Hieroglyphics

It wasn't even a whole day since I dropped my parents off at San Francisco International Airport before I noticed that Diego was acting a little different. We (Diego and I) sent-off my parents on Saturday as they began their Footsteps of Moses tour to Egypt, Jerusalem, and Israel. I asked my parents to bring me back a camel -- seriously-- a wooden one. Prior to that, Diego had completed his first week of daycare-- he started off as a crier and miraculously morphed into a calm baby by Friday.

We celebrated my parents' birthdays on Friday, since they will be traveling for their actual birthdays. I spent Friday looking for a pair of diamond stud earrings for my mother. I honestly only wanted to spend around $150, and all the sales ladies were trying to sell me diamonds for $300-600. Don't they know there's a recession going on??? I mean, do people really spend that much money? I guess they do, and I guess I would if we didn't also need to get my father something.

I found some teenie-tiny diamonds --which I will redeem with bigger ones at a later date in the future-- and my mother was very happy when she opened her gift. We bought my father one of those machines that convert tape to DVD format, which he desperately needed. Back when we went to China, he recorded 8 hours of footage which he then asked me to convert on my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately for me, this meant I had to watch the ENTIRE 8 hours, because his camcorder kept freezing up during the transfer process.

I tried to keep Diego busy during the weekend. Saturday mornings are usually spent cleaning and taking Diego and the dogs out for a walk at the dog park. Sundays are reserved for time spent bonding with Daddy. Javier took us (Me, Diego, and Qori) to the Milpitas Humane Society --the humane society near Silicon Valley-- to see what types of things money brings to a shelter.
It was very nice, but I think the San Francisco SPCA still gives it a run for its money.

There was a Members Only dog park there that was fenced in. Apparently, paying for membership gives you access to a well-maintained and safe park. And it's true, it was well maintained. The grass was so perfect, it looked like a golf course lawn. I loved the members only park, until I stuck my hand through the fence and pulled on the grass and found it was faux grass! What's the point of that? I understand the many benefits of faux grass, but seriously, dogs need real grass, period. Why take them "out", if it's just going to be like they're "in"?


We then visited Diego's cousin, Andrew who is 4 years old and his mom and aunt. We met up at Starbucks and hung out for awhile. Throughout the weekend I had noticed that Diego was not finishing his milk and was getting a bit cranky. He got cranky at Starbucks, and Andrew decided to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to him until he fell asleep. Andrew is such an affectionate little boy. It was so sweet to watch him sing a lullaby to Diego. By the time I reached for my camera to film, Diego had fallen asleep, and the singing was over. That scene will always be in my memories though.



When we got home, Diego's crankiness spiraled out of control. He did not sleep through the night for 2 days. Therefore, I was super-tired when I got in to work on Monday. Then by midday I was alarmed when I saw that the sitter was calling me. 'Oh no, this is it--,' I thought as I looked at the phone, 'his first fever.'

But the sitter did not mention a fever. Only that he was crying all day and not eating as much as he usually does. Having spent time with him for the week prior, she knew he had an excellent appetite. I told her that I noticed he was fussy over the weekend and that my thoughts were it was either gas or teething.

I was worried that the sitter called. She had successfully transformed my crying baby to a calm baby in a week; then the weekend came and it seems that I messed it all up. Was it something I had done? I can't help but think that it is.

By the time I picked up Diego, he looked tired and sad. It tugged at my heart strings to think he may be in pain. So, I stopped by the store and bought him a teething ring, Oragel for babies, medicine for gas, and Ibuprofen for babies. Since I didn't know what was wrong, I didn't know what to buy. Don't think I'm going to dope my baby up, because that's not what I was planning. I just thought it couldn't hurt to have our medicine cabinet stocked up in case of emergencies.

He slept through the night this time, so I hope he is better. I will be calling the sitter later to see how he is doing. It figures that all this happens when grandma leaves...

Blog Book = Writer Status?

Writing in a diary is for elementary and high school girls, I know, but I can't help it -- it's what I do; it's what I've done; and I don't see me stopping anytime soon. However, I've slowly graduated from diaries, to journals, to blogging, and now a book? When I first started this blog, I wanted it to be my online diary, which it really has. I knew there were ways to get your online blog on print, and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be so cool if I wrote a blog, and at the end of the year published it as a book? Then I would have an instant journal in my hot little hands!"

Although I find "the internets" a fascinating and alluring place, I guess I'm still considered "old school" because there is nothing better than a physical book vs. a Kindle --though Kindles and the Ipad are definitely super-cool. The thought of having a diary semi-professionally published appealed to me. Imagine all the pictures I could add to my diary as supplemental material! My great-grandchildren would really enjoy getting to know me through the books -- that is, if they will like to read. And it is also my hope that Diego will be curious enough to read it one day when he is older to learn about the things I was up to in the year leading to his birth. I will definitely share it with his future wife too-- if I like her. Their children might even enjoy the next book documenting 2010- their father's first year. So I set forth and started blogging.

