Check out my latest post for AMB! My luvs are my life!
Click Here: A Letter to My Sons 
Enjoy!
Happy Mother’s Day! Feliz Día de Madres!
Here’s a little something I whipped up for this special day! I hope you like it!
Casa de los Primos
The beach has always been my magical place. It has been my favorite place to disconnect from real life. There is something about the sound of the waves that can lighten even my heaviest thoughts. Thankfully we were lucky enough to visit a lovely little beach named Akumal that is found on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico about 60 miles from Cancun. The name Akumal means “place of turtles” in Mayan and the name suits it perfectly. The town’s tourism centers on the life of turtles, from birth on. There is a wildlife sanctuary for the turtles, snorkeling tours to watch them in their own habitat and a plethora of decorative turtles and gifts to be bought everywhere you go.
This post focuses on the place we were lucky enough to stay in. It was a beautiful house called Casa de los Primos on the south part of Akumal.
The house is a 4 bedroom house with an additional guest room separate from the main house that has one room and mini kitchen. It has its own pool and is right on the beach. This is not a post to advertise the house for you to rent, as I have no affiliation to the owners. I just wanted to give you a layout so you can visualize it with me as I show you what struck me most: the artwork and decorations.
The owners (or decorator if they used one) took time to cover almost every nook and cranny with gorgeous and mostly original Mexican artwork. There were sculptures, paintings, weaved artwork, masks, crosses and everything you can think of throughout the house. Here are some of the pieces they had that I wanted to share with you to show you just how beautiful Mexican art really is.
My boys loved all of the vibrant colors they say there and have since painted with a little more enthusiasm themselves. My oldest picks bright colors for his projects and can draw a beach scene for you with no hesitation. It may be his favorite thing to draw and paint right now, and I love it.
There is something special about art from Mexico that just makes me smile. I am very grateful that this is my culture and that I am able to share it with my kids. Thank you, Mexico, for having such deep pride in the arts. Thank you, Casa de los Primos, for showcasing so much of it. Thank you, Akumal, for inspiring my boys and me to love art, color, nature and life a little more than before.
I hope you enjoyed the art.
Have a bright and colorful week.
My Global Pick of the Day!!
It is my turn to share one of my first posts with you and the Multicultural Kid Blogs readers. So I thought I would share with you one of my firsts post dealing with my greatest fear. It’s not snakes, dark spaces or even heights. I’m pretty good with all of these. What is it then? Public Speaking. Can’t do it, even at my age. What’s a mama to do?
Public Speaking: Not in English or in Spanish, Please.
I hope you enjoy my take on it and I would love suggestions on how to help my little ones avoid this challenge.
Thank you!
Dear Southwest: A Reply
Dear Southwest Airlines,
Thank you for responding to my letter. I appreciate you trying to explain why such a mess happened in the first place. I must state, however, that you have left us with more questions than answers. In two separate correspondences from two different people at your company you give different reasons for the poorly made decisions of our return trip:
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“Because we had to bring in another aircraft from another city, we had passengers in ATL that we needed to drop off or pick up as well; hence, the reason for the stop in ATL.” (-Maddie)
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“The decision was made to operate your flight to Atlanta in order to clear Customs and accommodate you to Austin the following morning. “ (Adrienne Yurdyga)
Neither of these reasons sounds like a good explanation why this decision was even thought to be a good business decision. Neither does this:
“We carefully evaluate every available option to minimize delays and serve the greatest number of Customers while inconveniencing the least.”
What delay did you manage to minimize exactly? And who did you inconvenience the least? Did anyone benefit from this? As far as I could tell, everyone was inconvenienced including your staff in Mexico and Atlanta. I do not think this excuse holds much water.
If you did have passengers on the flight that were trying to get to Atlanta, did you take them all the way to Mexico and then back to Atlanta? How is that fair to those customers? Would it not make more sense to send in an empty flight? This is what I mean by having a backup plan. It just makes good business sense to be prepared for the unavoidable.
I completely understand the maintenance issue, as I stated in my previous letter. That was never the problem. The “solution” to the problem is my issue. The fact that YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN is all I want you to consider for future flights. Bringing in another aircraft from such a long way and so late in the game just showed that your company had to scramble to avoid a major meltdown from over 100 people. You must set up better policies to avoid such horrible conditions for the customers you claim to value so much.
Also, there are other issues that you did not even bother to address from my letter. Mainly, why sell tickets with flight times to choose from if you do not have the ability to keep those times. There should be some sort of warning that flight times are not guaranteed. This would make the fact that you can’t control your schedules clear to customers BEFORE they purchase a ticket and make their arrangements to fit those schedules.
