BANANA SPLIT!!!

Bogota, 25 July, 2008.  

Mateo didn't cry when I left him at summer camp!!!!  Hurray!!!!  

He loved his banana split and even shared a little bit with mami.  However, he was very firm about me not eating any of the chocolate ice cream, which is (CLEARLY) his favorite!

We'll see what Monday brings ...

Third Week of Summer Camp

Here are some highlights from Mateo's third week at summer camp:

1.  Mateo dressed as a cowboy and enjoyed stories about cowboys and indians.

2.  He got to listen to a guest musician play the trumpet.

3.  He's making progress in learning how to dance "salsa".

4.  He was totally mesmerized by a magic show - which included pulling a pigeon from a scarf and disappearing balls.  He told us that he was invited to blow on the magicians hand to make something disappear.

5.  He met Tyrone and Pablo from the Backyardigans (apparently some show on TV, which all the kids here know about) - the fact that Tyrone is a moose, just like his favorite stuffed animal, was enough to have him shaking (literally) with joy!

6.  He still cried when I left, despite the tempting banana split offer.  

I'm not convinced that Mateo feels integrated in Bogota just yet.  He enters school and tells the teachers that he's leaving.  When they ask where to, he replies, "Berkeley".  Nico feels Mateo is happier; I'm not so sure. He's not unhappy, but happy, hmmmm .... 

This weekend we visited the famous salt cathedral in Zipaquira, about 45 minutes away from Bogota (okay, it would probably be 30 minutes away if the driver drove above 50 miles/hour - all in the name of safety!!). The cathedral is pretty impressive (and smelly!!!  I had no idea salt smelled like rotten eggs!!) - it's built in an underground rock salt mine 180 meters underground.  There are miles of tunnels from where the salt has been extracted and which have the 14 stages of the cross lined up.  At each stage, there is a cross and pedestals on which to kneel to pray.  The cathedral itself is austere, with high ceilings and carved pillars, but very fairy-like.  

We headed to the city center, la Plaza Mayor, after chomping down some meat for lunch. It is a quaint little plaza, very colonial, and to Mateo's joy, full of pigeons!!   

At one of the 14 stations of the cross.

Admiring the salt formations in the ceiling.

Our visit to Zipaquira coincided with Independence Day - all Colombians were sporting white T-shirts (for peace).  This one says, "Yes to Liberty, Yes to Truth, Yes to Life, Colombia without FARC."

Second Week of Summer Camp

I am much happier having changed Mateo to the summer camp he is now attending.  It has structure and the program is well thought out.  Every week has a theme and every day the kids participate in a variety of activities.   Last week's theme was castles.  The kids helped decorate a castle by painting the cardboard boxes the teachers cut out. Then they made their princes and princesses crowns.  Friday was a wild day - it was wild hair day! I spiked Mati's hair into a sort of mohawk (his hair is pretty long and Nico's paste wasn't strong enough to hold it straight up) and he was very happy and proud to have his hair like Daddy's.

Boris is the lead teacher and a musician so there's music and dancing all the time.  He brings in guests to play different instruments for the kids: last week, his brother came in to play the flute, this week he'll have someone play the trumpet.   The program is from 9am to 12pm and unfortunately, it'll end August 1st. That means Mateo will be back at home for a whole month before he starts the French school. It's a bummer because we are slowly making progress on the separation anxiety issue. Last Friday I left him for about an hour. He cried but one of his teachers, Paula, was there to provide comfort. On Monday morning, he was saying that he didn't want to go to school. But I left him again, this time for an hour and a half. It was the hardest goodbye ever because he held on tight to my neck. I had to wiggle out of his clasp and make a quick exit. How I've been managing to keep back MY tears, I have no idea. He cried again today, but it's getting better. Boris and Paula tell me that he gravitates towards them when I'm not there, but that he does venture off on his own every now and then. I promised him that the day I say goodbye and he doesn't cry, I'll treat him to a banana split. And most importantly, that he won't have to share it with anyone. The first time he had a banana split, we split it between the three of us; actually, it was 2/3 for Nico, 1/3 for Mateo and I!! So he's savoring that reward.

