exile to mexico

Dear Pre-Having-Children Self,

I promise that you still exist. You are still the same interesting, vibrant, and yes, sexual human being you were before. Before your reality consisted of so much “pee pee and poopies” and drool and vomit and other such bodily fluids and functions. Before your conversations tended to vaccines and bedtime routines and how many ounces of milk did he drink and what do you want for school lunch tomorrow and you know we don’t color on the walls. Before you spent half your waking and some of your sleeping hours cajoling little ones to sleep, to shower, to brush teeth, and other such horrors that they don’t want to do. Before, when you had the time, energy, and privacy to be intimate with your partner on a very regular basis, in a not-rushed, shit-one-of-them-is-waking-up kind of way.

Seriously, dear pre-child self, life is not over! None of this will last forever. And your essence lasts. You are still you, and there is still excitement, romance, and travel to be had for you. Sure, you gotta pack 10 times as much stuff just to go down the street. Sure, you have to acquire something beyond bread and cheese to eat if you do manage to get out of town. Sure, it takes a bit more imagination now to see yourself and your partner outside of the butt-wiping role. But it’s all within your reach! You are still a cool, awesome, sexy, intriguing human being, somewhere in there!

My two main reasons for being just-as-cool-but-in-very-different-ways-as-before. They are pretty worthwhile reasons, though. And did I mention that I am just as cool as before? Seriously (Convincing self)….

Every 3-6 months or so I remember this, when Conan and I manage to go on a date. I know, I know, THAT IS NOT OFTEN ENOUGH. Regularly scheduled adult time should be on the list of basic human rights. There should be a law about monthly dates for parents- and if you could pull off weekly, then perhaps separation between parents would be reduced by half or more. This is my firm belief, and yet somehow months still pass between grown-up-only outings. There are so many barriers stacked against us- lack of money, lack of trusted babysitting folks who live in town, lack of time and planning, etc. etc. But we’re getting there. It was only a 3 month gap this time, between dates, and I’ve got plans for the future. There will always be barriers (the main two being small creatures named Lucia and Khalil), just like there are always just as many (or more) reasons to be unhappy as there are to be happy. You just have to try to put more weight on the reasons to be happy, and you gotta find ways to get out without the small creatures, no matter what. (“Cheaper to go out than to get a divorce!” I keep reminding us.)

Date night 2 weeks post-partum- feeling subconscious, but it’s a necessity to go out when we can! (We didn’t get a pic from this most recent date.)

So my mother-in-law was in town and about to leave again, and if we didn’t overcome the other barriers it’d be more months before we had a date. Granted, my pre-child self would have laughed at these barriers, scoffed at the idea that they could stop us, but, you know, just because my pre-child self still exists in me doesn’t mean we’re one and the same.

There was lightning just down the way, coming from the mountains, and great thunderous booms that suggested a raging storm coming in. Our car- which has been working only off and on lately- was working a bit, which made it an almost guarantee that it would putter out soon. These were not normal conditions for us to go out on a Sunday evening, but it was now or never, so we took our chances.

We had talked about taking public transport for our date, but with the skies about to open up on us, Conan insisted on taking the car. It died as we were backing out of our “driveway,” but he managed to start it again and it got us out of our neighborhood right as the rain started. Another two minutes down the road it died again and refused to cooperate. But who cares?! We were on a main road already, and did I mention we were childless?! What’s a little summer storm and a busted car in the face of youthful romance?!

el poderoso, our little car, in the dirt driveway Conan made

We jumped out of the car as a bus passed by, and we hopped on. It was only slightly dryer inside since all the windows were still open and rain was pouring in. I watched in awe as the street turned into a river before my eyes. Conan had told me that we were lucky, in a way, that our street is unpaved, because there’s no drainage on the paved roads, so they flood almost immediately. But I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I realized that in the year and a half I’ve lived here, I’ve never been out and about during a really big storm. It doesn’t rain all that much, for one, and I’m usually either at work or at home when it does, since it mostly rains in the evening. I was well overdue for experiencing my town in a good hard rain.

And it was romantic! To sit on a bus together, holding hands, wet and smiling, not worrying about children. We got off the bus where two big roads meet, where we were going to have to walk a few blocks down the road to get to our favorite pizza place. As soon as we got off, we realized our mistake. The street we needed to cross had rain at least a foot deep, maybe more, and had its own strong little current, as if it really were supposed to be a river. The bus was stopped at a light still so Conan asked the driver if he’d take us just across the road. The driver agreed but we couldn’t get all the way back on or we’d set off the sensor that shows how many people boarded the bus. So we rode on the bottom step, with the door open, scrunched in hugging each other tightly around the curve. Adventure and romance for us at last! It would have only been better if we were in some foreign country where we didn’t speak the language. Alas, you can’t have everything.

We’d made it across the river but the spot where the bus delivered us this time had no awning or protection of any form. So we ran, still hand-in-hand, instantly soaked in the pounding rain, towards the shelter of a nearby government building, where it just so happened there were brass instruments blaring and people dancing. We joined the party and danced until our feet were sore.

Okay, that’s a lie- the dancing part. Y’all know Conan doesn’t dance without a couple drinks in him, and it wasn’t our kind of music anyway (Lucia would have loved it, but- marvel of marvels!- she wasn’t with us). I did enjoy the ambience and the excitement of the moment, the exhilaration of something unpredictable happening and being able to just go with it instead of stressing about it being a total disaster. I reveled in the spontaneity and laughed at myself. Because if I had told my 17 year old self, or even my 25 year old self, that I would one day see something so simple as an evening out in the rain as an amazing romantic adventure, I would never, ever have believed it.

But life’s funny like that, so there we were, debating about our next move. We refused to pay a taxi to take us a few blocks down the road, because they’d have to charge us the minimum fee- too much for such a short trip. Conan was already cold and shivering and not excited about getting wetter. I tried to hitch us a ride with a couple cars passing in the right direction, but they didn’t pay any attention. We couldn’t come up with any other options, so we ended up walking through the no-longer-pounding rain.

Nothing else wild or amazing happened. We went with a medium pizza, due to budget constraints, a new kind that Bruno had just started added to the menu. It was fabulous, like all his pizzas, and we had a lovely cappuccino to get the cold wetness out of us. We still had a little bit of money left, so I bought 2 pieces of fancy chocolate at a coffee shop down the street, and we stopped by a newish sushi place to split a cup of their miso soup. Since it was a bit late for public transport, we got a taxi back to our car, which started up by then and managed to take us home. We chatted. We ate. We laughed. It was just a night out for a married couple.

Which is, actually, AMAZING. Revolutionary. Intensely earth-shattering. Okay, maybe it wasn’t really earth-shattering but it was like a recharge on my battery, like putting a deposit into the bank of myself, as my dear friend Meg would say. You can’t make withdrawals all the time and not put anything back in. And especially after all those months of pregnancy, which is its own little constant withdrawal from the bank of self-care, I needed another date!

