Vaya fin de semana...

What a weekend! I threw a birthday party for my son at home (apparently an oddity these days), I cooked dinner yesterday for my friend S, her husband and his parents, and I finally got my employment authorization card. Which means that, as of today, I can work. Right now if I want to. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I have plenty of ideas. Ideally I would get a free lance job doing translations... But I'm also going to explore the teaching arena. Let's see. But the party was a success, and as I usually like to do I mixed people from different circles, which turn out great. And, surprisingly, parents appreciated the fact that I served alcohol at a toddler's birthday party. Apparently it's not usual. But parents deserve a treat, too. A childless friend said it was a good idea so parents can survive the kid overload...
I'm tired, but quite happy.

22 de abril

How decadent it is to drink Veuve Cliquot in a regular glass, while I smoke, after I had croquetas (one of the humblest foods in Spanish cuisine). Very decadent, I would say. But I don't care, because today it was my son's second birthday. He spent an hour in the morning just opening presents and experiencing each and every one of them. Slooooowlyyyy. We went to swimming class, but keeping the routine didn't work this time. He would have been much happier if we had let him stay home and play with his new toys, mainly trains. He had his chocolate cake, his broccoli pizza (yes, I have a baby who loooooves broccoli, even more than pizza), and had a pretty good day. We are leaving the big party for Saturday, so everyone can come, and we got to enjoy his day alone with him. It wasn't a good day last year. In a way, his birthday for me is also the anniversary of the hardest day in my life, the day he was born. It wasn't a happy birth. Everything went wrong, I didn't get to give birth, and he got a pneumothorax during the C-section that sent him to t he NICU for eight days. What should have been his first happy hours bonding with mom, were spent in a cold room, surrounded by strangers who didn't even know his name, being cured and at the same time attacked by needles, tubes, breathing devices... It was horrible, we couldn't see him for three hours, and we couldn't touch him for four days. Not the kind of start you expect, not the kind of birth you hear about. Most people don't talk about the bad ones. I wish they had. At least we would have been prepared. Today, he is a healthy, strong and happy baby (well, definitely toddler now), and I'm still healing from the whole experience. But I try to make the best out of what I have. And I try to give him the best I have. So he can forget about that day. Because I'm sure that, in some way, he can remember. And I can't forgive myself for that.

A day in the park

Some days I wish I could go back to work, to my PhD, anywhere but where I am. But today I felt really happy to be a stay at home mom. For the first time in weeks it was really niece outside. Nice enough to go out without a sweater (fellow Chicagoans will understand what this means). We went to the park with a friend and her kids, we run into another childless friend at the Post Office, and she joined us. The kids had lots of fun and activity and air (not pure, but air still), and it was so nice that I decided to run home and prepare some food to have a picnic in the park. It was messy (try to feed toddlers in the ground), but great. For the first time since I moved to this neighborhood I had a sense of community. We even run into Little L's swimming class teacher. It was good. The best part? We still have half a sweet nice day to go, and another playdate in the park at five. Now I have two shifts, the morning one with the stay at home moms, and the afternoon one with the working moms. Because I don't believe in wars...

Maybe Spring?

For the third time this year (and the other two took place in February) it's warm in Chicago. By warm I mean we were able to go to the park, we were able to leave our coats hanging in the stroller (most moms were still wearing them, probably not trusting their senses after such a long winter), we were able to have lunch in a patio, watching the trains while my son screamed "choo-chooooooo!!!!!" every time we saw one. Spring may be here. Finally. I can't wait to go back to the park tomorrow. Today, all of a sudden a group of about 40 7 year olds arrived to the park and took the whole place... At first, as moms of toddlers, we tried to remove our kids from their energetic way, in case they got run over... Of course my adventurous baby, who will be two in one week, decided that being around the old kids was more fun, so there he went. I was totally scared until he had a moment of hesitation before climbing up one more step, and one of the big kids held him and got him up. Then he carefully helped him go down the slide. It was a very cute moment that gave me some hope about the future of their generation. At that age they don't think before acting. But if they are still able to be generous and kind, and give you a huge smile in the meantime, we have a better future ahead of us. It was a teaching moment for me. That boy with the big smile taught me many things today.

Mistresses

A couple of weeks ago, while I was going through a really hard patch, I discovered a pretty good British show on BBCAmerica. It's called Mistresses (www.bbc.co.uk/mistresses) and it's broadcast over and over and over again every Friday night. It has probably been compared with Sex and the City, because it's about four professional women in their late thirties/ early forties. But at the same time, it has nothing to do with it. The wit and bravery of the British show make the American one look whimsical and even a little adolescent. I should warn that I love most things British, I'm a britófila, and just the accent turns me on. But I find very amusing to watch four ladies talking about sex and practicing it as freely as they do in the show. No prudity here. No modesty, no fear. They take what they want, they take chances. They seem secure. They don't seem happy, but, does happiness even exist? At least they seem satisfied. Way more satisfied than the average woman I know...

¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, que diría Sabina...

It's April in Chicago. But I can only tell because I see it on the calendar. It snowed two days ago. Badly. It didn't last, but it's cold. Very cold. Hat, gloves and scarf cold. We are done. We want Spring. We want to go to the park, go for walks, play outside, say goodbye to our socks. We want warm, and sun, and birds, and flowers. We want the whole package. We deserve the whole package after a long cold winter.
It's April in Chicago. And I look like a newcomer. As if I hadn't said this the last five Aprils.