Boricua en la Lima

Abuelo (Jose's dad) came to visit this weekend and since he'd been here a few times already we decided to head down to Gatlinburg for our first Smoky Mountain visit and give him a change in scenery. The car ride was a little painful (5 hours and I was stuck in the backseat in between the two car seats) but it was definitely worth it. Our cabin was awesome -- jacuzzi, 4 plasma TVs, wifi, everything brand spanking new, and the second and third nights I slept like an angel ALL BY MYSELF in the sofa bed in the living room so in the morning I would wake up to floor to ceiling views of the forest. If I had a cappuccino by my bed it would've been heaven. Unfortunately we're back, and that means work tomorrow, but not before I catch up on So You Think You Can Dance which makes my summer TV viewing sooooo worth it! And maybe seeing all those skinny twenty somethings cavorting on TV scantily clad will make me want to work out a little bit harder.

Good friends, nice weather, lobsters, beer, Alms Park, lazy Sunday. Enough said.

We went to the Cincinnati Zoo today as many zoos around the country had free admission for Mother's Day. All Gabi wanted to do was ride the carousel, the train and get face painting, so I guess technically we didn't have to actually be in a zoo to do all those things but it was still a good time. :) Sebastian is still carrying over a cough and now has an ear infection, the poor kid. I know one day he'll be fully immunized thanks to day care but for now it's heartbreaking to see him getting sick so often. I guess the fact that it's cold one day and warm the next doesn't help too much either. While Jose was in the driving range with Gabi on Saturday (which was cute to no end) I went to Stride Rite and got the cutest pair of sandals for Sebastian, since now he's going to be spending a lot more time outside at the day care. The cost me an arm and a leg but I guess contrary to Gabi who has plenty of shoes to rotate, this will be the only pair the little guy w...

Check out this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tcE4rWovI You will never hear the song the same way again.

http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_plain_text.php?race_id=10625

This week has been just a little bit crazy. On Sunday Sebastian developed a fever and a cough so we kept a close eye on him and talked to the pediatrician who said it sounded like croup. By Monday Morning he seemed worse so we decided to bypass the doctor and go straight to the hospital where they confirmed the croup diagnosis. Gabi had never had that so we'd never dealt with it. It seems that with Sebastian we've had to deal with some illnesses that we'd never dealt with. In fact, the last time I can remember Gabi being sick was when she got scarlet fever, right after Sebastian was born, which was basically a year ago. Anyway, I had to work from home on Monday which is always hard with a sick kid because they are typically fussier and more clingy than normal. It's also a lot harder to get them to go to sleep although he's normally super easy to go to sleep. On Tuesday i was supposed to go Boston early in the morning, but I had to delay my flight to the evening and ...

All of a sudden she's big enough to sit in the chair at the hair cut place all by herself. No fear. Complete opposite from the dentist just a few hours ago. She never ceases to amaze me.

Sebastian had his 12 month appointment at the pediatrician yesterday. It continues to baffle us that no matter how big people think he is, he is always in a super low percentage. Yesterday they said he was like 15% for height and 25% for weight some ridiculous thing like that. What I don't understand is if 12-18 months clothes fit him fine, doesn't that mean he's on track!? And if he was supposed to move up to the new car seat at 1 year or 20 lbs. and he weighed 20 lbs. doesn't that also mean he's fine?! I know there are some huge babies out there, but I don't know when huge babies became the new norm. Anyway, while I wasn't there for most of the visit because I had swimming classes with Gabi, the doctor apparently told him that the baby's drinking too much milk. Since when did drinking milk became a bad thing? They say that when he drinks too much milk that means he can miss out on other important foods like meats, cheeses, etc. But Sebast...

Last night Gabi started watching Harry Potter on ABC and I told her it was my favorite movie so she was really intrigued but since it was time for bed soon after I told her I'd record it so she could watch in the morning. This morning she woke up excited to see Mom's favorite movie and in usual fashion has been asking who's this, and why's that every other second. Which basically means she's hooked. :) There are parts of the movie where she's of course scared because she's hiding behind the bed covers and I'm telling her it's OK it's all just pretend. But then a more "fun for kids" part comes up and I tell her oh you should watch this this is the quidditch game, or oh you should watch this this is the big chess game because I think those will me more fun for her. Anyway, In the part where Ron sacrifices himself in the big chess game, I guess she assumed Ron died because seconds later, lips quivering, trying to hold back the tears, s...

My husband wrote this after coming back from vacation to share with his colleagues at work. They say the first step is admitting that there is a problem, right? ;) *** Many of you asked me how my vacation went…so I thought I give you a quick summary. After a long trip down to PR (with many delays because of bad weather and airplane problems) I decided that my goal for the next week was going to be to sit down, drink and do nothing My goal was that from the moment the sun came out…. To the moment the sun set… To sit down by the ocean with a drink in hand doing nothing . I put Ivette to work… I put my mom to work… Put my sister to work… And even her boyfriend who I don’t know very well… Still, with no father supervision, my kids decided to do whatever they wanted, including but not limited to: Sebastian decided it was time to do as dad and have a beer Or maybe 2… Or maybe 3 (just to get a nice buzz)… And, why not, he decided to eat sushi to help with the hangover Gabriela decided that it...

