Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This was our Christmas card this year. Except I didn't really get around to sending it out to people. Oh well. At least I got to enjoy it. :)

Terrible Twos

I should totally be working on the calendar I'm making for my in-laws, but I just need 5 minutes to breathe. Writing is always therapeutic for me, so here I am.

Diego is getting to be such a terror. I mean, he already was a terror, but in a good way. He was just active and into everything. He loves to explore things, be loud and crazy, and run run run. But now, when I say he's a terror, I mean he doesn't listen to squat, he sounds like a broken record saying, "No way! No way!" I have no idea where he learned that. He is becoming increasingly defiant. For instance, today, I asked him if he wanted to go to the naughty room (which up until this point had been working great) and he said, "Yes!" Then he proceeded to walk towards the room while he looked at me and said, "Bye bye! Bye bye!" Which is what I say when I'm threatening him. Like if he won't come to the door when it's time to leave, I'll be like, "Okay, fine. Bye bye, Diego!" and act like I'm leaving without him. So he threw it back at me. Then later, he was being good for a little while so I promised him we would go play outside. I was like, "Okay, let's put your shoes on so we can go outside." Being outside is his favorite thing ever. But he's soooo stubborn, so he was like, "No way!" and ran away from me. I usually start threatening him or bribing him at this point, but today I was just too tired to fight it. And the way I saw it was, hey, he's the one who wants to go outside, not me. So I just went about my business and cleaned up the living room. He totally didn't care. Whenever I came anywhere near him, he ran away. Then if he noticed I wasn't paying attention to him, he ran up to me and was like, "Woosh, Mommy!" (Shoes, Mommy.) I would say, "Are you ready to put on your shoes?" And he'd say, "Nooooo!" And run away again. Twenty-five minutes later, (and a much cleaner house later) I was like, okay, either we're going outside or we're not, but I'm not going to play this game anymore. So I sat down with his shoes in front of me and said, "Diego, let me put your shoes on you so we can go outside and play." He just sat there across the room. So I said, "Three..." and he inched a little closer..."Two..." and he stopped moving all together..."One..."and he ran and sat in my lap.

Really? That's all he needed? The 3, 2, 1 threat?

I'm sure I'll laugh at all this later, but today it's not so funny. He's a smarty pants, though. I'm really proud of him. He knows all his colors, he knows A, B, and C, he knows the name of every form of transportation immaginable....car, truck, plane, boat, train, motorcycle, bicycle, etc. Today (when he was being nice) I asked him, "How do you say 'water' in Spanish?" He said, "Awa!" (Agua). I asked him, "How do you say 'duck' in Spanish?" He said, "Pato!" "How do you say Airplane in Spanish?" "Avooo." (Avión) He knows so many words in Spanish now. I should really talk to him more in Spanish. He's mostly learning from my mom.

The child does not want to speak in sentences, though. He'll be 2 in February and I'm dying for him to start stringing words together! But so far, the longest sentence he'll say is, "Mommy, ah you?" (Mommy, where are you?) He's also big on possesives. He loves to say, "Mommy's car" or "Ama's ouse" (Grandma's house). He puts so much emphasis on the S. Like, Mommysssss. Oh, the best is when he says applesauce. Let's just say it sounds like he's saying apple booty, but in a not so nice way.

Despite the tantrums, this age is fun. I guess for the next year or so, we'll be going back and forth between the Terrible Twos and the Terrific Twos. It's a rollercoaster.

Okay, back to work.

Mastitis Blows

Mastitis is the worst thing ever. Aside from not being completely numb during my second c-section, this is the worst pain ever. I'm going back to the doctor tomorrow to demand that they fix me.That's all I have to say.

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween was fun. Dressing up the boys was sooo much fun. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

We were a family of skunks!! I have to give my mom credit for the idea. She found the skunk costumes and fell in love with them. I made mine and Marcelo's to match the kids. I'm happy with how everything turned out. For trick-or-treating, though, it was too hot, so Diego was Rambo. He loved trick-or-treating with his cousins. He just loves being outside. It's a shame he can't eat hardly any of his candy because he's allergic to everything. Oh well. More for me. Muahahahaha. Here's Rambo.

