Just once...

It is very seldom that I bitch, gripe, or complain about much in life. I believe that there is a positive side to everything and at times, though I am really stretched to find the light side of darkness, I do. But on Wednesday I fell victim to my negativity.
So, as I mentioned, Juan had a fever all weekend. On Monday night, while bathing him, a bunch of small red bumps appeared on his torso. WELL you can imagine how I immediately panicked, especially as there has been an outbreak of measles thanks to all the soccer fanatics that went to South Africa for the world cup and brought the virus back with them. Measles is a vaccine that they don't recommend giving until 1 year of age, so Juan has yet to have it.
When the red splotches appeared I freaked!
So on Tuesday we went to the hospital. On our way there, as he does each day, Juan fell asleep in the Ergo baby carrier while riding the bus, and so I took advantage of enjoying a nice latte with three mini croissants in a bar near the hospital. I was soooooo disgusted by the things I encountered in the bar that it took everything in me to bite my tongue and not flail ferocious words at the woman beside me.
She was obviously the aunt of a young child, no more than 7 years old, who was hacking up a lung every minute or so. She never once said, "cover your mouth." She never once handed him a hankie, and to top it off...SHE ORDERED HIM A LATTE AND PUT TWO PACKS OF SUGAR IN IT FOR HIM!!!!
In my head, I had ripped her a new orifice on the dangers of sugars, in real life I asked for the check and left as fast as I could so as not to catch any of the snot particles flailing from the snotty nosed child's mouth.
Entering the Hospital was not much better, there were 20 some odd people of all ages waiting to see the doctor on call, all of which were hacking up lungs and taking no precautions what so ever. As I sat there quietly trying to guard Juan's face from germs, I began to sweat, I heard coughing all around me, began to look around and see the young and old alike coughing and hacking and yes, reaching for their coca cola! THEIR COCA COLA!!!
As my anxiety grew and began to get the best of me, I quickly stood up, gathered our things, and left as nimble as I had entered. I could not handle sitting in that room for one second more.
As we made our way to the bus stop, every person I passed had a cigarette hanging from their nicotine tainted fingers or tar laden lips, and that was my explosion point. I began questioning what on earth we were doing living in a society who so blatantly disregards their personal health as well as the health of those around them.
According to author, Eric Weiner, "Other people's problems are our problems." I couldn't agree more, and especially in this case, where an entire society appears to be sick with a spring cold or flu and no one seems to give two shits about spreading their germs to the person next to them, or how about, preventing it in the first place by evading things that collapse our immune systems to begin with?! No, that would be entirely too innovative an idea.
Ok, so there, there it is, my two bits of negative insight to this place I call home, even though my heart isn't in it. Home it is for now.

I had a moment

Friday afternoon Juan began to fuss. He didn't want to go to bed, though he was dead tired. Each time I helped him to fall asleep in my arms and quietly tried to lay him down, he was awakened with a look of indignation written across his face, as if to say, "What in the hell are you doing? Don't you see I am trying to sleep and you keep waking me up!"
It wasn't until later that I began to realize something was wrong, this was not normal for even him, the kid who doesn't want to sleep ever. Finally, I felt his head, he was warm...not over heatedly so, but definitely with a fever.
While I had thousands of things to accomplish during his 1.5 nap he apparently was not going to take, I gave in, grabbed a book, and let him sleep on my chest. By night fall he had worsened and, opposed to my naturalist instincts, I gave him a bit of tylonol for babies to help the fever down.
We had a hard night, but not the worst. I again, sat up in bed while he laid across my chest and slept most the night, awaking and whining enough to latch onto the boob and fall back to sleep.
Normally after a sleepless night I am in ripe form of low patience and zero tolerance but this Saturday was different. I was, well peaceful, though I didn't know it until I had a moment.
The first signs of Spring are now everywhere, birds calling sing song style, flowers blooming bumble bee bourbon, and the sun, yes beautiful sun streams through my open windows caressing breezes running through the corridor of my home, of my heart. Yes, Spring I am in love.
I was washing dishes of all things, staring out my kitchen window, watching Claudio show Juan, as way of distraction from both his sickness and his crying, the budding lemon tree in all it's beauty, when it hit me. This is what happiness is, this is what a family looks like, this is MY family. I teared up and silently, lovingly, experienced this moment called bliss, then I went for my camera so as to share it with you.

My life line was cut off!!

Oh my god! I had no idea just how much I rely on the internet! I use it for virtually everything I do in a day, besides, eating, sleeping, and drinking, I work online, I communicate with my friends and family online, I am constantly consulting cultural agendas, calendars, and Wikipedia responses...In fact, we don't even have a set of encyclopedias anymore! Well, for one reason or another, I have been without web service for about a month now! I am not sure why, but as Murphy would have it, today the technician is supposed to come fix the connection and last night, for no apparent reason at all, I was suddenly connected and navigating without problems! Now I will appear to be the epitome of the crazy house wife, who, after yelling and screaming for them to send me a techy, the problem has suddenly fixed itself...If you ask me, it is pure conspiracy! They probably fixed the connection at street or server level yesterday just to make me look loca!
Well, regardless of why, or how, I am going to quickly take advantage of this time to post a few new milestones of little Juan!
He is now 7.5 months and though I haven't weighed him lately, I am sure he is close to 19 pounds. He is crawling like a maniac, runs while in his walker, and pulls himself to standing position at every possible opportunity to do so. I am sure that by the next time I write, he will be walking. haha
But the most alarming of his advances is, he has begun trying to climb out of his crib! He pulls himself to a standing position and tries to swing one of his legs up over the rail so as to climb out! We have discussed how we might address this problem and so far the only viable option we have come up with is to put a net over the top of the crib, whereby "locking" him in. haha.
Today is the first day of Spring and while it is drizzly and overcast, I am still happy that we are slowly but surely closing the door on winter. I can't wait to let Juan run around in just his diaper!
Ok lovely family, here are some of the most recent photos. I will write more soon but after being unplugged these past few weeks, I am sooooo behind on some of my work!
Speaking of which, here is the new website we have been building: www.spanishinrosario.com

Mobility

September 2nd, 2010, Juan Nicolas Pellegrino began to crawl! Yes it is true! Just under 7 months, our kiddo is hauling butt all over this house, and I mean fast! (Meaning I was forced to baby proof things a little sooner than I had imagined) This new trait that has taken form in the past few days has left our little one with an abundance of tears, however, as he has fallen, banged, bumped and smacked, just about every chair leg, coffee table, door jam, and trash can his little head could find. This has not stopped him though, in two days time, he was making great speed, and it seems that was not enough for him. In two days time, I left him in his crib only to return and find him standing up!!!!
Anything that crosses his belly scraping path is made useful as a stool to help him from his knees to his feet, whereby making for an even harder fall. (poor guy!) He is so tough!
Anyway, here is a little video to make your day!

WE have a mover and a shaker!!!

Juan is now 7 months old!!! It has flown by at light speed velocity! My good god!

Before I share with you a complete catchup on the new tricks Juan has up his sleeve, there is a video that some how never got posted and is far beyond deserving of your audience.
I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!