April Collage

4 months old and 15lbs 9 ounces. Affectionately named "Tub of Lard" by uncle Kelly.

Top 10

April 2008

Grampa and Grama Morrell came to visit! It was so great to have some time with them and have them get to know Ariana. We stayed in a great beach house with a private pool. We had a nice 9pm swim every night to cool off. I can´t go places like that very often though, it reminds me of the nice things in life that I am missing. Like being able to put my toothbrush on a surface without worrying about mice, lizards or cockroaches walking over it. Ewe. Here´s a list of my top ten best and worst things in life right now. It alternates between bests and worsts, but not necesarily in order of bestness or worstness. lol


Top 10 Bests and Worsts:

1. Doritos and ice cold diet coke, with no ice. Generally for breakfast.
2. Mosquito bites between my toes.
3. Ariana´s smile.
4. Mosquito bites on my butt.
5. Lizards all over the house that eat the bugs. They are called housekeepers.
6. Mosquito bites in general.
7. Visit from Grampa and Grama Morrell (and the beach house we stayed in).
8. Not seeing my family very often.
9. Skype. (Cheap phone calls to the states)
10. No water.

All About Ariana

jueves, 24 de abril de 2008 (She´ll be 4 months old tomorrow, shes getting immunizations as a gift – pobrecita)

So, do you think that you can really tell something about your child´s personality as young as 4 months old? Or are most babies the same at that age? If you can, then I think we have a beautiful, smiley, happy, tempermental, high-maintanaince child that I am crazy about.

I noticed I write alot about random things and not much about Ariana, which is the main reason I started blogging. But when I think about all the little things that tickle and amaze me, I feel silly writing about them becuase anyone else who is a parent has already seen or heard it a hundred times. But I have to remind myself that this blog is also a journal and scrapbook for her, so it is important for her to hear about her own progress. I am also aware that my entries are a little longer than the average blog entry, but again, I´m journaling. So all the seasoned parents or bored non-parents can skip over this stuff if you want, I won´t know. :)

A few days ago I gave Ariana a bath, she now not only tolerates cold baths but loves them – she smiles as she gasps and grunts through it. We actually bathe her two or three times a day, everytime she seems anxious and we are not sure why, I think the heat bugs her. I had pulled her towel off of the clothes line and then wrapped her in it after her bath, like I do everyday. Well a few minutes later she started screaming, a scream of pain that I have only hear once or twice before. I picked her up, still wrapped in her towel and tried to comfort her as I am trying to figure out how she got hurt. Then I start getting bitten by ants. I put her down on the bed, open up her towel and saw that it was full of these little ants called candelia. They are tiny but their bites hurt so bad and she had little bites all over her chest and tummy, poor thing. The same thing happened to Isaac´s nephew last month, where there were ants in his towel. He´s 21 but he cried about it too, lol, it´s painful. So I threw her towel off and brushed off her body and the bed, stuck her back in the cold water to take away the sting, then had to hold her the rest of the day because she was a little tempermental, but I really can´t blame her. The good thing about these little ant bites is that even though they hurt like a ... the hurt only lasts about 15-20 minutes. It is not bothersome for days like mosquito bites.

She rolls over on her own now. It´s funny though, rolling from her stomach to her back always surprises her, like it was an accident. She always leans over to roll, but I think it is still a shock to her everytime she ends up on her back. Then EVERYTIME I put her on her back, she immediately rolls over onto her stomach (I just hate it when she´s full and it makes her puke). But what makes me laugh is that when she rolls over, there is always one arm kind of stuck under her body and she gets SO mad because she can´t get it out. The first few days (she has only been rolling over for four or five days now) I would pull her arm out for her. Yesterday I was in the kitchen when she rolled over and I heard her get mad about it, but then she calmed down. She figured out how to get it out. So I watched her a few times today and she got mad everytime she rolled but 3 out of 5 times she was able to pull her arm out after a minute. We are making progress.

I don´t think I´ll be able to leave her on the bed much longer now that she is rolling. That is the only place she´ll let me put her down longer than 5 minutes – but not much longer. So I bought the little foam alphabet floor things. She is fascinated by the contrasting colors – from a distance – but she is still not very keen on the idea of being left on it. (Even though I bought her a bunch of toys, that she is too young to play with, to keep her company.) Poco a poco.

