Back to School Again: School? What?

So our good friend Jay came down back in September and visited us for an afternoon/evening on the town down here in sunny Galveston. He'd briefly met James before when Natalie was in Utah to see Stef off for her mission. James loved him and, from what I could tell, he loved James also. We spent some time chatting about how our lives have been going and later went to Fudruckers on the strand (where I devoured a long-craved buffalo chicken sandwich - seriously everyone needs to go eat one of these like right now) for dinner. Even later, we went to La King's Confectionery for some shakes/fudge/etc and then we did a bit of window shopping (and by shopping I mean browsing because we can't afford stuff). It was a very enjoyable evening, polished off by some ice-cold Abita root beers. Me and Natalie (myself in particular) aren't always the best at keeping in touch with people but we do love to visit with our old friends when we get the chance.

Jay, Natalie, James and myself at La King's

So anyways when we were talking to Jay it came to my attention that my previous blog post was ambiguous regarding my life plans. I apologize for this lapse in clarity (or relapse, if you prefer). Here's the lowdown: When I was preparing for my DMA (doctorate in musical arts - basically a doctoral performance degree) auditions/interviews, I realized that my reason for wanting to do a DMA was because I wanted to be able to support my family and keep playing the tuba. The idea was to support my family by playing the tuba. But then I realized I could do something else for a living and still play the tuba. For a number of reasons, I determined that a career in music was not what I really wanted (pay, work schedule, job security, ability to live near family, etc). Natalie and I brainstormed all the career paths we could think of and the one that appealed to me the most (by a long shot) was dentistry. I have a grandfather and an uncle who are dentists and it has always been an attractive field to me for a number of reasons, including but not limited to pay, work/family balance, job security, ability to work with your hands, prestige, ability to choose where to work, being a small business owner.

So I cancelled all of my DMA auditions and focused on making the most of my last semester at UGA since this would be the end of my formal music education. Natalie did a bunch of research into how to get into dental school and we made a long term plan: We would move back to Texas, I would get a job for a year so we could save up money and I could regain in-state status (and therefore save tons of money on tuition), I would start from scratch and take the core science classes required as prerequisites for dental school, and then I apply to dental school. As one might justifiably assume, the plan also includes getting accepted, completing dental school and enjoying a successful career in dentistry.

After going to Philmont last summer I applied for some jobs and was fortunate to find work in Galveston at ANICO (American National Insurance Corporation) in the Annuities department as a transfer processor. My job was to handle paperwork related to the transfer of funds into annuities at ANICO. I spent my time reviewing paperwork, organizing it to be signed by corporate officers, reorganizing it to be mailed and/or faxed, and following up with any further requirements needed to get the funds transferred to ANICO. When I was two weeks into training on September 16, 2013, I got a call in the middle of lunch from my mother-in-law telling me it was time to head up to Spring because James was on his way. So full time work and fatherhood came at me at basically the same time. It was crazy but it was actually very exciting too.

Here's where I worked.

Like I said, I was only planning to work for a year and then I would go back to school. So I left my Job at ANICO mid-August this year and then began taking pre-requisites for Dental school at Galveston College. The semester has been pretty intense so far. I'm taking 16 hours of courses that people normally advise students not to take simultaneously: Chemistry 1, Biology 1, Physics 2, and Anatomy & Physiology. So far, so good.

Aside from the work skills and experience I developed at ANICO, there are some things I learned about myself that I have been able to use to help me in my studies. One thing I noticed during graduate school is that I have days every now and again where my brain is just totally fried and I can't seem to focus on anything for more than 20 minutes at a time. To combat this, I would use a stopwatch to give myself 25 minutes to study or practice followed by 5 minutes of reading from a comic book or watching something on YouTube or whatever. Unfortunately, I was unable to use this method to stay productive while I was at ANICO due to intermittent surveillance by management. Instead, I had to find ways to keep busy for hours at a time. I discovered that listening to certain types of music helps me to focus. Due to my background in music, I can't listen to classical music without thinking pretty deeply about it. This occasionally happens with more popular music as well, especially Jazz and other improvisation-based musics. Long story short, I learned at ANICO that sometimes I can't concentrate unless I'm listening to Radiohead.

