I've been trying to pull each boy away for short occasions so that they can each have some special time away from the rest of our rowdy group. I was doing better about this until this last year, and I really wanted to make a point of making it happen regularly again starting this month. So, to get back on track, instead of cutting each of the boys' overgrown hair last week myself, I took each of the older 3 one at a time, 1 evening at a time, to get their hair cut at a "guys' place" as Javi calls it and then out for an ice cream cone afterwards. Santi isn't one to appreciate a barber shop yet, but he HAS been telling me a lot lately about how badly he wants chocolate cake.  I had asked Sol to stay late tonight, and, when I got finished with meetings this evening, I picked up Santi from extended care at pre-school. I took him to the place for the best chocolate cake on the planet as far as I'm concerned: Platia... a Greek restaurant in Frisco, Texas. We LOVE all of their food, but their chocolate sponge cake, the  sokolatopita, is, well... HEAVEN. So I pulled up, and we went inside. Santi ran over to the dessert counter and pointed to it as I knew (HOPED!!?) he would, and we asked for a table for 2. He had milk; I had Greek coffee. We had two forks and one huge slice of sokolatopita, and we talked about life (who he played with at recess), about love (that he really wants a play date with Brooklyn and napped next to Dresden), and about mistakes (like falling off the restaurant chair 3 times in a span of 20 minutes, hurting his knee, his ankle, and then his fingers, respectively). Then we got down to business:

Santi: "Mommy, is this their fork, or did you let them use our fork?"
Me: "That is their fork, baby."
Santi: "So do they wash it after someone's done with it so they can let someone else use it?"
Me: "Yes, they do. They have a lot of plates, cups, and silverware that people use, and then they wash it and then somebody else uses it." 

(This conversation has me thinking more about how people should probably be more disgusted about this than about whether Jose feeds Max off of a fork that I know for a fact we sterilize afterwards, but, anyway, Santi continued...)

Santi: "But what about if there's a booger on the fork or spoon?"

Me: "That is pretty yucky, but, when they wash it, I'm sure it comes clean."

Santi: "But what if it is the really sticky kind that doesn't come off with water?"

Me: "Hmmm good thinking... I hope you checked your fork before you started eating your cake."

Santi: *eyes bulging* *lips pouting* 

After further thought, I think the utensils at our house are definitely safer than using any restaurants' that were probably washed by a bored teenager. So don't give me crap about feeding our dog off our fork if you're still gonna eat out and eat off of sticky booger forks. But, anyway, by all means, let's all go back to eating out without thinking about what may have previously been on the fork we are putting into our mouths. Deal???

Dear Husband, we need to talk…

...it’s about our youngest child. Your eyes are full of apples, I know; the one to which I’m referring is the long, skinny, light-haired one. You’ve been leaving for work before anyone is up and then not getting home until they’re in bed and I’ve got a mere millimeter of light seeping into my own eyes as I surrender to the zzz monster that’s been chasing me since my alarm went off in the wee hours of that morning. So we don’t have a lot of time to talk, and I don’t expect you to know all of the contributing factors of my own exhaustion even as spreadsheets and auditors and long hours contribute to yours. It’s true that for the most part every day is like the one before… I get up early to get lunches and snacks prepared, and it’s important that this is done before the boys get up so that they don’t come in and start nitpicking and complaining and making special requests… out of sight out of mind, so time is of the essence. My sanity depends on it. Then it’s time for the boys to get up, and I am digging through piles of clean laundry in and around baskets in the living room to find something they can wear to school once I’ve checked the weather for the day. While they’re eating breakfast, I’m wrestling with our beloved, geriatric Tobey Cat to get exactly 1 1/2 pills down his throat while dodging Mrs. Robert’s claws as she sits next to us and tries to attack a curious Max who has come over to sniff Tobey who is lying on my lap while I repeatedly blow on his face and rub his throat, alternatively holding my finger over his nose to force him to open his mouth, which never works. Then as I’m wiping blood from the cat scratches on Max’s snout, I’m also filling his stinky pill pocket with his allergy pills, because, as though life isn’t complex enough, we have a dog who is ALLERGIC TO GRASS… for the love…


The boys will come down from brushing their teeth, and I'll make a mental note that one of them yelled about cat puke somewhere up there. I will remind them dozens of times to put on their shoes and socks, and I’ll remind them for the 3 millionth time that if their shoes were put back where they belong the day before they’d be right there this morning. And, no, Dominic; I allow you to express yourself in many fantastically fashionable ways and even encourage it, but you WILL wear matching shoes, so keep looking. I’m fixing their hair and arguing with Adrian about how I will not style his bangs to cover one eye, because he needs to be able to see out of both eyes. I’m asking Javi to PLEASE tie those shoelaces… and why is it the same shoe every day that is left untied, laces flying around with every step as I visualize myself having to take another trip to the store to get more laces after he wears these ones out again. Always the right shoe. Always. He doesn’t mind tying the left one but the right one is…? …what? … too much trouble? It’s baffling.


Everyone is just about ready, so I head out to start the truck and warm it up. I come back in and hear much splashing… it’s the telltale sound of cats playing in Max’s water bowl. Nose actually dips each of her paws in his water over and over and then licks them dry. Alice and Ears try to slap out the dog food that Max dropped in there while eating, and there are actual waves in the bowl. I know I’ll need to get a towel to put down over there before we leave.


Eventually, we will have 4 bodies with their jackets and backpacks on standing near the door, and we will be walking to the truck and headed to school where we will argue all the way there about who is touching whom and who snuck whose Pokemon cards into their pockets. We will kiss and hug and (gently) nudge kids out the back door of the truck so we can get Santiago to pre-school, and I’ll listen as Santi tells me me a dozen times before we even get to Preston Rd that he is hungry and didn’t know he should finish his breakfast before we left. 


Now I have to get to work, and depending on the day it could look like anything. All I know is that I have a hard stop at 5:45pm, and so I don’t have time to mess around. I’m the most efficient, overloaded mess you’ve ever seen, I’m sure of it.


I’ll come home at some point, and I’ll be getting dinner ready. We have probably already been to a practice for one or more of the kids, and so it might be earlier or later in the evening, but I’m in a hurry anyway, since bedtime is important for the next morning’s flow. And as I’m hurrying around the kitchen, I may hear Santi in the distance saying, “Mommmmmmy! I’m cleaning the bathroom! I’m doing chores!” And I’ll hear him and an alarm bell will go off somewhere in my head, but there are many other sources of input coming at me all at once, and that is only one of them. Plus the boys are giving Alexa a playlist, and having a conversation across the house is too much competition for my voice which lacks sufficient force and depth even at my highest volume. So I make a mental note that I’m probably going to need to look in on him with squinted eyes at some point… but I forget… until I’ve got them all in bed, and I walk into the bathroom only to find the floor very wet, and things sort of strewn around soaking in the… water?  I go back upstairs and ask Santi who is not yet asleep what he used to clean the bathroom with, and he says he used water from the sink (whew) and that he used wet wipes (ok) and… “that scrubber thing with the stick”. I thank him for “helping” and without even being asked, and I offer to clean it with him together the next time so he can learn how to use the cleaning supplies. He’s very happy, smiles, hugs me, and says, “Yay!”. I go back downstairs and look in the bathroom to see what cleaning stick he was talking about, and I see the toilet scrubber lying on its side under the small table. Yay! Ugh. The entire bathroom has been “cleaned” with the toilet bowl scrubber doused in water. Let that sink in a minute… it’s a germ party of the worst kind… escherichia coli, staphylococcus, streptococcus, gardnerella, shigella… all these bacteria just living it up, multiplying, using my bathroom floor as a slip n slide right now. I’m going to have to deal with this, which means the dishwasher will not be unloaded and reloaded tonight since I feel the last of my energy expiring quickly. It is for this reason, Dear Husband, that I REALLY appreciate it when you don’t show a reaction when you come home and walk into the kitchen… or the rest of the house, for that matter. Trust me, I feel the same reaction as you… deep in my bones. I just know it’s a lost cause at this point. One day we will have the cleanest house. That day is not this decade.


