"Her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them"

There is a scene in the 1995 Ang Lee version of Sense and Sensibility, right after Willoughby announces that he's leaving Devonshire for London (instead of proposing to Marianne, as she and everyone else expected him to do that morning), in which Elinor quite uncharacteristically takes a seat on the staircase and has a cup of tea, whilst still wearing her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves.

She hasn't lost her senses (ha!), but is instead acting out the most practical and pragmatic thing to do under the circumstances. Having returned from church expecting to congratulate their sister, the Dashwood women are surprised and confused by the stormy scene they interrupt, and are left unable to seek answers to their many questions. Elinor tries to ask, and then tries to persuade their mother to ask, but she gets nowhere. Marianne has locked herself in their shared bedroom to weep. Their younger sister, Margaret, tries to deliver a comforting cup of tea to the heartbroken Marianne, and then runs tearfully into her own room in response to being brusquely rejected. Even Mrs Dashwood eventually storms off the landing into a third room with a tremor in her voice and a tremble in her lip, after Elinor suggests that Willoughby has taken his leave in rather a "guilty" manner. Left with a superfluous cup of tea and no room in which to retire, Elinor chooses to sit on a step and meditate, sipping as calmly as possible, whilst the rest of the house echoes with sobs.

That moment resonates with me.

Elinor has always seemed to me a kindred spirit, but it is the visual metaphor that Lee uses here that I find so relatable. Three closed doors, one stark, grey hallway/landing, two staircases whose termination points are offscreen. Elinor, looking drab in her burnt umber outdoor clothes, with her face mostly obscured by her bonnet as she glances at each door and then down at that bright blue cup, making an imperceptible yet entirely rational decision to sink wearily onto the stair and drink the tea, lest it go to waste. With nothing more to be done, she sighs to herself and waits for the tempest of emotions around her to subside.

I suppose "sense will always have attractions for me" (I'd have married the well-bred, well-read, well-traveled and sensible Colonel Brandon in a heartbeat!), but much of the life of a mother and wife entails dealing with nonsense. Oh, sometimes it is nonsense of the best kind, like when my son plays with language and creates his own words ("I want to go unbehind you down the stairs!") or when my daughter insists on doing everything herself, from brushing her teeth to putting on her shoes, so that it takes two or three times longer and usually has to be redone correctly, but gives her a sense of pride and independence in the process. But lots of other times, it is the irritating nonsense of the two of them fighting over absolutely nothing; just shouting yes and no at each other in the back seat of the car. Or the mundane nonsense of having to pay extra on the water bill because we let them play outside in the garden and didn't realise for about half an hour that they had discovered and turned on the spigot. Or the unending nonsense of the laundry, which is always in progress and never completed, ever. 

Children are, of course, unable to regulate their emotions, so we have frequent tantrums and overtired rants and toy-hurlings and stampings and screamings. My husband is unable to deal with excessive noise (something called misophonia, with which he has self-diagnosed), so he tends to go into panic mode or rage mode quite quickly when the children do what children do. Which means that I am frequently the only person keeping her head in the midst of the chaos. I choose not to let the chaos in, and there are times when I calmly pick up a book or pour a cup of tea and just wait out the storm. Like many highly-emotional people, my husband finds this infuriating. (My mother and sister always did, too, and they still see me as cold, hard-hearted, and judgmental.) But I just see it as sensible.

At those moments, the world around me becomes monochrome, and the item in my hands becomes my entire focus--especially if it is a good book, into which I can literally escape and find respite. Like Elinor, I let my physical self melt into the mundane, detached from tedious clamour and insipid routine, whilst my cerulean soul flies freely about its harmonious inner space.

For a person of deep feeling and quick temper, this is the only reliable method for maintaining an even keel on the roughest waters, regardless of how shocking it may appear to the uninformed onlooker. 

Sleep Training My One Year Old, Part 2: Results

So, how did it go, after all?

Well, that depends on your expectations. I consider it at least a partial success, as the baby can now be placed in his crib around 7 p.m. and will only fuss or cry a few minutes at most, and sometimes not at all. Last night he called "Mama" once or twice, and then did a little babbling to himself before falling asleep.

So he can fall asleep on his own, but staying asleep doesn't always happen. Last night, for instance, he woke at 12:50 and joined me in bed, snuggling on my chest. Then he woke again around 3, and wouldn't stop crying till I held him on my chest again. But when he decided he wanted to change position and squirmed off of me, he cried again until I picked him back up. This followed a night in which he slept from 7:30 to 6:50 a.m., uninterrupted. Little weirdo.

