The Hada de Dientes (Tooth Fairy) Cometh

Last night at 12:30 am Emma was complaining about her loose tooth. She really wanted it to come out because she wanted a Euro for it. I asked her to let me wiggle it, but I yanked it out instead. She was mad at first, but then she kept looking at the tooth and at the hole in her mouth. She wrote a letter to the Spanish tooth fairy asking if she could keep her tooth and get the Euro anyway. She woke Collin up at 7 am with the Euro in her hot little hand. 

The alarm went off at 9 am, but we  turned it off and went back to sleep. The pan (bread) man rang the doorbell at 10:30 am so we all got up then. By the time we got out of the house it was 1:30 pm which is just about the hottest time of day and everything was closed for siesta except for el Corte Ingles, which is a department store with groceries on the bottom floor. First, we tried to tire the kids out by letting them use their heelys at a park (so that they wouldn't be too crazy in the store), but they kept coming back into the shade to rest and drink water so we gave it up and walked to el Corte Ingles. They have a pretty great toy section and the kids got all eager to do chores so they could spend some Euros there. We saw a doll that cost 400 Eu which I thought was just plain crazy. Who would buy a doll for that much, especially an ugly one? 

I was looking at Aidan's heelys and wishing I had some, so I crammed my feet into his to see if I could get the hang of it. It is a lot harder than it looks. Emma was trying to guide me like I did for her and Ian when they first started wearing heelys. I did manage to glide a little, but as you can see by the pictures I look like a total fool. Maybe if they weren't a couple sizes too small and I wasn't wearing a tight denim skirt I would have had an easier time . . . . or maybe I just stink at heelys.

Ian threw a giant fit today because we wouldn't buy him an ice cream. Aidan had traded his dollars for euros and had also done some chores. Emma had just cashed in her tooth. So they both had pocket money to spend on ice cream. They bought vanilla push-ups with hard chocolate centers. If you licked them in a conical manner they resembled pencils. They also had chocolate candies in the sticks. Ian was so JEALOUS! When we got home he wanted to do some chores so he hung a load of towels on the drying rack and also mopped the entire apartment. I paid him 1,20 Eu. We are having a hard time coming up with chores for the kids to do since the apartment is so small and we have so few things in it. We have decided to pay the kids ,01 e for every Spanish vocab word they memorize and ,03 for every phrase. Yes, we are so desperate for them to learn some Spanish that we have stooped to paying them. I wish someone would pay me, maybe that would get my butt in gear.

Something I have noticed since we have been here is that the kids argue and tease each other a lot less. They seem to play together really well. Is it all the exercise they are getting from walking around and using their heelys? We didn't do a long walk today, the kids were complaining so we only walked 7,000 steps. Tomorrow we are all going to try to get up early so that we can go to the convent and try some candy made by nuns. The nuns are not allowed to have contact with the outside world and so there is this little door in the wall where you put the money and shut it and then they put the candy in and you open it (reminds me of when you give a urine sample at the doctor's office). We are also going to try to see the Arab baths. The question is: can we get up and out the door before it gets too hot outside?

I have seen a couple guys wearing genie pants. They are usually the type that sell hemp bracelets on the sidewalk. I keep trying to convince Collin to get a pair, they look super comfy:)He keeps saying that they look like a saggy diaper and he thinks you have to be a hippy to pull them off. This couple pictured actually tried to sell us some bracelets, but we need that money for what comes out to be a $4 ice cream cone. 

I made falafels from scratch tonight and they were really good! I got the recipe from Moti's Iraq Cuisine. I also got my hummus from scratch recipe from the same site. We ended up eating all the pittas I bought yesterday so I served them on tortillas. We found this weird electric grill that we have been using as a toaster and to heat dryish stuff. I made a toasted cheese sandwich for Aidan on it and it was good. I also heated up tortilla (Spanish) for the kids for dinner. Ian and Aidan ate falafels and liked them. 

There are tons of street performers at night. Last night we saw some jugglers in the middle of the road at the crosswalk during a red light. Once the light turned green they started roaming around holding their hands out at car windows hoping to get some change. There are also "statues" that come to life when you put money on the ground in front of them.

The peach lady's whereabouts remain a mystery.