100 KANSAS THINGS I’D LIKE TO DO IN KANSAS PART II *

Since the idea of finishing this list with ANOTHER 50 THINGS I’D LIKE TO DO IN KANSAS is a bit more daunting today, I will make it a bit less so by: **adding things I DON’T WANT to do in Kansas as well as things I DON’T WANT to do but nevertheless know I will be doing and things I KNOW I’ll be doing and am looking forward to. In that way, I think I should be able to finish this list pretty darn easily.

51. I’m pretty sure I forgot to write in the prior list that I want to get a haircut. Gringos tend to cut my un-voluminous hair better than Latinas with their incredible manes.
52. Yet, what I don’t want is a color job. I like my natural color, but know my mother is going to try to persuade me to go blonder.
53. I also don’t want to hear her go on and on about how great my sister’s new highlights look. Hint, hint. You should get some too!
54. I do look forward to the traditional super long chat with my folks the first night upon arrival.
55. I’m also keen on drinking some Molsen, my parents’ favorite beer and the one they bought stock in, hoping to drink their way into riches!
56. I can’t wait to spend my Christmas gift certificates that I didn’t have time to use then.
57. I want to buy some baby stuff for Oliver, like some cool baby toys. Blocks, for sure. Who knows what all I’ll find.
58. Oh, and read Oliver nursery rhymes. I know my mom has a ton of great children’s books.
59. I wouldn’t mind learning a bit how to sew. At least how to hem pants. That would come in handy since Jaime and I are both vertically challenged.
60. I also want to take a writing workshop, if I can find one. Imagine, this blog might be even more enticing to read!
61. Back to shopping, I’m secretly hoping my mother will treat me to something cool from Aspen Traders. A very hip, eclectic store for Wichita.
62. I definitely hope to relax.
63. I hope Oliver learns to sleep through the night!
64. I want to take lots of pictures of Oliver and put them on the net for Jaime to see.
65. I want to call Jaime a lot and let Oliver babble over the phone with him. I know Oliver is going to miss his papa.
66. I want to chat with my Seattle friend and fellow mom Gwen who has her hands full with a toddler.
67. I want to see some cool movies.
68. I want to hang out in the cooler hours of the evening on my parents’ deck.
69. I want to see what the hell it is I have stored in my old bedroom closet.
70. I want to go out with family friend and massage therapist Jan. I wouldn’t mind getting a massage either!
71. I want to read lots of good books from my parents’ library.
72. And I want to read their New Yorkers.
73. I definitely want to read a lot more than baby books!
74. I hope to pick up some books for Jaime too.
75. I do want one book on kids—a child development book. Anybody out there know of a good one?
76. Oh yes, and maybe a book on discipline. I want to be ready when Oliver enters toddlerhood.
77. I hope to do some fun girlie stuff with my mom, like go out for coffee, go shopping, talk gossip, etc.
78. I hope to have lots of good history talks with my dad but avoid politics altogether.
79. I hope to read A People’s History by Howard Zinn, speaking of history and politics.
80. I’d like to visit KIPCOR (Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution) in Newton, and see how I may be able to get involved in peace work when Jaime and I come to Kansas in the near future. Yes, that’s in the plans.
81. I don’t want to listen to too much advice from the parental unit, but I know that will be unavoidable.
82. I almost forgot about my sister Liz’s visit. I am most definitely looking forward to seeing her.
83. I am also looking forward to Liz looking after Oliver. I learned at Christmas that she’s excellent with babies!
84. I hope (but seriously doubt) that I can find a cheap ticket to New York to visit my other sister since she won't be able to come. Sh'es in the middle of a big coast to coast move.
85. I'm looking forward to visiting my grandmother's hometown of Hillsboro.
86. I'd love to play some tennis with my dad.
87. And I want to swim some laps in the pool.
88. I’d like to get in shape, you know, after having a baby and all.
89. I hope to find the energy to do all those crunches that I should be doing now to get back my pre-pregnancy tummy.
90. I hope to have a lot of FREE TIME. Man, I like the sound of that. (It doesn’t sound realistic with a baby on my hands however.)
91. I hope to NOT do another of these long tagging lists.
92. I do hope to try some other sorts of writing exercises.
93. I hope to find Lady Grey Tea somewhere. It’s this incredible tea that I had with some French friends here in Cabo. It’s like Earl Grey but much superior.
94. I do want to drink lots of yummy tea. And fortunately my mom has a cabinet full since she and my dad are coffee drinkers.
95. I’m not keen on waking up for church, but I’m sure my mom will want to show off Oliver. He is cute, so I understand why.
96. I’m not looking forward to the country club either, but at least they have an excellent dessert table selection.
97. I do hope to make a stop in Lawrence to visit Steph and Eric’s new place.
98. And a stop in Topeka to visit Sarah.
99. And I sure hope to see Suze and meet little Daniel while they’re in Kansas.
100. And I am very much hoping Liz and JE can make it all the way up here too.

