The Parent's Meet the Honduran Fam

Aren't we cute? My mom, Me, and Amanda (mother-in-law) in front of Inglesia de Los Dolores, Tegucigalpa. My mom always practicing her belly rubbing technique.

After about 1.5 years of marriage my parents took a trip to Honduras with me to meet Noel's family. It was amazing and I did not get too tired of translating Spanish to English and vice versa. We spent three days in the Comayaguela with the aunts and then 3 days in the village with the rest of the family. I knew by the first morning that it would go just fine because when I got up my mom was at the kitchen table with the neighbor boy (and Noel's godson) practicing her primitive Spanish and the neighbor girls were using all the English they know to ask my dad "What's your favorite______?"

The major difference between the city and the village is their city neighborhood is not safe at any hour for white people to walk around. While it is not likely anything would have happened to us (people were generally surprised to see us and don't think they could have come up with a kidnapping plan very fast, please note some sarcasm in this comment) we had to have a chaperone when in Brisas or when going to the market. Plus my Dad is huge compared to majority of Honduran men, they don't know that he isn't that intimidating :)  Amanda did decide it was okay for us to take the bus. We were never on it for more than 10 minutes and for the most part no one paid attention to us. Compared to the city we are free in the village. At any hour we can walk around by ourselves and will likely gather "holas" from every house we pass. I woke up the first day in the village to learn Mom had left on her daily walk awhile ago. She walked the length of the village and was joined by Noel's half brother when she passed his dad's store. Here are Noel's Dad and I.

Our real concerns the whole time revolved around the rain. My dad said it rained harder than he had seen anywhere in all of his 60 years! Everyone commented that this is a particularly wet year with the rain starting around noon almost every day. Mom and Dad were disappointed that the rain is not warm like in Hawaii. Mom learned this after the rain started while we went to an internet cafe. It rained so hard a car alarm outside went off continuously. After 20 minutes our patience (and our bladders) gave up. Armed with umbrellas we waded the 6 blocks back home! Luckily my parents were smart and brought Dominoes, "pigs" and cards so we were not stuck watching telenovelas indoors all day long.

The rain was an issue on our trip to the village as well. Based on Amanda and Eric (our chaffeur and Noel's cousin) left for the village in a hurry, skipping the bank (we had like $20 in lempiras) because if it rains hard enough the river we have to cross to get to the vilalge overflows and you can't get there. The 2.5 hour drive was punctuated with many comments revolving around the degree to which it was raining.

"Solamente son brisas" - it's just light rain
"Corre Eric corre rapidito" - Run Eric run fast (said in relation to driving faster)
"Que llovidera!" - What a rainstorm! (This was a new word for me as it never rained this hard my first two trips to Honduras)

This is the rain from Aunt Yolanda's porch in the village. We were pleasantly 'stranded' (albiet two houses from home) and had to stay to a lovely lunch.

In the village we took a walk up to La Loma, a beautiful viewpioint a few blocks above the village where you can see the whole valley. Noel says there are about  500 hundred homes in the village, I contest this as you can't see more than 100 from La Loma. Overall everyone agrees that there are at least 250 homes.

And this is what Dad did on vacation. Even if he didn't speak a lick of Spanish he is quite fluent in 'boy' and 'sports' so he set about to convert the village boys to baseball. All the equipment he took down took up half of a suitcase! At any given time he was surrounded by little boys, who would also stop by the house looking for him!

Honesty every trip to Honduras to visit Noel's family is soo satisfying to one's heart. We all had a big heart to heart the last night about how even though the aunts and Amanda just met my parents they already feel like family. What is hard is to have their boys so far away without the possibility of visiting. It is heartbreaking, but more on that a different time. To end, here is Mabocha, mother to 8, grandmother to 40+, greatgrandmother to ???? and one little half white half brown one on the way.

Thoughts on Ironing

It's not that I hate to iron. It's that I can count the number of times I saw my mom do it while I was growing up, so it really did not seem like an important area to excel in. We were more of a "toss it in the dryer with a wet towel" type of family. I will iron my own wrinkly clothes, but I do not generally iron Noel's because he tends to decide which shirt he wants to wear at 10:58 when we are supposed to leave the house at 11. I tend to pre-iron my clothes knowing that I will want to wear them in the near future.

One thing I do not iron is my scrubs. Actually I did once because the armpit area was soo wrinkly it was uncomfortable. The other day I grabbed one of my favorite tops out of the clean laundry bag. I could tell it was on the wrinkly side, so I did the ol' brush down the front with water and it looked semi-decent to me afterward. Note: this was after a week long vacation where I had done the laundry for Noel so he could have clean work jackets while I was gone. The dear man left it all in the bag (which means next time I will not do it for him, I really hate wrinkled sheets). He took out what he needed, which left my scrub top in a sad state. Later at work I heard two of my Filipina coworkers giggling behind me, "planchadora" was all I caught, which made me laugh because "planchar" is Spanish for "to iron." I tried to explain that I was just back from vacation and hubby hadn't put away the laundry for a week. Although I guess I am to blame as I did have other scrub top options available.

