Our 5 Year Old Girl

Happy Birthday to a very special Mia April 17! Her birthday just so happens to fall right after her daddy who's birthday was April 14 and her new baby sister April 16. Thankfully the hospital was in need of beds and expedited my discharge for me to make it home the afternoon of her official birthday. Fernando, who was exhausted, went to a lot of effort to make the day special. He took her to Panera's for a bagel breakfast and made a special requested "Pride Rock" birthday cake. He also found these jungle animal figurines since Lion King paraphernalia has long since disappeared. I had hoped to be a bigger part of the special day, but was grateful to see her face when she walked into a room full of balloons, jungle banners, and Lion King playing in the background.

As a post script. . .I did take some initiative before Talia was born and took her to one of her favorite restaurants, Red Robin.

Talia Noemi Tovar

In the early hours of Wednesday April 16, our newest family member torpedoed into existence.



STORY (warning may be long and full of too much information)
It all start with a normal pregnancy nighttime trip to the restroom at 2:30 am. When I laid back in bed, I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I stayed up to keep track of the time and length of the contractions. To keep me occupied, I checked up on some blogs that I haven't read in awhile. . .TRANSLATION a few days (Great Lamaze technique if the blogs are interesting enough which they all were). I also looked up definitions of active labor so as not to be caught by surprise when it was "go time". You see I was only dilated to may be a 2 earlier that day and didn't want to go to the hospital on a dry run. By 3 am, the consistent 5 minute contractions were becoming a little too much and so I hopped into the shower. I didn't want to be stinky at the hospital. The warm water brought little comfort and yet I still didn't know if I should wake up Fernando. Fernando, the comatose sleeper, suddenly opened the bathroom door. I guess my labor breathing was a lot louder then I realized! Unable to carry on a complete conversation, I told Fernando we needed to go.

Luckily, our neighbors offered to watch the kids "no matter if it is 3 in the morning" which turned out to be very prophetic on her count. I tried to wait in the car while Fernando set things up with her sleeping arrangements and what to do with the kids. The waiting in the car alternated from me putting my seatbelt on, using my telepathic skills to get Fernando to hurry, and jumping out of the car to pace up and down our street during each contraction. Fernando was finally ready to go and was insistent that he not practice his OB skills on me in our car. This feeling inspired race car driving and a police shadow that pulled us over not long after getting on the freeway. Fernando pulled over since the police officer refused to parallel drive with us. The police man sauntered slowly up to the car with Fernando yelling out the window "My wife is in labor. We have to still get to National Naval Medical Center." (A good 15 minutes away) He didn't seem to buy the story until he leaned into the car and got a good look at me. To be honest, I have no clue what I looked like, but I would image a fire breathing dragon caricature would be a good likening. The cop told us to slow down, but Fernando knew better. After an eternity of endless freeway, the hospital was in view. Parking in the VIP roundabout, I shot out of the car and past the 5 security officers. Again my physical appearance prevented much questioning. Nearly jogging to the elevator, I focused all my energy on finding someone to give me the epidural. The first thing that came out of my mouth was "I need an epidural. Could someone please get me an epidural." These words fell on what seemed to be deaf ears. The nurses kept interrupting with "Ok, honey, how far along are you. How long have you been having contractions." This interaction was comical to surely everyone except me who was about to karate chop down the doors to admit myself. Finally Fernando was able to kick things into gear with such pertinent facts as "this is baby number 3 and she was due almost a week ago".

Magically all sorts of doors were opened and numerous people in colorful scrubs were rushing around to prepare the delivery room. I was pacing the room trying to distract myself. I looked at the time-3:25 am. Seeing as how this story is taking longer to tell then the actual event and the scene that followed would be too graphic to retell, I will cut to the chase. A cliff note version includes indecent exposure, a sweet but far too mellow anesthesiologist trying to give me a spinal block, too many people telling me how to breath in through my nose and out my mouth, an oxygen mask, two pushes and out comes a distressed baby girl at 3:54 am.

I was surprised to be so relax after all that insanity. Looking back, it might of have been due to the fact that I lost a significant amount of blood after delivery which caused a new fury in my hospital room. I am just grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who listened to the literal cries of a frantic pregnant woman in the car just moments before.

