Don't Cry for Me, Argentina!

I know, I know, I'm always so behind on posting!! But it's only because I like to give the whole story...as always I pledge to do better by posting more often...and as always be patient when I hit another inevitable drought!

A couple of quick updates before I give the Argentina run down. Dylan is as cute as ever! He's completely mastered crawling and walking holding onto something. And, he's even taken 1-2 steps on his own (mostly at daycare, unfortunately). He loves to clap his hands, chase his cousin Ella around, and play the drums from rock band (it's hilarious, we have a room full of toys and he almost always immediately crawls over to the drums, pulls himself up and starts banging on them, I'll get pics/video of that up soon!). I can't believe he'll be a year old in a few weeks...it's been absolutely amazing watching him grow/change so much in 12 months. Part of me wants him to stay a baby forever, but the overwhelming part of me can't wait to watch him continue to develop and grow. Maggie is also doing great! She's just over 4 weeks old and has changed so much in that time. She's getting more alert and is as cute as ever! Dylan doesn't pay much attention to her, b/c Ella is always around at the same time and he is completely enamored with her. They are absolutely adorable together!

Dylan's surgery is "scheduled" (yes, I'm putting it in quotes this time) for 3/31. For those of you keeping track, yes that is his birthday. I had mixed feelings about scheduling the surgery on his birthday but then decided it might just be lucky :) It's also the date that worked best for all of our schedules, including Aunt Nicki who comes home a week from Thursday!!! Besides, he obviously doesn't know it's his birthday and this way he gets to try cake a few days early. He's, of course, super healthy right now and has been healthy for some time, so I'm just waiting another week for him to catch a cold :)

Ahora (now)...Argentina!!

As I mentioned previously, Dylan was amazing on the trip to/from Buenos Aires. We definitely got a few questionable looks having a baby on an international flight. But at the end, we got showered with praise on what an amazing baby he is, how cute he is and how great it was that we took him on such a fun adventure. Buenos Aires is 3 hours later than KC. It actually worked out perfectly, because we never transitioned time zones. Culturally, they eat dinner super late (when we went to dinner at 8:30, we were almost always the only ones in the restaurant and even then got some weird looks). So, we slept in each day (if we got up at 8 a.m. KC time, it was 11 a.m. in B.A.) and stayed up "late" each night. I wondered if people were going to question me keeping Dylan out until 10 p.m. or later and wanted to say, hey where we're from it's only 7 :)

There's so much to say about Argentina, but more importantly so many fun pictures! So, I think I'm going to give a Top 10 from Buenos Aires and do the rest of the narrative via captions on the pictures.

Superficie Diez de Buenos Aires (Top 10 from Buenos Aires)

10. Muy Famoso!! (very famous!) - Having a baby in Buenos Aires pretty much makes you a rock star! Everywhere we went, people came over and commented on how cute Dylan was. (obviously he is adorable and is "unusual" in Buenos Aires because of his light hair and big blue eyes). I wouldn't be surprised at all if one of Dylan's first phrases is "que lindo" (how cute) which is all he heard in Argentina. He also thrilled everybody by waving on command when people walked by or said hello to him. You also don't have to wait in any lines if you have a baby. At customs at the airport, at the supermarket, pretty much wherever we went we got priority over everybody else. I'm not going to lie, I could get used to that!

9. La Piscina! (the pool!) - Although, we got a nasty letter from the apartment complex about using the pool (it was completely included in the original agreement), we all had a great time in the pool. Dylan absolutely loved sitting in the shallow area and splashing himself and everyone around him. He also liked sticking his face in the water and "blowing bubbles" like mommy. I don't think he actually made any bubbles and definitely drank some pool water, but he had a blast.

