I have another blog

that's all about breastfeeding. I'm drawing from my other life as a volunteer lactation consultant and trying to share what makes breastfeeding easier. http://www.breastfeedingiscute.blogspot.com/

I am forcing myself to write something. I wish I had a new picture to post, but I screwed up my computer and now I can't access my photos.

I have been enjoying this song lately, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVwc0kS1Dw&feature=related Ever since Chile I love Enrique Iglesias, I never even noticed his songs before. I had only heard the English versions, but hearing him in Spanish is so much better! All of a sudden, I am loving the energy of his music, he is so earnest and sad, yet hopeful in all of his songs. When I am on one of my many challenging drives around town, I crank my boy Enrique and feel a lot better about life.

Its been hard lately, I don't even really want to be around people that much, I don't want to talk about it--I am not entirely loving my mom life these days and its rough. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself, I have a lot of blessings, but I need lots of sleep and lots of exercise to manage these days. I am going to take charge of the things I can control and let go of the things I can't control and hopefully that will help.

I apologize if this is boring...

but, as the trip fades a little into the background, I want to jot some of my impressions of Chile:

-Rastafari is pretty big with young people (don't I sound old saying that?)
I saw many dreadlocked teens waiting for buses, walking down the streets etc. I love dreaded people, I had Rasta roommates in college and I did have dreads for awhile too.

-The food, all whole foods, nothing processed where we stayed. All of the vegetables and fruits taste so much better than here.

-The wine is mad fruity and strong. The young stuff stays in Chile mostly and the rest is exported. Compared to Italian young wine, the Chilean wine is really flavorful.

-They love babies there. Pregnant ladies everywhere, everybody holding babies in their arms, not in buckets as much as you see here. Public breastfeeding is normal and attitudes are relaxed.

-Credit is really pushed on folks in Chile. Every store has a credit card and everyone around us in line at the mall, at the grocery store--were all using credit. I bought a $12 camisole and was asked how many payments did I want to make.

-Chilean Spanish is not easy to understand, it flows fast and letters are dropped off of words where you least expect it, making your head spin if you happen to be a "Gringita" like me.

That's all for tonight!

Highlights

First, the Cathedral of Santiago. Then, days later, a vineyard right in the city limits, Cousino Macul. The wine samples are not the teeny drops you get in a winery here, but a big full glass of wine x2. We were the only ones with kids on the tour and that made the tour guide give us more and more wine, which was pretty funny when you saw the other people's faces.

Are boys born defective? Only in America...

http://addwriteblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/fighting-for-foreskin.html

This is a great blog post about a man who keeps his son in one piece even after his OB's office actually made him and his wife listen to a sales pitch about cutting up their baby. Circumcision is such a business in this country that getting the real facts about how unnecessary and harmful it is, is really hard to do here. Chile is one of the many countries that doesn't cut their babies and I think its pretty weird that its considered normal and routine here.

We went out to eat in Santiago one night, to meet my newly married Godmother's daughter and her husband. We had a plan to sit outside and live it up with lots of good food and Chilean wine. I was still not 100% well, but we went anyway and had a great time. The funny thing is that we found the only Chilean vegetarian restaurant, totally by accident because I stopped in to use the bathroom and the kids thought it looked cool. We had fabulous food there and a band randomly set up across the street and played, the baby danced. Those 2 handsome men are my husband's oldest friends and our hosts.

More scenes from our trip

Easter Sunday in the Andes. A Chilean style cook out, kids playing in the fountain and a little human fussboll.

http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

Tricia, the new mom of the sweetest preemie little girl, who has CF and was awaiting a lung transplant... has gotten her new lungs! Please keep her in your prayers as she heals. http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

We survived! We're back...

Here are some photos of the house up above Santiago:

I worried about getting sick here and I tried to prepare myself for the possibility, and I got sick and it was worse than I imagined. But.. I got to try all kinds of alternative Chilean medicine and so that was cool, ha ha. Charcoal tablets and sulfur & nasty homeopathic drops.