Another thing I learned from working at ANICO is that, if I can exercise self-control at the beginning of the day to keep away from distractions, I will have a pretty easy time of staying focused for the rest of the day. So if I start out a study session by taking a break, that study session is not likely to be very productive. I saw a fortune cookie once that exemplifies this: "Laziness is resting before you are tired." So when I rest before I've done a decent amount of mental exertion, I'm embracing a state of mind that will prevent me from being able to do what needs to be done. This is probably why it takes me a day or so to recover mentally from the prolonged laziness of binge-watching TV.

Other lessons from ANICO that have helped me in school: Skipping meals and overeating both make it hard to focus/remain conscious, having a new baby makes it difficult to impossible to achieve and maintain consciousness, PTO is awesome, getting paid for overtime is awesome, mandatory overtime on Saturdays is not awesome, and I really really don't want to work under 4+ levels of management for the rest of my life.

My biggest challenges at school so far have been time management and learning how to actually read my textbooks. I've never actually had to keep up with assigned textbook readings in order to do well in my classes, and there was one advanced music history course I took at BYU where I did better on exams when I didn't spend my time reading the textbook. I know that reading my books this semester isn't actually necessary for me to do well in these classes either, but I'm not learning stuff just for the exams I have in the next few weeks; I'm trying to prepare for an exam that I won't be taking for a year and a half that will be cumulative on almost everything I come across in my classes until then, including all those fun bits of knowledge that can be found only by reading the textbooks. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure that an improved ability to learn from textbooks will be necessary for me to do well in dental school.

My favorite study spot at the Moody Medical Library

Fun facts!

1. Last year being the only exception, I've been in school every year since Kindergarten in September of 1995. 
2. Starting this semester I am a 19th grader.
3. This will be my 21st year of school if you count Head Start and Kindergarten.
4. Based on my calculations, I only have 6 or 7 more years of school to go until I'm done! 
5. When I graduate dental school, I will have spent about 27 years of my life in school.
6. I have been playing the tuba for 10 years now.

Coming soon: Halloween Mix 2014 and Philmont 2013!

Thanks for reading!

James' Birthday and Party

For James' actual birthday on September 16th, James woke up and we opened some presents and cards that he had received in the mail. My dad was able to visit for a little while in the morning before going to work later and we had a yummy birthday breakfast with James. After James' morning nap, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ernie came by with a variety of delicious food for lunch. Aunt Ernie was sure to get James some noodles because in Filipino culture eating long noodles on your birthday is kind of like a birthday wish for a long life. Later in the day, Brenden, my dad, my mom, James and I all went to James' favorite restaurant for dinner- Gorditas. James is a HUGE fan of Mexican food. Lastly we went to my parents' for some cake and cookies. Obviously, in my family we celebrate with food. Also, Brenden was in class all day and my parents were both working so we decided to save most of the celebration for the weekend.

Family picture! This is basically how James is most of the time.

At the end of James' birthday week, we threw him a big dinosaur birthday party. I figured this will probably be one of the only years James will not have many preferences regarding how his birthday is celebrated so I decided to pick a theme I wanted to work with to put the party together. I'm pretty sure James loves dinosaurs anyway so it's all good.

I originally was going to have his party at the park near our home but with the threat of thunderstorms and the swarms of mosquitoes we decided to move his party indoors. Since I knew there would be some kids there and we were no longer having it at the park, I decided it would be a good idea to make the house a little more exciting for the children. The decision to do something a "little more exciting" quickly escalated as I found tons and tons of ideas online for dinosaur-themed parties. My mom and I got a bit carried away. We wrangled in a few more helpers along the way but I definitely couldn't have done it without my mom. Thank you to everyone who helped make the party a successful, fun event! It was a blast!

