Tag: Latina

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The Plastic Surgeon: Part 1

The surgeon walked in the door looking like he’d just come from pumping iron in the hot sun. His rolled up sleeves showed off bronzed biceps that glistened with either sweat or tanning oil, and his thinning hair was gelled up on the top of late forties head. If he had walked into a bar I would have giggled with my friends, but this was no bar; I was in an emergency room holding my bloody 2-year-old son whose upper lip was split in two and partially hanging off.

George Hamilton (not his real name) put out a manicured hand, flashed a dazzling smile and said, “I’m the plastic surgeon they called in to look at your son.” He efficiently checked out my little boy who wailed, kicked and screamed during the 30 second exam. “He definitely needs stitches. And I’m definitely the one to do it.”

“I’m a little nervous about this. But you’ve done this kind of thing a million times, right?” I looked from Dr. George to my husband. “Right?”

Suddenly a cloud passed over George Hamilton’s face. His teeth even seemed to gray as he said darkly, “I don’t know anyone who’s done it a million times. A million times?? I can go out there and try to find another doctor who’s done it a million times.” He started breathing heavy and talking louder. “Do you want me to do that? Right now? Do you?”

“Uhhmmm,” I looked from my husband to the nurse who had just walked in. Both were trying not to look at me. As they searched for their happy place I said, “No.” He took a deep breath and walked out of the room.

“What the hell was that?” I asked the witnesses. “Oh,” said the nurse shaking her head and still not looking at me. “I’m sure he’s ….this is going to be fine. No problem. He’s a great plastic surgeon I’ve heard people say. Great. No problem.”

I looked at my husband. “He seemed like a nice guy,” Carl said. “What’s the problem?”

“That he seems crazy. You don’t think that was a little odd?” I asked patting my son on the back. After the large dose of pain killers, he was starting to doze off.

Dr. George came back in the room, as bright and sunny as the gold highlights streaked through his hair. “Okay, everyone, let’s talk about what we’re going to do here. First we put him under conscious sedation and then we do the stitches. Great! Any questions?”

“How do you do the conscious sedation? Is he going to feel it? How many stitches is he going to have? Will it hurt him?” I took a breath and went on. “Is he going to have a scar? Are the stitches the kind that dissolve or have to be taken out? Will he be able to…”

>Dr. George clapped his hands together and said, “Okay, great! I’ll go get everything ready and be right back.”

“But..” my voice trailed off as he left. A new nurse walked in to get a box of gloves from our room when she spotted my boy.

“Oh my God! What happened? Poor baby,” she came over for a closer look.

What did happen? I left my child and his brother at home to make the 2 hour drive to San Diego to take surfing lessons with my sister. I left him with a babysitter and drove far, far away to do something totally self indulgent; not only were we going surfing but we were going to out to dinner and maybe a movie. How could I do that!? (My sister and I are from the desert southwest for God’s sake; we shouldn’t even be in the water!)

“He fell off of his little red wagon face first onto the concrete.”  

The nurse examined him and explained the procedure. My son would receive a shot in his arm that would put him out. He would be unconscious, but his eyes would be open. “I would never do that to my child,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, startled by her frankness.

“Because they’re unconscious, but their eyes are open. They lay there unable to move and you just have to wonder; will they ever wake up? It’s terrifying. I would just give him some Benadryl and hope he sleeps through the procedure.”

I stared at her as she walked out of the room. 

Tomorrow Part 2

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Our America With Lisa Ling

In preparation for lunch with Lisa Ling, a group of us were given access to three episodes of Our America with Lisa Ling. There was one called “Modern Polygamy,” the next “Amateur Porn,” which airs tonight, and the third was about veterans with post traumatic stress syndrome called “Invisible Wounds of War.”

Not surprisingly for me, I watched the polygamy episode of the documentary-style show first. I find that lifestyle fascinating, not just because these men have multiple wives, but I find religious fundamentalists so interesting. How can they believe in something so completely?

And how can a mother let a young girl get into a marriage with an older man who has another wife? I was ready to be outraged. I’ve read “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer about two brothers who kill their sister in law and her baby in the name of God and “Escape” by Carolyn Jessop about a woman who escapes her polygamist husband. And I watched every episode of “Big Love” on HBO.