What a relief. I finished!!

Just say NO!

Today I have a funny baby anecdote for all you baby lovers out there. This actually happened a few weeks ago when Oliver was just 6 months old, but after my “buff baby” post got so much feedback I couldn’t let this funny incident slip by.

If you’ve been reading along, you are starting to get familiar with my everyday life in Cabo San Lucas. A lot of which happens to take place hanging out at the Hangout Café, which is where we were one evening with Oliver when we happened upon one of the Hangout Café employees with her very plump baby girl. Jaime was chatting her up with Oliver, while I was surfing the net and chatting with some other locals at the café. Not much later he had me come over to check out her baby and guess how old she was. In general, I’m very accurate in my assessment of age. I suppose that’s partly because hardly anyone can rightly guess my age. I’ve always been very petite, which sometimes ends up spanning my age from 30-something (my real age is 32) all the way to 18 (on certain stylish days). I’ve even been assumed on occasion by my parents’ friends to be the youngest of the family, even though my “little” sister is eight years younger than me.

Anyway, back to the baby girl. So here I was eyeing this large infant trying to make an accurate guess of her age while at the same time not offending the loving mother. I could tell that she certainly wasn’t much older than Oliver by the way the mother was holding her, but she was twice his size! Then to throw me for another loop, the mother told me that she weighed 15 kilos, equivalent to about 30 lbs, whereas my little Oliver weighed just under 7 kilos. Her weight threw me for a curve. I ended up making a wild guess, “9 meses?” But no! She was 6 months old just like Oliver.

But here’s the funny part, or at least I think so. As Jaime and I tried to be nonchalant about what we felt to be a baby on the road to obesity, we took part in some more fun show-off-your-baby talk. We told her about Oliver’s achievements and she told us how her baby walks all over the place in her walker, says “bye bye” and even “no.” Being a breastfeeding mom and the mother of a “lean baby,” better known on my blog as a “buff baby,” I couldn’t help but ask about what the heck she feeds that large child. She quickly informed us that her baby had never taken to breastfeeding and that she started her on solids at 3 months. Ah, that explains things…

Back at our table, I said to Jaime, “I’m sure that if we fed Oliver that much, he’d be saying “NO” by now too!”

the introvert advantage

What is the introvert advantage, I wondered to myself last night as I sat alone looking out at a beautiful Cabo night full of palm trees. Last night I wondered what I was doing at home alone with a sleeping baby when my husband offered to watch him so that I could go hang out with our young, hip Israeli neighbors. It seemed logical that I should want to be there instead of at home, but I didn’t. The thought of socializing late at night when I was already low on energy put me in a dreadfully sad state.

Then amidst feeling like a complete social incompetent, I remembered my book, The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, given to me by two dear introverted friends. All I needed was to open it up, read a few pages on socializing and once again I felt redeemed as a normal person. For any of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s a wonderful book, and a must read if you think you are introverted or married to one. (Check out the Introvert Advantage website and do the introvert quiz if you’re curious.)

Remembering the first time I read the book makes me laugh inside. Whenever I get really into a new idea, I immerse myself in it and talk about it constantly, as I did with the Introvert Advantage—almost to the point of driving my poor husband crazy. Now I kind of regret how gung ho I was about everything introverted since I have a feeling my dear husband may never read the book and therefore never fully understand my underlying introverted nature. So for those of you with extroverted significant others, try not to repeat my mistake!

The best thing about my new apartment…

Is walking out the front door. Really, I love our place because I can walk out the front door and be right downtown. It’s a real lifesaver for a stay at home mom. Yesterday, for some reason, I started feeling negative. All of a sudden my motherly and wifely duties were more than I could handle. You see, when I get moody, I get melodramatic. Everything was difficult. My mood actually got me annoyed enough with myself that I decided to be happy again today. And it worked. As soon as I walked out the front door with Oliver for a morning stroll, I was feeling good again. We walked half a block to our neighborhood coffee shop where I ran into two locals I know and started up a conversation. I treated myself to a cappuccino, knowing that I needed some morning mojo to get down to business at home cleaning up the mess that I had been dreading since yesterday. Inside, I ran into another friendly local who owns a restaurant in town, and we chatted. Then Oliver and I were off to check our post box. Lo and behold, a happy Mother’s Day card from my mom. The day was off to a good start.

At home Oliver drifted off to sleep like the little darling he is, and I got down and dirty sweeping, mopping, organizing, and washing clothes. By the time Oliver woke up, the house was pretty much in order and the phone rang. It was Sunset, a young local, calling about having lunch together at my place. Sure, I said, I have fish we can prepare. Awesome, I even had company. How fun. How out of the ordinary. Lunch was delicious, and Sunset even cooked the fish. Oliver was a doll. Then in the evening Jaime, Oliver and I took a stroll to the Hangout Café, where I finally got to find out what the deal was with my cake (see prior posts). Well, it turns out that the head cook feels my cake was a bit too small, but is receptive to more cakes. He wanted to pay for it, but I opted for payment in pizza and a glass of a wine instead. Next time I will really impress him and he can pay me for that one!

