Raindrops are falling on my head

What does it mean to have faith like a child? Driving Danny to the Pat Thomas Police Academy today, I was reminded of that question as Dominic sat in the back seat happily babbling nonsense to himself, clearly unaware of the conversation going on in the front half of the car. Dominic has no idea what is going on but he is cheerful, completely secure in the fact that tonight he will fall asleep in his "casa" with a full belly, a kiss from mami, a bedtime story (or 5), and bija (his blanket). He has faith that everything else will work itself out.

Danny's orthopedic evaluation went as well as anyone could expect, anyone who wasn't praying for a miraculous healing, anyway. The day that Danny was injured, I had read some essays by C.S. Lewis on the efficacy of prayer. It has been very helpful to have those thoughts in mind as we've waited through this past week. I prayed for divine healing and asked others to do the same, believing fully that God is capable. His appointment this morning revealed that his elbow was healing on mortal schedule and that he had ligamental tears all the way around his elbow as well. He will need extensive therapy for the next couple months, several times a week. Furthermore, he is restricted to sedentary activities- no firearms training, no hand to hand combat, no running, no snorkling, no piñatas...no more academy. (I'm trying to smile here). So many people were praying for Danny. It was not for not-asking that Danny wasn't healed supernaturally. God's answer was simply "no" ...which happens... and God is to be praised for these "no"s too because it means that God has something else in mind which is for our good and His glory. I know these are all the right answers, but my faith waxes and wanes with the levels of chocolate in my bloodstream and with Dominic's behavior. Perhaps one of the hardest things Danny will have to deal with is not being able to graduate with his class. He has made many friendships there and has really enjoyed working with his classmates. We still don't know what this means as far as Danny's employment is concerned. I just wait silently, like a defendent in a courtroom waiting on a verdict.

When Ray married us, he warned us that just as a hurricane had threatened our wedding, there would be other storms in life that we would have to weather together. I'm reminded of that now. Our wedding plans completely fell apart but it only served to highlight the important things- the ceremony that was taking place and the love and goodness of our family and friends who came together to celebrate our marriage regardless of what church we were married in or the afterparty. Plus we got all that wedding money back and were able to use it to buy things that we needed. A hurricane hit the weekend that we moved to Tallahassee. And now Hurricane Fay came to herald Danny's police academy withdrawal. Maybe the hurricane is God's way of telling us he's doing something great. Really, though, I think I'd prefer something more subtle... like a rainbow.


Richview & Park Ave
(two blocks from our house)

Lake Ella...to infinity and beyond!

Where's my medal?

Dominic wants me to loop "The Wheels on the Bus." The song is just under two minutes long and there's still half an hour left till his nap time. That means I will have to listen to this song about 15 times... When I went in to see him this morning, he was bouncing so high in his crib I thought he might bounce right out of it, yelling, "Elmo! Bob! (Hi Mami) Elmo! Bubbles!" He's a happy boy. And, as his other favorite song is Soulja Boy (or yoooouuuu, as he calls it), it could be worse.

I think I'm doing remarkably well considering, well, a number of things. I was almost struck by lightning yesterday morning. I was leaving my neighbor's house when a bolt probably hit within a few feet of me. (It wasn't raining). I hit the turf with my hands over my head and when I realized I was still alive, I picked myself up and ran for my life back into my house. I'm sure I looked more than a little ridiculous. I later realized that my keys had fallen out of my purse on our way home from church on Sunday (Danny drove) and that they were locked in my car. Brilliant. Subsequently, I almost had a heart attack when Danny's classmates called me at 10:30 pm to tell me that if I left for the hospital that moment, I could arrive there before him. WHAT?! Excuse me, I have two babies and no car and I prefer to stay away from hospitals unless I'm in labor and really, I'd like to avoid being in labor as much as possible. So at 11 I was on the phone with my mom, frantically scrubbing the baseboards in my guest bathroom to spend my nervous energy. At 3:30 in the morning, long after Nastia was awarded the silver medal for her gold-medal-worthy uneven bar routine, my long lost husband arrived from TMH with a fractured elbow. Danny says he had like 5 or 6 fellow officers-in-training who stayed by his side till his discharge. I think Danny was very moved by their devotion. And by the morphine. He spent the morning getting an Orthopaedic evaluation and came home to change and leave for the academy again, sporting his fancy soft cast. I saw him for all of 5 minutes.

And with that, I'm going to go collapse. Thank you.

A day in the life

Noemie is in a league of her own. She is quite possibly the happiest baby ever. She LOVES to talk and be talked to. She is constantly smiling and giggling and wanting to get her hands on your face. When I'm tired or frustrated, she cheers me up in an instant.

For the next three weeks Danny will be at the academy from 1-10pm. Our days are...strange. Danny wakes up with the babies between 8 and 9 am and lets me sleep in till 9:30-ish, at which point I roll out of bed and make breakfast and dinner simultaneously. Then I heat up Danny's lunch, which is usually left overs from "dinner" from two nights before. Danny usually runs errands with Dominic in the mornings and has to be home by 11:30 to get dressed and ready to go. Monday they did groceries, Tuesday we went downtown to get Noemie her passport, I can't even remember yesterday, and this morning Danny and Dominic went to get Danny fitted for his uniform. Danny says it looks "tight" (which is slang for 'stylish'). Danny leaves just before 12 with his lunch and dinner in stacks of tupperware.