Below is the play-by-play of the first week of training, for anyone going through the same thing and wondering if it will ever get better. I generally wrote the notes in the morning before work, updating them later when my husband gave me his wake-up times. We started on a Tuesday evening, so most of these were work-days...which, in retrospect, might not have been the best idea, especially because I was not in control of his daytime naps on those days and was not sure how well-rested he would be. But again, with a baby, you do what you have to whenever you manage to do it.

Night 1: Cried standing up for 40 mins while I sat on the bed wearing earplugs and feeling like a torturer. I lay down to show him what to do, but he was stubbornly standing even when he started to fall asleep. He just rested his head on the side of the crib and continued to stand there, whimpering and occasionally outright crying at me. Eventually, I stood up and laid him down and rubbed his back as he snuffled and snivelled to sleep just before 8 pm. He woke at 3 am and was impossible to settle without a little bit of breast. He fell asleep again around 5 and slept till my husband woke him around 7 because he had to leave for university.

Night 2: Cried for two full hours, one with me sitting next to him, then another hour with his father cajoling and wheedling and eventually lying on the floor next to him. Fell asleep just after 9 pm. Woke at 3:40 and was again inconsolable without a little suckle, but only for a minute or so. Then kicked and tossed till I got up at 5, then fussed some more till his dad put him to sleep again around 5:30. Slept till 8:20. 

Night 3: Very sleepy while eating dinner and being bathed, so we tried to put him down a bit before 7. Clung a bit as we went toward crib. Stayed lying down when I put him there, but crying loudly and miserably. Eventually stood up to reach for me, but I lay on the bed and kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. After a while, he lay himself down again and cried and whimpered for a total of 22 mins. Then fell asleep by 7:13. He woke at 11:30, came to bed but didn’t get a boob, and eventually fell asleep again till he was woken by Maurizio, who had to leave for work by 7:40.

Night 4:
I was alone with him in the evening, so we were relaxed. We chatted to my family, climbed the stairs a few times, took a bath, snuggled on the sofa listening to Christmas music, and then headed to bed around 6:55. He clung again as I neared the crib, but when I laid him down he didn’t get up, just lay there crying. And the crying only lasted about 8 minutes, at which point I tried to come over and check to see if he had kicked off his blankets, but he must have heard/felt me, because he immediately woke up and stood up, so I jumped back into my own bed and hid under the covers while he whimpered and re-settled himself, and then went back to sleep. I didn’t dare to move, so I dozed there for about 20 minutes till I heard Maurizio come home, and assumed it was probably safe. We went downstairs and ate dinner and watched some TV, and the baby woke at 9:40 and was crying to be picked up, and we discovered he had a poo, so we cleaned him and creamed his red bum, and then I brought him into bed and snuggled him (refusing all insistent requests for breast) till he fell asleep again. He woke in the early hours (maybe 4:30? I didn’t check this time) and kicked around for an hour, then resettled around 6, but at that point my back was hurting and I had to tinkle, so I got up at 6:20 and slipped out of the room. He was stirring again by 6:50 and up by 7.

Night 5:
Saturday, and we had gone to a Thanksgiving dinner in the north of the city, so we didn’t get him home till about 8 p.m., and he had just fallen asleep in the car when we arrived. I simply removed his sweater and shoes and put him to bed by 8:17. He barely even protested, just a whimper or two. He woke at 4:15 and came to our bed, looking for breast and very upset when he didn’t get it. I almost gave in, because he hadn’t eaten much by way of dinner and I thought he was hungry, but Maurizio told me to stay strong and resist, so I did, and eventually (after an hour or so of kicking), he fell back to sleep. But we had to be up by 5:30 to go to the lake, and I had to wake him at 6:40 to get him dressed.

Night 6:
I put him in his crib at 7:21, and he stood up and cried at me for a few minutes, but as I got into bed and stayed there, he eventually lay back down and went to sleep. Was out before 7:30, and stayed there all night! Was still sleeping in his own bed when I left just after 6 a.m., and husband says he woke a little before 7.

Night 7:
His nap was interrupted earlier in the day, so he was really tired, and husband thought we should try to put him down early. I was skeptical, but gave in and tried to put him down around 6:35. He clung to me as I put him down and then cried for 5 minutes and went to sleep, but when I checked on him, he was in a really uncomfortable-looking twisted position. So I tried gently to adjust him, and his little head popped up and he saw me. I retreated hastily to the bed to show him what to do, but he was standing now, and he cried for a good 10 more minutes before lying back down and snuffling to sleep just before 7 pm. Poor baby. And then he woke at 1:52 a.m. and joined us in bed, but very sweetly clung to my chest for the first half-hour or so before rolling away. And he woke again around 3:30 or 4 to moan and flop and kick and readjust for a while, but then slept till 7.