It's hard to believe that we are already going home tomorrow, but not nearly as hard to believe that sebastian is already one year old. We had the perfect day for his birthday, only interrupted by a one hour meltdown to end all meltdowns (either from exhaustion or constipation from eating so much sand, who knows). We first went to the Bacardi tour which I had never been before and was actually kind of cool (especially since it was free). Then we went to lunch at El Jibarito - best damn mofongo in the whole island. Then we went kite flying in El Morro and after unsuccessfully trying with the $2 Dora kite it finally broke and we got a Yoda one for $5 from the street vendor which used the force to kick Dora's ass. So we finally flew a kite and gabi was over the moon. She was so proud to fly a kite herself and then when it was time to go she kept calling out "Yoda, come down!!!". Hilarious. After that we picked up an ice cream cake from maggie moo's and that's wh...

We arrived in puerto rico on Friday after a relatively stressful flight. We have since seen some of our friends which is always a wonderful thing. Especially with two free babysitters in the form of two abuelas. Gabi sometimes takes a few days to adjust to the new people but this time she was fast and furious with abuelas. She didn't even care that we went out the last two nights, and she quickly made friends at the beach yesterday. I've been running which is awesome but no matter how early I go it's always too hot. Now were on road 413 to rincon, aptly nicknamed road to happiness. Therefore I will stop blogging because the view is too beautiful to miss.

Tom and I were having lunch at Original Pancake House yesterday (yum) and I was talking to him about Gabi's newfound Star Wars obsession. He tipped me off to the iphone app Lightsaber so as soon as I got home last night I downloaded it. Gabi made me personalize it with a picture of her and she made me change her light color to PINK (she has to be girly while opening up a can of whoopass!). She had a blast with the application, and Sebastian was even trying to imitate the woosh woosh sound and moving his hands imitating the motion, it was histerical! Alex who I was babysitting was quite enjoying himself too...all of this of course led us to having to replay Episode VI for the millionth time and her going to sleep insanely late because the movie is so damn long. Anyway, I must take some video of this happening this weekend so I can post it on here, and I MUST buy Episodes I-III cause yesterday on the way to work she kept arguing with me (while we listened to Weird Al Yankovich...

Ever since Gabi became old enough to be able to repeat everything we say, I figured it was no longer a good idea to play Howard Stern on the radio while she was in the car. That's when we discovered Kids Place Live on Sirius Satellite radio. There's one particular song that makes me smile every time I hear it, and I found the YouTube video earlier this afternoon. I know my friend Tom would really appreciate it. My only question is why hasn't it gone mainstream???

On Friday afternoon we went to Target to get Gabi some movies as a reward for sleeping in her room all night (it's been 4 days and she's slept through the whole night 3 out of the 4!). On Saturday night she snuck back into our bed around 2:30 am and we were too tired to do things the "right way" and take her back.   In any case, Jose convinced her to get Mary Poppins because he loved that movie as a kid.  I didn't think that was a good idea because personally I wasn't a big Mary Poppins fan when I was growing up.  I didn't like the "real people" Disney movies nearly as much as I liked the animated ones.  Also, for the duration of Friday night and Saturday during the day despite the fact that we had Mary Poppins on had Gabi insited on watching Star Wars!!! (she's a strange one indeed).  Finally on Saturday afternoon Jose convinces her to watch Mary Poppins by telling her it was Paloma's favorite movie.  OMG...what ensued!  She LOOOOOOOOOVE...

I got us a babysitter for last night since they're pretty much impossible to find for the weekends. We went to Bootsy's in front of the Aranoff Center and it was really good, loved the food (especially churros for dessert!) and loved the place. Today I got an ice cream cake from Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. We first had an early dinner at Bonefish (which was PACKED because of it being a Lent Friday - we had no idea!) and then we went to Target to get Gabi the gifts we had promised her for being a good girl and sleeping in her bedroom all night last night (thanks to Jenny who babysat her!). Then once we got home and baby was asleep (I felt bad putting him to sleep before singing Happy Birthday to Jose but otherwise he would've had the ice cream for dinner for sure) we sang Happy Birthday (in Spanish AND English of course!) and then had the ice cream cake. Despite the fact that Gabi got Beauty and the Beast and Mary Poppins from Target, she STILL wants to watch Star Wars.

Someone let me know what the male version of a convent is because I'm sending this guy as quickly as possible...because clearly this isn't a good thing.

We had this training at work for the last two days which is all about managing your energy for full engagement at work. It basically talks about managing your Energy on 4 different levels (Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual). While I had some "aha moments" regarding all levels of the pyramid, my key takeaway was this: I need to make some changes at work. I am not 100% happy at work right now and this is causing me to have stress levels that are unfortunately spilling over to my home life and affecting my interaction with the kids in particular. I get home at night and I'm exhausted, thinking about all the stuff I still have to do the next day and how I am ever going to find the time to do it all. I am short with the kids, particularly with Gabi who of course is struggling with finding her own voice and that can sometimes lead to what I call "Taurus syndrome" (two very strong heads butting together). I am also stressed out about all the things that ne...

Bueno, bonito y barato. That's how us puerto ricans like to talk about things. There used to be a place up in Hamilton called Santo Domingo Restaurant, a pretty long trek for us but usually worth it. Mostly due to the bueno and the barato, because bonito it was not. Yesterday I was feeling in the mood for some mofongo so I called Santo Domingo as they usually asked you to place those kind of orders ahead of time to give them enough time to prepare. Then we would get there, proceed to eat like political prisoners and pay like $10 per person. However when I called yesterday I got a strange response. They answered as "The Green Plantain". While I had heard of this new offering in the Fairfield area I didn't know it had actually replaced Santo Domingo Restaurant. I was actually dubious when they told me, thinking they had stole Santo Domingo's number just to steal their clientele. However when we showed up at "The Green Plantain" I did recognize friendly f...