We traveled to Spain over the holidays with my mother. Here are 10 things I learned about traveling across the globe with two young children:

1. Line your pockets with candy before heading to the airport. You have no idea how many minutes of standing still in lines the promise of Skittles will buy you.

2. When your 3-year-old tells you he's "too tired" to keep walking the streets of Barcelona, don't carry him around. Instead, just challenge him to a race to your destination. All the energy he needs to keep on going is contained in the words "ready, set, go."

3. If both your children fall asleep in the middle of a guided city tour, don't ditch the rest of the tour and rush to the hotel hoping for a family nap...they'll both wake up before you get there and exhibit more energy than ever.

I don't even know where to begin. Ever since I heard about the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, I've been vacillating between anger and despair, relief and helplessness, heartbreak and confusion.

The image of neatly wrapped Christmas presents that will never be opened in Connecticut has made me shed actual tears. The thought of the victim's parents hearing the news and rushing to the school, scanning the crowd for their children, and realizing the unthinkable makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm pissed at our country's gun laws, at the religious zealots who are blaming this on the "systematic removal of God from our schools," at the way our society continually glorifies violence.

I keep staring at the TV, trying to understand why, even though I know that nothing a news reporter can say will help me make any sense out of it.

As a mom trying to raise honest, kind and caring children, there is no time of year more conflicting for me than Christmas.

Last year, I paid Target $30 for The Elf on the Shelf so that I could orchestrate an elaborate lie for Luki. I explained that an elf had arrived at our home from the North Pole - sent by Mr. Claus himself - to watch over him.

"Every night, he flies back to the North Pole and tells Santa if you've been naughty or nice," I told him. "He comes back really early in the morning and sits in a different place each day. You have to find him when you wake up."

We named our elf Juanillo and when he returned this year on Thanksgiving Day, Luki was ecstatic. Ever since, Tony or I move Juanillo to a different location each night and watch Luki's delight in finding him every morning.

I love to watch my son's excitement around Juanillo, but there's a little part of me that can't quite get over the fact that I'm straight up lying to my child.

Whenever I see ads for Black Friday on television, I feel sick to my stomach - and not only because America's consumerism disgusts me. Black Friday has a very negative connotation for me. On Black Friday three years ago, my father had an accident that resulted in his death. It was, by far, the darkest day of my life.

My dad fought for his life while shoppers at Walmart fought over a limited number of deeply discounted laptops, and for some illogical reason, part of me that resents those shoppers. I know my father's death wasn't their fault and that there's nothing they could have done to prevent it, but the thought of so many others being engrossed in something so trivial while my family was crumbling makes me angry. I want to yell at those shoppers. I want to tell them that none of it matters, that I would trade every single Christmas present in the world just for the chance to have one more Thanksgiving with my father.

President Barack Obama was just re-elected. That means he will lead our nation until 2016 and you boys will be 7 and 4 by the time his second term ends. When you are adults and think back to the first president of your lifetimes, you will remember him. And I think it’s amazing that your first memory of the president of the United States will be of a man who doesn't look anything like those who came before him. Your image of who can have power in this country will be drastically different from the image previous generations have held. And that makes me so, so happy.

But what makes me even happier than Obama’s victory is that I was able to vote. Not that I was able to vote for him, but simply that I was able to vote.

If I were to ask Luki three times in the same day what he wants to be when he grows up, it's likely that I'll get three different answers — Fireman! Drummer! Train conductor! But though his answers may vary, there's one thing about these conversations that remains constant. When he finishes telling me about his future plans he always asks me, "How about you, mama. What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I turned 29 last week. As I celebrated reaching the home stretch of my twenties, I couldn't help but feel like I am closing out the most significant decade of my life. Over the past ten years, I've graduated from college, gotten a job, bought a couple of houses, married my true love, and — most importantly — given birth to two beautiful boys. I can't imagine any future events that could possibly come close to giving my life the meaning and purpose motherhood has. Growing babies and pushing them out will forever be my greatest accomplishments.

Still, when Luki asks me what I want to be when I grow up, "a mom" just doesn't feel like it’s the right answer. The truth is that I’m always caught off guard by the question... What do I want to be?

Ever since I heard about Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for defending her right to an education, I have been thinking about the daughter I didn't have.

• Wikipedia
• Yousafzai

It's no secret that, at the beginning of my pregnancy with Pau, I was hoping for a girl. Obviously, now that our second son is here, we wouldn't trade him for all the pink tutus in the world. But before he arrived, we imagined that having a child of each sex would provide us with the best of both worlds. Tony and I are pretty sure (but not sure enough to take any permanent measures) that we only want two children, so the possibility of a little girl in our future is unlikely. Still, Malala's tragic shooting has had me thinking about that improbable little girl all week.

My ever increasing obsession with the presidential election and profound dislike of Mitt Romney led me to make a parenting decision this week which — after much thought and consideration — I’ve concluded to have been a poor one. I attempted to explain the difference between the candidates to my 3-year-old and in doing so told him that Romney was not nice and didn’t like to share.

“Romney thinks that the children who have lots of toys should not have to share them with poor kids who don’t have any toys. Obama believes that we should all share. Who do you think should be the president?” I asked Luki. He thought about it for a second and then answered, “Obama. Romney’s mean.” And my mama chest puffed up with pride. Now, every time he hears the name “Romney,” he immediately associates it with the worst possible offender in a 3-year-old’s mind — the kid at playgroup who hogs all the toys for himself.

But, as I’ve thought about it further, I think my actions reeked of indoctrination. If Luki is too young to understand the complex issues at play during this election, it’s not fair for me to dumb them down for him in a somewhat biased way so that he’ll pick the candidate I support. After all, I hurl things at the TV whenever Fox News does the same thing to its viewers.

• Wikipedia

I’ve known it from the beginning. It was maybe our third or fourth date. We were going to a party at his friend’s house, and I casually mentioned in the car, at the beginning of a pretty long drive, that I had a little headache. As soon as we got to the party, he took his friend aside and asked her for a glass of water and an Advil. I hadn’t mentioned it again and I’d given no indication that I was in pain, but he remembered and made it a priority. I immediately felt better, and it had nothing to do with the ibuprofen.

I’ve known it from the beginning — this Tony guy; he’s one of the good ones.

• Tony and our boys.

It’s been a rough couple of nights at the Arreaza household. Luki has a sinus infection that keeps him up at all hours of the night coughing, and Pau has recently figured out how to roll over onto his back, a skill he only likes to practice between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.

Confession: I put baby Pau to sleep on his tummy.