Hanging w/ Liz, Max, & Eli on Wednesdays...

Liz has been after me to join a Moms club. I think that it won’t be fun because Bryant is too little and the activities at the moms club are for toddlers. So Liz decided that we should have a day where the boys get to hang out. I started working part time on Thursdays and Fridays, and Liz meets with the moms club on Tuesdays, and Mondays are not usually good days for us to meet. So Wednesdays is perfect.

Two weeks ago we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in LB. Liz has a year membership and I live in LB so it is perfect. The boys go there and love going there as you can tell the pictures. I really wish for Bryant to grow up like the boys and not be afraid of touching things. My mom didn’t want Liz and I to touch any of God’s creatures because they carry germs, are dirty etc. We don’t want that for our boys.

Liz decided it would be a great idea for me to hold the nectarine juice while she took the picture of the birds coming to me. As you can tell the boys really wanted to reach out and touch the birds. I on the other hand was nervous. Afterwards Liz told me she was nervous as well, which is why she had me hold the juice. Bryant saw the boys reaching for the birds and decided to reach as well. Liz didn’t get the picture of this because we both got scared that he might grab at the bird and the bird would peck at him. Neither of us thought Bryant would reach out!! Be careful what you wish for!

Liz never gets to be in pictures because when she is with the boys she is the one taking pictures. Here are a few pictures of her.

Here are a few pictures of all of us. We used the camera timer on the first one, and asked someone to take our picture on the second one. I just hate people using my SLR camera because they always want to change the lens. But if I want everyone to be in picture and there isn’t anything to place the camera on, then I have to ask someone. I usually have the camera “set” for them to take the picture and then they move it. On the second picture the worker moved the lens to include more of the background and make us hard to see. I guess I could take a tripod, but I already carry so much stuff for Bryant.

Last week we didn’t know what to do and Liz had already driven down to LB. It was too hot to go to the beach or the park, the boys would get sunburn. Liz has this great book with ideas, and in it was the Nature Reserve. It was perfect.

Inside the boys were able to touch everything without breaking it and there was air conditioning inside!!

Outside there were lots of trees, and the boys were able to go for a walk. It was ¼ a mile which is perfect for the boys to walk.

Can't wait for next Wednesday!!!

Check out more photos here!

UCSD Football...

So I have to take back something I said in my earlier post. Although I am really pro UCSD for Bryant, I would allow him to attend UCLA/Cal. Let me explain...

I love UCSD...I am the one who convinced Phil last year to volunteer to at the high school fairs to talk about our experiences at UCSD. I am also the one who tries to convince Phil for us to join some of the alumni activities.

Here is a picture of Edgar, Laura, Phil and I at one of the alumni mixers earlier this year. We took this picture where we first met at a pub in downtown LA to pick up the tickets, have a few drinks (Laura and I were both pregnant, so we had soda drinks) and appetizers. From there we later attended a Dodger game. ( I of course didn’t think it would be safe for me to take my camera into the game. I later realized that other people from the alumni group took their cameras and nothing happened.) We had a great time and can’t wait to attend another alumni event with our friends again.



Although I have a huge love for UCSD, UCSD does not have football. If UCSD had football, UCSD would never be confused for San Diego State (the party school), or USD (the Catholic school). I don’t understand why UCSD doesn’t have a football team. The administration states that we would not be taken seriously as an academic school. What crap!!! Who doesn’t take Cal or UCLA seriously as academic schools. I would understand if Bryant did not want to attend UCSD because it doesn’t have a football team. I didn’t understand the important that a football team brings to schools. The main thing is school spirit. UCSD lacks school spirit, because it lacks a football team.

Ashley and Scott invited us to attend the UCLA v Tenn game, and we had so much fun. I forgot to take a picture of the four of us at the game. What was I thinking?? You can just see the school spirit at the game.

Without school spirit, why would alumni return back to school, financially support the school, or send their kids to the school. Although I love UCSD I don’t try to convince my friends to go to homecoming…seeing a water polo/soccer match isn’t the same. If we had football, I would definitely be pushing everyone to have season tickets. Maybe I wouldn’t have to push, there would be so much school spirit, that they would want to have season tickets. Have you seen a USC football game, half of the stadium seems to be of alumni season ticket holders filled with school spirit.

2nd Month

Here are a few pics of Bryant at 2nd months, which I love!!