Defensive tactics has not been kind to Danny. The first two days they worked on pressure points. Danny keeps getting partnered with a girl who doesn't trim her fingernails quite as short as she probably should if she's going to be digging for pressure points. The next day they worked on escort positions, and yesterday on proper falling and on deflecting the force of attacks. I would like to note that Danny explains all these maneuvers when he gets home (at 11) and demonstrates them on me. Then I stay up till unreasonable hours watching Olympic gymnastics.

As I was laying in bed this afternoon taking a nap, the house phone rang waking up both myself and baby girl, who proceeded to wail. As I laid there burying my head in Danny's pillow and trying to seal off my inner ear with my shoulder, I attempted to teleport. I know this might sound odd to you but I've seen it done in movies countless times and sometimes I wonder just maybe... maybe... it's possible to think so hard that I might suddenly find myself curled up, in the same position, on a striped towel under a matching umbrella on a warm mound of sand on an empty beach in, say, Aruba. With a pineapple-coconut smoothie. MMMmmmm. Where would you go?

Oh, I thought I should let you know, we chickened out of potty training last weekend and decided to postpone the ordeal a few more weeks.

Back that grass up

Mow to the left

Mow to the right

Runaway mower!

Clogging...blogging...not to be confused

It makes me feel young and sassy to zip around capital circle, perfecting my eyebrows with my handy car-pocket tweezers in a cute dress and lip-glossed glamor, blasting "St. Elmo's Fire" on my way to the wedding of two wonderful people. But sometimes, regardless of how good you look or how fast you drive, you can't cross Tallahassee during rush hour in twenty minutes, and yes, in Tallahassee when the wedding invitation says 5:30, they actually start at 5:30. No kidding.

So I missed the entire processional and some of the message, really. And there was nothing even remotely cool about that. In my defense, I combed my kitchen and bedroom for over an hour for long-lost parts to my breast-pump and never succeeded in finding them all before my baby sitter arrived. With twenty minutes left till my timed departure, I still had to nurse Noemie, brief the sitter, dress, and do my hair and makeup. Feeding Noemie alone takes twenty minutes. So there you have it. Those parts of the wedding which I did get to see, I loved. Their centerpieces were green apples and pink gerberas. Can you handle the cuteness? Like Sally bouncing up and down during her vows... she was so excited. Danny thought she looked like a wedding cake. I thought she looked beautiful.

We had to return home early since Noemie's feeding schedule will not yield to even the cutest nuptial celebration. Dominic was asleep and the sitter was cheerful, two good signs. Noemie was awake and looking hungry but she wasn't crying. And Danny... Danny discovered that a package had arrived while he was at the academy this afternoon. He finally got the cell phone he ordered. A tough guy cell phone. A phone that he chose because he can run it over with his car and it wont break. I'm sure Dominic can break it. We'll see how long it lasts. At the time of this writing, he is carefully removing and inspecting every item in the carton and placing it in a pre-ordained spot on the floor. I take it back. That's what he was doing 2 minutes ago. In the past two minutes, Danny has gone from ceremoniously disembowling the cellphone package to passing out cold on the carpet. Hana and I have talked about this. It's an Espinosa boy-thing.

It's been such a long day. For me, I mean. Dominic woke up with a poopie. Nothing new. But what was new is that this morning he told me he had a poopie. Usually, I ask him (though I already know) and regardless of the correct answer, he always responds with a "no?" Like he's hoping that answer will be acceptable. But we have made it to the end. A Playdate, gardening adventures, a wedding... and here we are.

Dominic models his new 'do



Danny and Noemie chat with family in Venezuela



Dominic explains for the upteenth time that the Schechem stranglehold originated west of the River Jordan (duh, mom)

It's not funny

How many times did I hear the phrase "no me da ninguna gracia" growing up? It's the phrase of the month around the Espinosa house.
Dominic is in time out until he learns to clean spaghetti sauce out of the carpet. It may take a few years but he'll learn eventually.

I've lost that lovin feeling

A milk duct aspiration followed by a longer-than-usual bout of the stomach flu totally shot my weekend. (Toe is feeling better). I stayed in bed almost all day Saturday and most of Sunday, making my only public appearance at the Puig baby shower. At that point I was eating nothing but cantaloupe and had to stare longingly at the dump truck filled with chocolate cake. I'm really glad I resisted. Projectile vomiting is so fascinating that if it weren't also so intensely disgusting, I'd be curious to learn how the stomach accomplishes such a feat.

And so I find myself at Monday again. Danny was a champ and watched over the kids almost the whole weekend by himself. He also bought me roses (pink) and brownies for when I do feel better. I've been a little panicky searching for the source of my illness... Did I get salmonella from licking a spoon of raw batter? Did I place a slice of bread on a kitchen counter that hadn't been adequately cleaned after some chicken goo dripped on it? I am (thank God for real) the only person here who got sick (we all started washing our hands extra). While I still haven't found the source of contamination, I think I might be closer to figuring it out. You can learn a lot from facebook stalking. Looks like my Thursday friends have been having some tummy troubles this weekend too.

Noemie is outgrowing her play pen (I'm assuming this is why I always find her stuck with her face squooshed against the mesh). We will have to move her to the crib soon. I am looking for a daybed for Dominic's room and then... and then... ah. We'll see. I DO know that Dominic is going to learn to use that darned potty ASAP. For one, I hate poop. For two, diapers are ridiculously expensive, waste-producing, and have chemicals and stuff which always makes me wary. Operation Poop-goes-in-the-potty begins this Sunday. (This month is kind of busy).

Also on the calendar for this week: TPD Block Party on Tues, Sally's wedding on Friday, and a date night with the Leidys and Lehmans on Saturday.