Manhattan with Nancy, Molly and Sara

Nancy, Molly, Sara and Avery

Today I went into Manhattan to spend the day with my family. Unfortunately, all didn't go as smoothly as planned. My cousin Sara told me a few weeks ago that her mother (my aunt Nancy who is my mother's oldest sister) was coming to town from Washington (State), as well as her sister Molly (my cousin who lives in Salt Lake). They were getting a hotel room near Times Square and seeing Broadway musicals for 4 days straight! We planned that I would come into the city and spend Saturday with them, either shopping or going to museums, whatever they were in the mood to do.

Last night, I stayed up WAY too late, helping John work on a business plan. I finally got to sleep at 4:00 am, only to be awakened by Avery at 7:00. I felt miserable! Since John had to continue working on this business plan today and tomorrow to have it ready for Monday morning, there was no way I could leave the girls with him all day and distract him from completing it. So, I decided I'd take the girls into the city with me. I spent 2 hours getting us ready and preparing everything I needed to take them into the city (took a long time because I was DRAGGING!). I finally got into the car around 11am and drove into the city.

I found a parking garage about a block away from their hotel, parked the car, and then made the difficult decision of which stroller to pull out of the trunk: the double jogger, or the single "sit-n-stand." I found out the hard way that I made the WRONG decision when I selected the single. We went to their hotel room where they were just finishing getting ready. I took the above picture, which Reagan refused to be in, and then we headed out to the streets of Manhattan.

Not only did I pick the wrong stroller, but I also failed to dress my girls appropriately. It had been really warm yesterday and when we left the house it was sunny and mild. When we got out of the hotel, it was hazy, windy and chilly! We all had coats and I had a big blanket from the trunk of the car, but I should have had hats and gloves for the girls. I really misjudged the weather.

We decided to walk to Central Park which was only about 12 blocks since we were on 48th street. The walk proved to be a nightmare. Avery was sitting in the stroller (very unhappy about the cold on her face and hands) and Reagan was standing on the back of the stroller as I pushed. At one point, we tried to cross the street and when we went off the curb, Avery wasn't providing enough weight in the front of the stroller, so the stroller tipped over backwards, causing Reagan to fall down and then melt down. It was a lot of fun (insert sarcastic tone here). After the fall, Reagan insisted that I carry her. So I carried Reagan for several blocks until I physically couldn't do it anymore. At this point, I was really angry at myself for not bringing the double stroller.

When we finally reached Central Park, we were practically blown over. Without the coverage from the buildings, the wind was out of control. It stung as it hit our faces and we quickly re-thought our decision to walk through Central Park. We opted to find somewhere indoors to sit down, warm up and get a bite to eat. We wandered into a nearby deli and sat down.

It was nice to sit and visit with my aunt Nancy and cousin Molly, but I was definitely distracted by the girls. They weren't exactly on their best behavior, which would have thrown me off a little under the best of circumstances ... but since I was managing on 3 hours of sleep, it was difficult for me to cope with the situation. I also felt badly that I'd thrown off Nancy, Molly, and Sara's schedule and plans for a site-seeing day in the city. They were understanding, but I still felt bad and kind of regretted the whole decision to bring the girls into the city.

Instead of making the miserable walk back to the parking garage, I opted for a cab ride back ... turned out to be the best $8 I've ever spent! I put the girls in the car and they quickly fell asleep on the drive home. Unfortunately, I almost did too ... it was the scariest drive I've ever had because I couldn't keep my eyes open. By the time I got off the George Washington Bridge, the exhaustion took over. While on the Palisades Parkway, my eyelids were too heavy and I struggled to keep them open. When I got off the Parkway, I pulled off the road and tried to revive myself so I could safely finish my drive home. But even on Closter Dock Road, it was happening again - it was so dangerous!! I was so relieved when I pulled into my garage, with the girls safely home.

