Boricua en la Lima

I worked on this project as part of my new job and I'm really proud of it. If you have some last minute holiday cards you need to send go to csdw.pgecards.com or llt.pgecards.com and send an environmentally friendly one! Pass along to everyone you know so that we can keep doing great stuff like this.

We got back from Disney yesterday. It was such a fun but exhausting trip! Kids melting down all the time due to lack of sleep and overexcitement. That's what life is all about! We went to Hollywood Studios on the first day, got totally rained on at Animal Kingdom on the second day, did Magic Kingdom on the third day (Thanksgiving), to be later joined by Jake, Titi Ge and Uncle Tommy for Thanksgiving Dinner. Then on Friday (4th day) we hit Epcot with Jake, and finally on Saturday we went back to Magic Kingdom with everyone to be topped off by dinner at the Cinderella Castle for the grand finale. The kids were exhausted yesterday, Sebastian slept like 14 hours and I couldn't move after 8 pm. Poor Abuela Patty was in bed a good 2 days and not able to go to the parks with us. Everyone is coughing like crazy, and we're home all alone for a few more days until motorcycle Grandpa comes to visit on Thursday.

As some of you know I've had thermal reconditioning done on my hair about 2-3 times in the last couple of years. I really loved the results, I've basically never had straight hair and it was great to wash it and go, literally, and have super straight hair. One day I woke up though and looked at myself in the mirror and I said, that's it, this is not me. I like it but I want my curly hair back. And that's when the very painful process started -- probably since last December. See there is no way to UNDO thermal reconditioning unless you actually grow your hair back out. I asked, can I perm it? NO. Can I get it out? NO. I asked and asked and asked and the only two answers were -- you can either blow dry your hair as the curls grow in so that it's ALL straight, or you can actually blow dry the hair, then curl it with a curling iron, so that it's all CURLY. None of those were viable options for a time-starved, sleep-deprived mother of two. So I did the "mat

Gabi woke up this morning over the moon excited that it was her birthday. But something funny kept happening. She kept saying to everyone she was the birthday girl, and that she was GONNA be four, but somehow in her quirky four-year old logic, she wasn't four quite yet. I chuckled most of the morning at her logic "hole" but didn't think anything of it. At 3 pm, while I was in a meeting, Jose picked up some donut holes and took them to day care so that the kids could sing happy birthday. (I had originally stayed away from the idea, only because I knew she'd want to take "gooly bags" to all her friends and since the birthday party I'm throwing for her on Sunday is setting me back quite a bit, I decided we wouldn't do anything for her at day care. But when I woke up this morning I felt kinda bad and asked Jose to pick up something simple like donuts and take them to day care at 3 pm just so that they could sing for her, even without "gooly

Gabi has been taking ballet classes for about 7 weeks now and I think she's making some progress. She's not the best in her class, but she's not the worst either. :) And I think she's got some nice lines so I hope she continues to enjoy it. The teacher is very strict, but I think she's good. I think we'll have to take off during the holidays with all the traveling we do, but hopefully we can pick it back up in the Spring. They're already talking about recitals which is so cute! Now I have to win the battle with Jose about ballet over soccer. I know, I just went there.

People are going to think we've turned into some kind of amusement park freaks but last week we actually had free tickets from work to go to Kings Island and we had enough tickets to go both Saturday and Sunday, and this weekend I was curious about Falloween at Coney Island and I was very pleasantly surprised! Especially since we were almost able to pull off a whole round of mini golf even with the kids in tow. Gabi continues to explore thrill rides (well, for a 4 year old) with mixed results. :) And if it was up to Sebas I think he would actually ride every single ride, but he's still too small to go on most of the rides.

I'm not a huge Beyonce fan but I guess I am pretty big sob queen so I was really moved to see this. Beyonce pulled a girl out of the audience in Australia this last weekend to sing Halo to her. She is suffering form Leukemia. Very moving.

I'm not Oprah's biggest fan, but I'm definitely a fan of Black Eyed Peas and an even bigger fan of dance (especially when it's a gazillion people dancing at the same time) and this is just freaking amazing. What I would have given to be in that crowd!