Night 8:
He went down at 7:20 and cried for only 3 minutes. He moaned a little around 4, and readjusted quite a few times, but stayed put. Then he woke at 6 or so when my husband got up to tinkle. (I, of course, had tinkled at 4, but in the other bathroom, moving like a ninja to slip past the crib and out the door!)  

Reflection:
After a week of this training, the baby does appear to be regularly going to sleep on his own, which is a big win for me, and if we manage to get another night or two where he doesn’t wake up and join us, I will consider the whole process a success. It has been emotionally painful, but I think we were all ready to have this happen. The hardest part is realising how much I am going to miss his little snuggles in the middle of the night. And, because we have weaned down to one breastfeed a day (and there isn’t much left for him at this point, anyway), I am starting to miss being able to use the power of the breast to calm and soothe him. He has entered a tantrum stage, and all I can do now is ignore, distract, or carry him till they stop. I knew this day would come, but like all steps in his growth out of babyhood, it is making me nostalgic and weepy. Nevertheless, we are on our way to being a Big Boy and a Less Tired Mommy, so hopefully everyone will adjust and enjoy the new stage.

Sleep Training My One Year Old, Part 1: The Buildup

Thomas, like many babies, is wide awake when he should be a sleeping train...

My husband and I have recently implemented some sleep training with our little boy, who is just about one year and two months old. In the run-up to said implementation, I did some reading and some thinking and some writing about what I expected to happen. Here are those notes, which will be followed by a Part II in which I comment on the success of the training:

Sleep training. 

Who invented the term? It sounds innocuous, like potty training or puppy training—and like both of those, is much more difficult and complicated and frustrating than you might expect. Google N-gram (a super-fun tool for word nerds like me) says that the phrase only started to appear in books around 1920, but its use has exploded in the 2000s.

This age of internet experts and mom shaming and myriad platforms for passing on advice has resulted in sleep training becoming standard practice, as established as breastfeeding and vaccinating (yes, I say that with full awareness of the potential irony). Naturally, when I became a mother, I started to read nearly everything the web had to offer on these topics and others. My Google search history for those early months must be hilarious. (Just checked…it includes such gems as “screaming during diaper changes,” “really sore nipples,” “baby wants to suck constantly,” ‘baby still hungry after nursing,” and “how to help your baby poop.” Later there are queries on the topics of crying, fussing, colic, burping, and gas.) I didn’t start looking up sleep till the baby was a few months old, but pretty early on, my husband wanted to establish his bedtime at 7:00–7:30 p.m. He said his ex had done this with their son, and that the child continued to go to bed at that time till he was a teenager. My husband also said that it would be good for the two of us as a couple to have adult time after the baby went to sleep.

Stolen from here.

This sounds good in theory, but in practice it hasn’t quite worked out. We aim for 7:00, but depending on how many naps the baby has had that day, what he has eaten, how early we can each get home from work, and how stubborn he feels like being, bedtime has ranged from between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. He has had a routine almost all his life that involves a bath, fresh pyjamas, a little song from each of us, and then nursing in the dark of the bedroom. That worked well for about the first 10 months, but he would always wake up within a few hours, and after the 10-month point he almost always woke up within an hour after I put him down. Then, as we approached the 1-year mark, it sometimes wouldn't work at all, and he would pull off the nipple smiling and playful and ready to slide off my lap and toddle around the room.

Recently there have been small improvements in his ability to sleep for longer periods of time during the night (after the first waking). He even spends large chunks of that time in his playpen (which we are still using in place of the crib we never got around to purchasing), and a few times he has come very close to sleeping through the night, waking only once to suckle a bit and then nodding right back off. I have no idea what caused these changes—maybe it was just time for him—but it gives us some hope that eventually we will not have to work so hard at this.

I am not sure if we have been “training” him in any real sense of the word, but I know we have never just let him fall asleep without some kind of aid (rocking, pushing in the stroller, nursing, etc.), and I do eventually want him to be able to put himself to sleep. However, from what I have read, it seems that even people who have properly trained their children by letting them cry or by the shush-pat method or the fading method or any other method still sometimes experience difficulties (or so-called sleep regressions), so I am not letting myself worry too much.

People have been telling me since he was four months old that “he ought to be sleeping through the night by now,” but for the moment we can’t seem to put into regular practice any of the methods or techniques. Because of the layout of our apartment, we are room-sharing, and because of our early mornings, we try to get to bed within two hours of putting him down. This means we risk waking him with our own noise and movements, and it means that we can’t use a regular white noise machine (my husband can’t stand them), and that we can’t just ignore him when he is crying in the night.

