Christmas is coming

Mike is done with one more semester at Georgia Tech. Hopefully he can come home at a normal time, meaning 7:00 at night if he wants to put Lisa to bed. It is hard to go all day without help, fortunately he does pretty much everything on weekends.

This will be our first Christmas together as a family. Last year I was in Mexico with Baby Lisa. I have to admit that I am a little sad, but at the same time I know that is not always possible to see your family when you live so far away. Tickets on the Holiday season are very expensive even if you buy them ahead of time. The bad and good news this week is that I will be going to Mexico before the baby is born. My brother’s girlfriend is pregnant and they are getting married at the beginning of March. It was a shocking call to get. I was very upset and said things I probably shouldn’t have said. Sometimes I forget that they do not live by the same standards we do and I need to remember that is not my place to judge. I obviously share with them the principles by which we live but I need to understand that it doesn’t mean they are going to follow them and that it doesnt make him a bad person not to belive what I believe. I made my brother cry and I think I should have been more supportive. After all the anger was gone I realized that he must have been feeling like the whole world was coming at him. My parents are very disappointed but they are better than me I guess, they told him that they expected more from him and that they were saddened by the way this happened but that they were going to give him the moral support he needs right now. He just graduated from business school in Mexico and he just got a job in a bank about a month ago. His girlfriend is in the same situation, so I guess it could be worse, they could be two high school students with no education or jobs. They are a little worried about the baby because two weeks ago she was sick with influenza and not knowing she was pregnant she took some strong medicine. They will have an ultrasound on the 23^rd. I think everything will be fine. I know that after all the disappointment goes away and they start a life together I will start being excited about a new niece or nephew, right now I am just a little angry and worried at the same time. After all he is still my little brother even though he is almost 26 years old.     

On a different topic we were watching some movies this weekend and while going through our On Demand menu Mike found the movie King Ralph. I was not interested at all, but he was so excited. He told me he loved that movie as a little boy. I agree to watch it with him and what I got out was just another reason to admire Mike parents.

While watching the movie we saw some things that were not as good for a PG movie. Mike says he doesn’t remember seeing the beginning of the movie, which is the part when all the royal family is electrocuted. Then he said he didn’t remember the part when Ralph escapes from the castle to go to a strip club. They were some other things he said he didn’t remember about the movie and it was to us why. I feel so impressed by their efforts to make sure the movies their kids watched were safe. There are machines that do that nowadays, but I imagine it wasn’t an easy thing to do when they edited King Ralph. Thanks for being such a good example.

That’s it for our week. We are getting ready for a very simple Christmas. We don’t even have a tree, or lights. I am so used to spend it with my parents at their home that I didn’t even realize I was supposed to do it in my own home. I did however bought a little Fisher Price little people nativity, we are trying to start teaching Lisa that Christmas is all about Jesus’s birth. She only wants to play with it but we will get there. Christmas is so different here, I feel a little out of place. I guess we need to come up with our own family traditions and try to combine mine with Mike’s so our kids don’t feel too weird when they go to Mexico to spend Christmas with my parents.

Lisa has a hard time every time we change something in her room. Every time we want to change the blankets on her crib she start crying like it’s the end of the world, we have to take her out of the room if we want to do that. Same when we need to wash the pads on her changing table, or yesterday when I was going through her clothes to put away the ones she is not wearing anymore. So I thing we are going to have a hard time when we decide to take her crib for the baby.

I just realized Ella is in the picture. What a surprise

Grandma Anthony made possible for her to have this blanket paradise.Lisa loves her crib so much. She still sleeps 12 to 14 hours every night, I will miss that when our new baby girl comes. Grandma made the crib bedding set gave her the pillow blanket last year and the new blanket this year. I think the blanket was supposed to be a Christmas present, but we did not put it away and she ripped the bag apart the day we unpacked… sorry about that Grandma. She loves it though.

Ready for a nap. GO AWAY MOM!

