet away. Some of them were more like 50 or 60 feet away.

Here is one of Josh jumping in the water.


A close-up of my baby.



An action shot of Ryan doing a cannonball off of the high dive. It hurt a little bit. I guess he didn't know about heights and water.

Randy taking a break from his work out.

Nathan's action shot off of the regular diving board.

I'm having way to much fun with Richard's present.

A boy, a pool, and a bribe

One of the things that I really wanted to do for the boys this summer was swimming lessons. I figured it would be a good way to get the older boys improving their strokes, the younger boys to be more comfortable in the pool, and all of the boys tired.
Josh, even though he is comfortable taking a dip in Aunt Jessica's pool, was very nervous about swim lessons. I was trying to be very hands off during lessons (from my own experience in teaching swimming and teaching in general, it just seems to work better when the parents aren't involved) but the first two lessons consisted of a lot of screaming and crying with very little actual swimming.
When it was getting time for the third lesson, and the crying and demanding were already starting, I decided that I needed to change tactics. I promised to stay closer (15 feet away and still on the pool deck as opposed to 50 yards away in the viewing stands with the other parents) and a bribe. I generally try to avoid bribes, those are Daddy's domain, but I figured that it could work this time.
"If you go to all of your swim lessons and don't cry and listen to your teachers I'll buy you a toy."
"A big toy?"
"Um, how about a Sponge Bob toy?"
"A Sponge Bob walkie walkie?"
"Um, sure!"
So this time he joined his class at the side of the pool with just a little verbal encouragement,


where he quickly asked to ride on his teacher's back, clinging on like a little monkey.

When he got to the wall, he was looking a little nervous, so mom gave him a big thumbs up and took a picture, which if you have children you will know, will cause the smile response. The smile response being the involuntary action children will produce when they see a camera pointed at them, wither or not they actually are happy.

Latter, after more praise from teachers and mom, we try out the swim noodle,

finally ending on the kick-board.

Mission accomplished! An entire thirty minutes of swim class with out any crying, screaming, wailing, running away, or any other reaction to make me regret the $45 dollars I spent on swim lessons.

Now all I have to do is find a Sponge Bob walkie-talkie. I sure hope that someone makes one or I'll have to resort to a generic set with added Sponge Bob stickers.

Nathan's Birthday

Nathan had his birthday a week ago and because he wanted an expensive present from his parents, we told him that we went going to do a friend party. I did still want to celebrate his birthday some how, so we had family dinner and decided to do it at the park.

I did the cake. The character is Kick Buttouski, a newish DisneyXD show.

We had most all of the family at one time or the other. Here are the lovely aunties.

And our adorable Colin. Look how big that kid is getting!

We had games of the active sort...

... and the more cerebral.

And of course cake.

We had a great time and were so glad that our family was willing to come celebrate with us.

Happy birthday Nathan! It's been amazing watching you grow.

Joshua's Last Day of Rainbow School

Josh has been going to a lovely neighborhood preschool for the past two years and Thursday was his last day. His Aunt Staci has been one of his teachers for both years and his cousin Gavin a fellow student this past year.


Ms. Tami is the amazing woman who runs it all and I'm a little sad to not be seeing her on a regular basis any more.



Now this little lady is, I guess, his first girlfriend. I mean, what else do you call your classmate who likes to give you kisses? Anyway, she is a sweet little thing and they really have a good time playing together. He has been proudly telling people that he has her phone number and has been bugging me to call her to set up a play date.

Beach Weather

Richard's nephew Austin and Austin's mom and sister are visiting us for a few days. They traveled down to San Diego to say goodbye to a relative who is shipping out stopped by our house on the way back home. Yesterday I took them around town a little bit and we stopped at the beach. The beach at Long Beach is not very exciting, but yesterday ended up being a much prettier day than was forecasted.

We were just going to put our feet in the water. Some of us got a little wetter than intended.

We had a good time and Alyssa, Austin's sister, got a good dose of the beach.

While Joshua got a good dose of the beach in another way.

Motherhood is a thankless job

I try, like I'm sure most of us do, to make meals that taste good and are good for you. I have a recipe for Beef and Broccoli that I really like. I've made it before and got a lukewarm reception from the boys while Richard and I really liked it. I had some leftover beef from earlier in the week and some frozen broccoli. It is a quick recipe so I figured that it would be good for tonight. Well, Josh wouldn't even touch it and Nathan and Randy just had the minimum. I can't figure it out; if I had served it in a Styrofoam container with little packets of soy sauce, they would have eaten it up. I know what I'm eating for lunch for the next week.