I was lucky enough to have Jen Wilkin come over shortly after I got home with a fabulous hot dinner :) Stuffed peppers, wild rice, and a delicious salad full of berries. It was exactly what I needed.

I finally have my computer back!!!!

As most of my readers know, it kills me if I can't update my blog every few days. Well, I've been having major issues with my computer which has prevented me from blogging. On February 11th, it wouldn't turn on. John's cousin Jose came over a few days later (2/15/09) and told us the hard drive had crashed. We ordered a new hard drive, which arrived only two days later and John installed it himself. The computer itself was back up and running, yet I couldn't get the Internet to work. I tried everything, but after hours of frustration, I finally gave up. Today (2/28/09), Jose came over again and he fixed it!! He had to download some drivers from John's laptop, then download them onto mine and now it's working like a charm! THANK YOU Jose!!! I've felt SO completely disconnected from the world ... it's a little scary how dependent I am on my computer! And it's not like I've been completely out of the loop, since I've been able to access my email (and some Internet) through my iPhone. If I didn't have that, I probably would have been admitted to an institution for insanity. An exaggeration? Maybe, but probably fairly accurate!

So ... now comes the DAUNTING task of catching up. I have so many things to blog about. I also have so many things that need to be uploaded to my computer to restore it to its original state. Fortunately, I had backed up all my photos and videos onto an external hard drive back in December. Unfortunately, I lost all pictures from December and January, as well as ALL of my documents! I had created some pretty complex spreadsheets for our bills and finances, not to mention important documents like my resume and other letters that I'd love to have saved. Anyway, I'm happy that I have my pictures, since those are so precious to me and more important than anything. At least I'll learn from this experience and back-up EVERYTHING in the future! So... for those of you who haven't ever backed up your computer or those who haven't done it recently, take my advice and do it NOW!!!

Thanks to all of you who keep checking back, even though there's been nothing new to read for weeks. I promise to catch up as quickly as possible. Now that my computer is working properly, I hope to get right back on track.

Oh, one more piece of bad news: my point-and-shoot camera is officially OUT OF ORDER. John gave me the Canon Powershot SD900 for Christmas 2 years ago and even purchased a 2 year warranty for it. So, it expired in December and it just broke this month. Talk about bad timing. The lens no longer moves in or out and the helpful guy behind the counter at Bergen Camera in Westwood said it would cost about $175 to repair it ... no sense in spending that money to repair a 2 year old camera. So, hopefully we'll be in a position to get me a new camera for my birthday in April! We'll see. Anyway, thank goodness I have my Canon Digital Rebel that I got for Christmas, but it's a very large camera which is difficult to take with me everywhere. The Powershot SD900 was ideal for keeping in my purse at all times, which is why I always take so many pictures. The worst part is that I no longer have the abililty to shoot video! It's so sad because Avery is at a very funny age right now. She's learning so many new things every day and I'm loving the new signs and words she surprises me with. I wish I could capture them on video and share them with everyone! This week, she started saying "Thank you" in the most adorable way!! Anyway, I'll try to be patient and wait for a new camera. The camera store told me about a new Fugi point and shoot that's coming out in a month or two that should be amazing.

Farewell to Nila ~ We will miss her!

12/18/04
After searching through hundreds of photos, this is the ONLY one I could find of Nila and me together.

12/24/08


12/24/08

We are so sad that John's mother Nila has passed away. We are feeling a huge void in our home as we are reminded of her at every turn. We know that she is in a better place, enjoying a lovely reunion with her husband Jesus, but we are missing her terribly here. It's comforting to think that Nila is no longer suffering from all the pain she was managing on a daily basis. John and I hope we offered her joy during the last year of her life by having her live here to enjoy her granddaughters.

