The TRUTH About Motherhood

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Kindergarten Teacher, Thomas Washburn, Removes 6-Year-Old Girls Shirt in a Fit of Anger & Leaves her Exposed in Front of the Entire Class
An Arizona Kindergarten teacher, Thomas Washburn, faces 26 counts of indecent exposure and one count of child abuse after he allegedly removed a 6-year-old girl’s shirt and left her naked from the waist up in a packed classroom. He did what????
Thomas Washburn, 54, a teacher at Adams Elementary School in Mesa, Arizona was arrested Wednesday when the incident was reported by the little girl’s mom and is now on “PAID” leave. Meanwhile, the little girl is humiliated and traumatized. This man should be locked up in jail.
Police said that something upset Washburn, who then started shouting in the classroom filled with 24 kindergarteners and an adult aide. The loud outburst frightened the little girl so badly that she hid her face in the top of her shirt. I know, as parents, we sometimes have these moments of insanity where we do something unconventional but that is our own children and it doesn’t happen in front of 24 of their peers and we aren’t strange men ripping their clothes off and leaving them naked and exposed.
Further infuriated by the little girl’s behavior, Washburn told the little girl to take her face out of the shirt. When she did not comply, he took her shirt off of her, leaving her naked from the waist up in front of her classmates for about 10 minutes. The little girl began crying, presumably a combination of the fright of having her shirt ripped off of her by a crazed old man, someone she trusted, and being naked in front of her classmates. Eventually, the sonofabitch returned her clothes. This makes me want to bust this guy in the face with a ball bat. I’ve had a teacher pull my kindergartener to the front of the class to point out that her uniform was not to code and that was enough to make me livid. I not only approached the teacher and told her in no uncertain terms that she was to NEVER embarrass my child again but I even contacted the principal because, in my mind, this is not acceptable to do to a child. If she would have removed a piece of clothing or touched her, I’m certain I would have physically hurt her.
To make matters worse, the victim’s mother said her daughter was born prematurely and is “developmentally delayed.” This man is a piece of garbage and clearly does not need to be teaching in the classroom.
Ok, that was what the report said, more or less, now let me tell you what I think. You see I have a 6-year-old girl and believe me when I tell you that if a teacher, male or female, ripped my kids shirt off of her in a fit of rage or what the fuck ever was going on, this person should expect to feel the full wrath of myself and my husband. I’m saying this asshole should hide because I’d be at his house to collect him with a ball bat, take him to the mall and strip him down in front of the world to let him stand there on display with his bad attitude and his little dick in humiliation for the full ten minutes in which he let the child do the same and then I would beat him with the said bat. This asshole should not be allowed alone with children. He obviously has some sort of anger issue and has no clue as to how to handle an uncooperative child. He needs to lose his job and be punished for this for the rest of his life because by doing what he did, that will follow that little girl for the rest of her life. She will be afraid of grown men in positions of power and feel vulnerable and threatened. As far as I am concerned, this man is an animal and belongs in a cage.
If he couldn’t handle the crazy unrest of 6-year-olds than he should have stayed the hell out of a kindergarten classroom. He should have walked away. No matter what was going on in his life to make him have a bad day, his responsibility is to protect and teach those children and there is an expectation from those parents who are leaving their child in his care that he actually CARES for their child, not humiliates them in front of the class.
What would you do if a teacher did this to your 6-year-old?
2014/01/18
How to Teach Teenage Girls How to Put on Make-Up
When I was a tween and a teenage girl, I was forbidden from wearing make-up. Not even lip gloss. If I was really slick, I could, maybe, get away with some shiny chapstick. Thank you Lip Smackers. But my teenage self had no idea how to put on make-up.
My dad was very old-fashioned and opposed to the thought of any sort of male looking in our direction and harbored even more disdain at the thought of us growing up. So, needless to say, middle school was the pits and even asking how to put on make-up was about as offensive to our dad as asking how to get pregnant.
Disclosure: I was gifted some of the products I use by Tarte cosmetics but all opinions on how to put on make-up and love for the product are my own.
Aside from the obvious and prevailing normalness of hormones, gangliness, body parts changing at lightning speed and an overall collective ugliness that hits everyone in those awkward years, I wasn’t allowed to paint my fingernails, shave my legs or wear lip gloss. It was just me and my caterpillar eyebrows fending for ourselves in a world of shaven legs and make-up.
READ ALSO: I shaved my 7-year-old
Honestly, I didn’t wear anything above that shiny Lip Smacker until prom. PROM! I was 17 and had never put make-up on my own face. Now, on this point I do agree with my dad, teenage girls are naturally beautiful. They really don’t need much but, I mean PROM, it’s like the closest thing you get to your wedding at 16 and 17. You want to be extra. More than Lip Smackers anyways.
Prom day came and I had my hair professionally done. Of course, it was a disaster because the hairdresser took my natural curls and made them into spiral curls and I looked more like Shirley Temple than I had any of intention of looking. Then there was the situation with my prom dress that needed last minute alterations. My prom date was awesome enough to pick up the dress, only to find out 5 minutes before we had to leave that she took the chest area in too much. So the girl who never wore make-up and had just secretly shaved her legs, had 17-year-old cleavage coming out to attack her date. You think that was bad?
My brother was dating my best friend so we were double dating to prom. My brother picked up the flowers from the florist and promptly put them in the freezer. They turned brown. They looked dead. I would have been hysterical had it not have been happening to me.
