A thought becomes reality- FIESTA 2017

What is FIESTA? To those born and raised in a City that is not San Antonio, they may mistake it as an excuse to party. Don’t get me wrong: it is a time to party, meet up with friends, eat a lot and sometimes drink a lot. But, It’s more!  It’s about Family Traditions, and the true culture of San Antonio. 

Three weeks pre-FIESTA I shop Amazon, Goodwill, online stores and my own closet for my perfect FIESTA outfits- I mean it’s 10 days long, so I must prepare. 

There are those events my husband and I attended since he moved to San Antonio from Chicago, 11 years ago.  We are blessed that those events now turned to family outings with our 2 and 5 year old, boys. 

Attending the mini parade at the State School FIESTA stays close to my heart because my late grandma, Elisa attended every year. She sat in the shade under “her” tree, waved during the parade and had that smile I will never forget. Her spirit is still alive under that tree. To me that is the true meaning of “Viva FIESTA!” 

FIESTA is different for me this 2017. It started with a thought 2 years ago-  my son Wrigley was three months and I was struggling with marathon nursing sessions, pumping 4 times a day at work & sleepless nights. FIESTA Medals are another tradition and are created in support of local eateries, animals, not-for-profits, sports teams, etc., but there was one missing!  Not anymore! This year, that thought became reality, the “Breast Medal” made its debut this 2017! Because breastfeeding deserves a medal too!

Click Here to get your very own Breast Medal. It's great for FIESTA and even to gift to a nursing mother on mother's day!  Cost is $8.00 and $1.00 of each medal sold will go back to a local non-profit in support of breastfeeding, La Leche League of San Antonio.

I have many more thoughts, watch me move those thoughts to reality. 

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 #vivafiesta #breastmedal #fiestamedalmaniacs #normalizebreastfeeding

Wrigley's last drop of breastmilk

The day my first born son stopped nursing, I remember it, it was December 24, 2011 and he fell asleep in my arms after nursing. I was seven weeks pregnant with my second son. The day my second son stopped nursing, I can't remember it. It was after the new year, 2017. Its 16 days into the New Year now and Wrigley has not nursed for 9 days. the last day I remember he asked for milk, "momma milk, momma milk" or "boob" or "i said I want boob" He is two and half years old, and i'm sad, i'm really sad, I thought it would last forever and it didn't. I was often uneasy when he woke up at night and wanted milk. And, now its over. I feel like I need to write an entire novel about my last time nursing, but I cannot, because I'm having memory loss of all the time we spent together. The last nurse session I remember is him looking at me and saying what sounded like, "Where's the Milk?" And, it felt different, it felt like I was empty. But, I wasn't empty, because the milk was still dripping. I think I knew it was coming to an end soon, so I felt it. That was about January 3rd. I've been waiting to finalize this as I wasn't sure if he would come back for more. Yesterday (1/14/17) was the first time he mentioned something, I was changing and he asked...."Mom, is there milk there?" And, I said, "I don't think so, I think you drank it all." Then he started quietly saying "milk, milk, milk, milk, milk." And, that was it, he didn't try to jump on me to see if I was telling the truth, he just kind of went on to the next toy. This journey has been amazing, I may not be working at my dream job professionally, but I realized that my real job is to be the best mother that I can to my children and that I know I am doing. One of the things that I put my whole entire heart into was nursing both of my boys until they self weaned. This was a huge sacrifice (to say the least), personally, mentally, emotionally and professionally. But, here at the end of the road, I would not change it for anything. I have nursed or been pregnant for the last 5 and half years and I consider myself extremely blessed. In that time, I managed to take several family vacations, pump successfully at work, donate over 100 ounces of milk to a mother in need, run two full marathons, 5 half marathons and many 5k and 10ks. If I can do it so can you. There was blood, sweat, and tears but I made it, and you will too!