And some Halloween pjs:

Marcelito

Marcelito is a month old! I took the same picture of him that I took of Diego when he was a month old just so I could compare. I think they have similarities, but they don't look a ton alike.

Things are going well. He sleeps pretty good for a newborn. Wakes up after 5 hours, and then every 3. My mom thinks he looks just like me. Sometimes I see it, but not always. It's way too early to tell.

Nursery

Diego is 18 months old, which means....nursery time!! I've been counting down waiting for him to be old enough. I was getting so sick of trying to keep him calm during church! But I have to say, I am a little sad. So far, I've been going with him to nursery, while he gets used to it, but it's hard because I'm the Relief Society president and feel like I should be in RS. Oh, yeah, by the way, I'm the RS President. I haven't written about that in here. They called me when I was just a few weeks away from giving birth to Marcelito. Yeah. I thought they were crazy. I still do.

Anyway, so far he seems like he's going to do okay. Well, once he gets used to Bro. and Sis. Wardell. They're really nice. And I told them all about his allergies, so they're going to be really careful about what food they bring in for everyone. They're not going to give the other kids food unless Diego can eat it, too. That gives me such peace of mind because I was just envisioning him grabbing a handful of someone else's goldfish crackers and then throwing them up everywhere.

Okay, he's waking up from his nap and yelling, "Momeeeeeeeeee".

Allergies, Allergies, and More Allergies

Well, Diego is now 18 months old, so we got him tested for allergies. And surprise, surprise, he's allergic to everything.

Here's the official list:
Milk
Eggs
All nuts, including coconut
Cats
Dogs

Yup. He's a little nerd boy. It's so frustrating. I never thought I'd have to deal with this since I didn't think it ran in the family. But apparently it does, somewhere. So I will spend my life reading labels and make him separate meals. I've pretty much given up on him out growing this because when they tested him, the milk allergy was the highest it could be. I don't see that going away any time soon.

Ugh, the way they tested him was awful. They had to fill like 27 vials of blood, while we held him down. Okay, it was really 6 or 7, but it felt like a lot more. It took forever, and he just laid there crying and screaming. It was horrible.

Preggo Pics

When I was pregnant with Diego, I took pictures of my belly every 2 weeks. But that was all I took. And then I totally regretted not taking some cute preggo pics wearing cute preggo clothes. It was always the same shot wearing the same shirt. Well, this time around, I vowed to take some cute pics! One Sunday, July 22nd to be exact, I told Marcelo we were going to take pictures. So we went to a park and got some cute shots. Marcelito was born 4 days later, so I'm sooooo glad I did it when I did it. I already digiscrapped the pictures. I printed the first one and have it up in the living room. I love it.

I am such a nerd!

I got a minivan!!!! Woo hoo!!!! I'm so happy! It's a 2005 Toyota Sienna. No, it does not have automatic sliding doors. But yes, it is sooooo much easier to get the kids in and out! I love it.

Adjusting

It has only been a week, but so far things have been going well. Celo loves sleep as much as I do! He's been sleeping for 5 hours straight every night. I have to wake him up to feed him. He barely cries. He just grunts instead. Diego loves him. I wonder if he'll get jealous. So far he just points at him and says "Baby, baby." He gives him lots of hugs and kisses, too. It's sooo cute. A few days ago, he threw his precious teddy bear into the baby's bassinet. He looooves that bear. I picked it up and tried to give it back to him and he turned his face away and said, "No. Baby." I almost cried. He was sharing it with the baby! So cute. I took a picture of it:

I can't believe how big Diego is compared to Marcelito. He's tiny! And tan, I might add. Diego is so white.

Okay, that's all I have time for. Back to breastfeeding (which, by the way, has been a breeze this time, thank goodness!) and watching elmo.

He's here!

Marcelo Evan was born on July 26th, 2007 at 2:32pm. He weighed 5 pounds, 13 oz.

