Fear of Flying

Paula took a plane to Puerto Rico yesterday. She arrived on the island at 9:30 at night. It is the third year she travels unaccompanied, but this time was especially hard for her. After seeing the story of flight 447 plastered all over the news, she was understandably scared of a plane crash.

5th Grade Appreciation Party

There was a party at school yesterday for the 5th graders. They do not have a graduation so this is their end of school celebration.

End of the Grade School Years

Today is Paula's last day of elementary school. In August she will start sixth grade in her new middle school.

At the Showboat

We went to the Drive-in movie theater yesterday. I took this pic of the girls while we waited for the sun to go down and the movie to start.

Busy week

It's been an interesting week. It started with hard news at work, as friends, acquaintances and coworkers became casualties of the latest reorganization. I am sad and I am angry and I have to suck it all in, get over it and continue to perform my job. Change is the only constant. Blah, blah, blah.

I have been really glad to have family events to remind me that what matters most is our circle of loved ones. Paula played in two 5th grade Strings Program concerts this week (one at the district level, the other specific to Paula's school). We also had a ballet recital for the Kinderdance program at Isabel's Day Care. The girls did great this week, and I am amazed at how well they are turning out. Below are pictures:

Monday: Klein String Fling 2009
















Wednesday: Isabel's ballet recital


















Thursday: Paula's School Concert

The end of summer?

I grew up on a tropical island without any clearly defined seasons, other than Hurricane Season which we all knew well. To me, Labor Day had always been "that big holiday that falls in September."

Now that I live in the US, I see everywhere the whole "Labor Day is the official end of summmer" concept, but I am not sure I feel it. I live in Southeast Texas, after all. Our seasons are Hot and Less Hot/Sometimes Cold.

Anyway, this morning I will try to take the girls to the pool for a little while. Paula and I went to the pool yesterday. After today our neighborhood pool will close until next year. I have always thought that was pointless, as the weather permits for it to be open until the end of October at least. But the reason why they close is less related to the weather than to economics and the difficulty of finding lifeguards after colleges and universities start their school year.

We are also planning to do some grilling for dinner tonight. I am planning to make chicken shish kebobs. I bought a Thai peanut marinade that I think will be perfect for some. I also have rib eye steak wrapped in bacon, and some chicken cordon bleu sausage that we bought at this place in Wharton on our return trip from South Padre Island. It is delicious. Gabe loved it, and he is not really a fan of chicken sausage. I am still trying to decide what to serve with the protein. I know my mother-in-law is bringing homemade macaroni and cheese. I may prepare mashed cauliflower: steamed, mashed and seasoned with butter and parmesan cheese. I made it yesterday for the first time and it was delicious, a good alternative to mashed potatoes.

The girls will have Shirley Temples. It will be good.

My only concern is that Isabel seems to be sick again. Wednesday and Thursday I kept her home because her stomach was upset. Friday and Saturday she seemd to be back to normal, but yesterday she got sick to her stomach again and had very loose bowel movements. This morning it happened again. So now I have to monitor her closely during the day and be careful what I feed her.

Tradiciones

Just yesterday my nine year-old daughter embarked into her own private yearly tradition: spending the summer months in Puerto Rico with her father. I put her on a plane yesterday, direct flight from Houston to San Juan. She cried while she hugged me goodbye, I cried all the way back to the office. Contrary to what I would have thought, it does not get easier with the years. We are very attached to each other, and we still miss each other a lot. But it is a good thing and she has a lot of fun when she goes.

When I was growing up, my favorite tradition ever was picking grass for the camels. You see, where I come from we celebrate Epiphany Day (January 6th). The Three Wise Men leave presents for little kids, much like Santa Claus. The day before, January 5th, my siblings and I, like countless Puerto Rican children, would go out to the yard with a cardboard shoe box, and pick grass for the Three Wise Men’s camels. The boxes with the grass clippings were then placed at the foot of our beds. The next morning, the grass would be gone, save for the occasional stray blade, and in its place would be our presents. I love this tradition so much that I have taught it to my oldest daughter, even though no one else celebrates Epiphany Day where we live now. My daughter absolutely loves to pick grass for the camels, and I enjoy keeping that link to my heritage and passing on the tradition. My youngest daughter was actually born on Epiphany Day, so she is my little gift from the Three Kings. She is only two and half, too young to understand about Los Reyes Magos. But next year we will all pick grass together for the camels, and I will teach her, just as I have taught my oldest, that if you believe in Los Reyes, they will come to you, no matter where you live.

It's Saturday. What do I care?

It was a bad night last night.

I had a fight with Gabe. A bad one. A really bad one. He says I was already upset or mad, and that I picked the fight. Maybe so, maybe it's true and Paula's departure yesterday has affected me in ways I fail to realize. But last night I just could not deal anymore with something that has been going on for so long. I blew up. I opened the floodgates. I had all this anger and upset inside me, and it just came rushing out.