We are all in bed, the boys and I, and at some point you come home… I have vague memories of you lying down next to me, hugging me, and kissing my cheek. But I’m out.


The next thing I know, I’ve hit snooze for a good 30 minutes, and at 5am I drag myself out of bed. I have a text from you at 4:57am telling me you’ve left for work and you love me. I go downstairs and see you have ground up some coffee beans for me to make a fresh cup of coffee… thank you. I love you. I look around at the picture of destruction and just put my head down and get started on lunches and snacks. A while later, the boys come down and they’re getting dressed. Because Santi gets distracted and will eventually come down wearing a backwards, inside out shirt that is NOT a school shirt along with some swimming trunks, 2 different flip-flops, and a panda hat, I get his clothes out of the pile and help him get dressed. As he is taking off his jamas, he informs me that he “was having a dream that he was looking at girl boobies” and he gets red cheeks, starts giggling, and his dimples pop. I smile and say, “Wow, really? Well, I dreamed about lots of ice cream…” Really, I just dreamed about nothing… it was a deep, black hole of doing nothing, which was ahhhmazing, but I feel like ice cream is something he can relate to more, and I really just don’t want to elaborate on looking at girl boobies right now. It feels too early in the morning to try to come up with an acceptable response. If I'm honest, I'm glad he sprang that on me and not you, because I'm not sure I would have wanted to hear your response to that (I love you!). I take him to the bathroom to brush his teeth and note the new bottle of mouthwash that replace the one he wasted by pouring hand sanitizer into it, and I’m happy for Adrian that he won’t get a mouthful of soap again today.


And then later, after the older 3 have been dropped off, and I’ve driven Santi to pre-school 20 minutes away, we pull into his school parking lot, and I turn around to look at him, his face covered in sharpie marks that he made on himself last night, and I ask him where his backpack is, and he looks around confused before he says, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mommy. I took it off and forgot to put it back on.” And I will count to 10 inside my head, take a deep breath, and I’ll say, “Let’s go.” And I’ll take him inside while I count to 10 in my head again.  Hugs, kisses, “see you later”’s, “have a good day”’s… 


And then we do it all over again… every. single. blissful. day.


And so when you call me later and say, “What are you doing?” and I say, “Working” or “Sitting here staring at my eyeball skin” or “Making dinner” or “Herding cats while so&so has basketball practice” or whatever it is at that moment… just know that you’re asking me a loaded question and any answer feels unsubstantial and severely lacking context. I know one day it’s going to be VERY quiet around here. Our house will be clean, we won’t be missing any drywall or have sharpie drawings on the hallway walls (or faces, for that matter), there will be no laundry of this magnitude, we will actually have to converse with each other, and I just can’t even picture it because it seems impossible that you can go from this RPM to that. But this little, blonde, Dennis the Menace one… the baby of the family… I will blame the majority of my gray hairs and wrinkles on this one. And I just realized that maybe the reason I can’t picture us sitting alone in a clean home one day is possibly because he accidentally brought the roof down around us trying to “help” and we are actually living in a shack or at a campsite or something. But he will have said, “Oops, sorry, Mommy” and those dimples will have popped, and we will have just started counting…

Ahhh we share a wonderful, messy life, my love.

What if we touched our husbands and wives more often just because we were within reach? And what if we weren’t but we got closer so we could? And what if spouses acknowledged the things they do more often and on a regular basis said the things they would say if they were about to walk out the door for the last time? What if we set aside the habits we know our kids have so we could spend a few minutes here and there getting to know them individually without the layers of expectations we have? What if instead of talking and thinking about people around the world who are so different from us we thought of all of our similarities to each other… knowing that as we look at the ones we love around us, every person around the world is looking at those they love around them with the same emotions? Knowing that as we pack lunches for those we love in the mornings, there are millions around the world making their loved ones’ lunches also - if they have the food to pack, knowing all of the little quirks each of them has and reasonably accommodating those preferences out of love… knowing that there are friends and men all over the world who seek validation from their spouses and women all over the world who also seek it… just in a different way because we are all individuals with varying love languages… we all share these needs and desires despite what we do or do not wear on our heads, despite our socioeconomic conditions, despite what our homes are made of, despite whether or not we buy our shoes from a store or if we make them ourselves out of materials onhand.

What if when we were out running errands we took the time to seek out eye contact and hold it for long enough to be able to also smile and say hello or good morning or have a nice weekend? What if we all made a point to warm up our expressions so that as we move about our day we all look more pleasant and put out more positive vibes? Do we all realize how much the tiny nuances around us all affects each of us and how, cumulatively, we can change the course of thousands of people's days, which dominoes around the world and can change the course of civilization over time? I if look around and see grouchy faces all day or if I look around and see warmth and smiles... it makes a difference in my own mood.

Something that irks me - call it a pet peeve, if you will - is when I hear someone correlating caring about the feelings of others as everyone getting offended about everything… interestingly, I often hear the same people complain about feeling slighted right after they’ve complained about everyone else being easily offended. So what if we stop focusing on that negative angle and instead focus on doing unto others as we would have them do unto us? Because then we no longer think of being kind and considerate as being some sort of an imposition on ourselves and instead look at it as part of our humanly jobs while we are on this earth… because if we are to spend a certain amount of time being alive, why not make it a good time spent? And what feels better than caring about other people and having them care for us? And what if you don’t get back what you give? Don’t stop doing it. We can’t control what every single person does; but we can control what we do and how we react. You don't get a pass in life for being a jerk just because others are jerks... two wrongs don't make a right... right? And, besides, sometimes hurt people hurt people... and we can all do better to counter that rather than to perpetuate it.

Forget about what you can buy or what you can own and instead think about the richness of a life surrounded by a community that cares about each other… from the local level on out to the world level… one that appreciates and celebrates the differences among us, knowing that it gives us all more character and makes us all more interesting. Yes, we should care about the lives and circumstances of people who just happened to be born some place that doesn’t allow for them to live a safe life with the right to the pursuit of happiness. We should concern ourselves with them. Because we are a fortunate group of people born into our lives by mere randomness… and what if we were born into their circumstances and they into ours? How different would we view our responsibility? I hear people say after a terrible situation where someone is severely injured or dies “Oh but for the grace of God it could’ve been me” and I think what an awful way to look at it… it implies that God cared more for you than for the less fortunate person. And I’m not much of a religious person, but I know right from wrong. And I FEEL the difference deep into my cells. And I’m seeing a lot wrong with this world today… and part of what’s so sad about it all is that I grew up with this idealistic sense that as Americans we were making the world a better place… we weren’t perfect, but we were learning more and more over time and becoming a better group of people, and I really believed we all cared about the plight of people around the world. I remember people speaking of living in the likeness of Jesus, and I remember my perception of that message... the mental picture I had of, the man, Jesus. I barely recognize anything around me that resembles that picture today. Has the church stopped teaching that message since I last attended?

I felt then and I feel now that we need to also care more about individuals in our country who also are left out and forgotten and feel powerless to change their circumstances… they’re not powerless if we all rally around them and agree that we all will fight for equal opportunity and a fair system. There will be those who will not strive to help themselves, but they won’t be our focus… and they’re a tiny fraction of our population anyway. Most people want what most of us want. We are not so different despite what your preferred news source tells you. So our focus could be on supporting our brothers and sisters around this country and the world who are of the same vision… to work hard, play hard, and live a good and productive life. We could listen to them when they say there's a problem, particularly when we are hearing it from an entire segment of a population. We should want us all to NOT live in fear for our children’s safety as they learn to navigate life and understand how whatever the historical baggage they were handed at birth will affect them in ways they don’t yet understand… things that can hurt them and hold them back that don’t hurt or hold other kids back who weren’t born with the same disadvantages. We can eliminate those disadvantages. It doesn't have to be this way. My hispanic child, my friend's black child, your white child, their Asian, Middle Eastern, my cousin's gay child, your friend's transgender child... they can all start out with the same potential and the same zest for life, the same set of rules and guidelines and expectations. They don't have to learn that people might be afraid of you and hurt you, so you need to be more accommodating, more cautious, less... aggressive... than others...