Then my friend offered to do my make-up. I figured why not since I had no idea what to do and compared to the terrible hair, come atcha cleavage and brown flowers…I needed a win. In retrospect, I should have just asked for a how to put on make-up tutorial but alas, there was no YouTube when I went to prom… just friends with good intentions and less skill. How bad could it be?
Bad! It could be awful. I looked like a goth princess. You see how that could be distracting? I had to wash my face off, and apply Lip Smackers as my mom tried to brush the Shirley Temple curls out of my hair. It was the worst. I was crying and mascara was streaking my cheeks. My poor prom date sat in the living room wondering wtf he had gotten himself into. You know, if my parents had planned this, they would win at the game of blockers for sure.
This is why I decided (that night at prom) before I ever had sex or children that I would never let that happen to my girls. When I went to college, the first thing I did was learn to put on make-up. Don’t get me wrong, during the day (most days of my life) I still love a bare face. I’m good without it. But when I go out, I want my face to look like it came to impress. I love make-up.
For me, applying a beautiful face of make-up is respecting the occasion and the people that I am spending time with, in the same way one would dress up to go out. I feel like putting no effort in reflects badly on me, like I don’t care about what I’m doing. But it’s not all about make-up. Beauty comes from within and sometimes beauty is pain. I mean, those fancy braids that look all carefree, they hurt going in. I’ve taught my girls this from the get.
READ ALSO: My Daughter Taught Me an Invaluable Lesson
The girls are ballerinas and perform on stage a lot, so at the ripe old ages of 11 and 13-years-old they already have more make-up experience than I did in high school. But, as anyone who has seen stage make-up, you know it’s not appropriate for daytime wear on young girls. It’s very heavy and dramatic because it’s purpose is to be seen under harsh, bright house lights. I’m trying to teach the girls that you can be creative, expressive and have fun with make-up without being overly dramatic and look-at-me-ish. I’m also trying to teach them that beauty isn’t just about what you look like, it’s who you are and how you behave; it emanates from within like a light.
Here is what I’ve been teaching my tween and teenage girls about how to put on make-up:
1.Beauty is pain.
2. Drink lots of water to stay hydrated, maintain your suppleness and skin elasticity.
3. Wear huge sunglasses to keep yourself from squinting in the sun and to protect your face from the damaging rays of the sun.
4. Clean your face daily. Never go to bed with a dirty face. I use St. Ives Apricot scrub.
5. Use witch hazel after you clean your face to make sure it’s clean.
6. Moisturize your face. Moisturize your neck. Moisturize your hands and make sure that your daytime moisturizer has SPF in it. Also, moisturizing lippys never hurt anybody. My favorite for the girls is Tarte lip quenchers.
7. Always wear sunscreen
8. Don’t pull at your skin. When applying moisturizer rub up and dab around the eyes.
9. Buy good cosmetics and less is more. This is what I have found to be true for me anyways. The more pigment, the less you have to use.
10. Apply primer and your make-up will last longer.
11. Apply setting spray and you will look flawless all day.
13. Curl your eyelashes before you apply mascara, even if you aren’t applying mascara. You can also take a lash extension course online if you want to.
14. Do not pluck your eyebrows. All of us moms who lived through the 90’s can tell you from below our anorexic eyebrows that all of the castor oil in the world can’t bring them back to life. I miss my Brooke Shields caterpillars.
15. Love who you are because let me tell you what…confidence is the most beautiful thing a girl can possess.
What’s your best beauty secret for tween and teenage girls? At what age were you allowed to wear make-up? How do you teach your daughters about how to put on make-up?
2018/07/10
Sugar and Spice and everything Nice…most of the time
My girls absolutely love books! Some of their favorites, as I’m sure if you have little girls you are aware of some of these; Fancy Nancy, Madeline, GiGi, Ruby, Eloise and several others. I love all these little girl characters with big dreams, great imaginations, lofty aspirations, skies the limit attitudes and a couple who even speak French. I am most excited that these characters are good wholesome role models for my daughters to emulate. Fancy Nancy dresses up and has tea with her little sister and loves all of her friends. Madeline, well she goes to a boarding school run by a nun. She is all about sharing, education,and being a good girl.Sheila Walsh’s GiGi is one of our favorites. GiGi is a little princess. Why she asks is she a princess? Because her father is a King….the King of Kings.We are all princesses. Isn’t that a wonderful explanation to your daughter why she is a princess? It’s basically a religious take on Fancy Nancy.Very cute. Adorable little Ruby who loves to be fancy ,well mannered and have tea with her Grandma. What a great little girl. Last but certainly not least, at least not in my house, Eloise. This little girl is full of love and good intentions, though sometimes not thinking things through and chaos erupts, but when she makes an error in judgment…she admits her wrong doing and works to correct her faux pas. ( That’s French for mess up!)
Speaking of Eloise, has anyone heard of the new Eloise suite that they have recently opened at the Plaza? ( It was bound to happen).Here is the full article. I know my girls would lose their minds if I could take them for a night to sleep in Eloise’s suite. But,we have no plans on being in the greater New York area anytime soon. That can’t stop the girls from dreaming about this fantasy world brought to life by Betsey Johnson. It also won’t stop Mommy for getting some great new ideas for Gab’s room! god knows they will be selling these sheets. It’s amazing what I can do with a little inspiration and the help of my crafty MIL. Have you seen the Bella’s Fancy Nancy Bedroom? I may have to add some pics:) For now, here are some pictures of the Eloise Suite. Enjoy.
