My Moment of Clarity

Tippy toes were discovered by parents who just got the baby back to sleep even though it is way past their time to wake up but the parents want to sleep in on a Saturday morning and it is too risky to let the whole foot touch the ground and cause a creak in the floor at a time when silence is imperative.

Conversely, light switches were not invented by parents unless those parents were hard of hearing and/or had a baby who was hard of hearing.

Different

My parents got divorced when I was one.  My mom didn’t make enough money for us to have a place on our own so we lived with friends and family in the beginning.  At one point we lived with my aunt in her one room studio.  At another point we lived with my mom’s best friend and her two little girls in a one bedroom apartment.  They took shifts watching the kids so the other one could work.  We were poor, but us girls never knew it.  My dad shared custody of us but he couldn’t afford to live on his own either.  He didn’t like to bring us to the one room that he rented from somebody, so most visits with him were enjoyed at the park or beach.  But we never complained about that.  Those were the good days.  My sister and I were the happiest girls you ever saw. 

I am my own judge and jury

Okay confession time.  My husband and I have a sickening habit.  It’s gross.  I’m ashamed of it.  But it’s true.  It is the epitamy of lazy american.  I don’t want to admit to it outloud.  I think Ryan and I both kinda hoped we could keep it our dirty little secret.  We hide it from everybody.  Actually I’m pretty sure we just think we hide it from everybody, but the people who really know us know about it. 

I put the Huggies on top

I didn’t realize what a luxury grocery shopping sans kids was until I had one myself.  Having a nursing newborn at home can make shopping a little tricky since you are given only a small window of freedom to get things done.  My most recent shopping expedition was an interesting experience.  I left baby at home with daddy and raced to the grocery store to get my shopping done before baby’s next feeding.  I zipped through the aisles like a determined scavenger looking for the items I needed and ignoring the items I didn’t.  I showed amazing restraint by staying away from the brightly colored sale signs and focused on the list.  I learned to make executive decisions on every purchase.  “Do I need this?  We are running a little low but we could probably go another week.  But it’s on sale…Stop thinking and put it back.  If you needed it then you would have already put it in the cart.  Hurry up, the baby eats in T minus 45 minutes.”

The Finish Line

My mom was consistent from the very beginning.  She said that “you can count on only one thing: it won’t go the way you plan it.”  She was talking about my delivery and she was right: it didn’t go the way I planned.  I knew the risk of having a cesarean was higher with an induced labor but I didn’t have time to think seriously about it.  I didn’t learn that I was going to have an induction until three weeks before Gabriel was born - and that was three weeks sooner than my due date.  I went from thinking I had six weeks to prepare for the baby down to three. 

The Cost of Money

In less than one month I will be working again.  Sniff sniff.  Which means I have to get a move on with finding somebody to care for Gabriel.  NOT AN EASY TASK let me tell you.  Luckily my mom has so generously offered to watch the angel two days a week until we find a permanent solution.  It is a huge committment on her part because she is battling Lyme Disease and can never really guarantee when she is going to have a “bad day.”  But since my stepdad and sister are there with her throughout the day she is happy to have time with her grandson.

Pictures of my Angel

Today Gabriel is 4 Weeks Old!  My how time flies

Gabriel at 2 Weeks

Gabriel at 3 Weeks

Gabriel at 4 Weeks

I’m in love

I can’t describe what I feel for him, words escape me when I look at his precious face.  I’m not trying to be poetic when I say that.  I really mean it when I say that words escape me.  I look at him in awe.  I don’t think, I just feel.  The intense feelings I feel could never be justified in words and so I sit there staring and saying nothing.  I could stare at him all day and walk away feeling completely satisfied.  But then two minutes later I miss him.  It scares me sometimes: the feelings that I feel.  The love is so intense that it literally hurts…it amazes me.  And at the same time I’m not suprised by it.

My Sister

My big sister is a year older than me.  The day I was born she screamed and pointed at me as if telling my mom to “bring that thing back to where it came from!”  For months my sister would do everything in her young power to destroy me.  But even as she ran her toy vacuum over my infant head, I smiled adoringly at her.  I took to her immediately but it wasn’t until I stayed in the hospital for 2 weeks that she realized she loved me back.

“Tata ‘opital?” she would ask our parents insistently.

“Yes, Valeria, Tanya’s in the hospital,” they would reply.

When they brought me home from the hospital, Valeria immediately ran into her bedroom and brought out her toybox.  One by one she took out all of her favorite toys and placed them in a circle around me.  She became a big sister that day. 

I was in the hospital during her 2nd birthday so she didn’t get a birthday party that year.  She’s made many sacrifices since then – and they’ve always been for me.

Continued from…The Beginning Read on…Different

The Beginning

My first memory is in a hospital.  I’m in a bed being wheeled down the ER by anxious doctors.  They are looking down at me with concern.  I can’t see my mom but I know she is there.  She’s doing her best to be a statue of strength but her eyes betray her fear.  She is scared because her 7 month old baby is in the ER with a 103.5 degree temperature and a strep infection.  From that moment on, she fought my sickness for me because I was too weak to fight it on my own.  It is her story as much as it is mine.

Read On…My Sister