American in Spain

The following is a video I took on Sunday of little Nora in her Sunday dress performing her favorite activity: kicking. She’s been an avid kicker for 6 months now, only 2.5 of which has she been out here in the extramommy world. She’s one calorie-burning aerobic baby. Judging from how much she likes bath time, I’m thinking she might be a good swimmer.
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This video has been sitting on my computer for a month now, and I finally got around to uploading it. No doubt we all look similarly twitchy and ridiculous when we speed up video of us falling asleep, but I think Nora looks particularly so. It’s not a great video, but I figured I’d share it anyway. It’s funny to watch her belly go up and down in the times when she’s not thrashing around.
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Favorite shoes are a funny thing. I remember vivid details of the stores where I buy my favorite shoes. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps because, once I realize how great the shoes are, I imagine myself going back to buy more, because good comfortable shoes are hard to find and worth stocking up on if you find a brand and model that agrees with you. Of course I have yet to actually follow the whole process of 1) discover after a week or two that these are really great shoes, 2) make it back to the store, and 3) find and buy more pairs for when current pairs wear out.
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I foresee a continued stream of photos of brand new dresses in my Flickr photostream’s feature. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law call every day to ask what Nora is wearing. Of course, with each new outfit, she’s so incredibly adorable that there’s not really an option to not take a photo. Since she made it to the two-month mark, she’s been using a new dress just about every day. None of which we have purchased. They were all gifts.
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In Spain, it’s very common for people to have a pueblo, a little town where they grew up or where their family originated from, where they go to spend vacation time. In August and Easter, these small towns throughout Spain come alive as the towns’ sons and daughters return to maintain both their houses and friendships. The family I married into goes to a tiny town in Extremadura named Higuera de la Serena. Marga has been going there in the summers since she was born, and thus has many friends that also summer there. As we all know, over the years, some friendships weaken, but the special ones remain strong. One of Marga’s best friends from the pueblo is Emi, a woman who is three days older than Marga and lives in a Madrid suburb. Last year, when Marga was four months pregnant and starting to feel like her independent life of youth was ending, she called her friend Emi.

Marga: “Hi Emi! I have some news!”
Emi: “Hi Marga. I have some news, too.”
Marga: “I’m four months pregnant.”
Emi: “I’m four months pregnant.”
Marga [annoyed]: “Hey cut that out. I’m really pregnant!”
Emi: “That’s great. I’m really pregnant too!”
Marga: “Really?? That’s fantastic!”

Marga came out of that phone conversation happier than I had seen her in the four months of her pregnancy. She had apparently been fretting that in 2009, she’d go to the pueblo and all her friends would be going out and partying, and Marga would have to be caring for her daughter while her friends were having a good time. The idea that she wasn’t the only one shackled by offspring pleased her immensely. Emi’s daughter, Carla (she had that name picked out long before we picked one for Nora), was born 25 days after Nora. Last weekend, we went to Madrid to register Nora at the US Embassy, and we visited with Emi, Carla, and Mario (Carla’s dad).
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These are just three photos of Marga and Nora that I took during our trip to Guernica recently. She took Nora and the bottle and sat down to feed her while the rest of us unloaded ourselves and the stroller from the car. Anyway, I like these photos.
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