I’m not sure if I mentioned that I’m an artist? As long as I can remember it’s one of the things in life that keep me happy. That and now my wife and daughter. I went to School of Visual Arts here in the city, graduated in 2008 with a BFA in illustration/fine arts. I had my little one after that summer, and really did the stay at home dad thing and freelance as much as possible. My wife was finishing up her masters, and jumping right into her Ph.D program, so it was quite a transition for all of us. Of course we had our arguments and moments were we wanted to kill each other, but we had a beautiful new life to take care of, and we wanted her to have both her mother and father growing up. Fortunate for us, we have a great support from our families which allows my wife and I to pursue the careers we want. When we lived upstate for the first two years of Amaya’s life, I worked a few odd jobs, a few internships, and shared a studio with another artist for a while. When I had free time I would jet to the studio to get some work done, it was great because it was a big studio and I had space to do much larger works. I can get away with doing one big piece at a time here in the city, but the studio was great for doing multiple large pieces.
Like any artist they want to display their work to the world and then hopefully sell their work so they can continue to live and create their work. I stride to do that, as well as taking care of my family, which really comes above all. The internet has really allowed all kinds of artist to expose their work to the world, which is great but can also seem daunting at the same time. But that shouldn’t stop you from creating your work, so I continue to create at will, but also realized that these days there are a lot of elements to being an artist.
I have been able to create my own little social media network in a corner on the internet world and if you search enough I am sure you will stumble across one of my websites. That being said, the series above are for sale at my website and can be purchased through PayPal. The four large pictures are up already, the smaller ones along with a few more framed works will be posted in the coming week(s). Visit my “official Webpage” and check out further who I am and what kind of art I do and all the things that I’m into.
Unfortunately, I get a call from my wife around 1:30 pm, I was kind of waiting for this call, telling me that Amaya had another accident – this would be her second – and I needed to go pick her up immediately. So my little one has no problem taking a pee-pee in the potty but she has a block about poop. So I went to get her, when I arrived, she looked fine other than a runny nose, and she had just woken up from her nap. It wasn’t until we were in the street on our way home were she started acting a little strange. She began crying, and coughing, and seemed really agitated, so I picked her up and then realized she was still in her soiled underpants, and then coughing to the point of gaging. This really frightened me and I practically froze in the street until I knew she was ok. She was fine once she hurled up lunch on my chest, and she seemed to crying normal after that. I rushed her home, she was extremely agitated the entire way home – you can imagine how I felt with hot baby vomit on my chest, a crying baby, it was hot out, I almost had a break down – I went straight to the bathtub, and finally when I got her clean and calmed I realized it was 2:40 and class begins at 2:45, we’re going to have to miss the first day of dance class. Even in the midst of all her crying part of my strategy to calm her, was to tell her we were going to dance class. Through her crying she said she wanted to go, but it didn’t stop her from crying. What did stop her crying was an ice pop and some Super Why! (Super Why is a pbs kids reading cartoon) After that she seemed fine, almost like it never happened, me on the other hand, I had to go take a shower, cry in the shower, eat a pint of ice cream and then take a nap. 
Of course after church Amaya was ready to eat. This place came highly recommended by my mom, and I passed it up a few times before, so we took the opportunity to have brunch there after church. The front of the restaurant is easy to miss from the street, so you might think it small at first, but it is quite large and they have a nice patio at the back of the restaurant. It’s a great little space, it’s quiet, you don’t hear any street traffic, and they have some nice decor. It’s made brunch really enjoyable.
Well, here we are first day of school, and look at her. Acting like a teenager already. I think my wife and I were more excited than she was. We were all laughing at how she didn’t want to get out of bed, so she thought it was funny too. It wasn’t long before we got her out of bed, gave her breakfast and told her we were going to school. She seemed to get excited after breakfast and we started getting her dressed. I had to fight with my wife for a second to let me do her hair. She couldn’t believe it, but I mean look at how good it did?
She’s so ready! The walk to school she couldn’t stop talking, I was more nervous than she was. When we got there she was taken at how incredible the classroom was. They have computers, a nice little bathroom in the classroom, tons of different toys, and it’s a huge classroom. When she saw that her name was on a red circle on the floor she was more than excited and knew that this place was going to be fun.
I can’t even begin to describe these feelings I’m having, and it’s not even a big day for me. That feeling when I saw Amaya for the first time, all tiny and covered in goo, I was a father. I’m having those same feelings, but today I’m a parent. I’m still at a loss for words, it’s very overwhelming, for the past three years we did everything for her, and right before our eyes she’s becoming a little person. It’s a beautiful thing. The one thing that had me worried the most was her potty training. She started wearing big girl underwear just this week. When I went to pick her up at noon, she was using the kids bathroom in her classroom, through the crack she saw me and said, “look daddy, I’m using the bathroom.” She was so proud of herself. At the beginning of the summer Amaya was still wearing diapers. We had made attempts to potty train her before, but she was resistant, so we stopped trying for a while. Once we realized that most pre-schools required three year-olds to be potty trained, we had to do something. We didn’t force her in any way, but made her feel like she was a big kid and big kids don’t need diapers. It’s a great feeling to see that what you do as a parent is working and helping your child. She had so much fun, she almost didn’t want to leave. I told her we would be back tomorrow and she jumped out of class, down the stairs, all the way home and collapsed. Ready to do it all again tomorrow.
We didn’t let the rain stop us from having fun today. Plus it was a chance for Amaya to try out her new panda rain boots. She was jumping in every puddle she saw. I use to love to do the same thing, I mean what little kid doesn’t? Today was Amaya’s last day of true freedom before she embarks on her educational journey. Tomorrow she starts a new school. If you’re a parent in New York, you know how important it is for your child to get into a good pre-school. Well, we didn’t stress – too much – and went for convenience. Got her into a great school just two blocks away, but we will save the first day of school story for later in the week. Today we went downtown to a nice kid friendly cafe in Tribeca. My wife is always finding great kid friendly deals on livingsocial or groupon. Today we had a great deal for some lunch and arts and crafts at 