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2010/08/03
How to Survive Your Child’s Leukemia Diagnosis
My nephew was diagnosed with Leukemia at 2-years-old. I don’t normally share this story because it’s not my story to share but today, it’s time to speak the words.
“My nephew had leukemia.”
To be honest, I’ve been too afraid to say the words out loud like somehow the words themselves might give the leukemia power and bring the blood cancer fates down on us again.
As a mother, one of my biggest fears is losing one of my children. I often say that I don’t know how I would survive it but the truth is, I know exactly how one survives it. I just don’t ever want to have to.
In 1996, a decade before I was a mother, myself, I was an aunt. Yes, I was that crazy, (probably) over doting, obnoxious aunt to my first nephew, Alex. I’m serious, I had his baby pictures on my nightstand. It scared many of a date when I was single.
I come from a large Latino family and, in our family, family is everything. Mi casa es su casa. What’s mine is yours and we love each other’s children as much as we love our own so baby Alex was fair game as far as all of us were concerned. Alex was the pride and joy of my brother, Carlos and his wife, Jodie. Alex was the first of the next generation of the Cruz kids and we loved that kid more than a fat kid loves cake. If only love could make you immune to the cruelties of the world.
When Alex was only 2-years-old the unthinkable happened, Alex was diagnosed with T-Cell A.L.L (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia).
With that diagnosis of leukemia, as a family, our world crashed down all around us. The world as we knew it ceased to make sense. I questioned everything I’d ever believed or knew because how could this be happening to a child.
I wasn’t a mother myself at the time so I couldn’t fully understand what that diagnosis felt like as a parent. Hearing my brother’s voice on the phone, hundreds of miles away, with no family around; the pain and anguish in his voice was palpable when he delivered the news. I knew he was broken but he was stoic for his son.
I hung up the phone and sobbed, cursed and prayed. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening. I just knew that this couldn’t be happening. That moment changed all of us. In many ways, it has defined the person I am today.
Experiencing that kind of vulnerability and helplessness makes you realize that every single day is important. Every moment counts. Every word, deed and action of your life means something because your moment may be someone else’s lifetime so embrace life.
Life is fickle and just as quickly as you are crying tears of joy as they are laying your precious newborn baby onto your chest, you can be holding back tears of sadness as you fight for their life. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if you are someone’s everything.
My brother and his wife are two of the strongest people I know. When you are a parent of a seriously ill child, you lose the luxury of choosing to collapse in a pool of snot and tears when the world beats you down, you just have to suck it up and be strong for your children no matter how broken and vulnerable you are feeling yourself. Once you get behind closed doors, you can collapse, cry, scream and rage against the world.
You have to be brave for the both of you. You stay strong for your child until you make it out the other side; healthy and happy. My brother and his wife are still two of the strongest people that I’ve ever known.
Back in those days, I was terrified every time the phone rang when I saw North Carolina on the caller I.D. On one particular night, I saw my brother’s number. I held my breath and answered the phone, as I always did in those days. My brother recounted the day’s events, heavily uttering the words that he had to lay across his toddler to hold him down so the doctors could do a spinal tap as my confused 2-year-old nephew screamed,
“I hate you, Papi!”
I could hear my brother’s voice cracking as his heart was breaking.
That’s cancer. Doing the hard things to save your loved one even when it breaks your heart. Watching as the person you love is in pain, wanting desperately to take their place and being helpless to take it away.
This all happened when Carlos was only 22-years-old. My brother and his wife survived Alex’s leukemia with grace, love and hope. Thanks to so many amazing people (doctors, nurses, family and friends) including Wake Forest Baptist Medical Hospital and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. They went on to have 3 more beautiful children.
Alex went into remission and has not had any relapses. Today, my beautiful nephew, the firstborn Cruz grandchild is a 21-year-old sweet, caring young man. He is our miracle. He is a survivor and we are blessed every single day that we have him here with us. Other families are not so fortunate.
Since then, my brother and his family have hosted countless events to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. It’s the one charity that I never say no to when asked it donate. How can we ever repay the debt of a child’s life?
This year my brother was nominated for the honor of being The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) 2017 Man & Woman of the Year campaign. He deserves it. He is a devoted husband and father who is a pillar of the community and does his best to give back to a world that gave him his son back.
As a family, we have set a goal to raise $100,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society between today and June 1, 2017. I know it’s ambitious but that’s how we Cruz kids roll. We go big, especially when it’s such an important cause.
I am humbly asking for your support in our efforts to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in its mission to find a cure for blood cancers and to assist patients and families as they battle this disease. No donation is too small or too large. Every single dollar counts towards finding a cure. Your donation could help save another parent from having to live through this excruciating experience.
There are two easy ways to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society find a cure:
1. Make a personal gift. (Your donation is a tax-deductible contribution.). Go to my Leukemia and Lymphoma Society campaign Web site and make your contribution at https://www.mwoy.org/pages/in/neindiana17/dbeckp
1. Invite your business or organization to be a corporate sponsor.
$25,000 – Presenting Sponsor
$ 15,000 – Platinum
$ 10,000 – Gold
$ 5,000 – Silver
$ 2,500 – Bronze
$ 1,000 – Bronze
$1,000, $500 or $250 – Grand Finale Program Ad
I want to personally say thank you from all of us; it truly means everything to us.If you want to learn more about what the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is doing please go here for latest updates.