P.S. I know that it was kind of a boring post but I wanted to try making links and needed something to link to. Check out the recipe though; I never would have thought to use tomato soup in beef and broccoli but it really does taste good.

Rock-a-Bye Babies

My boys decided to have a tree house without the house. They weren't aloud to really fall asleep.

Irony

So my beautiful, growing-up-too-fast, first born baby boy came home with an award the other day. An award for good citizenship for the months of January, February, and March. He was congratulated by the principal and got a certificate and a doughnut breakfast at school. And his father and I would have been so stink'n proud of him except that that exact same day he was sent to the school councilor because he had gotten into a fight. I mean, what kid gets an award for awesome good behavior and then picks a fight with his classmate on the same day? Oh that's right, a Lucindo.
He was OK with seeing the councilor (a little too OK for my "my children will not end up in jail if I have anything to say about it" side of me) and he was even supportive of his punishment of no T.V. and an early bed time. I was starting to wonder if I needed to tack on some additional penalty just to get a little remorse out of the kid. But then he was tucked into bed an hour earlier than normal, and Josh was enjoying some alone time with me, when Nathan started to realise that maybe everything wasn't OK. He kept coming out of his room for some reason or another and I kept sending him back. Even after Joshua was in bed and asleep, Nathan was still awake and restless. He was very somber and I asked him if he would like to sleep with Josh. Nathan nodded, said a quiet yes, snuggled up next to his brother, and then he slept.
Keeping our fingers crossed for the next time.

Summer Plans

Just got the news confirmed that we (teachers of LAUSD) are getting 5 furlough days and it was decided early enough that I'll actually be affected by it. I work on the schedule that finishes the school year first so it was debatable, when they were debating, if anything would be agreed upon in time for me and the teachers with me to actually be able to be furloughed while we are still working. We still have to vote on it, but it is very likely to pass; it's better than a 12% pay cut. So, I'll be starting my summer a week earlier, with a little less money, and I need to cut a week of instructional time out of the rest of the year. Since we just finished the state standards tests, I don't think anyone is going to care what I cut, but I'm still keeping the pig dissections.
In other summer related news, Richard bought a ticket last night for one of our nephews (Ryan) to come visit us for the summer. He only bought the ticket coming out and not the return one. I asked if this was because Ryan's mom wasn't sure how long she would be able to stand being apart from him. Richard replied that it was because Ryan's mom wasn't sure how long we would be able to stand being with him.

Is it the end of March already?

