Category: Motherhood

Last Saturday my husband and I went to dinner with a couple of friends—first time in over a month. Work has been quite busy, so going out felt as though we were prisoners seeing the light after years of imprisonment. We caught up with each other’s lives and our kids’ funny stories, and then we passed on  to somebody else’s heartbreaking reality.

We found out that a mutual acquaintance’s daughter was in re-hab for prescription drug abuse that led to an overdose qualified as attempted suicide. She is only seventeen years old. Continue reading “Re-hab: The New Vacation”

Summer arrived and so did it my desperate attempt to entertain my son during the weeks that he won’t have camps. I used to feel guilty for letting him watch too much TV or iPad. Not anymore. “Nanny iPad” gets charged every night and it’s ready for action every morning without complaining or asking for a raise!

Kidding aside, it makes me sad that my son is growing up glued to a screen and away from our families. Instead of playing all summer long with his cousins and aunts and uncles like my husband and I did when we were kids, my little man has to either play with me, or make new friends every time we go to the community amenities. Usually it goes well, but last Thursday, I almost ended up in the 6:00 p. m. news for child endangerment. Continue reading “Jaws”

Last Wednesday I fell into my little boy’s trap, and I bought him three fishies—which he named Steve, Dave, and Robert–and a snail—named Spady. He had been begging for an aquarium for a long time, but the thought of another live being under my responsibility haunted me. In the end, my son’s beautiful eyes–same as his Daddy’s–shot me in my Achilles’ heel and I gave in.

Forty- five dollars later—50% off from $90–we left the pet store with everything but the fishes. Elaine, the attendant, told us we had to set up the tank first. I should have known then that this was not going to be easy. Continue reading “Fish Killer”

Watching my son laugh, makes me laugh. Watching him sleep, makes me calm, but watching him suffer to take a breath while he battles his acute asthma, makes my own wind pipe constrict raising my anxiety to levels hard to describe. For the past ten days, I have been asking my son to stop running and every time I do, I feel as if I were asking a bird not to fly.

This asthma attack, the worst in his short life, blurred his birthday and kept him hostage—and yours truly–inside our house for several days. Although he was cranky and hyper due to the bronchodilators, for the first time I thanked God for my son’s stubbornness, because no matter how bad he has felt, he didn’t give his illness the opportunity of a victory dance. Continue reading “Take a Deep Breath”

Last Friday my husband and I took our son to the Kennedy Space Center for the last day of his Spring Break. Although we are not very fond of theme parks of any kind—big lines and crowds are not our favorite thing in the world–we wanted our little boy to get a closer look into space, which is according to him, the home of the Transformers. Continue reading “A Job Out-of-This World “

 
Last Wednesday I bought my son a Lego Optimus Prime Transformer toy as a little appetizer for his upcoming birthday in April. We sat down in the family room and put it together, but as usual, once my son started manipulating it, it fell apart.

Once again I ignored the big sign on the box that says “Age: 6-12” in both, English and Spanish. I could hear my husband saying, “Did you read the box?” Continue reading “Lego’s Villain Mom”

Last Sunday I took my son to see the new Disney motion picture Zootopia. When the movie started, I thought I was going to survive it without crying—darn Disney is like kryptonite to me—but the song Try Everything, by Shakira, started playing when the main character, Judy, rides the train to Zootopia with a smile and a heart full of hope. Continue reading “Wild World”

I am not an athletic woman now nor when I was growing up. Not only did I not like sports, but my home country was not very supportive of anything besides soccer for boys back in the eighties. Also, my mom had to work full time to support us, so she didn’t have the time or means to sign me up for extracurricular activities.

Therefore, my exercise was playing with my neighbors in the street every afternoon after school. Hide and seek, water wars, and other childhood games were the improvised “meets” without safety nets or participation trophies. Continue reading “Sports Fan”

Last Friday my mother returned to our home country, Colombia, after a three-month visit. Needless to say, saying good bye was heartbreaking once again. However, this time the security line at the Orlando International Airport was so long that we didn’t have time to re-enact a scene out of a telenovela.

As much as we, the human members of our family, will miss my Mom–AKA Nana–my dogs are the ones in for a rude awakening. The moment she started packing her suitcases, I heard the following conversation between Rusty and Sasha:

Sasha: “Is Nana leaving yet?“

Rusty: “Don’t you see the suitcases, moron?“

Sasha: “Crap. No more meals or walks on time…“

Rusty: “Yep… Crazy Mom is back!” Continue reading ““We miss you, Nana””