Maybe I can’t go on outrageous trips to far-away countries and get lost in the streets, drinking wine and making friends with strangers. Maybe I have to dedicate an inordinate amount of time to butt-wiping and nap-time routines. Maybe my body is never going to look like it used to, either. I can still find adventure, can still revel in the not-butt-wiping moments, can still feel sexy. I am still me (I do believe, I do believe, like in that one Peter Pan movie), and nothing lasts forever, so I will enjoy all the kinds of moments (maybe not every moment, though), appreciate all the kinds of adventure that exist, butt-wiping and beyond. I am still cool, and I will appreciate myself and my cool partner! We’re gonna make date night a monthly law.

Imagine: I’m sitting in my office wearing a stretchy tube top with holes cut over the nipples. There’s a knock on my closed and locked door. I sit silently, resisting both the normal urge to say, “Come in!” and the other urge to say “Go away! I’m busy!” Instead I pretend I’m not there, holding my breath, even though the whoop-whoop of the breast pump is much louder than my breathing, and I’m not sure if they can hear the machine out there or not. I feel sheepish and illicit somehow, and frustrated that I might be ignoring some student in need of help. There are no official rules that I know of about pumping while at work. I haven’t asked about it, either, just in case I get any grief.  As far as I know, I’m the only one at work who does it. It’s not what I’d rather be doing, but it’s what I am doing, so that’s that. Everything’s a tradeoff.

I have a love / hate relationship with my breast pump. As I mentioned last week, most people in my state have no idea that breast pumps exist. Considering that, it’s pretty much a miracle that so far I’m pulling off this daunting feat of working full time and feeding Khalil only with breast milk. So on one hand, I’m surprised, pleased, and amazed every day that passes in which I don’t have to buy formula. I’m incredibly grateful to live in this moment in history when the technology exists to do such a crazy thing. I’m even more grateful to have access to these tools (especially my fancy electrical breast pump, which you can’t buy around here) and to have a work life / schedule that allow me to do this.

On the other hand, I despise the fact that I’m a slave to more chores- all this washing bottles and pump parts. I hate the inefficiency of it- all this time to extract and store and reheat when putting the baby to the breast is so wham, bam, thank-you-ma’am. Not to mention that a machine is never gonna get ‘er done like a crying, smiling, hormone-inducing baby. Plus when you are acutely aware of every drop coming (or not coming) out, you get to fret over whether you’re getting enough milk out, as if you needed an extra worry in your life.

baby versus breast pump… or I guess I have to keep both

And it is stressful. My rigged-up hands-free pumping situation helps me get work done while pumping, but all the set-up and clean-up still take some time out of my workday. I suspect I make up for it since I don’t spend nearly the time I used to responding to emails and checking the news on NPR and such, but nonetheless, sometimes I’m just barely caught up on work instead of the “ahead of the game” that I prefer. Okay, I can live with that.

The stress over milk production is something else, though. With Lucia, and before I went back to work with Khalil, I had what you call an “oversupply” of milk- more than even my chubby little baby needs. When I first went back to work I was pumping about 15 ounces or more a day without even blinking. But pumps can’t do exactly what babies can, and my pumping ability has dwindled and dwindled to some days as little as 5 or 6 ounces. I’ve added in an extra morning session, even on the weekends, which I thought was going to be a horrendous burden. But I’ve gotten used to it. I still stress about how much is coming out, whether it’s enough, and I hate knowing that this is only a problem because I can’t just let my baby nurse whenever he wants. I’d still rather be sleeping or exercising instead of pumping first thing in the morning while Khalil’s still asleep. I’d rather be nursing than working and pumping pretty much everytime I pick up the pump. But I’m doing it. I’m pulling it off, and I’m grateful.

Beforehand, going back to work and pumping was terrifying. It was unchartered territory for me, so the dread of all the unknowns was much worse than the reality. When Lucia was a baby, I had the great privilege / misery of not working outside the home until she was over a year old. It was both joyful and abysmal, because changing diapers and cooing and doing housework all day every day was stressful, rewarding and terribly mind numbing all at once for me. But one of the biggest perks was that it made breastfeeding super easy and convenient. Breastfeeding was something I wanted to do and that I enjoyed (at least the whole first year), so it was a pretty big perk. I loved that there was nothing extra to pack when I went out (besides diapers, of course), no bottles to wash. I was lucky to have lots of good help in learning to nurse when Lucia was a newborn, and to have copious amounts of milk for my fat and happy infant. It was semi-bliss.

Except, of course, when I wanted to go out without the baby. Or have more than 2 drinks (yes, 2 alcoholic beverages is acceptable! A lifeline for relaxing!) If I wanted more than an hour’s freedom from baby, I was S.O.L. Lucia would have preferred to starve rather than take a bottle, even of my milk. It was our fault, granted. We’d given her a couple bottles of pumped milk just before leaving the US, which she’d taken just fine at 6 weeks old. But then I wasn’t very motivated to pump after we moved to Mexico (is anyone excited about pumping? I bet not), so we ended up not trying to give her a bottle again until she was several months old, by which point she wasn’t having any of it. Oops.

For the most part, though, I enjoyed that bond with Lucia and wanted the same with Khalil. But going back to work was a must, so here I am. Now I’d like to state for the record that I am not a formula-hater, and certainly not a mama-hater. I breastfeed because I want to and I’m able to, period. I’m not at all interested in judging anybody else’s reasons or decisions about how they feeding their babies.  But because I want to breastfeed and work, I have to accept the tradeoffs. I gotta get intimate with my breast pump several times a day. I gotta spend some at-home time with the pump, too. The plus side is that I can go out without Khalil sometimes, which I couldn’t do with Lucia, and I still haven’t had to buy formula. Like everything about parenting, there’s an upside and a downside, all the damn time. There’s no perfect world or any perfection at all when it comes to this parenting business (and this whole being human business).  So I’ll take my tradeoffs and accept the perfect imperfection of my situation and the wondrous, maddening adventure that is motherhood.

Those petty Mommy Wars don’t exist here in Southern Mexico. I started to write about me going back to work and pumping, but I got sidetracked by my need to explain some background info first. It’s a good news / bad news situation. The good news is that there’s no absurd culture war between moms. The bad news is, I think it’s mostly due to a lack of options.

It’s not that people aren’t judgmental, because of course some people are, but there is a general lack of hating on moms for doing what they have to do for their families. Or I guess I could say that people seem to understand better that the decisions that we make about how we live are often not based 100% on choice, but rather on what needs to happen given the circumstances. Perhaps because people here both perceive and really do have fewer choices in life, it’s not an automatic to be crappy to someone for their life “choices.”

