THE CELEBRATION OF LIFE

The story of Armani Osbaldo Feliciano

Armani was born on March 17, 2006 in West Chester, PA. Armani is my St. Patrick’s Day baby and while having his birthday on St. Patty’s day is fun for now, I know I will dread the fact that his birthday falls on St. Patty’s day once he becomes a young adult. Armani was a pretty big baby (9.4 pounds and 21.5 inches long) and is still a big boy for his age. Today at age three he often gets mistaken as a 4 or 5 year old and wears a size 5.

As a baby, I loved nursing Armani and rocking him to sleep on his blue-cloud Boppy pillow. He was such a good sleeper and really a pretty easy baby. At around 6 months, Armani started eating solid foods and up until his 2nd birthday Armani loved vegetables and sometimes would eat just veggies for a meal. Today, however, I’m lucky if I can get Armani to eat a very small bowl of corn or peas.

By 6 months of age, Armani could sit up all by himself, smile and laugh. Armani was such a happy baby. He just loved to smile and I think he loved all the attention he got when he did so. Around this age, Armani also started crawling and would stand and play in his exersaucer for hours.

When Armani was 8 ½ months old, he started walking and this is when parenting stepped in to high gear because we had to watch him constantly. There were many falls, most of them not serious, however two falls have been embedded in my mind. One particularly bad fall was along the fireplace’s brick edge (we covered the edges with foam but he kept pulling the foam off). With this fall he got a nice cut/bump on his forehead and we had a nice trip to the doctor. Another particularly bad fall was when he fell face/mouth first on a wooden waste basket in the bathroom, which pushed his front tooth back a bit (this tooth ended up having to be extracted when he was two).

When Armani was around a year old he was the very curious sort. He loved pushing buttons and opening drawers and cupboards. In fact, on our flight to Washington State to visit family, Armani found the one button on the plane that disabled XM radio to all passengers. Oh, he was quite a handful.

At 2 years old, Armani really started to understand words and his vocabulary accelerated at an unbelievable pace. I could ask him to find any object in a book, or any letter of the alphabet or any number between 1-20 and he could do so easily. He LOVED looking through books and LOVED to be read to. In fact, he still LOVES his books (this cannot be understated, he is definitely my little bookworm). Armani also loves puzzles and started putting together 3 year old puzzles at the age of 2. A weird quirk of Armani’s at this age (and actually continues to this day) is his infatuation with putting blankets over his head and running/walking around. Very dangerous! In fact, once everyone wakes up in the morning, I usually have to go into each bedroom and pull all the blankets off the beds and hide them. Yet, he always seems to find one and we end up having a tug-a-war over “his” blanket. I can’t tell you how many times he has walked into a wall with a blanket covering his head. At age two, Armani also started going to preschool and started becoming much more independent. He likes to hang up his jacket at school and put away his lunchbox. He also likes storytime and when coach Lesley visits on Tuesdays and of course he loves playing outside on the playground. He also likes handing out cups and napkins to his classmates during snacktime.

Armani is such a wonderful and affectionate child. He has never been aggressive, strange as that may be for a boy, plays nicely with his sister (has never hit her as far as I know), shares his toys and snacks with her, tries to comfort her when she’s upset and loves to hold her hand and follow her around. Armani also loves giving kisses and being hugged and my heart just melts everytime I see him displaying affection.

So now my handsome little man is 3 years old! I can’t believe it! These last three years have just flown by. If he follows in Maya’s footsteps (which he seems to be thus far) this year is going to be a big year for him (lots of milestones are coming)! Happy birthday, Armani!

Mayaisms

This morning we were getting ready to go to the gym and Maya grabs one of my old history books and starts thumbing through. She sees a few maps and says to me, "Mommy, after we go to the gym we have to go to North America." I couldn't stop laughing. She knows all her continents by name but doesn't quite get the full concept, yet.

Data collection delayed again

Right now I should be in St. Paul finally conducting interviews but alas another delay. Unfortunately, the executive director of the association I am working with fell and is out of commission so she asked if we could push the interviews back three weeks. “Of course” I said and while I’m very sympathetic (these things do happen), I guess I’m just a little frazzled with the time it takes to complete a dissertation. I realize that not all dissertations take 5 or more years to complete, but many of them do so I shouldn't be so hard on myself. However, it has been 4 years now of serious working and I’m just ready to move on. It seems like it has been one thing after another, first it took me 2 years just to find a topic, then another 6 months to put together a proposal, then the hardest part was putting together a committee, which took about a year and ½, then finding study participants (another 6 months), getting committee members to allow me to hold a proposal hearing and advance to candidacy (another 6 months). Ugh! Will it ever end! I’m venting but staying focused. I think this has been more than anything else, an endurance test. I just keep thinking and hoping that once I complete all the interviews and start analyzing the data the rest will be smooth sailing.

So now I leave for St. Paul on February 17th. I will be interviewing Hmong women who have been born in this country and those who have been here less than a year. I am truly excited to meet these women and listen to their stories. For those of you less familiar with Hmong people, their culture has recently been minimally showcased in the new Clint Eastwood movie “Gran Torino”. Hubby and I saw this movie on New Years Eve and Clint was absolutely spectacular. I also loved the fact that he did not hire professional established actors but instead looked to the Hmong community for aspiring actors. Well, the next time you hear from me writing about my dissertation it should be after my data has been collected. Until then...

The gift of voice

So I'm wondering how in the world a child can talk for so long and not have a sore throat, be hoarse or lose their voice. Fourteen months ago, I would never had believed that I had a chatterbox on my hands. I mean today our little Maya just doesn't stop talking. From the moment she wakes up till she goes to bed at night it is constant talking; mommy this... and mommy that... ALL DAY LONG! For those of you who don't know, Maya was a late talker, barley said a word before the age of three. We were very concerned and turned to family, friends and eventually the "experts". Friends and family would often try to comfort us telling us that it would come and that we had to just be patient. But between the ages of 2 and 3 1/2 we were baffled and couldn't understand why her "voice" hadn't developed. The "experts" were also very concerned. One particular specialist suggested that Maya was "on the autism spectrum scale". This of course not only terrified us but confused us as well for Maya showed no signs of autism. Well if that specialist could only see Maya now! Not only is she talking all the time, she is doing incredibly well in school. I met with Maya's teachers last week for her mid-year conference and they said that she was performing above average and they boasted about the 100% she got on her phonics work. We are so very proud of her. So even though there are times that my head feels like it is about to explode from the constant questions and statements, we have truly embraced her voice as the wonderful gift that it is.