Your apology email ended like this:
“We want you to have a better experience when you travel with us; and in this spirit, I’m sending a LUV Voucher* (in a separate e-mail) as a gesture of goodwill that we invite you to apply toward a new Southwest reservation.”
A little discount is what that means, right? Unfortunately that won’t entice my family back especially if it’s like the meal voucher you gave at the airport instead of finding accommodations for everyone you inconvenienced from children to elderly, from pregnant to those with medical issues and everyone in between. I’m afraid that for the rest of us, no “discount” will make up for the horrible experience.
I hope you do review this situation as well as every bad experience that keeps getting posted in your Facebook page and make the necessary changes.
Thank you for your time. Good luck in the future.
Sincerely,
Still a disappointed mama
To see my original letter to Southwest, please see link below
Dear Southwest Airlines: A Mother’s Rant
How my poor babies spent the night
Dear Southwest Airlines,
I have always respected you for your low rates and friendly personnel. When I worked as an administrative assistant, I would book your flights above most other airlines because my guys loved your rewards and you always seemed to fly where they wanted to go. That is why my latest experience with you was such a disappointment to me, my family and every single passenger on flight 4935 to Cancun and flight 8887 back to Austin. Most upsetting was the flight back, of course.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? You don’t know me or may even like to, but allow me to introduce myself. I am a mother of two toddler boys. I am what you would call a schedule oriented mother. I live by routines and schedules that we have worked hard to set up for my children. I truly believe that keeping routines is part of why my boys are so happy and well mannered. With that in mind our original flight was carefully selected to match said schedules as closely as possible in order to cause very little disruption. This is what was originally booked:
| Sat Apr 11 | 708 | Depart AUSTIN, BERGSTROM INTL US at 09:40 AM Arrive in CANCUN, INTERNATIONAL MX at 12:10 PM |
| Sat Apr 18 | 4587 | Depart CANCUN, INTERNATIONAL MX at 03:20 PM Arrive in AUSTIN, BERGSTROM INTL US at 06:05 PM |
I would have to wake the kids up a little bit earlier than usual, but nothing too drastic, I thought. They would have been able to nap on the plane on the way back as well. It was all totally doable and perfectly planned.
Then with no explanation whatsoever you sent this confirmation:
| Sat Apr 11 | 4935 | Depart AUSTIN, BERGSTROM INTL at 06:15 AM Arrive in CANCUN, INTERNATIONAL, MX at 08:45 AM Travel Time 2 hours 30 minutes | |
| Sat Apr 18 | 4587 | Depart CANCUN, INTERNATIONAL, MX at 5:05PM Arrive in AUSTIN, BERGSTROM INTL at 7:50PM Travel Time 2 hours 45 minutes | |
Excuse me? How in the world do you even think this drastic change would be ok with anyone with babies? We thought there was some mistake. I mean there had to be, right? Maybe you sent the wrong confirmation, right? Wrong! You must have thought we just wouldn’t notice. My husband called your 1800 line and found out that it was due to the airport assigning arrival times. Here is my issue with this. If you had no arrival time set to begin with why do you sell tickets with times at all? The nice lady on the phone made it very clear that this was how it works. Times are not assigned until 30 days out. Again, why even bother giving us options of times to choose from? When your customers pick the times for takeoff, there should be some kind of guarantee. Wouldn’t you agree? It seems like good business to me.
We gave you the benefit of the doubt and blamed the airport. Now we had to figure out how to wake two toddlers that love to sleep at 3am without any major meltdowns. Because you sent the change so close to the actual flight, we were unable to find any alternative flights. Thanks for that also.
We happily made it to our destination and had an amazing time celebrating my in-laws 50th anniversary with my husband’s family. Nine of us (7 adults and 2 children) had to endure the terrible trip, but loved every sun-kissed minute we got once there.
On our final day, the day of our return flight, we had everything planned out perfectly again. We went to lunch, played in the sand and had the airport van pick us up there to get us to the airport with plenty of time to spare.
As soon as we checked in, however, the lady at the counter informed us (with no compassion, mind you) that the flight was delayed due to maintenance issues for an hour and a half. These things happen, we understood that. Bedtime would have to be pushed a bit, but we could handle it. I did ask if we could find a different flight and the lady pretty much laughed at me. Rude! We had no choice but to wait.
My issue was not with the lady (even if she was unprofessional) or the unforeseen change. We would rather fly on a safe plane than one with issues that go unchecked any given day. My issue was with your lack of responsibility. As a major international airline you should be very aware of the importance of a backup plan. All airlines should either have other aircrafts ready to take the place of faulty ones, or an understanding with other airlines to work together to keep your customers happy and as close to the schedules they paid for. YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN.
Soon after the initial shock it was announced that the flight was not making it at 7:30 but 8. Not that big a change but still starting to grate on every passenger. Maybe now would be a good time for a backup plan? A plane that was already ready would have been able to take the place of the one that was still being fixed. Alas, YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN.