This is our first time ever joining our neighborhood yearly picnic (which they've been having for more than 20 years to raise money for the park maintenance). Sebas decided, in classic fearless style, to start going down the slide all by himself during the picnic. At least there were plenty of people around to catch him in case he fell! He was also simultaneously disciplining the other kids in the park for playing with their ball in the swing set.

I had a Girls Night Weekend in Miami last weekend, which coincided with my 35th bday (that's another case of "that's a subject for a separate blog post!). When I got home I thought the house was going to be utter chaos but actually it wasn't that bad at all. What was bad was the fact that Sebas was covered in what seemed like mosquito bites from head to toe. Jose had called me when I was at the airport to tell me and my first instinct was to think an infectious skin thing (Rosalea maybe?) that had been going around day care the previous week. Strangely, though, as soon as I came home I started itching as well. While on the plane Jose took him to the ER where they told him they thought it was flea bites. But I guess seeking the quintessential second opinion the next day we went to his regular doctor who said hives. So I forgot about the fleas but made a mental note to ask the vet on Friday since Borges was due for his yearly check-up. Of course I completely forgo

Daytime Burglar Targets Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout - Cincinnati breaking news, weather radar, traffic from 9News | Channel 9 WCPO.com Posted using ShareThis

I've had many an argument this week about whether the husbands should go play golf every weekend and leave us "golf widows" alone with the kids for 4-5 hours every weekend. This week I got some horrible virus that's going around which had all the symptoms of the swine flu. I went to the ER last Sunday because I was scared that whatever it was the kids would get. Turns out thankfully it was only a virus, but the bad news was that Gabi then got it Sunday night so I had to stay with her in the house Monday and Tuesday. And then Sebas got it Tuesday night so I had to stay home with him Wednesday. Now normally I don't even know how stay at home moms can do it, and this was no exception! But trying to be a stay at home mom, while feeling like crap, while having to work at night to try to catch up with the day (paying!) job, that is just as overwhelming as things get. So when Wednesday afternoon Jose gets a call from a buddy who invites him to yet another golf outin

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later View more documents from Marta Kagan .

I'm looking forward to a day in which we only have two things on the to do list because this is all we had to do yesterday! - Go to Target because Gabi HAD to have a butterfly costume for the butterfly show - Breakfast at Sugar and Spice (in butterfly costume of course) - Kroger - Lunch at Indigo with my friend Maia - Show up at Butterfly Show to realize the exhibit is already over, which was followed by much tantruming (in butterfly costume of course) - Unsuccesful napping attempt - Haircut for Gabi - Running - Web cam with fam - Night at Bootsy's in order to take advantage of free babysitting. Feeling like losers for going to sleep at the same time we do every night (except for feeling very fat and a little drunk). - Waking up this morning to Gabi NEEDING to put on her butterfly costume right away. ;)

That's me breathing a huge sigh of relief after baby's surgery went off without a hitch. I had problems sleeping last night, first because of the pre-night jitters (I felt like the day before my wedding or the day before my C-sections) and secondly because my cleaning lady actually rearranged all the furniture in our bedroom (how she had the strength to do so I do not know) and that just made me feel all weird. It's not a bad new set up, it just felt odd. For those of you who don't know he was getting surgery for an undescended testicle. I'm a little embarrassed to put that on Facebook but I figure if you're here you care enough and I can let you know. :) Oftentimes they do find a hernia though, and he had a pretty big one, so they fixed that as well. That made the surgery last 100 minutes though so Jose was freaking out a bit because he really thought it would be shorter. When they gave him the anesthesia that was probably the hardest two minutes of my lif

My mom is arriving today to help take care of the baby after he's back home from his surgery. I can't wait! We haven't seen her since we were in PR in April, and although it takes a superhuman amount of effort to resist her delicious (and equally unhealthy!) cooking, I am looking forward to have some family back in town (and free babysitting too, yes). Baby's cough is getting way better so it looks like we might be able to have the surgery after all, although we won't know until the anesthesiologists look him over. I am nervous for him! I hope everything turns out well.

