peach therapy

Peach Therapy Make sure you have a very ripe peach on hand. Preferably the soft supermarkert variety that actually has no flavor and turns to mush as you eat it. Or if you have no guilt about wasting perfectly good food, go for a sweet, juicy full-flavor, organic peach. Once anxiety comes over you, let your frustrastions out on your peach. Don´t keep any of it in! Pounce on that peach and literally feel your frustrations melt away as your fingers delve further and further inside. I hope it works for you all! It certainly did for Oliver on Saturday night as he wrestled with major teething pains. The poor little guy just wouldn´t stop fussing until he got his fingers in that peach (which happened to be the one his abuela was about to eat! Good thing she was happy too that it calmed him down). Oliver has been going through some major teething pain since Saturday. I had no idea that teething could be such a fiasco. Saturday he started getting whiney and then all day Sunday and Monday he had a fever and wouldn´t do anything but lay in my arms, poor thing. And poor me, it´s a lot of work carrying around an 11 month old baby all day! When his fever reached 39.9 celius (almost 104 F), I started to think something more than his teeth was involved, but so far it appears he's just teething. My mother-in-law's homeopathic doc prescribed him Belladona; I don't really know what it is, but it worked to get his fever under control and get him to be more back to his normal self, although he's still more whiney that normal. I think the cause is still teething because I can see the little teeth almost breaking through the flesh....ouch! However, today I'm going to take him to a "real doc," a pediatrician, just to have him totally checked over. By the way, good news, Jaime arrived last night from Cabo. He succesfully sold our car and sent our belongings which should be arriving soon. Today we will move into his uncle's apartment--our new home for now.

Oliver never ceases to amaze me...

First of all, I want to apologize in advance for what will most likely be a week of strange-looking posts since I haven´t yet totally figured out my mother-in-law´s computer. Once Jaime, my technological guru, arrives, things should be looking normal again. Not long before I left for Guadalajara, Jaime and I had a conversation about being amazed and how it can become a rare experience for some of us once we become important know-it-all adults. Jaime remembered one of his professors when he was studying visual arts, tell them on their first day of class that they should never let themselves lose their ability to be amazed. Wow. That´s what I say. I wish more of my professors would have amazed me like that on the first day of class. I most definitely agree with his professor, and I can happily say here that since becoming a mom, my son Oliver never ceases to amaze me. It´s a sort of amazement that I´ve never experienced in my life until Oliver. I was certainly amazed by things before, especially as a child, but being a parent, and becoming one, has been the ultimate experience in my life so far. And now for a quote... This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected - in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life. --Thomas Mann For some reason I can´t get back on the left-hand margin!!! So I´ll continue floating out here in the middle. Damn, I miss our computer! And now for a few recent things that Oliver has amazed me with. The first is how happy and relaxed he is to be once again surrounded by family, back in Guadalajara, the city where he was born. Since arriving, he amazed not just me, but my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law by falling asleep in their arms. What a little sweetie! And then he amazed me yesterday afternoon by falling asleep in my arms while bouncing on my lap listening to cumbias as I surfed the net! Yes, multi-tasking again! I was happily reminded of when he was a tiny newborn and would fall fast asleep in the noisiest of restaurants. So today instead of doing my traditional nap routine of either taking him for a walk or nursing him to sleep, I did the same except this time I used the French accordian music that Lupita, Oliver and I had danced around the house to this morning. And it worked like a charm! I think this child has music in his bones. That´s only the tip of the iceburg, but since Oliver is asleep and I´m dying of hunger....I better get to cooking my lunch. I´ll just leave you with another quote to ponder: Amazement awaits us at every corner. --James Broughton

Mio! Mio! Mio!

