The Blog

Nuevos Horizons

As much as I despised New Horizons (particularly one administrator who hated me for my raw teaching talent), I HAD to visit. Some of my favorite people were/are trapped there. And I had to show off my really cute child. 

The gate security guy did not remember me and made me go get a visitors pass. In his defense, he used to work the back gate which I only used like twice. I admire his devotion to protecting the children from a crazy ex-teacher who was clearly only coming back to get revenge. So I had to go to the office, which was scary because you just never know what kind of trouble-making children you will find in there.

My worst fears were realized when I walked into an almost empty office…except for one desk. At that one desk sat my worst nightmare. A French speaking nightmare. I pretended not to see her and jammed right out of there. Visitors passes are for losers anyway. She didn’t even look up from her desk. Or maybe her devilish peripheral vision saw me and she decided to just avoid confrontation. 

After our last meeting she told me she hoped we could meet under better circumstances (ie circumstances where she didn’t hate me). I prefer for us to just avoid eye contact. 

Maya and I ran out of the office and straight to our happy place, Sarah and T. Nelly’s class. That’s pronounced “T dot Nelly”, by the way. I think I shed a few tears when I walked in. Sarah definitely did. She had probably been crying on and off all day at the thought of seeing us. I don’t blame her.

I got to see some of my estudiantes from last year. It was pleasant. I had an awkward conversation with my infamous close-talking student. I got to talk to all of my favorites…and lets just clear something up: Parents may not have favorite children. But you’re trippin if you think teachers don’t have favorites. I love smart, beautiful and well behaved children. Ugly dumb kids? Just stay home. 

After about an hour and 191283 uncomfortable run-ins later, Sarah and I started off our Cabarete weekend retreat with a little Chili’s. Whether you’re at home or abroad, the chips and salsa + diet coke is a combo that just can’t fail. Also, the servers remembered us from our many visits before. I didn’t know if they’d recognize me out of my really unfortunate teacher uniform. I guess they knew I don’t always dress in blue polyester maternity pants and a ruffly white blouse with old lady loafers I bought at a grocery store for $8. Not even kidding. That’s what I wore every day for a year. That’s why I don’t have any pictures of the time I lived in the DR. 

Tune in next time to watch a video of Maya eating five pounds of sand. 

THE INTERVIEW

The moment you’ve all been waiting for you. When I reveal secret embassy secrets from the government. 

After about a day of sitting in our hotel room, soaking in the deliciously cool air conditioner, it was time to venture out for our interview. We had prepared for a “The Proposal” style interview. Am I supposed to put movie titles in quotes? I do not know. Thanks for nothing, high school English. 

Anyway, we studied many important factoids about each other including grandparents names, flavor of wedding cake, toothbrush color, favorite pizza toppings, etc. Many months and thousands of dollars into the whole immigration fiasco, we were ready for our interview. Ready to get that visa. And like Pitbull said, not the credit card…if you know what I mean. 

We took a taxi to the embassy about an hour early and when we got there, we were directed to a SUPER long line. Right in the sun. When we went there earlier in the year for US Citizen services they let us skip this horrific line and we got to wait in an air-conditioned room.

Racists. 

JK.

Sort of.

So anyway, we got into this line. We were sweating. Then after like 20 minutes, I guess they realized I was an American and a worker came to rescue us. He said it was because we had a baby that we didn’t have to wait in the line…I know the truth. White people = skip the line. But we’ll just say that it was because of Maya that they let us skip the line. In which case, everyone should have a baby. Because, really, who wants to wait in lines? Next time you are up all night with a pooping scream box, just think of all the lines you’ll get to skip. Worth it. 

We finally got into the embassy. Yes, this whole line fiasco was outside. Not even in the front doors. Believe it. So we get in, and we had to sit in this giant room with no a/c and like 700 sweaty people. We literally had to wait FOUR HOURS. This paragraph seems like pure exaggerations, but I am not kidding you, that is what the US embassy is. It’s pretty terrible. But like I said before, if you are going there for citizen services, you get fast tracked to an a/c room. Lesson: be a US Citizen. Or suffer. 

Finally, after our loooooonnggggggggg wait, we got called for our interview. HALLELUJAH. Angels sang and whatnot. The interview was not what I expected. Instead of getting called into a room a la “The Proposal”, we were herded to a glass window. I wasn’t sure if I was having a visa interview or buying movie tickets. 

