Making Lemonade

So, here it is report card time (and yes I do have to write those on maternity leave) and the hard drive in my laptop died.  Like, it put a blue screen up and shut off and didn't even say goodbye.  

Well, Some people would have cried or joined the army -- me?  I bought a MacBook.  Yes I think I'm fancy and yes my report cards will probably be the greatest ever written.  

No gratuitous pictures of Gabe the delicious since I haven't loaded any pictures on this computer, but suffice it to say that he's wearing grey snowman pajamas tonight (the pajamas are grey, not the snowmen).

Don't want to know

One phrase that I've heard over and over since the day I told people I was pregnant was "oh just wait until...". I understand that people who have been through a certain experience have broad memories of certain times of their experience, but why can't I just enjoy the point that I am at in my own experience.

FOR EXAMPLE when I started to feel little kicks, I right away started hearing "wait until you start getting kicked in the ribs and it bruises them" -- okay, take my new and kind of nice experience and fast forward me to when I'm going to dread it. I found that I kept fast forwarding my pregnancy to the end in my mind instead of focusing on and enjoying what was happening in that moment. Then suddenly my pregnancy was over and I hated that I spent so much time waiting for ________ to happen.


So, the point of this blog is: even if you've raised 16 kids and you're mom/dad/caregiver of the year, do not you dare react to one of my baby observations with "just wait until...". I'm determined to enjoy this day by day and I don't wanna fast forward to when he's ______. It'll happen quick enough as it is.


And now the gratutitous picture of Gabe the magnificent:

After 10 years

After 10 years of living here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, you will be interested to know (I know I was) that when woken up suddenly, my husband reverts back to the language of his forefathers...

During the noche (see how I differentiate for both language-speakers?) when I didn't hear the wonderous Gabe wimpering or making other Gabe-sleeping-noises and I was sure that we had just experienced a SID-attack (for real I did think this) I jumped up and the first words out of that cute thing's mouth were not words that people who pledge alligiance to the flag usually wake up saying... they were the words of Juan Valdez suppliers: "Que Hubo?".

I am happy to report that once his eyes cleared and he realized that he was sleeping in a bed and not in a hamock**, he started speaking the king's English again.

** j/k, he didn't really sleep in a hamock in the motherland either.

And this would be a gratutious baby picture featuring the duck slippers from Cheyney since she already had to hear the above story once. Thank goodness for friends like Cheyney who knew duck slippers were just what everyone needed when she got them for Gabe.

Gabe - Boy Wonder

What you see here is baby Gabe holding his bottle (with one hand). Obviously this was not a surprise that our little genius would do this, but with such style??? Just kidding. Totally a fluke, but we did learn a big lesson about the formula we've been suplementing with: it's not all the same crap.

When we left the hospital, they gave us tons of formula samples and since we had such good luck with the first formula brand when we had to use formula (like when we went out and I refused to pack the liquid gold that is really the best for him since if it went bad I'd be throwing away hard-earned liquid) we thought that the next can of a different brand would probably be okay. Nope. He's been miserable because the second kind is way harder for him to digest. Poor little man.

Hopefully this will not deter him from performing acts of skill and precision like the picture above in the future -- although I'm sure he'll be unable to avoid being such a prodigy.

First Bath Time

Gabe had his first bath today. As soon as we saw that his umbilical cord had fallen off we pulled out our super cool bath tub. No tears and we think he actually liked it!

The nighttime is the right time

Don't be fooled. This is NOT what he looked like from 1:00-2:15 OR from 3:47 to 5:13 this morning. No, apparently this morning he had some concerns that his lungs might need a little work out and that I might need a few diaper drills (I guess I wasn't fast enough on the first 2).

Luis finally went back to work today so I purposed in my mind to let him sleep as much as possible during the night so that he could be fresh and minty for work. I guess Gabe is a two-parents-waking-up-with-me kind of guy.

So far, his bewitching hour is 4:00 every morning -- cannot and will not go back to sleep until at least 5:00. I wish we could get him to change that till 5:00 when Luis sets his alarm!

Skinny Feet

One of the very few pregnancy side effects that I had were FAT feet. My ankles and feet got so swollen that I had to wear socks or husband-crocs to work since my own shoes didn't even close to fit. I never had morning sickness or any of the other horrors but believe me, I will NEVER take skinny feet for granted again.

So this time a week ago, I was hardcore into my 22 hour labor and here is a list of some of the more memorable points of the experience:

1. 4:30 in the morning wake up to water breaking (after a dinner of pizza @ Cici's -- connection? You be the judge).

2. 6:30 arrive @hospital in no real rush since contractions have not started.

3. MD can't get a sample PROVING that I really broke my water so we have to make the decision to go ahead with the drug that starts the contractions anyway (she later determines that, yeah I was right).

4. Contractions got to 20 on the monitor and they gave me the 1st epidural that didn't take.

5. They gave me the 2nd one and I was feeling good ... I apparently even felt good enough to call my college roomie D'Arcie (although I don't remember calling her).

6. I threw up and threw up and was encouraged to "get used to it, vomiting is part of life" by the kind and generous nurse named Cheryl.

7. They pulled Gabe out and put him right on me with all of the stuff still on him for Luis to cut his cord and Ryan had a good point about that. It is all about presentation and if they were wanting me to take him home shouldn't they have cleaned him up first?

8. They cleaned him up and he was absolutely PERFECT.

We've survived the first week as parents and we have loved looking at every expression (especially the way he moves his forehead and mouth) and hearing every squeak and sound and changing his little diapers. And the one thing that I never thought I'd say: I love having skinny feet again.