First day of preschool

Mama had a sleepless night last night. I think I was a little nervous about how Dylan's first day of school would go. We have talked a lot about how Mama would drop Dylan off and then come back and pick him up (hopefully he remembers). I dropped him off at school a little before nine. He was smiling as the teacher carried him inside. I think he was excited.  Today is only a short day, just an hour and a half to get him acclimatized. I tried to get a couple of pictures before we left but Dylan was not into having his picture taken this morning. I will take some more once we get the uniform that he will wear to school.

 
Post pick-up update - Dylan was crying when he came out of the classroom but perked up straight away when he saw me. I asked if he had fun at school and he said 'fun'. I asked what he did and he said 'played with the aeroplane' and 'ate o's'. When I asked if he wanted to go back tomorrow he said yes......I guess it can't have been that bad.

Jajalpa

Last weekend we went to Jajalpa for breakfast with some of our fellow expats. The buffet breakfast was really good and the kids enjoyed the animals and the playground. Dylan particularly enjoyed the playground as it had a stony material underneath it that was kind of like sand. He was practically swimming in the stuff.

The first shake down....

On Sunday we headed to Interlomas to pick up a few things at Walmart (there is one closer but it is....a bit 'ghetto'), Costco and Bestbuy.  The shopping went well...we even found a plastic house for Dylan's birthday. We had to take it out of the box to fit all the pieces into the car.  It really was quite a scene, Matt and the parking attendant trying to jam the biggest pieces in the back seat and me rearranging the groceries and assorted other items in the truck to fit the rest in.

On our way home we once again managed to choose the wrong option (it's complicated stuff..tunnels and bridges with roads running right beside them and sometimes it is really difficult to tell whether the tunnel or the road next to it is what you are supposed to take).  Now a lot of the roads have concrete medians (with plants in them) and gaps made for turning across or for u-turns so it generally is not that hard to get back on track.  Unfortunately for us we choose to turn around at a spot clearly marked with a no turn sign, something like the one below.  This would not have been a problem EXCEPT for the police car that happened to drive past while we were performing our turning around maneuver.  I looked over and saw the two officers agree to come back and "deal with us".

So we were pulled over.  This next part took part totally in Spanish with me looking mostly at the floor and hoping this would all work out  OK.  I heard a lot of 'infraction ....'infraction'.  When the officer walked away I asked Matt how much.  He said 1200 pesos.  Essentially he had been given the choice of going to a Municipal Office and paying 600 pesos or paying on the spot.  So we followed the police truck to a cash machine where Matt got some money out.  He went back to the truck to pay and the police open a notebook and motion to put the money in.  The Lesson...Don't get caught breaking the rules.

School visit.

Today Dylan and I went to school for a visit so that he could be observed.  Our visit was scheduled for when his class would have playtime.  Dylan enjoyed playing with the choo choo train, airplane, and dump truck.  He showed off his new Spanish words for the lady who was observing him.  After the visit the Director of the School and the lady who observed him agreed that he was ready.  The next step, two more days where we come for about 45 minutes and join the classroom (Mama gets to stay).

After lunch I put Dylan down for a nap and he slept and slept and slept....around three and a half hours.  I guess he had a lot to process.  When I went in to his room after he woke he was non-stop chattering about the toys he played with at school.  I guess that is a good sign.

The ups and downs....

Our driver started this morning so I had planned lots of things to do this morning.  First up was the grocery shopping.  All went well with getting to the store and filling the cart.  Although I have to say for certain items of product here (more related to imported shelf items), if you see it and want it buy several.  Why? Because the next time you go chances are the product will not be there.  Time to pay at the checkout....and the card is not working.  Eventually I go to the machine, conveniently located at the other end of the checkouts, get the money out and pay with cash.  I call Matt about the card and he calls the bank....Fraud.  So I opted out of the rest of the shopping on the basis that having to get cash out for all the things would be to much of a bother.

Other random updates from the D.F.

For those not in the know Mexico City is also known as the Federal District or Distrito Federal or for short the D.F.  This is good to know (so as to prevent the blank stare of not comprehending) when someone says to you, "oh you guys live in the D.F., that is where I am from".  BTW, it wasn't me with the blank stare.