8. Dylan va a la zoológico! (Dylan goes to the zoo!) - We actually went to the zoo twice while in Buenos Aires. It was really close to our apartment and was a very nice zoo. The first time didn't go so well...we had put a bunch of sunscreen on Dylan (it was in the high 90's most of the time we were there) and when we crossed the busy street to get to the zoo a bunch of dust blew in our faces. Dylan's got a bunch of dust/sunscreen in his eyes and was a very unhappy camper. As we were standing in front of animals taking pictures with Dylan crying, I thought to myself, I'm that mom who's making her kid do something "fun" even though he's miserable. We cut that trip short and headed back to our apartment and headed to the pool where Dylan was once again his happy self. The second trip to the zoo was a success! Dylan loved looking at all of the animals and we had a great time.

7. ¡Buen provecho! (Bon Appetit!) - Every morning after I nursed Dylan, Grandma Toni and Aunt Nicki fed Dylan his breakfast on the terrace. He loved eating outside and especially loved his eating companions! I often went back to sleep while they fed him, which was very luxurious for me.

6. Yo amo estar afuera! (I love being outside!) - It was so nice to travel somewhere warm, especially after the super cold and snowy winter we had been having. It was so nice getting to go on so many long walks and being outside so much everyday! Dylan loved getting to hang out in shorts and a t-shirt and I loved getting to wear flip flops again. (special thanks to Beth for loaning me some great clothes and to Kris for getting Dylan some adorable summery outfits!)

5. Me gusta ir de compras! (I like to shop!) - Shopping in Buenos Aires was great! We stayed in a very trendy area that had a ton of fun shops. Nicki and I each got a couple of new skirts and dresses. We also went to San Telmo on Sunday and checked out the farmer's market. We started off a bit slow, but then ended up finding a ton of stuff to buy. Dylan loved checking out all the people!

4. Salir con amigos! (Hanging out with friends!) - We had a great time hanging out with Nicki's friends in Buenos Aires. I've heard so many stories over the past year and a half about Nicki's group that I felt like I knew them already. They were all super welcoming and we had a blast hanging out. Dylan was in love with all of them and had so much fun with all the attention they gave him! Can't wait to see you all again soon!!

3. Comedia de errores(Comedy of errors) - So, of course there were a number of amusing things that happened while we were in Buenos Aires. The whole language barrier was funny at times! I took Spanish in high school and 1 semester in college, Toni took Spanish in high school and Nicki was taking lessons while in B.A. Between the three of us, we didn't really ever have too much trouble getting our point across (almost everybody spoke English or my Spanish was good enough to get by), but I'm sure that listening to us speaking Spanish was amusing for everybody!

Nicki also had a number of amusing mishaps involving Dylan...

First I liked harassing her about squirting sunscreen directly into Dylan's eyes...not quite how it went down, but still funny.

Another time, we were walking home from dinner and Nicki was carrying Dylan. It had rained earlier in the night and Nicki was wearing J Crew flip flops (if any of you have ever been wearing J Crew flip flops and had them get wet, you know its a lethal combo). We were walking down the street and Nicki tripped and nearly fell. She avoided falling and Dylan was fine, but we all harassed her about throwing Dylan on the ground.

When we went out to San Telmo, we had lunch at a cafe. We were finishing up eating and Dylan was sitting in Nicki's lap playing. He has got quite the reach and managed to grab Nicki's glass of diet coke and throw it on the ground! All of the servers and people working at the cafe immediately came running...I of course got out my camera.

I've saved the funniest story for last! We were out to dinner one night and Nicki was playing with Dylan letting him stand on her chair. She noticed what she thought was a leaf or something on the chair and picked it up. Turns out, somehow a small piece of poop had fallen out of the side of Dylan's diaper. Once Nicki realized what it was, she started screaming and freaking out. It was hilarious :)

2. La comida (the food) - If you read anything about what to do in Buenos Aires, cafes are always listed. We ate some excellent meals in Argentina! We also ate a few suspect meals (some would say the most suspect place we ate was chosen by yours truly). Buenos Aires was settled by Italians, so we ate tons of great pasta, pizza and empanadas. We also had lots of great wine and enjoyed eating long leisurely meals outside. One of the funniest things is how much attention we got while eating. Other customers would come over to see Dylan and say how cute he was. And servers from other tables and even a couple of chefs came out just to see him and tell me how cute he was.