Although most of my readers know what happened, I want to record the details of her passing for future reference. On Sunday morning (2-8-09), John thought he heard his mom calling him from downstairs. He quickly woke up and rushed down to her room. When he found Nila foaming at the mouth and non responsive, he called 911. The police responded first, then the paramedics. I was holding her hand while they ran tests and waited for the ambulance. Her hand was very warm and we figured she had a pretty high fever. John went with the ambulance to Valley hospital where she measured a fever of 105. They performed a CAT scan, which revealed bleeding in her brain. They suspected that the bleeding occurred over night and caused her to become unconscious. When she regained consciousness, they think she choked on her saliva, causing her to aspirate and allow fluid into her lungs (this is also the reason she was foaming at the mouth when John found her). Because she had MDS (a form of Leukemia where the bone marrow no longer produced platelets, which meant she was dependent on blood transfusions to keep her blood clotting), we always knew this was the risk ... although her platelets sometimes got dangerously low, she managed to keep on fighting for an entire year after her diagnosis. She had bleeding occur in her brain back in November and it looked like she wasn't going to make it, (A crazy 24 hours ... ) yet she miraculously pulled out of it. The doctors told us the bleeding occurred on the perimeter of her brain that time, whereas it occurred more in the center of her brain this last time.

When John called me from the hospital to say things looked bad, I arranged to have Maribel and Marcelo come over to watch the girls so I could go to the hospital. Around 2:30 in the afternoon, the doctor didn't think she'd become responsive and told us to contact all relatives and have the priest come to give last rights. It was so sad to see her laying there. She didn't look very good and it didn't seem like she knew we were there. Once they moved her upstairs to the 4th floor in the ICU, I went home to relieve Maribel so she could go see her aunt. Then Nicole came over to put the girls to bed so I could return to the hospital.

By the evening, she was actually much better and she was responding to us. We were all surprised, as was her doctor. Around 9:30, we decided it was best to go home and get some rest, so Jesus, Nayda, Pepin, Jose, Maribel, and I all left. John stayed the entire night at the hospital. He said she went in and out of responsiveness, but she was stable and her fever was down. He came home early Monday morning because he had to take Jesus's daughter Alexis to school. Once he came back from that, he was exhausted, so he went to sleep. I took Reagan to preschool, then met up with Nicole who took Avery. I got to the hospital around 10:30 am on Monday.

Thanks to Ms. Lisa and Nicole, I was able to spend an hour and a half with Nila on Monday morning. I'll forever be grateful to them for taking care of my girls because it turned out to be the last moments of lucidity for Nila. When I arrived, she was very anxious and agitated. Her nurse, Euniece, told me she'd been like that since she'd arrived at 7am. She'd been complaining of abdominal discomfort, so Euniece had put her on the bedpan several times. Each time yielded no results, so Nila was frustrated. While I was there, Euniece brought her a cup of Milk of Magnesia for her to drink, in an effort to help her with a bowel movement. She was aware enough to sit up and drink the mixture, although she choked on it a little bit because she wasn't used to swallowing. I stood next to her, holding her hand, trying to comfort her and calm her down. She really seemed to be doing much better than she had been the day before, so I was hopeful. Although her words didn't come out very clearly, she tried to speak to me and I know she knew I was there. I'm so happy I had that opportunity to try to provide her comfort. Just before I arrived, the nurse had given her some pain medication, so it finally kicked in while I was there. It helped her relax and I'd like to think I helped as well. I stroked her hair and told her to close her eyes and get some sleep.

The time passed extremely quickly. As I was leaving, I had a nice conversation with Euniece about Nila and her current state. She did not think death was imminent, but did warn me that Nila wasn't producing enough urine, which could mean the beginning signs of kidney failure. She told me that Nila was on 2 different medications that were keeping her blood pressure up. These medications were essentially keeping her alive, since her blood pressure was too low. The danger of these medications was that they pulled all the blood to the heart and the brain, so the extremities and other organs often suffered as a result. Her hands and feet were very cold because of this. Euniece said she would be working until 7PM, but she would be stationed in the OR in the afternoon.
I left the hospital at noon, picked up Avery, then Reagan and then went home. John was showering, getting ready to head back to the hospital. I gave him hopeful news that she was improving, so I was sad to hear that she was non responsive again once he got back to her bedside at 1:30.