I live in a state where, compared to the U.S., there is an incredibly obvious lack of choice about most things. You don’t have to stand staring bewilderedly at the 20 kinds of rice in my grocery store, because there are probably only two choices, and there are a whole two choices only because rice is a popular food. There are fewer life decisions to make, too, because people don’t have a lot of power in this very poor state, and nobody here grew up being told to pull themselves up by their boot straps. People know that if you were born poor, you will probably be poor your whole life, and so will your kids and their kids. They hope they will be less poor in the future. They hope they’ll be able to provide the basics for their kids, that their kids won’t struggle as hard as them, but they don’t have this inherent idea that everyone can get out of poverty on their own. In general, they don’t have this idea that everyone has limitless choices, either, or even that we should have limitless choices.

So of course this lack of choices applies to moms, for better and for worse. For moms here, mostly you use cloth diapers if you can’t afford disposables. You work outside the home if you have to, and if not you bust your butt at home and possibly earn money in some other unofficial capacity (selling tortillas, sewing on the side, etc.). You take care of your kids the best way you can, possibly along with your mother or mother-in-law helping take care of them, too. There’s pretty much no talk of parenting styles. Some people use baby carriers, which have reached this corner of the world, or they use rebozos, which is the original form of baby carrying, and some use strollers, but it’s more a question of whether your street is paved enough to make a stroller worthwhile than anything else. It’s not about being a better mom than other people. Who has the time and energy for that?

the hands-free, in-the-back style around here…. there’s another in-the-front style around here but you have to use one arm and I couldn’t find a picture of it. this photo is from google, not mine. 

For better or for worse, I live in a state where most people have never even heard of a breast pump, much less seen or owned one. Even in the state capital, Oaxaca City, my nurse friend tells me that moms with babies are in the equivalent of the NICU are given sterilized cups and told to squeeze their milk into there with their hand. That’s it. In my “backwards” state of Kentucky the hospital gives you access to a fancy electric breast pump. Here, in my small but touristy town, you can buy some nicer types of manual breast pumps, but they’re not common- not for working moms and not even for moms whose babies can’t nurse yet. Forget about the easy and convenient electric kind.

So there’s a lack of resources and often information, but there is plenty of support for nursing- much more so than in the U.S. It seems like nearly every mom breastfeeds, at least part-time, at least at some point in their baby’s life. It is so normal that nobody bats an eye at moms whipping out their nipple to feed their baby, in restaurants, while walking down the street, or anywhere else that they damn well please. Female family members help new moms learn how to nurse. Cushy jobs that follow federal guidelines give moms an hour a day off of work for nursing, up until their baby is 6 months old (and yes! I get this benefit!!). Breastfeeding here is totally normal and accepted without the nasty this-is-the-only-right-option attitude that you often find in the U.S., which I think is just a defensive reaction because other people are out attacking and badmouthing breastfeeding moms for doing it in public.

The laid-back situation here might also be related to the fact that a large portion of moms here use formula and breastfeed. None of them seem to have any drama around it, either. It’s not some crazy black and white issue. It’s not even an issue, period. They nurse when it works for them and bottle feed when needed, and nobody goes around shaming or lecturing them for either of those things. It is pretty much a given, due to the lack of breast pumps and pumping information / culture, that moms who have to work are going to give their babies formula, because almost nobody thinks there are any other options.

On one hand I think it stinks that working moms don’t have any options, because I’m sure there are some moms who would prefer to pump rather than give formula. But on the other hand I love that people aren’t trying to make moms feel guilty about doing what they have to do. Just like almost everybody here recognizes that moms who work outside the home do so because that’s what they have to do in their situation. People don’t usually discuss having a job as something they do for self-fulfillment, which means you can’t really give moms a hard time about “selfishly” going back to work after having a baby.

While there is still a much larger percentage of women here than in the U.S. who aren’t part of the official labor force, people here are much less likely to perceive your domestic / working life as a choice. If you were lucky enough to do well in school and be able to finish high school and then go on to college, then of course you work in a professional job if there’s work available for you. If you weren’t lucky enough to finish school, didn’t want to or couldn’t for whatever reason, then you might or might not have steady paid employment if you’re a mom. It depends on the other factors in your household- how many other people have jobs, what other unofficial earning options are available to you, if you are doing all the stay-at-home work for several family members, etc. But nobody seems to be telling stay-at-home moms to get a career. And while there’s some conservative women-belong-at-home attitude that still happens here, most people recognize the economic necessity of working and thus don’t criticize (as long as they still do housework, mind you. I didn’t say things were perfect.)

It’s a different mindset, and while I can’t advocate for people having fewer choices in life, I think the U.S., and mamas everywhere, could learn a lot from being down here. I think people in the U.S. could really stand to contemplate what choices are important (and it ain’t the number of products in the grocery store), and that choices are a luxury that many people don’t have a lot of (yes, including people in the U.S.). I think moms, and by extension families, in the U.S. would be much better off if they put less energy into worrying about each other’s life “choices” and accepted that we all do what needs to be done, based on our circumstances and what’s available to us. If we could quit being so against each other, if we could share information and resources without insisting that our way is better than someone else’s, then maybe we could have all have access to more of the choices that matter in life.

It’s a household revolution! It’s a miracle! Perhaps you call it science, or a basic modern commodity. It’s sometimes discussed as part of human rights. We have it at our house for the first time ever! “We got electricity! Electricity!” Lucia and I ran shouting through the house last night, giggling, jumping up and down, flipping light switches on and off, plugging things in. Thomas Edison was surely smiling in his grave from our delight in his invention. Our house has been equipped with light bulbs for months now, but we hadn’t been able to use them until just now. It is, indeed, rather miraculous, simple science or not.

flipping the switch! oh the novelty!

Joy!! No Sleep because there is “lectricity”