Because it's my online diary, I keep hush about it to most friends and family. Yet, I leave it open to the public because I'm an open book, no pun intended. Everything written in this blog, I write for myself. And so it was that the year 2009 came and went, and although I didn't blog as much as I should have -- hey, I was a little busy having a baby and all -- I still had enough material for a shiny new book. I created the book on Blurb.com. It took awhile because I had a lot of formatting to do.





The book ended up being a little over 70 pages long -- the pictures helped give it a boost. As I created my book, I became more excited to see the end product. Wow, a real book! I guess I'm a writer now. Actually, I guess I AM a writer, though I've never stopped to think about it. I was always good at writing in school. Sadly though, when I ran spell-check against the book, I found a lot of stupid mistakes. Although this blog has a spell-check feature, I was too-hot-to-trot and never used it... I should have. I used to be so thorough but now with my job, my son (2nd job), my husband (3rd job), and my dog (4th job), it gets harder for me to focus on these type of things. I think my brain is over-worked, so I declare that I will now be enlisting the use of the spell-check button to save us all from unnecessary and silly mistakes.

-Shirley "The Writer"

Mother's Day Milestones

May 9th was a bittersweet day. It marked my very first Mother's Day ever, and at the same time it was the end of my maternity leave. In the culmination to Mother's day, I have bonded with my little DD so strongly. I live to give him kisses and pinch his cheeks--a habit I had only felt strongly for the furry species in the past. We spent the day running errands that needed to be done prior to Diego going into daycare such as buying extra clothing. Then we walked on the Golden Gate bridge and took some pictures, and topped the day off with a dinner at Grandma's. Javier bought me the Be Delicious perfume that I had always wanted, my sister got me a necklace similar to one I had commented on while watching Cougar Town, and my parent's gave me a gift card for VS, and I know just the zebra-print jumpsuit to buy for the Bahama trip!


In the back of my mind though, I knew this was the last day of leave and the transition would be hard. When the time came to drop him off at the sitter's, I brought him in his car seat with a blanket over so that he would not catch the draft. As I laid the car seat down in her house, I dared not lift the blanket. I would not be able to contain myself if I saw his sweet face and large almond-shaped eyes. The sitter kept consoling me by telling me not to worry, that he was in good hands. I believed her, but it was difficult nonetheless. Somehow, I managed to walk out the door and drive myself to work in one piece.

We both got through the first day--Diego with a lot of crying according to the baby sitter, and me with a lot of thoughts of him and one phone call to the sitter after my lunch break. Today is Day 2, and it's getting a little better.

Next week he will be 4 months, and I have been impatiently waiting for new milestones to develop. There was hope that he could have started laughing and grasping at toys, but so far not much. He's given me a few chuckles, and what I thought was a laugh on Mother's Day, but they were so quick that I was left wondering if they had really happened at all. The best milestone this month is the face recognition. He will look at you and smile, especially if you baby talk. What's more, while smiling he will draw his head inward and try to hide his smiling face with his hands as if he were shy about smiling. He also turned over once from his tummy to his back, and like a pageant show mom I tried to push him to do it again so I could get it on video with no luck.



When propped with a pillow, turning over is a cinch for him, which led to a scare last week. He was sleeping in my mother's room on her bed. I went to check on him and saw that he was sleeping on his side surrounded by pillows. Pillows of any kind are a SIDS enabler, so it's best to keep them away while sleeping. I mentioned the pillows to my mother and the fact that he might turn over since he was on his side. But my mother thought it would be more dangerous when he gets older and more mobile; not now. I would've moved him if I felt true danger, but I felt it was enough if I just left the door open so I could hear him. About 20 minutes later, I heard low crying coming from the room and told my mother. We went to check on him--my mother leading the way. In a few seconds we were in the room and my mother darted for Diego. He was face down in a pillow, crying because he couldn't get away. His cries were muffled by the pillow. Though I know there was absolutely no malicious intent from my mother, I'm kind of glad it happened because from the look on her face, I know she will no longer be putting him to bed with pillows.

Leaving the Nest

3 months in now and while we've been celebrating such milestones as sleeping through the night, blowing bubbles, and face recognition, there is a lurking thought in the back of my mind. The countdown has officially begun in my mind as there are only 2 weeks left before I must return to work. Altough Diego keeps me busy and there are still a few things to tend to before my return, I'm finding it hard to enjoy these remaining moments.