Nicole was kind enough to offer to pick up Reagan and then I called Jen and asked if she'd watch Avery so I could return to the hospital. Nicole picked up Reagan at 3:00, then I dropped off Avery at Jen's on my way to Valley. I was there around 3:50 with John, his brother Jesus, his aunt Nayda (Nila's sister) and her husband Pepin. Shortly after I arrived, Dr. Kim came in and we had a family meeting. He told us she was septic and there was no way she'd pull out of it. He said all they could do was to give her morphine to make her comfortable and that he didn't foresee her making it longer than 48 hours. After this news, the 5 of us went into her room in the ICU and stood around her bed for about 30 minutes. Once the morphine kicked in, she was able to breathe more easily and she seemed to relax. Around 4:45, the nurse came in and told us her blood pressure was coming down and that it probably wouldn't be much longer. Within about a minute of her telling us this, Nila finally let go. It was a very emotional moment for all of us, but I was glad we were all there together. We were all amazed that it happened so quickly, but her body had been through SO much by that time that it was also a relief to see her suffering come to an end. I'd never watched anyone leave this world and pass into the afterlife before, so it was a bit surreal. It was conflicting, wanting her to stay with us longer, yet knowing she was finally pain-free. I'm so grateful to Nicole and Jen for allowing me the opportunity to be with Nila in her final moments and to be with my husband to offer him support.

After we left Nila's ICU room, we went to the ICU waiting room for a little while and made phone calls to family members. The morning nurse Euniece walked by and noticed me, so I went out to speak with her. She asked how Nila was doing and when I told her she'd died, her jaw dropped in complete shock. She couldn't believe how quickly she went downhill. She was kind and offered her condolences.

We decided to have everyone come back to our house to start making decisions about funeral arrangements. Nayda, Pepin, Jose, Jesus, Debbie, Josh, Ethan, Maribel, Marcelo and Joaquin all came over. We ordered pizza for dinner and enjoyed the presence of family. The following arrangements were decided:

Anthony R. Pizzi Funeral Home
120 Paris Avenue

Northvale, NJ 07647
http://www.pizzifuneralhome.com/
Viewing - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 – 2-4pm and 7-9pm
Mass Service – Thursday, February 12, 2009 – 11:00 am

St. Joseph and Michael’s Roman Catholic Church
14th St. and Central Avenue
Union City, NJ 07087
Grave site services and Burial to follow – Weehawken Cemetery

John pulled out the old family photo albums and I scanned about 150 pictures onto my computer. I wanted to share some of my favorites:

I'm not sure how old she was in these pictures, but it's obvious she was very beautiful

John said this was one of Nila's favorite pictures ... it was taken before she was married to his father and she was in a car with a friend, when he opened an umbrella. Her face expression is priceless!

Nila is the woman on the far right, dressed in all white. I think she looks beautiful in this picture and you can tell she was once very tall, since she's as tall as the others who are standing up on a step.

Her wedding picture ... John said she was very unhappy with her photographer, since her wedding took place in Cuba under communist Fidel Castro, so a photographer was assigned and she had no say in it.

Nila and Jesus on their wedding day

Jesus and Nila in Cuba

Jesus and Nila in Cuba

Nila on the beach in Cuba

Nila in Cuba - not sure if that's Jesus or John as a baby

I'm assuming this is John's christening in Cuba because it looks like his father is holding his brother Jesus ... and that's a young Nayda and Pepin!

I love this picture of Nila feeding a baby ... not sure who any of the kids are though!


This is a big guess, but this may have been Nila's passport picture for when she came to the US from Cuba


I think this was in Union City, shortly after they arrived from Cuba ... Jesus was 3 and John was about 20 months old.

