Boricua en la Lima

Here are a few of Sebastian's firsts along with a picture of his first bath: Born: 4/9/08 Went home: 4/12/08 First EARTHQUAKE!!! 4/18/08 Umbilical chord fell off: 4/20/08 First bath: 4/21/08 First airpline ride: 6/12/08 (from Dayton, OH to Branford, CT) First movie: 6/15/08 (Sex and the City - please don't call Child Services!) "Army crawl": October 2008 First tooth: early February 2009 Saying "uh oh": early February 2009 Can hold up his own bottle: early February 2009

This is the son of a very good friend of my sister's. He has been in and out of hospitals since he was born. His brave older sister (4 years old) will be donating bone marrow and is really proud of her role in helping her younger brother. You can either donate money by getting below cost magazine subscriptions (1st part) or make a monetary donation (2nd part). Derek Michael is a six-months-old baby, who at his tender age, is to undergo a bone marrow transplant due to his condition of Kostmann disease or severe congenital neutropenia, a rare condition affecting only one or two persons per million. Please help Comite de Apoyo Derek Michael fundraise by treating yourself to your favorite magazines. Order or renew any magazine with us and 40% of each purchase goes directly to derek's support. Your contribution will make this a huge success and get us one step closer to reaching our goal! All proceeds will benefit the emergency funding for Derek Michael's bone marrow transpla...

I am putting up this note that I received from a dear friend in the hopes that maybe it'll get some more support on the blog (not that I have many readers but anyway!). I have not disclosed her name to protect her privacy. Dear friends, On Saturday, May 10, at 10 a.m., I will be walking in the Cincinnati Area Preeclampsia Foundation Friends and Family Walk to show my support for the more than 76,000 women and the over 500,000 children who die each year due to preeclampsia (toxemia) complications. I am walking in memory of Chiqui Isaza, my son, who died at birth on May 7, 2006 due to preeclampsia complications. Please visit my website at www.cincinnatipreeclampsia.com to learn more about my personal experience with preeclampsia, the Friends and Family walk, facts about this potentially life-threatening disorder, and to make a donation if so inclined. If you decide to donate, please make the donation “in memory of Chiqui Isaza” so that the national Preeclampsia Foundation knows yo...

This is an amazing video about Puerto Rico done in 1955 which my dad forwarded to me a little while back.

Sebastian is finally here and it's so difficult to try to capture into (COHERENT!) words everything that is going on right now! The hospital was quite the experience, especially because last time I had Jose in there with me practically all the time but now because of Gabi I was alone a good part of the time which was a little sad but at the same time gave me some quality time to spend with the little guy. At home things were upside down when I got home since my husband decided to have the whole interior repainted while I was getting discharged to take advantage of his mom's Martha Stewart instincts. The weekend with both Gabi and Sebastian was a little exhausting to say the least (if not hands down nerve-wracking). Especially the not being able to sleep anything at all at night but yet your daughter is ready to GO GO GO at 7 am the next morning. Now that she went to day care I hope things stabilize just a tiny bit. I feel bad for saying this but if she didn't go to day ...

I am finally enjoying maternity leave! I thought I would have more time to write but I've actually been on a frenzy of getting things ready for Sebastian, climbing ladders and doing other things that Jose would actually kill me for. :) I'm proud of my handywoman skills though, this time's nesting instincts have been much more about cars and ladders than decorating and scrapbooking Martha Stewart style. Sebastian is still making no signs of showing up, just like Gabriela. I saw the doctor for the last time on Wednesday (yay, no more peeing into a cup!) and he was like, I'm not even going to check you because I don't think you're going into labor...EVER. And then I went to the chiropractor this morning and he said you know if I adjust your lower back you'll probably go into labor, and I was like no thanks, I still need to sleep for a couple more nights. So for now, I'm still waiting. On another subject, after 2 and a half years of resisting getting a ...

Well, those of us who live in the Ohio valley experienced what I guess was the worst snowfall in the last 30 years (I heard something like that on the news). Approximately 8-10 inches of snow in a 24 hour period. Granted, this is what I would call a "normal" snowfall in my Boston days, but for some reason the city of Cincinnati seems to be ill-prepared for managing such copious amounts of snowflakes, and thus chaos ensued. My husband and I decided to drive in to work together on Friday which was a great idea given the fact his car couldn't have moved 2 inches in that snow. I wonder how my friend Tom did with his new BMW. On Friday afternoon there were two BMW's stranded in front of my house (one shown above). And I live on a "hilly" street, but nothing a normal car shouldn't be able to handle. But these two cars were going NOWHERE. One of them called a tow truck and even the tow truck started slipping and sliding down the street when he was tryin...