There is a fungus growing right now that is seeping into these little facets of our daily lives that were previously filling in with a warm and and colorful, supple love, openness, understanding, acceptance, and appreciation for everything that makes us - and has the potential to make us - a truly great country. This fungus is beginning to look and feel more normal to a lot of people. It’s beginning to feel more like the kind of home only a previously small percentage of us seemed to want. I sometimes feel powerless to stop it. And then I have moments of clarity where I realize I cannot ever stop feeling my own power, my own ability to continue spreading kindness, love, and all the things I thought our country was made of. Often times I get a renewed strength from a friend who is not having the same sense of defeat that I am in a given moment. And sometimes we strengthen each other when we are both feeling defeated, and our fire shines brighter again. And if any of this resonates with any of you, please keep reminding yourself that we are not powerless. We can still move this country forward and put it back on track, and we can once again be a trusted light in the world… a beacon of hope to so many. “To whom much is given, much is expected.” And it should be.

So let’s go back to the first two paragraphs and agree to start small… because those things are BIG. And hopefully one day we will be able to look back at this dark moment in time and have come away with some lessons that will have propelled us forward because it lit a fire under previously content or unengaged group of folks who didn’t know our ideals were as fragile as they were or who didn’t realize they as individuals were as powerful as they learned they could be. People, like myself, who looked back at events like the fighting in the Middle East, the holocaust in Europe, the genocide in Africa with a judgmental eye, wondering how in the world people can ever get to a place where they are capable of such madness and who never in a million years thought this would be our own current landscape... one that looks like a smoldering fire that at any moment could find a gas leak that causes an explosion... and we could find ourselves in the midst of what could one day be looked back on as a horrific historical event.

We who see the good and the potential in the world truly are the majority; we just have to step up ALL TOGETHER and prove it or else our voices don’t count and our good intentions are wasted. And our children's future world will reflect those consequences. We are our brothers' keeper... and that's not limited to blood.
​

So here I was in the driveway getting my stuff out of my car after pulling in a minute before. I had planned to spend the rest of the work day in my home office, catching up on emails, technical research, and month end reporting. I was mentally focused on prioritizing what I needed to get done when I overheard Jose speaking to someone in Spanish. He had been working upstairs today instead of going to the office since he wasn’t feeling too well. Now he was standing outside talking to an elderly man about a stone and brick wall we have that has been damaged and needed repairs… it’s been on our call-someone list for a while now. It seems this guy was doing some work at a neighbor’s house and saw the broken bricks and lighting fixture, and then he saw Jose in the garage and walked over to see if he might be interested in getting that taken care of. If you don't know, I LOVE hearing Jose speak Spanish… like, it’s in my top 10 favorite things. It is probably for the same reason I was so in love with my first “official” boyfriend, Alex, in 1st grade. Oh, it made me plain giddy to know I was a future member of his family. I remember going to his birthday party at his house and hearing nothing but Spanish in the kitchen and living room; I SO wanted to make a good impression on my future in-laws. I was fascinated. And smitten. Everyone has their things that they’re attracted to in a person… a type or whatever. A dark-complected person with a kind disposition that speaks a latin language has, from time to time, made me weak in the knees... starting at the age of 6. There, I said it.

So I went from work on the brain to major crush on the brain (for Jose, that is… not Alex), to… something else. Something that grabbed my heart and squeezed. I waited for the stranger and Jose to finish negotiating the time he would return and the amount it would cost, and when the stranger finally looked at me, I smiled. And then I went into the house, went into the bathroom, closed the doors, and balled my eyes out. How stupid I felt knowing that if Jose were to walk up on me right now with my swollen, blotchy face and, with sincere concern in his eyes, were to ask me what in the world is wrong, I would have to tell him that I’m crying because of that old man he was talking to outside. Best to compose myself now and then later try to explain without bursting back into an all out ugly cry that I saw my Papa Driver in him... I saw a kindness, soft, non-wavering eyes, a wisdom, a talent for seeing a problem and knowing the solution… the solution would be accomplished with his very own hands doing work he has possibly spent his life doing. I wondered if he has ever been underestimated during his life by people who didn’t know him due to humble or meager means but knowing things others can’t even be taught because it takes a lifetime of experience to achieve it. I remember my Papa, the sound of his saw in the basement of their house, the smell of sawdust, the way my feet would be covered in it if I went to the basement to watch him, the deafening sound of the screeching of blades against wooden slabs.  I remember his brown, sun-soaked hands, strong and capable, his tattoos muddled and faded and sometimes hard to make out. I remember his ink pens in his shirt pocket, and I can still remember exactly what they looked and felt like… there were small, black and smooth ones with silver clips on them that slid over his shirt pockets to keep them in place. And he had one that was silver also. I remember his worn out black shoes that he wore every day. I remember watching him talk to people he did work for and saw his sincere eyes, his warm smile, the tenderness and wisdom in his raspy voice, the confidence in knowing how to do a job, his loose fitting pants that hung on him, and, but for the integrity of his belt, would have easily fallen to the floor. I remember his full head of hair falling into his face as he would pull long pieces of wood from the bed of his truck, and I can see him even now grabbing it and slicking it back over his head thanks to the grip of the pomade he called Dippity Doo that he used in the mornings. I don’t know all of these details about this old man speaking Spanish with Jose, but I see a familiarity in his eyes, his expression, his mannerisms, and the texture of his voice, and I see my Papa’s aura, and I feel his presence, and I miss him intensely in this moment. And I know that others know the details about this man that will stay with them long after he is gone. They will miss him and all of his ways and they will think about all the conversations they wish they could still have the way I wish for them with my Papa, particularly now that I’m old enough to really appreciate and make better use of them. 

And thinking about all of this makes me think about how I remember my Papa and who he was to *me*, viewing him through the eyes of a granddaughter, and I also think more and more about who he REALLY was… who he was to himself… his own passions and dreams, what he may have wished for that he never achieved, I wondered about his disappointments and what all in his life didn’t pan out the way he’d planned. He was a WWII Navy vet, afterwards, he married my Grandma, they had 6 kids, his career was a self-employed carpenter, and he was a good cook. But what else was he and what else had he wanted in life? What did he aspire to be when he was a kid? His own father had been missing from his life for many years, seemingly disappearing from the face of the earth when he was young. He grew up with his mother and 2 sisters, and I still have very vivid memories of my great grandmother; I will never see a rose shaped soap without remembering her not-to-be-used, decorative soaps that I can still smell as I type this, a small table with 2 chairs without remembering sitting across from her at her own tiny table as she buttered a piece of toast and spread a thin layer of jelly on it for me, or paper thin skin without remembering the deep bruising of hers in the hospital after her stroke. I wonder what kind of mom she was raising 3 kids on her own… her husband disappeared… what kind of worries and stresses must she have had? And how did all of that leave its mark on my Papa? Are some of these things the reasons he had a propensity to drink? I remember Beer:30 starting in the early evening, and it was just him, a 6 pack, and a salt shaker at the table. Some of my favorite memories of conversations with him occurred with him sitting there with salt on his nose and my grandma counting the minutes between each can of beer. And then he would walk back to his room, singing, and fall asleep in his boxers.

And now this man who will return at 4pm today to do this repair. What is his story? Where is his family? Does his heart ache because they’re far apart or is his heart full because he goes home to them every night? Does he have kids and grand kids? Does his body ache when he finishes his work for the day and do people who hire him treat him with respect and appreciate how much more he knows about their project than they do? Is he doing what he always wanted to do or is he doing what he has to do to survive and provide for his family? What were his hopes and dreams when he was a kid? Do we all wonder about these things when someone we loved seems to show a glimpse of their soul through another person we have never met? Or... maybe it’s just me. Overthinking me.

Before I walked into the house stifling tears as hard as I could, I told Jose, “He is a good person with a good heart. I’m glad he found us.” And the rest… well, it’s right here in this journal entry that I had to stop and immediately type in order to clear my head and get back to work.

