Twice Around The Sun

Flower is 2. Two years ago today at 7:03 pm my little girl entered this world and filled our lives with wonder, delight, and love. Esperanza is such an amazing little girl. Armando and I are so thankful and blessed that she chose us to be her parents. She has changed our lives and made us better people in many ways. We are always learning from her, as well as teaching her.

Here's Esperanza in my belly a few days before she was born.And here she is just minutes after she arrived Laying in my bed with my husband and my new baby girl shortly after her arrival Here are a few things to remember about Esperanza at 2 years old:

~Esperanza always wants to 'touch' things when she discovers something new. She recently discovered the moon (I'm sure she's 'seen' it before but just recently has become interested in it). She reached her arms up to the sky and made her little 'uh, uh' noise when she wants something. Finally she accepted that she couldn't touch it and was content with just staring at it with me for a few moments.

~She's slept threw the night once! It was several weeks ago and thow I had my hopes up that it was the beginning of a very good thing, apparently it was a one time thing. We'll keep working on it.

~She is learning her colors and so far knows and can say orange, blue, yellow, green & pink.

~She loves butter, blueberries, raisins, almond butter, strawberry freezer jam, katchup, protien bars, noodles, cheese & anything 'snack-ish'.

~Her favorite animals are dogs. Cats and horses are very close behind. She calls cats 'meow'.

~Coloring is one of her favorite things to do.

~She loves being outside in any kind of weather.

~When I brush her teeth she acts as though I'm pulling teeth out.

~Shoes are an obsession of hers She loves her shoes, has her favorites (fake crocs and mud boots are on the top of the list lately), gets excited whenever I get her a new used pair of shoes and even loves other peoples shoes.

~This girl has the most insane sweet tooth I've ever seen!

~One of her favorite sayings is 'no, mine!'. Not very pretty but it comes out of her mouth several times a day. One day she was standing outside looking up at the sky, arms streatched up and out and screamed MINE..as if the world was hers.

~She's petite for her age. According to my wall measurements, she's about 32 inches tall and according to my home scale weighing method she's 23.5 lbs . She wears a size 5 shoe and size 24 month clothes (thow when I use a disposable diaper as opposed to cloth, she can't keep her pants/shorts up b/c her bum is pretty tiny).

~Her 'baby talk' is quickly dissapearing. Each day Esperanza says at least one new word that I can understand for the first time. Sometimes she'll say a word and I'll look at her puzzled, wondering what the heck she just said. Then a light bulb goes on for me and I realize what it was. I smile at her and say the word she just said. She smiles back and we both get excited that I understood what she said. Words are so powerful and it brings great joy to both of us when we can communicate with each other by using words.

For Esperanza's birthday today, we took her to the zoo. We had a wonderful time. Here she is on her second birthday at the zoo eating ice cream. Happy Birthday Flower! We love you.

Catch Up

I don't seem to have time to blog much lately. I did want to upload some recent photos to share before I completely forget thow. Here is a little bit of what we've been doing lately...

Big mistake - a toddler, a dog (we're dog sitting), a wagon, a backpack, berries and only one adult (me) all trying to stoll threw the Vancouver Farmers Market. I won't dwell on the specifics, but this photo is before things got bad.

While visiting George with Cyndi and Roman, Roman had fun playing in the spriklers and E had fun watching (she has a fear of water for some reason)

First time painting

She loves her rain boots! We went camping at the coast last week. It was cold both days, rainy one day and a lot of work. Esperanza whined at least half the time. The other half of the time we had a lot of fun. She really loved the sand and would have been happy the whole time if we just stayed on the beach. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Mando was really proud of his $1 spiderman kite! It actually was the best flying kite on the beach.

Yup, we brought the dog (mistake #1)
"If you leave me here, I won't cry any more"

And some more recent everyday pictures...

Daisy is Esperanza's couch every time we go to my moms house. She loves Daisy & Daisy loves the attention

She loves Oro too

Mando, Tony, Sef and our nephew Jr painted the playhouse! Pink! Yay. Esperanza and the neighbor girls LOVE it.