So here are a couple of random tales from the D.F.
The lawn-care story. 
Sometime just before Christmas a group of three men gathered on the lawn by the children's play area of our complex (which we can see out our windows). They had garden forks which they were stabbing at the ground with. I thought initially they were looking for something but it turned out they were just aerating the lawn (man is cheaper than machine here). After this was complete they spread what looked like dirt but smelt like s@#$ all over the lawn and cordoned the area off with yellow tape. A couple of days later they were back and proceeded to rake the lawn taking off the excess manure or fertilizer depending on how you want to view it. After this was complete they started with the watering process. Thankfully the smell was mostly gone upon our return from Cancun.

Food, Grocery Shopping and Unexpected ingredients. 
It is taking a while to adapt to the supermarkets here.  Now, we were certainly not expecting to have a Lakewinds Coop in the neighborhood so we were pleasantly surprised by the things we found at The Green Corner a little organic store not too far from us.  We have two other Supermarkets quite close to us and they both have a pretty good range of things, of course to make things complicated each store has things that we like that the other does not.  Currently my strategy for dealing with this is to shop one week at Superama and the next week at the Chedraui.

Dylan loves to eat tortillas as tacos or quesadillas, so a quick throw together lunch has been a tortilla with refried beans and vegetables warmed in the pan.  This was great until I took the time to read the ingredients of the refried beans we had purchased and found monosodium glutamate (MSG - yes even with the ingredients in Spanish I was able to pick this out).  I also found MSG in the turkey deli meat that we had purchased.  I know!  I should have known better and read the ingredients beforehand but shopping takes long enough when you are in a store that you are not familiar with, with brands and products you are not familiar with and on top of that you are stocking your pantry from scratch.  Well lesson learnt - we are back to reviewing the ingredients on all unfamiliar products before they come home with us.

Huitlacoche

Last weekend I was feeling particularly adventurous at the Supermarket and picked up a package of Huitlacoche (also known as Cuitlachoche, corn smut or Mexican truffles).  I had read somewhere that the fungus is a tasty treat when cooked with shallots, garlic and butter, just like cooking mushrooms.  I was totally going to give it a go.

Essentially this stuff is a fungus that grows on ears of corn.  Sounds pretty good if you like mushrooms.  Based on my research this gourmet delight is so popular it can be found among the canned products in supermarkets.  Well, lets just say that since Saturday I have had a change of heart and the stuff just looks scary and nasty!  Once I work out the pronunciation (or perhaps I should just write it down on a piece of paper) I will quiz some Mexican natives about it and work out whether I should summon the courage to try it.

Bad as hair cut.

So here are a few pictures showing the damage I did before I gave up. I'll be leaving the cutting of squirmy toddler hair to the professionals in the future. If Dylan was a bit older I might have tried to get away with saying the handiwork was all his.

New look

It was time for a change....so it comes to you in the form of a new design on the blog, we got the change in location. Let me know what you think.

A visit to La Granja Tio Pepe

In the weekend we visited a little farm about 10 minutes from where we live.  http://www.granjatiopepe.com/index_flash.html

We had a strategy for our visit, it involved going early on Sunday morning (around 9.30) while the locals were still sleeping or going to church.  I think there may have been one other family there when we arrived. One of the staff toured us around the farm and took some of the animals out for Dylan to hold and pat (or should I say for me to hold and Dylan to pat).

Feeding the rabbits.

Backing away from the pigs. They were noisy (or so I am told).

Patting the baby goat.

Getting ready to feed the ducks some popped corn.....and being mobbed.



Riding on the horse.

Cancun

We headed to Cancun for five days to decompress after the move.

Dylan loved the sand and the pool but wasn't totally enamoured with the waves, especially the ones that crept up and got him and Daddy while they were sitting in the sand. Here are few pictures:

The silly serious guys.




Holding all his favorite water toys and then throwing them for Daddy to collect.  On a side note, we are going on vacation in March with Grandma, Grandpa, Sarah and Rod and Dylan has already allocated jobs to Sarah and Rod (this may have been done in cahoots with Daddy so Daddy will have time to read his book).  Rod will build the sand castles so Dylan can smash them down and Sarah will collect the turtles and octopus when Dylan throws them.  Don't say I didn't warn you.



Found the pockets on the sweatshirt.




Practicing kicking like wombat (from the book Swim, Little Wombat, Swim! By Charles Fuge).