So we’re doing what we can to survive, and hoping that one day he figures out that sleep is awesome and that he wants to do it.

I Do Want To Grow Up

Second star to the right...

The recent closing due to bankruptcy of the well-loved Toys R Us chain has caused all manner of moaning and wailing from former Toys R Us Kids in my generation. The catchy jingle that none of us could ever forget has become almost a mantra for those of us reluctantly dealing with the responsibilities of adulthood. I can’t claim to have mastered them, myself, but I often reflect on just how ill-prepared my generation seems to be for those responsibilities. We have an overdeveloped sense of nostalgia for our childhoods, which we idealise and idolise, but we also have an unhealthy fear of maturity. I suppose it is hard to get excited about paying bills and making appointments and buying groceries and cleaning toilets…but there used to be a sense of achievement and pride associated with these things that has gotten lost somewhere. Rudyard Kipling writes about the impressive feat that is achieved in becoming "a Man, my son!" Maya Angelou celebrates her own "inner mystery" as a Phenomenal Woman. Robert Hayden describes his father thanklessly performing "love's austere and lonely offices" for an indifferent child. Charlotte Lucas (Elizabeth Bennet's best friend in Pride and Prejudice) speaks of the importance having her own house, and the independence as well as security she derives from it. Lizzie, herself, even acknowledges that “to be mistress of Pemberley might be something!”

Young people today do not eagerly anticipate adulthood, though they may be impatient for some of its privileges. It is de rigueur to espouse admiration of children and resistance to growing up, from Dr. Seuss saying that “Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them” to Maggie Smith’s Wendy telling Peter Pan’s children that growing up is against her house rules. I think there has been a misinterpretation, though. People say they wish to remain forever young in their hearts, to see the world through childlike eyes, but they mistakenly equate that with childish behaviour. Even worse, they are encouraged in this by the mirror of culture. People are told to feel victimised, to feel helpless, to rage against the circumstances of the world in impotent gestures. Indeed, the infantilisation of the adult population has been developing for decades, but it really took root… when?

SO, WHAT?

I think of Wordsworth and others in the mid-18th century idealising childhood as a time of innocence and purity. Then I think of the Victorian era, when in practice children were tiny adults, seen and not heard, restricted in everything they did, but in literature were often held up as moral paragons and heroes (think of Oliver Twist or of the Alice books). This continued into the 20th century, with the most obvious example being Barrie’s Peter Pan in 1904—a little boy who refused to grow up even as real children continued to dress and act like their parents and sometimes even go to work. This Cult of Childhood was celebratory and exaggerated, but it didn’t give (most) adults the excuse to remain perpetual children. So maybe the change happened later.

Nonsense

During the World Wars everyone had to “put away childish things” in order to survive, so perhaps it was those late 1940s and early '50s parents who restarted the movement with their baby boom. They were experiencing new prosperity and wanted to give their children easier lives than they had had, so they provided them with comfortable homes and modern appliances and plenty of toys, preserving childhood as a carefree and happy Garden of Eden. Like their biblical forbears, when those children reached technical adulthood in the '60s and '70s they suddenly rebelled against everything their parents had stood for, rejecting responsibility and eschewing rules. It was this generation that decided it was better to be friends with their children instead of parents to them, especially because both parents often had to work and neither wanted to be seen as the “disciplinarian” in the short time they could spend with the children.

Perfect parody of a sad situation.

(Actually, I have just stumbled upon an interesting article by Marie Winn in the NY Times that covers a lot of what I am saying here, and goes into even more detail. Winn notes that, "now, the child is enlisted as an accomplice in his own upbringing. And everywhere parents are explicating the texts of themselves, pleading for their children to agree, to forgive, to understand, instead of simply telling them what to do. The child has come to seem a psychological equal.”)

I suspect along with Winn that a lot of this has to do with the breakdown of the traditional family and the traditional role of the woman in society, as well as the rise of Freudian psychology. All this was followed by the flashy 1980s--which made children of us all, dressing adults in neon colours and wild animal prints, celebrating music stars who were overgrown children, themselves--and the '90s and 2000s, which were a time of commercialisation of youth culture, and now here we are in the 2010s with a world full of people who think “adulting” is a word and who want accolades for even trying to do the things they are supposed to do.

Don't get me started on hashtags.

No wonder everyone is offended all the time, because we have nothing demanded of us, no standards to which we might reasonably hold ourselves, so any censure seems to come from nowhere and appears entirely unmerited. We are the overgrown babies of Huxley’s Brave New World, crying for our pleasure reels and our soma, with no way of gaining any perspective from which to understand how wrong we are.