Last November, after being here installed in our light-free home for a year, some politicians came and grandly announced they were bringing electricity to our humble neighborhood. There’s a three block radius where we live where there are houses but there weren’t electric lines yet. Electricity was so close we could see it, but couldn’t have it ourselves. If you’ve never lived without electricity (as I certainly hadn’t beyond a couple weeks of camping), you have no idea how frustrating it is. It affects so many aspects of life. Imagine no washing machines. No refrigerator. No ceiling fans in the land of eternal summer. Not being able to charge a computer or a cell phone. Not being able to use a nebulizer when your kid is sick and not breathing well. Worrying about your expressed breast milk going bad because there’s not much ice left in the cooler today.
So they announced this exciting revolutionary change in our lives, and promised we’d be able to have lights on the Christmas tree. They didn’t tell us in what year that might happen, though. It sure didn’t happen this past Christmas. Work was slow on the project, supposedly because there were three neighborhoods that were getting electric lines. Even if there had been 30 places though, it wouldn’t have been this slow if there were any accountability here.
At the end of November they came and dug some holes, and then nothing else happened until the end of December. They put posts in the holes, and nothing else happened for another six weeks. My birthday came and went. My son was born in March, although he had tried to hold out for the electricity. Now we’ve been sitting here since early April with everything ready, where all they had to do was install meters and flip a switch. It’s the middle of June and there’s still no word on when that might happen, no signs of action. And worst of all, there was no one to protest to, no one to hold accountable. So we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting, getting more bitter and jaded every day. I mean, it’s a waste for the electric company, too! They could be making money off of us for the use of electricity, but no! The senselessness, the absurdity of sitting here with everything set up, still in darkness, is infuriating! Every day I curse this area, and whoever’s responsible for this total oversight, for making us forgotten and powerless.
We do have a connection to someone who works for the electric company. And he’s tried to help us, but hadn’t been able to do anything. Until suddenly, last night, as we were all about to fall asleep- the four of us, plus Paulina and Emmanuel (who’s visiting thanks to the teacher strike letting him out of classes)- I heard Lucia say someone’s name (who won’t be revealed here on the internet, just in case). And ta-da! He was here in the company truck, silently hooking up our electricity. In 10 minutes our entire life changed. All it took was ten minutes, and knowing how to rig things, since he didn’t have the official lever. Instead he used a rock to weight down whatever it is that needs to be weighed down (reminded me of when we used big rocks as brakes on that borrowed car, and I thought, “Sometimes I love this country”). And we invited him and his partner in for some coffee and cake we just happened to have, and none of us slept until way past our bedtime, because who needs to sleep when there’s light!?
And here I am, working on the computer in my very own house, not worrying about whether I’ll be able to write my blog and do an exercise video, because I can plug in the computer when the battery is low. I mean, imagínate! You really can’t imagine. It’s rainy and dark out and my kitchen has a bright light shining overhead. Imagínate! It is so simple, and marvelous and incredible. “Now we all have electricity!” Lucia announced to me this morning, flipping switches all over the place. “Now Abia got electricity, and Nonna got electricity, and we got electricity!”
Unfortunately, our neighbors don’t have electricity yet. There are still loads of people in the world without electricity. Life is still unfair, and the situation around here is still absurd. But I still rejoice that finally, finally we have electricity. It will never, even mean the same to me as it did before.
Our magic electricity is arriving just in time for Lucia’s 3rd birthday tomorrow, and so she probably won’t remember this period of our life. Khalil certainly won’t. I’ll be reminding them, though, of the early part of their lives when we didn’t have electricity. I hope they never again have to live their lives without this basic, fabulous commodity, but I also hope we don’t take it too much for granted. I haven’t decided what all I’ll do to remind myself of how wonderful this is, but remind myself I will. Because it is revolutionary, it is a miracle, every single minute that we have it. Let there be light! Woo hoo!!!!

Everything looks different with light!

Today is election day here in Mexico, and teachers are out in the streets, burning ballots and other voting materials. In Oaxaca City things were the most extreme, and they arrested 88 teachers there, but the protests are happening throughout the state, including here in my little coastal town. It’s all part of the ongoing protest against the new educational reform.

Here’s a photo from El Diario:

And here’s a shot a friend took from here in Puerto:

This time around, teachers have been on strike for over a week, so all public school students are out of classes. It’s predicted that they’ll be out through the end of the school year, which ends next month. I don’t know exactly what affect that will have on their grades, on their education in general, but I am sure that it affects their education in the long and short term, and not in a good way. I am sure that it affects some parents who might be scrambling to find childcare- although it doesn’t affect as many that way as it would in the U.S.

The strikes and protests affect the general public in all kinds of ways, too, of course. For instance, before the elections, the teachers had shut down the airport in Oaxaca City, not letting anyone in. They were also blocking an oil refinery, effectively preventing gasoline from being produced or going out on the market (at least I heard it was a refinery, although later I read they were blocking gas stations). By Thursday we were hearing that there was no gasoline available in Oaxaca City, and by noon there were lines winding their way all through the gas station and out into the street. We filled up our tank and ran out to the grocery store, just in case they blockaded there, too, which is a frequent occurrence. A friend of ours was telling us how one time when the teachers were on strike for over two months, it put so many people out of work with their protests that taxi drivers and all kinds of other workers were all out looking for aluminum cans to sell and other desperate measures. The teachers union in the state of Oaxaca, Section 22 of the National Union of Workers, as it’s called, is serious business.

Unfortunately, it is serious business in more ways than one. As in, it’s big business because the union itself (its leaders) are profitting the most, and the students are not winning much of anything. Normally, I’m a big fan of teachers and unions and thus of any protests they might stage. But the teacher’s union here is more like the mafia than what I’d like to imagine as a union of fabulous people, aka teachers. The teachers get some great benefits, thanks to the union, but they also pretty much have their hands tied by the union. They are obligated to go to protests. Usually they are fined in they don’t participate, and additionally, they get their name at the bottom or the list for other benefits like loans if they don’t have good participation points. From what I’ve heard from teachers, they don’t really have any say in what goes on.

Furthermore, it’s always a bit vague exactly what they’re protesting. Whenever there’s a strike I have to dig and dig on the internet media to find some reason why it’s happening. Apparently the media doesn’t think anybody needs to know, or that we don’t care why- just that there is a strike happening is enough information.

Now, I am not the most informed person on Earth about this by any stretch of the imagination. So I’m just repeating these bits and pieces of info that I’ve picked up, mostly from teachers themselves. (And no, the university I work for doesn’t have a union, and definitely not this union.) I do know that this time around, they are protesting the big Education Reform, which they’ve been protesting on and off since it came out nationally.

The reform wants teachers to be on contract and to be able to get rid of teachers who don’t live up to some basic standards. They want to do away with this union entirely. which normally I’d be against, too. But in this case a total overhaul of the union would be the minimum action possible to make a positive change in education. The reform also proposes to do away with the current system of being able to sell your position when you retire. This current system is a serious problem because you end up with some teachers who have zero training to be teachers. Nobody wants that for their kids’ education. We should be demanding quality teachers who can at least past a standardized test. Are standardized tests a total solution? Of course not. But it’s better than nothing.

Education in Mexico is already some of the worst in the world (it ranked one of the worst 3 out of 50 in this study: http://http://www.ibtimes.com/us-17th-global-education-ranking-finland-south-korea-claim-top-spots-901538) Here in Oaxaca it is worse than in the rest of the country, partly but not exclusively due to the serious poverty in the state. Reform is desperately needed. But the proposed reform doesn’t take into account the circumstances in Oaxaca. It doesn’t take into account the indigenous languages spoken here. It talks about getting a computer for every classroom when many schools don’t even have real classrooms, or other basic, necessary resources. So it certainly has problems, and I would bet that even if it gets put into effect in some way here, it will only help minimally.

So what is the solution? The union is strong enough to make change happen, but so far it hasn’t benefitted education here. If only these strikes and protests would draw the right attention to Oaxaca, would cause enough of a stir to somehow make some real, positive change in the system, to make a change in children’s lives. That would be some seriously good business. Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.