It's a form of empty nest syndrome, only the person leaving the nest is me, and I don't want to. I would give anything to be a stay at home mom. Sadly, the recession will not allow me to. I have a mortgage and bills to pay as well as new goals to save up for which will benefit my little DD.

To make things worse now that my husband has been pulling out all the stops at work since DD was born, he has come to the point where he wants to take a vacation. He wants to fly somewhere, and I explained to him that I was not planning on flying with DD until he was much closer to a year of age. He doesn't seem to mind flying with a young baby, which is not surprising because I basically do all of the care-taking. Nonetheless, he is adamant that we deserve a vacation, and I do not disagree. However, this idea means a worse empty nest syndrome due to the fact that we will be leaving DD with his grandma and aunt for at least 5 days in early June. How will I survive? I do not know.

So I bite my lip and stare at my little DD. Knowing that this afternoon, I will likely be booking a flight to leave him. I will be grudgingly flying from the nest... to the Bahamas.

Normal Boy

During a previous post, Baby Genius?, I discussed how although Diego is not yet a super genius, he is still developing at a normal pace. Therefore, I have no lack of faith at his developmental progress. However, there was a loop that needed closing regarding his development. Last year, while I was still pregnant, an ultrasound found that Diego had Isolated Mild Ventriculomagoly. Instead of re-describing this since I already have in past posts, I will just say that Diego's results were inconclusive with regards to whether or not they would impact him anywhere from something similar to down syndrome, to developmental issues later in childhood, to nothing at all.

Although we were offered various tests, results from which would ultimately help my choice of birth vs. abortion, we only took a couple and let fate handle the rest. There was NO way after years of trying to get pregnant that we were going to let a little isolated mild ventriculomagoly get in our way.

So we continued to get a monthly ultrasound to monitor the issue and although it did not get worse, it did not get better either. During our last prenatal ultrasound, the doctor suggested a post-natal ultrasound to see how his development was after he was born.

And so I found myself back at the ultrasound center, but this time skinnier and with a stroller. The technician performed Diego's ultrasound with him still in his stroller. Even though we thought it would be more comfortable for him, it made no difference because as soon as the gel touched his head, he began crying like he was being abused. The crying continued for about 10 minutes. The technician asked me if I had a pacifier. I explained that he was "over" his pacifier because as soon as I tried to make him take it, he would scream more. But we tried anyway. I wondered who we were trying to pacify him for. His screaming made no difference to how the photos came out. Was she stressing out with his cries?

When she was done, she walked out of the room to show the photos to the doctor. As she walked out, she let out a great sigh... I know my son is a cryer and it stresses me out, but I had hoped it only slightly bugged external people, not stress them out too. So after that, I was feeling even more self-conscious.

The doctor came in the room to examine Diego herself. Then she blessed me with good news, Diego's results were good. There was no longer an issue. Everything appeared normal. My baby is a normal boy.

My heart lifted. You don't know how many hours I had been on the internet last year trying to find out what the probability was that this issue would just go away on its own. We just left it up to fate, and everything worked out.

**********************

At 2 1/2 months I also finally got around to fingerprinting Diego. It would have been cute to have gotten his hands and feet when he was first born, because he has naturally long fingers and toes like me so they are already big. I bought some special scrapbook paper for the background, and my mom and I discussed what our strategy would be to get his prints. The feet were a piece of cake, but unfortunately the hands were quite the opposite. It took us hours. We would ink his hand, and he would immediately start crying and clench his hands or try to touch his face with his inked hand. We tried making him fall asleep and do everything while he was unconscious, but he wasn't falling for it. Finally, with plain brute force, we finally got the prints.

Easter Super Hero

I'm woman enough to admit when I've misbehaved or have acted like a biatch. For example, let's take yesterday. To be specific, it was Easter and we had absolutely NO plans, and were glad for it.

It was a dreary rainy and windy day. Javier had been working all week and was in no mood to do anything but hang out, rest, and watch some TV. We hung out upstairs to keep Mokee company while my sister and Will were in Hawaii. The day progressed delightfully uneventfully, and it was really nice to see him bonding with Diego now that he had an extra minute.

It got dark a little after 7pm, and that's when I heard Javier calling me after he had gone downstairs. I asked him what he wanted, and he told me to come downstairs because there was a flood in our bathroom that had soaked through the bathroom walls and into the office and garage. I went down right away.

At first we surmised that the leak had come from the bathroom, which we had recently remodeled. Maybe a pipe had begun to leak? Javier was surprised because he had professionally installed all the plumbing. He went to shutoff the water while I donned on rainboots and grabbed our wetvac to begin vacumming up the puddles of water. After about a half an hour of vacumming the bathroom, I proceeded to the office to begin cleanup there. Our wonderful and expensive area rug was soaked and I had to move the printer off the floor before we would have a short circuit on our hands. I had to move heavy furniture to make sure that we got all the water out. As I vacuumed a spot by a wall where a piece of our furniture had been propped up against, I noticed that every time I sucked up water, a new puddle began. Maybe the leak was NOT from the bathroom after all? Maybe it was rainwater seeping into the house.