I have been rereading a book called “Good Influence: Teaching the Wisdom of Adulthood” by Daniel R. Heischman in preparation for returning to teaching. It was given to me during the penultimate year of my first teaching position at Doane Academy in NJ, and it makes some really salient points about the importance of adults acting like adults when they are around children (as parents or teachers or coaches). He identifies quite pointedly what I think is the source of the Peter Pan syndrome rampant amongst adults these days: a lack of confidence.

Heischman's cover

“In a world of competing truth claims," he writes, "how can we parents and teachers be certain that what we believe is worth seeking to impress upon young people? ‘Who am I,’ the adult asks, ‘to think I can impose my beliefs onto my children or my students? Will they even listen to what I might say?’ Indeed, I am convinced that a part of the desire some parents have had in recent decades to allow their son or daughter to choose their own values as they grow is a way to sidestep the ambivalence they themselves might feel about the quality and enduring value of their own convictions” (25).

I admit suffering from this lack of assurance, myself, in certain areas. Now that I am teaching again, I sense returning upon me the indignation I always feel when students are being rude (ignoring instructions, playing on their phones, chewing gum in class, talking over each other). I have been even more horrified to observe the supposed adults acting the same way—ignoring the speaker at an assembly, talking over the opening address, scrolling through Instagram instead of paying attention. It has been suggested to me that this is a cultural difference; that Colombians are talkative by nature and must be forgiven, but I find that a weak excuse. The rules of polite behaviour are not something I question. But there are larger philosophical questions raised in faculty meetings like, “should we assign homework?” and “can we take points off of academic grades because of poor behaviour?” that deal with some more complex issues and can make me question whether the way I did things is indeed the only (or the best) way to do things.

And yet…and yet…I remain convinced that my students need and will seek out structure; that they require models of integrity, authority, wisdom, and judgment (yes, that dirty word); and that they need to see the differences between them and us, if only to have something to define themselves against. I may be on a one-woman mission, but I am going to do my best to honour this obligation to them.

So that they may grow up, I will be a grown-up.

Our Last Day

Crawling over all in his path

Today is my last day as a stay-at-home mom. I have had ten delightful months with my beautiful little boy, but tomorrow I will start a new teaching job that will keep me out of the house from 6:15 a.m. till at least 4:15 p.m. I feel simultaneously extremely lucky—I know people who have had to return to work a mere eight or twelve weeks after their babies were born—and yet also unjustly oppressed, as I want so much to stay with him and to teach him and to watch him grow. It is trite to say, but babies change so very quickly, and they are constantly learning. I know everything about him right now: every mark on his body, every habit, every babble, every smile; I know where they come from or when they started. I know he has five teeth and that he can crawl and that he loves toddling around in the walker or drunkenly stumbling while someone holds his hands. Doors are his current passion: opening and closing cupboards and sliding doors and even book covers can entertain him for ages. I know he has good balance and is very curious and wilful. I know that he loves making P and B sounds, and that he occasionally screams just to see what it is like. When he picks up a new object, he twirls it around in his hand to examine it from all angles before plucking at it to see if it moves, bends, or tears. I know when he is crying from frustration and when he is tired and when he just wants his mommy. And I am heartbroken to be the one who has to take his mommy away.

I have not even been able to indulge in these last days with him, because we have had to hire a nanny, and she has been here learning his routines and needs and personality. She is lovely, and she cooks and cleans in addition to taking care of the baby, which is extremely helpful, even if I find it rather invasive. (I know that sounds horribly ungrateful, but I have never liked having someone else in my kitchen and laundry room, doing things their own way, especially when I feel like I can't clearly communicate in their language.) The baby is happy and well cared for; he enjoys playing with her and being carried by her, but she isn’t me, and he deserves me. My mother-in-law is also arriving today, to help out in the first week or so whenever Maurizio and I are both at work, which is very kind of her and will give us peace of mind, so I feel all the more guilty for considering it another form of interruption. I feel like Celia Johnson’s Laura in the 1945 film "Brief Encounter," when she and Alec (Trevor Howard) are trying to say their final goodbyes and Dolly Messiter bumbles in.

Poor, well-meaning, irritating Dolly Messiter. Crashing into those last few, precious minutes we had together...

I could have raised a proper Kewpie doll

I know in my rational mind that this is not The End. I know that my little baby will be even more excited to see me in the evenings, and that he will probably snuggle me all night, if I let him. I know that I will see him all day on weekends and holidays, and that I get those long breaks that make the teaching profession so pleasant for mothers. But I also know that I am going to be tired and distracted sometimes, that I may have to bring home work, be it planning or marking, and that I am going to miss some important milestones of his development. And I have this sense of irrational, impotent, and directionless anger, which I want to hurl at my husband for not being a better saver, or at the teaching profession for not providing little nurseries in the classrooms, or at the entire feminist movement for taking women out of the home and thrusting us into the workplace whether we wanted to be there or not.