For some further reading in English on this union :

http://http://www.mexicogulfreporter.com/2013/08/oaxaca-education-at-mercy-of-omnipotent.html

Recently I read that the author Isabel Allende, in exile from Chile, began writing what would be her (fabulous) first book as a letter to her Grandfather when she couldn’t be there in his death. Based on this, I would say that good things could come from having family pass away while you’re far away and unable to return. But so far for me it’s really just caused me bureaucracy-induced trauma and paved a nice clear path to this unintentional state of denial.

It’s been over a month, and it still doesn’t feel real that my dad could be dead. I keep reminding myself of anecdotes and personal news tidbits to tell him next time he calls me.  Thinking of what we’re going to do on his next visit. Getting ready to call him on his birthday. Then stopping myself, trying to remember that, no, he’s gone, Julia. And then wondering if I really have to remember now, or if I can put that off till later. Maybe it’ll sink in when I go back home. Maybe not.  It might have helped if I’d been able to go home when it happened. Been there for the memorial service. If I’d even had time to grieve. But it’d also be nice if my dad just wouldn’t have died yet in the first place. I didn’t have much choice on any of those matters, so here we are. In accidental denial.

Granted, there is no murderous dictatorship happening in my country, so my exile isn’t nearly as black and white as Isabel Allende’s. Plus I have slightly more technological access, even here in Southern Oaxaca, than what was available to Allende at the time of her Grandfather’s death. I could’ve gone back to Kentucky if a) my dad had died when I still had plenty of maternity leave (gosh, Death, couldn’t you have checked people’s schedules?); b) I had spent my maternity leave getting paperwork together instead of bonding with my baby and spending time with family, including my dad; and/or c) left my one month old behind. Different reasons, same result: I couldn’t go home. I tried, though. I tried.

My dad passed away at the tail end of my maternity leave. And while I’m sure that my work would have given me a couple more days off, a couple more days was not going to cut it. Because neither Louisville, Kentucky, nor Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, are major hubs of international travel, it typically takes two days of travel to get from one to the other. Which meant even to go home for one day would mean a whole work week off- and who wants to travel four days with a newborn and a little one to be somewhere for one day? But they didn’t really want to give me a week off, anyway, and I couldn’t risk losing my job. It didn’t even have to come down to my job standing in the way, though, because I couldn’t get Khalil’s U.S. passport in time.

All humans travelling to another country need a passport, even at 5 weeks old. We knew this because we’d had to get Lucia’s passport to come to Mexico when she was 7 weeks old. I was hopeful, however, that maybe we’d be able to travel with only Khalil’s Mexican passport, which I knew we could acquire in just one day if we went to Oaxaca City. It seemed possible in the moment.

Conan and I started making phone calls right after I received the news about my dad.  (Okay, I might have opened my stashed-away bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon first, despite it being a bit before noon. We don’t need to discuss that part.) The nice people at Mexican Migración assured us that the Mexican passport folks would surely see us without an appointment, under the circumstances. I had to figure out if we also needed the U.S. passport or not, and if so, how to acquire it immediately. The answers were not coming to our house, not even with the bottle of bourbon nearby.

Conan gathered up our little family and ushered us over to a friend’s house. We spent hours there, with Lucia parked in front of the laptop becoming a zombie from watching so many videos, me parked in front of our friend’s computer screen trying to find information. Conan took care of Khalil except for the eating part (thus I did not drink the amount of bourbon that I wished to drink). I was back and forth with my mom- was this document at her house? What about this thing? I harassed my awesome immigration lawyer friend for free legal advice on Facebook (tacky and shameless, I know, but she was very nice about it). I googled until I was blue in the face. I made phone calls and more phone calls, waiting on hold more than talking. Despite all the effort, I made zero progress on getting to Kentucky that day.

I did get relevant, albeit depressing, information, though. I found out that if we went to the U.S. with only the Mexican passport and not his U.S. passport, they might give my newborn a tourist visa upon arrival, if we got really lucky, or they might turn us around and send us straight back to Mexico. Not a risk I was willing to take. So I talked to the U.S. passport folks some more and got my information there straightened out.

When I explained that my dad had died and I needed to get home in a hurry, the folks at the U.S. consulate in Mexico City agreed to speak with me, although it wasn’t the correct hour of the day for passport questions. “Isn’t there anybody you could leave the baby with for a couple days?” they asked me first. “No,” I told them, without explaining that I was totally unwilling to leave my brand new baby for days on end, both for breastfeeding reasons and for my own emotional needs (being totally unprepared to deal with my dad’s death and not have my husband or baby with me). So then they informed me that yes, I could potentially get Khalil’s passport the same day, but that I would have to go to Mexico City, and that it wasn’t a guarantee. And no, they couldn’t cut corners on any of the extensive requirements for the process.

And extensive might be an understatement. With Lucia, it seemed like a hardship trying to get her passport in time to travel when we were just barely surviving this whole having-a-newborn-baby thing. But that was NOTHING compared to what was expected for Khalil. Before my dad died, I’d pretty much given up on going to the US this year, because every time I looked at the requirements I just felt overwhelmed. Dealing with death on top of it didn’t make it any less overwhelming, but it gave me some grim determination to get it out of the way. The more information I got, however, the more impossible it sounded to make it in time to mourn with everyone else. By day two I resigned myself to just the vague hope of getting to my Kentucky family for my vacation in July of this year.

I had madness to deal with if I wanted my son to go to the U.S. ever. To prove your kid’s right to U.S. citizenship, they want time-stamped photos of you and your partner before and during the pregnancy, and for the time immediately after birth. They want ultrasound pictures. They want the exact dates for every day you’ve been in the United States for every moment of your life (which is problematic if you’ve travelled a lot and don’t remember your exact dates and can’t find your old passport. And don’t they already have that information, anyway? Don’t they have records of who enters the country and when? But I digress.) They need the birth certificate, the hospital record, the marriage certificate, tax forms, vaccine records, and your first born. (Okay, maybe they don’t want to keep your first born.) Here’s a link to the complete list of requirements to prove your child’s citizenship. You might want to read this if you’re a U.S. citizen and you’ve ever considered giving birth abroad, or if you’d just like to have a good laugh, imagining new parents getting all this together in their excessive amounts of spare time.

http://mexico.usembassy.gov/eng/eacs_report_birth_abroad.html

The biggest problem was proving that I was in the US all those years that I was. I had my college transcripts and diplomas here, but that was it. And that might or might not be enough for them. There was no way I was going to Mexico City for the passport, because I didn’t have it together enough to be worth the risk of them maybe not giving me his passport there. And I just didn’t have time to get it together in a day or two. It took me over two hours in the internet café, nursing Khalil, Lucia playing outside the café with Conan, just to fill out and scan the Step 1 paperwork- after doing hours of prep work to be able to fill out the papers in the first place.  I was back and forth to the internet for days on end it seemed, ordering paperwork (to be sent to my mom’s house, where she’d have to send it to me), making appointments. Plus we were getting things together for his Mexican passport, which was nothing compared to the US one, but was still more work. I spent 50 pesos on copies alone, which is impressive since each copy only costs a half a peso. On top of it all, I was parenting an almost-three-year-old, nursing a newborn, pumping milk for my impending return to work, and trying to make sure we slept and ate meals as if life were normal. It was madness. I did everything except grieve, because I didn’t have the time or the energy to feel anything but my grim determination.