Of course he will attending our alma mater UCSD!!! Will he continue down our path and be a Poli-Sci major? Will he live at Marshall or ERC? If it is up to me, it will be Revelle, and be a bio major. He will grow up to be a denist. I should have listened to my uncle Rigo...and been a dentist. My dentist only works Mon-Thurs 7-2:30, and makes the bucks!!!

I saw the dog at the Bookstore and thought what a great idea it would be for me to take his picture every month to track how large he is getting compared to the dog. Originally I thought I would track this using the car seat, but he is getting so big that the car seat idea would not work.



I have been after Phil to finish the crib, because he no longer fits in my bassinet. This is my bassinet, which my mom lent to me for Bryant to use. I thought it was great idea that my parents kept it all these years. Although many of the baby books I read did not recommend using old bassinets because they are dangerous I didn’t care. Somethings are worth using even if they are old. One of the problems I did run into is that it rocks. Bryant is so big that when he a little the bassinet rocks and wakes him up. That problem did not last long. He weight now prevents it from rocking.




My happy baby! Bryant is happy, smiling, etc 85% of the time, which is great. However, when he gets mad, he really gets mad. I have to take a picture of him the next time he gets mad. There is nothing that can stop him when he starts to cry (except for food, I know, just like daddy!) And he has started to say "Da", which makes me mad! I am with him all day, and he says dad, what about me "Ma".
These just show how alert he has become. His eyes are following me around while I was taking the pictures. I will start showing him sign language very soon. Liz showed my nephews, Max and Eli, sign language it has helped out a lot. Eli loves to drink milk, so he sign "bottle/milk" all the time. Max on the other had loves to eat, so he sign "more", so that Liz feeds him more food. I wonder what Bryant is going to love to sign, hopefully "diaper".

Great Grandparents

It is incredible to think that Bryant has a lot of his great grandparents alive. I only had one great grandparent alive when I was born, my mother's mother's father. He wasn't much a father to my grandmother. It is sad to think that he had such a long life, yet my grandmother's mother passed away when she was little girl, and doesn't really remember her.

Here are my mom's parents with their great grandsons (yes we need to have a girl!). In the picture from top to bottom, left to right are my grandmother, my grandfather, Bryant, Isaiah (my cousin Jr.'s son, Jr. passed away last year. We miss him so much), Eli, and Max. This was taken at Bryant's Welcome Home party one week after his birth.

This was taken Sept 7.
I wish he knew my dad's parents. My grandmother, Maria, just passed away last December six months before he was born. She would have been so happy to know that I had a son.

I also wish he would have met my great aunt Tachita. I miss her so much.

Here is Bryant with Phil's mother's mother, Kay. Since she wasn't able to make it to the Welcome Home party, we decided to take him to visit her at the convalent home she lives at. We got their around 8 p.m. to find everyone asleep. We didn't know if we should wake her up or just go home. Phil went to her room to find her "watching" the Olympics, so we decided to wake her to see Bryant. We are glad we did. She was so excited to see him. We, also, took her a picture of Bryant and us. We were very nervous to place Bryant on her to take this picture because she is so fragile. She was born in 1918, she turned 90years old around the time of my baby shower!

Here is Bryant with Phil's father's mother, Lupe. This was taken at the Welcome Home party.

Since Victor wasn't able to make it to the Welcome Home Party, we took Bryant to visit him. You can see the difference between Bryant with Lupe above (7/27/08) and below (8/31/08) A month later and he is so much bigger. He was able to hold his head up for his picture with Victor.

Sorry...

I am so sorry to everyone that I have not updated my blog. But it seems like Bryant does not like his picture posted. He is okay if I checking my e-mail, but the second I am ready to update my blog he starts to cry and cry. In his defense, he also cries when I am ready to sit down and eat.

This was taken our first day home. He was two days old. I wanted him to do something, but he slept so soundly, just like his father.


These two pics were taken 4 days after he was born.



Check out the back hair! Uncle Eddie is going to have to show him how to wax it off. Phil and I were really surprised how hairy he was considering that we aren't hairy.



In the next photo he is one month (Aug 18). His fisty personality shows clearly in this picture. He was tired of our photo shoot.

He was so strong. I told the Dr. at his 4 week check up that he could lift his head, but the doctor didn't believe me. I should have taken the photo. He could also crawl very slowly, but crawl. I know, I know, I have become that mother that is showing off her great her kid is.

(Sept 4)

(Sept 5) The mandatory bath photo. Phil wouldn't let me take a full nude shot to show his prom date in the future.

