Is it a flutter in you belly?

I am nearing the close of my 24th week of pregnancy and I have to say that it is pretty cool to feel the baby move. But I also have to say, it doesn't feel like a flutter. I don't feel like I have butterflies in my stomach. When the baby moves, the baby pokes you like a poke on Facebook. It is a poke you feel not a flutter. It was hard to imagine a flutter in the earlier weeks of pregnancy but a poke is a better word for it. You can imagine a poke.

I felt light pokes this week.

Overall, I have had a pretty good pregnancy. Nothing out of the normal. I have carpal tunnerl, acid reflux galore, and even an ear infection that has left me deaf to one ear. I seriously hope all these will soon pass.

From Career to Expecting Mom

Time for an update of this blog. I quit the job as a paralegal a couple month back because I am expecting a baby. The decision wasn't an easy one but it was the right one. I wanted a stress free pregnancy. Being a paralegal, and working for lawyers can be stressful.

So far, I don't regret my decision to quit. I am enjoying pregnancy and the journey before delivery. Up until a couple weeks, I didn't feel pregnant because I was not showing much. I am 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Now the belly is really growing. I still don't feel the baby moving but it is moving.

In keeping with the theme of this blog, I am going to talk about the day to day grind of parenting and how one can be successful at being a parent, a mommy, a daddy. Motherhood and fatherhood is a job just like any other job and whether you work outside the home or stay home, you have to juggle and balance life to accomodate your kids. I will talk about my husband and how he juggles fatherhood and career, and I will talk about motherhood and how life has changed for me.

It will be a journey worth taking and full of excitement. Looking forward to it.

Ice Breaker

Recently, my husband and I joined toastmasters. We have to give so many speeches and evaluate so many speeches.

About 2 weeks ago, we were give ice breakers speeches. We are supposed to talk about ourselves. I thought how bad can it be to talk about oneself? It has been a week now, and I can't come up with a single thing to talk about. I keep asking myself, what is interesting about me? What do people want to know about me that is worth sharing. I am boring! =D Course, I kid myself. I am not really boring but thinking about me is difficult!

For starters, I came up with a tagline for myself.
I am dynamic and tenacious!
Marla, a class of it’s own.
Simply Marla.
Every Marla has a story.
Haha! Don't laugh!

Ok... ok... here is my outline.
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. My immediate family came to the USA in the early 1960s and became refugees. I have 2 brothers: my eldest brother, Maui was a wild one when he was younger, and my youngest brother, Marcos was the cutey one with blond hair and green eyes. I am the middle child. They say the middle child is just that, stuck in the middle, and wondering what part they play in the family. Up until this day, I am still trying to figure that out that part.

My grandparents were a big part of our upbring and childhood, and they helped shape us. They picked us up from school and baby sat us until my mother came to pick us up.

Sometimes, when my Abuelo would come home from work-- My abuelo was a cabnet carpentar and the best there was in Miami. His wood work was precise-- Well... as precise as his expectations of us. He expected us to go to school and do our best to do well. He expected all of us to attend college and graduate with whatever it was we wanted to do. His favorite saying after I would tell him what flavor of career I wanted today, was always, "Si, pero, estudia. No importa que estudes solo que estudies." He sounded like a broken record at times but it stuck in my head so much so that I ended up getting an education.

It took me 10 years to acquire my Bachelor of Arts but got it by golly, I got it! I tried to go for an even higher degree in law but met head on with failure. Nevertheless, I wanted a law degree so much, I turned to lower degree at the undergraduate level and obtained my paralegal certificate. Thus, today I have a paralegal certificate and I am working with a fine lawyer.

Second to studying, my abuelo would stress over and over again how important it was for us to learn Spanish well. He would say, "Aprende el espanol bien y aprende el castellano! Algun dia lo vas a necesitar. He would lecture how Spanish is Spanish and if you learn the castillion, you can speak to all Spanish speakers. Like most young people, I said yea yea yea, I know.

