What!? I'm not American?

Last week I was watching another episode of 'Desperate Housewives' and it started to hit me too --- essentially, the Solis family is of Hispanic descent and it seems their 7-year old daughter only figures this out at the admissions office of her new school. She is going in to meet with the principal for an interview and testing and the principal says how nice it is to have a diversity and a Mexican-American family at their school. The girl freaks out and says with a tear in her eye, "I'm Mexican!? I thought I was American!" It is enough to make you giggle. The parents have to explain to her later that she is Latino and that her grandparents are Mexican. She does not grasp it. They wonder how could a 7-year old not notice that we are of Hispanic heritage.... as they look around at their white Anglo Saxon neighborhood and their own habits they realize they never kept their heritage alive.

In any case, applying this to us, I realize as we walk through stores and restaurants, I am not sure my daughter knows that she is Indian-American and I doubt she will know this for sometime. She does not yet identify color or language as something "different". She just falls into place at school with all the other Caucasian, Indian-American, and Hispanic kids and goes about her business. While she is not color blind in the medical sense, she certainly is in the race-sense. In any case, as I look around our neighborhood, my work colleagues and the kids she goes to school with, I realize we will have to teach her about our heritage, our culture, and our religion because she could fall prey to the same dilemma little Solis faced on 'Desperate Housewives' and one day, she may say, "I'm Indian? WHAT! I thought I was American."

Review of CATS- The Musical

I saw the musical Cats this weekend after wanting to see it for sometime. It was touring here in Colorado and I caught it at the Buell Theater. I gotta say, we had great seats- box seats are the way to go at the Buell if you can afford it. But, unlike all the other musicals I have seen including Wicked, Miss Saigon, Les Mis, etc., there really is no plot and I wish I had read the background and information on Wiki (see above) before I went. Actually, even reading the APPLAUSE program for the musical before intermission would have helped.

It was good and left an impression but not necessarily an excellent one. I would watch it again many, many years from now but not anytime soon. All in all, I did laugh, I cried a little from boredom... it was okay.

A simple thank you

Since the Holiday Season has come and gone, there has been plenty of time to reflect on gift-giving and receiving. For example, I always give a gift card to our post master- after all, he performs a service - often, a thankless job. I like to give to the guy in my office who empties my trash and vacuums daily- he certainly appreciates the small token of my appreciation. I like to give thank you gifts to the secretaries in my office and the cleaning crew. In any case, this year I did drop off a gift for our Pediatrician's office but we received no acknowledgment of the gift received. Same goes for the secretaries in the office. I received one card of thank you from one of the five secretaries who really appreciated my gift. I also received a thanks for the cleaning guy and the postmaster but alas, no one has even acknowledged receipt of my gift.

My motto is within a week of receiving a gift, you should at least orally or in writing thank or acknowledge receipt of the gift. To not do so, is just downright rude and will certainly ensure that you may never receive anything else in the
future- EVER! In any case, as I continue to wonder whether the pediatrician received our thoughtful gift, I continue to thank my friends and family for gifts received and thoughtful items given to the girls. A simple thank you or word of acknowledgment really goes a long way!

IUD- Mirena

Well, it is inevitable as a mother of two and a wife who really does not want more children at this stage because of sheer exhaustion and finances, we were bound to make the decision on how to best prevent unwanted or rather, unplanned pregnancies. The best option in my mind was for my husband to get a surgical procedure. After all, it really should be the man's responsibility too... but that is an invasive option. My sister in law is an OB-GYN so we did discuss it with her and although rarely talked about among friends and colleagues, I started asking about what birth control method others used. Overwhelmingly, among women who had kids, the Mirena was the most popular and came the most recommended by doctors as well.

So I did my research on both the Paragard (10 Years) and Mirena (5 years). Paragard has no hormones which means no adverse affects whereas Mirena, in about 5-10% women, causes weight gain, mood swings, and other issues associated with hormones. In any case, I decided I did not want periods anymore - I had become quite accustomed to not having them after 2 kids and 2 full years of nursing with each one so.... the Mirena appeared to be the best choice.

There are so many rumors and blogs out there by single, young women who have never had kids on how painful it is and the horrible effects of Mirena especially insertion. For me, it was a breeze and I wish I had not been so nervous to get it inserte. There is 1-minute of cramping and that is about it and some blood which is fine because you are on your period anyway. In any case, I write this 1-day after the Mirena but I will update the blog as appropriate to share my experience on it and with it. In the meantime, if you are going to get this IUD, take Ibuprofen (400 mg) one hour prior to your appointment and then just go home and relax. They do a follow-up appointment 6-weeks after insertion so hopefully all is going well by then or I will update this blog.

Happy Family Planning!

Lost, Damaged or Stolen Passports

Some mistakes are more costly than others.... as I learned this weekend. We have damaged passports as a result of not doing something simple- like zipping a bag they were housed in. For some reason, my husband and I decided to play with a safe and locked our passports in it - not a smart move at all. In any case, there was water damage and most of the documents were fine but the passports did not make it because I did not ziploc a ziploc(R) bag- ARGH!!

It is so frustrating to make a costly mistake like this one. Granted, my daughter's passport would not work past another 2 years- kids' passport are only good for 5 years because their faces change so much but most adults can have passports for 10 years. So, needless to say, this is frustrating news since a passport runs anywhere from $125 down to $45 depending on what your needs are. Most passport books are $100 for a 10-year booklet. Renewals are cheaper so losing the original, have it stolen or damaged really does add up - fortunately for us, we caught this before a big trip - it would not have been good to have discovered something like this on the eve of a huge international trip. In any case, it is always good practice to have a valid passport so my husband and I should at least get ours replaced. Oh, the fun things we have to do to stay .... well, valid!

Nuts!

Despite years of hearing the stories, seeing the issues, I have to admit I was completely caught off-guard today --- all I could say was, "nuts!" I took my daughter to her daycare today for her Christmas party or Holiday party or whatever they call it these days. Anyway, my husband had signed me up for cookies. I decided not to run to the store in the sub zero temps and just make what I had at home so I made chocolate chip walnut and macadamia --- you guessed it -- NUTS!

Anyway, as we entered the day care, I was told, you can't bring anything with nuts into this school- we are a "nut-free" zone. I started think to myself, what? Are you nuts? Then I thought better of it. I know for a fact that one of my good friends to this day swells up like a balloon if she encounters nuts in any form including peanut oil. So, I turned the cookies over and we just went to the party. Apparently, you have to bring store bought, sealed items, or you cannot bring anything at all. The latter is just fine for me. As I looked at all the dietary restrictions in the classroom I was in, I realized one of my daughter's classmates was allergic to "tree nuts." Well, there you have it folks - I am glad my cookies were confiscated and in the end, I learned a valuable lesson. So, from now, it is store bought items only for me and definitely no... NUTS!