This was taken on Aug 18. Even though he looked big to me he was still little compared to the next picture.
This was taken Sept 7 my uncle Rigo's birthday party. Can you see the difference? By the way he was sound asleep while the Marichi was playing, the trumpet guy was right behind him.

Some more pics...

Here we are getting ready to leave the hospital...

I was suppose to stay an extra day, but I asked to leave early. I know that the offer of free meals, and having some one take care of the little during the nighttime should have been a great incentive for us to stay longer. There was an higher amount of babies being delived that weekend (I guess because it was a full moon)so there were some people that had roommates. I lucked out and got a "roommate". Normally I am a people person and would have liked the idea of having a roommate. But my roommate was different. She had 5 children at home, so her husband didn't stay to help her take care of her little one. She had an operation (I didn't ask which type) and could not easily reach for her baby. When her baby cried she tried to rock it to sleep, but all I heard all night was the baby crying and her hitting the baby's crib against her bed. To make matters worse she didn't speak any English, and the nurses didn't speak Spanish. So she would not call the nurses to help her calm the baby. I tried calling for her (really I did it for myself to get some rest), but when the nurses asked her if anything was wrong, the only word she knew in English and would say was "okay". So they would not take the baby, since everything was "okay". I am a light sleeper, so this was not the ideal rest I was suppose to be getting. I don't know if it was worse when her husband did come to visit her, because he brought all the kids. The kids did not understand privacy, so I decided it was best for me to leave early and not take full advantage of having someone take care of me.

There is nothing like home sweet home...even if it is under construction.

birth story...

Since I was supposedly “due” on July 14, and he still hadn’t come, my doctor decided to induce me. As many of you know, my doctor was also expecting and had the exact same due date as me. So it was not "my doctor", but a new doctor. She was really nice, but a bit odd to have only met her once before my inducement.

I was scheduled to be induced on Saturday July 19 at 8 am. Never having been induced, I thought I would be having Bryant on Saturday, but this was not the case. When I got to the triage, I asked to be placed in the Birth Center. The Birth Center is usually for people who want to experience “a natural birth” with a midwife. But I choose the Birth Center because it was a large room. I really didn’t care if a midwife or a doctor delivered since my doctor was not going to be delivering the baby anyways, as long as I could get an epidural.

The midwife wanted me to walk around and see if the baby would come since I was getting contractions and was 2-3 cm dilated. I tried to tell her, that I had been about 3 cm dilated for two weeks, and I had been walking with Phil and Tri from my condo to Marine Stadium daily and several times even walked to 2nd Street. She gave me the more conservative drug to ready my cervix in the morning but had me wait until around 6pm before I was given the medication to induce the labor.

My contractions were manageable until my water broke at 2:30 am. After my first "real" contraction I was yelling for the epidural. I assumed that I was having the baby within seconds. After the nurse checked on me, I had only dilated 5-6 cm, I still had hours to go. It took the anesthesiologist about an hour to give me the epidural, although it felt like a lifetime. After the epidural, I feel asleep. The nurse woke me up around 5:30 am to check on me. I was fully dilated, so she had me try to push. Because my lower body was numb from the epidural, I was not able to push effectively. The doctor decided for me to wait an hour for the epidural to wear off. Around 6:30am I started pushing, and continued until his arrival at 8:28am.

Phil was great. He helped me stay calm and relaxed especially when my water broke and when I had to push. He held my hand through everything. And no he didn’t faint during the delivery, but helped me out so much. On a funny note, the nurse that helped me during the delivery was Korean, and she was telling Phil to splash some water on his face to wake up, since his eyes were half open. Of course, Phil responded that his eyes were open, and that he was just born that way.

HE'S HERE!!!

After waiting and waiting, Bryant Gerald Hernandez made his appearance on Sunday July 20, 2008 at 8:28am. He weighed 7lbs 10 oz. and was 21 inches long. He is fine and healthy. Here are some pics. I will hopefully get some time this evening to get into more details, but I have had little sleep this week. We have a doctor's appointment at 10 am and another at 3:30pm, so on top of no sleep we are busy.

I just started checking my e-mails today, so I have to catch up with sending back replys to everyone but I wanted to show everyone at least some pictures. These were taken minutes after he was born.

This picture was taken a few hours later, you could tell he looks all cleaned up.

Bryant with Grandparents Castillo.

