25 vs 35

My life has changed drastically in the last 3 years.  I got married, got pregnant with my son, and then I went and got pregnant again and had a little girl...  I've been busy..

This Sunday I will be turning 36, and I have to say, I loved being 35 and I'm looking forward to my journey to 40.  This past week I was thinking about what I was doing 10 years ago, and all I have to say is...... 25 was much different then 35, so I decided to list some of the differences, here we go...

25: Loved going clubbing with my friends.  Went out most weekends and sometimes during the week and wouldn't get home until at least 1am.

35: I went to a club a couple of weeks ago for the first time in who knows how long to celebrate a friends birthday (now I only go out for special and mostly preplanned occasions).  I only went because the club was down the block from my house.  I stayed for 2 hours had 2 watered down drinks, and it took my 2 days to recover.

25: Lived in a 1 bedroom apartment in Flushing, Queens in the same building as my parents.

35: I now live in 2 bedroom apartment in a huge Upper West Side building complex with my husband and 2 children.

25: I was a proud member of the social site Migente.com under the name Firelily where I got to keep up with my friends sexy pictures, and meet guys who were obviously interested in intelligence..

35: I am a proud member of the social sites Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blogger, Pintrest, Etsy, & Google+ under my married name and/or my blogger name Big Apple Mami.  I keep up with family and friends from high school and college.  We basically post the latest pictures of our children, and share how tired we are.  Occasionally we get to post pics of the fabulous food we eat when we go out with our partner..but mostly we post pics of the food we make at home...

25: After running a teen program for 2 years, I had been told once again from my boss that the organization I worked for lost most of the money for the program I ran, and that I should start looking for another job.  This is when my father basically yelled at me to apply for the teaching fellows..

35: After being accepted into the Teaching Fellows program I taught 5 grade & middle school in the the Bronx and Brooklyn.  Today I am in my 8th year of teaching and after 7 years of teaching teens I am loving being a 2nd grade ICT Teacher in Brooklyn Heights.  I never thought I would love the little ones...

25: If I'm correct I was living with a guy that my friends and family all hated, but I think we broke up after my first year teaching when I was 26.  I try to forget the stupid boyfriends...

35: Married to my childhood friend and love of my life, I don't know what took me so long to admit how much I loved him.  Thank goodness he never stopped trying to get in touch with me, and I am so glad I picked up the phone 8 years ago even though I didn't recognize the number.

So there you go, some major differences in my life.  I was very happy back then and I'm even happier now....I hope to look back in another 10 years with a whole new list of happy differences... 

Are You the nanny??

When you live on the upper west side there are some things that you get use to. The women who don't wear bras in the summer with white sun dresses. The the smell of dog pee on every block because everyone has a dog, and of course the nanny's with the very expensive strollers. No matter where you go in this neighborhood you will see nanny's with anywhere between 1 and 3 children. Most of these nanny's are Latina, African America, or West Indian.

Growing up in a Puerto Rican lower middle income household the idea of a nanny did not exist. If you needed someone to take care of your kids for the night you had a family member or the neighbor who also has kids to babysit for you. Even now, I have a hard time with the idea of getting a nanny even thought I might need one in the near future.

After being home for the first three months of my sons life I decided that I wanted to take Gymboree classes. I thought it would be a good to have some place to go twice a week and I would have a chance to meet other moms who lived in the neighborhood. My mom and my sister said that I would probably meet nanny's, but I didn't think moms would want their nanny's to take their kids to Gymboree since its such a wonderful bonding experience.  I went to my first class and to my surprised, all the adults were nanny's, I was the only mom.  It's really strange to be the only parent in a room with 12 other women.  It turns out that not only do the nanny's take the babies to Gymboree, some of the moms are home and they send the nanny instead of going themselves.. Now I get the whole nanny thing if you decide to go back to work, work from home, or if you have multiple small children at home and you need the extra help. But to be a stay home mom who also has a nanny and doesn't take the opportunity to do things with your baby like Gymboree, I just don't get it.

Check out the nanny it the upper right corner

I learned real quick that I was a strange duck in this pond of nanny's. Not only did I stay home with my son and take care of him without help, I am a Latina woman who lives in this neighborhood (who also has an expensive stroller). When I looked around the Gymboree class, the street and the park, I realized that I looked like the nanny. It became normal for people to ask me if I was Francisco's mother or his nanny. I am fair skinned, and obviously Latina, my son is also fair and it is possible that he doesn't belong to me even though I think he looks like me. The sad thing is, I don't get offended. How can I?, it's the culture of this neighborhood and my situation is very rare.

After a couple of weeks in my Gymboree class I did meet some mothers who stayed home with their children without any help and we have become friends.  I've also made friends with some of the nanny's, and while nanny's tend to stick together I don't see why I can't become friends with them since there or more of them around.  Besides I'll need a nanny in the future and this gives me a chance to do some head hunting...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Show Me How You Burlesque...

