American in Spain

The Gift Of Light

March 24, 2009

In Spanish, the phrase "to give birth" is dar a luz, or "to give to the light". It seems rather fitting, if you ask me. After all, what is this world after the warmth of the womb, but a cold, bright wilderness. Other related terms are the verb mamar, meaning "to breast feed". Thus the third person singular would be "mama", as in "la niña tiene hambre y mama", from which we obviously get the world "mama" for mother. I'd never considered the similarity between mammary and "mama" before learning Spanish.

Personally I've been betting and hoping for March 27, 2009 as the birth date of my first child, what with 3, 9, and 27 all being powers of three, but it doesn't look like we're going to make it that far. I will be posting updates here as things progress and I bore myself to death in the wee hours in the hospital. The 24th isn't that bad. After all, the Phoneticians chose it for the basis of our clock because of its divisibility with five of the first 6 positive integers.

Also, why is there not an iPhone app for counting the time between contractions??