Happy New Year: the sequel

As we all know, life gets on the way. After deciding that the party was too much for the sick kid, we were content to stay home, cook dinner, bake a Yule Log with Little L, eat the grapes on Skype with my family at 5 pm (midnight in Spain), have dinner, drink a bottle of cava from La Rioja, and eat a second plate of grapes at Chicago's midnight. But after lunch we realized that there was some fluid coming out from little Pb's ear, so off we went at 4 pm to the ER. We left Little L with our new neighbors, and run. Of course, as most moms, I'm paranoid. Particularly since the kiddo got a cochlear implant in that ear one month and a half ago, any menace of an infection on the area put me in panic mode. We had already taken him to the pediatrician on Saturday, and he was clear, it was just a little cold. But of course, after five hours in the ER on New Years Eve, we came back home with antibiotics, antibiotic drops and a diagnosis of ear infection with a ruptured eardrum. Isn't it a lovely way to end the year? In a way it ironically fits the rest of 2012. Let's hope that 2013 starts in a better way.
Hopefully the kids will sleep for a bit so we can eat the pizza and pasta I just ordered. In five minutes we went from a fairly decent home cooked dinner to delivery... At least we have that chilled bottle of cava.

Happy New Year!

Spending New Year's Eve in Chicago is weird for me. I'm used to my messy and crazy Spanish house, with everyone rushing in order to have dinner on time to have the twelve grapes at midnight, a Spanish tradition, and see my niece and nephew get ready to go out and celebrate. Not so long ago I was the one getting ready and begging for a ride to the city. This year we have to stay here for the audiology appointments for Little Pb's cochlear implant mapping. Since that was the case, we decided to go to a kid friendly party at a Spanish friend's house, to make it easier to pass. But it turns out that Little Pb has had a nasty cold for the last three days, and we owe it to him to stay home so he can recover.
That being the case, I decided to go for a haircut to at least start the year in style. I don't like going to the hairdresser, and I keep it to a minimum, which means that I only go a couple of times a year. I'm also very picky, and in the last twelve years I had only had two hairdressers, one in Spain and one here. Both of them did a fine job, but the Spanish one quit, and I was a little bored of going to a fancy salon in Chicago. Lately I have taken Lucas to this cool punk/rock barbershop by our house, Floyds 99. While they were cutting his hair there, I decide to give them a try today. After having my hair cut by the same guy for the last nine years, it was a leap of faith. I went, and I loved it. Since I'm talking hair, I should post a picture of the haircut. The funny thing is that, while talking to him, I found out that my new hairdresser used to work at the posh salon I used to go to before. You see, Chicago is not that big...

New Year resolution

As I can barely find my computer in a desk that has never been messier (and for this lover of chaos in desks, that means big fat unstable piles of stuff), and try to play with a kid who refuses to and just wants to look at his books, I started thinking about this blog. When I first posted here, I just wanted to vent, as stay at home mommyhood's isolation was driving me crazy. Then I wanted to add restaurant/book/movie reviews that I hardly have time to write. And finally, when we found out that Little Pb is deaf, I thought that it could be a good idea to document his journey in case it can help other parents. As if I don't have enough with teaching three classes, raising two kids, learning ASL, going to therapy at least three times a week with one of said kids, being a room parent at the other kid's class so he doesn't feel left out, running a house and occasionally taking a shower and entertaining guests, I will try to update this blog more often, a few times a week. I don't want to broadcast my life, which is quite boring, but help other people in any of my situations: Spanish (or foreign) mom living in the U.S., U.S. resident suffering cultural shock every summer when she goes back home, alien feeling more alien than ever as she has to spend Christmas without her family, frustrated PhD student who doesn't give up the dream of finishing up one day, mom to a deaf baby who needs to become a dragon mom in order to help him succeed, but only after figuring out what success means, mom trying to raise bicultural/bilingual kids, opinionated food lover/book lover/film lover, amateur cook...
If I am good enough at writing more often, my three month reward will be to get a proper design for this blog, the kind you pay for. We'll see where it ends.
For now, I will keep multitasking as nurse to my two coldish babies. Chicken noodle soup, here I go. And after that, I will clean up my desk :)