The Past Six Months!

Some of you may have noticed that for the past six months or so I haven’t been blogging! If you are a reader of this blog you know that about six months ago my daughter was born, and as you might imagine, life has changed quite a bit. My original plan was to try to go back using my journal and document as much as possible, but I really don’t have the time, so I thought I would just start by filling in what’s happened in the past six months and then just start blogging normally from here on out. I did, however, post my birth story, because I love reading birth stories and several people have asked me for mine.

Isabella was born on May 26, 2010 at 1:08pm. Life since then has been a whirlwind, and I can’t believe she’s already six months old! The first month was the typical baby-blues-ridden, sleep-deprived first month that I have come to understand that most moms have suffered through! It caught me off guard, but with the help of several moms who had already been there I got my footing and weathered the storm as a rite of passage to being a mother. Everyone kept telling me to hang in there until the first month passed, and they were right. Once Bella was about a month old life started to get back into a pattern and feeling like a new “normal”.

There have been many firsts; first smile, first vaccine, first “words”, first vacation, first fall (mommy was much more traumatized than baby!), first time playing with a toy, first time rolling over, etc. Each first brings mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel proud that my little one is developing just as she should, if not a little advanced in some areas. I feel relieved that everything is working like it should. But I also feel sadness that already she is becoming more independent and needing me less and less. I know, to someone who isn’t a mother it might sound strange; after all, she’s still a baby! And her needing me less means more free time, which is something most moms covet. Still, if you are a mom I bet you know the feeling. I feel like every day she’s further away from me. She used to literally be a part of me, living in my body, unable to do anything for herself. Then she was born, and was no longer a literal part of me, and every time she masters a new skill I feel amazed, astonished, and a little more aware of the distance between us. I wonder how my mom must feel with the literal distance between us, between the US and Ecuador. Well, I don’t really wonder. I think I have a pretty good idea.

Recently my mother-in-law gave Isabella some mashed up apple (without asking me, thank you) and I walk in to find my daughter (four months old) eating solids for the first time, no problem. I went into the other room and cried. Not only was I annoyed that she gave her solids at four months (I plan on breastfeeding for at least the recommended 6 months exclusively) but she totally robbed me of a first. Silly, probably.

Which leads me to tell you about the challenges of raising a baby in a foreign culture. Raising a baby is hard enough, but even harder when you don´t have all the help of grandparents, aunts and uncles and in-laws. (Jairo´s family lives about 5 hours away, so we don´t see them too often.) Mix in the challenge of living in another country and you have the recipe for adventure (and hopefully not disaster!).
I was recently exchanging some Ecuadorian old wives’ tales with a friend online and I thought I would share some of them with you:

If you kiss your baby on the mouth, she will become really drooly. (The kisses, not the teething, apparently is what does it.) And drooly babies grow up to be fat kids.

If you put your baby in a sitting position before she is about 8 months old, her tailbone will come loose and she will get green diarrhea.

Don´t let your baby look up or her eyes will get stuck that way.

Make sure you shave your baby´s head or her hair will be ugly.

Babies hate pacifiers, and they give them gas.

Babies hate to be swaddled, they feel confined.

And so on!

The predominant attitude in this culture is that everyone is a parent of your child. They would agree with that saying, ¨It takes a village to raise a child¨ on a very literal level. Which is kind of a problem for me, because I feel like my having grown her inside my body for 39 weeks, pushed her out of my uterus on my own, and spent every moment of her life with her gives me some level of special authority when it comes to her parenting. But I´m in the minority. Random strangers will grab your baby out of your hands, just because. Which means you feel nervous all the time. There´s this one lady at church who, every time she asks to hold Bella, doesn´t even wait for my response before she takes her out of my arms and walks away with her. It drives me insane!

I don´t want to make it sound like I don´t value the advice and experience of other moms. I do! But in Ecuador, people don´t give advice. They tell you how you must parent. And if you disagree, they get really mad! Several of my American mommy friends that live here in Quito have had the same experience, someone yelling at them because they give their baby a pacifier or because they don´t want to shave her head! It´s hard to know how to react, because they believe such nonsense things so strongly that you know they are never going to accept reason, but at the same time you as a parent are not going to just give in on what you know is best for your child.

Still, what I really appreciate about living so far from everyone is that it has forced us to form a strong bond with Bella. This is especially true for me because in Bella´s whole life I have only been a total of about 3 hours without her. And I didn´t really like those 3 hours. It´s funny, people talk about wanting to get away from their kids, but I love being with my baby! Sure, it´s overwhelming sometimes. But it is so worth it. I don´t think I would be able to really enjoy doing some activity without her. I mean, I had a baby because I wanted a baby!

All in all, these last 6 months have been a whirlwind, and I wouldn´t change it for the world! Bella is getting into a really fun age, and she surprises me every day. She loves to laugh, play and be with mommy, and I´m soaking it up, because I know it won´t always be like this.

I really am going to try to blog more. No promises, though!