The lady behind the window asked ONE QUESTION. “When did you meet?”. We both drew a blank. “Summer…right? ummm…of…two-thousand…umm…nine?” We looked so sketchy. But I guess she saw Maya and figured that we at least knew each other in a biblical sense, so she signed our paper and told us to go to the delivery service and our visa would be sent to us in a week.

So pretty much, this entire trip I made to the DR was for ONE QUESTION. And not even a hard question…or a funny/interesting one, like “what color are your underwears today?” We totally overprepared. 

Oh, but my fav part of the day was at the delivery place. We gave our address to the lady: “THE DREAM CENTER” is what we said. Our visa was delivered to “Tf Triann Cter”. Not even close. Luckily, some delivery guy was able to decode it and get it to us before our flight left.

Anyway, the interview was only like day 3 of the trip. I have a lot left to write about. At this point you are either completely bored or really excited for some strange reason. Next time, I will write about my visit to hell. AKA New Horizons. 

NOTE: Some embassies might do an interview like in The Proposal. If I worked at an embassy, I totally would. And one day I might work at an embassy. And I might interview you. So please study your spouse accordingly. 

Have I seriously written like nine entries about a 20 hour stretch of my life?? All my thousands of readers are probably dying of boredom.

But stick with it, people. Because here comes the moment you’ve all been waiting for: THE REUNION. How would Maya react to seeing her dad? You’re about to find out…

The Santo Domingo airport arrival area is set up kind of like a red carpet. Which makes me feel really famous and great when I walk down it. The arrivers walk down the middle, and the families/loved ones wait on the sides to see their people come out. Maya and I were like the last people to come out, so the crowd was pretty much gone and Wilson saw us right away. He ran up to us with a huge smile on his face and bent down to kiss Maya…and she FREAKED OUT. Oh, it was bad. The few people left in the airport definitely thought we were kidnappers.

Wilson tried to hold her to calm her down, but it wasn’t really wasn’t working. I ended up having to take her into the bathroom for a moment of silence. It worked. She calmed down and we headed out to get in our taxi that was waiting. Wilson and I were totally crying because we hoped that Maya would remember him. It was really hard to see her react like that. Especially hard for Wilson, I’m sure.

But then, once we got into the car, Maya was all laughs and smiles and dancing to the music. She’s a little crazy. In conclusion, she was only crying because of her ears/tiredness and being bombarded by a guy she had only experienced through the computer screen for four months. Which I totally understood. It even took me a few days to adjust to the fact that Wilson had legs. I was used to just seeing him as a floating head on Skype. 

Anyway, we had to get used to sharing a room with Maya again. I’ve been spoiled since she moved into her own room. And now she’s pretty much the worst person to share a room with. Even if you like rustle your pillow a tiny bit, you’ll look over at her crib and there she is with giant owl eyes staring back. We pretty much had to go to sleep at like 8pm every night with her. Which is semi close to my bedtime anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal.

We stayed in a pretty hotel for two days while waiting for our interview at the US embassy. I learned at that hotel that I really like eggs with hot sauce. I ate a huge platter of them every day for breakfast. They were like some magical Dominican eggs…I can’t even explain why I loved them so much. Maybe because a cool old dude served them to me. He also carried Maya’s stroller (with her in it) down four flights of stairs when the elevator broke. So old…and so buff.

Next post I will tell you all about our interview. And you can see how it was just like The Proposal. Not. 

Miami.

So we landed in Miami at like 2pm. I immediately realized I needed a hair tie. I forgot about humidity until I walked outside and looked like a Mexican Chaka Khan. Luckily, Alice was coming to entertain Maya and I for our long layover and had a stash of hair ties.

Technically, we didn’t need to have that layover, but I think I would’ve cried if I passed through Miami without seeing my ex-wife Lettuce. I mean Celia. I mean Alice. 

We had to wait a little bit in the airport for her to come pick us up and take us to the most exclusive five star restaurant in the city. Five Guys. But it wasn’t too bad of a wait. Maya had this little ball things she was chasing around. Like 100 people commented on her beauty, a trait that she inherited straight from me. And the people who didn’t approach to tell us how cool we were obviously really wanted to. I ended up getting trapped in like a fifteen minute Spanish conversation with an old lady. Curses! And she was totally Cuban or something and I really couldn’t understand her. I should’ve pretended to be Inuit. 

