New Ride

After three weeks of waiting we finally have her GREEN walker!! Of course she looks at me like 'what the heck do you want me to do know?'

Love this girl!!

Tchau,
Sara

Making Friends

Today while talking little bit for a walk I passed the park that I always pass. On my second drive by I told myself to just go in there and talk to some people. Heck even if they don't talk to me just do it! 

The fear of not speaking the language great and also meeting new people in general. Not to mention most of these women are babas (nannies) so they are working anyway....

I found a nice place in the shade next to two babas that had a blanket spread out and two little infants laying on it. I politely asked if I could sit by them and that opened the flood gates of questions! All about the baby of course and how big she is... yep my child is a big one. Not really but compared to Brazilians she is a giant!

Anyway, shortly afterward a woman strolled in with her baby and placed a blanket next to mine and just started chatting away. Surprising I understood everything she said and come to find out she is from Curitiba. Her little girl is 4 months old :) and so we talked about pregnancy and delivery. The difference between America, Canada and Brazil when having a baby. Her son was born in Canada but she doesn't really speak that good of English. 

Then another woman came to sit with us with her 4 month old daughter! She is a Paulista and I could really understand EVERY word that came out of her mouth.... Crazy to find two women with babies around the same age as mine to play with. We began talking about babas and both of the women don't want one. I really think we could all become great friends! Already we have tons in common.

Me and the Paulista left together and we walked halfway home and she went into more detail about her reasons for not wanting a baba. Turns out we live really close together :) 

What a great hour! Not only do I practice my Portuguese but I made some friends for myself and for my tidbit!

Now I need to step up the Portuguese lessons that way we continue to speak in Portuguese and we don't fall into them wanting to learn English... both speak a little!

Tchau,

Sara

Pool Time!!

Here are some photos of Belle's first pool experience!!

Uggh. More pictures...

Ok I will smile this time

Oh wait. Squirrel!

What were you saying?

Whacha doin dad?

Ahhh the life. 

Get these darn sunglasses off!

Seriously. Get them off!

O gosh now it's mom's turn. Really people?

Stop it!

I want to play and eat this now. I am over you and the water.

Well she didn't hate it but she wasn't quite sure what to do. The water was a little cold so we didn't stay in there too long. Hopefully we can do this often!

Tchau!

Sara

Crooked Smile

Love her new crooked smile and snort!! She is growing up way too fast!!

Tchau,
Sara

Today

Well Belles room is empty except for a few boxes that will eventually turn into a bed, a rocker and a dresser. Somehow I think I am missing a few boxes!

While we wait for the assembly guy to show up we are eating black beans! She loves them!!

Tchau,
Sara

First Fine

Well the other day we got our first multa (fine) for breaking the apartment rules. No, it wasn't because I took the trash in the personal elevators instead of the service, even though I still could be fined, but something the movers did. I guess I really need to sit down and read the 25 pages of random ass rules for this place. 

It doesn't help when your husband thinks he rules the world! 

I thought we would be getting another one because right after we opened the multa we got a phone call from the porteiro saying something about our lights.

The conversation went as follows:

Me: Alo? (in my most Rio accent I can muster :))

Porteiro (door guy): nanannanana luz nanannan ligar....... nanannana.... desligar.... Ta Bom? Entendo?

Me: Sim. Tudo Bem. Tchau e boa noite

Then the hubby asked: what did they want.

Me: I don't know something about lights... I think we are supposed to turn off our lights at a certain time or have curtains or something.

Hubby: We just moved in and they can kiss it!! 

Me: We are not making friends anytime with that attitude (as I start to flip through the rule book)

I find a rule about black out curtains being white and something else. So that must be it. We are getting another fine! Shit!!

Next Day-

We are leaving the apartment to go look for a new washer/dryer and white black out curtains and when we get to the car our dome lights are on. This should have been the first clue of what the porteiro was trying to tell me but I didn't catch it. Then we are stop by the porteiro and he begins rambling but this time I understand him because I can see his face! He said that he called me to tell me about the lights on in the car and did I understand him.... I felt terrible. I told him about my bad Portuguese and yes I understand but I thought he was talking about the lights in the house... 

Good thing he is awesome and just laughed! Ahhhh life is great. Except for the only multa we have which is right around minimum wage. Ya. Minimum wage for a month. What kind of place have we moved into?? Somewhere we don't belong! 