Esperanza walking Oro

Art Show to BeneFOOT George

The Art Co-op that my parents belong to, Six Days, is hosting a Benefoot for my step dad George. As you know, he recently had his foot amputated because of a bad infection. He is currently at the Vancouver VA rehab center healing and will hopefully be able to come home in a few weeks. To benefoot him, the members of Six Days Art Co-op will be creating & selling 'foot' art just for this event.
If you can, please come out to the Last Thursday event on Alberta Street this month to benefoot George.

Dr. YouTube

When we were at Aurelia's wedding on Saturday evening, Esperanza and her cousin Clarissa were running around and collided into one another. Clarissa is a couple years older so I think she just bounced off of Esperanza. But Esperanza fell down and hit her head, REALLY hard. There were only a few people upstairs with us at this point, so I heard the thump loud and clear when her head hit the floor. But, Esperanza falls and bangs her head all the time. She's tough. It's gotten to the point where if I react, she reacts. If I don't react, she's fine and acts as thow nothing happened. Usually. So, I ignored it. It was quiet for about 4 seconds. Then super loud screaming. I ran over to her, knelt down and held her. Then, the scariest thing in my life occured...

Her body went limp in my arms! Her eyes rolled back in her head! And a little trickle of clear liquid came out of her nose. I think I screamed or cursed or both. About 5 seconds later she came to and started crying again. In those 5 seconds Cathy called 911. But then when Esperanza came back, I made a decision not to have the ambulance come and to just see how things go. One of the guests there was a nurse and she came over and sat with us for awhile and made me feel good about the situation. After about 20 minutes, Esperanza was back on her feet running around as if nothing happened at all.

The next morning, even thow she was still acting normal, I got concerned about the idea that maybe she did have some serious damage done. I already figured she probably had a concussion, and that I just needed to watch for anything out of the ordinary. But for my own peace of mind (and b/c Geneva kinda freaked me out), I went ahead and took her to Urgency Care just to make sure we were good. They told me to go straight to ER at the hospital and kinda made me feel like a crazy mom for not taking her there the night before. Then, the people at ER gave me strange looks for not taking her in the night before too. OK, got it!

After waiting forever in the ER waiting room, we finally went in and saw a doctor. After about 10 minutes of me explaining what happened, him asking questions, him checking Esperanza's ears and head, he asks me 'do you have internet'? 'Sure' I respond with a puzzled look. 'You should get on You Tube and look up 'Breath Holding Spells'.

Seriously, YouTube? Wow!

Have you ever heard of 'breath holding spells'? I guess I kinda thought I knew what that meant, but never knew there was actually a 'medical term' for it. And I initially thought it meant something different then what this Dr. YouTube was saying it was. When toddlers and/or infants cry so hard that they hold their breath for a little bit too long, long enough to freak a parent out. Thats what I thought it meant, and I think thats what most people think it means. I had heard you are supposed to kind of blow in the childs face to get them to breath. Story has it that George used to throw water at Cyndi when she did it as a toddler (I can't help but laugh about that). Apparently there are two versions of what a 'breath holding spell' can be. And for the record, I did look it up on YouTube and both versions of that 'spell' are on there. HUGE difference thow...one is really scary and is excactly what Esperanza did, and the other is basically a kid that is crying but not breathing or making noise...Cyndi. Still, this 'spell' doesn't really explain everything...

So back to the ER and Dr. YouTube. I ask questions...

Me: What about the fluid that came out of her nose?
Dr. YouTube: Could have been spinal fluid, could have been mucus. There's no way of knowing. And because it was just a drop and not continuous, no worries.

Me: Ok, but she hit her head, hard. She wasn't just holding her breath!
Dr. YouTube: Bring her back in if she starts to vomit or acts abnormally.

Me: Should she have a CAT scan?
Dr. YouTube: Protocal for CAT scans are pretty tight especially for children b/c of the radiation factor. She has no bruising around her eyes or ears and is acting normal and healthy, so there is no reason for CAT scan.

We left shortly after that. Even though I completely expected a CAT scan that day, I didn't really want one done. I was just looking for someone to tell me everything was fine, and it was/is...but YouTube? I sure didn't see that one comin'.

