100 days

Can you tell me what you did 100 days ago?
I can. I experienced the best feeling anyone can ever have: becoming a dad.
I don't think I will be able to remember what I did 100 days ago many other days in my life, but today is certainly one of them.

In 100 days we have probably changed over 750 diapers, we have worried about not knowing how to be parents about 1,500 times, we have cried along Lucia about 2,000 times and we have sat in awe of her beauty and perfection about 3,000 times. It has been quite the ride, the best one of our lives.

Today we attended the birthday party of Isabella who turns 4. We saw a few kids that we met when they were probably Lucia's age and who are now around 4. It's crazy to think my sweet little Lucia will be that big one day and that day will come before I know it. I saw my good friend Alex climb and master the art of the Piñata with a smile on his face that only a dad could understand. I will be that "piñata dad" one day too.  [For my Mexican friends: Que no es lo mismo que ser un papá medio piñata, aunque igual y tambien me queda]

Out little Lucia is now giggling and we hear a faint laugh-ish sound every now and then when she's really excited. She seems to be enjoying life a lot more and we are taking it all in by enjoying life too.

I may sound repetitive, but I continue to be amazed and inspired every single day by Belinda's dedication and love. I have never in my life met anyone that slept more than Belinda. I can guarantee that in the past 100 days there has not been a single day that she's slept more than 6 hours straight. I would have gone nuts already but she instead responds by nurturing and loving Lucia regardless of how tired she may be.

Just this afternoon she told me how tired she was (and you could tell she was exhausted and about to shed a tear or two). Not even five minutes after she told me that, Lucia woke up from her infamous 10-minute naps and Belinda took over with the most loving care, ready to feed her and go over the routine all over again. Now that's true love and dedication.



 American presidents are usually judged by their first 100 days in office. Well, to the dearest president (more like Dictator) of our lives, Madame Lucia Grace Fernandez: You have done an outstanding job at bringing light to our lives and transforming our couple love into an amazing family love of three.

Today I pray and thank the Lord for the honor of being part of Lucia's first 100 days and for being able to share such an honor with the love of my life who is also the best mom in the world.

Dog years?

It's been one week since my girls came back from visiting Grandma in Savannah, GA. Apparently our little Lucia is quite the world traveler and did very well during all the flights. She pretty much slept the entire time. I am a bit afraid she was just teasing and she will show her true colors when daddy flies with them in less than a month when we go to Mexico City.

You know how the term 'dog years' is used to reference something that happens too quick but that in a dog's life may seem like an eternity? We should replace that term with "baby's days". Every since we found out we were pregnant people kept telling us (and to this day the most recurrent comment we get is) "enjoy every moment because they grow really fast". This past week has been a true example of what this means. Lucia started grabbing things. Not by accident but truly focusing, reaching out and holding onto whatever seems interesting to her little eyes. I know, you may say I am a super-biased dad that thinks his kid is the most amazing thing in this world. And you would be correct. However, as normal as this may be for all infants, it is remarkable to see the evolution of how the switch seems to turn on almost overnight. Seriously, her hands took a life of their own on Wednesday. It was the best birthday present she could have given to me.

Yes, Wednesday was my birthday in case you are one of the facebook-less endangered species and didn't know. Facebook makes me nostalgic on my birthday. What happened to the birthday cards and the phone calls? I got a ton of "HBD" on my wall. C'mon, spell it out, please? Nevertheless I am still happy that friends took the time to punch those three keys plus the enter key on my wall. It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.


Aaaanyway, going back to Lucia's amazing little achievements. I am in awe of how something that started as a little microscopic dot, that we saw for the first time when it measured less than 2 millimeters is now laughing and grabbing things. We would like to take credit for everything but to be honest sometimes Belinda and I wonder how resilient this little girl is that she has survived in spite of us. All we did, aside of the obvious, was feed her and change her diapers. We didn't teach her anything else. Yet she seems to be learning new things every single day. What an exciting life.

It makes me wonder why did my life had to get so boring. Why can't we continue learning new things every day and be amazed by it? I used to have a boss about 10 years ago who I ran into quite often at the elevator on my way home. He always asked me "what did you learn today?". Being the newest employee it always forced me to think during the day what would I tell Mr. Rose if I saw him in the elevator that evening? I was constantly on the look for something new I could learn and impress the boss. Silly? maybe, but it was a lot of fun.

As I finish writing I know I won't have to ask Lucia tomorrow what did she learn because she definitely will have discovered something new in her life. My new challenge will be to ask myself what did I learn at the end of each day. What made this day special and why am I a better person today than I was yesterday? We'll see how long this lasts.

Sorry about the rambling. It must be I turned 37 and I am getting closer to that middle-age crisis and Lucia seems to remind me how precious is our life and how much of it we take for granted every single day.

I promise to write more about her next week. For now I had to vent a little and take advantage that apparently there are a few you left who continue reading this blog. As of today there have been over 1,000 hits on it. I am humbled.

Good night.

Formulate this.

After 11 weeks of Belinda's outstanding efforts we decided to start supplementing our little milk-vacuum with the dreaded for-mu-la. It was a long and hard process but at the end we did what we think is best for Lucia and we are really happy about it. Most of you will probably have an opinion about this and after listening to advice from lots of friends and family we decided to give formula a try. After all Lucias is only feeding about 20% from formula, the rest is good ole' mommy's.

The funny thing is that formula is not really a formula but a bunch of different types of formulae (I feel like Ted Mosby saying "Encyclopaeida"). Walking down the formula isle at the grocery store made me realize how much trouble we were getting into. Organic? Wheat-free? Extra iron? how am I supposed to know? So we relied on Granny's advice and bought the organic, wheat-free hippie-friendly formula that Oregon groceries tend to carry. It worked like magic.

All of a sudden our little screaming machine stopped screaming and started enjoying life. As it turns out, we had been starving our poor little Lucia for the past 10 weeks. But fear no more my little chunky monkey, your parents found the only formula they have been able to decipher just for you (we are still working on the other formula of how to be good parents, when we discover it we'll patent it and we'll go live in our own private island!)

It may also be a coincidence that she's about to be 3 months old and that she finally turned the 'blind' corner I wrote about two weeks ago. In any event, Lucia has been the most calm, sweet and smiling baby for the past week or so.

As I write this, my two girls are all the way across the Country in Savannah, Georgia visiting Glenda, Gail and Sam (who's real name is Patrick and makes me want to change my name too and avoid spelling "J-A-V-I-E-R" every time I order at Starbucks! or better yet, stop being called "Harvey-err")

I knew I was going to miss them but I had no idea how much. It's been one day and the house feels lonely and quiet without them. Yes, I even miss the sporadic screaming and dirty diapers. I have to admit that sleeping more than 7 hours in a row is really nice and pretty much the only upside I see for me to this whole Savannah trip. In the meantime, I will take advantage that it is 10:30pm, the house is quiet and I can go to bed and plan to sleep for a lot longer than I have in the past 11 weeks.

Buenas noches.