If you can donate to help us meet our goal of raising $100,000 by June 1, 2017 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society please go here and donate whatever you can.
2017/03/23
What Happens when Your Mind and Body are Out of Sync?
Sometimes as a busy wife and mom, my life can get pretty hectic. Probably a lot like yours. It’s not easy when you have to be 100 places at the same time and you have little people depending on you for survival. That’s a lot of pressure, in and of itself, add to that work, errands, husband time and the fact that I am not as young as I once was and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed pretty quickly. That’s why I trust sites like anipots.com to provide me with the right knowledge regarding health supplements and remedies.
The thing is that this happens quite frequently and when it does, I don’t feel like myself. Does that happen to you? I’ve noticed that whenever my life gets busy and I’m experiencing a lot of emotional stress, there are always accompanying physical ramifications. For example, when you’re stressing out over why the baby isn’t sleeping through the night and the next thing you know you get a monster pimple between your eyes or you remember in the middle of the night that you have to bake 50 cupcakes for the PTO bake sale and then you fall victim to a migraine.
I’ve had an extremely stressful few months recently. I broke my leg last fall which created a host of other issues, as you can imagine mostly because when you are confined to one place and can’t bear weight, you start to feel like a ghost in your own life. You can’t imagine the emotional stress that feeling irrelevant can put on someone. Makes you appreciate what it must feel like to be elderly.
Then this spring I started having gallbladder attacks which led to a surgery to remove a diseased gallbladder. If you’ve never had a gallbladder attack, I don’t recommend them. They feel like an induced labor with no epidural. This caused more emotional stress that manifested itself by physically wiping me out. On top of all of this, I’m pretty sure that I’ve entered perimenopause land. They say it can start anywhere from your thirties through your forties (or even earlier for some) and can last anywhere from 10 months to 10 years, so that makes it a definite possibility.
I haven’t noticed any major symptoms like hot flashes, irregular periods or lower sex drive but others like urine leakage (hello, giving birth to two babies with huge heads), fatigue (a mom’s work is never done), mood swings and trouble sleeping (well, I’m a mom and a diagnosed insomniac so this has been part of my reality since having kids) but other than that I feel like I’m 25-years-old. Well, except for the occasional vaginal dryness but I blame that on the stress. Not to be too graphic but sometimes it’s like a slip and slide down there and sometimes it’s like the Sahara. I adjust. I’m not giving up my sex life because my vagina is being bipolar. Hey, 2 pregnancies, a broken leg and wonky gallbladder didn’t stop me. I’m not about to let aging win the war. I’m not dead yet.
The thing is life slows down for no woman so we have to make time to take care of ourselves. Sometimes that means getting some extra sleep, sometimes that means taking vitamins and exercising, sometimes that means sneaking away to pee in silence and sometimes that means giving yourself a little help in the lubricant area. Hey, my mama always told me, “God helps those who help themselves.” I have no shame in helping myself to the sex life I want. If that means picking up some Vagisil ProHydrate then I will. Vagisil ProHydrate Natural Feel helps make my love life feel natural again without the dryness that comes with perimenopause.

Unfortunately, it quite literally, took me falling and breaking my leg and being completely bed ridden for 4 months to learn that lesson. So when your body is telling you to slow down or take care of it, do it. You only have one body and one life. Enjoy!
What do you do to relieve stress that’s just for you and nobody else?
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2016/10/13
How a Party Can Help You Change The World
Have you ever seen an injustice in the world and thought, someone ought to change that? Me, too. We all do. But why not instead of waiting for the world to change, we choose to be the change we want to see in the world. Why not be the change? Why wait? Just change the damn thing.
We worry about the state of the world; the hungry children, the homeless population, the unemployed and the disabled. We worry but we don’t do anything about it. We walk on in self-induced states of blissful ignorance because to look directly at the world, in all its pain and suffering and walk away is too much to handle. But we don’t have to walk on trying to pretend that all the sadness and injustices in the world don’t exist, we can be the change. We can do something.
That’s why I decided to partner with Jennie-O and Champions for Kids to help make a difference. It is a small thing but I hosted a #Fiesta4Kids which means, I hosted a dinner party at my house and invited some family over and everyone who came to dinner donated canned foods to be donated to our local food bank. We decided on the local Community Harvest Food Bank.
When most people think #Fiesta4Kids they think taco bar but my kids wanted meatloaf. So for our dinner, I searched the Jennie-O website and found a recipe called Best Ever Turkey Meatloaf and my family concurs. But you don’t have to throw an entire party to do good in the world, start small donate a few cans of food to your own local food bank. Every little bit helps. Teach your children that they can be the change and it’s never too early to start.
When school lets out for the summer, millions of children lose access to the school breakfasts, lunches and after-school snacks they receive during the regular school year. You can help ensure kids have nutritious meals by hosting a Fiesta to Feed Families event! From June 1 to June 30, Champions for Kids is partnering with Jennie-O Turkey to encourage community projects across the country benefiting children in need of nutritious meals this summer.
I want my children to feel compassion for others and to be activists, to do not wit for change to happen. I have to be their example. If you’d like to learn more why not join myself, The Motherhood, Jennie-O and Champions for kids on June 24th at 1 pm EST for a Twitter party.