Decorations:  We put dinosaur footprints leading up to the front door for the arriving guests and had birthday signs with balloons outside. My mom wrapped some orange streamers and greenery on some plain wreaths she had and hotglued a few plastic dinosaurs to it. We set up a little dinosaur scene on the desk shelf in the front room. Pinterest-inspired streamer vines hung against the back wall of the dining room where the cakes were displayed. We found a fun customization banner kit at Walmart to make our "Sweet Baby James" sign. 

Food: This party had a lot of sweets! We had chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate rocks and dinosaur chocolates and gummies. We had chocolate "1" lollipops. We had pudding and oreo cups-- the classic "dirt" cups but instead of gummy worms we used dinosaur gummies for some dinosaur digs. We had dinosaur shaped cookies and cookies with dinosaur footprints. We had a homemade two-tiered cake with Italian cream cake on one layer and an almond cake on the other. We also had a chocolate dinosaur cake for James' cake smash. We had fruit, salad, veggies, egg rolls, pancit, hot dogs, and chicken salad sandwiches. 

Activities: We had a few kids at the party and I wanted them to have something fun to do too while the adults visited. My dad built a bean bag toss and I painted a gigantic T-Rex and sewed T-bone steak bean bags for a fun "Feed the T-Rex" game. We also had a cute dinosaur piñata which actually didn't suffer too much at the hands of the kids and could potentially be used again. (Maybe for Reuben's 31st birthday party??) In lieu of presents I asked all the guests to write a birthday message and decorate a page for me to include in James' birthday scrapbook. It turned out really well and saved me a lot of time on scrapbooking! We had little gift boxes for kids to take home that had some more candy including dinosaur eggs (jelly beans), a little container of bubbles with a dinosaur on it, and a foam dinosaur sticker. We also had some fun dinosaur masks.  

Of course, we wouldn't have a party if we had no one to celebrate with! Here's a couple collages of some of our friends who came to celebrate with James. A lot of these pictures will be used in their scrapbook pages with their birthday messages to James. 

Here's James with his attempted cake smash. At this point in the party he was already getting pretty tired and he wasn't very interested in smashing into the cake. He dipped his finger in and tried some frosting but when everyone laughed, he must have gotten super self-conscious and didn't want anything else to do with that cake. 

Gariby grandparents with James wearing his birthday crown for about two seconds

James with his McQuay grandparents who were super awesome and drove all the way down from Spring for the party.

At the end of the party with both sets of grandparents, you can obviously tell James is done for the day. 

It was so fun to celebrate James' first year of life with family and friends. I still can't believe my little baby boy is one year old!

One Year

At the beginning of this month, I celebrated 26 years of life on this beautiful planet. That means for 25 years, 1 week, and 1 day, I existed without you here. How is that possible?

We measure our life in units of time because that's what makes sense. The passage of time is universal; it's one of the only things that every human experiences. Before your first birthday, we counted months. Before you were born, we counted weeks. You are one year old now. Every year on September 16th we'll celebrate you and the joy you have brought into our lives.

I can hardly believe we've already reached this point. How has it been a year since I first held you in my arms, both enamored and terrified? Yes, I was terrified. Despite all I'd read to prepare for your birth, I was completely unprepared for the realization that I was now responsible for another human being's well-being. It didn't hit me until I held you in my arms-- this tiny, helpless baby, beautiful beyond the description of words and completely mine.

Here we are a year later. You are still more beautiful than I could describe and still fairly helpless and I am still pretty terrified of my responsibility at times. So what has changed? 

Everything.

My entire world has transformed since you entered it a year ago. I still feel so inadequate in many areas but in others I am more confident. You have taught me patience and kindness the way no one else could. You have taught me how to slow down. You have taught me a fully checked off to-do list should not be the measure of my day's worth. You've taught me one smile or a giggle can turn a terrible, sleep-deprived morning around. You've taught me to trust myself as a mother. Thank you for being a patient teacher. I'm excited to learn more this year.  