As a mom to 4 little boys, I am use to using all of my senses pretty much all the time. This means I can be actively stocking my Amazon Prime cart while listening for the laundry to click off, dishwasher to move into the drying cycle, dog to be walking in a way that lets me know he needs to pee, and still being fully aware of which kid is doing what, including knowing which boy just had the nerve to walk out of the bathroom without a single noise indicating putting the lid down, flushing, washing his hands, turning off the light, or shutting the door all by the sound of his footsteps. It’s worth noting that we have been practicing these steps practically since they were in the womb. 


This afternoon as I was busy editing photographs, I heard Dominic say he was going to make Daddy some lunch. Jose had been upstairs in our room working the entire day... laser focused on the two huge monitors covered in pivot tables and doing various nerdy accounting tasks... I'm assuming they involved coming up with the world's longest formula for a single column or something like that.

​I was hoping when Dominic finished up his plate that Jose would be at a good stopping point to be able to really see what he and Javi had prepared for him. I was hoping this because I sat there busily working on my own task while surreptitiously watching from the side of my Mac screen as Dominic surveyed the contents of the refrigerator before pulling out a container of cooked ground beef that was leftover from a meal I’d made the night before. He gets a spoon as he says to himself out loud, “First, I’ll give Daddy some meat.” He dishes out a spoonful and then puts the lid back on the container and goes back to the fridge, grabbing a container of left-over edamame. He gives Jose a spoonful of that and then returns from the fridge a few seconds later with a container of what I know to be some VERY old lettuce. He says, “Daddy needs some salad”, and opens it up. I debate what to do but when I see he has somehow not noticed the brown slime on the lid I tell him that lettuce isn’t good anymore and he should probably not put that on the plate. He looks more closely and agrees - but only after he starts to taste it for verification before thinking better of it. He goes to the fridge and grabs a bag of shredded carrots instead and pours some of it next to the edamame. He looks around the kitchen and says, “Oh! I know what else I can give Daddy. I’ll give him some dessert.” And so he grabs a square of brownie from the container on the counter, and places it between the carrots and the cold ground beef. He looks around again and decides that Daddy probably needs a sandwich too, and so I watch as he grabs the peanut butter and jelly from the fridge. He gets two slices of bread, including the butt for one side, and he puts the sandwich together. It was during this time that I somehow missed him grabbing the blue cheese from the drawer and cutting out chunks of it. But I did see him haphazardly sprinkling hot sauce all over the plate, because “Daddy loves the hottest hot sauce on everything. He is going to LOVE this.” As Dominic was looking at his plate, he apparently decided it was missing something. Back to the fridge he went, out came the cilantro, the edamame was generously garnished, and seconds later, the plate was ready. Javi, meanwhile, has been busy grabbing a can of coconut water and writing a note to put with the lunch, declaring that “Daddy is going to think we are the best lunch makers in the whole world!” I take a picture of them on their way up to deliver their special, homemade dish, and then…  I listen.


As I’m sitting there hoping Jose isn’t on the phone and doesn’t shush them back out the door, he does the opposite and welcomes them right in. He is happy and excited and loves EVERYTHING on the plate, especially the presentation. Javi excitedly comes back downstairs a few minutes later and tells me that he is so happy, that daddy said the most special words to him, and that Daddy just filled his bucket right up to the top. I’m trying not to laugh at his enthusiasm, knowing this is a really happy moment for him.  Not long after, I hear Jose coming out of the room and in front of him is Dominic’s quicker footsteps. I hear Jose ask him, “What was that in the middle of my sandwich?” And Dominic answers, “That was the secret cheese I put in there.” Jose goes, “Oh, well, I think my favorite part of the lunch was the blue cheese and hot sauce in my peanut butter & jelly sandwich. I’ve never had it that way before.” And Dominic comes practically skipping down the steps and into the kitchen telling me how much Daddy loved their lunch. And all I can think is how glad I am that they made HIS lunch today and not mine. And I’m also thinking about how Jose has shown once again what a great dad he is and my boys feel SO LOVED.

It was about this time of night 8 years ago... I was still working on my endless to do list and had an appt to check into the maternity ward at the hospital at 5:30am the next morning. I kept thinking about how my midwife told me over and over to get a good night's sleep because the next day could be a long one. We were inducing the twins because they were overdue and didn't seem to have any plans to come on their own. I wasn't dilating - at all. But I had this list, all these unfinished things, and I still had my Type A personality with no other babies yet to care for that kept driving me to finish every last thing I could.  I also had this total fatigue with which to contend, but I was squeezing every last drop of the adrenaline I was feeling over the impending, all-consuming life change that was hours away from me. To do justice to the feelings and the worries I had about going to the hospital with the babies in my belly and leaving with those babies in my arms... it's just next to impossible to describe. I was excited, yes, so excited. I was terrified, yes, to my core. Could I do this? Could I give everything that my babies needed? How? Two of them? At the same time? Could I function on months of no sleep? Would I get the hang of nursing them both at the same time? What if one or both had colic? What if I never got them on the same sleep schedule? What if they were always miserable because I wasn't doing a good enough job? What if they cried all the time because I wasn't capable? What if I inadvertently gave one more attention than the other?


Rewind to a couple months prior... discussing birth plans with my midwife. She's telling me about the risks of trying to deliver twins naturally but leaves it to me to decide whether I wanted to try or just schedule a c-section. I'm being respectful and letting her finish, but I'm having none of it. I waited 35 years to have these babies, and I was having them naturally. Somehow it would work out. I didn't even have a real reason why I was so set on this, but I just set out from day 1 of my pregnancy after a successful IVF attempt to try to do everything as naturally as possible. I was still having to do daily injections to ensure my body would maintain the pregnancy, and there was no way I would mess with that. But I had so many worries after years of infertility and after being labeled high risk by my obgyn that I would miscarry these babies that we wanted so badly that I just went straight and narrow, not knowing how else to deal with my fears. I stopped consuming caffeine, I refused things that had anything artificial in them, I would not have taken any medication if not for my inability to function without Zofran... man, I was so sick. And when it came time to discuss the birth plan, I knew my babies were both head down, and there was really no need to discuss any other means of delivering them. My midwife told me we would continue to watch them and their movements and she would support this birth plan as long as all continued to look good.


Long story short... just kidding, it's still long..., I checked into the hospital the day we were scheduled for induction, because, for being a high-risk, advanced-maternal-aged mother-to-be of twins, my biggest fear of the boys coming too early ended up being the last thing I needed to worry about.  Here I was past my due date, as wide as I was tall (or at least it felt like it), I hadn't seen the bones in my face, legs, or feet for months, and I hadn't had so much as a contraction, so much as a centimeter of dilation, nothing. So they started the Pitocin. And 14 hours later, after hours and hours of contractions, after the midwife finally broke my water, I was finally starting to dilate. Push time was coming.


Since I hadn't had any experience giving birth before, I didn't realize then that everything I was about to endure giving birth to the twins was not the norm. It was a good thing for me to think that it was all par for the course, because had I had an easier delivery as I did a year and a half later with Adrian, I might have wanted to just wave my white flag and give up. But I hung in there, pushing over and over, nearly delivering Javi so many times only for him to go right back in with all progress lost. And then Dominic's heart rate started getting concerning, and at that point, my midwife looked at me and started explaining what was happening and I knew by her eyes and tone of voice that my birth plan was no longer the plan. And I didn't argue. I just wanted my babies out safely. And then the needle in my spine was migrating. And then I had to have a spinal tap. And then I felt I was suffocating to death because the spinal was so high. And then I was hemorrhaging. But the boys were born and were perfect. I was so grateful.


