Pregnancy - 2000 Ajusting to Motherhood

2000 - I started a job in Pasadena on March 26, 2000. I loved this job by all accounts, but needed a closer child care center (preferable something between both our jobs, again considering his access) and wanted to move to avoid the commute from West La to Pasadena. Again, I invited Rodney into the process of “day care hunting” and again, he declined. In June of 2000, only months later, the job of my dreams came along. I didn’t know it at the time, and the decision to leave a job I loved, for a job that had an on-site daycare center was not an easy one. I asked Rodney his thoughts, in attempt to ascertain the impact he felt this would have on him. He had no comment. I asked him if he wanted to visit the daycare center here at Fox before I made a decision and again after the decision was made, he declined. I accepted the job here at Fox and started on June 26, 2000, I have never regretted my decision. The remainder of 2000 was intense, I was in an environment where no other employees in the department really knew and understood the system they had just implemented. Usually, Rodney would pick Nikque up on Monday and Tuesday (Tuesday was payroll processing day and frequently, I needed to stay late to support payroll), I would pick her up Wednesday and Thursday and we would alternate Friday-Monday. Again, this was an arrangement I suggested based on demands of the job and an ongoing consideration for the best way for Rodney to remain a significant presence in his daughter’s life. It would have been easy enough for me to pick her up myself everyday since she was right here and require Rodney to come to ME to see her or pick her up, but I did not. As I always have, I attempted to make his access to Nikque as simple and flexible as possible. Fox daycare was opened until 7pm to support the company working hours of 9-6 and Rodney lived and worked relatively nearby. I thought things ran smoothly throughout the rest of this year. As always, I always fought my personal feelings over the on again, off again relationship with Rodney in favor of Nikque best interest and did all I could to make Rodney feel free to access his daughter as he pleased, but nothing I did was ever enough. Rodney LOOKED for things to label as me trying to keep him from Nikque and when there was nothing to misinterpret as interference, he appeared to invent it out of thin air. Meanwhile, I went above and beyond my wildest imagination to make sure that I didn’t make his relationship with Nikque dependent on a relationship with me. It was during this year that I realized Nikque wasn’t exactly the person I expected her to be. I prepared for motherhood based on my limited experience in dealing with my younger brother and my niece. Both were very smart but very “high maintenance” as infants and toddlers. Nikque, was different. She was certainly as smart as any baby, but she rarely cried. She had been sleeping through the night at about four or five months old and was happy and content always. I found I had to pay extra attention to her needs because she could be soaking wet or soiled and probably wouldn’t become cranky. I felt exceptionally fortunate to have a child that was so happy all the time and I found myself constantly beaming with pride as she charmed one person after another from checkout clerks, to family, friends and co-workers. My collection of pictures grew, as I couldn’t stop snapping pictures of my little 1999 champion of the LaTiejera Child infant smile contest. I was proud, but not surprised and I sometimes wondered where she got her joy since neither Rodney or I were great examples of joy as far as I could tell.

Financial recovery came quickly as I rebuild from three months without any income, but that something I was actually confident in my ability to do. I had started out my adult life on shaky ground financially, but by 1993, I was a fiscally responsible person, beyond most people I knew at my age. I was determined and ambitious and after becoming hopelessly in debt by the time I reached my 21^st birthday, I had decided that this was NOT the way I wanted to live my life. I replaced Cosmopolitan with Smart Money, and National Enquirer with Individual Investor. I bought my first individual stock when I was twenty four years old. I bought a handful of shares of “Apollo Group” and while you may not recognize that particular holding company, you probably recognize the name “University of Phoenix”. I did as well on that stock as that institution has done and repeated my success on Check Free Corporation. I knew everyone would pay their bills that way one day and by 25, I had an impressive portfolio. Dedicated to financial research and with a knack for picking trends, I knew by early 2000, that it was time to pull my money out of an overvalued stock market and invest in “Real” Estate. Real estate investment in Southern California isn’t (and wasn’t) an easy task, but I knew that I wanted to beat the rush of everyone else pulling their money out of imploding stock market and investing in something tangible. And the day’s of reading free copies of Wall Street Journal along with a few civics and government classes in high school and college taught me what happened when too much money chased too few resources. I succeeded in beating the rush when I closed on my West LA Condo in October of 2000.