Here's how it went down: I had contrax all night on Wednesday night. At 8am, I called the doc to see what I should do. I wasn't sure if it was false labor or real labor, and I wanted to make sure the baby wasn't under stress. The doc told me to go straight to the hospital to get checked. I started bawling. Marcelo was all excited, and I was bawling. I was like, "What? Go to the hospital? I'm not ready! It's too soon!" We took our sweet time getting ready, and finally showed up at the hospital at 10am. My contrax had slowed down to like 15 minutes apart. They hooked me up to the monitors and made sure the baby was fine. After two hours, I had only had like 3 contrax, so they said they were going to give me one more hour, and if they stayed that far apart, I was going home. By then, I was all geared up to have the baby, so I was a little disappointed that it could be a false alarm. Anyway, in that last hour, the contrax sped up to 10 minutes apart again, and when the doc came in to check me he said, "I don't think your contractions are going to stop. We're going to go ahead and have this baby today." So they started prepping me for surgery. I was sooo scared about the spinal. But it wasn't terrible, and the anestesiologist was like, "You did great! That was the easiest spinal I've ever done!"

YEAH RIGHT.

So the doc starts to cut me open, and I CAN FEEL IT. I immediately tell the anestesiologist, who is by my head, "I can feel that!" He was like, "Yes, you're going to feel pressure." I was like, "No, I can feel the sharpness of the knife." He didn't want to believe me, but told the doc to hold on a second anyway. I could also move my right foot, which I didn't think was normal. The doc started back up again, and I could feel it a little less, but I still knew there was way too much sensation. Then, I started feeling an enormous amount of pressure and pain. It was absolute hell. I started crying and sqeezing the crap out of Marcelo's hand saying, "I'm in a lot of pain, it hurts, it hurts. I feel a ton of pressure." So the anestesiologist started getting worried. He asked me to describe exactly what I felt, so I did. Basically, I felt like I was getting run over by a mac truck. I felt like there were a thousand pounds of pressure on my stomach, pushing all my organs into my back. My back ached like a mother, too. It was the scariest, most horrible feeling in the world. They started to pull the baby out, and it was literally like my whole stomach was going to get ripped off my body. They were tugging and tugging, and I was crying, saying, "Please hurry. Please hurry." Once they got the baby out, the pressure was a tiny bit better. The anestesiologist was instructing the nurses to hurry and get the baby over to me, because he was convinced that it was all in my head and that I just needed to see the baby. Well, no. It wasn't in my head. So I saw the baby, and then went right back to clenching my teeth and trying not to scream. I felt them moving around my organs, I felt them stitching me up, I felt everything. It wasn't like, knives and needles pain, it was just the pressure of everything they were doing. It's hard to describe, but it was freaking horrible. Once it was over, the anestesiologist was like, "They're done. I've given you more pain medication, so that should be kicking in." They wheeled me to the recovery room, with me still in tears, and still in a ton of pain. The anestesiologist was so confused about why I was in so much pain. I kept hearing him tell people, "That was such an easy spinal and I thought she was going to be completely numb because she's so small." So he came and asked me again to describe what I was feeling. I told him I could move my foot the whole time. His eyes opened wide and his face was like, "What? That's not good." So he told the nurses to get me more pain meds, but nothing was working. As I was laying there waiting for them to bring me some morphine, my head all of a sudden started to THROB. Like, intense, crazy, I feel like my head is going to explode, throbbing. I promise you I'm not exaggerating when I say I thought a vein in my head was going to burst and I was going to die. I was soooo scared. I was crying the ugly cry at this point, and asked Marcelo to give me a blessing. They finally got me some morphine, and all the pain started to subside. But from about 2:30pm - 4:00pm, I was in the worst pain of my entire life.

I feel a million times better today. I just need some sleep! Marcelito was born 3 weeks early! I guess he didn't want to be an August baby. He's doing great. He's awesome at nursing, thank goodness. He's much hairier than Diego, and his hair is darker, which is why we decided he wasn't a Cristian. (We almost named him Cristian Marcelo.)