Those are the words I´ve heard most often since we were picked up at the Guadalajara airport yesterday by my suegra (mother-in-law) Lupita, my cuñada (sister-in-law) Elena and Oliver`s only cousin, Issac of two years and three months. They were just here for the weekend from Queretaro, and left today less than an hour ago, but the word mio, mine, is still imprinted in my mind. Isaac is a wonderful child, but very strong-willed. He´s been that way since birth, so I´m told. Just this weekend, Lupita was telling me that right after he was born he grabbed onto his dad Julio´s finger and wouldn´t let go. Even in the nursery, all the attendants told the parents that he was corajudo,an angry-tempered little baby. He´s lucky to have a patient mom like Elena. Even though Oliver has an entirely different temperament, I'm still bracing myself for the upcoming terrible twos. The other constant word out of Isaac´s mouth is NO. I know that it´s all part of natural child development to be self-centered and to throw tantrums, but seeing it and knowing your child will pass through it soon is another thing! Oliver just started throwing what I would describe as mini-tantrums last week. Now when something is taken away from him or if he developmentally just can´t do something that he wants to do, he has started to throw up his arms and arch his back and scream. Sometimes it feels like he might fly out of my arms when I´m holding him. Last week at the immigration office while waiting hours to get my papers ready for Guadalajara, he started to do the arching thing and I actually made it into a game! The Cabo immigration office has a really groovy ceiling with square shaped sun lights that Oliver was so happy to look at that he forgot he was throwing a fit. Lucky us. So far I either distract him with a fun game, like the ceiling game, try to not let him get his hands on forbidden items, or exchange the items for another desirable item quickly and slyly. This is working well so far, but I´m sure he´ll out-smart me soon!

Procrastination at its best

It's Thursday evening and I should continue packing for our big move to Guadalajara, but I'm opting to post a few adorable photos of Oliver instead. And after all my talk about not leaving on Mexico's Independence Day, we ended up purchasing a ticket for the 16th afterall since it was too cheap to pass up!

Oliver enjoying mealtime...

Oliver practicing to work as dad's photo assistant

Oliver reading

A bit on Mexican Politics

First, I'd like to qualify this political entry by saying that I am in no means an expert in politics. And actually, I don't even read the news that often. I find it depressing. But anyhow, here I go.

If you are familiar with Mexican history, you'll agree that it's very violent. Mexican Independence from the Spanish was back in 1810. And then the Mexican Revolution, which lasted 10 years, was waged 100 years later in 1910. In between Independence and the very long Revolution, were more wars than I care to attempt to list and explain here, but just to name a few: the Mexican-American War (known here as "La Intervención Estadunidense") in which Mexico "ceded" California and New Mexico to the US, and the Mexican-French War also called the "Guerra de los pasteles" which was started by some angry Frenchmen because a few officials under President Santa Anna hadn´t paid for their cake! And then there was "La Guerra de la Reforma," yep even a war over reforming the government.

Since the Mexican Revolution, the country has been peaceful, for the most part. But as of late things seem to be heating up around here. The Zapatistas, in Chiapas, are still unsatisfied with the government's meager attempts to meet their demands. That conflict started back in 1994. Also, at the beginning of the year, there was a mining explosion that trapped and killed 65 miners in the north of Mexico, and as of now the miners are still on strike. Also there are ongoing protests in Texcoco, to the south of Mexico City, where the government had planned to build an airport back in 2002. In May of this year, a person was killed during a confrontation between police and campesinos yielding machetes trying to protect their land from being taken over to build the airport. And then in August, teachers began protesting in the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Those protests are still going on. So basically, you can get the picture: there's a lot of political unrest.

And on top of all that is this year's hotly contended Presidential elections. I'm sure you've all read about the July elections in which the conservative PAN candidate, Felipe Calderon, won by a tiny margin 240,000 some votes (by less than 1%) over the leftist PRD candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Of course, the real big thing in the news is that Lopez Obrador says the elections were rigged and is still demanding a recount. Right now he's got thousands of "his people" camping out in the zocalo, the main square in Mexico City, and has even more people camping out in the middle of Avenida de la Reforma, a huge avenue in the heart of the capital. And as I mentioned in my last post, the day we are all waiting for is September the 16th, Mexico's Independence Day--the day of the annual military parade through the zocalo. The question on everyone's mind is "how will the military, under charge of the new President Calderon, react to the protesters camped out in the exact path where the parade usually takes place?" The other question on our minds is what will Lopez Obrador do next? How far can he pull this off? What's his plan? Supposedly, he is going to hold an assembly on the 16th with those present to decide what his next step is to take his rightful post as President.

