Overheard at the Espinosa House

I took in the landscape as we were eating dinner all together this evening-- Dominic to the far right saying, "Mira, Papi!" as he smacked himself with an open palm repeatedly on the forehead; Danny beside him zoned out, chewing mechanically; Noemie on the other side of him trying to eat 3 stacked slices of quesadilla between verses of Appy Yertdee Tooyooo (which she kindly addressed to me). It's a snapshot of life with little kids that is equally amusing and exhausting... wonderful with a touch of miserable.

Soundbites from Dominic from weeks past:

Walking around with a laundry basket on his head, commenting on how he resembles a tube of toothpaste: "Soy una química!"

(I'm a chemical!)

Pointing to the the ball pump on top of a bookcase: "Mami, mi cuerpo no esta funcionando. Necesito aire. Me puedes alcanzar eso ? "

(My body is not working. I need air. Can you hand me [the ball pump]?)

Dominic has been in the backseat of the car talking enthusiastically to a banana for several minutes. I comment, "That banana is getting an earful!" Dominic says to the banana, "Banana, ¿tu oístes eso? Mami dice que tu vas a tener orejas grandes!"

(Banana, did you hear that? Mom says you're going to have big ears!)

Dominic interrupting our meal-time prayer, "Y gracias Señor que estoy creciendo para que yo pueda manejar un carro verde. Con un spoiler."

(And thank you, Lord, that I am growing so that I can drive a green car. With a spoiler.)

My favorite Danny soundbite of today:

"Noooooooo! Did you put your hand in your poop? Nooooooo!" (ten minutes later) "Gross! No wonder I still smell poop! She must have gotten poop on her shirt when she got it on her hands!" (half an hour later) "AGH! It's in her hair!!!!"

Noemie and Jonny hanging out at the baby shower

Bump!

I was positively tickled as I sat in my pew Sunday morning to watch a man who must have been nearly 90 years old sing for the offertory. The accompanist awkwardly improvised a 5 minute long intro to the song while the hobbly little man gave an unexpected spoken interlude on how much he loved his church and his family. As he rambled slowly, the accompanist played nervously, arching her neck to see him, to see when, if ever, he was going to begin the singing. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have seen 90 years of life on this earth, especially as a missionary of all things. The wisdom and experience of his age gives his song just that much more validity:

For the God on the mountain is still God in the valley.

When things go wrong, He'll make it right.

And the God of the good times is still God in the bad times

The God of the day is still God in the night.

It is one month till my due date and tomorrow I have another OB appointment. I thought that Noemie would be born 3 weeks early in my last pregnancy, yet she showed up 5 days past due. So the fact that I've been having mild contractions and that my hip bones are aching (indicating the baby is dropping) is little consolation. But much inconvenience. I walk like a rheumatic duck. Like a nesting rheumatic duck. Yes, the nesting instinct hit me today and, despite my condition, I have set myself to vacuuming every floor-bound fiber in the house, dusting every vertical surface down to the millimeter-wide baseboard ledges, and scrubbing down the inside of the fridge. I don't plan on the baby ever being in the fridge but you never know what may occur to a three-year-old boy.

Danny made his first car purchase today. Confrontation may not be his forte, but I think he did pretty well! At least the car salesman acted like he was sweating. I have to 409 those seatbelts down. (It was a used car). We got ourselves a Hyundai Entourage... yes... a minivan. A loser cruiser. I am so excited!.. a sentiment that belies some sort of graduation into motherhood of the soccer variety.

My mom treated us to an afternoon at the Dade County Youth Fair last week. My Ohio-raised cousin was scandalized at the near absence of livestock but Dominic and Noemie were perfectly content to eat corn-on-the-cob (dripping with butter but a vegetable nevertheless) and to "drive."

Dominic did remarkably well in spite of the fact that most of his driving experience heretofore has been limited to sitting in the passenger seat of our car and saying , "vrooom, vroOOoom!" Noemie, ever a girl, sat in the bumper car side seat fixing her hair and monitoring the traffic.

p.s. Happy Birthday, Karn!

No bumps here

Despite several requests to see "the bump," I regret to inform you that it is a spectacle that will have to be witnessed in person. Mostly because in the past 4 months, I've only been photographed with my camera about 3 times. In one of those, you can't see my belly, and in the other two, I was wearing a doo-rag which makes my slightly swollen face look even more inflated. Until it occurs to someone to take the camera from my hands and make sure I am included in our family photos (in a presentable state), you will just have to imagine I am there. And imagine the belly while you're at it.

(really, how gorgeous is my man?!)

I don't know how I could have tolerated this pregnancy without discovering the magic of chiropractic care. I have always been a skeptic but when this particular doctor subbed in for our Sunday School teacher a few weeks ago, I thought Danny might benefit. Little did I know I would end up being the one on the table! The sciatic pain (pinched nerve in the hip) that had been plaguing me for a month is gone. And I have at least doubled my endurance for standing and walking. I'm due for another crackin. I must be an unusual cracker because the doctor always looks a bit disconcerted when he's done with me. It's awfully awkward getting pressed that way! But being able to cook and pick up after the kids and take Noemie to pee at the department store.... it's worth it.

We picked up a business card there for a pediatrician. This "maximized living", holistic medical
care trend is really fascinating! I'm not one given to conspiracy theories but by the time you're done with one or two of these doctors, you will have the deepest distrust of the AMA, ACS, FDA, the pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare industry as a whole. The US spends significantly more money on healthcare than any other nation in the world, and we have the highest rates of cancer and heart disease in the world. Could it be that something in the way healthcare is done here is contributing to instead of combating disease? I could talk about this for hours.

We attended a "meet and greet" with the pediatrician last Tuesday where he reiterated my granola-mom convictions that the Hep B vaccine should ordinarily be withheld from newborns, that medications (even non-prescriptions) always be given as a last resort, and that a kid's doctor should always be a phone call away, even at 10pm on a Friday (which will inevitably be when you need him most). It was such a far cry from my experiences with Pediatric Associates where we had to wait almost an hour in a room PACKED with sniffling coughing, slimy children, to see the doctor for 5 hurried minutes, and to be treated as if my input was inferior and unwelcome.

Despite intense and fabulous planning on my part, the best of my plans for the past two weeks have come to inglorious nothingness. Danny decided the weather was insufficiently pleasant for our Typhoon Lagoon excursion last Wednesday. A last-minute decision to participate in a car auction bumped poor Noemie's birthday-at-the-Seaquarium plans out the window, and we had no vehicle to show for it in the end. Our Youth Fair plans for Monday fizzled out with the rain and on Tuesday I plum forgot Dominic's swim lesson. So maybe we'll go to the planetarium on Friday. Or maybe not. And maybe we'll make it to my mom's potluck on Easter. But the statistics are against me. I'm pretty intent on getting to that chiropractor's office this afternoon, though, I tell you what.

Noemie eats cake (for probably the first time ever) on her birthday.