So much has happened that...

So much has happened in the three months since my last entry that I am going to just jump in with a random post and hopefully later go back to what we did all summer. I will say that we had a lovely visit with my parents in the US and that M.R. is growing so fast I can't believe it.
School started on Monday so off E went in his cute uniform to his new school. He is in secundo de kinder which in the US is still preschool I think. He cried most of the first day and wanted to know when Milo his friend from his old preschool was going to get there. I had to explain that I am not sure where Milo was going to school this year and I think I just confused him. I feel pretty good about this new school, the ladies in the office were so nice and much more helpful than at his previous school.
With all my free time insert sarcastic laugh here, I have been checking out lots of mexpat blogs and they are all so interesting and addicting. Sometimes I feel very alone here but reading for example, about Leslie Limon sweeping and then double mopping with fabuloso and then all the comments on the post lets me know that there are many people dealing with the same stuff that I am. M.R. keeps me very busy when he goes down for a short nap (occasionally) I love to read as many posts as I can and watch the Real Housewives of New Jersey (that is my embarrassing guilty pleasure). So keep writing everyone, I know that we are all busy but you never know who you are going to touch with an entry.

When Life Gives You Watermelon Rinds, Pickle Them!!

It is watermelon season here in Navojoa. I do like watermelon, what I don't like is giant dripping halves of various melons in my refrigerator leaking on to the shelves and out the door. My husband likes watermelon too but instead of cutting one up and keeping it in a tupperware he chops them in half (leaving a sticky mess on the counter of course) and eats it with a spoon putting the other half in the fridge. And if he happens to get a not so great melon he just leaves the other half in the refrigerator until I magically make it disappear. When I was growing up there was only one way of consuming watermelon that I was familiar with. That was cut up (preferably with hot dogs, potato salad, or chips, etc.). However, here you can eat it cut up, with chile and lime, have it as an agua fresca, or frozen. And I am sure there are more ways of eating it.
Well, when that first giant green oozy mess appeared in my fridge this year I decided that I would have to make my peace with it. Then I remembered Christmas and Thanksgiving. On those holidays there would always be a relish plate on my mom's table and that plate always had pickled watermelon rind. It is a tangy, sweet, texture challenging food. I loved it. So I decided to try my hand at pickling (the refrigerator kind not the canning kind). I even had a giant Ball jar from one of Jose's olive purchases. They turned out great. And it is funny because watermelon is so akin to summer but when I eat a piece of the pickled rind I am transported to November/December. I guess Pollyanna was right, you just have to look for the good in something ;)

Breakfast

This morning while Miguel ate his plumbs and oatmeal and I had coffee I watched a short piece on Breakfast. It was formally titled "Breakfast Special" and it was done by PBS (which I LOVE). It showed us five or six different breakfast joints around the US and talked to the owners, diners, employes, and even some dogs ;). It was an interesting program which showed that people feel basically the same about breakfast and going out for breakfast. It is the beginning or in some cases the end of a person's day, people are very particular and even passionate about their breakfast, and there is a sense of community in going out for breakfast. At the end of the program the narrator asked everyone what their favorite breakfast ever was and where they had it and that got me thinking. Now, I LOVE breakfast I think it is my favorite meal of the day. However, I don't really like to make it and I don't like it much here in Mexico. I am used to American style breakfast and when I got here I was given shrimp, birria, or tacos. Don't get me wrong I love all of those things, well not really the birria ;) but I was not used to having them in the morning. I like pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, waffles, biscuits with gravy, etc. (not all at once mind you). So I started thinking about what my one favorite breakfast had been and where.
This was hard because I have been to many restaurants and worked in a very well known breakfast joint in Long Beach. But I didn't have to think very long before I remembered a breakfast at Patrick's Point one morning when my parents had taken us camping. My Dad got his dutch oven out and fried potatoes, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, onion, and added eggs. It was heaven. When we camped we usually had cereal for breakfast with powdered milk ;) (good but not delicious) But I think this was our last morning and my Dad was cleaning out the ice chest. Come to think of it I am sure there was cheese involved and I don't like cheese but I just loved that concoction that Dad made. I remember everything about that morning, the sunlight, where the tent was, the blackberries, but what is really present in my mind is the tanginess of the tomatoes. I can still taste them. It was much more than just breakfast.

