Enfrijoladas with Avocado and Queso Freso

Growing up in Miami I’ve always loved avocados but it wasn’t until I met my Mexican-American wife from Texas that I understood how superior Avocados from Mexico are compared to others.  I don’t know if my palette is now more diverse than ever but we use Mexican avocados in pretty much everything including traditional Mexican dishes, guacamole, on sandwiches, in salads, on pizza and even au natural with a dash of lemon juice and a sprinkle of cayenne pepper.

In addition to being smaller and more flavorful than their counterparts, Avocados from Mexico provide nearly 20 vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, including potassium, vitamins B6, C and E, folate and fiber. They also provide the “good” fats – mono- and poly-unsaturated fats that make avocados a good alternative to foods that are rich in saturated fats. And for those of you on low-carb diets, they contain just 3 grams of carbohydrates.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how you can incorporate delicious Avocados from Mexico into your family meals, then check out these tasty recipes from Celebrity Mexican Chef Aquiles Chávez - Avocado Fruit Salad with Lemonade Dressing and Enfrijoladas with Avocado and Queso Freso.

Avocado Fruit Salad with Lemonade Dressing

Avocados from Mexico “Aguacate Lindo y Querido Recipe Contest”

In an effort to celebrate the taste of tradition, Avocados from Mexico invites you to participate in the “Aguacate Lindo y Querido Recipe Contest“!  All you need to do is create an original Mexican-inspired recipe using rich and creamy Avocados from Mexico and enter your recipe using the form here.  The grand prize winner will receive $500 and a trip to Houston for private cooking classes with Mexico’s renowned Celebrity Chef Aquiles Chavez. Aquiles is the host of Aquilisimo and El Toque de Aquiles, two of the most watched cooking shows in Mexico, which can be seen in the US on the Utilísima network.

This is part of a sponsored campaign with Latina Mom Bloggers and Avocados From Mexico. However, all opinions expressed are my own.

Zamacun encounters Briani.

While millions of children grew up fearing La Llorona or El Cucuy, my maternal grandparents Manolo and Margarita raised me to be afraid of the Zamacun monster.

The weird thing was not that I was afraid of an imaginary creature called Zamacun, but that I never knew or even asked what this monster really looked like.

Growing up, my grandparents made extensive use of Zamacun. He was helpful to them because I was a very hyperactive, rebellious kid who often drove them NUTS. At night, whenever my grandparents wanted me to stay away from the refrigerator, our dining room or my grandmother’s super secret guest room (she hid private stuff like gifts and jewelry there), all they had to do was to tell me that Zamacun was in the house and that was that.  Zamacun was so effective that I think it contributed to why I would sleep in a cot next to my grandparents bed until I was 14.

Many years later, when I had my own children, I decided not to use Zamacun or monsters to help me parent my older kids Jonathan (now 12) or Elena (now 8). Oh, I would use monster stuff and weird sounds to give them a fun jolting scare here and there but it was always just for quick fun.  From the time they were little I taught my older kids that God is bigger than monsters.  My paternal grandmother Micaela, the one who directly helped me conquer my fear of monsters and ghosts, was fond of saying: “Be afraid of the living and not the dead.”

Click on this YouTube video for a classic video I

ZAMACUN RETURNS

The legendary Zamacun was all but forgotten until just a few weeks ago when I decided to resurrect him to help me control my cute but decidedly rebellious three year old daughter Briani.

It happened at Disney, of all places.  My wife, kids and I were at a conference in Orlando when a giant coral-looking character on stilts came walking to the pool area where Briani and my older kids were congregated.  Briani was being her usual wild self until she noticed the coral-looking creature.   In three years I had never seen her go more bonkers with fear.  (Her teachers say she’s both fearless and defiant).

When I saw my terrified daughter, I had one immediate reaction.  ”ZAMACUN!,” I yelled at the creature from a distant.

My wife and kids were in the process of trying to calm Briani down about the coral monster when I discovered the historic opportunity to formally introduce this monster to Briani: “ZAMACUN!, ZAMACUN!,” I said to the creature as if that were his name. “ZAMACUN, GET BRIANI! GET HER, ZAMACUN!”

Briani was publicly shrieking with even more terror, my wife and kids were confused and the coral monster was probably saying inside his body suit, “What the heck is going on with this crazy dad?” but there I was, seemingly doing something most parents would never do but feeling completely justified that perhaps for Briani, a little Zamacun in her life was necessary.

Almost four decades after my own grandparents introduced me to to the faceless creature that helped keep me in check, I had presented Zamacun to my own little daughter and this time Zamacun actually has a face.  I even have a photo to prove it.