Fast forward to the morning after the boys were finally born just after 10pm, and you'd see what I see when I cringe looking at pics of me from that day... with a broken vein in one eye and broken blood vessels all over my face, the ringing and echoing in my head caused by the blood loss giving me a loopy expression, my messy hair still matted from when I vomited all over the place... I was a mess.  But these boys, my excitement, my fear, my feelings of ineptness, my obsessive need to do right by them, to do the best for them, to love them and give them everything they needed if it killed me... they made everything else go by the wayside. I didn't care how I looked or felt. I didn't care if I slept or ate. I just needed to know every second that they were ok. I marveled at seeing Jose Rendon with them. Veronica was already 9 when I'd met her. I hadn't seen him be a father to a newborn before. My heart was so full I was sure it would burst. 


And honestly, not much has changed since then. Gradually I was able to get myself together again as moms all try to do... some do it better than others. Most seem to do it better - or at least more quickly - than me. But I still have the distraction of needing my kids to be ok more than I have the need to be pretty or well rested or well fed. On the other hand, I feel like I'm staring at the next challenge more and more closely in the face with each year that passes... it's that need they'll have for me to start letting go of the reins some. To let them make more decisions (and more mistakes), to let them be more independent (but be close by when they fall), to let them stretch (without telling them *how*). And I tell myself I have to face these years with patience and grace, the former not a strength of mine despite all my desires and efforts. But I have to dig deep and find those qualities in me anyway, because 8 years have already passed. And in just 10 more, they'll be high school seniors. It'll be a blink to me, but it'll be their entire childhood memories, and it'll be their foundation for adulthood, the basis for nostalgic experiences later. So as I do every night before their birthday, I resolve to be the best mom I can be this next year... may I make fewer mistakes, be more patient, keep the good things, show all the love and grace I can, teach them to love and show grace back, continue to learn from them, as they teach me every day also. And I still worry whether or not I am enough, whether I'm capable, whether I'm leaving them with unfulfilled needs. But these last 8 years have shown me that, while I'm not perfect and I fall short every day, I am capable of giving them what they need... it's the figuring out what they each need as individuals that's the toughest. I hope to look back on these years one day and see that I met the challenge well and that, at a minimum, they know and feel how fiercely they've been loved. Happy 8th Birthday to my first born boys who turned an already over-thinker into this thing I am today. I'm so lucky to be their mommy.

There have been profound moments in my life where I have learned something I didn’t previously know that made me realize just how much I didn’t know… about this world, about life experiences beyond my comprehension, and about the sort of weight that some people carry silently. And just because there are people walking around that don’t know something of that experience doesn’t make the weight any less heavy, any less painful, any less life altering for the individual who doesn’t have the benefit of not knowing. 

Tonight I watched First They Killed My Father; it came up in the suggestions on my Netflix account.  Now I should preface that despite my love of history and my decent knowledge of the Vietnam War, I’m the first to admit that I’m no expert on the why’s, hows’s, and when’s of certain historical events of war. Jose knows so much about… well, so much, that I find myself often wondering how he fits so much information in his noggin.  We regularly have conversations where I’ll bring something up, and then he responds with details and a story and timeline… it’s baffling. 

So, anyway, almost 12 years ago now, Jose and I were recruited to this company in San Diego and made the move from Denver in January 2006. One of the friends we met out there was originally from Cambodia. He worked in Accounting with Jose, and he sort of had this mystery about him. There was an openness about him and yet a deep privateness about him. I’m not one to ask questions of people even when I’m dying to know their story, because I never want to intrude; you just never know how someone’s pain is triggered. I knew his age, I knew where he was from, and I knew he wasn’t there anymore. But there came a day that has stuck with Jose and I both. It was when this friend commented that he hated Nixon because Nixon bombed his village. It was the first personal thing he had ever said to us. From there, we learned that this friend lost loved ones and neighbors, and he came to the US as a little boy of 8 years old… a refugee. I felt after that conversation that I knew enough about him to know what his story probably was. It wasn’t until tonight that I saw his story play out on my laptop screen through the eyes of a child… the main character of this film… that I realized how shallow my “insight” had been. I realized that I had thought of his memories as playing out through an adult’s mind, which is a terrible thing to be sure, but this friend sees those events through the eyes of a little boy…a little boy the same age as my little boys. And that’s just… there aren’t words for that.

If I could see this friend again, I might not say a word. I might just walk up to him and hug him as hard as I can for as long as he’d let me. I actually hate that I didn’t realize the obvious when he told the story. I’m not sure how I reacted when he told it. Did I say I’m sorry? How small do those words seem to me now that I’m thinking about this through a different set of lenses? But what can you say about something so atrocious that should never ever happen to anybody? I mean we are all human beings, and it’s difficult to fathom how there can be one person this evil, let alone so many that the ultimate domino effect can occur, causing people who might never have become monsters… to become monsters. And these sufferings were not isolated to the Cambodians who were a neutral country and bombed anyway with children torn from their parents, spouses torn from each other. They are happening today in other countries; we have seen footage on our own tv screens. Most of us have seen that precious boy who was pulled from the Aleppo carnage and sat in an ambulance covered in blood, soot, and dust. There are thousands like him. And what must it be like for each of them now and in the future? Where do they go to survive? What additional atrocities happen to them as they try to escape and survive? How do these babies grow up and live with these memories?

I hope everyone will watch First They Killed My Father. It’s a film based on the book written by the little girl when she’s grown. She represents to me someone who my friend in San Diego can identify with… someone who is telling a story that everyone should see and do everything possible to not allow to repeat. It’s too easy with distance to think that some people are just expendable if your definition of the greater good allows for it. And then you see something like this, and, I have to tell you, none of the people in this film seemed expendable to me. See what you think. Watch this film.
​
#firsttheykilledmyfather #cambodiabombings #vietnamwar #loungung
www.loungung.com/

I hear the call that tells me all I need to know just by the mere tone and cadence of my name: "Mooooooom-Meeeeeee!" It's Adrian, and he's in the bathroom, seemingly finished doing his business. I know he is calling for my assistance, as I am still 8 months away from having only one remaining kid's butt to wipe, given our long standing, child-instituted rule that the parental duty is required until the age of 7.

I'm actually reading something at the kitchen counter, so I let him call me a couple more times in order to finish the article and also because Adrian tends to not always be finished when he calls me, causing me to waste a trip about half the time. He calls me again and elaborates a little more each time: "Mooooom - Meeeeeee! I'm done!" Pause. "Well, I'm not really done, but I'm kind of done." Pause. "Well, I'm done for now. I'm going to save the rest for later." Pause. "So can you please come here now?"

I head to the bathroom, his line about "I'm going to save the rest for later" still rolling around in my head. That's a new one, I think.

I get in there, and I notice that there's just a tiny bit in the toilet, so I ask him why so little to which he responds that he needed to flush earlier because the toilet was filling up. What is he, I think, a horse? It was a double-flusher, and he's still holding onto some for later? 

Later, Jose and I are really hungry for fajitas, but neither of us has the ambition to cook tonight, so we decide to take the boys and go grab some dinner somewhere. As per usual, about midway through the meal, Adrian announces he has to poop and asks me to take him - there's "the rest" he was saving for later, I suppose. He tells me, "It's going to be a while, Mommy." I stand outside the stall and wait with another mom whose child is also taking a mid-dinner crap, and it feels a little like how the dads who stand nearby holding shopping bags while their wives are in the changing room must feel, except that no one will be calling them in momentarily to do something below their pay grade like with the moms.  

After what feels like ages since we got to the restroom, Adrian finally calls out that familiar jingle, "Mooooom-Meeeee! I'm dooooonnnne!" Afterwards, he tells me with amazement in his voice that when I have to come in there with Daddy instead of him, it must be a really tight fit. I assure him that Daddy wipes his own butt, so we haven't had that problem. 