A little while later it was announced that we would now have to wait until 9:17pm. Mama’s not a happy mama anymore. This change would now not get us home until after midnight…with toddlers! Unacceptable! This is when all that followed could’ve been avoided. No other trouble had to happen if you had a backup plan. YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN.
I asked if we could get hotel vouchers so our littles could get to sleep at a reasonable hour and we were very quickly denied. We were willing to wait a day or two in order for weather to clear and all the issues to be resolved but we were told you didn’t do that. No one even bothered calling corporate to check, the answer was an instant well-rehearsed “NO”.
Guess what? Troubles were not over. Next we were told that we would no longer fly to Austin but to Atlanta and have to wait until 6am for the next flight! WHAT? Customs would be closed in Austin by the time we arrived there and Atlanta was the closest airport with 24hr service. Not your fault an international airport is not open 24hrs (another practice that makes no sense) but you know what is your fault: YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN.
Now you want me to sleep at the airport with two toddlers? You want the pregnant lady with back pain to sleep on hard airport chairs? You want the lady with diabetes to sleep at an airport without enough medication for another day? You want the two other families with babies younger than ours to sleep in a loud and bright airport lobby? You want the couples that had romantic getaways whose kids are waiting for them at home to convince the sitter to stay one more day? You want the people with pet sitters to get them to cancel their next job in order to stay with their pets one more day? Did you even care? If you did, you could’ve worked something out. All of this because YOU HAD NO BACKUP PLAN.
Do you realize that if you had a backup plan as in a deal with a hotel, another airline to help out or other planes to dispatch at the beginning of the mess then the bad weather in Texas would have been avoided, customs closing would not have been an issue, and I would not have to write this letter? Also, your poor staff that had no clue of what was going on would not have had to answer to over a hundred very visibly upset passengers.
Did you really think that a $14 meal voucher was going to do anything at all? That is a pretty pathetic attempt at making things right, by the way. I understand that many other destinations had problems as well. I saw many complaints about you ruining many trips because of your lack of responsibility and….NOT HAVING A BACKUP PLAN.
My family, my husband’s family and many other passengers made it clear that they were not flying with you again. We hope the money you saved by not providing hotels, reassigning flights at better times or even providing compensation for such a horrible experience made up for the loss of good reviews and repeat passengers in the future. We ended up arriving home at almost 10 am. My kids were very tired and unhappy. My two year old was throwing up the entire next day and they are not looking forward to flying again. This is coming from two boys that love planes.
Spend the next day throwing up and exhausted. Again, thanks
Let me be clear that I do not blame your staff for any of this; some of them were very sweet and helpful. The lady in the blue shirt in Mexico (wish I had written down names) was very compassionate. (The lady at the first counter and another in a yellow vest were not at all, however). The flight crews all were very helpful and sweet to my kids. The crew in Atlanta was fantastic. Everyone there was amazing, helpful and even made us laugh a little while there (that may have just been because we were delirious, but still, they were fabulous.) My issues were not with them; my issue is simply that YOU DID NOT HAVE A BACKUP PLAN.
Maybe this will help you see how important a plan B is for your future. For now I want to thank you for showing me that saving money on a fare does not make up for saving my sanity. I lost a little on this 28hr day for sure.
Hope your future trips are better than ours for those that continue to use your airline.
Sincerely,
One disappointed mama.
Bilingualeyes
Surviving the Terrible Twos…and Beyond
Check out my latest post on Austin a moms Blog about steps you can take that make help you and your little ones survive toddlerhood. I hope it helps!
Hope you had a delicious Easter!
Easter Maracas
Sorry for the last minute post, but I wanted to share a quick an easy craft for all of those Easter Eggs you may have laying around.
Easter Bunny Maracas
I love the fact that my boys know what maracas are and that when I asked them if they wanted them to make Easter Bunny Maracas for their friends, they were so excited. Everything that I used I already had at home from previous art projects. I know you can make them match better if you go out and buy supplies in the colors of your choosing, but for this post I used what I had at home. I hope you enjoy.
What you will need:
- Plastic eggs
- Tape
- Wire cleaners
- Plastic spoons
- Markers
Optional
- Eyes
- Glue Gun
I had some light blue spoons left from M’s first birthday party. Yes, he is 4 and I STILL had the spoons. I may just be a pack rat.
I also already had some red painters tape left from the boy’s last bday party.
Everything else I had in my craft room already. They are pretty much standard in my house.
- First you fill your eggs with whatever you choose. I was lucky enough to find a bag of plastic eggs for sale at Target that were already filled with candy. But if you have some empty eggs you can fill them with uncooked rice or beans. They are perfect for making music.