Oh, and my parents were out of town, so they missed it. They showed up at the hospital at like 6pm, totally bummed out.

He was 5 lbs 13 oz. Teeeeny tiny. I was 5 lbs 14 oz. He was 19.5 inches long, just like Diego. Diego met him in pretty bad conditions. We called my MIL at 1:00 to tell her the c-sec was happening, so she said she was coming with Diego. We were like, "No, let him take a nap, there's no point. It won't be for at least another hour." Marcelo, Celo, whatever we're going to call him, was born at 2:32, but no one got to see him till like 3:30, and they didn't see me till almost 5. So Diego didn't nap at all. He was here in a waiting room for 3 and a half hours! So yeah, by the time we saw him, he was pretty miserable. He just said, "Baby. Baby. Baby." But he was totally cranky and kept crying for everything. PLUS, he has a rash all over his entire body, a fever, diarrhea, and was throwing up yesterday. So I didn't really want him to close to the baby. Perfect timing, right?

My mom misunderstood my story, and told EVERYONE in my family that I had felt every single thing during the surgery, including being cut open. So I had my grandma and aunts calling me crying yesterday, saying how sorry they were that I went through that and that they wanted to sue the doc, etc, etc. I was like, uhh, let me clarify. Yes, I felt a lot of pain. No, I did not feel them cut me open like some horror movie. My mom also emailed everyone and told them "Cristian Marcelo" was here. Way to jump the gun.

Anyway, I'm pretty pissy today (not as bad as yesterday, though) because I'm super tired and can't get any sleep. Every time I try to sleep, someone calls, or a nurse comes in, or whatever.

Here's a pic we took last night. Marcelo and I almost changed the baby's name again after everyone left because neither one of us is getting used to calling him Marcelo. I keep calling him Celo, and he keeps calling him Junior. (I hate Junior, by the way.) Anyway, it just feels super weird. But then we look at him and we're like, he's so not a Cristian, or any other name. So Marcelo seems to be the one that fits the most. I don't know. I hope I get used to it soon, because I have to fill out the Social Security papers today!

Yes, I know my robe is hideous, but it's all I have!

And here's one where Marcelito looks a lot like Diego:

Big Boy Bed

We put Diego in a big boy bed!! He's doing great in it. I'm so sad about it because he just seems way way way too little for that huge bed. He's only 17 months old! But I really wanted to do it before Baby #2 comes. (He's still nameless Baby #2, btw.) I can't believe how easy he made the transition for us. But Marcelo and I were talking about it, and we came to the conclusion that he is just a good "transitioner". Everything has been easy. Going from breastmilk to soymilk was easy, going from bottle to sippy cup was easy, and now this. Thank goodness, too, because I already have a ton on my plate to worry about.

I worked really hard on his room and I'm sooo happy with it! Honestly, I like it better than the nursery. I hope he likes it when he gets old enough to care. So here's a few pics.

I'm not done yet, but this is an idea.

Asthma

How did I get such a sick little boy?? I was a healthy kid! But Marcelo was a little sicky, so I guess that's where it came from.

So basically, from the end of December to now, we've been dealing with Wheezy Wheezerstein. Diego has been sick at least once a month with what starts out as a little cold, and ends with wheezing. He must be getting so used to the nebulizer. Well, we went to the doc for the millionth time (another thing Diego is getting used to) and he said he thinks Diego has asthma because of how often he has wheezing spells. Ugh. I'm in denial about it. I'm not convinced it's asthma, but only time will tell. Marcelo and I have decided to get rid of all the carpet in our house. It's old and full of dog hair and who knows what else, and I think it contributes to Diego's issues.

Blah. I'm not exaggerating when I say he hasn't been healthy for more than two weeks straight since December!!

It's a BOY!

Yup. Diego is having a brother! I am going to be so outnumbered! Marcelo knew it was a boy. I had no idea. I had the ultrasound yesterday, on my birthday. I'm really excited that it's another boy because Diego really needed to have a boy his age in his life! He's surrounded by girls! All of his cousins are girls. Well, except Nunzio but he lives in Pennsylvania.

