Things I'd do differently if I knew then what I know now

Looking at my baby daughter, I am filled with hopeful aspirations for her future. Then memories of my teenage years flash through my head accompanied by an epiphany. I now have a whole new perspective on the meaning of "It's my life"....

THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY

1) I would be much more selective in my choice of boyfriends (new criteria: a high school education and less body piercings than orafaces. Aim high.)

2) I would slam less doors in order to prove some banal point that "I'm an individual and I'll wear cowslippers to high school if I want to")

3) I would have less rager parties while my parents were out and NOT say "yes, Meaghan and I had a lovely evening playing Scrabble and drinking Orange Crush".

4) I would tone-down the punk apparel, wear less metal studs, and play my teenage angst music on volume level 5 rather than 10.

5) I probably wouldn't breed mice and think my mom was lame if she didn't want to hold them.

6) I would give the silent treatment a little less often.

7) I wouldn't run away at 2am in the middle of a snow storm wearing only jeans and a T-shirt yelling "you just don't understand" while exiting the car door. She probably understood.

BUT...

I would still wear black leggings under my homemade army skirt years before it was fashionable to our family reunion in Englad. Still don't regret that one...

P.S You'll probably notice in the photos that Rivers has transformed into a gaucho/70's high school football coach/Reno-911 policeman. It's true.

Vamos a la Playa

Wanna know the best thing about taking your baby to the beach? Getting peed on by your diaperless baby and not minding because there's a vast body of salty water that will quickly wash it away. Rivers and I both know this from experience after bringing Harper to the beach for the first time.

Saturday morning, Rivs, Harper and I piled into an SUV with our friends Katja and Gayle, along with Gayle's three dogs. Max, the Rotweiler/Doberman, took a particular liking to Harper and spent most of the car ride trying to crane his gargantuan neck over the back seat to sniff and lick her face, succeeding on more than one occasion. I was a bit worried at first, but when I saw Harp's amusement with the situation, I let it fly. Just buildin' up the old immune system, is all...

After arriving at the beach and lathering Harper up with 10$ biodegradable baby sunscreen, we put on her swimsuit (size 6-9 months. Fattie.) and took her down to the water. I took it slow and carefully knelt in the toe-high water, gently placing her feet in the ocean. "Oh Harper, isn't this fun?!" I excitedly excalimed with genuine enthusiasm. Then Rivers took a turn by confidently wading out into the waves, placing her all the way in the water and quickly picking her up as the waves would roll in. When they returned to shore, Harper looked at me like "Mom, you're so lame. Dad is waaay cooler." Am I really gonna be that mother? You know, the one that walks up and down the pool deck alongside their kid, ready to throw a rescue buoy at any moment? I sure hope not...

Either way, Harper really seemed to enjoy the day. In fact, I think it was the best day of her life so far. She didn't even seem to mind getting black sand in her face, sunscreen in her eye (oops) or licked by a few dogs. She's a real trooper.

Oh-I almost forgot the second best part! (First best being baby urinating on stomachs and legs and not caring one bit). When we came home from the beach, Rivers found an amazing surprise sitting atop a roll of toilet paper in our bathroom. Yet another Costa Rican treasure...

Harper

Here are some new photos of Harper. Nothing new to report except that she continues to be cute. She sleeps 6-7 hours at night, generally refuses to nap in the day, and loves to watch Rivers sing and play guitar. She'll literally watch him excitedly for up to an hour. She still prefers to sleep in the hammock, but ever since we learned of the Dengue epidemic in Costa Rica and noticed Harper waking up with red bumps all over her face, we have her sleep in her crib under a mosquito net.

Presidential Elections

Yesterday was one of the longest day of my life. I even caught myself comparing it to labor a couple of times, but quickly dispelled the thought. It wasn't that long. The day started with a 3am Harper feeding and followed with a 4:15 bus ride to the Costa Rican Supreme Electoral Tribunal to pick up my credentials to be an "International Observer" of the Presedential Elections. Believe me, it sounds a lot cooler than it really is. I was then put in a taxi along with 3 other classmates and driven to a polling station to observe the voting process. I could give you a detailed description of my 17 hour day, but instead I'll write exerpts from a 4 page letter I wrote to Rivers while "observing" democracy-in-action.
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"People here think that my job as an International Observer is a lot more important than it really is. When I walk into a polling station with by binder and official, laminated ID card, the voting Junta get a little nervous. They offer me a chair. They bring me water. I write down how many people are in line to vote, how long they've been waiting, and whether or not they're wearing campaing T-shirts. I think I may start wearing this ID card more places and get some good old fashioned respect. I'll probably ditch the binder though. That just may creep people out.... "Hey guys! No, no, don't mind me. I'm just an impartial observer. You were saying...?"

"I'm at a school that's been turned into a voting station. On the wall is a cut-out of a human face, round torso and eight squiggly legs portruding from the body. I'm confused as to whether it's a humanimal, a student's imagined X-men character or a poorly drawn octopus. I'm gonna go with humanimal."

"Did you know that El Voto es Secreto, but if I lean back on my chair I can catch a glimpse behind the ballot box? I don't, of course. But I could, just so you know."

"I think Costa Ricans may love car horns even more than they love to vote, but probably not as much as they love little yappy dogs. They love the sweet sound of a barking Shih-Tzu. Love it."