- Fold a pipe cleaner into small bunny ears to the size you like. I bent them at one end so I would have plenty left after it was taped to make a tail.
- Place the egg on the spoon, put the ears into position as well and start taping.
- Roll the end that is left into a little tail.
- Next I glued the eyes onto the egg. If you don’t have eyes, you can have your kids draw some on with either paint or permanent marker.
My trick for getting the eyes on without accidents or mess is to place the eyes upside down on a hard surface first. Put a dab of glue on the egg. Carefully press down onto the eyes where your glue is to pick up the eyes. This makes it so much easier to do for me and my little helpers.
Once you have it all assembled, you can let your kids draw the faces on. This was great fun for them. They don’t really get to play with permanent marker for obvious reasons (mainly because it is impossible to wash, especially on their face).
There you go, sweet little bunny maracas. Have a Happy Easter!
You can make all kinds of little creatures using this same technique. Stay tune for a follow up post on that.
(If you would like to share my blog, I would be so grateful. You can find it in our new website http://www.bilinguazo.com/blog.html and on Facebook. We are now also on Pinterest. And don’t forget to hit me up on Twitter. Thanks a bunch!)
Walking Tall
When I think of raising world citizens, I think of raising children that are open to all that they see and respect anyone they meet. I think of children as being an extension of their parents and caregivers. Parents that do not appreciate the beauty of the world, the amazing traditions and cultures of others and the wonderful people all around may not teach their children about them either. If they are not exposed to the world (be it at home or in a classroom), how can they learn to live in harmony with it?
With that in mind I truly believe that some of the bullies of the world have just never had the opportunity to learn from the differences around them. Children who are not exposed to other cultures and traditions may see others as different from them. They may not understand the world that anyone else lives in.
So far, in my kids’ young lives, they had yet to encounter the infamous bully. The other day at the park, however, we came across our first bully in the making. We went to play as we usually do when the weather is nice. The park we like has a playground for big kids and another for toddlers. We always go to the toddler side so they don’t have to worry about the big kids. Also, that park is usually empty which is even better for me.
Enjoying a typical day at the park
My boys were minding their own business, singing and dancing and just being silly. There is a large raised walkway at the park that kids sometimes use to draw with chalk or parents sit on. This is both boys’ favorite spot because it looks like a raised stage. They love to march back and forth on it and sing songs from “The Music Man”. This time only T was marching when a boy that was definitely older than both of them decided to stand in his way, legs and arms stretched out to make sure T couldn’t get through. Here is how I saw it happen…
“Maybe he just wants to play,” I thought granting him the benefit of the doubt as he stood there with a very determined look.
“Excuse me,” said T (proud mama that he was so polite)
“No!” replied the kid.
M sees what is going on, runs over to them and says, “Please move, we are trying to perform.” (Yep, that’s how we roll.)
He still wouldn’t move. M tried everything from asking nicely to asking him if he wanted to play a game. He told the kid that he could be the gate and they would push a button on the boys belly to see if that would open the door. I found this hysterical myself since we play that at home sometimes. I guess I have to think about how our silly games translate into the real world.
The boy still didn’t move so M sighed and said, “Come on T, let’s just go this way.” They happily went around the boy, but the boy followed!
The boy went back up to Mario and said, “Wanna fight?” At this point I gasped and was ready to pounce. I told myself to wait to see what happened and stay calm (easier said than done).
Mario’s response was classic, “Fight? No way! Only mean people fight and mean people are yucky!” Proud mama moment again, even if calling people yucky is not so good either. I knew he was just stating the obvious, though. Loved it!
The kid then tried to take M’s toy horse away and that is when the (who I assume to be the baby sitter due to her age and lack of attentiveness throughout all of this) finally ran over and took the boy away. She’s lucky she did, or else that kid may have gotten an earful from this mama.
Way too cute to pick on, I say!
Point of the story is that if that boy had been exposed to more people and more situations, he may have had a little more respect for my boys and maybe even played with them instead of trying to cause a fight with someone so much smaller. He saw easy targets (smaller children) that were different from him (not just physically but because they were singing show tunes) and decided he would teach them a lesson. Something I’m sure he didn’t learn on his own. This is a child imitating something that he has seen before. I only hope that his parents or caregivers become more open and respectful so that this child and any other kid can do the same.
I am proud that my kids weren’t intimidated and stood their ground. I’m also proud that their first response wasn’t that the kid was threatening but maybe wanted to play. I am proud that they acted with respect, didn’t let them affect them and went on playing as if nothing had happened when it was over. Yes, I am a proud mama. I hope I can teach them to keep the respect and the patience they showed that day for always.
Be proud, my love, you and your brother will reach great heights.
Bilinguazo 