quinta-feira, 21 de abril de 2016

Notes regarding my toddler's ability to concentrate and her first presidential impeachment.


On a sunny Sunday of April, the second process of presidential impeachment in Brazil was launched. Deputies began to vote at 5 pm and session went up to midnight.

My daughter stayed with us watching the votes until 8 pm, when she asked to sleep in her bed. Early on Monday, she would have classes and I would have to work.

We thought that she would be bored watching the deputies' votes, but she didn't. She stayed the whole time sitting on her chair while she was paying attention to it on TV. She is improving her concentration. She is only 28 months old.

The first time that we noticed that she was concentrating for a long period of time was when we watched The Good Dinosaur at a movie theater. Actually, it was the first time that we went to a movie theater with our daughter. She was 25 months old.

It is amazing to see her intellectual improvement. Every day she starts to pay attention to new things; things that she haven't noticed yet; things that had always been at her environment, however they had not attracted her curiosity yet before.

As a magic, just one click in her head and there it is: a whole new world with plenty of details to be questioned by her.

21° Mostly Clear
15.8007° S, 47.8789° W





Enviado do meu iPhone

sábado, 16 de abril de 2016

Will Future of My Daughter be Jeopardized by corruption in Federal Government of Brazil?


In 1992, I was 17 years old when the first Presidential impeachment was conducted in Brazil. The ex-President Collor was accused of corruption and fraud in his election campaign.

In that moment I was almost an adult. I and most of Brazilian nation were paralyzed without knowing the future of our country. There were just few years that Brazil's democracy had been reestablished in 1985. For decades, Brazil had been governed by military presidents.

Right now, my daughter is observing her first process of Presidential impeachment. There are serious evidences that, in last Presidential election, the President manipulated Brazil´s budget to pay debts without Congress' authorization. It is a crime established in the Fiscal Responsibility Law. In fact, she postponed the occurrence of a great recession in our economy to after election's period so that she could be reelected.

For us, it was worst because the most of economics activities were stopped very fast and simultaneously. It was, therefore, responsible for a great inflation, lose of jobs, high interest rates and depreciation of real state.

To postpone the recession, the President manipulated Brazilian people to spend their savings to the point that there be almost no money in Families' saving deposited in bank accounts, according to data presented by Central Bank of Brazil. It will take a long time to families' savings recover and to authorities mitigate the side effects in our economy and life of citizens.

I wanna know how will be the country that my daughter will be raised from now on. We hope that this kind of crime doesn't occur again. All of this has a great impact on what we could afford to buy to her and, even more, which kind and excellence of education and healthcare that we could afford to pay for. 

Actually, Brazilians citizens pay many taxes, but we don't receive good public schools and hospitals. The best ones up to high school are private, even though, nowadays, public services are better than it was in 1992. They are more comprehensive and are offered to more citizens wherever they live. The first step was almost reached: comprehensiveness. Urge now that services quality be improved as well.

In addition to fiscal crime, there are a lot of investigations where President´s party is accused of receiving illegal money to support political campaigns, which are paid as bribes in contracts established by public companies like Petrobras and Eletrobras.

Some guys were already arrested and condemned; some of them are billionaires owners of civil construction companies. They also presented a testimony saying that they donated a huge amount of illegal money to support presidential campaign of 2014 as well. These testimonies in some cases guarantee a reduction in their penalties.

If Electoral Superior Tribunal accept the veracity of the accusations, the current President can be ousted from power and maybe a new election will be necessary to choose a new President.

I don't want that my toddler faces this corruption scenario again. Right now she is too young to be keen on political issues. When she grows up, I wish she could look back and discover the great revolution that is taking place now.

So, it is very important that we, in the condition of her parents, to look for a solution to this problems. The most powerful weapon that we have is the vote. It is very important that we scrutinize candidates' life and their acts to choose just who is honest, and reliable.

Some of these crimes were presented publically before President's Election of 2014, but population didn't consider these evidences in their vote and the President was reelected. However, the President hasn't gotten enough support to approve her proposes to increase taxes and Budget since the beginning of her new mandate. In fact, Brazil has been paralyzed since 2015.

Another issue that is very important in Brazilian political model is the necessity of alternation of parties that get presidential power. If a party stays too long at the command, it will indicate the major part of Supreme Court's ministers. This would be the first step to establish a dictatorship, as we already had in Brazil. Nobody would be able to condemn the President and his political allies for their mistakes, corruption cases and crimes of responsibilities.

I do want fair play to my toddler. I hope that, once more, Brazil go to a better period. I do believe in its resilience.

My cute and smart daughter will be raised to be an antithesis of the majority of our country, considering that this majority elected our current President. I and my wife will work hard to teach her good principles and values. Besides, we will try to give good examples by acting in the right and polite way.



Enviado do meu iPhone

segunda-feira, 11 de abril de 2016

It is cool when a toddler calls your parent's names


Today we'll come back home from Goiânia by 4 pm. Our niece will go with us.

On this trip was established a mark in our daughter's development. Since the beginning of the week, she has talked more fluently and has spoken complete phrases more often.

Indeed, the most amazing is when she says my name and the name of her mother. We know that, since a long time ago, she has understood our names, however now she can externalize her feelings and what she desires. She used to call us only as daddy and mama.