We walk out and other moms with kids in hand have accumulated, waiting for their turn, grinning. While we wash our hands, Adrian tells me very matter of factly, "Mommy, I like it better when you take me to the bathroom instead of Daddy. I don't like going in the girls bathroom, but you wipe my butt better. Daddy does it too hard. I like how you're gentle." He tips his head down and purses his lips to make his point. As we walk past the other moms on our way out the door, I could swear we all make a realization together in that very moment: We have all been doing TOO GOOD of a job. Maybe if we weren't such awesome butt wipers, we'd be eating our dinners while the Dads stood in the bathroom making small talk with a youngin' in an enclosed, not-well-ventilated space, asking him between grunts and groans if he's almost finished as they picture their dinners on the table where they left them. Hours later, I still feel a kinship with those ladies and am wondering if they're thinking the same as I:  Must work on this. :)~

#Comewipemybutt #buttwipingchronicles #Mommysdoitbetter #Awinforthedads

“Remember that time you got soap in your eyes, and you couldn’t stop crying, Mommy?” Javier asks me from time to time. “Yeah, Mommy, that’s why you can never get that kind of soap in your face, because when it gets into your eyes, it hurts SO bad that even mommies cry,” adds Dominic.

You would have turned 26 years old today. I think about you all the time. I see pictures and posts from your friends, and I see how they’re growing up, faces gradually aging in all the best ways… losing the rest of their childlike features and gaining the fine lines that come with growth, knowledge, wisdom, experience, and years gone by. Even though you feel awfully grown up when you’re 19, 20, 21… later, when you’re in your 40’s, you look back and think, “we were still just babies!” You really had the whole world in front of you, overflowing with endless possibilities. I remember so well the conflicting feelings I had about loving everything about you, your happy energy, your determination, your dreams… your boundless potential. And those things were also the reason we would only have you with us temporarily - because college and a career and marriage and family were calling for you… all in due time, though. 
The first day you got here, I was both thrilled that you were so wonderful and sad that one day you would leave us. A new mom’s biggest, most all-consuming worries lie with entrusting the wellbeing of her babies with someone else.  I had always imagined myself as a stay-at-home mom. Jose and I had even talked from early on that I planned to stay home those first years. When circumstances were such that it wasn’t a possibility, it felt utterly impossible to me to leave them with anyone. And yet we did. And I eventually realized that there were others out there who could love your kids well enough to give you peace of mind even if your first choice would be to be there yourself. We had someone help us care for the twins in our home when I returned to work, and when Adrian arrived, we had another gal for a few months until we could decide on the au pair option. We cared and still care for both of those ladies; they forever left their imprints here, and the gratitude we feel for the love they showed our baby boys is infinite. But… it was time for change. And we decided to go ahead and take that leap…
I remember like it just happened… the first moment I saw your face on Skype. Your nephew, Paulo, was little and in and out of view of the camera, and I could see right away that you loved him and he you. I had read everything you’d written about the reason you wanted to be an au pair, the kind of person you saw yourself as being, and the kind of family you were hoping to find. Before I actually talked to you face to face, I knew that everything about your profile was a winner to me. But we had read a lot of profiles and interviewed a lot of potential au pairs on Skype only to realize that, beyond the printed words on the screen, the appeal was lost. People can write about wonderful characters, and maybe they see themselves in that way or maybe it’s who they want to be. In you, we found someone who knew herself and had described the very person I sat across from behind my keyboard. How refreshing was that… and with it, I felt an instant trust in you that you were genuine and loving and could be the perfect match for our family. But would you love us back? Were we what YOU were looking for? I hoped so. I wanted us to make you happy too.
You arrived at DFW, and I picked you up holding a sign so you’d know it was me. Sometimes people look different in person than behind a laptop screen, but neither of us had a problem finding each other. On the way home, we talked about your flight, your favorite things, music - I told you we didn’t play a lot of your beloved Banda in our house… lol. I loved your nervous laugh, the deep dimples in your cheeks, and I was fascinated by your golden-flecked eyes. You were warm and open. You were 19 years old, you would be turning 20 years old soon, and you were going to be taking care of my twin boys who were not even 2 years old yet and my 4 month old boy. That’s a lot even for parents to manage. I wondered if such a young person could handle all the responsibilities. But you did, and you did it brilliantly. The boys were happy, they were always making creative things, playing fun games, learning new songs, and posing for lots and lots of pictures. And if all that wasn’t enough, you helped bring an order to our lives that we otherwise couldn’t seem to maintain on our own once the boys had come along. And anyone who knows me pre-baby knows that I am a Type A, everything has its place, everything needs to be in order, sort of person. Post-baby, I could only dream of keeping up. I’d come home to an empty sink, clean counter tops, clean, happy babies, an organized craft drawer and book shelves, and lots of love and laughter in the air. Sometimes, even now, I’ll be sitting in my office at the front of the house, and I almost think I can still hear your loud, loving, jovial voice saying, “Que guapooooooo!” while one of the boys shows you their latest costume creation. 
You missed your mom. So much. There were times in the beginning when you used up all of your smiles and laughter around us and then retreated to your room to allow yourself time to feel your sadness over your homesick heart. You talked to your mom, niece, nephew, friends, etc. on Skype, and I tried to remember to hug you often to give you some of the maternal attention I knew you missed. You spoke often of your mom, your sisters, your dad and your best friend CuCu… I often waved at them while preparing dinner while you guys chatted away in the kitchen via your laptop. It was truly a wonderful time for us. There was happiness, and harmony; you calmed the parts of me that were prone to overwhelmedness with a full time job, 3 little boys, and a home to take care of. You and Jose talked about your favorite recipes, and you both liked to impress the other with your homemade Mexican dishes. You were close in age to Veronica and to our boys’ nurse (“Roop” to them,Ruth to you), and I loved seeing you develop relationships that would give you roots here and fill some of the gap between what you missed back home in Hermosillo and the new journey you had chosen for yourself here. Not everything was perfect for you, but you had the most positive outlook and the most open heart, and those things carried you through your first Christmas away from your family and the sadness you felt not being able to hug and play with your niece and nephew every day.
I loved the pictures and text messages you would send me throughout the day, every day. I felt like I was there even though I wasn’t, and you seemed to just know that if I was missing something in person that I should see it anyway. I loved you for it. I loved you more and more each day. You were never just an au pair to our family. You were family. You had a real mom and dad and sisters that you belonged to. But you were also mine in some way that I still can’t articulate. 
You were taken away 4 years and 2 months ago by the person who was suppose to love you, the person you met when you were here in Dallas, the person who had spent many hours in my house with you and our family during holidays, dinners, and game nights, the person we were all embracing because YOU loved him… and my heart shattered into a million pieces. I remember the phone call, but the memory of the words I heard are a jumbled, hazy, mess. I was confused, and then I was sobbing on my knees. I remember trying to breathe and stifle my cries because Jose was in the bathroom helping the older 3 brush their teeth, while I had just gotten 1 month old Santiago to sleep in my arms. I felt and thought so many things all at once, that it’s difficult to even sort them out and write about them here. I found myself immediately trying to trace back to the last time we had spoken, emailed or texted each other, and I realized at some point to my horror that in the month after Santi’s birth, we had just exchanged comments on Facebook a few times under a picture of the boys. Guilt over that nearly drowned me for the first couple years, and even now it is my biggest regret. Time moves so quickly, and, even though we know we must always reach out to those we love and stay close, sometimes things happen that swoop us up into the fray and we lose track of time. You had just died a horrible death, and, while I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking of the distress you must have felt going through that alone with no one to help you, I also couldn’t believe that I had not recently phone you to say I love you. With time, I know you weren’t thinking of that and you know you were loved. But I still wish we could have had one really long conversation before you left this earth and that it might have occurred to me to tell you everything I would tell you if I could see you one more time today.
As often as I think of you, I think of your mom, your dad, your sisters, your niece and nephew, your many, many friends… The ones who had you for many years longer than we did. How engulfing must this loss have been on them? As much as it continues to pull at my heart, how many millions more times is that weight for them? I remember in the days, weeks, and months after your life was taken I just would not have the will to even get out of the car when I’d arrive to my parking spot. And I would just sit there and cry all over again. I would walk up and down the aisles of a store, feeling empty and in a fog with the heaviest weight on my chest and shoulders. How did your loved ones even cope? We were so far away… in separate countries. It seemed so unfair to not be able to go to your mother and hug her… to tell her in person how much we love you, what a wonderful person she raised, and to try to do… something… anything… to ease her pain if only for a moment. Every second I ached… I couldn’t imagine how everyone else who loved you could possibly be feeling. I finally reached a point where every time I started to feel that searing pain, I would tell myself that you were fine; you were in Hermosillo with your family, you were in college, etc. I felt guilty again thinking that we were fortunate to be able to pretend that you were just back at home with your family. Your family didn’t have that luxury. They had to miss your presence every second, minute, day, week, month, and year.
In those first few months, I would have dreams about you, that you were here again. Jose had them too. We talked about them. It felt like you were trying to provide comfort to us, and, even if the reality is that it was only our minds trying to protect us, I still don’t mind feeling like it was really you caring for us. I remember going to sleep stifling sobs, and I would be so desperate to see you in my dreams again. Over the years, I’ve seen you less and less in my dreams, but I still hope for it to happen again and again. I tell myself, you’re doing fine. You’re living your life. You’re 26 years old. You’re an official grown up now. But I know the truth. I don’t see you in my IG feed or my FB feed. I don’t get text messages from you. You are eternally 21 years old in pictures. I will have to imagine you at 30, 40, 50, and beyond. I will have to imagine you with your own children; I know the amazing kind of mother you’d be.
I always swore that our boys would know who you were growing up. That, even though they were so young when you passed, and they would not be able to hang onto memories of their time with you, they would see you in frames on our wall, and they would still see the things you made for them and for us, and they would always know who Priscilla is. To this day, they do not know that you aren’t alive, that you’re not just back home in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico living your life. I could not look at my twin 3 1/2 and 2 year old boys and find words to explain something like that. So when they saw me falling apart despite my best effort to show some semblance of composure, I told them I got soap in my eyes. They wanted to know more, so I showed them the soap near the sink of our bar upstairs, and I showed them how, when you press the foam out, bubbles fly into the air, and those bubbles got into my eyes. And they burned worse than any burn I’d ever felt. The boys have never used that soap; I suppose they don’t want to suffer the same fate lest some floating bubbles fly into their own eyes.
On this, what would be your 26th birthday, I just want to say again that we loved you then, we love you now, and we will love you forever. I got soap in my eyes again, so I’m going to picture you at a party with your favorite Banda in the background. You’re surrounded by friends and family, and you’re posing for pictures. And later on, you’re going to text me a story about something funny that happened, and I’m going to picture you laughing with your deep dimples in your cheeks, and your noise crinkled at the top.  And I’ll tell you, I love you, and I’m so proud of you. You’ve grown into such a amazing woman, and I’m so happy I get to be a part of your life. 

