his face makes me smile

Except when I know he doesn't feel well. My Phantom, my baby, my beautiful little boy. All I want for him is to be able to eat without breaking out and be able to take medicines that will help him without his face looking like this.

If you ran your fingers across his face, you could feel little bumps everywhere. This is the result of two different antibiotics that has caused him to break out and make him miserable. He won't take it anymore but I fear his ear infection won't go away.

This is my one wish. Make him a normal boy, unallergic to everything. His smile is the best! I want to see him smile instead of crying out in pain.

My beautiful boy.

Days are a blur

I really wanted to keep this blog as a photo opportunity for everyone to view my photos. I will keep to that as much as possible but I find myself wanting to write more and more. Today is one of those days where writing makes me feel better.

I've been home for about a year and half taking care of my children, my husband, and our home. It took some getting used to at first because I am a worker, but home-life is a different kind of work. I got to watch my daughter bloom into a very assertive little girl, my son Phoenix - the mechanical genius, and my baby - Phantom - struggle with his never ending allergies and still be such a happy boy. Now is the time that I need to get back to work. I've never stopped looking but it gets considerably harder to gain employment as the job market is overwhelmed with the amount of qualified and over qualified applicants overcrowding the available jobs and making it seemingly impossible to even get your resume looked at. So I nestle into home-life trying to ignore the fact that funds are needed and absorb the wealth of happiness in my children.

This can only take me so far and in my time of quiet, a very seldom experience, I find myself applying to any job that I know I am capable of doing. What I must look at is the cost of daycare for the boys and how it weighs against the amount of possible earnings. It should not be equal. The earnings should outweigh the cost, but by how much? Is a few thousand a year worth going back to work? It is when all that you saved for is turning into emergency.

We are by far, not struggling, but I don't want it to get to a point where we do struggle. I'm afraid to let my children and my husband know the feelings of being homeless or not knowing what tomorrow brings. I've felt that and it wasn't good for however short a time it was, it was my rock bottom and something I will shelter my family from. Again, we are not struggling - I just want to make it to where we don't have to worry anymore.

My beautiful baby, has an ear infection now. His pain makes me very sad for him. To make it worse, he is allergic the medicine that will make it go away. Something I have to find out only after he takes it. So we wait to try another medicine. Something without dyes. It's just an additive to the struggle of the day.

I stub my toe all the time. The days are a blur but when I watch them smile, call out to me, laugh, or play - I know that the day gets better and things will work out in the end and my children will always light up my life.

Our trip

We took a weekend trip to D.C. to help our dear friend Natara and her business partner with their first ever launch party of Purple Aura Jewels. It was a complete success. Jeny and I decided to take the time before our flight the following day to explore D.C. We went to the Smithsonian museums.

Our first one Museum of Natural History.

It is by far the coolest museum ever! There just isn't enough time in the day to see everything so we want to go back and take the kids.

Later we took a road trip (even though the distance wasn't very long) to the National Zoo to see a Panda for the first time in person.

And while we were there, I saw the elephant - my favorite animal. 

It was a great day in a place away from home, well spent with my sister. Sometimes you think about all the people in your life and how they impact it. This day was one that reminded me of how lucky I am to have fabulous sisters that make my life better each day.

Duran Duran - Come Undone (SoulSwitch Cover) Acoustic FMF 2009

Our boys

April of 2009 came these two beautiful boys. The one on the left is my nephew Adrian Julio Rosado born on the 13th, four weeks early and weighing in at 5lbs 13oz. The one on the right is Phantom Chi Fei Kwong born on the 10th, one week early and weighing in at 8lbs 5oz. It was truly the happiest month ever!


Here are the boys over a year later on October 1st - Phyre's 6th birthday.

Still the best boys and as happy as can be.

Phyre's 6th Birthday

It's been such a busy month that I haven't been able to post but here we are... This is my mother walking with my son Phantom on Phyre's birthday - October 1st. It was a small family gathering because Phyre had bigger plans for the weekend.

The three girls getting ready to become princesses.

Here they are at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Downtown Disney. Afterwards we took the girls into Magic Kingdom and they had the time of their lives.

Phantom

My baby boy - This is Phantom.
There was a swirl of emotions when Phantom was in my belly. It's hard to wrap your head around having three babies but there wasn't a bone in my body that didn't know I loved him. My belly grew fast which was a hint to the size that Phantom would be. Again, we decided to enduce with Phantom and scheduled his delivery on April 10, 2009. This was one week after Natara's wedding. I was bigger than one could imagine, running around making sure things were getting done and the following day after her wedding, my contractions were even and strong but Phantom was not ready and I was sent home. I had planned on having Leandra there for Phantom's birth so she can experience the event first hand. She's never seen a baby being born and I was allowed to have two people plus Jimmy.  For some reason, my birthing room seemed really big. We were there very early and very tired. Jeny and Leandra came a little later but I was well on my way to the finale. At this point, I felt like a pro with this whole birthing thing so I was pretty relaxed. I knew how the contractions felt like, I knew what the epidural felt like, I knew there would be random nurses coming to check on my cervix.  I was so relaxed and calm about the whole thing, I think the nurses decided to have a party in my room. I didn't mind it really, but when it came time to push I kind of wanted to know that they were paying attention - you know just in case the baby's head pops out. But it really was a fun event. Phantom was the biggest baby of the three coming in at 8 pounds 5 oz. I was swelling everywhere after I delivered Phantom. The swelling didn't subside until almost three weeks later. Phantom was hungry all the time and I meant to breast feed him but I wasn't producing fast enough to get him to calm down so I went with formula and breast milk in the hospital. Eventually he knew the bottle had more to give than I did so he didn't want me anymore. Going home with Phantom and two other small children was fun and then again not so much. I was somewhat worried about Phoenix's transition with the baby because I knew Phyre was really jealous. But to my surprise he was not jealous or needed more attention. Jimmy made it a point to make sure Phoenix was okay. Since I am primary caregiver to the baby, Jimmy knew he wanted to take on the other two and show them the love that I might not be able to give to them in the beginning. It worked out perfectly and I still had some time and energy to spend with Phyre and Phoenix when the baby slept. Phyre wanted to be my little helper.

It was early on that I knew Phantom was going to have eczema. Everything he ate made him break out from head to toe. This is explained in one of my earlier post "A tale of Phantom". But here's a great shot of him before it got bad. He's the most special boy ever!