Stolen Moments

I was reading one of Leslie Limon's (motherhoodinmexico.com/) entries about being home alone and not quite knowing what to do with herself and that got me to thinking about how just a few years ago I hated to be alone. I never wanted Jose to go anywhere without me and I would get really sad when Saturday rolled around because I knew that meant that he would be gone ALL day at the ranch. Then Enrique came along and I would have done anything to get just a few hours to myself where I didn't have to be doing housework or taking care of the baby. Although I must say I was very lucky in that Enrique took long naps and slept through the night by 2 months. But being a first time Mom I had no idea what I was doing most of the time and never took people's advice about sleeping when the baby sleeps. To this day I have to stop and tell myself that the laundry, dishes, meal prep. etc. can wait. Stop and lay down, the baby is asleep so you should be too! So now Enrique is in school for 4 hours a day and Jose is at work so when there is that magical moment where the baby is asleep and I do not need a nap I hardly know what to do with myself. I remember being a teenager sleeping the day away, getting up and not having to worry about anything having to do with housework etc only to go out with friends to the movies or get a bite to eat. Now I can not imagine having a day like that and I would feel pretty guilty if one ever rolled around. So I guess the conclusion that I have come to is that I am very thankful to my wonderful parents for giving my brother and I such a nice childhood. Sure, we had to help out around the house and I got more than one pair of shoes thrown away by my Dad for having left them out in the living room. But we did not have adult worries they let us be kids. I should have enjoyed it more but part of the innocence of being a child is not knowing how fleeting childhood is. I am very appreciative of my parents and I can only hope to give my boys the same luxury.

And baby makes four!

Bebe #2 was born on November 7th, 3kilos and I always forget how many cm ;( horrible I know. Labor was quick and uneventful and I was able to make it to 8cm without the epidural but when it was offered at that point I accepted very happily. I think everything went pretty quickly, it all started around 5am and he was born at 12pm so all in all I was very pleased. The Dr. even said I could go home that evening if I wanted to but we decided that spending the night wouldn't hurt. E was very pleased with his little brother especially since the baby brought him Toy Story 3 ;) My Mom couldn't come see us until the next week so we were on our own for 7 days which I was kind of nervous about. However, that first week went by smoothly with lots of help from Jose's relatives and the baby and I were doing fine. When my Mom got here was when everything started to fall apart. The baby cried a lot, I mean more than normal and hardly ever slept and I was having severe pain in my breasts which I thought was normal for breastfeeding. I was reading everywhere that breastfeeding should NEVER hurt but I thought that I was just adjusting or something. Now,I had fought pretty hard to keep formula away from the baby the one thing that was going for me was the pediatrician was on my side but nurses no, certain family members on Jose's side no, so I was not just going to give up. After a frenzied phone call to my Mom's best friend (who is a nurse) we went to my Dr. and he said it was mastitis (just like Mrs. A had said). So off to the pharmacy for antibiotics. Well the pain lasted for a good 2 more weeks and I felt like the baby was just not growing. Mom helped me stick to it and I am sure she now has a stress ulcer but if she had not been here I would have given up for sure. At bebe's 1 month check up he had only grown a few grams which is not good so we had to start supplementing with formula. I was heartbroken that I could not feed my baby and I had let him go hungry. So after mourning the loss of the idea of being the perfect mom I got over myself and decided that it is okay. It is okay for him to have a few bottles a day, it is okay for the dishes to sit in the sink, it is okay for the floor not to be sparkly, it's okay for Fanny to iron Jose's shirts instead of me, it is all okay as long as my two boys are happy and healthy, we can throw in the third boy for good measure ;)