The Month of Mama

For the last month Cupcake and I have had an intense closeness. By this I mean an emotional as well as a physical proximity to one another. It started harmless enough, in the mornings she would call out "Mama? Mama?" The first few mornings I thought, "It is nice to be needed" and I smilingly went to pick her up out of her crib. Then bed time routines evolved to only Mama reading her a story, singing our "Nana Baby" song (a lullaby made up by my Grandma Marcelina) and finally putting her to bed by stroking her face or tracing circles on her chest. Occasionally I would say to my husband, "Oh leave this to the expert." 

This was all well and fine until we went on holidays and four new teeth blossomed. 

Then this loving, cuddly relationship morphed into Mama waking up several times a night to soothe a cranky baby because she didn't want Dada. "NO Dada" was a phrase we heard over and over as she screamed for "MAMA". In order to get some sleep I then started to bring her into our bed to cuddle when she woke up at 5 am and wouldn't settle in her own bed. But what was really getting to me was that during this time by semi-pulled shoulder injury returned and hours of rocking, bending and lifting did not seem as therapeutic for me as they did for her. Then she decided we should relive our breastfeeding closeness and she would sleep lying on top of my chest. I have big boobs but they are not made to support a 26 lb child. Since when did Mama become so cool? I will have to remind her of this during her teenage years, but for now I need to figure out how to get Dada back in the picture so I can get some rest.

This house stinks

This household is having some bad breath issues. As I sit here on my sofa with my loyal dogs by my side I can't escape from this terrible smell. Today I tried, for the first time in a LONG time, to clean their teeth. They didn't mind it so much, I mean to say Lulu the most loving and loyal dog in the world didn't mind it and even tried to lick the poultry flavoured toothpaste out of Oscar's clamped jaws. Oscar, as usual was being his stubborn self and legged it back into the house when I called him to me. There is nothing worse than dog breath. The vet has been called and after I get over the shock of the cost for cleaning both of their teeth -(160 euro) I will ring back straight away to book in an appointment. The things we do for love.

Our Spanish Getaway

You may have been wondering where I have disappeared to. Alicante to be exact! We arrived home yesterday evening totally exhausted. But let's not rush the retelling of the trip...

My in-laws have an apartamento in Rojales, a little village about 25 minutes away from Alicante. We arrived in on Friday evening to the exuberant welcome of two cousins, a Nana we haven't seen for three weeks, an anxious sister-in-law who wanted to hold cupcake the instant we arrived and a nice brother-in-law who happened to swing by the airport on his way down from Valencia to collect us.  We dumped our things and then went downstairs for some well deserved beers. The weather did absolutely nothing to diminish our thirst as it was easily still 33*C or about 90 degrees F.  Thanks to our pseudo-Spanish relations we also enjoyed many different tapas.

Day 2 we ventured to the pool located up in Quesada in a little village complex. To our complete surprise, Cupcake was very unimpressed. Later that afternoon, about 4 we headed out to the beach and again it was not a big hit. Later that evening after a well deserved siesta, I grilled up some spatchcock chickens and some mini chorizo sausages. I also made up a huge plate of grilled veg and a salad with donut peaches, serrano ham, feta cheese and dry rosted almonds. I was most excited to see the donut peaches there as they are probably one of my most anticipated fruits that I have whenever I return home to San Francisco. Their season is incredibly short - just about 4-5 weeks so it is best to fill up while one can. In Spain they are called paraguay - like the country. We asked at the local fruit market why that was the case but our question was just met with a shrug of the shoulders. I must have eaten about 20 of them when we were over there. We got 1 kilo for 1.50 euro!

Day 3 we went to the local market where I attempted to haggle for a very cool South American sweater for Cupcake. I think it is from Peru - it has llamas and a sun and a rain cloud with big blue drops falling out of it. We made the mistake of sleeping too late and then arriving at the market in the mid day sun. It was probably about 100*F and cupcake was miserable. After having a long over-due siesta we ventured to the caves which are traditional domiciles in certain parts of Spain. My in-laws hang out at one that has been turned into a little bar. The owner, Carlos is a sculptor who has a workshop in the cave below. He makes these really interesting welded sculptures that are a little Dali-esque or Surrealist.  Cupcake and the cousins spent a lot of time scrambling around on the carved benches and stone stairs.