I am 5 weeks away from the big date, and more importantly only 3 weeks away from getting some time off from work, which one can never complain about. :) Of course I have a list of 10,000 things to do at home before the baby comes, so I'll actually have to balance what I want to accomplish with actually needing to rest -- my back is killing me so badly I get home at 6 pm and if I'm not lying in bed by around 7:30 pm (although I don't fall asleep until a couple of hours later) my back doesn't have enough time to recover by morning. And even then by 10 am I already am in back pain mode all over again. I'm going to the chiropractor weekly now which definitely helps, but it's still quite a challenge to manage stuff at home (especially Gabi) with this backpain. Jose of course now claims that he does 100% of the work at home - even though he's not even close to that. But thankfully he definitely is helping a lot more. I can basically only do drop off duties ...

After spending 3 whole weeks with Gabi 24/7, and coming back to a hectic couple of weeks between work, having visitors, and Jose being out of town, my sister offered to take Gabi for a couple of nights this last weekend and although I really didn't see the need for it at first, it was the best thing that's happened to me...ever. After sleeping in until a whopping 9 am, being able to go out only needing to worry about getting dressed myself, being able to have a completely quiet and relaxed meal at a restaurant, and my husband being able to go through an 8-10 hour marathon of watching sports, I realized how badly I was in need of my mini vacation. My only regrets were being so tired last night that we didn't make it to "dinner and a movie" which is what I meant the whole weekend to be about!!! Sometimes I feel guilty about saying this, but it was so good not to have Gabi for a little while. Even though half of the time I felt like I was forgetting something and...

I'm finally back from a three week vacation in Peru which as every other vacation in Peru has been simply amazing. Usually I am in tears the night before leaving saying please let's stay here, let's not go back we can figure out how to make a life here, and this year was no exception. Especially this year which feels like such a transitionary (if that's a word) year. We have Sebastian arriving in less than 3 months (oh my god how time flies, I'm so not ready for his arrival!), I am still in the midst of a "new" assignment at work, Gabi is growing up into an incredible little person, and as I have seen friends come and go from my company (3 friends have recently left to pursue other life interests) I'm just trying to figure out what the hell I want to do with the rest of my life. Sadly I find it harder and harder to want to come to work every day, I'm not quite sure if it's because I've reached a "point of no return" from which ...

Did anybody watch this show Monday night? I still haven't been able to make up my mind about it. The first obvious question for me was why isn't Len Goodman in on it? Was he not willing to participate in such "shabby" endeavors? Did he have a premonition that Bruno and Carrie Ann would be making fools of themselves? Secondly, at no point watching the previews for this show did I realize this was a song AND dance show. After all, the words SONG are nowhere in the title. Anyway, at first I thought it was kind of odd, since clearly from the auditions there aren't a lot of people who are EQUALLY talented at both singing and dancing. As a result, there's already a very clear few rising to the top. I already have my bets -- that guy Zach and then one of the black girls whose name I can't recall right now. And can I say how unfair life is? This guy Zach is not only smart (he's a pre -med student) but he's freaking tall and handsome, and on top of that he ...

We are heading down to Lima this Friday. Can't wait! I am trying my hardest to be focused on work for the next 4 days but it's practically impossible. We almost have our suitcase all packed (which is a huge accomplishment since it's for 3 weeks which is practically a lifetime!). Here's a video I made at Pampers.com, you could "personalize" it by adding your baby pictures on there. See if you can spot where Gabi comes up. Since she never got picked for that Pampers ad because she couldn't do the "tripod" move at that time, this is the closest she'll ever be to being in an actual Pampers commercial.

We had our ultrasound yesterday and Gabi is having a little baby brother. I don't need to tell you that Jose was over the moon. He even got to his family in Peru before I did which is amazing! Of course he's telling everyone he hasn't thought about names to not let on how excited he is, even though he's had the name since I was pregnant with Gabi! So Sebastian Bali it will be I guess, and I'm definitely going to need some hand-me-downs since I just realized we need to buy everything now for a boy!!! So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! For those of us north I hope we don't freeze our asses tomorrow. We're supposed to get snow even though it's 65 degrees today. Global warming... Maybe tomorrow after a tryptophan induced coma (the stuff in the turkey that makes you sleepy) I'll write the story about Gabi's adventures in potty training...