When Alice showed up, we did some major acrobatics and contortions with our bodies to get Maya’s carseat strapped in her back seat. It isn’t easy being a mom, let me tell you.

We went to Five Guys, fed Maya some fries and some DC (kind of on accident) and then we realized we had like four hours left to kill. We thought about going to the beach, but wouldn’t that be a little bit repetitive right before a trip to the DR? So we went to Target instead. Which was totally necessary, because they definitely don’t have that in the DR. And as an avid and semi-daily visitor of Target, it would be an American experience I was bound to miss over the next 16 days. I had to get my fill. 

After another traumatic bathroom experience (this time not for Maya…but for someone who ate 592 fries and a jalapeno burger and the relatively invasive Target janitorial staff) we were ready to go back to the airport. 

This leg of the flight would not be as lucky as hte last. Not only was hte flight late, it was full of CRAZY people. I had a middle seat and the lady next to us did not appreciate having Maya all up in her grill.

The flight was almost two hours long, which in the scheme of eternity is nothing. But it was definitely the longest two hours of my life. 

Maya hit a wall about half an hour into the flight. The 2am wake up call, lack of toys and lap restriction sent her over hte edge. 

I was the lady on the flight with the screaming baby. I was that person. I think I was more mortified and annoyed than anyone else. I heard murmurs of “she’s tired”, etc. I wanted to make and announcement and explain her screams. 

It was hell. Like, I really think that is what hell is. Sitting in a middle seat in economy class with a ten month old screaming in your face. I tried EVERYTHING to get her to stop. When she started putting her hands over her ears I wasn’t sure if the pressure was hurting her or if she was also getting tired of hearing herself scream. I felt so bad for her. And for myself. And for everyone around me.

FINALLY, we landed and I hadn’t filled out the customs papers or anything so I had to sit in the hallway to do it. I was already and hour late and I knew that Wilson probably thought we missed the flight. Which was totally plausible…I mean, we were in Target…It’s a distracting place.

Mind you, Maya will still crying during all of this. She sort of calmed down but was still snifflign when we got our luggage. It was after 1am when we finally saw Wilson…

Want to hear how she reacted? TOO BAD. I’m tired of writing. Come back later. 

DR parte 2

So on Dec 6th, our fateful trip to the motherland started. In order to secure the cheapest ticket possible, I had to take the 6am flight. Meaning I had to be at the airport at 4am. Meaning I had to leave my house at 2:30 am. Meaning I had to pack our 90 bajillion pounds of luggage before my usual packing time of 1am on the day of a trip. Unfortunately, I didn’t factor in the extra hours it would take me to pack baby clothes. I mean, they are really cute and once I started going through them, I realized I needed to pack all of them. And then I obviously needed to go through all of my pictures of Maya. For four hours. And then I had to read my blog start to finish. And then I had to read three Glamour magazines from 2006 that I found in my closet. 

Next thing I knew, it was 11:45. Typical.

I was going to have three hours of sleep prior to a 22 hour journey with a ten month old. I would probably die.

The plan was to put Maya in her carseat right as we were walking out the door. I was hoping that she would just fall asleep in her little chair and sleep all though the rest of the day. Or at least enough hours to not be a cranky mess. I was already cranky and messy enough for hte both of us. I don’t deny that I wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt from 2004. 

I made the mistake of wasting a little too much time before going through security and got through just in time to board the flight. I guess I didn’t factor in how much time it would take to fold the stroller, show 2 passports, prove that milk bottles weren’t bombs, etc. But anyway, we were SO LUCKY that the flight wasn’t full so they gave us two seats! So I didn’t have to hold Maya in my lap for 6 hours in a middle seat. I strapped her in, and 20 mins into the flight, girlfriend was fast asleep. Holler. So I joined the nap party and fell asleep too. Fortunately, it wasn’t in the lap of the man sitting next to me like my last in-flight nap (a story for another time). I was SO GLAD I didn’t have to hold her 18 lbs on my delicate lap for that flight. 

Maya woke up like an hour before we landed and we had a small disaster on our hands. With our quick boarding, we did not have enough time for a diaper change pit stop at the airport. So she had the same diaper on for like 15 hours. I was hoping she would make it clean to Miami. Nope. Her carseat had a small poo puddle in it. And I don’t even want to talk about her reindeer travel pjs. I had to wake up the nice lady sitting next to me so I didn’t accidentally smear poo poo baby butt across her face. And then the most exciting part of the trip happened: I WENT INTO AN AIRPLANE BATHROOM. for the first time ever. I’m not sure what it is that makes me nervous about airplane bathrooms. I think it was that movie Rocket Man where he gets vaccumed into the toilet on a spacecraft. 