I am so thankful that Esperanza is okay and hasn't shown any signs of problems - other than the usual. That honestly was the most scary event that has happened to me in my entire life (yes, my life is pretty uneventful). I'm also thankful that our first visit to see a doctor ended up actually being fun and completely uninvasive for Esperanza. Hopefully the next time we go see a doctor it'll just be for a regular check up and she'll remember how well things went the last time she saw one.

Here is Esperanza after we got home, still wearing her 'ankle bracelet' from the ER

Two Wedding Weekend

Two ladies we know got married this past weekend.

Armando's brother Chilly's wife's sister Vicki (I know that was hard to follow and it probably didn't come out right, but stay with me) got married to Jeremiah on Friday evening. They had a small ceremony held at their church which we didn't attend but then celebrated with them at the reception. The bride wore a beautiful dress and looked like an amazing version of Cinderella with her handsome prince. I didn't see much of the bride and groom as I was spending most of my time in the stair well with Esperanza - going up and down, up and down, up and down the stairs. She did take breaks occassionally to dance and run around a bit. No sitting or mingling thow. Unfortunately, I got no pictures of the happy couple. Here are a few others thow.

Recognize this dress Geneva? Anycia wore it to one of our cousins wedding about 6 or 7 years ago. I told Esperanza that it was Anycia's dress and she actually got excited about wearing it!There were 5 or 6 little girls that had the time of their lives dancing togetherOn Saturday Armando's sister Aurelia got married to Gary. They had a beautiful and unique wedding which catered to both American and Mexican tradition. They didn't cut corners anywhere when it came to entertainment, food, good beer, decorations and fun for themselves as well as the guests. Get ready for a ton of pictures...

Aurelia & GaryMariachi band for the ceremony and part of the reception - I think this was the same mariachi we had at our wedding cause I recognized some of them, but I forgot to askGet this, instead of 'walking' down the isle, the groom, the officient, the bridesmaids and the groomsment all DANCED down the isle! It was really neat. Here is the groom lookin cool mid-dance wearing his glasses. Kinda looks like Angelina was dancing too

This little flower was supposed to be one of the flower girls...but she fell asleep, and we don't disturb her beauty sleep!
Chilly with Esperanza
Armando's mom Angelina & his sister Cathy (it was Angelina's b-day too) Sisters Cathy & Eva
Clowns making fun animals and other things with balloons for the kids
Esperanza with her cousins Marissa and Addy (E changed out of her big poofy dress) Kids dancin
Rock band for reception dancing First Dance - E wanted to be part of it too
Yummy cake
Esperanza and Raf
Sisters Marissa and Addy with their cousin Samson (son of the bride Aurelia)
There is a scary little story about Esperanza that goes along with this wedding but it deserves a seperate post. Check back soon...

Congrats to both couples who got married over the weekend!

Just Me & E

For the past almost 5 weeks, it's just been me and Esperanza. Armando comes home from Greece soon and I can't wait...both Esperanza and I miss him a lot. I'm pretty close to breaking point by now so it's a good thing he'll be back before I completely loose it. This whole single parenting thing is not something I'm cut out for and I have a new found respect for single parents out there. I am not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to this many months ago. Whew, I sure could use a break.

Over the past several weeks we've been busy. Though it gets exhausting at times, Esperanza is a pretty fun kid to hang out and do things with. I thought I'd share some of the little things we've been doing recently.

Picking a ripe strawberry from the garden And eating it! Changing her dolls diaper
Strolling threw the backyard naked
Naked eating a juicicle outside on a hot day Coloring outside on a hot day Coloring with Zeke at a wedding rehersalShe can put these shoes on all by herself! Oh, and she's eating chap stick here too... Playing at Cafe Sip N Play with some friends Eating lunch on the front porch on a cool day Bed head coloring first thing in the morning. Notice a trend here...this girl LOVES to color and I now take crayons and paper or a coloring book every single place I go. I'm using it to my advantage and she's learning her colors this way too. Neighbor girls come over to play with Esperanza every now and then. Here they are playing dress up with play silks. Just being cute on the rocking chair Mary and Esperanza weeding my garden since I never do Esperanza and I repotting some herbs Diggin in the dirt