I won't lie, though. I'm scared now that I'll never have a girl. The next time around, I'm going to be praying for a girl for sure. And if I don't get one, you better believe I'll be adopting one.

My mom was positive it was a girl. So she's like, "Are you sure?" Yes. It's 100% a boy. We saw his boy bits. Now the stressful part begins: picking a name. Marcelo is sooooooooooooo picky.

Life Changing

It's been a loooooong time since I've written a real entry in here. Since Diego was born, I've pretty much just written brief little updates with some pictures. But today I feel like really writing again.

Having a baby is so life changing. Everyone tells you your life is going to change, but no one can really describe to you exactly how it's going to change. It's one of those things you have to experience for yourself to really understand. In this past year, my life has changed so much. I feel like my heart has grown to 3 times it's size to fit all the love I have for Diego in there.

Here are just some of the ways my life has changed:

1. I'm much more vulnerable. My heart could break into a million pieces if anything ever hurt Diego.
2. I'm a lot less selfish. Having a baby doesn't leave room to be selfish. I have to put him first.
3. My relationship with Marcelo has changed for the better. There's just a different bond when you have a child together. I see a different side of him when he's with Diego and I love it.
4. It's a lot harder to just get up and go. Getting in and out of the car, shopping with my little monkey, going out to dinner...all of that is different. He makes quite the mess at restaurants.
5. I'm a lot less vain. I'm so much more comfortable in my skin. I used to focus too much on my appearance. Of course I still want to look nice and present myself well, but a bad hair day isn't a big deal anymore. It's actually quite common, haha.
6. Life is put into perspective a lot more. Having a baby makes you worry about the little things a lot less. There are much bigger things to focus on. Like the beautiful sound of his giggles. Or his big hugs.
7. I'm a better person. I know that sounds incredibly pompous, but I am constantly aware that I have to be an example to him. That makes me think about the things I say, or how I act, and has just made me do better in a lot of areas.

I love that having him in my life has made me focus a lot less on myself. I was getting quite sick of myself. I don't mean to make this sound like I am now just an amazing person. I'm not. I still have a lot to improve. But I am better than I was before he came into my life, and I'm soooo grateful for that.

Utah!

Diego took his first plane ride! It was pretty bad. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but still, it was bad. He cried a lot when he was trying to go to sleep, but besides that, he was okay.

So where did he go on this plane? To Utah!! We took a week long vacation to Utah so Marcelo could go snowboarding. And because Irv and Andrea were going to be there. And just because I love Utah and I wanted Marcelo to go there so he could love it, too. We really didn't mean to go at the same time as Irv and Andrea, but it worked out because we all stayed in the same house (with Naomi and Marcos, too) and it was cheaper for everyone. I didn't get to snowboard because I'm pregnant. I was bummed about that, but there will always be a next time. I did get to go tubing with Diego, though. He thought the snow was pretty weird. He looked so cute all bundled up in snow gear!







We had a ton of fun, and I reached my goal of making Marcelo love Utah! He said he definitely wants to go back in the future. Yay! It's so beautiful. We went to Temple Square and did the tour, and to the Church History Museum, which was awesome. My favorite part of the whole trip was seeing the Joseph Smith movie. Man, I cried like a baby. It was so good. I can't wait until I can buy it. I've always had a strong testimony of Joseph Smith, but this made it even stronger. I don't think I'll ever be able to hear the song "Praise to the Man" again without getting emotional.

Another good part of the trip was the food! If you know me, you know I looooove good food. My favorites were a Brazilian restaurant called Rodizio, and a Mexican restaurant called Cafe Rio. Ohhh how I wish we had both of those here. Cafe Rio was delicious.