We got most of the madness together in the 5 days I had between my dad’s passing and my return to work full time. I went to work that Monday through Friday, and then I got the time off work to go to the appointments in Oaxaca City, which is a seven hour van ride (public transportation) away. A miracle happened and the last of the paperwork I needed from the U.S. got delivered to my work about an hour and a half before our departure for Oaxaca. Both parents and the baby must apply in person, which means Lucia went with us as well. We went up on Saturday night and came back Tuesday night, opting to be in the van all night so at least Lucia wouldn’t suffer that many hours of being on the road.

We spent Monday getting Khalil’s Mexican passport, which we got the same day, and Tuesday applying for the US passport, which I’m still waiting for, hoping it’s in the mail soon. And then back to work, to pumping milk, to having two small kids, to still not having electricity, to struggling to maintain. I still don’t have time to grieve.

So I couldn’t be there for my dad’s memorial service. I missed out on his wake. I missed out on the support from most other people who knew and loved my dad. I’m grieving piecemeal, just a bit at a time. Here and there I remember that my dad won’t be calling me soon. That I can’t tell him about that funny thing Lucia just said, or how big Khalil is getting already. Or I see something my dad gave us this last visit, think about something that happened then, and think, “He can’t be gone. He just gave us this. He was just here.” And then I sigh at myself because part of me knows the truth.

Little moments hurt.  Lucia talked to my stepmom on the phone the other day, and said, “I wanna talk to Paw-Paw.” And I almost broke down right there, but didn’t. At random times she says, “Mommy, when we go to Kentucky, we’re not gonna see Paw-Paw. Just Gamma.” She says it cheerily, because she’s correctly reciting something important I told her. It was the only thing I could think to tell her to try to explain why I was crying all the time those first few days. So she recites what she knows without understanding it. And part of me doesn’t understand it, either. Maybe I won’t until I get to Kentucky. Maybe I won’t even get it all the way then. Because after my visit I’ll come back to my new home, so far from everybody, and I’ll be able to still wait for his phone call. Maybe I’ll just hold on to my long distance denial. Maybe this is the way I’m destined to lose my dad- to suffer his loss little by little, one missed phone call, one lost visit at a time, so my little exiled heart keeps beating like it has to.

My sweet little baby is going to school. And she only sort of speaks the language! But Lucia is an adventurous little soul, and I’m pretty sure I had more nerves about it than she did.
Granted, it’s not officially even preschool, the mandatory schooling which starts at age three (so her official preschool will start this fall). But she has to wear a uniform and everything! She gets to take her backpack, the little purple Dora one we bought her in Oaxaca City the other day (which she settled for since we couldn’t find a nice yellow one in her size like she’d been talking about for weeks). Her backpack only carries her lunch, water bottle, and a toy, but she gets to carry a backpack! (“And Map,” I’m sure she’d correct me. “My backpack’s got map!” she says whenever she compares it to anyone else’s backpack. I just hope she’s as excited about real maps someday.)

Dora backpack, complete with Map.

The thing is, she’s been dreaming about going to school for months now, talking it up all the time. As I mentioned before, ever since she decided to be potty trained (months ago now), she’s been telling us she’s ready for school. Telling us about how she’s gonna go with her yellow backpack, and give Mommy a bye-bye kiss (and she makes a smoochy sound) and give Papi a bye-bye kiss (another smoochy sound). And she’s gonna play with the other kids. And it’s gonna be no Mommy or Papi, just Lucia, and the kids and the teacher. And then the other day we saw the school- the place where I want to send her for real elementary school. And- be still her heart- there’s a playground! With a swing and a slide! I think she almost peed herself when her Papi told her she was gonna go to school there.
Not that I was really planning on sending my kid to a private school, not yet at least. I definitely thought it’d be crazy to pay a bunch of money for preschool, of all things. I mean, the point is to go get socialized, right? How much difference can it make where you go? But there’s no public school before the preschool level. We were going to send her to a daycare down the street and call it school, but when we talked to our neighbors who had sent their kids there for a little while they warned us against it. I thought we would just wait until preschool. It’s only a few more months, after all. But a few months, when you’re not quite three, is FOREVER. And with the brand new baby brother, her amount of time spent outside of our house diminished to almost nil. And- hooray- my mama stepped up to sponsor her so she could go to school right now. So we had to go for it.
But my baby! My nena! She’s not ready! It can’t be! The funny thing is, I didn’t think I’d feel like that at all; I thought I was as ready as she was for her to go to school. Conan and I kept foolishly trying to prep her for it. “And I’m gonna tell the teacher, ‘me pegó’” she told my mom over the phone the day before school. I had to remind her that she doesn’t need to say that someone hit her unless they do actually hit her, which they probably won’t, I tell her. Oooh except they surely will. But I don’t want her to focus on hitting as her expectations for school. But I want her to be prepared. Yikes! What is the right thing to do? I finally decide to quit trying to tell her what it’s going to be like, quit trying to teach her phrases in Spanish that I think she might need. Just breathe and let her make it up. Tell me again about the bye-bye kisses, which is way better than kids hitting her.

It’s hard not to worry that your kid won’t be understand as well as they are at home, especially when their language skills in the teacher’s language aren’t nearly as clear as they are in her other language. Then I remembered that lots of kids who go to school or daycare at this age or younger can’t communicate well in any language. And they get by. They figure it out. They do what they’re supposed to do at school- they learn. And it’s not even like she doesn’t know any Spanish- she just has less vocabulary than she does in English. She can’t yet rattle on nonstop for hours in Spanish. But I’m sure any day now she will be able to. As evidenced by her new obsession in asking me, “What’s Spanish say, red? What’s Spanish say, dog? What’s Spanish say, the dragon is breathing fire?” Meanwhile, she knows how to communicate her most important needs. The rest will come. She’ll be okay.
We tried to over-prep her for this whole no Mommy or Papi at school thing, too. I was worried because she’s never really been anywhere for very long without one of us. And when she’s been in other places without us, it’s almost always been with a grandparent or other person she knows well. And I remember one of my (adult, mother) English students in the U.S. trying to leave her daughter in the preschool classroom that was part of our program. It was a little girl who’d never been to daycare, never had to be away from her mom, and who wailed and screamed and cried and threw herself on the ground and turned blue in the face. But that was that little girl. That’s totally not Lucia. My kid was dying to get away from us!
Her first day of school we hadn’t yet bought her uniform, so she got to pick her own clothes. “What’s Spanish say, tutu?” she asked after she picked it out. (Not a clue about that word in Spanish, by the way.) I packed her a yummy lunch- she agreed to a tuna sandwich, apple, and yogurt. I decided it was worth it to be late to work so Conan and I could drop her off together on her first day, at least fulfilling her expectation of a bye-bye kiss for each of us. We got there at quarter till 9 so she could play on the playground for a bit before class time (although they have recess time outside later anyway). We finished the registration process and passed by the classroom to receive our anticipated kisses. I almost cried on the way to work, although I wasn’t even sure why.

too cool for school!

maybe a wee bit nervous, too.

