Boricua en la Lima

I cannot believe I've been a mother for 10 years. I didn't think I would make it past 1 year! In fact, I remember having conversations with friends before getting pregnant about NOT wanting to get pregnant because I was afraid of bringing kids into this messed up world and not being able to protect them from all the evil in the world.  In fact, a couple of weeks after we had brough Gabi home we rented the movie Crash on Netflix and I remember telling my husband while we were watching the movie, "OMG, what have I done? How could I have been so careless? How could I have brought her into this world!?".  That world in the movie was so scary and so messed up and so randomly cruel, I just couldn't believe I was going to have to raise a kid in it (let alone two!). But, ten years later, my kids have shown me how wrong (and selfish) I was to think that way. They have taught me that even in this messed up world they can be smart, caring, considerate, loving, and worr...

Yesterday was a rough day for me. Probably because I'm too sensitive and if there is such a thing, too empathetic.  One of my dear friend´s 20 month old daughter was undergoing planned open heart surgery.  She was born with a heart murmur and they waited all this time to see if it would shrink, which it did, but not enough for her to be able to live a healthy life without the risk of problems later down the road. So they made the tough choice of having the 5-6 hour open heart surgery.  At the same time as I was sending positive vibes her way I start finding out that in one of my previous jobs everyone except for 5 people are getting fired.  So my heart starts breaking little by little. The fact that my friends were getting fired was tough enough, but waiting 5-6 hours without hearing news about my friend's daughter was heart breaking to say the least.  I couldn't even imagine how my friend must have been feeling.  My dear Sebas had surgery when he was ab...

Gabi turned 9 last week. This year I decided to forego the huge birthday party production in favor of one of those places you pay to go to for a few hours, but it still ended up being a massive party-filled week. On Monday (the day before her birthday) I was literally sick to my stomach and could barely get out of bed the whole day. I attempted to go to work around noon just so I could get her a little something to open up on Tuesday morning (her big gift was an iPod which she had already gotten a month before) but I could barely stand up. That night she looked so sad that I was sick and kept asking me "Mom, are you going to be OK tomorrow for my birthday?".  She had already said weeks ago she wanted breakfast in bed (pancakes) so damnit if I wasn't going to get better by Tuesday morning so I could make her breakfast in bed (Jose had to help some cause I was weak and woozy but we did it).  It took me basically all week to recover my energy and appetite after being sick ...

When Lima is so quiet I cannot sleep When the kids are neatly tucked in bed Waiting for the tooth fairy to brighten their day And my husband's breathing is even and stead And the sky's pinkish hue overpowers the gray That will cover the sun come the next day When no car, bird or dog makes their maddening noise When runners find that perfect peace, out on the streets with just their feet And it's only me in my bed and my running thoughts And Lima's my lover and we get along But then I'm jolted out of bed by the sound of an alarm that rings too soon Thrown into the chaos of traffic lights and honking cars And Lima and I are enemies for the day Each one struggling in the crowd of unproductive people trying to look busy So take me back to that morning glory When everything is quiet except for my head And Lima once again becomes my lover, though I cannot wed When Lima is so quiet I cannot sleep I need the chaos to fall asleep Yet I cannot stand it duri...

It has been a whirlwind of a month! First Mom came to visit for about a month and that usually coincides with one of our kid´s birthdays (this time it was Sebas´ turn). So there was a lot of running around in the beginning of April to create the most magical of Star Wars birthday parties! Except if you´re a girl or a boy under the age of 6 and then you pretty much hated the party because Darth Vader and Darth Maul were the scariest things you had ever seen in your life. Then Mom left right after the birthday party and Dad came with his wife about 2 days later to spend Easter weekend with us. It was a great visit, we did a lot of touristy things that I don´t normally get to do with Mom.   We went to the Ballesta Isles in Paracas to see the wildlife, we went to pisco tours to learn about that whole process, and we went to do the sand buggies in the Ica dessert, something I had never done before which was really cool and highly recommended, except a little scary much like this...

Recently I got the iPad mini as a Xmas present, so I gave my two kids the older Gen 2 iPad for them to play with.  Last night my daughter says can I open an instagram account for her. Well, she didn't exactly say instagram.  She goes "can you sign me up for that thing where you follow people and see their pictures"? Since I have already told her a million times she's not getting on Facebook anytime soon I assumed that she meant instagram (she did). This one friend from her classroom has an iPad mini HERSELF and likely every social media app loaded on it (I won't even comment on this, I still have to argue with my daughter every day about the fact that she's not getting a cell phone until she's at least 10).  But of course since my daughter's friend has instagram then it follows that my daughter wants to follow her friend.  So I download the app on "their" iPad, register her, and start following just a few folks (mostly family and myself of co...

We're on our way back to the train station from Machu Picchu and I am so happy that I've gotten to enjoy a well deserved couple of days off as well as seeing the kids enjoy themselves in Cuzco so much when I get am email from the school administration that a kid in pre-kinder has passed away. No name, no explanation, just a note saying that they have rallied all the counseling support they can to deal with this thing on Monday morning when the kids go back to school. First thing I wonder is if the kid was in my kid's classroom, were they friends? How will they explain this to my kid, how will I explain this to my kid? Will all the kids react as if it was a non-event or will their little worlds be shattered? Obviously this is nothing compared to Newton but I find myself at a loss here too, not understanding how God can let something so tragic and sad happen. It's Father's Day tomorrow and I feel so horrible for the parents of this kid, what they must be going throu...

I can't write anything about the Newton school tragedy because it still hurts to even think about it. I've been trying to avoid the news and Facebook because every time I hear about one of the children or one of the teachers who died helping save children my heart breaks all over again.  I was literally sick to my stomach all day Friday and I cried at all hours of the day in the most inconvenient places.  I drank half a bottle of wine to numb the pain and cried myself to sleep.  And I'm just a spectator in this whole big mess, I can't even imagine the pain the parents are going through right now. So instead I'll just write about the last race we did which included Sebas and had a very festive Holiday feel to it so those were my two favorite things about it.  I did 8 Km (5 miles) in 45:54 which is a personal best for me but it was also hard because I was trying to keep up with my husband the whole time.  Then towards the end when we wanted me to go faster becau...

I've been delaying posting this week. First I got sick with a stomach bug which left me in bed zonked out like a zombie and then there was a death of someone we know in Lima who sadly took his own life at a very young age and left behind mourning parents and grandparents. I can't imagine something more painful for a parent to go through and I still cannot wrap my head around it. It's been a very tough pill to swallow and both things have made me less than grateful for the last few days. But after hearing mass today at the funeral I heard the message of gratitude over and over again. And it just so happened to fall on Thanksgiving which is not even celebrated here in Peru. I haven't been to mass in so long but I definitely heard the message loud and clear. So today I give thanks because though it is very hard to be grateful at times I know it's the only way. I give thanks for life, health, and these beautiful munchkins.