NICU Reunion

A little background to this story: I was in labor for quite some time and pushed for two hours trying for “little Hector” to be born. After those two hours, I couldn't push anymore and reluctantly opted for a c-section. Right around this time I spiked a fever and so my doctor said that was probably a safe bet as they didn’t know what caused the fever but worried it might get passed on to Hector. So in the operating room, we had a neonatal doctor ready to check Hector out as soon as he was born and put him on some antibiotics. Because of this, Hector was also admitted into the NICU just as a precaution. In actuality all of that was probably not necessary, but it’s better to be safe than sorry and I’m sure the hospital just wanted to avoid any possible medical malpractice suits. Although Hector had a crib/cubicle, whatever they call those things in the NICU, he spent most of his time in our room. (Well technically it was my room, but during the entire FIVE days we spent there, Chris never left, so it was more like OUR room). Still, he was techniacally considered a NICU baby.


Let’s fast forward a year when I receive, well Hector receives, an invitation to a NICU reunion to be held in November. It said there would be games, food and prizes so I figured what the heck, we should go! Well, Chris had to work and my parents couldn’t make it so it was just me and Hector. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to go at first, since as I mentioned even though he was technically a NICU patient, I felt that he didn’t really belong there. And I felt that even more while at the reunion where I saw tiny babies and other kids with obvious health problems and I heard parents talk to doctors and nurses about their kids and how they were doing now. I didn’t know anybody there, but figured I would just make the best of it. Well, Hector loved it! (Well, he definitely loved the balloon he got there). It was funny because they had a ton of games and crafts but as soon as we walked in, he saw a balloon and wanted nothing else. One of the workers noticed him and said he could take one. I tied it loosely on one wrist and he held on to it with the other hand and we just walked around and around and he was the happiest little boy. He is still a little unstable while walking (definitely, "toddles" around) I held onto one hand while we walked and he was just the cutest things ever especially since  he would smile at everyone he saw. One of the photographers asked me if he could take his picture at least 3 different times. (I don’t know if he realized it was the same person each time, but maybe he couldn’t help wanting to capture his cuteness!). Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t get any pictures =(.  Oh well, it was still fun and I’m looking forward to next year when Hector will be older and able to participate in more of the games and crafts.


A few days after the reunion I got my monthly bill for Hector’s NICU stay and I had a sudden realization.. it's a year later we are STILL paying for his stay in the NICU, so I think that definitely makes him a NICU baby and therefore he totally deserves to attend any future reunions. Right? I’d say we’ve definitely paid our dues!

Happy Halloween!

I realized the other day that the last time I actually wrote something on here was right before Hector was born! That’s over a year ago! Yikes… so much has happened since then and I’d like to say that I’ll play catch up and blog all about his first year, but really, that’s probably not going to happen. So, in hopes of not feeling bad for saying I’ll do something and then NOT doing it, I won’t promised any catch up and then if I do manage to somehow do it well then whoo hoo!

This post, however will be of a more recent event. Halloween! It wasn’t Hector’s first Halloween but it was the first time he went trick or I guess I should say trunk-or-treating. He didn’t really seem to like it but then again what’s a one year old supposed to think when he’s out walking among cars and seeing all these crazy looking people, so of which were his own parents! This year we decided to dress up as Peanuts characters, Chris was Charlie Brown, I was Lucy and Hector was Linus. We knew from the very beginning that we wanted to do a group theme for our costumes but we couldn’t decide on one for the longest time. Then the more I thought about costumes I realized that we were a bit limited on choices for Hector since he doesn’t like ANYTHING on his head or face. Then one day as I was searching for ideas, I came across the Peanuts and thought it would be perfect! I made our costumes from things we had at home and things we bought and was able to do it all for under $30! Actually it’s funny that the most expensive item in our costumes was my dress which came from Goodwill! Anyway, I was happy with the way they turned out and a lot of people complimented them as well.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Love Luck Laughter St. Patrick's Day 5x7 folded card

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a little early because I'll probably forget later =).

Remember when a car crashed into my room?

The day started out like any other. I had gone to school in the morning and then to work. This was back then when I still closed, so I was probably working a 1 to 10. At one point, Anna (my manager) and I were talking about how we didn’t want to be at work that day. Later it was time for lunch and I walked upstairs to McDonald’s. I grabbed my meal and headed back to the break room. I’d only been there for a little while when somebody walked back to tell me that I had a phone call and that they said it was an emergency. I was a little confused because I’d never given anyone my work number, not even my parents so I went to the phone thinking there must be some mistake. Turned out it wasn’t a mistake and it was my dad calling to tell me that our front neighbors had crashed into my bedroom and my mom was home alone so could I go home to help her. He and my brother were on their way home but figured I could get there faster.


I hang up the phone, put my stuff away and look for Anna.

“Is everything ok?” she asks.

“Umm… somebody crashed into my room?” I respond.

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, I don’t really know what happened but that was my dad and my mom is home by herself so can I go home and help her out? I have a half hour left on my lunch and I promise I’ll be back but I might need a little longer than a half hour.”

“Yeah sure, just keep us posted.”

And with that, I left work and powerwalked my way home. I don’t think I’d ever walked that fast, I mean seriously, I was probably home within 5 minutes! My dad and brother came shortly after and we finally figured out what had happened.

Apparently my mom had been sitting in the living room when she felt the house shake and heard a loud boom. At first she thought it was an earthquake, but she later realized that only one part of the house had shaken. So she went into my bedroom and saw everything on the floor, not to mention a cracked window and hole in the wall. Turns out (this was the story we got from the neighbors, though some parts seem a little doubtful) our neighbor had wanted to water (or do something to her grass) so she wanted to move the car from the driveway. She put it in reverse, then accelerator broke she backed out of her driveway and across the street , up on the sidewalk, across our front lawn and right smack into my bedroom window. (A little bit of necessary information to fully understand this: at my house the bedrooms are in the front part of the house and each one had a HUGE window.. like about half the size of the wall, is how big these windows were). After she crashed into my bedroom, she put the car in drive and went back across the lawn, off the sidewalk, across the street, up her driveway and crashed into her garage.

Back at my house, my bedroom was a mess. The window was cracked, the wall was dented, there was glass everywhere, my bed had been pushed a couple of feet forward and everything on my computer desk (which had been in front of the window) was now on the floor. I mean seriously, when I walked in, the monitor was hanging by the cord over the desk.

And that my friends is the story of how a car crashed into my bedroom. Do you want to  hear something ironically weird? Let’s fast forward a few months and my friend Emily invites me to picnic day at UC Davis. While there we go to a music store where Emily buys a Magnetic Fields CD. On this cd is a song entitled Irma. Want to know what the song is about? A girl named Irma who has a jeep crash into her bedroom. Is that crazy or what?!

Oh yeah, in case you’re wondering, I did go back to work that night. Anna said that out of all excuses she'd ever heard of to get out of work, mine was the craziest. Too bad it wasn't just an excuse and although at the time I hadn't wanted to be at work, I later realized it was a good thing I was.See, if I had been home, I would’ve been either sitting on my bed or at my computer desk and no doubt could’ve been seriously injured.

I'm back!

Ok, so after a long break, I've decided to come back to the blogging world. I'll try to catch up on things that have happened recently, but will also try to document some stories that I don't want to forget. Ergo, the first post, after this one is about something that happened a few years ago, but it's an interesting story you won't want to miss.. promise!