Conan picked her up a little before the school day was over at 1PM, since he had to get Khalil to me for nursing by the time I got off work at one. Lucia was exhausted, but happy. When Conan asked her what she did at school, she said, “I washed my hands!” As if that were something new and exciting. She did tell me that she played on the swing and the slide. And that she cried. Something about toys and how she wanted to play with it and not the other little girl. The first several days she reported crying and a lack of desire to share the school’s toys, but she was unphased by it. “Do you want to go to school again tomorrow?” I asked her after the first day, and she gave a resounding yes.

ready with her uniform

older and wiser, too

Her second week of school she got sent home with a fever that somehow escaped our attention when we sent her off to school that morning. (Yep, we are already those parents! Sending their kid to school with a fever.) It was some kind of random passing virus, though, so she was back at school by Thursday. Less than two whole weeks in, she’s already a veteran. She’s telling me every day that she didn’t cry. She’s telling me that sometimes she shares the toys. She tells me when a kid hits her- but she doesn’t cry. She remembers a couple of the other kids’ names. She says, “I think the teacher says Spanish and English,” although the teacher says she doesn’t speak English. I suppose that’s a sign that Lucia’s making herself understood, at least. She’s getting out of the house, getting into the routine. Feeling important and big. She’s especially pleased that my work is also a school- a school for grown-ups, I tell her- and “my work is a school, too!” she says. I try to tell her she doesn’t work until she gets a paycheck, but it falls on deaf ears. She’s thrilled that she and her mommy both go to work/school everyday.
I am thrilled for her. I’m so glad she wants to go to school, and is enjoying it. I’m proud of my independent little big-girl. But apparently some part of me is just a little sad that she doesn’t need us all the time anymore, even though I’m equally grateful for that. Some part of me is a little sad that, before I know it, her ability in Spanish is liable to surpass her ability in English. And part of me is not sad or happy, just awed, totally awed, that my little bitty baby is already so big. Part of me just wants to savor this moment more and more and more- but of course it can’t last forever. So I savor it, make a very conscious, strong memory, and let it go. Let Lucia go off to school, to keep growing, to navigate her way, with her little purple backpack and map.

My dad passed away a couple of days after I posted my last blog. I couldn’t go back to Kentucky just yet, for various reasons that I promise to detail in my next post. So I wrote my own little memorial and put it on video. (With no crying! And just so you know, the internet being what it is here, it took about 2 hours of our whole little family at the internet to get this short video uploaded. But it’s the least I could do for my papa.) You can see the video here:

Meanwhile, I have to tell you one more story, because I’ve been lamenting not having space to include more details about his trip to visit me in Chile. The trip was no small feat, and was revolutionary for us both in many ways. So one fine day, my dad accompanied me to my volunteer job- an all-day affair involving multiple kinds of public transport to get to the far outskirts of town. He charmed the sweet but tough-as-nails old ladies who were the unpaid bosses of the organization I was volunteering for. Through my (unpracticed then, rather dubious) interpretation between languages the ladies and my dad discussed inequality and institutionalized discrimination, comparing things in the US to their neighborhood, El Monte. But the best part was taking him to the elementary school for the morning part of my job, where I helped with a couple of English classes. The kids were so impressed that my dad had come all the way from the US to help them with their English! My dad taught them how to pronounce new words in English, and they taught him the same in Spanish. There was lots of cheering and hoorahs after each word, the kids and my dad motivating each other, even when nobody got it exactly right. My dad was in the spotlight, totally unrehearsed, smiling, arms wide in his “look at me; I did it” stance after each word, both humble and proud, cheering the kids on with all his open heart. He was so joyously him in that moment, his love and light shining through.
I am so like my dad in some ways- rebellious, stubborn, a bit outlandish, unabashedly decided about who I am. I dirty up a whole sink-full of dishes to make a really good meal (though I don’t have his knack for making it all come out at the same time). I can’t resist talking to everyone and their mom everywhere I go. And I hope to prove myself as fiercely dedicated to my kids as he did. I hope they’ll love me as fiercely for all my character, my quirks and lovely imperfections, just like I love him. Your memorial continues, papá.

In Mexico, after giving birth, you have a cuarentena, which, while it might sound like a quarantine, is actually just your special 40 days (from the word cuarenta, 40). These 40 days are the amount of time deemed necessary to recover from giving birth and to establish your connection with your new baby. It’s sort of like our 6 weeks in the U.S., except that the only special treatment that you’re guaranteed in your 6 weeks there is that they can’t fire you for missing work (although they’re probably not paying you for it, either).

In Mexico, traditionally, someone (or multiple people- usually your mother-in-law and/or your mother) takes care of all the household work so you don’t have to. For 40 days you are exempt from washing dishes and clothes! You’re not expected to cook! You’re pretty much only expected to sit around and take care of your baby and yourself. For nearly 6 weeks!

So you can imagine how envious I was, how wonderful this sounded to me, as I waded through severe sleep deprivation and the confusion and overwhelming-ness that is first-time motherhood in the U.S. I wanted to cry when people said “sleep when the baby sleeps,” because that was the only time I could get anything done. And what was I getting done? Dishes, cooking, washing clothes, AND a zillion other tasks related to our planned move to Mexico 7 weeks after giving birth. It was total chaos, and I threw myself little pity parties about once a day, even though people tried to help me as much as they could. But people in the U.S. don’t have the kind of lifestyle that allows for taking care of somebody full-time. Conan was lucky to get a whole week off from work. My family did all they could, but they had jobs and other responsibilities. Friends dropped by and tried to help where possible, too, but there was SO MUCH to do. So I muttered to myself about next time, when hopefully I’d be in Mexico and no one would expect me to wash diapers or anything.

Fast forward, and here we are! I gave birth in Mexico! So, did I jump on the gravy train of postpartum life in Mexico? Of course not (go ahead and imagine me palm-slapping my forehead here). And why not? Because I can’t freaking do anything the easy, normal way.

Some of it’s not my fault, though. I mean, I just don’t have a normal life! (Ok, maybe that’s my fault.) When Khalil was born my mom and her partner, Dee, were visiting, and we stayed in a hotel room with them because our house still doesn’t have electricity. Then we moved back into our house after they left, with Conan’s mom Paulina, who had been in town since before the birth. Once we finally got reorganized in our house, my dad and stepmom came down and we schlepped ourselves and our essential stuff back into another rented room with them. Then the place where we were all staying got broken into (a whole different story) and so we moved into a different hotel. Then after they left we moved back into our house (and no, STILL no freaking electricity), this time sans the mother in law. Here are some shots from my not-so-normal life.