I spent today a bit like a zombie, which is not altogether different from much of the past 8 years, I know, but spending 2 1/2 - 3 hours up with Adrian last night was a reminder of how far we have actually come in being fairly confident in getting a full night’s sleep. After all, we haven’t had a night like that in quite awhile, and it use to be the norm since we somehow gave birth to a bunch of kids that didn’t sleep through the night until they were 3 years old.  What am I saying? At 4 years of age, Santi STILL wakes up every night, but he is polite enough to just slide into bed with us instead of scaring the life out of us the way Adrian did every night, announcing his presence a mere 3 millimeters from our faces with his creepy middle-of-the-night raspy voice and flashlight lighting up his face from under his chin. 

Anyway, a day after Adrian had the appendix scare, he added an ear infection to his list of ailments. All of our kids have had ear infections at one time or another, and this is especially true in the summer time since they spend so much time swimming. This one has been particularly painful for him, though, causing him to writhe in pain for up to 2 hours at a time in between when his pain med is wearing off and when they actually kick in after being administered. It’s actually heart wrenching, because Jose and I were both doing whatever we could to make him comfortable, but there are times when you just can’t do anything to make the hurt go away, so you just hold their hand, rub their back, and acknowledge their pain each and every time they remind you. We reached a point with him at around 3:30 or 4am where a combination of pain and delirium seemed to kick in, and he was just plain emotional. It was reminiscent of the good ol’ days of late nights with girlfriends when the party is over and you’ve all spent many hours overindulging, and there’s always one that either gets philosophical about life or just gets weepy about random, silly things that seem so very important in the moment. Such was the case when, in between sobs of pain and - something new - hurt feelings?… Adrian asked me, “Mommy…(sob) where are (hiccup)… the kittens? And why (hiccup)… don’t they (sniff)… want… (sniff) to come (hiccup)… check on me? (SOB)  Because (sniff)…  (cue high pitched voice) I’m feeling… (throaty sounds) so so so (sniff)… BAD (sob)… and I need (hiccup)… some kittens (sniff)… to pet (sob)… (cue high pitched voice) WHY????” I mean, the mother hen in me wanted to go on a cat finding mission and come back with an armload of cats to be his hero, to distract him from his misery, to make him feel better… BUT… it was fricken 3:30 in the morning, and this had been going on for a good hour. I really just didn’t have the cat finding energy in me. I’ll say this - Tobey, our nearly 14 year old ginger cat, Old Faithful is what he is. Almost on cue, he came in and was right there. He was lying in between Adrian and me looking for any and every opportunity to rub his toothless mouth across our faces, leaving a snail trail of slobber… it’s not my favorite thing, but he came to the rescue and cuddled my boy, purring loudly, so I’ll cut him some slack. I thought he had soothed Adrian right to sleep when suddenly Adrian called my name through a yawn. When I answered he asked, “How do vampires run so fast?” If I didn’t feel like going on a scavenger hunt for cats, I definitely didn’t feel like thinking hard enough to discuss vampire skills. Luckily I didn’t have to… moments later I heard his sweet little snores alternating with Tobey’s purrs. 

So in between all my yawns and busy work schedule today, I reminded myself that I’m pretty lucky these days to get more sleep than I have in many years, and I felt satisfied having had some one-on-one time with our 6 year old when he really needed it - even if it was not an ideal time of day. And, let’s face it, one-on-one time with 4 little kids is an ongoing life goal. It makes you really think (ok obsess) about how you’ve spent your time and what one-on-one opportunities you squeezed in, and how you can squeeze in more. I’ve even caught myself missing the days of finding Adrian right in my face, in the middle of the night, scratchily whispering, “Mommmmmyyyyy”, because I know from his perspective, he woke up in the dark and made his way to his Mommy’s side of the bed, anticipating his arrival with every step illuminated by his little Lightning McQueen flashlight, and he was experiencing what it must feel like to get to your destination and have your Mommy pick you up and roll you over with her so that you’re in the middle of your parents, your safest space, and to fall back asleep in that cozy zone, its own little one-on-one time. He doesn’t do that anymore, so last night felt sort of like a privilege. If there’s any positive aspect to your kids being sick, it’s this. And I’ll file last night under another cherished experience… with some entertaining, drunk-like conversation. Tonight… hopefully we sleep.
​

I'm a people watcher. Like many of my other people watching friends, I never made a conscience decision to be one; I just am and always have been. I find people interesting, I enjoy seeing commonness and uniqueness among my fellow humans, and I always see something endearing and funny that helps compensate for the occasional jerk behavior I also see.  Something particularly noteworthy to me is when I see all the elements of a story while noticing someone who is part of the story only seeing a piece of it. There's sometimes this unknowing, when something bigger, sadder or funnier is happening right under their nose and yet, through no fault of their own, they happen to miss it. It makes me wonder what I've missed that others have seen from a distance... on occasion someone has approached me to tell me about an entire scene from my brood that I missed. I love when this happens - if you see something funny that I missed, please rush over to tell me! It IS kind of ironic that I ended up having so many kids, because my unchosen hobby comes in handy since I'm a silent observer to many entertaining situations on a daily basis just among my own household.

For instance...

Today Jose is cleaning out the garage, going in and out of the door, clearly on a mission. As he comes in and goes out, I hear him talking to the boys... whichever one happens to be in his path during any given trip. They're just clipped conversations since Jose isn't slowing down but is taking care of "dad business" as he goes... "hey, stop that", "what are you doing?", "put that where it goes, please" and so on and so forth.