Ms. Frizzle, style icon

Adding to my emotional state are the typical nerves over starting a new job, wondering whether my colleagues and students will like me, wondering how long it will take me to learn everyone’s names and to figure out where things are, all compounded with concerns over how and where and when I am going to pump breast milk and whether I own enough breast-accessible dresses that are also work-appropriate. I haven’t had to get out of bed before 6:30 in a few months (mostly because I still bring the baby to bed with me somewhere around the 1 a.m. feeding, so when he whines around 5 I just turn over and give him another breast), so I need to re-acclimate to early alarms and decide whether I will shower the night before and try to deal with my curly mess in the morning or will get up a bit earlier to shower before work. My husband and I have to work out a new routine. Before the baby was born, I would get up at 3:50 and get on the ergometer for some exercise before showering at 4:40 and getting dressed while my husband made me breakfast. He would then drive me to the bus stop at 5:20, and then start his own day. This worked well for just the two of us, but I don’t see it being feasible with the little guy, even if we do get ourselves to bed by 9 p.m., which is unlikely. And sleep-deprivation makes it hard for me to concentrate, so I worry that I won’t be an effective teacher, which will make me regret even more that I am giving up time with my own child...

Again, I know my situation is not unique, and that going back to work is a fact of life for most mothers today. I just wish it felt less forced, less rushed. There will come a time, I am certain, when I will be so exhausted by motherhood that I will be running out the door to work. But that time hasn't come yet, and I still have to go. Therefore, I need to mourn a little bit. Thanks for listening.

Locked Out

The last time I attempted to write a blog post was in the summer of 2016. It was a few months before the Head of the Charles (and my wedding!), and I was visiting my family in the US (as well as visiting the venue for the first time and making arrangements). Thinking it would be nice to do a little writing, I planned out some ideas and then tried to log into my Blogger account, but was told my password was incorrect. I tried another one, which was also incorrect. I looked at the super-secret document where I keep some of my passwords and confirmed that the first one had been correct, and I entered it again...and was told that my account would be locked because of too many attempts.

Drink if this has ever happened to you...

Having so much else to do, I decided not to worry about it and forgot about the lock-out till a few months after the wedding, when I wanted to write about our beautiful winter honeymoon in the north of Italy. Then I tried logging in and found, once again, that none of my passwords would work. I did some half-hearted internet searching to see why Google was being so recalcitrant, and considered trying to contact them directly, but there isn't actually a listed contact address or phone number for that sort of thing. Google expects you to resolve your own problems using their Help pages, but if you problem isn't there, there isn't much you can do beyond posting in forums, which is something I have never done. So again, I gave up on it.

The whole succeeding year of 2017 passed in a flurry of pregnancy, job changes, giving birth, learning what motherhood is about, and trying to keep my brains from being addled by sleeplessness, and I did not try to access my blog again until yesterday. When I entered my original password. Again. But this time, by some miracle, it worked.

Surprise!

So, now that I have successfully re-entered the blogosphere, I will see if I can get myself writing again, if only to keep in practice. I am about to start a new teaching job here in Colombia, and I expect that plus mothering a ten-month-old boy will keep me pretty busy, but now and then it will be nice to put some thoughts on (virtual) paper and see how they flow. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to any responses.

A Visit from Mamí and Papí

In early October, my parents came to visit Bogotá for about a week.  They had clearly decided that, if their daughter were really crazy enough to get engaged to a crazy half-Colombian, they had better come down here and gauge the exact level of crazy they would be dealing with. They were pleasantly surprised to discover that Colombia’s capital city was not the third-world war zone they had expected, but rather a bustling, modern metropolis with plenty to see, do, and eat.

The jury is still out on how they feel about their future son-in-law... 

They arrived on a Thursday evening, and I had to work the following day.  I had invited them to come out to my school, but they were very tired from their trip and didn’t anticipate there being much to interest them once they had seen my classroom, so we changed the plan to meet up in the evening at their hotel in Chapinero.  Even thought they had already discovered the Monkey House pub nearby, we took them to dinner near our own house in La Macarena, at a new place called Santa Fe.  The French-Colombian fusion food there was quite tasty, and the waiters wore cute little vests and newsboy hats, which I enjoyed.

