The broken heal

So back in late November my aunt came out from Mexico, she tagged along with my mom and she spent a good two weeks here. We had lots of fun going all over the damn place. We walked around downtown Chicago, went to the ChristKindleMarket, checked out the Art Institute of Chicago and shopped till we dropped. She even went with me to see Jose.

About a week into the fun fest tragedy struck. It was a Sunday night, I remember it so clearly...we were all at moms house. Just after 7pm, and I know this because Once Upon a Time had just started and Ester and I were in the living room watching. Chris and my aunt had gone to the back yard when we heard it. The thump, thump, thump that sounded far but close along with some yelling. Ester and I shot up and ran to the back of the house to the kitchen where we ran into Cairo who was running into the house. He said "She fell, she hit herself!" So I ran out the back door and there she was on the ground, it was mom.  I jumped down the stairs and called for Chris.  She couldn't get up and the ambulance was on it's way. She had fallen from the top stair down 7 steps to the cement at the bottom. She managed to flip in the process, hitting her back on the stairs and landing face forward on the cement. Of course the only one to witness this was Cairo.

After being at the E.R. all night, several doctor appointments, x-rays, CT scans and the such, the prognosis was a broken heal bone. Thank God the woman likes to eat cheese and yogurt!  My biggest concern was she'd have a broken back or hip. Considering she's in her 60's and took quite a fall she came out of it with one broken bone. I've seen others her age with broken ankles from just stepping the wrong way and twisting their foot. She was on a cast for a month and just now she's starting to put pressure on her foot.

Thankfully my aunt was around when it first happened.  She helped take care of mom. After she left my sister-in-law and I juggled helping her out. My dad finally stepped in after he got annoyed having us over all the time. Now that she's started taking baby steps, I've warned her.  She's not allowed to attempt flying any more.  She said she will leave that for the birds.

Voltron!!!!!

Cairo recently gave me the title of the most awesome mom ever, why?  Because I've introduced him to Voltron.  It all started with a borrowed DVD from my brother, since then Cairo has been obsessed with Voltron. 

"Mom I want a Voltron"

"I'm super sad because I don't have a Voltron"

"When are you going to buy me a Voltron?"

On and on he goes, morning after morning, day after day.  For those of you who don't know a Voltron toy can cost up to $400 bucks.  It's vintage and I'm not buying a $400 toy knowing it will be destroyed within minutes.  The wonderful news is that Voltron was remade by NickToons so I thought "Great! They should have some Voltron toys for sale."  Uh no....I've gone to every store every known to humanity and not a single one has a Voltron Force toy.

Finally my Aunt said "Why don't you tell them they've run out?".  So I took her advise I told him Voltron is MIA in the stores....let me tell you.  It was worse than the day I told him about Jose.  So after that all I heard was

"Mom, now I'm sad about two things. Dad and Voltron"


"I can't believe I don't have a Voltron or my Dad"

So I made it my mission to find this child a Voltron toy for Christmas.  I looked at every online store, Googled night and day and I finally came across a Voltron toy for my monkey on this website....they are sold out.  I had finally given up until one day I mentioned to my co-worker how bummed I was I couldn't find a Voltron toy for Cairo.  He did a Google search and low and behold he found one.  He sent me the link and I bought it right there and then.  Voltron has arrived and is patiently waiting to surprise Cairo on Christmas morning.  Of course I can't tell Cairo that so I've been playing along with his own search for Voltron.  Here is him after day 1 of trying to find Voltron:

Day 2 didn't look any better:

He's given up for now....but I just can't wait for Christmas to get here!!!  I believe I shall be retitled as the Bestest Queen Mom of the world after he opens that last present.

Safely Spooky

Our park district sponsors a yearly event called Safely Spooky.  The idea is to give the kids and adults a safe place where they can hang out for Halloween.  This was our first time participating in the event.  I figured it would be a cool thing to do for Cairo and it would get us out of the house for a bit.  I invited my sister-in-law and she joined us. When we got to the park the line to get into the park wrapped around the entire park.  Look!   Can you see the long ass line?? This park is huge, about the size of two neighborhood blocks and the line almost wrapped around the entire block!

I was a little concerned about Cairo, I wasn't sure if he was going to be freaked our or not.  I spotted some guy with a mask a bloody machete making his way towards us so I told Cairo  "hold my hand" and he goes "why" and I said "just remember it's all fake and not real", so he quickly grabbed my hand, just as the guy was a few feet away.  I was glad the pretend murderer didn't yell at us. Cairo was calm and collected.