Sebastian is supposed to have a (very minor) surgery on Wednesday for which my mom is coming into town since he has to stay home from day care for five days. We also coordinated with 4th of July weekend so that we didn't have to miss as much work. However, he's going under general anesthesia which is starting to make me a bit anxious because he's supposed to be completely healthy but he's had a cough for a while now that seems to be getting worse instead of better. Jose the eternal pessimist is even more nervous, so it looks like we might need to reschedule, which sucks because I'm sure by the time we get another date my mom will probably be gone so we won't have any help. On a lighter note, we hung out at Hyde Park Blast yesterday which was a lot of fun although the kids were so grimy by the time we got back home (so were we!) we had to give them both a bath even though it was way past their bedtime. And of course you would think they would sleep in today but n

Jose: "What is your boca for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For eating". Jose: "What are your ears for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For listening". Jose: "What are your ojos for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For blinking". Jose: "What is your nose for, Gabi?" Gabi: "For taking the mocos out!" She's one smart cookie. The picture of the gorilla reminded me of a story Valeria used to tell us in college. She used to crack up every time she retold how she saw a gorilla in TV poking his butt with his "fingers" then smelling his finger and falling back on his ass from the stench (I'm sure the video's somewhere on YouTube in case anyone finds the link and wants to send it to me). Anyway, Valeria used to laugh so hard she could barely get the words out, and it took us forever to understand what she was saying, actually come to think of it, it always took us forever to understand what she was saying.

Gabi was invited to the bday part of one of his friends from day care. It's the first time we go to Parky's Farm in Winton Woods and it was really fun for both of the kids. The animals were awesome, Gabi rode a horse for the first time ever (we had a miniature pony at her bday party last year which she refused to ride...argh) and the weather was amazing. Best feature is having the bday party in a really fun place and not having to worry about a lot of the details. Only downside was that we all had to take showers/baths when we got home to get the smell of animal poop out of our systems. :) Oh, and that I couldn't eat all the delicious looking food (home made!) because we had just eaten at Sabor Peruano.

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.

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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

After many months waiting Gabi finally started her swimming classes again this morning. Whereas last year I set outside the heated indoor pool sweating like a pig in a sauna, since I was 8 months pregnant, this year I am the one in the pool with Gabi since Jose is still recovering from shoulder surgery. But now this year we have to bring baby too which makes me feel bad for him because he really looks like he wants to be part of the action too. Maybe when Jose's shoulder is better Jose can hold him in the water. I've never seen the classes that full though. They needed three teachers to keep up with all the kids when it's usually only been one! They were pretty good with the kids though, so I think gabi will like them. We also saw some repeat parent-kid combos which was nice. For all my friends with little kids who want to do swimming lessons, I highly recommend the parent and child classes through the Cincinnati Recreation Commission (we go to the Mt. Auburn Pool which is

I installed TruPhone for my trip to Peru so that I could call back to the US (dad, mom, sister) without having to pay the outrageous prices AT&T charges for international roaming calls (and don't even get me started on international roaming DATA plans!). Anyway, today I was talking about it to a friend of mine at work who's an iPhone "buddy" and convinced him to download it on his phone. Lo and behold when I get home from work I get an email saying they announced that they have just partnered with Skype to offer Skype services via the TruPhone application . The best just keep getting better, don't they? And like my friend B. said, you can't beat free! So if you haven't checked out TruPhone yet, I definitely think it's worth the search on the iPhone App Store.

I got home before it was dark today and decided to take the baby-and the Maclaren -for a spin today. The baby was in complete awe, wondering what this "new" environment that I had exposed him to was. I had put a hat on his head right before leaving and he started trying to take it off until I started walking and he was in such awe he stayed with his hand on the hat the whole 30 minutes we were walking for. We stayed close to the house because I wasn't sure it would start raining or be too dark or get too cold. But it was so amazing to take in the fresh air. I hadn't been for a walk pushing a stroller since right before going back to work which was end of July. On a separate note, it's the first time I take the Maclaren Volo for a spin (I got a solid brown color not the one picture above) and it was so light and smooth I could actually jog while pushing it. But then again who would be crazy enough to want to do such a thing?! No, seriously, I did run for about hal

The little guy is already a tech freak. He loves when I have pandora radio going in my iphone, especially jack Johnson or coldplay. He also loves these little Peruvian good luck beans that are hanging from my blackberry. And finally he loves my new nikon cool pix which makes taking a picture of him without him moving straight towards the camera very difficult.