Rough Night

Last night I woke up at 2 am realizing that I had used the last of the boiled water in the last bottle I made for Ariana. What a nigtmare it would be if she woke up hungry and I had to start boiling, then cool off some water. She is so incredibly impatient and unreasonable when she is hungry :). So I groaned out of bed (wishing I could just latch her on like so many other new mothers can), feeling pain soot through my back, which I messed up pretty bad the day before carrying a big bucket of water from the back of the house to the kitchen so I could wash dishes and cook. I just hope I didn´t do any permanent damage.

I fill up the rice cooker with water, we don´t have a working stove yet, and I noticed that the water pressure is great at 2am. I decided to wash and sterilize the extra bottles while I waited for the water and I got hit with a wave of stomache pain. I wont go into much detail there, but after a half an hour in the bathroom with only the Jehova´s Witness magazines for reading material, I decided I might as well take a shower since there would be little or no water in the morning. A 3 am shower is pretty cold, but it was the first time I´ve had any good water pressure in the shower so I actually enjoyed it.

By this time the boiled water had cooled off enough for me to put it in the thermos, so I finished up with all of that and turned of all the lights and headed for bed, at about 3:45. I stubbed my toe on something - still not sure what it was, there was nothing in my path but a big armchair and it didn´t feel like that. It actually felt like something sharp poked under my nail rather than a stub, but I went to the kitchen to check it out since it felt like it might be bleeding. My whole toenail had lifted up! I was shocked because it hadn´t really hurt that bad (but killed by 7am). So I sat at the kitchen table trying to decide wether to cut it off, it was hanging on at the side cuticle, or just put a bandaid over it all to reduce risk of exposure to things. It actually hurt a little more to press the nail back against the nail bed, so I ripped it off and put a bandaid over it.

Again, lights off and on my way to bed, 4:15 now, and Ari decides shes hungry. Good thing I have clean bottles and sterile water! Isaac got up too and started to study for a test he had today, so I stayed up with him to encourage and keep him awake then I made him some pancakes (which I make every morning at 5 am believe it or not). I finally rolled back into bed at 6am and had a great hour and a half nap when Ari woke up at 7:30 ready to play.

I know, I know. Welcome to motherhood – in Panama. lol

I´m attaching a few pictures of the house as promised before. They were taken by Janna, my stepmom, so they show what she thought was interesting, like the ceilings, rather than the actual rooms. lol. But if she thought that was interesting, I´m sure others will too. Enjoy.

Newest Ariana Collage

Ariana Isabelle Yanguez; 3 months old and tons of fun!

Who Needs Cash or Credit Cards?

Thursday, 03 April 2008



There is a little corner market kiddie corner from our house. It´s called a Chino, all of the little markets are called chinos because Asians own them. I imagine most of them are from China, but I doubt all of them are. They sale everything. Fruit, meat (butchered fresh there), veggies, canned things, top ramen, women´s products, just about anything you need, jam packed into this little market. I even asked them to start stocking the brand of formula I use for Ariana so I just have to go across the street for it. The owners are really nice.

Last week I came to the house, before we moved in, with Ariana to wait for the Internet and telephone guy. I was starving because had to leave super early, drop Isaac off at school, then head out here. I went across the street to buy something for breakfast when I find out they don't accept visa, que problema. I started rummaging around in my purse and the car and came up with fifty cents. I was able to buy a small carton of chocolate milk and 2 bananas. At least as long as I don´t have cash I can´t spend any money out here.

Two days ago I was trying to get my vonage phone working. I had to get a hold of tech support so I was IMing Destiny who was talking to tech support and then relaying the instructions to me. We were doing that for a little over an hour when one of their interventions took out my Internet connection (when we changed the IP address). I needed a calling card to call Destiny to continue working with the technician. The Chino has the cards but I didn´t have cash. I grabbed an unopened can of baby formula and ran across the street with Ariana. The China already knows the can is worth $10 since she started stocking it for me. I asked her if she would trade me the can for a couple of calling cards and that I would buy the can back when Isaac got home. “Sure, no problem, no problem”.

So, who needs cash, I found out if I am dying for some M&M´s or a diet coke I can just go trade a can of tuna fish for them. I like this system.

I may start trading English classes or tutoring for housekeeping. I already have a few takers.