I've just never seen him so happy :)

This summer I've been thinking of taking some time with the babies and going home to Vegas and visit my sister (and dear friends who I just don't ever see).  The thing that has been slowing me down though is that the kids are just having a great summer here.  I'm really loving my time with them and I'm happy to see them happy.  Cally is busy being Cally and Rachel is just LOVING her swim lessons.  But the one who is happiest is Harmon.  Why?  Well, JAZZ HANDS!!!!



Harmon loves gymnastics!!!  I shouldn't take so much joy in it but he is doing just really fabulous and I love that he loves it.  He danced to last year's big hit "Call Me Maybe" with his 6-8 yr old class and he just ROCKED IT even though he was the youngest in the group by a year or more.

Yesterday was his first week of the advanced boys class for 6-8.  His teacher warned me it might not work out because the amount of focus the class needs (they are doing things moms don't want to think about their kids doing. It focuses on male gymnastics rather than the more dance like general one he has been in.  He did fabulous though.  The kid who can't stay still for 10 seconds was a great listener and he shined.  He gets to stay officially as a Flipping Frog!!!  He will be staying with his girls too on Saturday (in fact he is there right now) but now he is also doing the "man thing" with the boys.  

He is getting to the age where he can start competing soon and I'm just thrilled with that because he is doing so well.  Harmon has often struggled with his esteem.  Since he was a toddler I fear he thinks "no Harmon" was his full name.  He is often getting himself into trouble at school and at home.  While we need to redirect we also really need to be more encouraging.  At gym Harm feels like a Superman and he is doing just wonderfully.  His teacher is always amazed at the end of the day how WONDERFUL Harm is doing.  I'm not amazed though.  Harmon is wonderful and I'm glad he has a place where instead of "no Harmon" his name is "wow Harmon".

For clarification...

In the past when I have blogged I have tried to be very accurate about what we have gone through.  A few months after my accident I went ahead and tried to remember what had happened and what I had gone through.  When I wrote my blog on Saturday it was in part because the urging of friends because I have gone through some of these struggles for years and I have not talked about it.

It was a positive for me to talk about what I have gone through because I feel for years I have chosen not to write because I have been scared to.  Things in my life are not perfect and that is okay.  With that said I do feel bad that others in Chris' family felt angry and upset.  For the record I don't think they are horrible people.  I see a lot of good in them.  I think they and I struggle and it has been hard and at times not pretty.  

My point was never to be mean, but rather just to express something that has really affected my life quite a bit and it still does. Joining the LDS church has been a challenge in itself.  Having married into as tight knit a family as I did has magnified many of those challenges.  I have struggled to feel a part of a church where I feel so out of place at times.  It is hard when you don't see eye to eye with people who are both family and leaders in a church. It has hurt and it has been confusing.  

I'm learning not to blame myself for having feelings and accepting that I hurt or I feel unkind at times.  Several close people to me felt a strain in church to be perfect and many of them have left because they feel they fall short or they see leaders and they feel those leaders fall short of their expectations.  Faith isn't meant for perfect people.  Nothing in life is and no person is perfect.  

This past year and a half has been surreal.  I never thought I would ever fly off a freeway or separate from my husband.  But looking back further I never I would ever get married, have kids or more over have twins.  The best things that have happened in my life have brought my hardest struggles.  I have seen miracles, had wonderful things happen, and I have endured sad things as well.  I struggle with my inlaws and that is part of my life.  It is a continual learning experience for me not to expect perfection out of myself or others.  One day my kids will read these posts and maybe they are struggling with their spouses or maybe I'll be in the mother in law seat.  Hopefully being honest and open might help them or help others in similar situations. 

Hold me Tiny Dancer!!!

Today was one of those days where I just really tired.  I woke up early to let Chris have a chance to sleep in so I dragged the whole day.  That was a good thing.  It helped me slow down.  The boys left earlier in the morning so I stayed and had girls time.  I painted Rachel's toes, did her make up, and taped her legs (kineseo orthotic tape we use rather than stiff orthotics).

I just felt so blessed this little girl is my precious daughter.  I feel blessed that we hardly ever butt heads and we get along quite well.  She is very smart and so determined.  This past month she did just amazing at her recital.  She is still one of the youngest in her classes and with CP, I can't help but be amazed when I see how much she has improved and how much better she is doing.  She holds her own plus some in her age group.  



Academically Rachel is doing great.  We finally got services for her CP and we are really excited next year she can just attend College Heights like her brothers rather than College Heights and DD-Pre.  Besides dance she is obsessed with swimming and art.  She is also obsessed with horses and begs me for a real one all the time.  That ain't happening but I love her spirit :)

Days like today I am grateful God blessed me to have her in my life.  She is a pint sized super hero and dolly all at once!  I love her!!!