I have just picked up my phone and taken a picture of Adrian in the laundry room with a bunch of kittens lying in a basket of dirty towels. He is covering each of their bodies with additional towels to "make them comfy". They're happy as clams with clearly nowhere to be. I put my phone down and get my next armload of dirty clothes from suitcases we took on our vacation and, after moving wet blankets to the dryer, I start to put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. I hear Santi come up behind me, and, standing at the baby gate, he says, "Awww da titties (the kitties) are toe tiute (so cute)!" Adrian says, "You want one? Or do you want SOME?" Santi tells him he wants one. Adrian explains, "Well, they're for sale. One is 25 cents. That's one quarter, Santi." Santi says he wants to buy more than one, to which Adrian replies, "Three of them are 3 quarters and two of them are 2 quarters." I can't help but notice that he didn't even offer scaled pricing.

Just then, as I'm adding some essential oils to a wet cloth that's going into the dryer to freshen up the boys bedding, I hear the pitter patter of Santi's bare feet running away from us just as I also hear the garage door open and feel a rush of air as Jose walks past towards to the kitchen. I'm now hanging up wet clothes from the washing machine that I don't want to put in the dryer and, in the distance, I hear Jose getting onto Santi. Jose walks back past us and back out to the garage. What he doesn't know is he just intercepted Santi making a deal to purchase some kittens and just threw a wrench in his plans to secure 3 quarters from his chore earnings. I continue on with my current task and witness Santi coming back into the laundry room where Adrian has been talking to the kittens and completely missed the exchange between Jose and Santi. So he looks up and holds out his hand, expecting to see 3 quarters drop from Santi's hand into his. Instead, Santi says, "Towwy! I tan't div you my tings," (referring to the quarters he was unable to get his hands on thanks to his daddy's interference), "but I habbbbbb... DIS!" And he hands Adrian an old button that I found myself craning my neck to see better in case it's the one that I can't find from my jacket. Adrian's face changes from glowing anticipation to annoyed disappointment, and he refuses to engage in any of this bartering business. "It's quarters or no bueno para tu."
As I finish up my task and head back out of the laundry room until this current load is finished, I turn around to see Santi still holding out the button and just killing Adrian with kindness. Ahhh manipulation being used on the King of this tactic... it's a sight to see. Adrian sees through it and tells Santi that he will not be able to buy any kittens, but Adrian IS gracious enough to add that Santi can look at them for as long as he wants.
For a moment I find myself contemplating saying something given that these are really not Adrian's kittens to sell, and this is really nothing more than a hustle. But I decide against it knowing that both are learning and practicing some important life skills here, and allowing them to navigate on their own often pays off.
But, I'll say this, Santiago is learning allllll the tricks and tactics from all 3 older brothers with their various ways and strategies, and one day he is going to be a forced with which to be reckoned! And I'll be able to say I saw the whole thing play out, and you taught him well.

You know that way you feel when you're back from vacation and feel a bit hungover from the travel, grateful for the experience, fatigued from the process, sheepish about getting back to the grind, excited to download and view all the photos you took, overwhelmed with the thoughts of all you need to get done before the whirlwind begins again on Monday? You're feeling quiet and slow and introspective.... and tired. 
And then you make the necessary trip to the grocery store and get Mr. Chatty McChatterson at the *self-help* register - which you chose because you knew your people skills would be lacking today and felt a responsibility to mankind to remove yourself from any situations requiring small talk. And while you're getting incessant questions about your weekend plans and "what are you going to use these mangos for?" inquiries intermingled with repeated attempts to be witty, you just KNOW he has the best intentions and is also trying to fill his hours at work with warm experiences, and you are SO APPRECIATIVE of people like him, BELIEVING in it being our jobs as humans to spread kindness and make someone else's day better too, but REALLY wishing your choice to scan your items and pay on your own were met with a friendly but distant "Hello, let me know if I can help while I stand way over here pretty far away from you so you don't feel obligated to fake your way through a conversation"? You know that feeling?
I cannot be rude to innocent bystanders no matter what kind of day I'm having because it will haunt me for all my days. So I focus on my go-to response... the one where I look for the positive in the situation so I can adjust my attitude. And now as I look down at my sweet potatoes, I realize that if I don't look at him while he talks, I picture Oscar the Grouch because HE SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE HIM!! And Oscar the Grouch, who is still making a comment about each of the items in my cart has just told told me that he should eat more leafy greens and, seeing my box of cat litter, has just told me I forgot to get snacks for my cats. And now it's all actually funny. 
His mission: accomplished. Just maybe not as he intended.

Lengthy drives have been a real chore ever since the twins were born, but add Adrian and then Santiago to the mix, and we could be absolutely positive in adding a minimum of 25% more time to any trip planning. Feeding 4 kids on the road is no easy feat. Santi has to pee every time he swallows his spit. If Adrian so much as smells food, he has to poop. Strictly monitoring food/drinks doesn't seem to make much of a difference. It is what it is.  I actually think that we have on some level shied away from long distance travel in part due to anticipated exhaustion that exceeds our normal state of exhaustion and just feels too... well... exhausting.
We have driven no less than 50 hours on this vacation and have endured many minutes of lowering windows to air out farts, many bathroom breaks that also included emergency side-of-the-highway leaks, much arguing and complaining, and even some reprieves, such as the quiet camaraderie induced by iPad time (I mentally willed the boys to PLEASE not do anything to lose their screen time during this trip), hearing Santi holler "Hodey Tao" (Holy Cow!) and "Yook!" (Look!) whenever he sees something he finds amazing, short naps by all the boys here and there, and the soundtrack of Santi belting out various songs, including randomly singing "We lub da eightieeeeees" over and over thanks to XM radio's 80's on 8... how can that not make you smile even if you're still annoyed about the stale fart hanging in the air?
Anyway, as I type this, we are 2.5 hours from home and have just left one of my most favorite restaurants... the best BBQ anywhere, in my opinion. And, as I sit here and think about moving from one season to another with each child, it is obvious to me that we have entered another one... on this trip, no one has been nursing, no one is in diapers, and this is the first trip in 7 years that I did not get knocked upside the head by anything being slung from the back of the truck by an angry toddler. I'm actually torn between lamenting this and celebrating it... it's not easier, really; the challenges are just different. Santi is still always "TOE hundry, willy bad", so you either feed him snacks and anticipate another bathroom stop or you tell him to hold on and listen to relentless whining. Instead of babies crying out of boredom, they're picking fights with each other for entertainment. However, it's been such a fun trip with so many memories made. It's been an easier trip than we expected and worth every bit of the headaches. And also...
It's worth noting that I think we are actually down to just 20% extra time on this trip home... decent progress, I think. 

Dominic: "Mommy, if you and Daddy had a thousand babies would you be crying all the time... because we're all so cute?" 

#ummmyeah
#thatswhy
​:)

Checked into our hotel for the night... it's been that kind of day. 😅
#dontworryitslemonade
#exceptmine
#minescab

​Side note: Got him this awesome T-shirt for his birthday from Hellene at Personalized Touch (IG & FB: @personalizedtouch11) 

He road trips like his Mommy.

Leaving North Carolina and beginning our two-day trip back home to Texas. We've already had our first bathroom stop after less than an hour on the road (of course). The boys did their usual complaining about me dragging them into the women's bathroom while Jose pumped the gas but only until they saw it was just a single stall with a locking bathroom door. 
Adrian and Santi had to go #2, so Dominic went ahead and took care of his business (#1). Just as I began to dread how we would decide which of the other two boys would go first, with both dancing desperately (most likely exaggerated drama), Adrian and Santi both simultaneously broke out into a game of rock, paper, scissors... the go-to for many of our most difficult decisions. Thank goodness some things are actually easy.
(Adrian won 2 out of 3).

In VA Beach packing up to leave. Watching Santi on a Saturday morning... on the balcony... eating a cupcake... naked... I'm living vicariously...

#treslechescupcake
#omggggg
​#urbancupcakesandmore
​

Javi: "I want to go crabbing again, Mommy. But you want to know something I NEVER want to do? Sharking."
​
#imwithyou
#nosharkingformeeither #crabbingadventures