I mean, really. That’s the last thing I need.

Ok, and airplane bathrooms are pretty much super frightening. And then add a small child you have to support and it’s pretty much a death trap. How would I hold on to the bathroom safety handle while holding Maya in case of an emergency? I would have to just tuck her into the toilet or something if we started going down. 

Jk, Maya. I would never.

So I handled the bathroom and poo disaster with ease. Minus the part where I put Maya’s clean clothes in a puddle of what I can only hope was water.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. I let Maya stand on her chair and press her face up against the window that probably had some penicillin-resistant strain of gonorrhea on it. 

And then we landed in Miami where Maya and I became instant celebrities and we got to hang out with our cool friend, Alice. 

Tune in next time for our exciting Miami adventure. 

DR. Part 1 of 1,000.

I think the last time I wrote a real blog post we were still waiting to hear when Wilson’s visa interview date would be. Finally we found out the date was going to be December 8th. I had kind of gotten comfortable with the fact that we wouldn’t have an interview until 2012, so I was super excited that we actually got one in December. When I tried to ask for help from the visa center, I was basically shunned. I was kind of preparing myself to spend the holidays and Maya’s first Christmas as a single madre. I was REALLY not looking forward to that. 

Anyway, I know it probably seems a little stupid to worry about a month’s difference when it comes to waiting for a visa…but I wanted to have positive memories of Maya’s first xmas…not memories of me crying to her dad over skype. Which is what it would’ve definitely been had he not made it here in time. When we got that interview date, I felt like a huge cloud of depression that was hanging over me was finally lifted. It was so good to at least have a date of when I would be able to see my husband again and when he would be able to see Maya in real life and not have to watch her reach every single milestone over a tiny computer screen. 

We both had such a hard time during those months apart. I can’t even imagine people who do this regularly…people who have military spouses or who have lost their husband or wife or whatever. It was nothing clinical, but I really did feel very depressed. I dreaded going out into public because I knew people would ask about Wilson…I know people were just being nice, but I felt like a stab of pain when I had to tell people that I honestly didn’t know when he was coming. I tried to put on a happy face, but there were definitely MANY times when I would just cry and feel like I couldn’t do it anymore. Just ask my mom. haha. 

Sometimes in anger, I would think that Wilson was going down easy street when I was busy with the baby waking up every two hours and changing every single poopy diaper for months at a time. I would always imagine making him get up with her every night when he got here, or making him change every diaper for four months as payback or whatever…but really, I think that he had the bad deal, not me. It really breaks my heart thinking about any amount of time away from my Maya. I really don’t know how he did it. Now, we literally thank God every single day for her. She is so amazing. We seriously will just sit there after she’s asleep and laugh and smile about the crazy things she did that day. We are so proud of her and so amazed by her. She is such a little treasure. 

Anyway, what? What was I talking about?

Oh yes.

So we FINALLY were given our interview date and I spent the requisite 90,000 hours looking at flights online and trying to decide which flight would be the least painful to experience with a rather insane ten month old. I spent another twenty hours discussing with anyone who would listen how we thought Maya would react to being reunited with Wilson. The general consensus was that Maya would recognize him from their many skype convos and she would be excited to see him. And if she was scared, he could just do his famous rooster crow that she loved and she would immediately remember him and be comforted.

Ok, I think I’ll take a small respite from this post. I’m sorry it hasn’t been funny. Check back for some chuckles.

I’m back…again

Thank goodness I remembered my password. It only took seven tries. 

I know there are about three people who faithfully visit my blog and I’m really letting them down by never writing. Let’s skip this part where I make excuses for my long period of absence and just get on with it.

Originally, I thought I’d write semi-regularly when Wilson came to the US. False. I’m still too lazy to walk downstairs to the computer AND think up funny jokes and clever photo captions. 

We landed in the US on Dec 22nd. We had a small run-in with immigration, almost starved to death and had a screaming baby on the plane…but it was an overall pleasant experience. Or maybe the passage of time and my early-onset senility has dulled the horrific memories.