But what was so intriguing about the episode was that I wasn’t outraged. The town that they profiled, Centennial Park, Utah, wasn’t scary and oppressive and it wasn’t a town ruled by men. The women there appear to have a choice and a voice. In fact, according to the show, the women there choose their husbands not the other way around.

Some of the community leaders have even partnered with a Gay rights activist to help them keep the government out of their bedrooms.

Before the show, I had a very definite opinion on polygamy. Now, while I don’t approve of that lifestyle, I can see another point of view.

And that’s what I love about “Our America” on OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network. Ling and her team do such a great job of telling intimate, well documented stories. She said that they spend weeks with the subjects they chronicle on the show and she gets to know them. And the audience gets to know them as well.

The show isn’t loud and it’s not yelling at you, Ling said. “It’s not sensational.” Ling’s goal is to take the audience along on a journey and then at the end the hope is that they leave with more understanding and maybe more compassion.

I didn’t feel the same level of compassion to the subjects of the “Amateur Porn” episode that airs tonight. It seemed like a bunch of people making really bad decisions that you know won’t end well. But it was definitely compelling to watch. The second season of “Lisa Ling’s Our America” starts tonight. I would highly recommend checking it out.

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Master of the Glass Half Full Photo Contest

Being a positivity ambassador has really helped me in the last week. I’m now approaching life with a much better attitude. And it’s an attitude that my son, pictured above, already has. He is a glass half-full kind of guy all the way and I love it. He’s always putting a smile on my face with his excellent take on life. Now your child can catch a little positivismo with the help of the Maestro. As part of the Master of the Glass Half Full Campaign, parents can enter a Facebook photo contest to win prizes. All you need to do is go to the Maestro’s Facebook page and upload a picture of your child holding a glass of milk just like the Maestro.

 

The prizes are great for families with little milk drinkers. The 1st place prize is a french door stainless steel refrigerator with a year’s supply of milk. 2nd place is a bicycle with a front child seat and a year’s supply of milk. And 3rd place is a professional blender with a year’s supply of milk.

Photos will be accepted now through October 21st. Online voting runs from October 24th through October 28th. Make sure to check back because the winner will be announced on Monday, November 7.

For a little inspiration, here is a letter from the Maestro himself. letter_master_eng_yvonneLA

Disclosure: This is part of a sponsored campaign with the California Milk Processor’s Board and Latina Mom Bloggers.

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My Sister's Wedding

I was tasked with the hardest writing assignment of my life. My sister is getting married this weekend and I’m writing part of the ceremony.

The piece had to be powerful, meaningful, moving. Geez, it would have been easier to give her a kidney.

But she doesn’t need one. She needed me to write something special. I went with funny and kind of moving. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I gave it all I had.

This is my favorite picture of my sister and I. And this is how I always think of her; taking care of me and making me laugh.

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Connecting

Connect. What does it mean to really connect with someone? I’ve been thinking about this a lot during the last few weeks.

Over the summer I thought the best way to connect with my kids was to have lots of time together. Time where we could just be together. There were several weeks in the summer where they had no camp.

Well, not only did I get behind with work, but my 6 and 7-year-old boys were tearing the house apart. They needed to run around and be outside and have a great summer.

The lesson I learned there was that quality time is just that, quality time. We can have quality time during the hours after camp has ended, the camp that was reasonably priced and that they loved. It doesn’t have to be all day long, for a week, just the three of us.

You’d think I’d learn, but not so. When school started I was determined to be more involved in their school because I thought that’s what a good mom should do.

So I volunteered to be room mom. But I’m also on a couple of school committees. And I’m team mom for soccer. As a result, I’ve been trying to keep my head above water. One day I was talking to my younger son’s kindergarten teacher just as school ended. I looked around and I couldn’t find my kindergartner. I went to my older son’s class and the younger one wasn’t there. I walked back to the kindergarten class, inside the class, in the back yard. I looked everywhere and I couldn’t find him.

Finally, he found me. He’d walked to the front of the school, hung out a while and came back. The scariest part is that I couldn’t remember seeing him come out of class. I was so focused on talking to his teacher or talking to the other parents that I lost sight of him literally and also why I was volunteering in the first place.

Since that day, I’ve tried to focus on just my kids when school is out and try to be genuinely connected with them instead of doing what I think should be doing to be a good mom.