Today I made my sickly weak self rally and go out. We were very late for church, but the crowd was out the door and in the street anyway. It was a beautiful and joyful Easter Sunday. We drove way up in the mountains ( when i figure out how to post pics down here it will be awesome!) and had a classic Chilean barbeque with salads, rice, meat, bread, loads of red wine. I ate very lightly, but it smelled great. We are back in our mountainside home now, with the stunning views of Santiago all lit up. Tomorrow, if all are well, we plan to hit a winery...

I'm sitting here at a table across from a huge bowl of avocados and olive oil, butter , fresh rolls and wine. We are visiting the condo of the husband's oldest friend. Earlier, at lunch we went to the Mercado Central and had a huge bowl of seafood soup. It was delicious, but... it had things in there I had never seen before and I had to lay down when we first got back to the condo. They warned me that the seafood here was really strong and would knock me out for awhile, but I thought I could handle it. Now, I feel much better and am enjoying the company and this amazing place on Good Friday.

I am in South America! I can even blog here, its amazing. This is a totally different world, but I could stay here for a long time. Chile agrees with us. Nobody is sick ( so far) the weather is 80 and sunny, the house we are in has verandas all the way around, with one side facing the Andes and the other side has an unbelievable view of Santiago. There are lemon, lime, avocado & apple trees. 7 adorable puppies and their parents are outside. The actual city is really intense, more later...

Internationally anxiety free

I was having a horrible morning, then it was a great morning, friendly people were everywhere, the sun was beaming & I liked my new drastic haircut for the first time. Then I had a great, peaceful lunch with my 2 youngest guys. It was a horrible afternoon, I actually had to pull over the car and try not to lose my mind I was so mad at the Creature for smacking the oldest. Now its not too shabby again. That's why with kids, its always a minute at a time, not a good day or a bad day, maybe a good hour or a bad hour. But for the first time, I also feel less worried about our big trip. I am thinking we might survive and we might have fun.

I love babywearing dads!

This is my favorite celeb family, they always look happy and they are all so good looking too. I love the way they seem to fit little Kingston in and he doesn't seem to be raised by a team of nannies(although a team of nannies sounds pretty darn good to me sometimes :)

Check out the most precious preemie ...

Little Gwyneth is now 2 months old, still just under 2 lbs and is doing amazingly well. I've written about this young family before and I was thrilled when Gwyneth's dad was finally able to hold her. Please look at the link and at the end of the video is the most amazing sight, her beautiful mama finally holding her too! What a great week for them. They are never far from our thoughts even though we've never met. http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

11 days...

I love my life most of the time. The Creature is being very sweet lately, I am using what I learned in my "positive discipline" class. I went down to the basement a minute ago and got a fresh beer out of the keg, a Belgian Wit that is out of this world. I opened the storage room and found a box of wooden beads and string that I knew would delight the little guy that was on my hip this whole time. I love my husband and today, he was hurt ( by a nerf dart in the eye) and I enjoyed being with him in the ER as I read out loud to him from Mother Jones and the Frommer's guide to Chile, unencumbered by small people as my mom was watching the little guys and My Friendly Neighbor had the big boy. It was a good, relaxing day.

In the midst of this peace I do stop and realize I will never get used to the idea of one of my kids not being here. Its not self pity, it just is. I will always parent the one boy who is not here, as much as I do the other ones. I am starting to carry him in a different place, but he will always be carried along with us. There's not much else to say, because that's how it is; have fun, stop,think , go back to fun, and remember that its different here.

2 weeks from today!

We had our long and intense conference today with the teacher and the principal of the preschool. We are keeping him there for now anyway. We all have about the same approach, although they may be a little nicer than me when the Creature starts calling people names and telling his teacher to "shut up!" I think they know that we try to always speak kindly to each other but anything negative this child has ever heard, he remembers and always uses it properly in a sentence. The teacher told me things he has told her, things that we did, outings we had, some of those things happened when he was under 2 years old. Never think your child won't remember stuff that happens when they are a baby. We have no way of knowing who will remember what. I have a really challenging little kid, but God decided he's my kid and I'm learning a lot about patience and a lot about being open to the big plan for me--that I obviously have no control over.