JUNE 24 #FIESTA4KIDS TWITTER PARTY (1 P.M. – 2 P.M. ET)
Details for the Twitter Party
What: For millions of children, the end of the school year means no more access to school breakfasts, lunches or after-school snacks. This month, bloggers from all across the U.S. are leading the way in helping these children by throwing a Fiesta to Feed Families (#Fiesta4Kids), in which they collect food items to benefit kids and families in their local communities! They’ve inspired us so much that we wanted to explore more ways to get involved with community projects at this Twitter party!
The Motherhood is honored to join Champions for Kids along with Jennie-O to share just how simple it is to help local families in need. Champions for Kids SIMPLE Service Projects are an easy way to get involved in helping your community! Every SIMPLE Service Project has 4 basic steps: 1) Gather your friends, family, and co-workers. 2) Learn about the needs of children in your community. 3) Give items to help kids enjoy happier & healthier lives. 4) Share your story with Champions for Kids to inspire others!
Join this Twitter party to learn more about SIMPLE Service projects, as well as to learn about kid-friendly recipe ideas that are both yummy and nutritious!
When: Thursday, June 24, at 1p ET / 12p CT / 10a PT
Where: We’ll be on Twitter – follow the #Fiesta4Kids hashtag to track the conversation. You can see the details and RSVP via this Twtvite: https://twtvite.com/fiesta4kids
Hashtag: #Fiesta4Kids
Prizes: Five prizes will be given to five randomly selected participants who answer the trivia questions correctly. Each prize includes a $25 Wal-Mart gift card and two $5 Jennie-O product coupons.

Disclosure: I participated in this program on behalf of Champions for Kids and The Motherhood. All opinions are my own.
2014/06/22
Eventually, All Dogs Go To Heaven & All Kids Go to Kindergarten
The first day of kindergarten and a sick dog. This week is emotionally chaotic. Too much change at once. This week is supposed to be hard. It’s the first week of school for my girls. Gabs is starting kindergarten, so obviously I am all verklempt. I am trying to hold my shit together because there is nothing worse than a 5 year old seeing her Mommy act like she’s sending her baby off to war. Oh, but my mommy heart. It hurts.
Meet the Kindergarten Teacher Day
I’m trying to be proactive and make it easier. Yesterday, I took her to school to meet the teacher and showed her around the room and the school. We investigated every nook and cranny of that Kindergarten class. She was a bit overwhelmed but I kept telling her how awesome it was going to be and her big sister was there to reassure her. I just kept swallowing the lump in my throat. Pushing it down, down, down; where it will stay until I am safely outside the building on the first day of school this Thursday. THEN, I will collapse in a heaving, hyperventilating pool of snot and tears.Yes, my heart is going to break. I know this. I’ve been here before with my first but this is different, this is my last baby.
My sweet little shy girl who embarrasses easily and who wears her heart on her sleeve. But like her sister before her, she will suck it up and make that funny little smile that tells me that she is feeling unsure and a little bit scared inside but she won’t let anyone else know, just her and I, it’s our secret. I’ll want to make it all better but the only way to make it better is to let her experience it and know that it is okay. This is one thing the girls have definitely inherited from me, they need to feel their feelings and survive them to know they can. We are “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger girls” and we are firmly set in our beliefs that, “Failure is not an option” even when it may seem like the only choice there is. We keep on trying. Both my girls are like that; stoic to the bitter end, almost to a fault. I wish she could just cry and get it all out but she’s too much like me. We do cry but first we push stuff down, way down and we carry on no matter how much it eats at us on the inside and necrotizes that spot we push it down to.
But the crap just keeps piling on. The same week that my baby starts kindergarten and my Bella has moved up to 2^nd grade, my oldest and furriest girl (our 13 year old boxer, Saffaron) is sick. She’s old and we know that every day is a gift with this girl. Saffaron was the first baby the Big Guy and I had together. We brought her home in September, 4 months after we were married and she has been by our side since. I love this dog like only a Mommy can. My girls adore her. I’ve been trying to explain that sometimes people and animals get REALLY old (I’m trying to convince them that me being 39 is NOT really old) or sick and they go to sleep and then they go to be with God and wait for us. This is what I told them about their baby and now I am telling them this about their dog.
This is how the dog marked meet the kindergarten teacher day
Today, the dog was really not feeling well. She was lying around not moving (she was breathing, I checked) but she just seemed done. Yes, I’ve seen this look before and we had a conversation last year. She owes me 5 more years, because my heart is not ready to say good-bye again so soon. I just had to say good-bye in May and I think there should be at least a year in between good-byes to people and things you love. Last year, she almost died from an acute case of pancreatitis. My grandmother died from pancreatic cancer about a month before my dog was afflicted. No, I am not saying that my Grandma gave my dog pancreatitis but my year in between good-byes rule came to mind this morning.