My top only made it til dinner when a piece of potato skydived back into my bowl and splattered my white wrinkly scrub top with little red fleckles. It just wasn't salvagable as red in the hospital generally means blood. At least I got a free small yet oversized hospital scrub top out of it, great for when I actually get a baby belly. Belly pictures forthcoming, I'm sick and avoiding the camera...

12 weeks & still bump-less

Seriously, where's my bump? I'm a skinny girl so why no belly still? Of course the day after Noel took this I started having severe stomach and low back pains FOR 3 DAYS straight. Turns out the round ligament muscles in my stomach decided to start stretching all at the same time. I guess that teaches me to complain about no bump. Yesterday at work I put Icey-Hot strips on my back and stomach, helped for a bit.

Now I am officially pregnant to the outside world, I started telling coworkers and let me tell you I totally get 3 breaks a shift now (previously unheard of except on super slow days). "You gotta go feed that cute little parasite." I do think calling Panchita a parasite is both cute and freaky, as we inherently think of parasites as negative. But Panchita lives off what I eat, takes me energy and makes me feel sick, so really it fits! My well-loved peach sized parasite :)

Here is my belly during the 3 days of s-t-r-e-t-c-h. Does it look any bigger yet? I guess it wasn't the Mayo that was making my tummy hurt after all....

Dear Mayo,

You see Mayonaisse it's not that I adore you or anything, but you come in many foods and do make many of them more delicious due to your oh-so-high fat content. For the last two days I have been feeling nauseous with tummy cramps and low back pain. The only thing I ate both days was you Mayo, Panchito must hate you, so in the interest of the fetus that determines my eating habits I am afraid that I have to cut you out of my life. Well, at least until I determine that you are not the source of all my current pains.

Honduran Pride for Panchito

My parents and I are going to Honduras in a few weeks. My mom speaks what I call "preschool Spanish," mainly consisting on commands ("Sit down" "Don't touch/eat that" "come here now"), names of objects in a classroom and I am not sure it will be that useful with adults. At least she is very very outgoing and has no shame in speaking poorly. My Daddy used to speak Latin, which could help for some of the root word  connections to Spanish. He is quieter and more of a listener than Mom. His plan for entertainment is to teach all the village kids jow to play baseball!

I had been asking Noel where I could buy onesies for Panchito in Honduras. Neither of us has a clue. But since I am a Google girl I found a website that has them here (albeit at ridiculous prices for small pieces of material).

Honestly I want one of each.... although the lower of the top two is my favorite!  http://www.cafepress.com/+catracho+baby-bodysuits?page=1  I haven't a clue why the pictures don't show up as onesies, but you get the picure.

Of course I couldn't leave off the "Honduran Pride" onesie! Hondurans call themselves "Catrachos." I guess now I will go eat the tamales Noel's cousin's wife made(yes its always that complicated).

First Real Nausea

I am having my first real bout of nausea. It hit at 12am. Now it's 2am and I am in bed watching TV on the computer. Thank goodness for Netflix! I think I'm nauseous because I have a UTI and am trying to cure it naturally. Bah humbug to natural. I miss those UTI pain pills that turn your pee red. Curing it naturally means drinking insane amounts of cranberry juice and coconut water, the latter of which has a strange smell (like dirty sheets? Or lightly sweaty gym socks?) and made me nauseous. The second half of the bottle is eyeing me. I am avoiding it for the moment, going with insanely concentrated cranberry juice.

In the one moment of no nausea I figured I could handle peanut butter toast as it sticks and won't come back up. This required opening the fridge. So it went eat 1 piece PB toast, eat 2 mini Klaussen pickles, then eat 2nd piece toast (in bed of course and completely against my rules, crumbs make it hard to sleep), drink more cranberry juice. Pickles and PB toast is a further cry than pickles and watermelon isn't it?

On a happier note today I went on a 3 mile walk in Discovery Park with my good friend Elise, followed by a maternity massage she got me for my birthday and dinner at Moonlight where two groups of people walked up to our table to comment that our food looked incredible. Funny since I did the same thing to someone ages ago and now order the same dish every time! It's the Moolight Vegan Special if you must know. Which says nothing about it being a make it yourself spring roll platter with to-die-for pickled bamboo shoots and carrots for only $12! Elise and I couldn't even finish it and it's supposed to just be an appetizer!

Bleth, back to my cranberry juice I go.....