This post was inspired by a bi-weekly blog prompt called #HalbaTalk through Latina Bloggers Connect. 

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Master of the Glass Half Full

Since I’ve had children I’ve tried to be a glass is half full kind of mom. “Of course we’ll get there on time,” I tell my kids. And, “Yes! this day is going to be great!”

When instinctively I’m thinking the opposite. This day will suck and we will be late. Eeyore is lurking inside of me, but I’ve tried really hard to keep him quiet. You have to keep it positive for the kids, right?

So when I was approached by Latina Mom Bloggers about being a Positivity Ambassador for the California Milk Processor’s Board, I thought, Yes! Now I will be positive all the time.

And this guy is going to help me. 


He is Simón Felix, El Maestro del Vaso Medio Lleno or Master of the Glass Half Full, and when he’s not filling milk glasses he’s out spreading the message of Positivity around the world.

And I am ready to listen. Because if there’s one thing I’m positive about, it’s food. Organic milk and all other dairy products are a staple in Casa de los Condes. Dairy is my kids’ main source of protein and milk is one of my younger son’s favorite drinks. I get my milk every day in my coffee or latte and in my cereal.

So from now on it’s positive all the way. To learn more about El Maestro visit Facebook or follow his journey on Twitter.

Disclosure: This is part of a sponsored campaign with the California Milk Processor’s Board and Latina Mom Bloggers
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La Llorona

It was early afternoon and the café we stopped at was nearly empty, but sunny and bright. My 6-year-old picked a table by the window while my 7-year-old and I picked out pan dulce from the pastry case.

Empanadas with dulce de leche, a croissant with ham, cheese, and jalepeno, and delicate wedding cookies. We were eating quietly when my older son asked if I knew the story of the woman who cries.

“La Llorona?” I asked him. I pictured a woman walking on the ocean water with a long, steel knife. But that couldn’t be what he was talking about.

Sometimes I think my son is psychic, that he can read my thoughts. I had just been thinking about the summers I spent as a child at the beach in Sonora, Mexico

All of us kids would stay up late at night and stare at the ocean. We would each tell our own version of La Llorona. Mine involved a woman in white who searched the beaches for kids walking alone. A cousin’s story had her looking for young couples kissing, their last kiss of course. Each story was more terrifying and more specific. We’d go on until we were so scared we ran crying back to our parents.

“What story did you hear?” I asked him. Sure enough he told the story of the woman who drowned her children to be with the man she loved. Then she roamed the streets crying for her children. I didn’t ask if the story he read mentioned La Llorona snatching up kids if they walked away from their parents in the mall like my family told me.

Mainly I was just happy that we were talking about a book from Mexico that was in his classroom. He said he thought of the story because we were sitting in a Mexican bakery.

Who we are and where we come from doesn’t come up very much. We just live our lives. But it was so nice to sit and share a story I grew up hearing while eating food I grew up eating.

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Mammoth

Last week, the family and I went camping at June Lake and Mammoth with my inlaws. I was nervous at first about being offline for that many days (okay, I did check email by phone and used my laptop one day). But other than that there was no technology, just nature and my wonderful family.

We started out our trip at June Lake and took a ride out to the Bodie Ghostown. It was a bustling town in the  mid 1800s thanks to the gold rush, and at one point there was a populaton of 15,000. For those 15,000 or so people there were about 50 saloons. And men outnubered women 100 to 1.

Once the gold dried up people started leaving the town until there was nothing but old buildings. (This article in the New York Times talks about the push to start gold mining in Bodie once more.)

After a couple of days we moved our tent trailer over to Mammoth Lakes, which was really pretty. We explored and hiked and, of course, ate too much. Great way to end the summer.

 

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Peanut Butter Flan and a Pie for Mikey

There are so many things I take for granted. But the most obvious lately is my smart, kind, adorable husband. Even though he’s pissing me off right now, I know that he loves me and our kids more than anything. I know that he means everything to me and I want him to know it, too.

I want him to know that I really do appreciate everything he does for us. That I miss him when we’re not together and that when we are, I love his company. I want him to know that I love him more every day.

The reason I’m focusing about how much I love him and not how much he’s pissing me off (which is my usual MO), is because of a horrible thing that happened last weekend.