What a great family picture this is ... I love John's pudgy little legs :)


The following 3 pictures had me laughing out loud when I first saw them! I had no idea that Nila used to wear wigs! Apparently, she and her sisters, and many women in the 60's and 70's often wore wigs. These pictures are priceless :)

(that's John on the far left, smiling) Nila is holding Maribel and she hand-made the dress she is wearing (the blue one)

This wig cracks me up!

Many of you might not know that Nila worked very hard in Cuba to earn an education. This was uncommon for women to go to college. She taught school and became a principal. When she came to the United States, she was unable to bring anything with her and her degrees were not recognized here. She was about 43 years old, she did not speak English and she had two young children (the same ages mine are today). She completely started over, learned the language and went to school. The above picture shows Nila on her graduation day with John, a very proud moment, I'm sure.

John and Nila

Jesus and Nila

Jesus and Nila

Jesus and Nila ... isn't it obvious they were a very happily married couple?

I love this picture ... here's John's father Jesus, then John (in red sweat pants because he was sick) John's grandmother, Nila, Nayda and Pepin.

Nila and Jesus

I love this picture too ... it's obviously John's birthday, maybe his 21st? That's how many candles I count. There's a very young Maribel to his left (that would make her about 15) and his parents above him. I love that Nila is wearing her "Madrid University" shirt ... pictured again in the same shirt below, 20+ years later!

Nila, wearing the same shirt at Avery's 1st birthday party, 11/02/08

I had to post this funny picture of Nila holding a fish because I have humorous memories of her with fish ... sharing a kitchen with Nila wasn't always easy, especially when she decided to cook fish. She would sometimes take a whole fish out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge a few days to defrost. Ever since my pregnancy with Reagan, I've been very sensitive to smells, especially fishy smells. Looking back, I often over-reacted and I wish I'd just laughed off those moments that her eating and cooking habits drove me nuts :)

Nila, Alexis and Nayda (1996?)

Nereyda, Nila and Nayda (Sisters, if you can't tell by the names!)

Nila's Surprise 80th Birthday party, September 2004

John and Nila - 80th birthday party at Bacari Grill

Thanksgiving 2004 - Nila, Pepin, and Nayda

Nila and Nayda at our house for a Christmas/birthday party for John 12/18/04

Opening a gift from us - a framed picture from her 80th birthday party

Nila, Nayda, Pepin, and Jose, at Joshua's 1st Birthday party at Debbie and Jesus's townhouse (March 2005)

Nila, Gabby, Doreen, Nayda, Maribel and Ethan, Debbie and Lauren

Easter Sunday at our house 3-27-05

This is one of my favorite picture ... 4/3/08 Although Nila couldn't help me much with the girls, she was extremely helpful by holding Avery so I could attend to Reagan. They spent so many hours together on the couch and Nila sometimes fell asleep holding her. They had a very special bond and Avery now seems to have a few special qualities that remind us of Nila. For instance, Avery eats just about everything, yet she has a huge aversion to chicken of every sort. Nila was the same way.

9/30/08 In August and September last year, Nila spent several weeks in the hospital and then several weeks in an intermediate care facility, due to a serious infection that required intravenous antibiotics administered twice daily. This is a picture of the day she came home ... the girls were so excited to see her!

Nila left a huge hole in our house, but she's still very present in our hearts and memories each and every day. We miss her terribly. John was such a wonderful son to her and I'm proud to be married to such a giving, caring, and loving man. It breaks my heart that our children will never really know their grandparents on their father's side. It's tragic. It's also sad that their grandparents and great-grandparents (on my side), live so many miles away. But, such is life and we'll do our best to nurture the relationships we have.

Breakfast with Autumn and Chad

This morning, we welcomed some very dear friends to our home for breakfast. Autumn and Chad purchased a car on ebay from someone in NY, so they booked a one way ticket to JFK to pick up the car and drive it back to Utah. This might sound like an odd thing to do, but for them, it's just a lot of fun. This is their 4th car purchase and road trip from NY!