Hi there. I was fiddling with my background for the blog, and I saw that a stranger had read the blog and left a comment. It wasn't about the background, but I felt bad for not having fixed my first fiddling attempt when strangers are reading my blog. Not that I don't care about my friends and family but I figure that they will forgive me easier. I finally got the columns right and the color is better than before. But then I noticed that it has been over a month since I last posted. I guess that I will try to rectify that today.
Quick update.
A few months ago, during tithing settlement, Richard was telling the bishop that he would like to be released from his calling. Bishop replied with a "just hold on a bit longer." About a month or so later they reorganized Elders Quorum presidency and when they asked him to sign-up again and he said yes. He couldn't explain why, I guess he felt that he should give it another try.
His tennis coach has been out sick for a while so Richard hasn't had his regular class. Instead, he has been playing Wednesday nights with his friend, Rodney, and sometimes Randy and Rodney's daughter. Last night, it was just Richard, Rodney and Randy so they played two on one (Australian? style). Richard beat Rodney and Randy. Good night.
Randy is working hard at being a teenager. We still have "disagreements" over homework and chores but really he is doing a good job. He was really sick for about half the week last week and is having to work harder to catch up. Until he brings his grades up, he isn't allowed to go to the early seminary class or use the computer for fun. Yes, he wants to go to the early class (5am) but don't think he's really into seminary. He has a friend in that class; she turns 16 next year.
Nathan is having fun in school. His original teacher had to go on medical leave a couple months into the school year. The long term sub, Ms. G, has been really great; I think that I like her better than his original teacher. He has been doing pretty well in all his subjects although he has had a little trouble with reading. Richard has talked with Ms. G about it and he and Nathan have been working on it most nights. Nathan is writing a lot more and has even started making "to do" lists. It's very cute to see what he writes and how he writes it. You can tell that he is sounding out the words, the spelling it atrocious, but it's still understandable. At least to his mom.
Joshua is fearless. My sister-in-law Staci, who is also one of Joshua's teachers, took him on a play date to a nearby park where there is an awesome climbing rock. It is taller than me, wider than my arm span, and has hand and foot holds carved into it. Staci was worried about how he would do with climbing it; he's a good sized four year old but still only four years old. She said that he couldn't get up that thing fast enough and never wanted her help at all. I took him and Nathan there a few days later and was amazed at how well they both could climb it. They even started jumping off the top and were hauling up buckets-full of sand to make sand castles on top. I even climbed up it at the end, to clean off the sand, and was impressed by the height.
In contrast, he says that he wants to be a baby again, still begs to have me lay down in his bed at night, and usually ends up coming into our bed in the middle of the night anyway. By the way, after 10 years of marriage, we finally bought a new bed. It's king sized. Two large adults, a six year old, a four year old, and a queen sized bed just wasn't working. We really don't have room for such a big bed, but I LOVE being able to stretch out so completely. My toes can't even reach the bottom even if I point them.
And me. Teaching has been better this year. I think that it is a combination of this being my third year and having only one class to prepare for. I actually feel like I could keep teaching and not regret it. OK, that sounds a little more pessimistic than it really should. Let me temper that statement with the fact that I love my students and always have. Now I'm just able to enjoy them more. On the flip side, I don't expect to be teaching at the same school next year. For various reasons, we are a low performing school, politics, etc., the powers in the district have decided to reconstitute the school. This means that as of July 1, everyone who worked at the school the day before (except the principal) will no longer work there. We can reapply for our jobs, and they say that they want they want us all to, but I'm not so sure. Isn't the whole point of reconstitution to get rid of the "ineffective and incompetent" and because the entire staff (except the principal) is being affected I feel like they are telling us that we are all crap and I don't really want to work in a place where that is my view of the administration's opinion of me. It also just feels that it might be time to move on. I have been released from the school but not fired so I still have a job next school year. I'm hoping to get a school closer to home. Other than that, the field is wide open. I've been working the last 3+ years at a low performing, low income, inner-city high school with high immigrant population. What more can they throw at me? Middle school? I've been thinking about trying out middle school anyway. As long as I have a shorter commute, any where I go can't be any worse than my current school next year.

Saturday Tennis Lessons

Richard's favorite sport is tennis. He loves to play it, to watch it, and hopes that some day his children will enjoy it also. All of the boys like to go and play around with a racket and ball and we try to get out and play when ever we can.


Nathan would probably be decent for his age but he gets too frustrated and upset so he gives up. We are working on that.


Josh does well but is still too young to be really interested. This day he just wanted to play ballboy.
I didn't get a picture of Randy but he does pretty well. He has expressed interest in joining the school tennis team next year so I think he and Richard will keep working on it.


When the little boys get bored, we go over and play in a nearby park.



It was a lovely day and we had a very nice time together.

Good Bye Disneyland

We have had year passes to Disneyland on and off for a while now and this past week our latest passes expired. The day before they did though, was a day off for me and the kids so we decided to go to Disneyland one last time. I was expecting to have a good time just relaxing and riding some of our favorite rides. It turned out to be one of our stranger visit to Disneyland.


Now I know that my boys are really too old to be using strollers and that they are both old enough to walk but we still brought our stroller to make things easier and faster. We started out our visit playing around Disney's California Adventure. After going by a few areas, we parked our stroller in front of the Monsters Inc. ride and went in. Richard didn't have the day off but was joining us at the park after work. He called while we were in line and I told him where we were. He started over to meet us and asked were the stroller was. I told him and the boys and I rode the ride.


We got off the ride and I looked around for Richard and the stroller. Neither were in sight. We wait around for a little while and Richard comes walking up to us, without the stroller. Where's the stroller? He hadn't been able to find it and it's not were I parked it with all of the other strollers on the side. We look around for a while but still can't find it. We ask a couple of Disney cast members (employees) and they let us know that we can make a report and ask if we would like to do so. We say sure.


After being passed from the Monsters Inc. ride greeters to a Mumpets 3D greeter to a park mini-security person we meet John, from a little town in Scotland, lives just a few miles from us in Lakewood, really nice guy and official park security. He escorts us quickly to the lost and found, helps us make an official report, and then takes us over to the stroller rental where we pick up a couple of complementary Disney strollers to use while we finish our night.
Quick side note, we have used the Disney rental strollers before but I had forgotten how much I loved them. They are the best. We looked up once how much the regular sell-to-the-public ones cost. Super expensive.
We spent the rest of the night going between the two parks, trying to get all of our favorite rides in. I didn't get my bowl of clam chowder (it was too cold to eat outside) but we did get Josh his custom-made light saber that we were supposed to get him for his birthday.