We decided to paint our faces like catrinas.  Cairo too.  He didn't have a costume, but we had tons of face paint.  As we walked to the back of the line to get into the park people kept looking at us.  I'm not sure if they were looking at us cuz they thought "oh cool!" or "cheap costume", either way I think it was cool.  Although I wish the paint was better, the stuff we used was too oily and smeared easily.  Here's Cairo, doesn't he look like he's having a good time?

Here are the two of us....yeah he's still having a good time.

So the idea is you walk through the park and they have spooky decorations all around.  There were a doctor couple who were all bloodied up with organs in jars and body parts in hand.  Some prisoner girl who wanted help getting out and this nifty inflatable organ player, it had a rotating dancing couple!!

All along the place there were stands were the kids could get candy, some stands gave out full size candy bars!  Others gave you a piece of gum or starbursts bleh!  It got dark kinda quick and eventually we got to a tent, which was supposed to be a haunted house type tent. Cairo refused to go in...he quickly started to back away.  So he and I walked around it while Auntie went in on her own.  I'm happy to say she survived it.  Further down the road was a haunted grave yard and guess what?  Yep, Cairo refused to go through it so this time Auntie walked around with Cairo while I went through the graveyard/maze alone.  I made it out ok....or did I?

At the end of the whole thing they had 3 fogatas going.  They were huge.  Here's a pic of one, see how excited Cairo looks?

Aaaand here's a pic of Auntie....

Aaaaand here's a pic of me with Cairo.....OMG you can just see the excitement in this kids face.

I tried to get  a good picture but the light from the fogata was just to strong.

Instead of going on a hay ride we sat to eat some burgers and hot chocolate!

AND we found Waldo!!!

All in all Cairo did have a good time, even though he was a party pooper in the pictures.

The customer is always right

You just gotta love Bernie Sanders. He's started this movement of moving your financial accounts from the big banks to smaller community banks or Credit Unions.  The Washington Post recent posted an article about Credit Unions, it's pretty informational and has links to even more information.  The idea is this, big banks like Bank of America are reporting major profits yet at the same time they are going to hit customers with monthly fees in the beginning of the coming year when their customers use their debit cards for purchases. That just sounds so cynical, I mean come on!  It's a great example of how consumers are taken advantage of by big banks and no one seems to care.  Big banks are interested in how much of your money they can take, they are basically taking a slice of your budget pie because they can.

I had a Bank of America checking and two savings accounts.  I closed all of my accounts.  I moved my checking services to a community bank in my area and I could not be happier.  I opened online savings accounts that accumulate more interest than what I was getting with Bank of America. I would recommend for people to do the same.  Imagine what would happen if everyone moved their financial business to local banks and credit unions?  Imagine the impact that would make and message that would send to big corporations?  They have been the boss for far too long and it is time to reclaim the old concept of the customer is always right.

I am a job creator

For a while now every one in the media or in the GOP have been referring to the job creators and how much they need tax breaks.  They are referring to the big corporations who apparently need more incentives to keep their businesses in the U.S. to "create jobs" for Americans.  The thing is that these "job creators" have been having tax breaks for many years now and even though some of these companies are claiming major profits like Bank of America there aren't many jobs being created and more people are in fact being laid off.  Here's an example of what I mean. 

If I had extra cash to spare, I'd buy Dunkin Donuts coffee every single day.  If I had extra cash to spare we'd eat out at least once a week, pizza nights or something.  I had extra cash I'd update my house by in updating the kitchen, the main bathroom, the half bath downstairs, I'd build a family room in the basement after installing a sump pump and having the gutters taken out of the drain, I'd furnish the new family room with a nice flat screen T.V. and furniture.  If I had extra cash I'd take my family on a vacation every year, we'd go camping twice a year.  If I had extra cash I'd buy healthier food from Whole Foods.  If I had extra cash I'd buy my son cloths that fit right and buy new ones as he out grows them.  If I had extra cash I'd upgrade my car to a more gas efficient one.  If I had extra cash I'd buy every one in my family Christmas presents every year, nice ones at that.  I think I alone would keep several people employed and quite possibly cause for a few others to get jobs.  The more I think about what I'd do if I had extra cash in hand the more I think that the GOP and the media has got it all wrong.  We are the job creators, the average people living average lives.  If we had more money to spend, the more stability companies would have and the more employees they would need to meet the demand made by us the consumers. Why doesn't the GOP see that?