Dancing with Pedro, who will also be attending the French school in September.

Singing "Alondrita"; here they are plucking the bird's head.

A Day at the Ranch - Panaca

We spent last Saturday at a ranch called Panaca, about 45 minutes from Bogota. For Mateo it wasn't just a ranch but more like heaven - goats, sheep, cows, horses, pigs, dogs, rabbits, roosters, chickens, pigeons, an organic garden, flowers ... He really enjoys feeding the animals and above all, he ABSOLUTELY LOVES milking them!!! Last time, when we went to Slide Ranch in Marin, he milked a goat; this time he milked a cow and then drank the milk, accompanied by a dulce de guayaba! He got the hang of it pretty quickly and wanted to go back again and again.

He also has a weak spot for gardening - maybe his grandmothers's influence! We saw tomatoes, artichokes, zucchini, different types of salads, strawberries, pears, peaches, and tons of roses!

We were at Panaca for about 4 hours. Within 5 minutes of putting him in the car seat, he was fast asleep!!

Trying to feed the cow a piece of hay; the cow had seen Nico with a bottle of milk and didn't want anything to do with the hay!

Milking away!

Yummy!  (I know raw milk is supposed to be really healthy, but I couldn't help thinking about the bacteria it could have had.  Thank God he didn't get sick!!)

Talking (yes, literally) to the sheep.

Doing "mimi" to the sheep

Feeding the chickens (we couldn't go inside the fence to feed them)

In the organic garden

First Day of "School"

I'm finally letting go of my little boy!!  We started a little daycare here in Bogota and Mateo has been adapting quite nicely.  We started the program on Wednesday and it ran from 8am to 12:30pm.  Although I stayed with him all three days, he made a lot of progress being on his own. The first day I shadowed him the whole time, on the second day I took less and less of an active role and by the third day, I spent just about the whole time reading the newspaper in another room.  

By participating, even if it was in a limited capacity, in the program made me see that Mati has a lot of ground to make in various disciplines.  For example:

1. he has a hard time sitting down and concentrating on what his teacher demands of the group; however, by the third day, I noticed a huge improvement;

2. he still paints abstractly, while others are able to paint a face.   

On the positive side, he was the only trilingual child - I'm not only saying this because I'm proud as a French rooster at my son's linguistic abilities but rather because he has successfully managed to use his languages to communicate with others.  There were other bilingual children who didn't communicate verbally but rather expressed themselves physically, i.e. being aggressive with others.  As Mateo talks more and more, he IS mixing his languages up.  If he doesn't remember a word in Spanish, he'll put the French equivalent in, or "make" a French word into Spanish by adding an a or an o at the end.  However, he communicates beautifully with the staff at the hotel and our drivers in Spanish, in English with me or with the gentleman Nico is replacing (we've had dinner with him a couple of times this week) and in French with Nico.

Also positive in his development is that he thrives with music - he absolutely loves to hear and play it.  At the daycare they lend him a guitar and he was very happy playing it while his peers sang along during music time.  He also loves to dance and express himself physically.  And, he's learning fast to say "No!" to other kids when they try to take the toys he's playing with away.

Unfortunately, I didn't like the program and in all honesty, I don't know how much Mati enjoyed it either - he didn't come home excited, wanting to tell Nico all about his day. Although we had visited the school in our previous trip here, actually participating in the program with Mateo the whole morning was eye opening!  I was disappointed at the lack of teacher planning and the way the program was run as a whole.  We decided to put him in this program because it ran throughout the summer without any interruptions.  We thought it would make his transition to the Lycee Francais in September easier.  

But this doesn't mean he'll be back home with me.  Monday we start another program, one which we had originally liked much more and had come highly recommended from friends but because it runs only through August 1st we stupidly ignored it.

I'll update the blog after Mateo's first week at the new school (hopefully, since we are supposed to move on the 10th to our new place!!!); in the meantime, here's a picture of my handsome baby on his first day of school!