You are radiant. You are the light that fills each beautiful day of my life. I will never have a gray day as long as you are here. 

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby James.

On Breastfeeding

(Reader beware: I use words like "breastfeeding" and "nursing" throughout this post so if that topic makes you uncomfortable go ahead and ignore this.)

I have a secret: I have been breastfeeding James since he was born but we stopped nursing last December. We'll probably continue breastfeeding for a couple more months.

Before James was born, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months of a baby's life and the World Health Organization gives that same recommendation and also recommends breastfeeding up to two years and beyond. All of the books I'd read in preparation for James' birth touted breastfeeding as the best way to go (or only way to go in some literature). I was determined to breastfeed for the first year.

When James was born, he had a terrible time latching. Part of my carefully designed birth plan indicated I wanted to breastfeed immediately after James was born but he was whisked away to the nursery because of some minor complications with his breathing. I don't really know if this contributed to our bad nursing relationship. Sometimes I like to put the blame there because I did everything I could to make it work and it didn't. If it was something that was out of my control, then I can feel better about my efforts and not wonder "what if I had done this differently?"

I don't really want to go into all the details here so I'll summarize: James was a terrible nurser. In those early months that are already difficult and confusing without worrying that your baby isn't eating, he would wake up hungry, fight against the breast, finally start nursing and nurse for an hour, fall asleep while eating EVERY TIME, wake up hungry again anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half later. Occasionally, he would wake up not starving and be alert and playful for a little while before beginning to scream that he was hungry. These alert and playful periods after nursing were rare, more rare than the usual sleepy newborn phase. We didn't get out much. I would never be able to discreetly nurse him because he would thrash and scream for at least a few minutes every time before eating and then once he started eating, I wouldn't be able to move for the next hour or so, and when he was finally done eating, he would be asleep in my arms. So, we spent most of our days cooped up in the little blue bedroom we shared. Nursing was pretty traumatic for me. I would dread the next time he was hungry, in addition to the awful scream- eat- sleep routine, nursing him was really painful. It never stopped being painful in the three months we worked at it, despite meetings with a lactation consultant and our attempts to fix his latch. I never had that bond-building, peaceful nursing relationship. I can honestly say nursing was detrimental to my relationship with James. I hated it and I didn't want to do it and I hated that he needed me to do it.

Luckily for me and James, we were born at a time in history where such things as breastpumps exist. James lost way more weight than he was supposed to right after he was born because he wasn't eating well. He was also jaundiced and couldn't get rid of the excess bilirubin because he wasn't pooping (because he wasn't eating). His doctor sent us home after his first visit in that first week with formula to get him eating and pooping otherwise he would need to be hospitalized. He had no problem with formula but I wanted him to have breastmilk so that night I went out and bought a manual hand pump. When James was a little over a week old, I was able to rent a hospital-grade pump for a few weeks. In addition to hours spent nursing, pumping was now also on my schedule. While this was initially difficult, I began to see a change in James' demeanor when he was able to eat from a bottle. He was more alert and more content after those meals. I was able to take him out of the house. It was totally worth it. After a few weeks with the hospital-grade pump, I was able to get my own electric pump which was more portable-- which meant being able to do even more things. I am not exaggerating when I say that pumping saved my life. I could do things again and James was happy, healthy, and not screaming.  

Around Christmas time was when I decided to stop nursing altogether. We'd been traveling and pumping was much more convenient in every respect (except bottle cleaning) than nursing was. After we came home from traveling, I was sold on the idea of exclusively pumping. 

Even though pumping saved James' and my sanity, it was hardly easy. I was pumping around the clock in addition to feeding James after pumping. I had to store milk and wash bottles and pump parts every day. If I was going anywhere for longer than a couple hours, I would have to pack my pump with me and figure out a place to pump while I was out. If I was visiting with people at home, I would have to excuse myself for half an hour to pump. And unlike nursing, where I at least get the satisfaction of a cute baby in my arms, I was hooked up a machine tugging at me while making loud annoying noises. It just wasn't a fun experience. 