Thanksgiving

It has been a week since our neighbors lost their 1 month old baby girl. I feel a little less numb now. I can’t believe how much this affected me. I could not stop crying for days. I feel so bad for Mike too. He was the one giving CPR to a dead baby and yet he was trying to keep it together not to scare me. The day it happened when all was over and we both went back to bed (not being able to sleep of course) it was so quiet that we could hear our neighbor bawling. It was then when we both broke down and cried together for a while. It is not that we are very good friends with our neighbors, we have talked to the husband twice before. He also works all day and his wife was at home all day with a newborn baby and their two year old daughter. What hit us I think was the realization that life can be taken so easily, without warning. We have seen family member come and take their older daughter and also I have seen people taking a crib and baby stuff out of the house. Every time I see anything I start crying thinking how horrible must be to come home and see all of your baby’s stuff but no baby. I keep wanting to go see her but I feel that they need to be left alone for a while. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t think I am very good with people I don’t know. Hopefully I will gather enough courage and take them dinner or something.

The last three months have been very difficult for me. We have had to deal with our ex-neighbor Steve, who lost his job and wanted to live with us while he found something. Mike seemed to think that it was a good idea, but I obviously disagreed, which made Steve feel very bad, and me too. Long story short I let him stay here for a weekend while Mike was at home and the day he left he ask me to help him put his dog Bear to sleep. Bear is not dying although he is very old and kind of hard to take care of. Of course that hit a soft spot (animals) and I agree to keep Bear while he found something. It has been more than three months and Bear is still here, all 70 pounds of hairy, stinky, old and arthritic dog. His back legs are not working very well anymore, so since our floors are hard wood every time he falls I need to pick him back up, among other things. I know some of you know must be thinking that I should have let Steve put him down, but if know anything about me you know I am not putting a dog down just because he is now an inconvenience. I believe that if you are not willing to commit to a life time ownership of a dog and what it brings with it then you shouldn’t have a dog in the first place. I don’t think they are disposable. Steve is still living in a motel and has no job, so Bear has become a permanent piece of furniture at our home. At least he is cute. Added to the Bear and Steve issue was my totally awful all-day sickness.

This time morning sickness was worse than with Lisa, I am not going to go into details, but I will say that for now I am really thinking I am done with kids. It was that horrible. I think I am much better now. I am 20 weeks along and only threw up once this week. Yay for me! We will find out the sex of our baby tomorrow morning.

Thanksgiving was very nice. We were supposed to stay in Utah for a whole week, but after booking the flights Mike realized he needed to be back on Monday for a test and a final presentation for one of his classes. We came back the day after Thanksgiving. I keep trying to figure out why Heavenly Father wanted us to be here that night. Our neighbors had had a fight that night and the wife left the house in her husband’s car with his cell phone inside. That is why he could not call 911 by himself and needed to come ask for help from us. Mike keeps saying he feels horrible because it must have been so horrible to wake up to a sight like that of your unconscious baby and not being able to call somebody. What if we weren’t here? But then Mike couldn’t do anything for them except for calling 911 and giving the baby CPR because the dad was too distraught. I know it has to do with sharing the gospel but I am still puzzled. Anyway, we loved seeing everyone. As I write this down I am tearing a little thinking how much I miss our family. We love all of you deeply and we are happy that we had the opportunity to spend time with all of you. It makes me sad to see that Baby Lisa actually liked everyone and tried to keep up with her older cousins. A special mention to Avram for being so sweet with the babies. I am so impressed by how much he loves them, he wanted to play with them and help him, what a sweet boy. Pearl on the other hand did not enjoy Lisa’s presence all that much, I think is funny. Also thanks to Sherrie for opening her home to a bunch of destruction.

Lisa on the plane

I received my printed blog. Both Mike and I loved seeing all the pictures of our baby Lisa. I know I have said it before but I will try to be more consistent. Thanks Sherrie!

Here are some pictures from my cell phone. I haven’t been very good at taking pictures other than with my phone.