This was taken last night.

inquiring minds...

Thank you for everyone calling, e-mailing and texting. I am doing fine, but I am still pregnant... This little guy is just cooking in the oven ;) I think he is like his grandparents Castillo, and will be late for everything, which drives me crazy. No need for me to mention all the important events in my life I have been late to because of my parents.



In case you are wondering what I look like. The picture was taken on Sunday. It is of my cousin Monica and me at her baby shower. She is due in August, but doesn't know if she is having a girl or a boy.

baby classes

Last week I was so busy...I know I am not working, but I have so many classes that I have to take before Bryant's arrival. I had been working until recently, so I didn't have time to take any of the traditional baby classes until last week. I seemed that I was the only one due this month taking the classes.

I am just happy that I was able to take the classes, my sister was not as lucky. She worked until the end of tax season. She signed up to take the classes after tax season, but she was not able to take the classes. Within days of tax season ending she had to stay at the hospital two and half months before her due date because she was a high risk pregnancy. She was considered a high risk pregnancy because she had had previous miscarriages, and she was carrying twins. Everything turned out fine with my nephews, but she (and I) did not know what to do. We never babysat, changed diapers, etc. It was a huge learning curve.

Phil and I did attend the lamaze classes for several weeks. The classes were on Monday nights, so I waited until Gamma Chi finished for the semester so I could take the lamaze classes on Monday nights. We didn't know what lamaze was about, so we did not know why we would need to take 6 weeks of classes to learn how to breath. I am really happy we took the classes especially because our instructor, Maria Phillips, was so excited to teach us different techniques and answered so many of our questions. She taught us more than just how to breathe.

Last week I attended, Baby Basic class, Breastfeeding class, and took the tour of the hospital. The baby basic class was helpful, but I have been helping take care of my nephews, so changing the diapers of a doll is not the same. If it had not been for my nephews I might have believed that changing diapers would be easy.

I was not sure what to expect with the breastfeeding class, but I was hoping to receive a lot of information. My mom and my sister did not breastfeed, so I really did not know anything about it. The breastfeeding class was not about information. Most of the women that attended knew that they were going to breastfeed and for at least a year, so the class was more of a pow wow. I also felt odd, because it was the only class that Phil did not attend with me. Although, I did not want Phil to attend, because I knew that he would be like the other men in attendance in the class, i.e. not taking the class seriously.

The tour of the hospital was interesting…it was very informative to know where I was going to go, and what was going to happen. I was a little surprised that was not as hectic as it is on TV. I also expected there to be many women screaming bloody murder. However, this was not the case, there was a lady yelling/moaning/screaming (not as loud as I would have imagined), and one doctor strolling to her room (just one doctor not a team of people running to her). It actually calmed me down, especially since the head nurse giving us the tour gave us apple juice, and talked about the staff, and the rooms.

I still have another class to attend tomorrow - Labor and Delivery. Actually I also need to attend a CPR class, but that class isn't offered until August.

***Update, I am getting "fake" contractions, although they feel real and strong. I went to a doctor’s appointment today, and he is really low. This means that he can come at any time. The doctor, of course, would not give me any predictions or expectations other than he could come at any time.

Phil was really hoping that Bryant would arrive on the fourth of July, but it didn’t happen although my friend delivered a beautiful girl on the fourth of July.

Dee Gee Delta Gee!

Last week I was in Palm Springs for Delta Gamma Convention. Even though I was initated at UC San Diego, I help out as the advisor for the California State University, Long Beach Chapter. I love helping the girls. I felt that I needed to help out as an advisor, since UC San Diego did not have an advisor while I was a DG, and it would have been so much easier with an adviser.


I also had a great time getting to know the alumnae of the Long Beach Chapter. They are such wonderful women who dedicate so much of their time to make both the alumnae chapter and the collegiate chapter strong. I didn't realize what a diffence 3 inch heels make, or rather not wearing 3 inch heals make. I am so short in the picture. Theses women really live up to the Delta Gamma values and commitment, and I am so glad to work with them.

Sharon was also gracious enough to host a baby shower for me at her house. I was so happy and excited to see so many of the alumnae and girls attend my shower. I could not believe how many gifts I got from them. I am still unpacking and organzing all the gifts. I still have to send out the "thank you" cards to all the ladies, which I should have done by now.

Here is a slide of my DG baby shower. Thank you so much to Sharon for hosting the shower and to everyone who attended ;)