I grabbed my girls; sleepy (because she’s trying to adjust to the school sleep schedule), nervous (because she has been sporting her nervous “Help me mom” smile since she realized that this was the week she started BIG school) and Grandma Moses (because my once spry puppy is now an elderly 91) and off to the veterinarian hospital we went. As I looked in the rearview, I saw both of my daughters sporting the “Oh Jesus, please don’t today be the day our dog dies!” TO my right, the dog is giving me the,”Please don’t hit any bumps. Dear Jesus, take me quick!” Me, I am torn. On one selfish hand, I don’t ever want that beautiful bitch to die. I just love her too damn much and our family will be incomplete without her walking around looking at us all like we are all a bunch of assholes before giving us lots of love out of pity for our stupidity. She thinks we are big dumb animals; it’s obvious to us. But on the other hand, I don’t want her living in pain. Her body is not what it used to be. Her arthritis is awful in the mornings, she’s got glaucoma, and benign tumors pop up all over her body at random times for no apparent reason. She’s tired and I’m pretty sure that soon she will be ready to go and we will have to let her go.
The letting go sucks. I just hope it’s not this week. This week, I have that beautiful and sweet bitch pumped full of antibiotics and pain pills. We are all giving her a little more love and attention than usual. I’m hoping she will grace us with her big heart and floppy ears for at least another year. This week I have to start the letting go of my 5 year old and I just don’t think that my Mommy heart can handle losing my furry daughter. I don’t think any of us can, least of all the 5 year old. Please don’t turn the first week of kindergarten at my house into a country song.
How did you mark the first day of kindergarten?
Kindergarten has got nothing on this dog
2012/08/14
#YesAllWomen Matter
I had no idea that #YesAllWomen movement began this weekend. I spent the weekend with my family, celebrating my daughter’s 7^th birthday. Her birthday was Wednesday and we were busy every single day until her birthday party held on Saturday. 15 tiny, beautiful little girls surrounded me; little girls who still think they can do and be anything. They giggled and laughed and we played and had cake and I had no idea about what had just happened with Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old student at the University of California Santa Barbara.He went on a shooting spree and killed 6 people before killing himself.
In the weeks leading up to the killings, Rodger posted a series of angry, bathetic YouTube videos and a hundred-and-thirty-seven-page autobiographical “manifesto,” declaring his hatred of all women for the rejection and disdain he claims they dealt him throughout his life.
I had no idea that there were other mothers who were mourning the loss of their daughters for no other reason than a mad man who felt that women deserved to die because they had rejected him. Misogyny is running rampant and no one is stopping it. Not anyone in specific, just all women in general and even men just for having sex when he was having none. This was avoidable, had anyone cared to listen. If anyone ever cared enough to listen when people ask for help.
Director Peter Rodger and his wife Moroccan-born French actress Soumaya Akaaboune said through their lawyer that they contacted police several weeks ago after seeing a series of YouTube videos their son posted which made references to suicide and murder.

I blissfully unaware soaked in every moment of my time with those girls on that beautiful Saturday in May. Not until tonight, when the girls have all gone home and my littlest girl is snuggled in bed tight next to me did I see the story and watch the video and here I sit ugly crying. Not because I am scared for my girls, for all girls, but because I am mad. I am fucking pissed off. What gave him the right? Who’s protecting our daughters?

What a spoiled, disgusting animal Elliot Rodger was. He thought like so many other men that women are here solely for his pleasure and when they did not accommodate he decided that they must face a day of retribution and annihilation for no other sin than being born with a vagina. This spoiled child made himself, judge, jury and executioner.
The sad fact is that the world is full of men who feel indignantly wronged by women who dare refuse them. There are men that feel that women owe them everything from their time, to their love to their very life. There are men who feel like we owe them our hearts, our bodies and our respect but they don’t feel that they need to give those things in return. In some men’s eyes, women are no better than property; a piece of furniture, a toy or an old sock. We belong to them. We belong to the world that doesn’t respect us, value us or love us enough to fight for us and they have beaten us down for so long that we let them without so much as batting an eye.
We do not buck and strain and resist, we passively walk with our heads down, quickly out of harms way for fear that what lies between our legs makes us a willing participant in the victimization of our own flesh. We can’t walk alone in the dark or leave a drink to pee. We can’t smile at a man without him taking it as consent to have his way with us. This is nothing new. Most men believe it; women accept it and it sucks for all of us. I am a mother of daughters and I refuse to accept this fucked up status quo. This is my line in the sand. I say no more.
I do not want another little girl to go through life running from men for fear that they will be attacked. We cannot raise our girls to believe that what they wear or say or drink makes victimization their fault. We cannot accept fear as normal. We need to teach our girls to be strong; to fight back, to stand up and to value themselves for who they are, not what lies between their legs.
Sexism is nothing new; the ideas that perpetuate systematic marginalization, outright violence towards women, rape culture, and the demonization of women who dare to stand up for themselves has been around since the beginning of time. A strong woman is a threat. A strong woman is too much trouble. Women are here to be seen and not heard, to service men in every way; this is what some believe. Not me. I am a fucking human being and I am sick of everybody from the UPS guy to the local preacher to the old man on the golf course and every single stinking asshole who ever pushed up on me in a bar in between who thinks they have the right to use women and abuse women because we are here for their disposal.
He wanted to abolish sex, thereby equalizing men and ridding society of women’s manipulative and bestial natures, and to lock women in concentration camps so they would die out. (“I would have an enormous tower built just for myself, where I can oversee the entire concentration camp and gleefully watch them all die,” he wrote. “If I can’t have them, no one will, I imagine thinking to myself as I oversee this. Women represent everything that is unfair in this world, and in order to make this world a fair place, women must be eradicated.”) His idea was to imprison a few select women in a lab, where they would be artificially inseminated to propagate the species.