We didn’t stay terribly late, because the next morning we were planning to drive out to Villa de Leyva.  We ate breakfast with my parents at their lovely hotel buffet, and then hit the road for about three and a half hours.  The scenery along the way is very pretty, but I was afraid my parents wouldn’t want to be in the car for quite so long.  We stopped off at the war memorial for the Battle of Boyaca, which includes a large park and a restaurant, where we had a drink and used the restrooms.  This was my parents’ first encounter with the adventure that is going to a public restroom in Colombia…sometimes there are no doors on the stalls…sometimes there are no seats on the toilets...sometimes there is only one toilet paper dispenser by the entrance, and you have to take it with you into the stall, or sometimes you have to buy it from a man outside or from a little machine…  It is always a surprise, and you have to just roll with it.

Once we arrived at Villa de Leyva, I think they had a nice time.  They admired the pretty buildings and the large square, where we happened to catch a wedding in progress.  We wandered into a religious museum full of 17th century books and paintings plopped casually into glass cases and hung on walls with no temperature or humidity control, and guarded by the most terrifying statues and carvings culled from various churches.

We did some window shopping, and some actual shopping, and we had late lunch at a lovely little place with an open-air courtyard, where my mother got to taste her first ajiaco, which she adored, and Daddy had carne al trapo, which is a piece of steak wrapped in a cloth and cooked in a fire.  They also both tasted patacones for the first time, which are always a hit.

By the time we hopped into the car and headed back to Bogotá it was getting dark, and pretty much all of us Costas nodded off at some point while Maurizio made the long drive.

The following day we were up early again, this time heading out to Tominé for rowing classes.  I had been coaching a lovely group of club members every Sunday, and I was excited to show my parents the clubhouse, the lake, and my thriving rowing business.  I also told them they were getting into a boat.  They were very nervous, but excited to try this thing their daughter had been doing for nearly 15 years.  I had put them in a four-man boat with two other Colombian rowers, and I switched back and forth between Spanish and English as I was giving instructions, but my mother told me she was amazed that she seemed to understand me no matter what language I was speaking.  They were both surprised at how difficult rowing actually was, and my mother said later that she had watched it so often, she had assumed it would be really easy to pick up, but that the coordination of all the movements was actually quite challenging.

After their outing, I had another class to teach, so I sent my parents up to the clubhouse to eat some breakfast and relax.  Some of Maurizio’s aunts and cousins happened to be there that day, so they got to meet them, which was a lovely coincidence.  They wanted us to stay for lunch with them, but we had planned to go over to La Petite Alsace, the restaurant we had first visited on my birthday (and the day we got engaged), so we nibbled a few patacones with them and then made our exit, promising that we would meet up again later in the week.

La Petite Alsace is such an out-of-the-way place that not many people know about it.  The timber walls and furniture make you feel like you are in a log cabin in the woods, and everything is perfectly rustic.  The food is delicious and properly Alsacian: lots of sausages and meats and freshly made cheeses, courtesy of the goats and buffalo they keep outside.  My father was amused by the goats, and even serenaded some of them on our way out!  We stuffed ourselves full and tasted each other’s plates, effectively ruining our appetites for the fancy dinner we had tentatively planned that night, but it was worth it.

The next day they came to visit my apartment in La Macarena, and they were impressed by how open and spacious it was, and they admired its view of Monserrate.  We walked around the neighbourhood a bit, and I showed them the leather goods shop where the artist is always standing at the counter working on something.  Mom had a nice conversation with him about producing and selling one’s own art, and she got his card.  We took them to our favourite upscale grocery store, Konny, for coffee and coca tea to bring home, and then we went to a new local wine bar for some sangria before dinner at the famous and old (and expensive) El Patio restaurant.

On the sixth day of their visit (a Tuesday) we went up to Monserrate, though we didn’t make them walk the trail as we used to do!  Instead we took the funicular, which Daddy loved.  We would have taken the cable car at least one way, but it was not functioning that day.  Daddy also really enjoyed the statues of the Stations of the Cross, which are visible on the winding path up to the church, and we took lots of photos.  Mom was fascinated by the real human hair on the statue of Jesus (it always gets me, too), and the view of the sprawling city from above.

This would not be our only church of the day, as we made our way down to the city centre to explore the Cathedral, which faces the Plaza de Simon Bolivar.  We also stopped in a chocolate café for some rich refreshment.  I was hoping that Daddy and Maurizio could bond while we wandered, because Maurizio had to leave town for a conference the following day, and the rest of the visit would be just me with my parents; I think this was successful.

We stopped at a little place in La Candelaria for late lunch, where my father tried ajiaco and my mother had frijoles.  That night, we went as promised to visit Maurizio's cousin, Gloria, and her husband and children at their home, for more chocolate.  Some other relatives came, too, and it was quite the event!  My parents were glad (if a little jealous) to see that I have a family here who care for me like they would.