"If you experience an election lasting more than 4 hours, contact a physician immediately. Yup, makes sense now. Mine has lasted 12 hours and I think I might pass out."

"Wow-excitement. A man wearing a fanny pack just walked out from behind the cardboard ballot station with...wait for it...Unfolded ballot papers!!!! Luckily 3 junta memebers were quick as lightening and wrestled him to the ground. When the junta Presidente tapped him out, a 4th member pried the ballot from his death grip and gingerly folded the papers, placing them in the ballot box. Close call. Seeing the fanny packed man's election may have persuaded others in the room to change their vote. Never underestimate the power of the fanny pack." (That may have been a boredome induced embellishment).

"I wonder if Diego my busdriver knowns that whenever I see him I want to put my mouth really close to his ear and say "Go Diego go diego go diego go" the whole busride?"
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So, as you can tell, I had a pretty awesome day. On an even more exciting note, Costa Rica just elected their first female president, and I knew it before everyone else. Suckas.

Unsolved Mysteries

Our little family has fallen into a nice routine. Harper goes to sleep around 6pm, Rivers goes to bed around 8 and I stay up till 11 to do homework and to feed Harper so that she sleeps longer through the night. Rivers wakes up to feed her around 3 or 4 (sometimes 5 if we're really lucky) then goes running, and I get up when Harper wakes up for the day, usually sometime around 6 or 7. The other night, after Harper and Rivers had gone to bed, I stayed up to work on a paper ( which means about 20 minutes of work, 10 mintes of facebook, 10 minutes of blogging, maybe a pee, maybe a snack, maybe some music...) When 11 o'clock rolled around, I went into our room to find Rivers and Harper asleep next to each other on the bed, both their heads laying on a pillow and Rivers' hat wedged under Harper's side, presumably so she wouldn't roll off the bed. Oh, and Harper's head had been carefully nestled in a neck pillow. Obviously some great care and finesse had been put into Harper's comfortable positioning. I really really wanted to take a picture, but didn't want to wake them.

The next morning after Rivers returned from his run, I commented on how cute it was to see he and Harper sleeping next to each other, to which Rivers gave me a bewildered look.

R: What do you mean? She was in her crib, right?

S: Ummm.. Haha... Ya, I put her to sleep in her crib, but when I came in she was stategically placed beside you in bed.

R: Did you put her there?

S: No...You did, obviously.

R: No I didn't.

**at this point I didn't know whether to laugh or be extremely concerned**

S: Are you joking?

(I've been known to furvently believe some pretty outrageous things. Jackalopes? Definitely real for a few weeks. Norwall? Skeptical. Narnia's White Witch? Undecided.)

R: No. (He really wasn't joking)

S: Well I didn't, and I'm gonna go ahead and say that Harper didn't execute the manoever on her own so...?

R: Nope. I don't remember doing that at all.

S: This isn't like the Jackalope thing, is it?

R: No, I promise. I really don't remember doing anything like that.

The mystery remains unsolved, although Rivers is known to do some pretty amazing things in his sleep...

baby buddah

Harper's new favorite activity is to do assised sit-ups. We try to do a few reps every day to get her in top crawling shape. We hope to have her walking by 4 months so that she can train and run the Honolulu marathon with Rivers and Jake next fall. Fingers crossed.

on fingertoes and love

Nothing particularly exciting has happened lately, so I've been hesitant to blog. BUT...I have a 40-page curriculum on Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding due in a few days, so obviously I have to find something to blog about. Hmmm. Let's see what's been on my mind lately...

i. I used to hate my feet. Long, bony toes with a hint of hair that crack and pop every time I bend them. And of course they're ALWAYS disgustingly dirty. In fact, I used to be really embarrassed of my feet in general. At parties, I'd either wear socks or try to contort my feet so that somehow the tops would be flush with the floor. Please, try to picture it. Luckily, being a mom has transformed this adolescent shame into pure love. I can basically do everything I need with my fingertoes, so take that all you perfectly petite-footed girls who I envied in high school... Dirty diaper on the floor? No problem. Just a swift flex of the foot and that soggy nappy is in the trash. Boom. Need to put sleeping Harper in her bouncer but the toy bar is attached? Piece of cake. Big toe and second toe pincers to the rescue. Baby blanket fell on the floor and my gluts aren't buff enough to squat with a 14 poound baby in hand? Ha. The swift three-toe-pronged straight-leg up-kick and Harper is all snug. So really, let's be honest Marisa Caruso and Christina Brocollini. Let me know if your beautiful feet can do that.

***and yes, I did go around the house taking photos of my feet in action. That's how much I don't want to write this curriculum.

ii. I really have the best husband ever. I know a lot of people say that, but it's not true. Mine really is. Today I came home from school, and of course I bypassed Rivers and went directly to Harper with a passing "hey babe" on the way. Well, turns out she had gotten greedy and ate a little more than her tummy could handle and vomited everywhere just moments before I came home. Naturally, I blamed Rivers for her gluttony and quickly took her away whispering "Mommy's here now..." Oh boy. Like the good-natured man that he is, Rivers simply put his shoes on and went for a run, leaving me to ponder my irrationality and consequent ways I could make it up to him. When he came home, I was geared up for a raging apology. As soon as "I'm sorry" escaped my lips, Rivers kissed me on the cheek, shrugged his shoulders and said "It's okay". Like it really was okay. Then he proceeded to make and serve me dinner. Need I say more?