To gain or not to gain

We have been offered $1500 to put C in a catalogue for a toyshop.

The big blue eyes and blonde fluffy hair are a novelty here. People stand in front of the pram in supermarkets, preventing escape and say Que olhao! Ele vai fazer sucesso hein! Check out those eyes! He's going to be a success!

Hmmm...

You can imagine that working for an NGO in South America doesnt pay very well....you can also imagine that the cost of living in this big city is high...and having a baby implies extra costs...

But you can imagine that the baby modelling world must be an awful place, full of desperate mums and tired kids. Full of competition, brown nosing, crying, lights, fashion. Imagine.

Votes - to gain or not to gain?

PS. If C makes money its not going into a college fund, its going into a holiday or some interior design for the apartment!

Firsts

Yesterday C suffered his first blood inducing accident. He is really crawling these days, starting to explore the corners of the apartment where he hadn't up til now reached. I've had to put away the cleaning chemicals but the bins in the bathrooms are a source of constant joy for him. I'm having to get smarter to keep up with him (well, at least I have to keep the bathroom doors closed).

When C reaches a shelf, chair or side table he is up on his feet, looking around grinning, "check me out!", like the cat that got the cream. Tudo feliz. He has also learnt to sit back down, onto his padded bottom. Yesterday he was up, then too quickly down, catching his top lip on his newly erupted teeth.

I knew he was hurt because his cry was different from usual. And then the blood. I will have to toughen up, he is an adventurous kid and will be bumping and bruising his way through childhood. We mopped him up, checked his little teeth were still intact and distracted him til he forgot. And he forgot, five minutes later back up on the furniture beaming to everyone. Cat with the cream.

Joy

It was difficult for us to choose our sons name. We had a few names in mind and narrowed it down to three in the days after his birth. We tossed them back and forth, said them to him and watched his reactions, asked opinions. It took over a week to sign the papers and decide on Caetano, but in fact that was always going to be the choice.

When I was 16 weeks pregnant I had gone to the yoga class that I had attended for a couple of years. We already considered the name Caetano a favourite if it were a boy. The regular teacher was away and the replacement directed out attention to a wall hanging, with some words inscribed. She read the words aloud during our meditation.

"Joy is inside you...and joy will be yours forever"

Caetano means joy.

Hippy Hoppys

My Brazilian partner speaks excellent English. When we met I didnt know a word of Portuguese so we have grown used to speaking English together, though there are certain words that trip him up.

When our baby was a few days old he got his first case of hiccups. "Oh no, the baby's got hippy hops", commented M.

At seven months old Caetano still gets hippy hoppys regularly. And I think the name is here to stay.

What I Want

M asked me the other day what I wanted. He had come home late from work and found me in a foul mood, discontent and unsettled, tired of being a stay at home mum with no close friends, no family nearby and blah blah blah, probably the same complaints as many new mums, not to mention those living in a foreign country.

When he asked me I couldnt immediately reply. I didnt know. I hadnt really thought about it. I was playing the role of wife and mum. Going to playgroup, swimming lessons, mothers group, cooking routine meals, keeping the apartment tidy, but creatively I was all out of gas. No guitar, no writing music, no university work which I always regarded as a kind of creativity, crafting words to make meaning, succinct, sensical, scientific. Its the lack of creativity that was wearing me out.

So next day I decided; I want to write. Nothing too deep or profound, just my observations as a mum, as an Australian living in Brasil, as a music lover and amateur cook.

I want to write about the contradictions, superstitions and traditions of Brazilian culture. I want to share my journey learning portuguese and maybe one day even start posting bilingually (thats a ways off yet!).

So here I go, one post down, hopefully many more to come...