But anyway, we’re here now. We’re so happy to be together again. We’ve had so many things to celebrate in the past month and hopefully in the next few days I’ll be able to post some thrilling play by plays of each and every event. 

And now, for a list of the subjects I need to remember to write about.

1. Going to the DR

2. Coming to America

3. Wilson’s first day in the US

4. Christmas

5. New Years

6. Maya’s first birthday

And of course, each of those items have like 90 subcategories and weird stories. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have about 300 pages of material on just the first topic.

Stay tuned. 

I know of at least two people who will be so excited for this…

Remember when I used to write here? I’ve typed updates on here like 18 times but I keep deleting because they’re stupid. But yesterday I noticed Maya had a tiny little baby tooth emerging from her gums…it got me thinking of all the things I haven’t written down like I promised myself I would. So here I am again. Writing. Keeping track. Being a good mom.

For future reference: Maya’s first tooth = October 20th, 2011. It’s the right one on the bottom front. It’s really sharp and looks kind of crooked. I guess she will take after me on that one. 

In other news, after months and months of waiting, hours of preparing documents and more than a few hundred dollars, we are FINALLY done with the ridiculous immigration process. Well, sort of. Our papers are in and processed…now we are just in line to get our appointment. The National Visa Center lady explained to me that we would get an appointment during the second week of the month. Maybe in November. But maybe not. Possibly in December. But maybe in November. Or January. But she wasn’t sure. So that was helpful. 

It’s such a relief to be done with it all…it’s now officially out of my hands. There are no more forms to fill out or things to put in order or postage to buy or packages to send or signatures to get. Now we just have to wait. 

Anyway, Maya is at the babysitter right now. I took a shower for A WHOLE HOUR. It was amazing. I also did laundry, cleaned my room, made dinner, cleaned the car, talked to my husband, watched 2 episodes of Rachel Zoe Project, wrote things in my planner and did a bunch of other things that take A LOT longer when I have to entertain Maya on the side. 

But now I’m lonely. 

Hence this post.

Who knows when I will write again. 

I would put a picture on here, but I think that is just too much to expect from me at this point. Maybe in 2 more months I’ll be ready for that step.

Goodbye. 

alice visits la republica v. 1

Oh, hey…remember when I was going to write about my friend Alice’s visit to the DR? And then I never did? Because I’m a lazy procrastinator. Forgive me. And here is part one. Yes, this is a multi-parted post. Too much fun for one post.

My BFF Alice came to visit this past month. Oh, I guess I should say this…her name is Alicia. But we call her Alice. It is a long story and it doesn’t matter. But I might switch back and forth between the two names. Do not be alarmed.

I was so excited to see my little Alice. It has been over a year, which is the longest I’ve gone without seeing her since kindergarten. We had a fun weekend and I tried to show her all of my favorite things that I like to do.

Alice flew in to Santo Domingo and spent her first night there with Claudia, who is working at NH there. On Friday, they made the trek across the country to Santiago for the weekend. We went out to lunch…Chili’s of course! I SWORE I would not take my American visitor to an American restaurant, but I really couldn’t help it. Plus, it was so hot and Chili’s has the most excellent a/c in the country.

After Chili’s we went back to my apartment and waited for everyone to arrive so we could go to the monument. I know I’ve lived here a long time, but I honestly do not know what the monument is for. I asked Julio (who has lived here his whole life) and he said he also didn’t know what it was for…so that made me feel a little better. His theory is that Trujillo built it. I thought it was a monument for Hernan Cortez. I guess I could’ve read a plaque or wikipedia’d it or something…but I’m too lazy.

Here are some wonderful photos we took at the monument. Note: all blurry pictures were NOT taken by me. I am a professional photographer and would never do a thing like that.

I stole this picture from google images…don’t sue me! This is a pic of Santiago…you can see the monument there on the middle right of the picture. It’s the white thingy with the guy on top.

The ladies…together again. I didn’t even cry this time! And the red eyes…I don’t even know…

This picture makes me laugh a lil bit…

Alice told stories…

Then I told stories…

Then we all smiled at each other

and here is all of us girls togetha…Lisa, Claudia, Alice, Me and Sarah G.

UPDATE: I read a Wikipedia article about the monument. It’s official title is “monumento a los heroes de la restauracion”. For more information, see internet.

Check back for more on Alice’s visit. Hopefully I’ll have something up before the end of the year.