My Mexican baby eats Mexican candy

She was Frida Kahlo for Mexico's Independence Day

Trying out the kitty ears for Halloween

Lisa my love

BYU fans

at the petting farm

waking up

Our Halloween photo shoot was a disaster

Ella is such a cuddle bunny

I am going to close turn this blog to a private one so if you want to keep reading send me your emails please. I do not have a list and I don't really know who is reading it.

Sorrow and Gratitude

Today at 4:30 in the morning I heard a knock on our door. I thought it was a dream but my dogs were barking. I told Mike and he got up, by then we could hear somebody desperately knocking on the door. Mike went down the stairs and opened the door, I did not hear very well but then he came back running to grab his phone and I heard him saying that our next door neighbor thought he had suffocated his baby. In less than a second I was awake and ready to go down too, but Mike told me it was better if I did not see it. We live in a town home and we share a wall with our neighbors and even though we never hear a noise from them the dad was screaming so loud I could hear him from my room. Mike called 911 and the operator gave him instructions on how to perform CPR on a baby less than a month old. The ambulance got here 10 minutes later. The screams stopped for maybe 5 minutes and then I heard something I will never forget, the screams of a father that had lost a little piece of him. For some reason the mother was not in the house. A little bit later Mike came home and just nodded, letting me know that the baby was not in this world anymore. Maybe it is because I have a baby; maybe it is because I am pregnant and emotional or maybe because nobody, NOBODY deserves to lose a child in such a tragic and unexpected way, but I have never felt more sorrow and pain for someone I barely know. At noon the mom came home and when I heard her scream for hours my heart broke in a million pieces for a second time today, and this time it hurts even more because I know that she was not here, I know she didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her beautiful little girl, she didn’t have a chance to hug her and smell her and feel her one more time. I know our father in heaven loves us as much as we love our children and I know that even though we don’t understand his reasons right now He know why we need to go through this trials and tribulations. I realize now that my faith is not as strong as I thought because even though I know that He has never left that family alone I feel a little bit mad and frustrated.

Two days ago during thanks giving dinner at my husband’s parents’ house Mike’s siblings were giving us basic instruction on how to perform CPR on babies. Who would have known that in less than two days mu husband was going to have to face something like this. It has been a very difficult day, police interrogating Mike and I suppose the baby’s father too. A detective came to our house today to take Mike’s statement and told him that there was nothing else Mike could have done for the little girl. It looks like the baby was gone before he even got there, which makes me feel so proud of him because even knowing that the baby was probably gone he kept trying because the dad was in front of him and he didn’t want him to feel like he was giving up on the baby.

Today we have kissed, hugged, and spoiled our baby Lisa more than ever because we realize that  we have no warranty we are going to see her tomorrow. We have also learned a valuable lesson about safety and the dangers of sleeping with babies. I know a lot of you might think that that could never happen to you, but I assure you that is more common that we know and that it can happen to the best parents, including mothers.

Today more than ever I thank my heavenly father for the blessing we have to be able to see our beautiful baby Lisa wake up every morning and I ask Him strength and peace for those parents who have lost so much today.

Lisa's First Birthday celebration

Well I was kind of sad that nobody was around to celebrate Lisa's first birthday with us so I decided to do something special for her. Photographers here are so expensive, and the ones that are not too expensive charge you like 125 dollars per digital file. I thought it was ridiculous. However, I did find a lady that does this as a hobby and the gives you the digital files with the price of the session. One of the hardest things that I have to deal with here is that the culture is very different. I do pretty well, I have had the ability to assimilate and adapt to the culture, but it is still hard when things that are important to me are not so important for Mike. Not because he doesn't care but because he doesn't understand why.
Birthdays and special occasions are one. The first birthday of your child is one of the most important things ever in Mexico. People go to great lengths to make sure that this day does not go unnoticed, to the contrary we are used to big celebrations. I still remember when I realized that here babies get a little homemade cake and that is it. Again, don't get me wrong I don't think that's bad. it i just not what I am accustomed to. Anyway, I don't think I need to justify it I just thought it was an interesting thing to note.
Here are our favorite pictures. In the first one she looks a lot like Mike, especially that smile

Did you think I was going to leave my other child out of the pictures?