This one’s pretty normal! The baby with his papi, shortly after birth.

Khalil with his Nonna, just a couple hours after birth

More grandparent loving, with Gamma and Paw Paw

Lucia swimming with her Abia Paulina at one of the many pools we visited

There wasn’t really a situation to allow for the whole just-you-and-the-baby-in-bed time as is typical here. By day three after birth I was up and about, feeling good after my easy birth, walking down the street to a restaurant and the likes. And anyway, I quickly found out that the cuarentena, for me, is not all it’s cracked up to be. Oh, the disillusionment of reality.

Out and about with our matching wraps. Lucia takes care of her baby, too.

The thing is, all that help during your cuarentena happens not just from sheer niceness (as I had assumed before moving here), but more because it’s part of THE RULES you’re supposed to follow for the well-being of your child, yourself, and any future children (and your ability to handle having future children). And ye who know me know that I have a really hard time following rules unless they have very clear reasons that make sense to me. And many Mexican customs (okay, many customs in any and every country), tragically, don’t meet that criteria for me. I just don’t get it. And there are tons and tons of rules to follow in this whole cuarentena thing! I bet there are hundreds!

The funny thing about customs anywhere, though, is that they are generally based on some kind of empirical evidence, even though it’s not documented and sometimes is taken out of context. I suspect some customs are based on some observed correlation that people assumed to be causation (like there are more colds in Winter so cold weather causes colds- false!). And even if it’s not my thing or doesn’t make sense to me, it seems to work for many people. One of Conan’s aunts swears that following the rules for your 40 days is what makes the difference in your body holding up in the long run. And remember, we’re talking about mamas in the past giving birth maybe 10 times. They needed special care- and a break- for their body and their mind, I’m sure. I couldn’t make it through 10 newborn phases (and 10 toddler phases! Geez!), special care or not! And certainly it does makes sense that getting ample time in the beginning to rest and bond with your baby is good for everyone in the long run. Too bad there are too many other rules involved to make it worth it for me. And, me being me, I’d never actually make it to spend 40 days in bed, even if it sounds nice originally.

So let me tell you about these other rules. Not that everyone follows them to a T, nor that all women stay in bed for 40 days. But most people down here at least follow it to some degree. For instance, you can’t eat pork. Okay, I can certainly live with that. Conan even hypothesized a reason- that pork is more likely than other foods to have yucky bacteria on it and make you sick. True? Hmmm, probably not. And definitely not my experience, since all of my food poisoning cases have been from vegetables or seafood. But I could be talked into this rule. No pork- I’m an ex vegetarian anyway. I’d happily buy this rule, if someone would explain some of the other ones to me. And I know they have reasons, or at least they did once, but maybe no one remembers them anymore.

And if it were just pork you couldn’t eat, it’d be one thing. But your diet is so limited that there are like 10 things you can eat, according to Paulina – queso asado (Mexican grilled cheese) and carne asada (grilled beef) and a handful of other things I can’t remember. And you’re not supposed to drink anything cold! Imagine living in the land of eternal summer, where it’s always 90 degrees and you can’t have ice water. That’s cruelty, from my point of view. (And it rules out ice cream! Double cruelty!)

And then there are the rules I found out via getting scolded by strangers while I was out. You’re not supposed to hold your baby upright until they’re older. The baby’s supposed to be lying down all the time, whether on a surface or in your arms. (Both my kids would only burp in upright position, and they just seem to prefer that position. So there.)

“Where is his hat?” someone asked, worried he would catch a chill in the stifling heat. We were in a covered area, so they weren’t worried about the sun. They were definitely worried about the “cold.”

“You need to wear a tight wrap on your belly” one lady told me, noticing my post-baby belly hanging about loosely. “No, I don’t need to, thanks,” I smiled at her, because, you know, I’m a foreigner. I refrained from saying, “I don’t have to do shit!”

Nor did I yell, “You’re not the boss of me,” when a little old lady told me I needed to stay home in bed for the whole 6 weeks.

Then one of Conan’s family members who I normally get along really well with approached me, worried, trying to cover up the baby some more, insisting that I not be out in the misty, breezy (ish) part of the evening because it would hurt both me and the baby. I should’ve had my head covered, too. Oops.

Luckily, my mother-in-law didn’t really want to follow all the rules when she gave birth, either, so she wasn’t about to try to force it all on me (not that she could have succeeded). Regardless, I’ve become an expert on shrugging off people’s advice-disguised-as-law, thanks to child #1. But the other day I ran into another foreigner with a newborn who’s a first-time mom. “Is everyone telling you to put more clothes on your baby?” she asked, and I remembered how I’d felt when I first moved down here with an infant. I felt like I had to defend myself and my choices all the time, which is super hard when you’re just figuring it out yourself and questioning whether you’re doing it right or not.

“Get used to it,” I told her. I explained that I just smile and nod my head, or tell people, “está bien”- a nice non-committal “ok.” It took me a long time to decide that I didn’t have to defend my parenting, that I didn’t owe anybody an explanation, that I (and their father) get to make the decisions, whether  they’re “wrong” or “right.”

“And,” I told her cheerfully, “remind people that you’re a foreigner! The same rules don’t apply.” She told me she was going back to the U.S., but even so, she’ll need to get used to it. They won’t be telling her to put more clothes on the baby in summertime, but there’ll still be strangers and well-intentioned loved ones sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong all the time. It might even be worse because she won’t get to play the foreigner card.

Meanwhile, my failed cuarentena is coming to a close. Or I guess I could say, my chance at what seemed like the good life of postpartum time is over. I blew it. But I blew it exactly how I wanted to this time. I spent time with people that I love. I’ve done pretty minimal amounts of housework partly from some help and partly from deciding that stuff doesn’t have to get done in a timely manner right now. And I’ve bonded with my baby- more often out and about in town than in bed, but I’m still bonding aplenty, and including my older kid in the mix (instead of sending her off to grandma’s house for weeks! Yikes! Not for me!).  It’s been a pretty great cuarentena.

Out and about, rolling with the punches, enjoying it all

At 5 weeks, Khalil’s rolling with the punches, too.

The best part about this second baby and our cuarentena (aside from me not trying to change countries) is that I know that it’s my special time regardless of how I choose to spend it. And I know how fleeting it is, so I’ve gotta enjoy every moment, sleep deprived or not. Before I know it my sweet infant will be a two-year old, and then instead of strangers trying to boss me around it’ll be my kid, screaming wildly that he wants the other color socks or whatever. Really the strangers are easier to deal with! So, yes, mom, I can see that the grass is always greener on the other side. You tried to tell me. Cheers to me not pining for what I don’t have this time around.