Now I look back on those days, and I think, my abuelo was a sage.
Consequently, I did listen to my abuelo because today I use my Spanish more than ever and my education has elevated my status.

However, if it hadn't been for my dear husband, I would not have completed that education. For, it would have taken me a century to complete. Not only that, but I moved away from home at 21 and little did I know how much I'd struggle. When I moved to Colorado back in 1994, I had no idea how hard it would be to make ends meet on a mere high school education. My initial work experience has taught me the value of a good education and the value of hard work.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

by Maya Angelou

Opportunity

They do me wrong who say I come no more
When once I knock and fail to find you in;
For every day I stand outside your door,
And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.
Wail not for preciouschances passed away;
Each night I burn the records of the day;
At sunrise every soul is born again.
Laugh like a [child] at splendors that have sped
To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;
My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,
But never bind a moment yet to come.
Though deap in mire wring not your hands and weep,
I lend my arm to all who say, "I can!"
No shamefaced outcast ever sank to deep
But yet might rise and be again a man! Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?
Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow?
Then turn from blotted archives of the past
And find the future's pages white as snow.
Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;
Art thou a sinner? Sin may be forgive;
Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,
Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

by Walter Malone

I will kid you not, I often have to repeat to myself as Lincoln did, "And this, will soon pass."

There is a lesson in every failure

We can turn failure into advantage and make them serve as a tow-line with wich to pull ourselves ashore if we observe and profit by the lessons they teach.

'Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart,
Than shelter and bread and wine;
For shelter is gone when the
night is o'er,
And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of the hand
and the sound of the
voice,
Sing on in the soul away.

by Spencer M Tree

_______________________________

Who ne'ver has suffered, he has lived but half,
Who never failed, he never strove,
Who never doubted never thought.

I will never give up the battle!
For I rather go down like the great men of history, Socrates, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Paine, as one who was brave enough to place humanity above the individual and principle above pecuniary gain.

I am grateful for the defeats that most people call failure, because I know if I keep on keeping on (keep trying) in the end, I will get the chance to prove my ability and rise to heights of acheivement in my chosen field.

No one can call me a failure but myself and as the wealthy philosopher, Croesus, once said:

"I am reminded, O king, and take this lesson to
heart, that there is a wheel on which the affairs
of men revolve and its mechanism is such that it
prevents any man from being always fortunate."

When I look upon the many lessons life has brought me, I make it my mantra to say to myself:

I believe in myself and do your best as honestly and earnestly as you possibly can.

Anything good reguires a lot of sand

It takes courage and lots of courage to look upon defeat as a blessing in disguise; but any position in life that is worth having requires a lot of sand.

This poem, by an uknown author says exactly what I am thinking.

I observed a locomotive in the railroad yards one day,
It was waiting in the roundhouse where the locomotives stay;
It was panting for the journey, it was coaled and fully manned,
And it had a box the fireman was filling full of sand.

It appears that locomotives cannot always get a grip
On their slender iron pavement, 'cause the wheels are apt to slip;
And when they reach a slippery spot, their tactics they command,
And to get a grip upon the rail, they sprinkle it with sand.

It's about the way with travel along life's slippery track -
If your load is rather heavy, you're always slipping back;
So, if a common locomotive you completely understan,
You'll provide yourself in starting with a good supply of sand.

If your track is steep and hilly and you have a heavy grade,
If those who've gone before you have the rails quite slippery made,
If you ever reach the summit of the upper tableland,
You'll find you'll have to do it with a liberal use of sand.

If you strike some frigid wheather and discover to your cost
that you're liable to slip upon a heavy coat of frost,
Then some prompt decided action will be called into demand,
And you'll slip 'way to the bottom if you haven't any sand.

You can get to any station that is on life's schedule seen,
If there's fire beneath the boiler of ambition's strong machine,
And you'll reach a place called Flushtown at a rate of speed that's grand,
If for all the slippery places you've a good supply of sand.