Tchau,

Sara

Big Week

Ok- This weekend we bought a few things that should be coming this week. Last week the repair man for the washer/dryer didn't come and Belle's walker never came. Who knows what happened to the repair guy but the walker is another story.

I called to check on it and in my AMAZING Portuguese I managed to stumble through and the girl told me she would check on it then call me back. She never did so this weekend we made a trip back to the store where I talked to the manager.

He told me they didn't deliver it because all they had were blue and pink not green. Well the whole reason we bought green is because they told us they didn't have blue or pink. Bastards! He asked if I wanted pink and I told him no. I want green. He then said but you have a girl and I told him I wanted more kids so I want green.

The green walker should be delivered on Wednesday so we will see. If not then I have his name and number.

A new washer/dryer is coming tomorrow along with all of Belle's furniture! I am so excited!! Happy Birthday to me!

Also tomorrow we have a new maid coming.... dun dun dah!! Hopefully she will be amazing :)  Oh my.

Slowly getting settled and Belle is growing way too fast. Right now she wants to be mobile but she can't go anywhere and relies on me. I am worn out but my arms are getting defined now :) I promise to post more pics of her soon. I can feel everything coming together this week and so hopefully I will be back on track.

Tchau,
Sara

Say What?

Spending two months back in the US for the holidays did not help my already sucky Portuguese. My sleep deprived baby brain cannot seem to keep up. My mouth just keeps spitting words out and I try to bring them back in but it I can't! 

Funny thing is that this time around I hear the words but it's taking me a more than a minute to decipher. I will here the word. Then my brain says, "oh, you just heard the following, 'dela' 'la' 'proximo' 'baxio'" blah blah blah. So I hear all these words I know and I can't put the sentence together. Make sense? It's like my brain pauses to congratulate itself for remembering what the word means. Then by the time that it's done clapping for itself I have missed the rest of the sentence being spoken!

Good thing I can fake it like the best of them. You hear the verb and guesstimate what the rest is :) I will probably have to do this until A. I can get some more sleep and B. I can hire a Portuguese teacher. 

I wish that I was one of the few self driven people but my self study has brought me this far and it really has come to an end. Time to buck up and really get after it.

I vow to search for a Portuguese tutor within the next week!


Tchau,
Sara

Feed Me!

This morning she had watermelon in her little mesh teether (a mesh bag that you can stuff fruit or other foods in that they can eat and not get big chunks while feeding themselves. Anyway, after that we had some yogurt and she was loving it!!

Tchau,
Sara

Ahhh Brazil

Moving while having a newborn = disaster!

During the move our wash machine broke. Our supposed 2.500R washer/dryer broke (thank goodness that it was provided to us by our company). I think it's because the movers did not stabilize the front load causing an imbalance. A guy is coming to look at it tomorrow. 

By now over a weeks worth of dirty clothes, burp clothes, blankets, bibs and other random baby stuff has piled up and the flies are circling.

I wanted a new washer/dryer anyway because this one is soooo small and it takes forever for a basketball size load to get done but I didn't want it to break! 

So today I had to finish the dishes by hand so I could use the sink to hand wash some things we really needed. Check out my small space below-

Once that was done I need to plug in our dryer, which is worthless and I wanted to pull an Office Space on it one day where I take it to a field and beat the sh** out of it with a bat. Anyway, thanks to genius engineers there are two types of three prong plugs. 

Below is what I had available.

Below is what I needed.

The only place for what I need was above the washer/dryer that doesn't work. 

So now my kitchen looks like this below.

We are now on hour 5 of drying the following: 5 bibs, 1 burp cloth, 2 baby footed PJ's, and 2 baby washcloths..... hour 5 people. 

So while the drying is taking place I take out the trash. Unfortunately I didn't read my 50 page rule book and I used the personal elevators and not the service elevators. Honestly it was 11am and I didn't think it was a big deal.

A lady looking like Magda  (from Something About Mary)

Magda

 got on the elevator wearing a see through net bikini cover up and a swim suit smaller a napkin and had the nerve to look me up and down. I guess I wasn't good enough for her. I bet I will be getting a letter from the admin about this.

All in a day of life in Barra Brazil! Keep in mind while all this is going on I had to entertain a 6 month old! I am better now. I just needed to be initiated back into the crazy since I spent so long in the States. 

Point taken Brazil. I won't leave you for so long anymore if you promise to take the knife out of my back :)

Tchau,

Sara