Gifts for kids

When my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year, I told her to have my guest bring a gift for a needy child. I had been to a birthday party earlier this year for my wife’s uncle and he did the same thing. It’s a great way to give back and make the children feel special this time of the year. There is a lot of poverty here and it’s not the child’s fault. They were born into poverty, so sad. It’s also a great way for our children to see how great their lives are and we should be very thankful. My mother in-law also did the same thing and added to my huge pile of gifts that we are going to donate.

So keep this in mind for your next birthday and give it a shot!    

A father of boys

Our boys are young and definitely not interested in girls yet. Which is a good thing, they will have plenty of time when they get older. I like to joke with them at times and will yell out "look at that pretty lady over there." I usually get the Dad, I don't like her, mommy is better, stop saying that, etc...

It's hilarious, but on one occasion it took a turn I did not see coming. This is the conversation that occurred while driving through our neighborhood.

Dad - Boys look at that pretty lady right there.
Son #2 - I don't like her.
Dad - Why?
Son #2 - She is too white for me, I like dark girls.
Dad - (I'm in shock) Uh uh, oh.
Son #2 - Yeah, dark is better.

This is from a 5 year old! Looking back now I'm still laughing at him saying this. It is true that kids will say the darnedest things. You never know what you will get when talking to them.

Son #1 ignored me and didn't say a word...my tricks are getting outdated for this 9 year old.

I guess I better step it up and start the embarrassing part of being his father. I think its time for a fanny pack.

Tires for the car

The roads here in Brazil can be a little rough during the rainy season and there are a few roads that just weren't built that well. At times you will see huge craters in the road that are big enough to swallow a small car. The road workers try their best to keep up with repairing the roads, but with this much rain it almost impossible. During the dry season the roads are usually better.

I've had a few problems with flat tires, a couple nails and another time I hit a huge pot hole that broke the bead on the tire. It was time to get a few new ones. So I contacted my Brazilian friend who works at the garage I get oil changes from and he is also the owners son. You will learn here, that loyalty is important and most businesses will reward a return customer with discounts. It's a general maintenance car shop that does engine repairs and other stuff. Not a tire shop, but my friend assured me that he could get me a great deal on tires. That's great, I figured he could or that he had another garage to refer me to.

It seemed everything was in place; date, time, prices for the different brands of tires and oil change. This was arranged a week in advance. I contacted my friend the day prior to confirm the appointment and to pick the brand of tire I would like. He reconfirmed that they were ready for me to be there the next day and that "Luciana" was expecting me. My friend unfortunately was out of town and wouldn't return until after New Years. Not a big problem, but I was hoping he would be there to make this a smooth process. Oh well, stuff happens and we all need to just roll with it.

I get up early that morning and drag the kids with me to this garage that is about a 30 minute drive away. Yes there is closer garages, but remember the loyalty thing. My in-laws also use this same garage and they were the ones who took me here in the past. Its our place to go for car needs and I think my mother in-law had done something to help these folks out in the past. There is also a huge shopping area close to this garage I like to walk around in. I usually don't buy anything there because it is the very cheap Chinese made stuff. It reminds me of any Chinatown you may have visited with the shops pretty much on top of each other and interesting things to see. A lot of knock off stuff!

We arrived and drove into the garage, my oldest son said "Wow Dad this is a beautiful garage." Indeed it is! Very well kept and maintained. A place I would recommend to anyone and I am glad I found this gem of a place. I parked and ushered the kids into the waiting room and proceeded to look for "Luciana" or someone else I may recognize. I ended up with a mechanic I never met before, but he seemed to know who I was and what I wanted. I explained to him in broken Portuguese what I needed done and showed him that I wanted the front right tire to go back as the spare tire. Told him that Hankook (Korean) was the brand I wanted and he agreed that was a good choice. All was good, went to the waiting room to wait.

As we sat there the kids got restless and I decided to walk them around the small shops. We left and walked around and returned in about 20 minutes. The mechanic saw us walk back in, but was busy on the phone. I knew something was wrong when my car was sitting in the middle of the garage ready to go...no new tires. He got off the phone and took me out into the garage to show me what he did. It was partly right, moved the front right tire back to being the spare tire and put my repaired tire back on. I had repaired this tire at another place a week ago to get me by until I could arrange tires at this place.

In my broken Portuguese I asked where was my new tires? He replied that they were not a tire shop and I was in need of new tires. I told him, that's why I'm here. He explained that they don't do tires and hey look at this tire...it's not good. He then proceeded to take a photo of it and my license plate just incase something happened. You know cover your ass type of stuff. I did the palm to the forehead and then kindly asked if the oil had got changed at least. Sadly, no and he didn't have time to do it right now.

What a mess, it wasn't that much of a language barrier but a huge screw up on my friends part. I am not sure why he thought that they could do this, but he wasn't there to fix the problem. I sent him a nice message telling him what happened and it went without a reply for awhile. Uh oh, he knows that he screwed up and is avoiding me. A few hours later he replied with "Oh my god, I am so sorry." He just woke up and is 3 hours behind us in Mexico on vacation. He will fix this when he returns. I told him no problem and that I will deal with it next week. He is on vacation and at that point I didn't want to bother him. Enjoy yourself man!

It's what I would like to call "Its Brazil" type of situation. Whenever something happens and someone is like "why isn't this working" or "What happened" I say this. He probably thought it was no big deal to do this type of work and is willing to do anything to please the family. Things happen here and there is not much you can do about it. I am disappointed to not get this done and will now need to find another place next week. It's hard to explain the culture here, but it is for the most part laid back and people want to make you happy. Yeah, I wasted my morning for nothing but what can I do about it.

Well thanks for reading and being part of my daily struggles here...to be continued!                