The blogger, Jennifer Perillo, whom I met only once and whose blog I follow, became a widow. Her husband of 18-years passed away suddenly of a heart attack. I can’t imagine how much her heart is breaking. Or the sorrow she must feel for her two daughters.

So today, I joined many people across the country to make a Peanut Buttery Pie for Mikey, his favorite dessert.

It’s not really a pie, it’s a flan, because I didn’t have the ingredients to make a gluten-free pie crust. Hopefully my dear and wonderful husband will know that I made it just for him and I made it with love.

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President Obama in Culver City

Last week my husband and I went to a fundraiser for President Barack Obama in Culver City. The reason I bought the tickets was so I could take my 7-year-old son. I thought it would be the experience of a lifetime. And not only that, it was on the Sony Pictures lot so what could be safer?

Well, unfortunately I didn’t work it out for my son to go so the husband and I went. I don’t know if it was because my son wasn’t there or because of what the President was saying, but I wasn’t moved in the way I thought I would be.

I wanted the President to be mad. I wanted him to say he was going to fight back hard against the Republicans. I wanted him to say he was going to fix education, hang onto healthcare, and protect a women’s right to choose with his last breath. I wanted him to say he was going to somehow get the Dream Act passed. He kinda sorta said those things, but not in the way I wanted. I wanted to be moved to action, to tears.

Part of why I wasn’t moved might have been because of a conversation I had with my son. We heard a story on the radio about fundraising for Obama (this was before I knew about the event we attended). He said “That’s funny that they’re raising money for Obama when he’s rich. Why aren’t they raising money for the people of Japan?” And the conversation went on from there. I explained how campaigns in America are expensive and we give money in the hopes that the person we elect will make good choices for us. But, my God, it’s hard to explain to a 7-year-old why presidential campaigns cost so much money. Money that could be spent on feeding hungry families or paying for counseling or medical care for wounded soldiers. “Television ads are expensive” was part of my lame reasoning.

Looking back on the fundraising event, it probably didn’t take an aggressive tone because the people in the room didn’t need to be convinced to be on the President’s side. It was a very nice group of Democrats and many of them, like me, volunteered for the campaign at some point. There was a lot of love in that room and in that way it was inspiring.

Okay, and it was amazing to be in the same room as the President. I do think he’s doing a good job, I’m just worried that he compromises too much. I’m worried about what the haters and the ones with the loudest voices will do in the next election.

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No Habla Español

There are so many times when I regret not speaking better Spanish. This past weekend I was talking to a very interesting woman at the Blogher Bet conference (which was fantastic by the way). Another woman came up and started speaking Spanish. I understood a few words here and there and nodded at the appropriate times, which led them to believe that I spoke Spanish.

A normal person would have said something, but I thought I could either fake it or figure out what they were saying. I nodded like an idiot for way too long. Once they were gone I applauded myself because I thought I understood everything they said. I ran into a friend and told her what our mutual friend had said. Well, turns out I had the entire conversation wrong.

And that pretty much sums up my childhood. My parents spoke Spanish fluently with friends, relatives, and strangers, but not with their four kids. They would speak to each other in Spanish in front of us, and I would think I knew what they were saying. I would make a comment to join in the conversation and they would laugh. Good times. But that was several decades ago.

Why, at 40, am I still not fluent in Spanish? I was doing really well for a time (I went to summer school in Guadalajara) and after college I could hold an intelligent conversation. But (get ready for a lame excuse) after I started my first job in the Midwest I didn’t know anyone who spoke Spanish. In fact, I was the only Mexican-American my friends there knew.

Now here is why my excuse is lame. After I left the Midwest, I moved to California. There are plenty of people here who speak Spanish so why haven’t I picked it up again? It’s because I’m too embarrassed to try because my Spanish is so bad. I can handle the idea of being laughed at (it happens more than I care to mention), but I don’t like the idea of sounding dumb.

Having written those words, I now know how lame they sound. If my kids told me they weren’t going to try because they were afraid to fail I would lecture them until they passed out from exhaustion.

So I guess it’s time to take a Spanish class. If you see me and you speak Spanish, come over and say hola, but don’t be surprised if you hear me reply, “Que?”  Remember, I’m trying.