Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Diego's Gift


I've had the whole week after Christmas off, and while I could have posted this sooner, I've just been enjoying the Baby and Me time. I've also been spending most of my time making sure my newly-walking bundle of love doesn't end up looking like his mother abuses him when I bring him back to the baby sitter next week!

Well, just like I knew deep down inside the house was not 100% ready by the time Christmas hit us. To be a bit specific, we still did not have our bed frame, Diego's crib, our couch, and one of our larger pieces of furniture for the living room. After accepting this fact, I was able to move on and enjoy Diego's first Christmas.

When I first found out that I was having a boy, although I was happy just to be pregnant I was still bummed because everybody knows that girl clothes are cuter. However, I've realized that it brings me great joy to dress Diego like an old man. There's just something about argyle, and it was definitely going to be part of his Christmas outfit.

My extended family came to my sister's house (our old house as of a few weeks) on Christmas Eve night along with 8 dogs. I was very happy because my golden Qori, did not go "Cujo" on any of the other dogs. I call that progress! We ate a HUGE meal, conversed, reminisced by watching the movie "The Labrynth" (did you know the the girl in that movie was Jennifer Connelly? I had no idea back then; she was just the girl from The Labrynth to me!) and when the clock struck midnight we danced to Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad", then proceeded to open presents. Diego was not awake at midnight to open his own presents. He was probably tired from flirting with the 2 year old blondie girl. It was waaaaay past his bedtime. But he definitely scored the most gifts, next to the blondie girl.






Although we celebrated our Christmas "Latin-style". A lone gift was found in Diego's diaper bag on Christmas morning, forcing us to also celebrate American-style. My boy had the biggest smile to see a remote control literally starring back at him when he opened his present. (It was a toy remote with huge eyes that blink at the top).

All-in-all it was a great Christmas. A perfect Christmas with my perfect boy, husband, dog, and family. What more gift could I ask for? Diego knew.... his gift to me that night was that he started officially walking with confidence. I guess it's official.... I have a toddler!




[Diego's "other" gift under the tree for everyone.... His dirty diaper!!!! :)~ ]

Friday, December 17, 2010

I can NEVER have ANYTHING nice!


The move seems to finally be getting to me. I've been dealing without our bed, couch, and some kitchen supplies for a week. I've also been taking our Golden, Qori, to my sister's house every day this week along with Diego when I take him to daycare. I joke that both my boys are going to daycare this week. Qori does not have his dog door installed at the new place yet, so I don't want to leave him home for 8 hours.

A couple of days ago, I started nagging to my husband. It went something like:
"When are we going to have hot water already?!"
"You are being so pushy!" he replied. "I work hard all day, and I'm trying to do what I can. You should just be happy that we have our house. You're too pushy to get everything done already. We've barely moved in for a week now!"

I'm pushy, huh? Fine! I mentally decided that I would take it upon myself to start bringing leftover items from my sister's house. Last night, I started with a box of kitchen stuff. It was heavy, but I loaded it in my car along with Diego and Qori. I got to the new house, and by some miracle, Diego was asleep. I brought sleeping Diego into the house, followed by Qori. Now it was time to get that heavy box out of the car. The thought occurred to me that I should probably put my slippers on.

'Nah, these boots are just kitten heels, I should be fine.' I thought to myself.

I unloaded the box from my car outside. I walked slowly along the side walk not noticing the uneven pavement in front of me due to the big box. My kitten heel lost contact with the pavement somehow, I twisted my ankle, and the box went flying out of my hands and onto the floor!

"Sh#t!" I whisper-yelled to myself, and wobbled back to my car to begin the process of pitying myself and dealing with the pain of a twisted ankle. Let me tell you, it HURT!

After a few minutes, I was able to walk like a homosapien again. I walked over to the box and picked it up. Of COURSE, the bottom of the box gave in and all the contents went falling out onto the sidewalk. Great! Now WHAT?!!! I looked around to see if any neighbors where watching the show and laughing at me. No one, thankfully.

I had to bring things into the house individually from the broken box outside. I brought in the first item.... WHY is the dog puking in the living room? He never does that! Ugh... now I'm going to have to clean that up!

I went to get more stuff from the broken box outside. I walked in through the door again... the dog is puking AGAIN! Who the HELL put the evil eye on me? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!?

After cleaning puke and inspecting damage, I found that I had broken all our good dishes that had patiently waited in storage for over 2 years to finally just be broken by a "pushy" woman. I almost cried. Almost, but Diego was still sleeping so I knew there was a God.

This whole ordeal reminded me of a time when my husband and I had bought some "sexy" wooden llamas in Peru (most Peruvian homes are adorned with llama dolls made of real llama fur. My wooden llamas were sleek, modern, animal-friendly and sexy). I was so excited at what a beautiful decoration they would make in our home.... until we had to sell our home. We lived in an unfinished basement for some time, but "pushy" me still wanted to decorate it with my llamas. One day we were moving an old junky entertainment shelf around and BOOM... one of my llamas hit the floor and lost his ear! At the pinnacle of my stress at our living situation, all I could do was start crying and saying, "I can NEVER have ANYTHING nice!" :(

We eventually glued his ear back on. He's still "sexy"... because now he has a sexy battle scar.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired


The GREAT news is that we got our house over the weekend. The not-so-great news is that I've been sick since. Do you know how difficult it is to move into a new house on your own? Just you and your husband and his work van. No moving men, no Uhaul, no nothing! Oh the joys of saving a buck. Now multiply that craziness times 5 due to being sick. Now multiply that times 8 if you have a 10-month old baby that's just starting to take his baby steps and insists on walking along supported by such items as cardboard boxes, the new oven (of which he can reach the knobs - someone shoot me now!), and the new toilet (ewww). Now multiply that times 2 if you're a 9-5 working mom and naively decided not to take any days off for the move.

The result is what I see in the new bathroom mirror every morning. A sick and tired mommy :( I know there's a silver lining though, and I think it's scheduled to occur on or around December 24th/25th. That's when we better have all our sh#t together in this house, and my immune system better be IMMACULATE!

We're getting there! Our tree is already semi-up. Can you even believe that? Disregard the fact that we don't have our bed (just mattresses on the floor), Diego's crib (just his portable play yard thingy), or even our couch or hot water yet. My husband We have our priorities, and that is to get our Christmas decorations up to enjoy our first Christmas in the new house! So, the tree is up - well sort of. It's a fake one and as you can see it's up but it's not really "up".

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Winter Style?



It's hard to believe that a few weeks back in November, the weather was still hot. When the weather uncharacteristically remains hot and still, this is what we Californians refer to as Earth Quake Weather. Luckily, in this case it ended up being a misnomer.

As of just 2 weeks back (it's the first of December now), the nip finally made it into the air. That's when I realized that I barely have any jackets, and wondered why I just canNOT find any cute sweaters. Do sweaters and the word "cute" not belong in the same sentence? I'm starting to think so.

So I went out with a very good friend on Black Friday, on a quest for jackets and sweaters. Luckily for me, I found a very cute white Kenneth Cole jacket (with a hood- score!). Unluckily for me, sweaters + cute = 0, zip, zilch, NADA. But I DID buy a pair of leg warmers. (Both my friend and I are 80s lovers; maybe that's why we get along so well!)

The other night I was walking outside of a supermarket with this outfit on. I love when I feel dressed appropriately. Bundled in my jacket, legs warm, a slight soothing nip in the air, and the smell of Christmas pine trees. It made me thirsty for some warm apple cider or hot chocolate. Perfect!