We have all endured catcalls and men openly touching themselves in front of us while licking their lips like we were steak. I’ve personally had strange men expose themselves to me in broad daylight, men I dated force my hand and my head to places I didn’t want to go, had male employers corner me in small solitude rooms and make unwanted advances. I’ve had drunken frat boys try to force me out of my clothes, put their hands up my skirt and drunkenly dry hump me in plain sight. No one helped. I’ve dated men who kept pushing past where I felt comfortable and didn’t care that I said stop. It breaks off little pieces of your self-esteem, it chisels away at your sense of safety and soon you feel as worthless as they make you believe that you are. When I’ve spoken up for myself, I’ve been called a cunt, a bitch, a tease and a dike because if I didn’t submit to their will then obviously it was because something was wrong with me.
I have held my breath and my tongue more times than I can count and I can’t anymore. What Elliot Rodger did was shocking but not surprising. I watched his video and physically became ill at the callousness with which he spoke of massacring women because he felt rejected and alone. He had no care for their lives, it was completely narcissistic and outrageously removed from humanity. He equated women with animals to be slaughtered and why wouldn’t he? Our own government has done so on several occasions.
Look at us. See us! We are people. We are not property. We are not animals. We are not inanimate objects put on this earth solely to bend to the will of man. We are more than sperm receptacles and objects of desire. We have thoughts, dreams, goals, wants and needs. It frightens me that this man did this with no remorse, no second thoughts. It was like a spoiled child who wanted a piece of candy and had been denied and decided that the entire population needed to be eradicated because he was mildly inconvenienced. Worse still, he is not the first who has done this and he will not be the last. This makes me sadder than any words could ever convey.
When you lie awake and think about the horrors this man wanted to inflict on women, please remember that #YesAllWomen matter.
2014/05/26
Sometimes the Most Important Things to be Said Don’t Require Words
Disclosure: This moment of nostalgia sponsored by Milk Life Lo Que Nos Hace Fuertes. All memories and opinions of my grandfather/ abuelito are my own.
Growing up in a Latino family, you learn 2 things very early on; 1) family is everything and 2) food and drink are the ways you show love to your family. I love milk. My girls do too. It’s nutritious and delicious and something I feel good about serving them. We go through at least 3 gallons a week at my house. It’s sad to think that many kids don’t even get the recommended servings of milk especially since milk is such an integral part of a balanced nutritious meal plan to help children grow up strong. The taste of milk reminds me of home but my love of milk originates back to my childhood and fond memories of my abuelito (grandpa) Manuel in Mexico.
My abuelito, known fondly in his village as Don Manuel, was a humble, quiet man with a wisdom and kindness that exuded from his smile and his eyes. He was a hard worker all of his life. He ran our family ranch until he was in his 80’s when he was thrown from a wild stallion and broke his hip. That was my abuelito.
READ ALSO: My Father the Immigrant
He was someone you looked up to because he always did the right thing, even if the right thing was reading and taking time out of your busy day to respond to your young granddaughter’s letters. Even if those letters were her practicing her terrible Spanglish on you by hand writing you the most heinously, grammatically incorrect letters ever. He had patience and always made time to write me back, even when free-time was non-existent in his day.
I remember spending our summers in Etucuaro, the small village in Mexico that my father is from. My abuelito would be up and off to work the ranch and milk the cows before any of us were even awake. He’d be home with a jug full of fresh milk and eating his breakfast by the time I’d stumble into the kitchen and see him hunched over exhausted quietly eating his leche con pan.
What is leche con pan, you ask? It’s exactly what it sounds like bread with milk. It was a foreign concept to me. I was raised in Chicago, not on a farm. I was a kid, he was a very old man, even the first time I met him. Our worlds were very different. He had actually lived in Chicago and spoke English in the 1920’s. Our frames of reference were 60 years apart, but I knew if he liked it, it must have been good.
“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him… the people who give you their food give you their heart.” -Cesar Chavez
As a kid, I was all about milk and I loved pan dulce but what he was eating looked like bread rolls and milk. I wasn’t exactly begging him for a bite of his breakfast. Every morning, that I ever saw him, he would eat the same thing. No cereal. No oatmeal. No eggs and sausage. No breakfast burritos. Just kidding, I never saw a breakfast burrito ever in Mexico, unless you count chorizo and eggs on tortillas but no one calls them breakfast burritos. My point is that I thought maybe it was some kind of “old person” thing. I was a kid.
He’d offer me a bite and every day, I’d politely decline; walking away thinking he was really cheating himself and I knew better. Then one day, almost as a dare to myself, I said yes. His eyes lit up and he smiled at me approvingly. He took his spoon and lovingly scooped me out a bite of his breakfast.
READ ALSO: A Girl and her Grandpa
I opened my little kid mouth and happily accepted. I was expecting to be underwhelmed or maybe even want to spit it out. I mean, it was just bread and milk. But it wasn’t. It was a delicately, sweet warm roll (torn up into pieces) covered in sweet, thick fresh milk and it tasted like a hug from my abuelito. If the warmth of his eyes when he smiled at me had a flavor, it would have been leche con pan and ever since milk has been my most favorite thing to drink.
“Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.” -Alan D. Wolfelt
Sadly, my abuelito passed away when I was in college but all I need to do is close my eyes and I’m a little girl again; right back at his kitchen table in Mexico and he’s smiling at me with those gentle, kind eyes of his (the same ones my father has). Sharing his breakfast with me. He’s tanned from years of working the ranch in the hot sun. He’s smaller than he once was and he’s tired from decades of early mornings of milking cows to care for his family. But his heart is full of love for his little granddaughter who writes him those silly letters and he gives her the last bite if she wants it. This is love, this is family and, for me, this is milk.
I don’t make leche con pan for my girls because that was ours, his and mine. Honestly, I’ve never tried to replicate it but my girls are known to enjoy their own version of leche con pan with their own Grandpa Manny (my dad). I’ve loved watching them sit at the kitchen table where I grew up, drinking homemade champurrado (Mexican hot chocolate) and eating pan dulce with my own dad. Yes, sometimes, they even dunk their pan dulce in their champurrado. Seeing them there with my father always reminds me of those mornings in Mexico with my abuelito.

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For more content and recipes with milk visit https://fuertesconleche.com/nutricion/dales-mas-leche and follow Siempre Leche on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.
2018/07/16
Fall Beauty tricks to get your Outside matching your Inside
Beauty~ Thanks to Walgreens for underwriting this post. I was paid as a member of the Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all mine. Visit https://moms.dailybuzz.com/channel/style.
Today, I am going to share some of my beauty secrets. Now, I don’t share these with just anybody so you should feel pretty special. But seriously, who doesn’t want to live in a world full of beautiful truthful mommies running around all over the place? I know I would love it. You are all gorgeous on the inside, I know this for a fact from all the lovely comments you leave, and I am sure that he outside matches the inside so let’s help keep it that way.
Here are my fall beauty tips for keeping your outside beauty in sync with your inside beauty.
- Start the day with a hot bath and an invigorating, exfoliating body wash. I promise it wakes up your senses and get’s you going on those cold, dark mornings of late fall. And if you rinse off in cool water, it helps close up all those pores and hair follicles. BONUS!
- The exfoliating wash will help get rid of some of that dry skin and eliminate some of that awful itching that comes to us in the fall and winter months. If you really want to revitalize the way you look, you can actually opt for cosmetic treatments such as juvederm.
- Moisturize*Moisturize*Moisturize* I can not stress this enough. Honestly, you should be moisturizing every single day of the year , every season, from the age of puberty on but you most definitely need to moisturize during the colder, drier months. Moisturize your face at night with a night time wrinkle reducer, in the morning use a tinted moisturizer with some SPF protection. It will keep your skin hydrated and not pasty, plus help hold off crows feet. (*Also, wear your sunglasses year round.) When you get out of the shower, moisturize immediately. Lock in the moisture. And for those crazy dry feet,(* Shhhh, top secret beauty secret) slather those suckers in Vaseline ( I like the coco butter scented one) and put on some cozy socks to let them marinate for a bit. I swear it works.
- Shave your legs and paint your toenails! I know you think no one will see your legs or toes until spring but just remember this…if you feel pretty , you will look pretty. I always feel prettier when I’m presentable, besides I’ve seen a lot of wool shorts for this fall!
Beauty, you are worth it!
- Drink your water!I mean it , drink 64 ounces of water a day. It makes you look good. Your skin will glow. Your skin will be hydrated and not itch.It also helps flush your body of all that water weight we ladies tend to collect around shark week. Eat better. You need to get all of your daily recommended amount of vitamins,so eating fresh food and taking an actual vitamin can help replenish some of those nutrients that you will be lacking by being shut indoors and hibernating over the colder months. Bonus: Vitamins make your hair, nails and skin look better and grow. Hello, what’s sexier than a woman with long flowing hair, glowing, blemish free skin and nails that can beckon you to come hither?
- Whiten your teeth. I love the professional crest white strips professional effects. This best invisalign dentist nyc told me that they work as good as anything he would do in his office with the exception of the Zoom treatments, especially if your teeth are not that discolored. You know your skin will be paler so whitening will help your teeth look whiter versus the yellow tinged color they can look against pale skin after a autumn filled with hot coco, hot coffee, hot tea, hot toddies, Diet Coke and red wine! A girls gotta warm up.
- Wash your hair less. I know it sounds gross but again, the world is a drier place in the fall. In the summer, we are running all over town ~~sweating~~ glistening and our hair is full of oils and sunshine.In fall, our hair starts to dry out like the leaves on the trees. My suggestion, wash your hair every other day. I know it may sound disgusting to some of you but , in the long run, it will be better for you. OK, if you just can’t do it, wash every other day and on off days use a dry Shampoo. Also, hot oil treatments are your friend. Just pretend you are at a spa and spoil yourself. Or if you want to go the crunchy route, I hear mayonnaise brings out a wicked shine to your hair.
- Last, but certainly not least, I change my make up to all of my warm fall colors. No, your bright pink grapefruit kiss does not look good on your pasty skin in November. Think the colors of the fall foliage; warm colors. And don’t put away that bronzer, you still need some color. It’ll give you a little kiss of summer, smack dab in the middle of fall. You will glow.
These are my tips for looking like a hot Mommy in the fall. A few changes to accommodate for the weather and a few minutes of “me” time is all it takes. I promise you can sneak it in. They say beauty is pain, but really with these simple tips beauty is no pain at all! What are some of your go to fall beauty tips and tricks?
Thank you to Walgreens for sponsoring this blog post. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions and beauty tricks are my own.
Beauty is as beauty does
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2011/10/11