Found the culprits that are eating my fruit! Each morning we wake up and open all the doors and windows, let the breeze flow through the house. It's necessary to open the house and let nature do its job by cooling it down throughout the day. There is no central air system, only fans and the small air conditioning units you can put in each room. It gets hot at times, but nothing that we can't solve by taking shelter under a fan. 

It happens every once in awhile, usually if we have a lazy day and take a nap. Windows and some of the doors stay open. We live in a closed community that is very safe for Brazil. The front doors may get closed and locked while we nap, but not all the time. Well on a couple of these times I have came out to the fruit on the kitchen counter has been eaten a little. You can see where the birds peck at it with their beaks. They usually leave a couple droppings to say hey we were here and thank you! 

It's the price we pay to live in paradise and we love it! The 2 photos show them looking in and this time I had the window closed. Its wild here and its awesome to be so close to nature!     

Kids School

Since we moved to Brazil, I have taken on the role as Mr. Mom. It’s been challenging for a guy who spent the last 20 plus years working a hectic job of odd hours and long trips away from home. This caring and feeding of kids was never a full-time job for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I am loving it! The boys have done a total reverse and are more attached to me now. Before it was always the fall and get hurt yell for Mommy, now its Daddy. Sometimes I get busy and think “oh crap, did I feed the kids lately.” Usually I have or I ask if they are hungry and they already got a snack. They are at an age where they can help themselves, which is a good thing.

Currently I am Mr. Mom, full time student completing my MBA on-line (teach yourself), teach English to about 5 clients and complete most of the chores around the house. Yeah, I know most of my friends think I’m living the life of luxury and don’t do much, but I can say my days are jammed packed. Currently I have a load of laundry in…specifically the pants and other types of shorts. I’m positive there is probably another name for the classification of these types of cloths, but I don’t know what to call it. I break it down like this: Pants & shorts, shirts, underwear & sock, kids school uniforms, delicate stuff and towels. The only white stuff is usually kids uniforms which wash by themselves. Well anyways that’s some of the crap I’m doing today and I’m not very good at it. They smell good in the end and some of the stains come out.

Sometimes I miss a few things and I will tell a short story about what I missed this morning. Like every Monday – Friday morning I am up at 0630 to get kids to school by 0735. Yes, that early, but they get off at 1200 to come home. A little different then the full days like American kids do. Dressed, breakfast, the scramble to get to school at a decent time. As we are walking in I see the sign up for end of year parent teacher conferences. A highly valued get signed up now before it fills up and I can’t align the times so both kids will have their meetings close to the same time. I sent the kids on their way to the classrooms while I heroically jumped into the mix of crazy moms to get my coveted spots.

Yes, I am the only everyday drop and pick up the kid’s dad. Some of the other dads do it a few times a week but not every day. I know, that I’m not that good at seeing upcoming events and planning for stuff that a mom would realize. After my victory of getting great times for the parent teacher conferences, I head over to the outdoor area where they do events at the school. I knew my youngest kid had been practicing singing each day for the past few weeks and this was the day to sing for us parents. He told me every day that his teacher was mean for making him sing and he hated it. Complained he would get thirsty and she always was making him sing louder. I thought it was funny!

Well as I am sitting front row seat, a victory! I get a call from my wife…not happy wife. She says, “teacher just called and is very mad that our son doesn’t have a monkey costume on.” Well the costume part was a complete surprise to me. “it was in his journal to have a costume for today.” I didn’t see a memo to have one, sorry. “well fix it or go explain to him why he can’t sing this morning.” As you can see from this conversation, I am in big trouble and it’s not a possibility to have a monkey costume in 10 minutes. I could make him into an army dude or burglar by getting some grease from the car engine and rubbing it on his face. Not an option though, its toxic and wouldn’t go with the animal theme the teacher was going for.

I get up from my prized seat and head to the classroom, as I walk in he is facing away from me. I’m not sure what to expect when I kneel beside him. I say “hey buddy I’m really sorry, I didn’t know about the monkey costume.” He is not upset at all but says “does this mean I don’t have to sing?’’ Right then and there I knew this was a good thing. I told him I missed it in the journal that I sometimes look at and then tell him he can come home for the day. He practically danced his way to the car and was so happy not to have to sing those horrible songs.

I feel bad that I missed this and he didn’t get the experience to sing in front of the school. I plan to pay more attention and not get caught up in the other stuff I got going on. In the end, I realized that it ended up good! He was happy to not sing, skip school, poop at home, play on his I-Pad, etc. I got the best times for parent teacher conference, had front row seat (which is rare) and got to spend time with the youngest while I did the laundry this morning and he talked to me while he pooped. It’s hard to hold an I-Pad at that time and he makes that the dad let’s talk time.

Thanks for reading,

A very happy and grateful Daddy

            

The birds of paradise!

Where I live in Brazil we have these odd birds named Ema's (Emu). I'm not sure how many there are in our neighborhood, but there is a bunch of them. They are scavengers, will eat just about anything from baby snakes to discarded leftover french fries. It must work, I have never seen a snake here. They normally don't bother anyone and usually only thing they damage is small shrubs. I am grateful to have something that wanders around and eats junk that would otherwise attract unwanted animals and bugs. One interesting fact I have learned about the Emu is that the dad's sit on the eggs and then raise the babies once they hatch. In three of the pictures attached you can see the little ones. Also, each male has three to five females...not sure if this is a good thing or not. They are not native of Brazil, but are a great thing to have around.

Not sure if you can eat them or not.
   

Hey everyone! Saw these bad ass cars the other day. Always wanted a VW bug (not pink) or a dune buggy looking thing. Thought they were both pretty cool and I hope the pink bug is a girls car. Maybe someday I will get the opportunity to get one of these to beat around. Until then I will enjoy my Mitsubishi Outlander!