Glad to have discovered this ad today during the Dads 2.0 Summit in Austin. The main reason I don’t think I saw it sooner was ironically because I was at the actual Superbowl in Miami.

This is the photo that triggered Elena to exult and Jonathan to cry.

I was fairly certain that Baby No. 4 was going to be a boy. That’s what my wife’s maternal instinct told her and that’s what my paternal self wanted as we went yesterday to get the final, determining ultrasound.

When our ultrasound technician Eileen told us that we were having a girl, I was almost in disbelief.

“What? Are you absolutely sure?”, I asked her.

“Yes, she’s got her legs wide open. You can see the three lines perfectly.”

“Well, what if something starts to grow in those three lines?”

“Nothing is going to grow there. Those three lines mean mean she’s definitely a girl. She’s opening her legs wide open in the ultrasound as if to tell you, ‘Ready or not, here I come!’”

“Well, have you been wrong before?”

“I’ve been doing this for six years and I haven’t been wrong yet – that I know of.”

As I completed my friendly exchange with the technician, my wife Angela was cracking up. She was chuckling not only because she wanted a girl and because I could no longer dream of trying to name her potential boy “Presley” but also because she knew how much I wanted – NEEDED really – another boy to “balance” the massive estrogen thing we have in the house. My poor 11-year-old son Jonathan and I will soon be severely outnumbered in this house: FOUR to two!

As the girl news started to sink in, I began to appreciate the funny and positive side of having three daughters. Privately I’ve ALWAYS laughed at dads who had that many girls but now I’m going to be one of them. The silver lining: every one of those fathers is fiercely loved by their daughters. Maybe it’s because they had to put up with so much to help get them through life.

One controversy the girl helps my wife and I avoid is the battle for a baby boy name. I very much wanted to call my son “Presley.” Since it’s going to be a girl we probably won’t have any conflict but that’s the subject of a future post because we have a long and interesting history about naming kids in my family.

–

Perhaps the most interesting reaction to the baby’s sex news came from my older kids, Jonathan and Elena, 7.

Elena is the one who when she first learned that her little sister Briani was born was initially told in the waiting room that Briani was a boy. We captured the prank on video at the time as she was devastated. Jonathan has always made fun of Elena for her reaction that day.

This time the tables turned on my son. When Elena saw the news in the photo accompanying this part of the post, she began whooping it up with “Yes! Yes! Yes!” over the phone.

Jonathan’s reaction stunned me.

“Papito, what do you think about the news?”

Silence.

“Papi, are you there?”

Continued silence.

“Hello! Jonathan?”

His mom Mari got on the phone.

“Manny, he’s very emotional right now. He really wanted a baby brother. Maybe you should explain to him that you felt the same about wanting a boy.”

When Jonathan got back on the phone I could barely hear him at first. Then suddenly he started to quietly rant his concerns:

“Now this means Elena is just going to hog up the baby, just like she does Briani.”

“When we go on road trips, Elena is going to get to sit next to them and I’m going to be left alone.”

“Angela is just going to care about shopping with them and won’t want me to go along because she’ll say that I’m a boy.”

Jonathan kept venting about the news until I reminded him about the one cool perk in all this: he’s THE big brother and the ONE and ONLY brother stands out more than the “Three Sisters.” I think that made him look at things a bit different. Now all we have to do is guard him from thinking he’s the BIG BOSSY brother which would seem to be the natural tendency for an Only Brother.

The biggest silver lining is that Jonathan’s already a great big brother. Having three younger sisters has to be one of the best ways to train up a future husband. By trial of fire, Jonathan is going to KNOW how to be a perfect gentleman.

The moment of truth is upon us.

Today – moments from now really – is the big day we finally learn our baby’s sex.

Between my wife Angela and daughters Elena and Briani, I have tons of estrogen in the house so it sure would be awesome have a second boy to help balance things out.

My wife and Elena want a girl for different reasons. Angela thinks another girl would be more seemless for us to transition to because we have all of Briani’s clothes, the rooms would only need minor touch up and besides that, girls are like little dolls.

Elena wants to feel like the Boss Big Sister so for her she would enjoy having another one to show the ropes of Sisterhood. She’ll also enjoy dressing her up.

My son Jonathan, daughter Briani and I are rooting for a boy. Badly. My son and I are united by one major motive: we want another footballer in the house! We need some testosterone to help us control the wild banshees in the house. Yes, there’s a little too much drama in the PapiBlogger homefront so it would sure be sweet to get some more balance.

Briani says she wants an “hermanito” but given what I know about her when she gets jealous with Elena getting attention, Briani wants to remain our family’s youngest princess. My wife and I have a Briani Sister Plan if that comes to be.