Throughout my life I have always been active in some way, either with dance, gymnastics, or my unsuccessful attempts to go to the gym.  When I was pregnant I did some yoga because my best friend swore by it.  For those of you who don't know me, I really hate yoga.  I signed up for a  prepaid series of classes by my house and I just took the lost and stopped going because I would become so relaxed that I would get annoyed and irritated...I did a lot of walking instead..

My main concern when I found out that I was pregnant was bouncing back after...Today you see all these celebrities who have babies and a few months later they are on the red carpet looking better then they did before their pregnancy.  I don't have the money for a private trainer, I knew that joining another gym would be a waste of money; I needed to figure out what would work for me.

I have been very lucky because it was been such a mild winter that I've been able to go on many long walks in the park.  I've also played a lot of just dance on my wii, now before you start laughing let me explain how that video game is a really good cardio workout and you really build up a sweat.  My husband told me to do push ups, and then he got me a kettle ball that came with a DVD that have three 15 minute workouts, I did that a couple of times (did I mention how much I hate to workout).

Okay....we all know that if your going to get into shape you also need to change your eating habits.  Now I was not the only one in my house that was trying to get back into shape.  My husband and I decided that we would do a detox for the month of January (after all the major eating holiday's).  This meant no alcohol, sweets, or carbs for a whole month.  Have you tried to go a whole month without eating bread?? it sucks!!  For about 2 weeks I was very grumpy, mainly because I was hungry and I've never been hungry on purpose before...I actually yelled at my husband about the amount of potatoes he was serving me...


During this crazy month of hunger and grumpiness I also became very frustrated with the fact that I was not getting out the house enough on my own; I needed me time in the worst way...So I was hungry, grumpy, and frustrated with cabin fever.  If I didn't schedule some serious me time someone would get hurt (my husband since he was withholding the potatoes).  I finally said, I need to invest some money into a couple of classes this way I a scheduled to leave the house and my husband would need to be home to take care of the baby. 

I decided to do what every woman does when she is trying to get rid of those last 5 baby pounds, I took a burlesque class...Okay, so every woman doesn't do that, but that's what I did and it has been so much fun and a great workout.  Once this class is over I plan on taking more dance classes, not just to stay in shape but to keep my sanity...I no longer feel frustrated, I'm eating bread again and now I have a sexy dance I can do for my husband...Sorry was that too much info??

If your interested in taking a burlesque class, or any class with a Broadway theme check out broadwaybodies.com . They also teach classes that focus on popular music such as Micheal Jackson, Lady Ga Ga, and Britney Spears. The teachers are awesome and the workout is great!

You Know Your a Parent When....

When my son was 2 weeks old I was talking to my sister while getting ready to go out to dinner with my family and my new baby boy.  I looked at myself in the mirror, looked at her and said, "I know I'm a mother because I'm not going to change my shirt even though I'm wrinkled and there is some pee on it."  The main reason I didn't want to change my shirt beside laziness, was the fact that you weren't able to see the fat that was still lingering after only giving birth 2 weeks earlier...

That's the shirt...

For the last 6 months I've had several unforgettable moments where I say to myself, okay I get it I'm a mother; here are a few of those moments...

• I went for my 6 week pelvic exam after having my son and nobody was available to watch him.  Waiting took longer then expected and by the time I was called in Francisco was fussy and hungry.  My doctor told me to take my time and feed him, but he wasn't having it.  I thought I was going to have to reschedule for another day, instead I ended up breast feeding him while getting my pelvic exam...fun...

• I went to TD Bank with my friend Nia, it was a nice day and I was wearing a summer dress.  Francisco was being fussy and didn't want to be in his stroller so I was holding him.  As we were waiting on line I felt something warm on my body.  I moved Francisco away from me and that is when I saw it, the big wet spot on my dress.  But wait there's more...not only did he pee on me, he continued to pee all over the floor of TD Bank... Miraculously, the pee came from the side of his diaper and when it leaked none of the pee got on his onesie just on me and the floor.

• All my life I have seen my friends go and get family portraits done (family pictures at Sears...lol) .  My family never did that so I always found it to be strange to take a staged family photograph... At my baby shower my sister & brother-in-law gave me a gift certificate to a place called Portrait Bug where I could take pictures of the baby and get a special package of 3 pictures in a frame.  When Francisco became 3 months I went and had pictures taken.  Oh My Gosh!!! I was hooked.  So far I have gone in for three sessions and not only have I bought pictures every time, I put them in frames the same day I pick them up.  So I have become one of those parents and I plan on getting many family portraits taken in the future... (I have a 4th appointment at the end of this week)

I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I'm in for hundreds of special and laughable moments when I'll say to myself "this is the life of being a Mom".  I will continue to share the extra funny moments... What are some of your eye opening moments of parenthood?  I would love for you to share them in the comments box, I'm sure everyone has some great stories...