I can be extremely blunt when I am angry. In normal, every day interactions, I tend to keep myself in check. I don't like to make people feel bad, I do not derive any joy of it. As a young person I was picked on, so I am very mindful of how my words can hurt others. But there are times when my evil doppelganger shows up and takes over. You know, the one with the mean streak. The one who is very adept at coming up with zingers. The watered down version of the aggressiveness that seems to run in my family. I had a great grandmother who stabbed a man once and broke another man's arm on a stone mill. I had a grandfather who hit my father on the head with the blunt edge of a machete when my father was a kid, and who as a grownup was just plain mean. I had a father who I likened to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a good person who turned bad whenever he opened the bottle of Cutty Sark. Once I saw him come into the bedroom, drunk, and throw a book at my mom's head while she was in bed sleeping.

So that is my pedigree. I have what we jokingly called a herencia maldita when I was growing up. A cursed inheritance (or a family curse). In me it mostly manifests itself as these dark, dark moods where I say incredibly mean things without being able to stop myself, sometimes even saying them with glee. Once, years ago, I was so agitated in the middle of a fight (this was in the era pre-Gabe) that I poured a pitcher of ice water over my head to calm myself down.

Getting back to last night. I love Gabe very much. I feel like we "get" each other in so many areas. But I also feel disconnected from him at times. We never ever have time for ourselves. We don't interact much in areas that have nothing to do with the household or the kids. He may have read this blog twice, and I have been keeping it since November. He is always either too busy or too tired. And last night I had it. I said many things that were not necessarily meant to hurt, but rather to illustrate my views and my feelings. The only problem was that my views and feelings were somewhat distorted last night. And the things I said were not akin to constructive criticism. So we fought. And I told Gabe that I had no interest in celebrating our anniversary (coming up in 10 days). That's got to hurt.

How do you get someone to truly understand that the things you want from them will not cost them a penny? My husband grew up believing that the way to show someone your love is spending money on them. He wants to do nice things, take me on a vacation, take me out to dinner, buy me the proper gifts. The traditional gift for a 3rd year anniversary is leather. How do I know this? Because he looked it up. He cares about these things. And it is very sweet. It really is. But it is not what I want, it is not what I need. And I feel like a horrible, ungrateful bitch for feeling this way.

I had a huge scare yesterday

OK, first the normal stuff

Ugh. Saturday I was halfway through a blog post on my day. Nothing particularly thrilling, but posting out of discipline. I was telling about the open house and listing my menu for Thanksgiving, among other things. Then I had to get up because Isa was getting into some mischief, and I never saved the draft. Well, Gabe sat down to use the computer and logged me out so he could get in. My post was lost. I hate when that happens.

So, to start again, the open house was nice. Several people from the Chamber of Commerce showed up, a few friends and former co-workers, some clients, even Gabe's priest from his old high-school.Everybody thought Isa was adorable. For the most part she behaved good, although she grabbed a couple of things with dirty hands and I was concerned. Gabe thought she did alright. She also had a tendency to dash out the door and roam around the building, so we had to follow her. But I wasn't the only one keeping an eye on her. My in-laws helped. I did have a chance to have some wine and chat with other people. It was good.

I got a new computer through the employee purchase program at work. I love it. But I'll talk about it some other time. More pressing matters are at hand.

Moving on to the big scare I had yesterday

I have been hitting myself on the head since yesterday afternoon. I usually keep the cleaning supplies on a cabinet that has one of those childproof locks. Well, yesterday I was cleaning the study, making way for the new computer I bought, and took out a bottle of Old English furniture oil and set it on top of the counter. This bottle had no cap because we had somehow lost it. Well, I turn my back for a moment, and Isabel grabbed the bottle and put it in her mouth! When I saw her she was spitting out, trying to get the bad taste out of her tongue. I do not know for sure if she only had a taste or if she drank from it. It looked like it was only a taste, though, because of her reaction and because she did not have oodles of oil in her mouth. Still, I was terrified. I called poison control immediately. They instructed me to give her something to drink (non-carbonated, non fatty), so she got some orange juice, which she welcomed very much. They asked if she was gagging, coughing or looked like she has trouble breathing, which she wasn't. They also told me what the risks are (if any of the oil was aspired and gets to her lungs she can develop a chemical pneumonia) , and called back after two hours to follow up on her condition. Isabel was not gagging, and looked normal the whole time (well, she was a bit congested, but that was before the oil). When they called back, they told me she probably was OK based on what I was seeing, but to watch her for the next 24 hours in case she started coughing, wheezing or developed a fever. She already was congested to begin with, so they said I had to look for something beyond her current baseline.

I felt so bad, so ashamed. I should have known better. I was alone here when it happened, just Paula, Isa and me. I was scared, trying to conceal my freaking out so Paula would not get more upset (did not do a great job), and I did not know who to call for support. I called Gabe (he was at the office yesterday), and he was upset when I told him. He did not say it then, he just cut the call short. I did not want to call my mom, because I would end up consoling her instead of getting some support. I did not know who else to call without sounding intrusive or opportunistic. I never call people to chat, so I felt like it was not right to call for this. I know this is stupid, and that my friends from the Mommy Board are going to tell me I should have called someone. And I should have, that is why we are a support network. But I just did not know who to call, and I felt so ashamed.

Isa coughed a little in her sleep just twenty minutes ago. I bolted awake. She has coughed a bit at night on recent nights, her cold symptoms linger on. On the one hand, my instinct says it's more of what I have been observing, but on the other hand I can't get the phrase "chemical pneumonia" out of my head. I am going to drop her off at daycare, call her doctor and make an appointment for later today, just to make sure.