Boy or girl, we’ll all be grateful to have a healthy Election Year baby. I tried to convince my wife to let the sex of the baby determine who would name him but she doesn’t want to do that. In just moments we’ll learn if it’s a boy or a girl and then we’ll commence looking for names.

I’ve taken lots of weird photos in my lifetime but the picture posted here today with this story eats the cake. My wife, three kids and I ran into the woman whose legs are pictured here the other day at the valet for a local mall. The apparently well-heeled woman was casually standing with her husband when the PapiBlogger dude in me pulled out his iPhone and silently snapped away at what you see here.

All of us, the kids included, were ready to burst into laughter but fortunately we did not humiliate ourselves. The valet came before we could do that. After we stopped giggling, my wife, kids and I chatted about the cotton ball legs. Here’s what we thought about this mystery cotton ball wearing person:

- If she was going to have so many cotton balls attached to her legs why didn’t she just put on some pants? She was in a busy mall!

- Did you notice the gauze tape holding all the cotton balls in place? It makes her look like she’s wearing a spider web!

- What if the prank was really on us? (Maybe a hidden camera was capturing our reactions as we quietly giggled and snapped away)

- What if she looked like that because the lady had just had some sort of varicose vein treatment?

- 15 cotton balls appear in this photo but it would have been cool to do a 360-pictorial of her legs because there were cotton balls all around her legs!

Our last major thought has to do with you.

- Maybe if we post this photo on PapiBlogger somebody who’s real smart will chime in with the answer to the mystery cotton balls. Conversely, maybe somebody doesn’t know what the heck this is about either but maybe they will want to add their own commentary.

What do you say about this cotton picking mystery?

When I was 11, my teenage cousin Tammy and I had a memorable conversation about the number of kids that we each planned to have.  Tammy and I didn’t have a clue about parenthood then so at the time it sounded cool for us to say that we would do a competition to see which one of us would be the first to have 50 kids in all 50 states.

Thirty years later my cousin and I have three kids apiece but now that’s about to change because I recently learned – on my birthday, no less – that PapiBlogger is about to be a dad for a fourth time!

When my wife told me the news I instantly remembered the crazy old bet I made with my cousin.  Here’s what else instantly streamed into my head:

- YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!!!  In fact, my wife initially planned to play a joke on me that she was pregnant.  Then she saw the pregnancy test and the joke was on both of us, two 40-something year olds who didn’t think they would have more kids again.  (If we live long enough we’ll both be old grandparents).

- This means we’re headed back to the parenting joys of diapers, compotas and sleepless nights!

- Maybe there’s a sponsorship opportunity in this pregnancy somehow.  Hey, if we’ve been able to get two consecutive, 40-plus day summer family road trips sponsored by major brands that love our blogging work, why not try to get one for our pregnancy and baby adventures?  I’ll be blogging, Facebook and tweeting about our pregnancy and the baby from this point forward.  (Yo, Pampers, can we talk?)

We won't be doing an epic summer family road trip this year like we did in 2011 with Disney and Buick but expect something fun and different from us in 2012!

- It’s time to get a new PapiMobile! My wife has been lobbying me for a new family vehicle for four years so now she’ll get her wish.  I’m a miser when it comes to buying cars but we need a bigger one that will last us a long time.  The current front runner to be the official family car? The Buick Enclave.  We had a terrific experience with the Enclave during our 10,000 PapiBlogger family road trip to Alaska and it also has a lot of nostalgia points with the kids.  (We’ll keep you posted on this).

The 2012 Buick Enclave is the early front runner to be the official family vehicle of the growing PapiBlogger clan. Here's the Enclave we drove this summer on our road trip in front of Crater Lake, Oregon.

- This is clearly a sign that one of my kids must be destined to be President of the United States.  God willing, all four of my children will be official Election Year Babies: 2000, 2004, 2008 and now 2012.  (In case you’re wondering, yes, for better and for worse, my presidential choice has won each of those elections).

- God help me be a great dad to four kids.   Believe it or not, this is the number one thing that I think about the most.  I know it’s possible to be a good father to four kids but I sincerely don’t know how the great dads of old did it with 12-children family homes.  I am sincerely depending even more on God to help me be the dad that Baby No. 4 deserves.

- There go our plans for this summer’s Hawaiian vacations!  This summer the PapiBlogger clan had scheduled a big family adventure for Hawaii but that’s now close to impossible because our baby is due right smack in the middle of the summer.  (We’ll try to do SOMETHING to make up for this but Hawaii seems totally out of the question).