happy halloween

boo! sorry it's been so long since the last post. the rain (15 solid days i think)has finally let up and we are starting to dry out a little. thank gawd! and god bless my clothes dryer for keeping our laundry system functioning. i did spent last sunday cleaning my living room walls with bleach to get the mold off!

last week, robin had some exciting things happen. first, he participated in his school's science week. not that it was optional. his project of choice was to build a model of a volcano and simulate a lava eruption. did i call that one or what? so i got him set up with plaster, paint, cardboard, alka seltzer, dish soap, red food coloring. oh my, what a combination. incidentally, we did have a brief incident at the beginning with the red food coloring. it looks just too much like blood for a 9-year old to pass up a chance to dribble some on the arms and fake out mommy. in addition he made a large poster outlining the 6 terms of the features of volcano arenal, which BTW is a "stratovolcano" for its dual layers of tefra AND lava together. so yeah, twenty dollars and an hour on the internet later i got him started. i mostly then just backed off and let him do the work. that was the hard part for me. he did a great job -ON TIME -and presented it to the school on friday. that morning he said he was pretty nervous about the presentation but apparently the kids ooh-ed and aah-ed at the faux eruption . everybody happy...we're both calling it a success.

on friday nite robin and i attended a halloween fundraiser party. it was mostly for the adults but since costa ricans don't celebrate halloween i figured it would be robin's only shot at the fun. robin's costume started out as a rock star. while he was getting ready the costume progressed into a "human devil", complete with eyeliner facepaint and hair-gelled devils horns. i'm so sorry i didn't get a picture of that. human devil, huh? okaaaaaay. the party was mostly gringoes, of course. old retired gringoes. so i mostly hung out with the kids. it was a nice party and well attended with creatively costumed people. the hostess's 11 year old grandson was there, too-a school buddy of robins. the chicos had fun. buddy david came as a devil, too. we ate some yummy potluck appetizers and played balloon volleyball for a while. i was ready to go after an hour (okay, 20 minutes) but robin wanted to wait until they announced the costume contest winners. he was REALLY proud of his hair horns and i think he thought he might win something. i brought a video camera and when we first arrived i asked robin to film the party. what he came up with is 1 minute of party and 10 minutes of the 4 caged parrots squawking on the front porch. then the battery died. i will post one of the pictures, very dark, of me dressed as a man. robin painted my mustache with the curly ends and i wore a "gone with the wind" tie from the thrift store. the woman who came as a cannibal won first prize.

the next day robin had another party to attend! the new library hosted a celebration for any child who signed up and read 10 library books. candy? cupcakes? prizes? yeah! robin locked that in a couple of weeks ago. i dropped him off at 10:30am and got a bit of video of the first games, a book balancing race. robin did very well at that. you can't tell from the picture probably, but robin has REMADE his devil's horns for this party, too. maybe that's how the book stayed put.

robin is doing very well, making progress slowly but surely in school and his home life. he takes the bus in to town every morning (6am!) and back again at 3pm. he has a new friend in his class, alberto (the kid with the 3 mohawks). these days robin is very "into" his coin collection, his gameboy (20 minutes a day). he also likes drawing pictures of robots, anything garfield, the tv show drake and josh, gwen stefani, reggae music, strawberry yogurt with chocolate sprinkles, poodles (!), ranger rick magazine, gelling his hair up into a fauxhawk, oatmeal, cabbage, apples, and reading books (and falling asleep) in mommy's bed.

hope your week is going well. in case you didn't already know, tomorrow the planet mercury goes direct again. all that crazy stuff that's been happening in the world the last 3 weeks will start to calm down. hopefully. happy halloween! xo