Loathing

If you read my blog on a regular basis you know I am a total theater geek.  After all I'm supposed to be headed to ASU as a dramatic writer.  Anyhow the other day I was in my car and one album ended on my IPhone and a new one began.  It is Wicked, which is one of my favorite musicals.  Anyhow this song came on


Galinda: 
What is this feeling so sudden and new? 

Elphaba: 
I felt the moment I laid eyes on you 

Galinda: 
my pulse is rushing 

Elphaba: 
my head is reeling 

Galinda: 
my face is flushing 

Both: 
what is this feeling fervid as a flame, 
does it have a name, yeeesss, 
loathing unadulterated loathing 

Galinda: 
for your face 

Elphaba: 
your voice 

Galinda: 
Your clothing 

Both: 
lets just say I loathe it all. 
Every little trait however small, 
makes my very flesh begin to crawl, with simple utter loathing 
theres a strange exilhiration in such total 
detestation. It's so pure so strong 
though i do admit it came on fast 
still i do believe that it can last 
and i will be loathing, 
loathing you my whole life long 

I couldn't help but laugh and think of my inlaws!  I really feel like this green little witch in a sea of perfection when I am around them.   The saddest part of it all though is just how many bad feelings exist.  I think loathing isn't too far of stretch for the feelings all of us have for one another.  

The saddest part of it all is that they are leaders in the church that I still am a fairly new member of.  It is hard for me a lot to separate them from my faith.  I have never talked about how hard and sad this has all been for me.  Their expectations on me has always been to assimilate to their culture.  Rather than on holidays creating our own traditions for our little family, my husband and inlaws want us to do everything their way.  

Chris often takes their side.  He tells me it isn't "right" not to raise our kids the way he was raised.  I am often compared to my sister in laws and how they are Stay at Home Moms, have clean homes, don't waste money and of course do what their husbands want (especially when it comes to family events).  

Sometimes I am the reason why there are problems.  I admit, I'm stubborn like a bull and can dig my heels in.  I call it the snowball of death b/c they do something so than I'm mad and I refuse to participate than they are now mad at me and Chris is mad at me; than the whole cycle repeats!

A lot of the reason why Chris and I separated was because of this.  Now that we have reconciled I still don't see any of this changing.  I refuse to be anyone but myself!  Still that refusal is a pretty isolating feeling to be honest.  I really hope and pray for the sake of my babies get better b/c otherwise I have a feeling we will be loathing one another our whole life long!

Ariel I think must have been a brat!

When I was a little girl and I watched the Little Mermaid I thought she was super cool and awesome for following her heart and living her dreams.  Now that I have a precocious daughter I suddenly have more sympathy for King Triton.

On Monday the kids were swimming at our old house and I was helping a friend move in.  That day Rachey was with Miriam and I wasn't worried.  Miriam has watched them with no issues many times at the pool.  I had this really odd feeling GO BACK early and so I left my buddies and went to the pool.  The babies were getting showered so I started gathering all the toys.  At that moment Rach snuck away and wanted to show me how she could jump in the pool.  All I heard was "Oh God Rachel doesn't have her floaties"!  I turned around and saw her under water.  I ran over and put myself head first to grab her.

The crazy thing was that she held her breath for at least 30 seconds and was not even worried.  So now she has started swim lessons!!!  Very intense lessons w/no water wings.  We had her enrolled that afternoon.  She has the love of water and I just don't want to risk this ever again.  I love my little adventourrus mermaid and I don't want to damper her enthusiasm.  Just help her learn the basics and of course I will need to be even more cautious while she is in the water!!

Long way for some good news!

This morning I loaded Cally in my car and with the help of my good friend Johnette we drove too Albuquerque's UNM hospital.  It was one of those things where you don't sleep well for nights worrying, does he have craniosynostasis or not?  

Well he doesn't!!!  There is no doubt in this doctor's mind that it was a perfect storm of a poor circumstances: a poor ct-scan,plagiocephaly from being a premie, torticollis from being a premie, and this odd issue with his palette.

So where does that leave us?  NO SURGERY!!!  Healthy!!!  NO SURGERY!!!!!!  WOOT WOOT!!!!!!!

Yup, we still have speech therapy and monitoring from the cleft team but otherwise it's pretty much just...

And the best part they gave him a little toy for the loooong ride home!

It's a good luck bear which I think was totally appropriate because I feel like the luckiest mom in the world!

I finally got regular internet :)

What I don't love is that when no one knows if your house really exists than you have trouble getting basic services.  I have no mail service (no one in Mesilla does) so the whole town just gets together and hangs out at the Post Office.  Of course when I need to get non- PO Box packages Holy Hell is it to explain to UPS and Fed Ex that yes I really do live in a place that exists and yes I do need my package.