Did you pay attention at the picture? When your daughter goes with you to buy an Easter Dove Bread ( Colomba Pascal, as we call it in Brazil) of Peppa and George, you will notice that she'll want to buy the whole stock. Children really love this cartoon. And, moreover, as it is close to previous Easter, we had to buy a cup decorated with bunnies. Our daughter loves them as well.

We arrived at home at 7:30 pm. There was a big traffic jam near the Federal Road Police's office in Goiânia. Actually, some cars broke down and, to make it worst, the police blocked one way of the road to force drivers go slowly.

We hope police will not keep on doing this every Sunday afternoon. Otherwise, it will be better come back later.

23° Mostly Sunny
Alameda das Paineiras, 0B33000, Goiânia, GO, Brasil


Enviado do meu iPhone

sexta-feira, 8 de abril de 2016

Entertaining a toddler on a trip






Did you pay attention to the picture at the previous post. It is a work of art (oeuvre d'art) done by my little daughter. She loves painting and plays with gouache and paint-brush.

She paints on canvas because we want to expose them at our house. Moreover, it is cute to observe when she paints on canvas.

Today we will travel to Goiânia at night. Actually, we wants to go earlier, cause, after 4 pm, there is a big traffic jam to leave Brasília. It wasn't always like this. It got worst when it was created a path exclusive to buses without building an extra one. On Fridays, all people go out by car to have lunch and to have happy hour with friends.

Today our niece will travel with us. We are her godfathers. She moved to Brasília at the beginning of the year.

So, we will travel with two children. Our niece is 8 years old and stays most of the time playing with our two years old daughter.

Usually, when we travel with children, we take with us some entertainment objects: toys, portable Dvd players, story books and children's music cd. It is very important to keep them occupied to avoid them to be bored.

When we travel alone, our daughter often sleeps in most of the trip. However, it is important to take with us other alternatives and ludic toys.

At the end, we leaved at 5 pm. We tried a shortcut but it wasn't very successful. A big train stopped us, take a look at the photo. The shortcut goes though a railway. We arrived at my mother in law by 9 pm, after ours niece mother take her. 

30° Mostly Sunny
SMPW Quadra 3, Brasília, DF, Brasil


Enviado do meu iPhone

terça-feira, 5 de abril de 2016

How difficult is it to make a Toddler drink some tea


Our daughter has been sick since last night. In half a hour after going to sleep, she threw up.

She is having problems with Pediasure. It is offered in 3 flavors: chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Chocolate is causing an allergic process in her skin, red dots appear around her mouth; and vanilla makes her throw up.

Yesterday she had vanilla. Once more, she threw up. We spent almost one hour to make her calm and to start sleeping again.

Today she is feverish, and, after breakfast, she threw up again. My mother advised us to prepare some teas to her: "erva-doce" and "capim-cidreira".

My wife offered tea in a squeeze bottle, but she refused. She tried again to offer the tea in a baby bottle, our daughter didn't even tried it. For last, she gave the tea in a tea spoon.

She is sleeping right now.

We have plans to go to Goiânia on next week. My vacation ends up today . So, if she gets better, we will visit my mother at afternoon. Otherwise, we will stay a long period without visiting her.

Despite the facts pointed in my previous posts, our daughter is sweet. She barely cries and most of the time she obeys us. she is learning a lot of new stuffs and is very keen on learning new nice stuffs. However, there are exceptions that deserve a reflection about, just to improve our strategy and way to deal with these little problems.



Enviado do meu iPhone

sexta-feira, 1 de abril de 2016

Our Toddler's Reactions when Was Suffering Frustation During Our Trip to Caldas Novas and Rio Quente

We left Caldas Novas yesterday at 12:45 am. At 5 pm we arrived at home.

The road that we choose to travel was not the best choice. For those who don't know Brazil, it is quite easy to find holes at Brazilian streets and roads, especially, after the raining period. Brazilian streets are built only with asphalt, it is not used a layer of concrete above it. With asphalt, car's tires have a longer life and the construction of roads is cheaper and faster.

In fact, our itinerary passed by secondary state streets which offer a shorter distance, 301 km. The second path, which passes through Goiânia and through federal roads, would take 400 km. Usually, federal roads are better and safer.

Our daughter had a good time at our vacation. When the messenger of the hotel came to carry our luggage, our daughter started crying. She didn't want to leave. At that moment, my wife talked her that we were leaving, but we could return on the next vacation. At first, the strategy didn't work at all, but she kept up talking until my daughter feels better.

In fact, children don't have future perspective. Therefore, when their present is nice, they are afraid to lose it.


The same behavior pattern repeated all over the trip. At Hot Park, she was afraid to lose the waves and sand of the thermal artificial beach. She delighted with the ups and downs. Actually, we were surprised that she was not afraid of the beach, she wanted to be by herself without no support of us.
At the moment that we took her out, she cried again and said that she didn't want to go out.

For me and my wife, the trip was nice. It is very satisfying to notice our daughter appreciating her new experiences as well.

Avenida Santo Amaro, Caldas Novas, GO, Brasil




Enviado do meu iPhone