The poor guy is looking outside as if trapped in the boring jail that is his home because his parents are warm blooded people and cannot be bothered to go outside in 20 degree weather. I know there are places a lot colder than this but you must remember we are from Puerto Rico and Peru. Don't worry baby. Only one more month till spring. And we've bought you a nice maclaren stroller for those long walks to the park (given every other stroller he's inherited from his sister and they're all falling apart on the poor guy).  Soon. That's what I keep telling myself. Soon.

I've been trying to figure out the best way to do mobile blogging from my iphone which also lets me post pictures along with my post. I think I may have found it.

I'm watching sebastian enjoy one of the toys gabi had gotten from titi ge on her first birthday and I have to say it's so much fun to see him discover toys for the first time as if they were also new to him. Also to see him trying to learn how to turn the toys on and off, and also learning the wrong uses of the toy like sticking a utensil down a ball chute. ;)

We just had a huge scare with the baby tonight which hopefully will turn out ok in the end. Turns out that lately there are some nights where he drinks his bottle so fast and furious that he kinda gags on it and ends up eventually throwing up, we don't think it's left over from his reflux days because otherwise it would be more consistent and it's always just that last bottle at night before he goes to bed.  Needless to say we've been doing a lot of laundry lately. Anyway, today we had a crazy scare. The baby starts throwing up but it seems that maybe more than normal and I guess he's been coughing a lot lately cause he seems to have a cold so that may be adding to the intensity of the throwing up.  But at some point I look at him and his right eye is all reddish and it actually starts tearing up but red bloody tears that then start running down his cheek.  So my husband who is a bit of a freak out starts saying "what's happening, what's happening"

Here are a few of Sebastian's firsts along with a picture of him holding up his bottle, which he has recently mastered: 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 smile: 6 weeks Found thumb: 12 weeks 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!) First subway ride: 7/4/08 (Washington, DC) First time at the beach: 7/21/08 (Puerto Rico) Started day care: 7/29/08 Flipped on his belly: 7/30/08 First baseball game: 9/5/08 (Reds vs. Cubs -- we had to leave early because it was raining. It was also Gabi's first baseball game) "Army crawl": October 2008 First tooth: early February 2009 Saying "uh oh": early February 2009 Can hold up his own bottle: early February 2009 Can wave and say "bye bye": February 2009 (it's been a busy month for him!) First surgery: July 1st, 2009

Sebastian woke us up at 4 am and didn't want to go to sleep even after giving him TWO whole bottles of formula. This morning I needed to show up to work a little bit early (around 8:30 am) and I go get myself a coffee downstairs cause I didn't have enough time for Drive-Thru Dunkin Donuts. As I get my capuccino I go over to the condiments table and open up my two packets of Splenda but instead of pouring it into the coffee I start pouring it into the trash. At the same time and old co-worker walks up to me and notices what I'm doing and says: J: "Ivette what are you doing?" Me: "Oh, I'm pouring sugar into the trash." J: "I can see that. But why?" Me: "Cause I haven't slept!" Now my contact went up way into my eye (I only wear a contact in one eye I know it's weird but I had LASIK a while ago) so now I can barely see what I'm typing.  I guess that just means more coffee is in my future...

Gabi: "Mami, where are you from?" Mami: "Puerto Rico" Gabi: "Papi, where are you from?" Papi: "Peru" Mami: "Gabi, where are YOU from?" Gabi: "The Sunshine Room"

I am on the airplane on my way to new haven to visit my sister and surprise my dad since I wasn't able to see them for Xmas. Which I guess means I should wait to publish this until my dad has actually landed and I've given him the surprise. We meant to bring sebastian as well but he is pretty sick at home with what seems like a terrible cold if not something worse than that so I felt terrible about bringing him on the plane. Although sadly I must admit traveling alone with one kid seems like a breeze compared to traveling with two. I miss the little guy terribly though, and I'm sad my sister and nephew and dad won't get to spend time with him. It's been miserably cold in Cincinnati, as in I don't wish this cold upon anyone, including my worst enemy. I complained about the damn cold to the pediatrician yesterday when she saw sebastian but she actually said in weather as cold as this bacteria in fact die off and people tend to get less sick. I don't know if I