Babies and Adult Babies

And the baby shower!  Mabel told me early last week that there would be a baby shower on Friday night at 7.  That we would take diapers and there were two women in the neighborhood who were pregnant who would be having a shower together.  She told me this as an invitation, but she said "if you want to go" with such an emphasis.  I think she didn't want me to feel obligated to buy diapers or to hang out with her friends after the 5:00am party that I ditched (but look at me now dancing til three...I'll make it to five some day!).  Again, they told us never to pass up an opportunity to hang out, no matter how tired you are or how trivial it seems.  Well, I'm your typical princess of a prissy girl (no comments necessary from anywhere) who loves weddings and babies and all that is involved with them, so I agreed!  After school Friday, when Maribel brought my books to me at school, took me to her daughters' school and took me home, Mabel and I chatted for a bit about our days and then we just did our afternoon thing; she watched some tv and I did computer things.  I also got my room cleaned up and a bit more organized (I still don't have things where I want them to be-not because of my slob style, though that doesn't help, but more because my closet and shelves and drawers and such are different from what I'm used to.

Around 5 we went to Walmart to get our diapers.  I also got some Qtips (make that cotton swabs, Amanda) and a canned Coca Light as well as a couple of bottles.  I never get out of Walmart at home with less than 50 bucks worth of goods.  Here I made it in under twenty, but somehow handing over a 200 bill was difficult!

At seven, I was chatting with Mom and she asked me how close to 7 it would start; I wasn't sure, but I was headed that way.  I got there and Mabel was helping set up.  The woman who is pregnant (can't remember her name) is Paulina's mom.  Paulina and Cosette are the same age (I think) and are like sisters.  They're both only children (for the time being), so they play, fight, and love like sisters.

Over the course of the night, I got the impression that you give yourself a baby shower.  At least this kind, for your neighbors.  She rented a tent that covered her entire front "driveway/yard" and supplied the food (lots of sushi that was delicious) and beer.  Yep, beer.  And I mean lots of it.  That's what you see on the table in the picture.  I was surprised, of course, when I saw her turning one up.  Color me shocked when I saw her on her 6th bottle (of course it was 6 hours later, but by all accounts, she was still with child).  Again, no need to be the gringa, so I didn't lecture her on the harmful effects of drinking/eating seafood/etc. while pregnant.  I stayed in awe the whole night.  At 8 is when people started coming and continued arriving until around 10:30.  From 8:30ish until 10 we ate sushi.  Then we cut into the cakes: "pay" (pie, which is cheesecake...ish) and a chocolate cake that was delectable.  In the picture above, the girls I'm nearest to are the ones I talked with all night.  The one directly to my right doesn't live in the neighborhood; someone works with someone (her husband with the mom or she works with the dad?).  She asked me lots of questions and that was nice.  I like all this chill time, but it leaves lots of down time.  Especially when you're the girl no one knows.  And it's so funny.  This was the night I noticed it most.  Everyone thinks I'm a Mexican until I open my mouth.  Then, of course they immediately know which is a bit frustrating, but also to be expected.  I was told this so many times.  And they never believe that I don't have Latin heritage.  I've also been told on more than one occasion that Mabel and I could be sisters.  Patrick even said before I left when he looked at the pictures Mabel had sent me that I could be Cosette's mother.  Neither one of us sees it, but it's obvious other people do!

The woman next to her is named Carmen and has a daughter about Cosette's age too.  She is redheaded, so I figured she was a transplant.  Negative.  She didn't speak a work of English.  Then the one next to her was Rocio (Roe-SEE-oh), who was the most important to me later in the night.  She was very complimentary of my Spanish (I'm pretty humble about it because I feel like here, I don't know very much and I am having a harder time), and she asked tons of questions about the exchange.  She is from Tijuana (and here, they actually say it like it's spelled tee-WHON-ah instead of tee-uh-WHON-uh) and moved here two years ago.  She's still not used to the heat and humidity, so we talked about that forever.

Mabel, just to remind you, is the one on the far left.  

Just after this picture, two women showed up and sat far from me, but quickly people were leaving and we decided to create one group instead of two groups.  I became the center of discussion, which was fun for awhile.  They told me I should be giving English lessons in the neighborhood and asked me how to say gazillions of words.  Well, then it turned to "grocerias" again, as it always seems to do.  The cuss word lesson.  Since I don't speak fluid "nice" Spanish, I'm not going to be able to cuss with the best of 'em.  But I listened.  This new girl was leading the discussion.  Then she got more to slang, but with negative connotations.  For example, a very very drunk person is called a Pedon which comes from the verb pedar which means to pass gas.  Well, when someone is so drunk they're passing gas (which I suppose was the original thought behind this word), we don't call them a tooter or whatever the equivalent would be.  We just don't have a word for that, which is the case for many words.  That's the thing with language; there are things that just don't translate.  She also asked why we only had one word for so many things.  For example, they have 4-5 words for pig, but we just have pig.  Well, how many words do you need was my immediate answer  And then my thought was, "I didn't create this language, dear, I just speak it."  Then she would speak so quickly and very garbled because she was approaching "pedon" and I couldn't understand her well.  It's very Mexican to be funny.  And it's funny in a one-liner way, so if you're not listening at the precise moment of delivery, you miss it.  Well, at 11:30 after a week adjustments to school, heat, and life, I was tired on top of full of Spanish.  I wasn't trying my hardest to understand.  I could get the main point and laugh at all the right times, but had I been asked to repeat something or re-phrase it, I would've been in trouble.

There were times in the group conversation led by this drunk girl that I felt very attacked.  Why I didn't know certain things.  She would ask me one word (during the groceria and slang lessons) out of context unique to Mexico, or even worse to Sinaloa (Culiacan's state) and expect me to know the translation.  Rocio, thankfully, knew a bit about language learning and that you can't know every word.  More so, you can't know them out of context.  More so, you can't know them from a drunk who's speaking too quickly.  Rocio kept saying to her, "She speaks Spanish; she understands you.  You're just talking to fast.  You're using words she doesn't know."  The mom-to-be kept trying to change the topic.  When I left at 12, tired and ready for shower and bed, I was tense and flustered.  I shouldn't have been.  Mostly, she was just ignorant to learning another language and what comes along with that.  She doesn't know that you don't just one day know everything about a language including all its idiosyncrasies.  

I got showered and in bed, and realized that for the most part I had had lots of fun.