Happy Half!

6 Months ago today the best little thing imaginable came.  Gabey took his sweet time, but after 22 hours of the absolute hardest work ever he was ours.  I am freaking out that just 9 more of these little time-spans will have him kindergarten age.  For real, if you want time to fly have a baby -- or better yet, have the most beautiful funny and happy baby.  To celebrate the best 6 months of my life, here are a few of my biggest memories:

1.  Being so wiped out after labor that I forgot to count fingers and toes (Luis didn't forget and yes they were all there).

2.  Being woken up at any ungodly hour of the day or night only to be greeted by the happiest face.

3.  Giving him his first bath and inadvertently finding one thing that he loves to do as many times a day as possible.

4.  Feeding him in the bathtub to make sure that I kept MYSELF calm during feeding.

5.  Starting the countdown to go back to work and making sure that I spent every day I had left at home loving that boy -- I still rush to pick him up after work and find that I really don't want to be apart from him if I can help it.  

6.  Realizing that he loves bass and at the rate he's going he's probably going to be a DJ in some club just so he can laugh and shriek when the bass comes on.  He can't get enough of it and the only way bass can get better for him is if he's dancing to it.  Don't believe me?  Start singing some Run DMC "Mary Mary" to him... just don't leave out the beats!

7.  The way his normally always active little body slumps over into a bottle coma after we read Good Night Moon for the 121st time (we've read it every night since his 2nd month). 

8.  The way he meets my eyes and smiles with his tongue sticking out because he's to happy to keep it in.

9.  The way he goes from zero to RAGE when he realizes he's hungry and the bottle is not in his mouth.

10.  The way he makes me glad to be alive just so I can be the one who knows what a wonderful person he is.

Happy "Half" my beautiful little bug!  Thanks for giving me the joy of being the one who loves your guts!

A Few of MY Favorite Things

Grab your heart-attack pills because I'm finally blogging again!!!

I was scanning through my favorite blogs and my friend, Erin, did a nice blog about some of her favorite things.  While Erin is much more meaningful with some of her things, I thought I would swipe her idea and list some of my (updated) faves:

1.  Gabe (duh of course I would say that).  There is nothing about that little beast that isn't the best.  I love every inch of him and I am so lucky to know him.

2.  My job.  I know that is one of the crack-headed-est things ever but I love it.  I work with a great girl (b.c she's so dang young) named Kathryn who makes my life easy and who appreciates the great kids we have in our class just as much as I do.

3.  Cake.  I love cake with good icing and I will ditch any diet ever to eat good icing.  

4.  My bed.  Ok putting cake and my bed together makes me sound like a 400 lb recluse but that's a risk I'm willing to take.  We picked out our mattress after A LOT of comparison shopping and even a couple of years later I feel like I'm sleeping (or watching tv or feeding my baby) on a cloud.

AND LAST BUT NEVER LEAST

5.  Friends who are good at things that I could never do.  I love that my friend Cheyney can handle sick people with their blood and guts without puking and that my friend Ryan can deal with the mentally un-great and that my friend Jamie can love people in other countries enough to give up comforts and that my friend Erin values and enjoys the sweet time she is able to spend being the 2nd most beautiful boy's mom.  

I'm a stresser and a worrier by nature but Erin was really right when she said that it is important to remember what you have and why life is good.  

Now what are your favorite things?

Videos of Gabe the Babe

This is the video of Gabe at his favorite eye candy's house while I had to work on a SATURDAY.

Gripe.

This picture of my nephew having a fabulous meltdown is to illustrate how boiling this instance made me:

So yesterday I called the MD to make an appointment.  I spoke with the person who schedules the procedure that I needed and who (by the way) was unncessarily impossible to reach.  I finally got her on the phone after leaving oh about infinity messages without getting a call-back (despite her message that said she'd call back within 24 hours -- maybe she meant 24 days).  You'd think after hearing and ignoring my messages for the the last week my name might kind of ring a bell.  You'd think wrong.

When she answered I clearly said "This is Christy Velasquez... I spoke with you about ____".  I didn't say my name fast because Lord knows it's not like Smith or something easy to understand.  She let me say all of the shpeel and then she said (and this is what I'm blogging about) "What is your name?".  

DID I NOT JUST SAY IT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE PARAGRAPH OF WHAT I JUST SAID???  DID I NOT JUST LEAVE IT ON YOUR VOICE MAIL 16 TIMES A DAY FOR A WEEK?  HAVE YOU REALLY NEVER HEARD MY NAME -- EVER???

The moral of the story is that I CAN'T stand when people skim past names to get to the point of a call.  If I take the time to give my name PAY ATTENTION... write it down if you're slow... just don't ask me what my name is 15 seconds after I just told you.

Portraits

Our friend, Andres, is a fantastic photographer (who actually sells pictures for unbelievable amounts of money) and he offered to take pictures of the most beautiful baby available.  

Obviously we knew that only our baby could be described as the most beautiful baby available so we excitedly said yes.  We only did black and white shots this day and we still have colored shots to do, but here are two of the pictures: 

Since he took film pictures (instead of digital), we had to wait for the negatives to be ready for him to upload -- it was well-worth the wait! 

What a DORK!

I might just be the most obnoxious person I have ever met.  

Since Luis's mom left he has been feeling a little husky and recently the best thing ever happened:  he had to admit that (in his own words) "my jeans hurt my body".  HA!  I have been on diets several times during our marriage.  He NEVER has.  He just breaths out and loses 5 pounds -- or at least that USED to be true.

So, last week we started Weight Watchers and being the competitive-about-pointless-battles person that I am I whopped him hardcore with the score 5 pounds to almost 3 pounds.  So last night I decided to plan the week's menu.  I made chili that was very WW friendly and planned to make 4 other WW things for dinners.

Tonight, while waiting for him to come home from work, I started on the Black Bean Lasagna.  He took longer to get here than I expected (but considering the times of economic downturn and joblessness I am glad he was working) so I started on the Clam Chowder.  He got home and instead of quitting I made Italian Lentils too.

THAT WAS NOT OBNOXIOUS ENOUGH -- nooooo, I had to pack each serving into a ziplock bag so that the food would be portioned and ready so we wouldn't be tempted to eat crap.  In the end I packed 27 meals.  Gag.  I am such a D O R K!!!  

HOWEVER be very clear -- next Monday when we weigh ourselves, I will continue my winning streak.  My goal is to have him in tears.  Not really, but I am considering the logistics of creating a score board (that will mysteriously disappear the week he beats me).