Moving.

Alright, so here goes. I am moving this blog. Figured I better do it now rather than later. I would love it if you follow me over, or update your links. This content will stay here for now, but from now on you can find me here.

Give me time to make it pretty, I am terrible at this whole HTML, tags, blog accessory crap stuff.

you know what?

You know what? I’m sort of ashamed of this blog. I have the chance to make it bigger, to expand. And I am hesitant, because, well it means people in my real world might find out about it. I don’t tell people in real life about this. I wouldn’t say that it is so much that I am ashamed of it. I certainly think it is okay that all of YOU have blogs. I read them, I follow them, I say… my friend from wherever when referring to you. Part of it is that it feels so raw and exposed to have my words available for people I see on a daily basis to read. And part of it is that I never want to have to censor what I say.

I want to talk about the tiny stretch marks on my back barely visible to anyone but me, I want to talk about my vagina, I want to ask you all whether the tiny marks on my legs are varicose veins or spider veins, I want to complain about work, I want to tell you that sometimes my brain spins around so fast I need medication, I want to tell you that I never dreamed I would love my daughter this much, or my husband, and I want to say that for a brief period after my daughter was born I thought WTF WTF WTF WHAT AM I DOINGTHIS THING HAS TO GO WITH ME WHEREVER I GO AND I WANT TO GO GET A FROSTY AND I CANT CAUSE OF THIS THING I WANT MY FROSTY DAMMIT, and I don’t ever want to be judged.

Only two real life people know about this blog.  For some reason I trust those more than the rest.  Maybe it is because I have known one of them longer than anyone else, and the other I have never heard judge anyone else.  Sometimes I will toss up the fact that I write in general conversation.  Say to someone I half trust, who I connect with on some level, and who I doubt will follow through.  I don’t think the latter really counts.

So, here it is.  Do you censor what you say?  If I vow not to change, is it selling out to move this blog for monetary reasons?  Is it selling out to blog for monetary reasons?  Why do you blog?

P.S.  Should I take the leap?

TOTAL FAILURE.

Getting off to work in the morning with Violet requires a change of clothes, her diaper box, bottles, formula, a baby swing, the baby Bjorn, monkey, plastic keys, and Vallium.  I forgot socks.  What is it to you?  Yes, I forgot socks.  Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I can see that my daughter’s feet are bare.  Why, yes, this IS my first baby.

When I get, say, ten questions like that in the morning, oh it makes me feel like a TOTAL FAILURE.  Geez, I’m cranky.  Needless to say I am not back into the swing of things since returning from my trip.  I still have two loads of laundry to do and need to put up all the wires and odds and ends I packed with me FOR NO FREAKING PURPOSE since NOT ONE PIECE WORKED.  Anyway, the swing of things – yes, well, I am not in them.  It seems as though Violet has changed all of her preferences since I have been gone.  She is no longer comforted by being rocked on her tummy, and she is making this weird breathy sound that sounds like she is choking and sends me running from all corners every 832409483 times she does it.  Paranoid much?  Why, yes, I am.  I spent most of the day trying unsuccessfully to comfort my baby.  Then during the meeting I am now forced to take her too, I turned her around and caught her arm in my shirt, causing her to scream out in pain in front of fifteen or more seasoned parents who were probably all jotting down notes to call CPS when our hour commenced.  I am convinced she hates me for leaving her.  HATES ME!  And will harbor resentment until she is 18.  If she doesn’t have her self emancipated first.

***

In other less cranky news, last night we transitioned Violet into her own room.  Since my sister is gone, and not there anymore we had no more excused to keep her in the room in her bassinet with us.  She slept great, completely from 9pm to 7am.  We did not sleep at all.  I can’t believe I am saying this but we missed her.  Instead of enjoying our first night sans baby, you know – ahem, enjoy.  We laid there staring at the ceiling, looking at each other, and feeling awkward.

Why this feels wrong, we need our wriggly squirmy rug rat.

I think AK is hoping I don’t make the baby sleep in her own room tonight, but seeing has WE are the ones with the problem with it, he is just plain out of luck.

Antigua

More coming soon vie Flickr, I promise.

In a tizzy.

Tonight is my last night in beautiful Angtigua, and after spending the evening eating with new friends I am braving the road to Guatemala City and the TWO airplanes and airports back to Phoenix.  So near and yet so far.

I, of course, have the usual bubbles in my stomach about the plane.  I have devised my plan.  Because I always need a plan when I fly, because well, I do.  It is like the ONLY thing I can control, so I cling to it.  When I left my plan was to take out life insurance, order pictures of the baby, write her a letter, buy a new ring to replace my wedding ring for the trip in clase I am obliterated in the air. Yes, I know.

This time my plan is to call and tell my family I love them.  Order some ridiculously fattening food, some ice cream, and spend a fortune in the airport.  Cause, well, I am convinced that I am dying.  I will stuff my face during take off, clinging to my newly purchased item, while holding my breath and choking on my food.  Death by chocking while trying to avoid a plane crash.  Brilliant.  Every other time, I arrive at my destination thoroughly stuffed and upset that now I am going to get heaps pudgier if I don´t run all this crap off.  But, you never know.

It doesn´t help that CNN keeps telling me about that tragic plane crash leaving Madrid.  Seriously, it has me all worked up.  I am trying to avoid the news at all costs and even in Guatemala it is everywhere.

So, I am off to dinner and hoping I get home all in one piece.  Trying to ignore my self induced tizzy.