Day 4 we headed for the pool and beach again. Cupcake hated the pool leading me to comment how could it be possible that my child was such a wuss. To fully understand my annoyance you need to know that I used to swim competitively for about 7 years and played water polo. Surely that screaming child could not be the product of my buoyant womb! We went to Bar Avenida for menu del dia - a large lunch that is served in several Spanish cafes. For the first course I enjoyed abendigas, turkey meatballs in a chicken broth. My second course was TO DIE FOR grilled lamb and my dessert was a lethal whiskey cake and un cortado. After a little sleep we arrived at the beach this time with a fully awake little girl. We eased her into the water, first by playing in the sand and building a giant hole for her to splash in. Next we sat along the water's edge and let the surf come up just to our legs. She enjoyed throwing handfuls of wet sand into the water as it retreated from us. A breakthrough!

Day 5 was really just packing and buying tons of chorizo and ham to take home. We enjoyed another menu del dia - this time I had grilled swordfish. Cupcake polished off her 3rd ice cream of the trip (was I really the anti-sugar mom?). Then came the trip to the airport. She cried the WHOLE way. I think she is teething, loads of drool had drenched both of us by the time we checked in for our flight. Then came the plane. 2 1/2 hours of screaming. Nothing absolutely nothing could calm her down. It was the flight that every parent dreads. I had a migraine by the time we touched down and I never EVER wanted to see any of those people again I was so mortified. I don't think that the later Spanish hours we maintained helped matters. She was well and truly exhausted, the poor dear.

I am not looking forward to my 12 hour flight to San Fran in August!

Arrivals

I feel like things are finally starting to fall into place for me. On Tuesday I went to Northern Ireland to meet with a gallery. It was a very long day, leaving Dublin on the 9.30 train and returning home at 7. I was tired but I am pretty sure it was from all that thinking. Tomorrow is my fabulous day in Edinburgh. I am really looking forward to it, although I am not looking forward to leaving the house at 5 am and getting home at 11pm.  

In other news it looks like we have a potential molar on the horizon. While changing pepita I noticed a little white bit that seems to be just poking through the gums in the back. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this tooth arrives with little fanfare. 

Another pending arrival I am actually looking forward to is a visit from my younger sister. In 2007 she lived with us for the summer. Unfortunately it wasn't the summer of sisterly love. We realised that as much as we like each other and my clothes, sometimes sisters should NOT live together. She thought I was moody, I thought she was moody and some clothes were stolen in the process. We are also 8 years apart - so when I was rebelling against my parents she was 9. This 3 day visit will be welcome because I will know that I don't have to clean up after her for too long. I am very excited for her to see pepita, she has changed so much our last visit to San Francisco at Christmas.

Attack of the Chompers

It is all very exciting when those first new teeth appear.  My daughter's first teeth appeared at 10 month in early December. I remember talking to a woman in the queue at Tesco about teeth sometime before then. She told me in her culture they believe that the late arrival of teeth signals that the child will have good strong teeth. I thought to myself, cool this might be a good sign! Well this was tested recently. As I peered into my little one's mouth while she was sleeping I nearly had a heart attack. The front right tooth was chipped. Now I have a thing about teeth. As a kid I had a pretty serious overbite - we're not talking Freddy Mercury - but I wore braces for 6 years plus head gear and neck gear (no never to school) and then I had several retainers etc. Well it turns out there was an 'accident' when my husband was minding her but he didn't think anything had happened. It took nearly a month for me to get the hang of nursing with teeth. Now I have a very sharp tooth digging into me. Also she has started to bite a little bit and it seems to be happening more when we are nursing in the mornings. ow! Peering into her mouth yesterday I realized that 5 and 6 are on their way. I really hope this doesn't mean mommy will be experiencing a shark attack anytime soon.