Gabi has been sick as a dog in the last few days (and same goes for her mom) so her doctor recommended that we give her long warm baths so that she can drain as much mucus as possible and therefore sleep a little bit better since the poor girl has been coughing up all night which has led everyone around the house to also not sleep very well (the only one that doesn't give a hoot and can still sleep just fine is Borges). So we've had to get creative to try to get Gabi to enjoy her long time in the bath. Enjoy! I'm most impressed by her ability to "act" towards the camera and raise her eyebrows and stuff. I really think we have an actress in the making.

The last week has been more exhausting than the normal "I'm in the first trimester and I have a 2 year old daughter" mode. Too many things going on at work combined to too many things going on at home combined with a definite twist for the worse regarding the weather has left me wanting to curl up into a ball like my cat Borges and taking like a month-long nap. In any case, I survived Gabi's 2nd birthday party. Against all the experts' advice I probably invited way more people than I was supposed to, but we got really lucky and had amazing weather which made it safe to stay out in the park right next to my house where there's a lot of space for running around vs. having to herd a bunch of cats into my house which would seem tiny with the number of people I invited to the party! Here's some video of us singing happy birthday to Gabi, her getting excited about blowing the "2" candle but quickly freaking out and not wanting to have anything to do...

After weeks of no So You Think You Can Dance and only looking forward to Last Comic Standing, premiere week is finally here! My husband recently moved us from DirectTV to Dish Network (despite the fact that I endlessly bug him about it because we lost Gabi's favorite TV channel "Sprout" with the move) and so now I can actually Tivo things to both TV's in the house which means my lazy ass doesn't actually have to go down to the basement to see a recorded show. This has been a definitely plus for Dish. However, I'm still confused as to why I can't watch one show and record another, that part kinda sucks. Although now there will be so many choices in my Tivo I won't actually have to watch live TV ever again. I've even recorded several episodes of Spongebob since it seems to be the only acceptable alternative to the Sprout channel for Gabi. Which kinda makes me feel bad as a mom since I'm going from educational shows such as Sesame Street to s...

Well the one loyal reader I have (thanks Tom!) pointed out today that I haven't blogged in over a month. Part of it is exhaustion-related, this pregnancy has not been easy-peasy so far. I'm always nauseous but not nauseous enough to throw up and feel better (with the added benefits of not gaining so much weight), but that's not the worst part. The worst part is the never ending exhaustion. I just got back from California and it's taken me 3 whole days to get rid of the jet lag. I think it even took Gabi less than that! The day after I got back I couldn't even get up to go to work, I had to sit in bed with my laptop all day trying to muster enough energy to catch up on email (unsuccessfully though a meager goal that it was for a whole work day!). The exhaustion is accompanied with a constant headache which is great fun. Unfortunately the only thing I can take is Tylenol and what's the point. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against Tylenol I think they ...

I just wanted to share the good news, we are expecting baby #2!!! I'm just 4 weeks into the pregnancy but everyone keeps telling me I already have a belly, to which I say thanks for calling me fat, this belly is from baby #1 not from baby #2....

We went to Chicago this weekend with Jose's dad and sister, and then we met up with his brother and wife there in Chicago. Overall it was a really fun weekend, although dinners were a little bit stressful because of Gabi. We took off Friday and drove up early Friday morning. We made into Chicago's entrance by around noon on Friday (we gain an hour from Chicago) but of course that's when we hit sooo much traffic. When we finally made it we had lunch at Cheesecake Factory and then took the city boat tour. We had done the architecture tour a couple of years ago and of course that one was a lot more interesting, but this one was good just because of the fact that you spent so much of it out on the lake looking back into the city scape. That night Jose and I had to hit the sack early because by the time the rest of the group was ready for dinner it was too late for us to take out Gabi. Which was OK I guess because otherwise the fact that we ate so much during the weekend wo...

Which Pixar Character Are You? You are Dory. You are naive and gullible. Wait, that's a good thing. Your ability to trust any stranger is a trait not many people have, but be more cautious next time a stranger offers to buy you lunch or you might find yourself in a fishy situation. Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com What Car Would You Be? You would be a Mini Cooper. Everywhere you go, you turn heads with your charm and charisma. You're no deep thinker, but taking life seriously can be such a drag! Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com