The post about Miami

So we live in Miami now.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it's sunny and there are palm trees everywhere and we can go to the beach any time we feel like it, even on a Tuesday afternoon in February. The grocery store has coconuts and fresh fish caught this morning and Venezuelan avocados (don't ever eat another California avocado again. You're wasting your time. I'm completely serious). And a bunch of stuff in the produce section that I have no idea what it is. And aisles of stuff without a word of English on the packaging. I hear Brazilian and Spanish and Hindi and Haitian from people talking around me at the beach, grocery store or library, and there is always a good salsa song on the radio that gets the kids dancing in their car seats.

On the other hand, TRAFFIC. Like, not just DC-style traffic where you're stuck for awhile, but white-knuckling-it traffic where everyone drives like an asshole on cocaine. Also, as I found out today, it's possible to be triple-parked in just picking your kid up from school. And people jump curbs and park in medians if they want to. Now there is your driving quirks to every area: in New Mexico, it's assumed you will run a red light. In DC/Maryland/Virginia and most of the east coast, it's assumed someone will pull out in front of you just as you approach them, forcing you to slam on your brakes. In the Midwest, drivers are extremely passive-aggressive but tend to avoid any sort of direct confrontation, other than flipping the bird. Here in Miami, it's balls-to-the-wall, in-your-face driving. They see you, you see them, and there is neither hatred nor camaraderie: it's just go time, and everyone is running. I'm in my 2002 Dodge minivan, she's an old girl, and she's carrying my most precious cargo, and I'm having a hard time maneuvering her in a way that gets us places without me experiencing an anxiety attack.

We'll get there. We will also find things like Anika's field trip shirt, which has mysteriously disappeared along with a kazillion other things I'm sure we've lost between the grandparent's house, the airplane, the hotel, and our new apartment.

Speaking of, I'm sitting on the porcelain tile floor right now, enjoying a glass of wine (in the one glass we picked up our first day here because clearly we have priorities) and the fact that we finally have internet. Kids are all asleep and it's day three of my two-week foray into single parenthood while Armando attends training in Boston.

My first week here - after the last flight I EVER want to take with three children alone - was spent white-knuckling it in my trusty caravan toting the three munchkins from here to there and screaming at Siri as I struggled to get all the required appointments and paperwork so they could attend school in the great regulated state of Florida on the same day as everyone else. That mission was accomplished, albeit not in the most graceful way, but both kids are now happily attending schools. Anika is at the neighborhood public school, which is actually ranked quite highly, and has spent all this week taking standardized tests. "You have to fill in the bubble," she will explain. I hope she's actually learning something as well, and spending enough time playing and being a kid. She's making friends, both in her kindergarten and in the grades above her, and seems to adore her teacher. Reni attends 4K at a private school a block away and right next to the grocery store. Because, DUH. Also, it's not a bad school. He spent the first two or three days sobbing and screaming at drop-off, but that was mostly because we were living in a hotel for three weeks and we'd just moved - again - and how much change can a little guy handle before he bursts into tears, already? I couldn't blame the guy as I've shed a few tears myself. Anyway, he loves his school now, and his teacher, Miss Pilar, and he says he's making friends but he doesn't want to talk to them much "until they learn English." Seriously, his school is not advertised as bilingual or Spanish immersion - it just is pretty much 100 percent in Spanish because that's the native language of 99.9999 percent of the kids who go there. Both kids are picking up bits and pieces of it already.

Between the two of them, we spend about 30 minutes each night doing homework. Yes, my four and five-year old have nightly assignments that must be turned in by the end of the week. Anika even has a math workbook. I feel like we might be putting a *wee* bit too much pressure on kids these days.

And then there's Roman, my little roll-with-the-punches munchkin. He's marvelously happy nearly all of the time, despite the teething, but his days of perfect sleep are an all-too-distant memory. I think the moving and constantly changing schedule have ruined his perfect sleeping habits. All I know is that we're all really tired. This doesn't stop him from crawling, or swimming (trying to, anyway), and today he even pulled himself up to standing. Using the air mattress, as that is the only thing in the room he could pull up on, because we have no furniture until tomorrow.

Tomorrow our things arrive from Spokane. They have to put it all in a U-Haul first because a semi truck will not fit on the streets in our apartment complex, and I'm trying not to sweat too much about it. Altho this is Miami, and I'm always sweating, but you probably didn't need to know that. I'm just grateful that the end is near, and that we are closer to making this little apartment a place we can call home.