Cherry Blossoms

After the bitter diatribe I had with the Easter Egg Roll, one might think that I would give up on the whole DC Events thing. Not so. Luckily there are a few events that don't require sheer insanity to participate in. Saturday morning, we took the family down to see the Cherry Blossoms. The area is bursting with spring time and we happened to catch a good view of all the flowers along with several thousands of people. The weather was a bit chilly and the Tidal Basin was cleverly fenced to avoid possible calamity with the rising tide flowing onto the sidewalks. It took a lot of convincing to keep the kids from picking all the flowers so as to leave it beautiful for the rest of the festival. I just wish we could have been on bikes to enjoy in style.

As a side bonus, the kids enjoyed all the various forms of transportation DC offers especially all the plains landing at the very near by National Airport. Tiago pretended to be an airplane with fire shooting out of his knees for the rest of the day. (I must tell you that the original flame shooting body part of choice was his bottom, but I suggested that two knees were much better then one bottom.)

Artistic Mediums

Mia has really impressed me lately with her very creative art. Whether she is drawing detailed pictures of our family or creating animals out of play dough, she never ceases to amaze. We bought some new play dough the other day which meant the kids could actually shape it into various objects and not just have a bunch of colorful crumbs. Enjoy her explanation of the finished products. (Too bad the camera couldn't catch all the little details including the little paws she made for the lions that were made with claws and all)


With Mia flexing her creative muscles, I tried to do the same. Jenga blocks were transformed into what could be construed as Mack from Disney's The Cars movie. Tiago has wanted one of these toys for quite awhile now, but $15 is a bit much for my taste. Tiago was obliging enough to imagine those Jenga blocks as a close substitute especially when he could roll his Lightening McQueen in and out.




(the real thing. . .ok Tiago has a great imagination too it seems!)

Special Delivery

No, I didn't have the baby yet. The other day, Mia received a special package for the whole family to enjoy. Her clever and considerate Uncle Josh and Aunt Angela from Utah ordered the new Mia Pizza from Pizza Hut. Uncle Josh just couldn't pass up the fun connection with the pizza's name and his niece. We hardly ever order pizza which made it fun enough at that, but the fact that her name was on it made Mia's week. She kept showing everyone her pizza and asking why her name was on the box. Good job on thoughtfulness.

Pleasant kind of Wilderness

(If the kids could do it. . .well you can't get across any other way)

There is a scene in Pride and Prejudice that occurs in what Lady Catherine de Bourgh refers to as a "Pleasant kind of Wilderness" near Miss Elizabeth Bennet's house. The producer's translation of "pleasant" is far from my ideal, but proved to be equivalent to the little adventure our family took the other day near our home. The weather and company were pleasant and the rest was a wilderness much like unto the movie's rendition.

(Mia being the trail blazer and Tiago showing me the correct form to descend a steep hill)

(Confused as to which direction would be advantageous for all to travel. By the way, great walking sticks were found by Fernando.)

Lost in Translation

Our family took an out of the way detour up to the outlets yesterday. Fernando and I decided to divide and conquer to hit more stores in less time. Our meeting place would be at the Children's Place clothing store. Fernando proved to be the better shopper of the two since he actually had items to show for the time spent in the stores. He kindly bought two little basketballs for Mia and Tiago. These would help solve the inevitable fight we have during family basketball times as to who gets the ball. Mind you we own two and there is always another one at the church, but why not all choose the same ball.

Mia and Tiago were each given the responsibility to carry their own basketball to the car. Mia seemed a little anxious about this. Finally she asked me, "Did Daddy buy this for me?" in which I responded "Yes, Daddy bought it for you". Strangely, she kept asking that question over and over again. Both of us persisted in the same exchange of the original conversation. Finally Mia yells "Did Daddy pay for the basketball or did he just take it from the store?" I hadn't realized that she didn't connect buy and bought as the same word just a different form of the word. The experience brought mixed emotions. First how frustrating, but funny miscommunication can be. Second, the proud feelings of a parent that she would be concerned about accepting a shoplifted item. And finally, the intrigue one has after realizing their child thought they might actually do something that wrong.