To test my theory, I must have vacuumed the same spot 10 times, and each time got the same results. I called Javier to relay my scientific findings. He went outside in the dark to take a look at our sump pump, and came back to report that the pump had indeed failed.

It was futile to continue vacuuming because water would continue to flow into the house. Additionally, the weather forecast showed that it would continue to rain tomorrow. Javier's best advice was to somehow channel the water so that it would flow in a "safe" path through the rooms and into the garage where I could sweep out the water.

I believe my response was, "I'm not creative enough to build a channel, I'll just continue cleaning up water until it stops." But he knew, and I knew that I would be there all night if I followed through with my plans.

Still, we argued. I hated to see our house and stuff flooded, and I wanted an instant solution to this problem which I obviously wasn't finding. Javier told me to relax and go upstairs, and he would build the channel. So I went upstairs only to accidentally drop and break a glass jar of spaghetti sauce all over the kitchen floor.

"F!cK!!!!" I yelled in exasperation. Javier came and told me very calmly that it was OK, and that we would solve this problem and not to stress out.

"I don't handle stress very well, you know that." I responded sullenly. I was done.

Javier built a channel out of an old sheet and bags of concrete that he had in the garage. Then he went back outside to look at the pump once again and see why it may have failed. He left the front door open and in a few minutes I could hear water swishing outside. Oh please, oh please, tell me that Javier got the sump pump to work, I thought to myself.

And he came up the stairs to the front door with a big smile on his face. I was so happy when he told me that he got the pump to work. Even though we will still need to replace it, the emergency was abated for now. I told him I wanted to go back downstairs and attempt to clean the mess up again. After a half an hour, I told him it appeared to be OK.

The rest of the night, Javier kept mentioning proudly how he had managed to solve the crisis. And I was very thankful that he had not given up on that old sump pump. Being a contractor, this was an area that he knew like the back of his hand, and I could see the joy in his face when he felt that he had been exceptionally useful. There was no denying how grateful I was that he stuck by me while I was spazzing out. He deserved an honest apology from his damsel in distress, and he deserved to be treated like a superhero receiving his accolade that night. He got what he deserved which he humbly accepted, as any super hero would.

Baby Genius?

Since I haven't had too much exposure to babies in my life, I have no idea the many stages of life that they go through. Because of this I decided to watch Youtube videos of other babies that were two months old, in hopes of being able to benchmark Diego's progress.

There were a lot of videos, but mostly of parents swearing that their child was some kind of genius or ahead in the development game. Take for example the hundreds of videos uploaded by parents that claimed their babies could already talk at 2 months old. There were many videos of babies saying "I love you", which was about as convincing as the videos of dogs saying "I love you" that I've seen in the past. The funniest talking baby video I found was one of a little girl named Allah, who just happened to be able to say her name. The reason I personally found this funny is because Diego has been crying "Allah" since he was born (and better than this chick if I may compare). That's just how he cries: "Allah! Allah! Allah!" My family joked that I may have accidentally brought home a middle eastern baby, however politically incorrect that joke is.

In that case MY baby is the super genius, having said his first words at 0 months old. Not only is he a super genius, but he's also a super grumpy genius, having said his second word at 2 months old. It's no surprise if you've been reading my blog posts, that my baby cries every waking moment and has perfected the frown. His nickname is "Grumpy old man". So it is that when I took him to his 2 month pediatric appointment, he began his grumpiness with the doctor. She tried all different positions to get him to stop crying. One position was the sitting position, and he only cried stronger.
"Ohhh, you don't like that position very much, do you?" the pediatrician asked.

Diego screamed and gargled (because he is now starting to coo), "Nooooooooo!" and gave his cutest frown yet. And the pediatrician looked over at me and just started laughing at his impeccable timing and response.

"It figures my grumpy old man's first word would be 'No'," was all I could say in response to this charade.

But truthfully, I believe we may have gotten through the hump because now he is crying less. Don't get me wrong, he is still a grump (I have yet to catch an elusive smile on camera). But it's so nice to have time enough to be able to make my bed in the mornings without him screaming like he's being abused. Now he lasts more time awake without going into an instant tantrum, he seems to have obtained better vision as if overnight, and he's begun his cooing and baby babble, which I think attributed to the scene with the pediatrician. He's just where he should be in his development as far as I'm concerned, and that's why my baby is a super genius (and I don't have to post any video proof on Youtube).