But I did it because I wanted James to have breastmilk for his first year of life and I knew I was capable of giving it to him. Also, I am incredibly stubborn so when I made that a goal before he was born, I was determined to do it. And here we are, a little over two weeks away from his first birthday, he still gets breastmilk in addition to his food. Even though I had to stop pumping just last week because I started a new medication for my SLE that prevents me from breastfeeding, I have deep freezer completely full of milk to bring James past that one year mark.

I think I wrote this entire post because I really wanted to celebrate that James and I are making it to a year of breastfeeding. It's kind of a bigger deal than I thought it would be when I first made the goal before he was born. All along the way, I didn't think it was possible. It was really hard. If someone wanted to get me a chocolate cake to celebrate, it would be totally justified.

Here's a few pictures of my chunk to make reading this novel worthwile:

       

Back to School Again: Looking Back and Looking Forward (PREAMBLE)

Hello dear readers,

As you may have noticed at this point, I don't tend to write on this blog very often. I usually leave that to Natalie, who usually has better things to say and better ways of saying them. What mysterious force has ended my long silence, you ask? Well, I'll tell you (He's going to tell!).

Yesterday was my last day working at ANICO (read: major life event/beginning of the next step on the path towards dentistry) and we celebrated by going out to lunch at Queens Barbecue. By we I mean myself, Natalie, baby James, my mother-in-law, and two of Natalie's cousins (Jonathan and Justin Viernes, epic ballers the both of them). I got myself a thing they call a Cliffhanger. It's basically a grilled cheese sandwich with chives, some special mayo sauce, and a great deal of glorious meat (Friday's special was ham). It's a meal I've had before, enjoyed yesterday, and look forward to eating again as frequently as my wallet and vital organs will allow. So anyways it was a good lunch.

I have recently been doing some work towards compiling a second Halloween mix and was talking about some of my recent and exciting finds over lunch when Jonathan asked me to send him the link to the first one because apparently he hasn't been reading every single post on this blog for the past three years. I mean, how can you expect to have decent lunch conversations with relatives if you haven't recently read every blog post they've ever made? Rude.

So Natalie went ahead and sent JJ (AKA Jonathan Viernes) the link to the post that I posted a few years back that included the link to the Halloween mix that I made. Turns out JJ didn't know I ever completed the mix, but to his credit he was present at the fateful/glorious moment when I discovered SOUL DRACULA, a terrible disco song that has changed my life. We were playing Monopoly at the time at the Gariby household. It was the middle of the summer in 2011. This is probably the only time in recorded history that something good has come of people playing Monopoly, if only due to the fact that I was so bored with the game that I was researching songs about vampires on my phone.

In conclusion, the reason I have broken my long blogging silence (or blogging long silence if you're keen on euphemism experimentation) is because at lunch the other day I had a conversation with my wife's cousin Jonathan (AKA JJ) regarding a blog post I posted on my blog a few years back. Now I'm watching my baby take his morning nap so he doesn't roll off the bed and so Natalie can eat some French toast I made. I pull out the volume of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman that I'm currently reading (Volume 6: World's End, whether or not you're curious). Before I start reading about the neo-mythological exploits of Dream incarnate, I decide to quickly read through the blog post that Natalie had shared on JJ's (AKA Jonathan's) Facebook. I remember that I had a lot of fun writing that particular post and this in turn decide that I should don my jetpack and shoot myself back up into the blogosphere. And here I am.

Wait - was this whole post just an explanation of why I'm writing it? Yes. Yes it was. Stay tuned for "Back to School Again: Looking Back and Looking Forward," which will likely do a better job of living up to the title!

PS - sorry for the relentless parentheticals (maybe somewhere I'm not scatterbrain). As always, thanks for spending some time catching up with our little family!