They took the red-eye flight from SLC and arrived very early. The seller of the car drove it right to them at JFK, then they drove to our house for breakfast. We had such a great morning, catching up with them and hanging out. Click on this link to Autumn's blog to see the pictures she took. I took lots of pictures, but once again, I'm having computer/camera issues :(

• My office computer completely crashed ... John's cousin Jose came over and diagnosed the problem: Hard drive is completely fried. We just ordered a new one, so once it arrives, Jose will install it and then we'll have to upload everything back onto the computer (oh my goodness, the thought of reconstructing my computer gives me major anxiety!). Thank goodness I've been backing it up to an external hard drive, but I'm nervous about retrieving it all ... I'm a little worried I only backed up my pictures and videos, not all my documents. We'll see. And sadly, my last back-up was in September or October, so I'm going to lose everything since then. I'm feeling very lost without my computer ... thank goodness John's laptop is still functioning!
• I left my new SLR camera at Maribel's house - duh. We always seem to leave something whenever we go to someone's house. I'll get it back soon though and download all the pictures on there
• My point-and-shoot camera has taken a beating and isn't working properly ... I can't get the lens to pop out when I turn it on. It seems like it was recently dropped with the lens open; this easily could have happened since Reagan often swipes my camera and isn't exactly careful with it. But since I didn't SEE her drop it, I can't fairly accuse her.

Afternoon Playdate at Nicole's

Last night, Nicole and I were talking and realized we had no plans for Wednesday and figured we'd get together for a playdate. Since Mia goes to school every morning, we decided to wait until the afternoon so Reagan could play with her. Chris had to meet with his brothers and a realtor about selling his mother's house, so we decided we'd all have dinner together too. This morning, Nicole called me from the store and suggested we all make sugar cookies together. She bought the ingredients I was missing, then dropped them off and I spent the morning making the sugar cookie dough and the frosting. I always think I'll be able to just whip it up really quickly, but it always ends up taking forever!

We went to the Heid's around 4:00, after Avery woke up from her nap. I had dressed Reagan and Avery in matching skirts (at Reagan's request) ... Mia has the same skirt, so she requested that she change into hers too!

Bennett, Mia and Reagan - Reagan was brushing her friend's hair :)

Then we put our aprons on and started making cookies

Avery, Mia, Reagan, and Chef Bennett

Reagan and Mommy, rolling out the dough ... years ago, I came up with this little system for rolling out perfectly thick cookies: two square dowels and one large round one! Very inexpensive solution for uniform sugar cookies :)

Nicole, Mia and Avery

Reagan cutting out hearts

While the cookies baked, we ate a gourmet meal! I love eating at the Heid house because it's always gourmet :) Nicole and Chris are excellent cooks and they are always sharing their yummy recipes with me. Nicole made delicious Turkey and sausage burgers, accompanied by potato salad, pasta salad and a spinach salad. I was in heaven. And so was Avery! It's unreal how much my little baby eats each day.

After dinner, we let Reagan and Mia go downstairs and play while Nicole and I decorated the cookies. Avery and Bennett hung out and watched us, while eating more.

Bennett gave Avery's nose a sweet little kiss

Avery went nuts over this fudgesicle!

She loved every minute of it and devoured the entire thing (except for all the parts that melted)

Bennett enjoyed his fudgesicle too

All clean!

I tried to get a picture of the 3 girls in their matching skirts ... see how big Avery's belly was? Every night, I'm in complete AWE of how huge her belly becomes! Then it magically shrinks each night as she digests her food.

This picture is a little blurry, but it's still cute ... look at that belly!

Reagan and Avery playing

As I was getting Avery into her pajamas, we were commenting on her big belly ... Mia and Reagan started showing us their bellies too, then bumping their bellies together, being very silly.