The next day my parents explored a Surtifruver and some other parts of Chapinero while Maurizio prepared for his trip and I did some grading  and class preparation.  After Maurizio left, I met my parents at Museo Nacional, where I had not been before, despite walking past it nearly every day.  It is a lovely building from the outside, castle-like and imposing, but inside it is not a particularly good museum. The exhibits are not terribly well organised or signed, and though the religious art exhibit is pretty cool, there isn’t much variety.  Afterward, daddy got his shoes shined by a local, and paid him twice the asking price, because he could not believe someone would do such great work for so little. In fact, my soft-hearted father overpaid and over-tipped every service person he met here in Colombia!

In the evening we went to Andres Carne de Res for dinner.  This place is a bit of a circus, with many floors of garish and colourful decor set off with weird lamps and signs, and occasionally costumed performers come to sing at you.  We waited a very long time for a table, which my father finally had to demand loudly under threat of leaving.  The drinks were expensive, and we didn’t get our food till nearly 9 pm, but it is an experience recommended by most Bogotanos, so I guess we were not allowed to miss it.

On the final day, I took my parents to a late lunch at Masa, a sandwich and salad place they had enjoyed with Maurizio when I was at work, and then brought them back to the centre to visit the Museo del Oro, which I love.  It is much better organised than the Museo Nacional, and I think my parents liked it, as well.  Finally, I brought them to the airport for a sad farewell, and a promise to visit at Christmastime.

Summer's End

Proud Boat Parents

After many weeks of work on the boats, we finally launched our first 4+ with a christening ceremony. We named it the Robert Englehardt, after the wonderful man who had stored the boats for us for nearly a year, and loaded them so carefully into the container on our behalf, along with all the other equipment we had shipped to him.  Though it was drizzling during the ceremony, a small group of fans turned out to help us sprinkle champagne over the new boat.  A few of these people would become dedicated members of our little team, and would spend a lot of time with us in the workshop and on the water. But the rest of our gang was still to come.

They all wanted champagne...

We began giving lessons in the mornings and working on boats in the afternoons. The second boat that we completed was a double, which Maurizio and I had purchased for our own use, followed by a quad, and with our new sculling oars we could now teach both sweep rowing and sculling.  Hernando made us a rowing simulator out of an old rowing machine and an oarlock box, which has been an extremely valuable training tool.  We began to spread the word around the club, and even got the US embassy to run an ad in their newsletter.  Maurizio worked tirelessly to contact newspapers and magazines and other sources of advertising, and spent many hours conferring with his cousin Juan Pablo, whom we had hired as a graphic designer to create our logo and marketing materials. We have recently succeeded in gaining some interest from a couple of international schools, and we look forward to hosting teams of students in the new year.

Learning on the simulator

Although I went home for three weeks between June and July, work never ceased on this new business.  While I was catching up with friends and family, doing Zumba and learning how to paint in my sister's classes, going to birthday, anniversary, and Independence Day parties, and rowing in singles and doubles with the Cooper Rowing Club, Maurizio was learning about carbon fibre repair and nautical paint prices.  More than that; he had a surprise brewing which would come to light on my birthday.

Grandma D: 80 and Fabulous

My sisters are awesome

I’ll abbreviate, because most of the people who care about the details have already heard me tell the story: He took me out to the countryside for a lovely lunch at an Alsacian restaurant (meat-and-cheese-tastic), followed by a drive to a sweet little hotel in Suesca, which he intended to follow with a hike up some trail to this beautiful cliffside where we would have a view of a lake. Only, because of our lengthy luncheon, we got to the hotel at 5 pm, and the sun generally sets at 6. And it was raining. And the trail was covered in mud and very steep, so we slid and fell and squished and slopped about in it till we were indistinguishable from said mud. And there were parts where it was so slippery that we had to hold onto barbed wire fences in order to progress. What I mean to say is, we never quite made it to the cliffs. So we came back, stripped off our muddy clothing, and showered, and then we ate some pizza by the fireside. I was getting sleepy and thinking of heading to bed when Maurizio suggested we sit in some lawn chairs outside (next to our discarded clothes), and enjoy the (rather chilly) evening for a bit longer. And then he produced a little speech (which he had written out) that described our relationship and our love for each other and our goals for the future, and ended in some elvish words (like Lord-of-the-Rings elvish), which, of course, I didn't understand. And then he handed me two cards with more elvish on them and told me to choose my response. And I had to just guess which one was the right one, which fortunately I did, because one said "Yes, I promise I will marry you," while the other said "Forgive me, but I do not love you”!

The sparkly!

And so we are engaged...I think.