Oh, and hopefully, HOPEFULLY, OH MY GOD HOPEFULLY, you will all have pictures by tomorrow evening.

flying solo

A very nice merchant, at booth 13 at the artists market, promised me that tomorrow he would bring Violet a woven dress in her size.  Or at least that is what I asked for in my head.  I could have said something like … please oh please oh please oh please bring me half of a disected cow head  dripping n maggots with cheese, yes, cheese and I will pay you 40 quetzales.  He of course said oh yes oh yes oh yes.  Let´s hope it´s the dress.

Last night I got snubbed by another girl here, about my age.  I can´t begin to explain how much it hurt my feelings – certainly more than it should have.  As this is my first time traveling alone since my marriage and the birth of my daughter I have discovered the following truths.

Certain people are turned off by the fact that I am married, and have a child.  Mostly these are people my age, and fellow travelers, and from the US, Canada, Australia, or Europe. 

Being a mother puts me on an entire different level with the inhabitants of the places I visit.  Motherhood is possibly the most binding commonality to share with another.  It is primal.  It is beautiful.  It crosses cultures and continents and can be understood in any language.  When the women here find out I have a child, and they do too, there is an immediate understanding, a look.  Today a woman who I have never seen asked how my baby was.  A Guatemalan woman.  One I might never have met had I not been a mother. Her twelve year old daughter´s name is Luz.

Que German, no?

I just took a salsa class from man with long, shiny hair and musky cologne.  Salsa is certainly not my fortay, but I think I might have made a friend.

Partner: Did you get what he said?

Me: No, but if you wiggle your hips I think that covers it.

I walked the market and purchased a bracelet with a “v” almost identicle to one I almost purchased on Etsy and paid something like negative a dollar for it.  Then turned around and spent almost one dollar american for a canned Coca-Cola Light that says sin calorias on it.  Obviously I know that means it’s calorie free but it still makes me feel guilty drinking it.

After all that I spent twenty minutes trying to email all above to AK, but someone programmed the email/hotmail into German and so I am assuming Afmelden or Bezeet do not mean send because the message was erased.

morning

The best way to really get a feel for a new place is to wake up early and get around during the morning rush. The tourists are still in bed nursing their hangovers, and I am rushing to the bank to grab cash before I have to be at class. The sun is bright and glaring, and on the street corners colorful buses pick up weary passengers and threaten to splash me with the remnants of yesterday´s rainstorm. My sandals make me trip in the rifts of the cobblestone streets, and a wrinkled and very stained looking Guatemalan reaches his hand out to catch me. The people here are warm and wonderful in a way I haven´t encountered yet. As I approach the bank, children in blue and white uniforms rush past me to school their pink and yellow backpacks bouncing as they move, some of them cluthing tightly to their mother´s hands and others racing up the school steps. I get a little twinge just then. Antigua is humid and sticky, and the morning is quilted in a layer of cloud hiding the surrounding volcanoes from my view. My hair begins to curl up from my pony tail. Aside from class, I have no plans for the day. And after the bank I weave my way back to the school through the streets of Antigua watching a world so new to me that is so painfully mundane to those I pass on the streets.

up, up, and away i go

I can’t believe I am actually doing this and for the millionth time WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING.  Guess, that just shows the true ways having a baby changes you.  In a million years, I never dreamed spending a week in La Antigua, Guatemala would be so hard.  I am confident my sister and husband will take fantastic care of my baby, it just feels so, odd to leave her behind.  And as much as I would love to see what is supposed to be a beautiful, warm, and magical part of the world – everything I want is right at home. 

I hate to fly, and whenever I get on a plane my mind drifts to all the things I love most in my world at home.  My husband and daughter, and walking into to find them sound asleep together in our bed, their chests rising and falling in semi-unision.  Violet’s tiny hand wrapped tightly around her Daddy’s finger, his chest bare and scraggly with dark curly hairs that over the past few years have creeped closer to his neckline.  My fluffy irritated cat trying to get comfortable at the foot of the bed, arranging, and rearranging, and arranging again.  Oh, cats.  My sweet Remington heaving a large Weimeraner sigh from the corner.  My world all in a magical bubble.  All I need, right there at home.

And, yet, I will leave tonight, make the two hour drive to the airport, spend four hours at Phoenix SkyHarbor and jet off to Guatemala City via Houston for what is to be my last adventure. I’m resolved. Parenthood will be my adventure from now on. Being a real wife will be my challenge.  It is scary enough, and exciting enough, and feels me with pride and fear and love and a sense of conquer. Everyday.  Until then keep me wrapped in your prayers, so that I can get home. 

Talk to you all soon.

Tantrums.

A young boy at work, maybe four, is having a complete meltdown.  I think it is over cereal, but I’m not sure, because I refuse to leave the office to found out.  Not only that I have put on head phones, because seriously, it is driving me insane.  I am SUPPOSED to be out there helping that poor mother.  I am supposed to tell her to ‘be calm’ and ‘patient’.  I am supposed to be out there diffusing the situation offering up insightful parenting tips and teaching her effective methods.  What a freaking joke.  I am a lucky first time parent in that I received months of training before my daughter was born.  I have worked with hundreds of children from birth to teenagers and have encountered a plethora of behavioural problems.  But, now that I am a mom – all I can do is sit here and think SUCKS TO BE YOU! I could walk out there but I am betting you all I could muster to offer is ‘Yeah, this is really hard.’ I mean, really, most of those parenting methods and ‘plans’ are great in theory, and they work as guidelines, but when your child is wailing IN PUBLIC all that goes out the window and its whatever-works-parenting in full swing. 

Poor lady.  But, if he doesn’t stop I may have to hide in the parking lot