The bad part of the trip was being the only couple with a baby. That was hard. We felt like we were dragging everyone down. Hopefully they still had the vacation they were hoping for. Poor Andrea got hurt a ton while snowboarding, though. I wish I could have snowboarded with her on the bunny slopes and helped her. Not that I'm a pro; I'm totally not. But it probably would have helped her to have another beginner there with her.

My only regret was not getting to go inside the Temple. I really wanted to do that. Oh well. Next time.

Happy Birthday!

Diego is a year old! I can't believe I have a one year old! We had a jungle themed birthday party for him because, well, he's a monkey. And his room is jungle themed. This is the invitation I made for the party:

I did it in photoshop. I've become addicted to digital scrapbooking. Too bad I didn't pay better attention in my graphic design class a few years ago. It's so fun! I worked really hard to digiscrap his first year by his first birthday so I could display the book at his party. It took forever, but I'm so glad it's done.

The guests at his party were my immediate family, Marcelo's immediate family, Tio Carlos and family, Irv and Andrea, Andres, Angelita, and Sofi, Chris and PJ, and Juany and Jerry. Yeah, it was a ton of people. My mom went NUTS decorating. This was the back porch:

She made those little monkeys to pass out the party favors. The party favors had animal crackers in them, as well as jungle stickers, candy, and I don't even know what else. My mom did it all. I made the cake, though. All by myself!!! I'm soooo proud of myself because I had never done anything like it and didn't know if I was capable. But it was really fun, so I look forward to doing his cake for future parties! Here it is:

Man, I'm still so proud of myself, haha. My friend made this for her little boy and I fell in love with it, so she told me how to make it. I was really happy with it!

Anyway, Diego had fun. He had no idea what was going on. And he didn't like the cake. Because of his allergies, I had to make him a separate little cupcake with no milk. He didn't want to eat it, so I had to be a bad mom and smear chocolate on his face just so I could get this picture:

All in all, it was a success. I didn't want to make it such a huge deal, but my mom got so into it and I just let her run with it. Why not? She had fun. I told her I don't want to go nuts like this again next year, though. Anyway, my baby is ONE!!!!!

Allergies

So, we've discovered that Diego is allergic to milk. I am soooo sad about this. It sucks. He can't drink milk, eat cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, nothing. He's also allergic to eggs. I don't know if it's egg whites, or egg yolks, or both. We found out when we gave him some milk and he threw up several times immediately after drinking it. He throws up cheese, too. And with eggs he breaks out all over his face. It's so sad! I hope he grows out of it. It's possible! When I was little, I was allergic to canned fish like tuna and sardines. And I grew out of it.

I'll keep my fingers crossed. What kid can't eat macaroni and cheese???

Bummer

We were supposed to be getting back from New York today. But there was a change in plans.

On December 29th, I was the maid of honor in Julie Hickman's wedding. That morning, Diego started breathing really weird. He seemed like he couldn't catch his breath. My instincts told me to take him to the doctor, even though I totally didn't have time for that. I really needed to get ready for Julie's wedding. The doc said he was wheezing and had bronchiolitis and possibly pneumonia. Grrrreat. Marcelo had to take him to the hospital to get a chest x-ray. I felt like the world's worst mother, because I couldn't go. I had to go to Julie's wedding! It was sooo hard to see Diego like that and not be there by his side. Marcelo said it was a good thing I didn't go to the chest x-ray because it was pure torture. They had to put Diego in a little machine with his hands straight ut by his head, and only his face was visible through a little hole. Marcelo said Diego just screamed the whole time. The poor kid was terrified.

The other thing the doc said was that flying was not a good idea. Well, on the 30th, we were supposed to fly to New York, so we could spend New Year's and my grandpa's birthday there with my family. Sadly, we had to cancel the trip. I was really bummed out about that, but obviously, we were going to do whatever was best for Diego and his health.

So here we are, still in Florida. We spend New Year's with Marcelo's family, which was nice. At midnight we were at home, all alone, and Diego was asleep. It was the first time I've ever had such a quiet little New Year's.

Diego is still on medication, and we have to use the nebulizer on him. It's not fun, but it seems to be making him better.

Oh, having children is tough work.