My Buff Baby

As they write in one of my baby books, “Thin continues to be in—everywhere but in the nursery. Isn’t it the truth! Even though I know deep down that my “lean baby” is just fine, I can’t help wishing he was a bit plumper. Then last night I was further flustered while hanging out with our friend Gaby and her other young, curvaceous, Israeli girlfriends, when one of them remarked that my little sweet pea was “skinny.” Granted English, is not her first language, but heaven forbid! To tell a mother that her baby is skinny! That’s like telling a woman she’s gained weight.

Even though I know I shouldn’t let other people’s baby comments bother me, hers hit on a sore spot since I’ve already been a bit concerned lately about Oliver’s slow interest in solids. However, it turns out that my maternal instincts were right. Oliver is just fine, or at least that was the word from the pediatrician at the public health clinic today. Actually, he’s better than fine! He’s not just a lean baby, Oliver is a buff baby and I’ve got the photo to prove it.

A day without water

It all started the day before yesterday while preparing lunch. I was in the middle of rinsing a salad when the water started to drip rather than pour. Uh-oh. At the same time the laundry machine went on the blink flashing Error number 4. And I hadn’t even put the glaze on my cake for the Hang Out Café.

In my head I knew a no-water-day was coming on, yet how could it be? This was our new downtown apartment that was supposed to make life so much better than it had been at our Miramar house where we were used to taking cold, drippy showers because of the water problem there. Yet when the neighbors realized they had no water either, it sunk in. Oh well, I thought, that’s just what happens sometimes in a Mexican tourist town with abysmal infrastructure surrounded by ocean at the end of a peninsula. It really is like being on an island here sometimes.

But, man, when the water came back yesterday, it was as if the world had been placed properly on it’s axis once again. The first sign was the happy sound of the toilet filling with water. Then I heard my name being called. It was the landlady beaming, “Aimee, ya está el agua.” Then I stepped out onto our small patio with its lovely view of mango and mandarin trees, pushed the start-pause button on the washing machine and in minutes it was singing its song to say that another load of clean clothes was ready to be hung to dry.

That is only my small story of a single day without water, yet much of the world live with far greater water problems than we do in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. In many parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, people have to carry their water from miles away. In many Palestinian villages, they can no longer access water from their own wells because they have been outmaneuvered by the deeper wells of the Israelis. And in Bolivia, their water was actually sold out from under them to multinational corporations in what looks to be a frightening trend to privatize water. So as you are relishing a full force, hot shower or a refreshing glass of water straight from the tap, remember that water is amazing, precious, vital to our existence, and a human right that we are all entitled to.

An exhausting and exhilarating day

We just moved into a new downtown apartment last weekend, yet we still haven’t quite gotten all of our stuff moved in. So today we were over at our old place in the lovely suburb “Miramar,” which roughly translates in English as “you can see the sea.” Ya, right. The only view we ever had of the ocean was from our roof, and even from up there the view wasn’t always clear. Yep, there’s very little that I’ll miss from Miramar, except for our super cool neighbor Carla and her dog Roma, who happens to be exactly the same age as my son Oliver, seven months old.

The exhausting part of the day was actually just getting to Miramar since we had to take the bus. (I’ll save another post for our present car situation). If you think riding the bus is an interesting experience north of the border, you ought to try riding public transport down here in Cabo. For one thing, all of the buses are old U.S. school buses, and the ones that go to Miramar are the tiny, short buses that only have enough room for vertically challenged people like me to stand up in. Yes, all this and more in the glamorous tourist destination of Los Cabos!

The cake baking was the exhilarating part of the day. Yes indeed, I baked a cake, a chocolate bundt cake! I'm on the lookout for ways to make money at home, and it looks like cake baking for local cafes may be a gainful endeavor. Tomorrow will be the test when I deliver the cake to the Hangout Café, a local café where we tend to hangout quite a bit since you can buy one Tazo tea and then sit around for hours surfing the net and even make a free long distance call. Well, wish me luck!

Welcome to my blog!

Tomorrow, May 10, is Mother's Day here in Mexico, so my blog is just in time to celebrate my almost (just short by one day) seven months of mothering. Phew! To add to the excitement of celebrating my first real Mother's Day as a Mother, is my excitement at finally joining the blogging world as a blogger.

You may wonder, why a full-time mother like me is so enthused about blogging. Well, I'll admit that it's mostly for the pure enjoyment of doing something totally for myself. Which is reward enough in its self. But I'm also out here to share ideas, thoughts, information, and perspectives. And to just write for the sake of writing.

A word about comments: if you want to comment on this blog, you have to register as a user. This is just to avoid having spam jam up the comments roll. Registering as a user doesn't mean you have to start a blog of your own; it just means you pick a user name and password and give your email address to blogger.com.