The general feeling in the air is not one of stability. That's how I would put it. And on top of that the country feels more divided to me than it has been during my short love affair with Mexico which goes back to 1994 when I came on the Bethel Mexico Internship Program. The rich, upper middle class, and middle class are for Calderon. And the poor are for Lopez Obrador. The North of the country is wealthier and thus is for almost entirely for the conservative PAN candidate. And the southern part of the country is where the poorest section of the population is concentrated, support the leftist PRD candidate. So even though, Calderon won, things are very unsettled. And Lopez Obrador, as the news says, seems to be the winner on the streets with Mexico's poor majority.

Hats off to Hurricane John

First, apologies for not posting in quite awhile. And thanks, Liz, for calling me back to the blogging world. It feels good to know people are reading along...

Cabo is still here, and so are we, for those of you who heard about Hurricane John. I was planning to post on Sept 1 about the hurricane; the draft that´s still sitting there along with all my other finished posts was titled, "Waiting for a Hurricane." I never ended up finishing that post. And fortunately, after lots of waiting, hanging out, taping of windows, and buying up of food, water, and candles, Hurricane John took a turn towards La Paz and didn't even show up in Cabo. All he left in his wake were strom clouds and days of rain. So for now the town alternates between cool, rainy days in which the main streets of the town are transformed into rivers of "agua negra." Then the rainy days are followed by cloudy humid days, and then by unbearably hot, sunny, humid days in which I don't even leave the house as the whole town turns into a literal dust bowl.

But really, despite the crappy weather, life hasn't gotten this good for me in Cabo for quite some time. And I give credit to Hurricane John. Hats off to you, John. You see, if it hadn't been for his predicted arrival, I surely would have put off cleaning the house, which I ended up doing out of fear of not having running water for days. And if it hadn't been for good ol' John, I wouldn't have made cookies to weather the storm that we shared with our friends and neighbors. (It's amazing how people materialize when the smell of sweet baked goods is in the air.) And if it hadn't been for Hurricane John, we wouldn't have made the fun pre-storm shopping trip to Aramburo with Paco to buy up water, fruit, canned foods, candles and more cookies, of course. The same trip of the famous Oliver photo shoot in the shopping cart. And the same trip in which we all drank coffees near the downtown supermarket sliding doors as we enjoyed looking out into the rain and the oncoming storm.

And if it hadn't been for Hurricane John, we may not have spent quite so much time hanging out with our really cool neighbors, that consequently, I am really going to miss. There are three small apartments in our mini "apartment complex." Our apartment is the family apartment, and the other two are inhabited by young couples, one couple is Mexican--they're from Mazatlan, and the other couple is Israeli--they're both from a small village near Tel Aviv. It wasn't long before the supposed Hurricane that I had a good chat with the two women, Ana and Karen. And then after the storm, I've chatted a lot more with Karen. She's a really neat person. And oh, how I have missed having good conversations with women friends. There's nothing like it, yet somehow, I have such a damn hard time finding new women that I can be comfortable with and open up to. But, I feel so at ease with Karen. The conversation just flows. I see such major friend potential in Karen that it makes me sad to leave.

Oh, yes.

That brings me to something else... I suppose this is why I should post more often!!

We are moving back to Guadalajara!! SURPRISE. We will head to Guadalajara by the 15th at the latest. The 16th is independence day, and things are a bit crazy in Mexico with the PRD planning a big protest in Mexico City the same day as the annual independence military parade. Sound like a recipe for violence? (I'll try to post more on Mexican politcs later... Or better, yet, are you all interested in a post on Mexican politics?) Well anyway, Jaime mentioned the idea of moving back to Guadalajara while I was still visiting the folks in Kansas, and I liked it, so we're doing it! Moving that is. It will most likely take another six months or more till he can come to the states, so we decided to make the most of Oliver's babyhood by sharing these precious moments with Jaime's family. Plus we've got a rent-free 3 bedroom apartment waiting for us at his uncle's. Plus Jaime's got photography connections and a possible photo shoot lined up, and I am planning to go back to teaching at my old school. So, there's a lot a cookin' in the oven, so to speak. Another reason, I haven't posted. I have been extremely busy tying up loose ends, organizing our stuff, trying to do a little day by day so as to hopefully not stress out as departure day nears.

Phew! That was a long post. Hopefully, you'll hear more from me soon, but if you don't, you'll know that I am really busy until we arrive in Guadalajara.