 Anyhow in addition to mail and utility nightmares I've been dealing with TV issues.  My home was an abandoned foreclosure and we are the first people to live in the home for 4 yrs.  So there were no cable outlets at first and than there were no phone outlets so getting internet has been near impossible.  Finally Century Link correctly fixed the lines and I get I high speed internet (I had been using a limited mobile hot spot). 

So that means much more blogging very cute pictures of my very cute babies.  The funny thing is that it has probably really good for me not to have internet... I've been painting the house, teaching my Harmon how to read, landscaping, and all sorts of things with little connection to the outside world.  Being unplugged maybe isn't always a bad thing.

Cally's Scary Headache...

I called Cally the Bronx orator for a reason. He has the cutest little East Coast accent.  I was so surprised when he started school in October there was a huge concern this accent meant he had a cleft palette.  Say what?  We have gone through non-stop testing since than.  Just when I thought it had all had been put to rest in our second Cleft Palette Clinic with an endoscopy that showed a weak but not compromised palette; Chris decided to seek one more opinion because he has an odd shaped head.  That is when we got some devastating news.

It was freaky because we had the CT Scans and we are sitting there talking to the Pediatric maxillofacial surgeon show Cally his skulls and it is a light mood.  Than he tells us Callum has Craniostynostasis.  Seriously?  What is that?  Was my first reaction.  After he explained how it is a serious birth defect that requires brain surgery I felt crushed.  After having endured what I did last year I really felt like it wasn't a big deal because my kids didn't go through it.  Now feeling helpless to protect him and understanding what the surgeon was saying I was just really sad.

This happened 3 wks ago.  To deal and cope I called every friend Doc I had and really found out what this was all about.  I immediately set up a 2nd opinion at UMC with a pediatric neurosurgeon and prayed.  Well than that doctor gave me the happiest surprise.  He doesn't have Craniostynostasis but he has just a few after effects from being a premature infant and with speech therapy and time he will grow fully into his head and it will round out and the palette will close correctly.  

So where we are at now is that we are looking for a 3rd opinion.  These are two of the best pediatric surgeon's in the city and while I trust the neurosurgeon over the maxillofacial surgeon a little more I have enough worry to want to make sure that it is totally not any sort of cleft or weird suture brain problem or anything else.  The next week I will drive him up to Albuquerque and we will see another neurosurgeon from UNM.  I keep the prayers high for Callum and I'm hoping this will be the last doctor for him.  He is too sweet and too cute to have to go through something like these surgeries pose.

Graduation Day

Two weeks ago I went ahead and walked for the first time.  I never walked in Austin years ago.  At the time I was moving to Vegas and life was exciting.  I didn't feel like I had missed anything but I had missed something and so this time around it was nice to finish it with a little pomp and circumstance.

The best part was being with my kids that day.  They all were very proud of me.  Hopefully one day they will remember this day and know that education is something worth valuing in life.  If they don't remember hopefully in next few years I will be walking again for my MFA in Dramatic Writing and will really be done with school (well maybe).  We had a small party at Dion's Pizza with close friends and it was just a joyful night.   Oh and my dear sweet mother finally got to see me walk.  She was the first in the whole Puerto Rican Community to get a degree and my first generation for college as well.  Each of them taught me the importance of never stopping when it comes to learning.  I was happy I finally gave them a photo op, even if it was 10 yrs late ;)

Arizona (or bust)!

I am still on cloud 9!  Everything just changed overnight.  So this is where I am at right now.  I am currently formally admitted.  I set aside this morning to finish my acceptance packet.  I still keep thinking I'm going to get a letter and it is going to say: "I'm sorry Francisca, we made a mistake."  But they didn't make a mistake and I'm going!!!  

There is one problem still present.  I was the 3rd candidate for 2 spots.  That meant they created a new spot for me.  The problem is that I have not been funded for that spot.  So I finished my admissions packet today and I wait.  At the very latest I will have a fully funded spot in August 2014.  Likely though I will have a spot earlier as a TA.  I do not want to end up a 100,000 in debt so waiting is unfortunately a necessary evil.  It is also hard because if a spot opens up last minute I have to pack up and resettle not just me, but my babies.  I'm sort of hoping for that reason that I will have a little more time here at home to settle everything and have a peaceful transition.

I also would like to work further with the NMSU faculty taking classes so that I can better prepare for the program.  I know it is going to be intense and being dyslexic is going to make this more challenging.  Also I will be teaching as a TA which is very intimidating for me.  But I can't let myself get psyched.  I have always been my own worse enemy and I know I can do this.  To make the transition easier though I am planning on using my time here to learn more about the process of teaching writing courses on the collegiate level. 

I still can't believe that I got into the program at ASU. I think Chris can't believe I got in either.  His response at this point has not been very positive.  I'm just tired and sad.  Of all the people I wanted to be proud of me and supportive, it was Chris.  So as of today I'm formally admitted and I have accepted my admittance into the program.  Now it is a patience game and hopefully a little time for healing for my little family.