John tried to be positive for us and let us know that sometimes people take other people's strollers but then just use them for the night and leave them in the park. The park employees eventually find them, bring them to lost and found and everything works out. He said he had even know of a case were a stroller was taken with a camera, wallet, and souvenirs and the whole thing showed up later, with everything still there. It didn't work out that way for us. Almost a week later and nothing. We didn't lose much, just our old sit-n-stand that we got when Josh was born. It was four years old and well used. The only thing in it was my sweatshirt. But it was my Minnie Mouse sweatshirt that I had bought for myself my last birthday. And we hope to have another baby some day and wanted to keep the stroller in case we do. Ugh. A bad way to say good bye to Disneyland until the next time we want to spend a bunch of money on passes.
You want to know the kicker? After our last ride, the rockets in Tomorrowland, we went to get our complementary strollers and head out when we discovered that someone had swiped one of them. Nathan walked out of the park.

Nathan's New Smile

Poor Nathan has been having some dozy dentist appointments lately. Last November/ December when we had our regular checkups, the dentist discovered three cavities. We had them take care of them and I was really proud of well he did with his first cavities.
Fast forward a couple months and Nathan is still complaining about his teeth. Richard takes a look in his mouth and sees what looks like an abscess. Richard found a new dentist and I took Nathan by for a check up. Apparently, two of the fillings fell out and one of the cavities started growing again. Nathan had a huge infection, which, even after a week of antibiotics, was still going strong when they pulled it out last week. After pulling the tooth, the area drained out and the infection was basically taken care of then. It was NOT fun for Nathan and I ended up buying him a new video game to make up for it.
Yesterday's appointment was better but Nathan was still understandably nervous. The took care of another cavity, sealed his molars, took a mold for the spacer he will need for the missing tooth, and pulled his two front teeth which were being stubborn on coming out. He did a really good job and Francisco (the amazingly wonderful hygienist in the office) made sure he got plenty of stickers.
So here is Nathan's new smile. Glad he can smile about it all.

Pinewood Derby - part 2

So, I'm checking my e-mail this afternoon and there is a message from Nathan's den leader saying that we should check out some photos of yesterday's derby on our local paper's web site. Or, he said, we could check out today's paper. We get the paper but I hadn't actually looked at anything today except the comics. So I grab the first section and start looking through it. And on page 2, this...


I know that you really can't see anything, but Josh is the kid in the red shirt, just right of the middle. He was watching his car race in the sibling race.


And Nathan's car is in the second row here, about three five in. I know, impossible to see, but still kind of cool.
If you want to see a better version of this picture or some of the other pictures the photographer took yesterday, try this link
or check out the Long Beach Press-Telegram's website and look for the Cub Scout Pack 206 Pinewood Derby photo album. There is even a couple of photos of Richard, Nathan, and me in there.

Update: I now have bigger versions of the derby pictures and I have made the link so that it will work. I don't know if it will bring you to the pictures still but you can try.

Pinewood Derby 2010

Nathan started cubscouts this school year with a local cub scout pack. Becuase he is in 1st grade he is a tiger scout and today was their yearly pinewood derby.


His pack is old and well established (been around for about 50 or 60 years or so) and we have really enjoyed it so far. They had a race for siblings so we were able to include Joshua too.


It took place at a local park, centered around one of the large pavillions. The families brought chairs, blankets, and a few tents which where gathered arround. There were three stations for checking in: picture, pitstop for servicing cars, and final inspection.


And then of course the track.


Here are the competitors


and the siblings.


Nathan and his den with their game faces.


Here is the Nathan Lucindo Fan Club.


Nathan watching his first race.


Here is his car after one of the heats.


Josh watching the races...


And his car after a heat.


One of the nicest things was that Joshua hung out with another little brother and they just had a ball chasing each other arround the park. They went on a walk with Trey's grandma, built a teepee, and just had a great time being independent while playing out in the psuedo wild.


Nathan won three of his four races and placed 25th over all (out of 80 something boys). He was the third fastest Tiger scout and was really excited to win this ribbon. All in all, a good day.