TWINS, TWINS, TWINS!

¿QUE HORA ES?

Can you guess the name of our cottage?  No points.

I think you probably have it:

When we told the property manager we couldn't find a blender, she was very sympathetic and said she'd bring one right over.  She said the other owners were the last ones here and they had surely needed a blender to mix up their margaritas.  Maybe they wore it out.  We mentioned that we needed it to make baby food.

Some other tchotchkes in the house:

Title:  "Leisure suits."  Better title:  "Parrothead shirts."

"Flip-flopper"

And, of course, some baby photos:

Wet, but in a different way:

Can you tell which one is Patrick and which Finnian?  100 points.

DESTIN, FL

 The house:

The kids on the swing:

And in the water:

 El sr J on the beach:

BABYLANDIA--BABY FOOD

The lives of babies are certainly different these days (see previous post on diapers).  Babies don't eat the way they used to either.

Bottles have more parts:

That blue tube-y thing and the tan stopper keep air from entering baby's mouth.

Formula is fed until babies are 1 year old.  I think we started real milk at 6 months.

One mother can feed 2 babies.  Or grandparents can help.

Soon babies will be able to feed themselves while watching tv:

Babies are eating solid food their mother makes with a special blending machine:

She makes extra and pops it into ice cube trays and then into big plastic bags:

I wonder if the inventor of Cheerios could imagine that millions of babies would be eating his/her product while they wait for the real food (the wine is for the big people):

The appetizer:

I've been reading French Kids Eat Everything.  The twins must have read it, too.  Among other things, they've tried minted peas, potatoes and leeks, bok choy, kale and peas, mango and strawberries and pears.  They'll take food from anyone:

Daddy got home from Seattle just in time to feed them breakfast today:

BABYLANDIA--MODERN CLOTH DIAPERING

We're visiting our younger son's family in Alabama and escaping the dust in our perpetually-under-construction home in Mexico.  Dealing with 11 month-old twin boys is the chief occupation in this household, one devoted to recycling, composting, and the use of cloth diapers, which are not like the ones we knew as young parents. 

Modern cloth diapers come with snaps--lots of snaps:

And velcro (plus some snaps):

Can you tell which end is front and which back?  I can. . . now.

This is a pad that goes inside the diaper:

Right here.  Two pads per diaper:

These machines run every day:

A basket full of clean diapers:

All of this work doesn't seem to daunt mother, who likes to dress up and go out every once in awhile:

Freshly diapered twins:

DERMATOLOGA Y MARIPOSA

I wanted to get an ugly skin tag removed from my face before going to AL tomorrow.

Actually, I can never live anywhere for long before needing a dermatologist.  I found Dr. Mary

Ann Weaver Velasco in the phone book.  She's right down the street from the Teatro de la República,

so I could walk there.  Her father is American, from St. Louis, MO.  

She did a good job:

This lovely butterfly was on our garden wall this morning:

After today, I'll be posting from AL and FL. while the abañiles make dust in my absence.

LUCHA LIBRE

Yesterday, at the end of the day, el sr J looked at the plumbing for the bathtub.  He saw that it was done wrong for the faucet we had bought.  He said something to Trini and Sergio.  They said he had bought a sink faucet instead of a tub faucet.  He said, "no."  They said, "yes."  I said, since the young'uns plus Arturo were waiting out by Trini's van, "let's wait for tomorrow and have a lucha libre."  Ha ha's all round.

This morning, before Sergio, the plumber arrived, el sr J told Trini he had a tub faucet and it should be installed.  Trini repeated that it was a sink faucet.  El sr J showed him how to do it.  Trini went and got the booklet that came with the faucet, looked at it, and said, "ok."

The problem was that it was a type of faucet they were unfamiliar with (or with which they were unfamiliar).  Instead of being mounted on the wall, vertically, it was mounted on the tub surround, horizontally (which is the case with many Jacuzzis).  Since sink faucets are typically mounted horizontally, through holes in the sink, they thought, and insisted, that's what it was.  The supply lines had been installed in the wall.  Too bad.  Lots of hammering ensued as the lines were redirected.  It took all day.

Faucet installed:

10 puntos for Pete with the dancing feet for his/her definition of a dressing room.  I do not want one!

VESTIDOR/VESTUARIO

This is the door (which will be gone some day) from the old "dining room" to the room between our bedroom and the new bathroom.  We've been calling it the "closet room," since our meager possessions, mostly clothes, have been stored there.  At some point--I can't remember when; I must not have been listening--el sr J started calling it a "dressing room."  After a discussion about what was going to happen to it, structurally and in a furnishing sense, I realized that I was thinking about it as a walk-in closet, not a "dressing room."  10 puntos if you can define the differences between a walk-in closet and a dressing room.

This is how it looks from the new bathroom:

And this is the bathroom from the closet room, or whatever it is:

The (hole for a) window in the new bathroom, which used to be a door from the patio into the old kitchen:

The bathroom stuff arrived today:

The new sink for the guest bathroom, which is our current and only bathroom and will be undergoing extensive renovations, too:

My bathtub:

Note the brand:  American Standard.  Made in Mexico.

¿ADELANTE O ATRAS?

It's hard to tell if we're going ahead or backwards.  We are now living in the back building, the kitchen/dining room/bedroom/closet.  We've had to move everything back there while the rest of the place gets torn apart.  Here is the completed arch between the former closet room/future dressing room and the ex-kitchen/future master bath:

From the future bathroom looking into the future dressing room:

The new beams in the future bathroom:

The tile is torn out of the old "dining room," which tomorrow will become the storage area for all the new bathroom fixtures:

And the hall is de-tiled, too:

All of this mess has added to the rubble pile in the front room.  We can't wait till Monday when we leave for Alabama.  When we return, the job will be nearly finished.