1. Te amo mi familia!! (I love my family!) - Of course, the absolute best part of Buenos Aires was getting to hang out with Aunt Nicki and Grandma Toni for so many days in a row. We had such a great time being together and Dylan absolutely loved getting to see so much of Nicki and Toni (as did I!). We've decided to make it an annual trip and I can't wait to plan our next one (maybe someplace closer than B.A. next time)!

Here we are enjoying our first meal out in Buenos Aires. This place actually had a high chair, which was nice. And Dylan loved getting to eat outside!!

Enjoying lunch with Grandma Toni and Aunt Nicki!

We moved to coffee table out of the living room and set up toy central for Dylan. While in B.A., Dylan perfected his throwing skills. Nicki bought him a couple of balls and Dylan loved playing catch with them.

Dylan loved playing in the pool!!

These were what most of the high chairs looked like...they were literally just high chairs. And they'd give us one of the table cloths to tie around him and hold him in. At the first restaurant, when they gave us the tie, we thought it was just an oversized napkin. The server looked at us a bit weird as we used it to wipe Dylan's face. It wasn't until when we went out the next night and the server tied it for us that we realized our mistake.

On the way to the zoo...take 1!

The zoo isn't very fun when you get dust/sunscreen in your eyes!

Much more fun in the pool!

We went out to dinner with all of Nicki's friend. Piper wasn't feeling great, so didn't hold Dylan, but he had a blast hanging out next to her!

Having fun at dinner!

Dylan showing Rich how good he is at banging a table with a spoon!

Fun with Dan!

Here are a few pics we took in a park close to our apartment:

Dylan discovered that he could make a funny sound if he sniffed with his nose. I think he looks just like a bulldog when he does it :)

Look, Aunt Nicki can do it too!

Nicki and I went out for a drink one night after Dylan went to bed. It was great :)

Quilmes is the Argentinian beer...it was great!!

Dinner at the "suspect" restaurant I chose (hey, it was recommended in multiple books). You didn't order from the menu, they just kept bringing food. This was the "quiche" round consisting of random egg dishes.

Hey Mommy, look! I can stand up in my crib all by myself!! And I'm so proud!!!

We walked to Nicki's favorite park (Tres de Febrero) for Dylan's 10 month pictures. The park was beautiful and we had a great time walking around.

View from the balcony at our apartment

The San Telmo Market

The broken glass!

Famous tango dancers!

With the Mafalda character in Buenos Aires. Mafalda is a famous character from a popular comic strip in Argentina.

After San Telmo, we headed to La Boca to check out El Caminito. It's a few block area that has lots of brilliantly colored houses and buildings.

Nicki and Dylan after the "incident"

Enjoying dessert with Dan and Nicki...they were amazing!

The zoo, take 2 was much better. Dylan loved looking at all of the animals and we had a great time!

The zoo can wear a little man out!!

More fun in the pool!

Fun at another dinner with Piper and her fam!

More views from the balcony on our last day:

On the flight from D.C. to K.C. Dylan did great on the trip from Buenos Aires to D.C. He slept the whole way and was in a great mood! He did get a bit hungry while we waited in line at customs (no more rock star status in the U.S.!). I also had tried to bring wine back for my fam, but didn't pack it very well. When we went to pick up our baggage in customs, my suitcase was sitting on the ground in a pool of red wine. It was disgusting, luckily it was in the suitcase with Dylan's toys so nothing got ruined. By the time we were done cleaning everything up, Dylan was starting to get a bit hysterical with hunger. We were half walking/sprinting through the airport with Dylan crying...we got some strange looks but I knew that he needed to eat and that wasn't going to happen until we got to the gate. Once we got to the gate, and I started feeding him all was well!

So as you can see we had an absolutely amazing experience traveling to Buenos Aires! I was a little nervous about taking a 10 month old on an international flight but he did amazing! We had so much fun hanging out with Toni and Nicki and can't wait for our next adventure!

Adios!!!