two years ago, pt. 3

i woke up to see panzón in scrubs and a funny, shower-cap-looking hat, smiling uncontrollably and taking way too many pictures. looking back at those pictures, i realize that i, too, was wearing such a cap. the power nap energized me and, once the midwives came into the room, we were ready to go. i obviously had no idea what i was doing, but after a while, i understood that contractions are waves that you have to catch and ride out by pushing steadily.

there were about two hours of pushing and pausing and pushing, all of it captured on video by panzón, who was also there to hold my hand. while i pushed with all of my might from the inside, a midwife was using her hands and arms to push from the outside. coco was probably pushing too, with her little coconut head, because i felt a tremendous and slightly painful pressure right at the time when it PLOP!ed out. and then there she was: red, with a tiny scrunched-up face and a head full of hair.

she was placed on my breast immediately, which was beautiful, but also overwhelming. now what?, i asked myself, scared, excited, exhausted. i had been concentrating so much on giving birth, that i hadn't thought much about sustaining life.

two years ago, pt. 2

morning came and i was still not dilating in the dilating room. to get things going, a nurse applied prostaglandin gel in the form of a long, white shoelace that went in in in, against the current that was steadily flowing out. pretty soon, the contractions started (panzón and my mom took turns keeping me company and timing the waves of pain that came over me) and by noon, i was ready for the epidural. i was taken to the delivery room (alone!) and was told that the anesthesiologist would be with me in fifteen minutes. ok, i thought, totally doable, just a handful of contractions.

so there i was, alone and half-naked in a room filled with medical equipment, the most daunting machine of all staring me in the face. i could hear it mocking me with its ticking and its tocking. fifteen minutes went slowly by, then another fifteen excruciating minutes, and yet another. it seemed like the clock kept getting bigger and rounder and louder, the black numbers burning into my white pain. in between contractions, i was like a frog sticking out its tongue to catch a passing fly, or nurse.

when i finally caught one, she explained that another woman needed the injection first, to which the socialist in me replied "yes, i understand". after all, i was in a public hospital, receiving free healthcare, and if someone else needed it more, i would wait calmly. and i did. kind of. i ignored the clock and squeezed my pillow until the surprisingly young anesthesiologist came in, instructed me to lie on my side and stay still, which was nearly impossible during a contraction, and applied the injection.

oh, sweet numbness! i felt like i was floating on a fluffy, white cloud and fell into a deep sleep.

two years ago, pt. 1

two years ago, i awoke suddenly with the feeling that i had peed in my pajama pants, which are a pair of fuzzy, lime green drawstring sweatpants. that feeling took me back in time to a place in my life filled with the smell of apple juice and graham crackers, when i was a little over two years old and had the occasional potty accident. just like i did then, i felt embarrassed and confused and wet. i got out of bed in the two-in-the-morning darkness and clumsily found my way to the bathroom. then, sitting on the toilet, it dawned on me: my water had broken. the time had come (two weeks early?!). OH MY GOD.

i woke panzón up, by calling out from the bathroom, and told him what had happened. i was expecting him to freak out, yet he calmly asked me what color my waters were, so i parted my legs and squinted into the toilet bowl, but could not make anything out, since i was not wearing my glasses. he brought them to me, informed me that pinkish was good and instructed me to take a nice, relaxing shower while he called my mom, who was staying half a block away from where we lived. after hanging up, he thoughtfully packed my bag, helped me out of the shower and had me stand sideways in my underwear to take the last picture of my belly.

i was pretty uncomfortable and anxious, feeling the amniotic fluid drip drip dripping out of me, so when my mom arrived, we immediately left to the hospital, even though we knew we could wait until the contractions started. we walked to the car, which was parked in a public parking structure a couple of blocks away, past a bar overflowing with english hooligans from that night's football match, and over tiny rivulets of drunken urine that converged in the drains of our pedestrian street.

after a quick check-in/check-up at the hospital, we were informed that there were no signs of cervix dilation or effacement. they would have sent me back home, but let me spend the rest of the night in a dilating room, since it was so late. my mom went back to her hotel in a taxi and panzón stayed with me in the room that i shared with a south american woman, who snored very loudly during those last hours of the night and whose contractions started at dawn and rose with the sun. the snores behind the dividing curtain were replaced by "¡ay, mamá!" and "¡ay, mamita!" and "¡AY, AY, AY, AY, AAAAYYYYY!".

meanwhile, i was painless, but ¡AY!ing on the inside.

elephant in the room/car/boat

the stone on my engagement ring is lime green, which happens to be my favorite color. it's a peridot, probably from afghanistan, on a vintage setting, probably from the sixties. panzón and i bought it online and it came one november morning on a big brown truck, as we were leaving for disneyland with my parents. my dad, who has a sixth sense for delivery trucks, caught a glimpse of it and tracked it down, first by car, then by foot. we watched as he persuaded the man in the brown uniform, with matching socks, to give him the parcel by showing him the address on his drivers license. my dad got back in the car and triumphantly handed the cardboard box over to panzón, who opened it and, after rummaging through the packaging popcorn, extracted a small ring box. i covered my eyes as the three of them oohed and aahed.

once the ring was safely in its box in panzón's pocket, we stopped talking about it and it became the elephant in the room, or rather, the car. panzón smuggled the lime green elephant into disneyland, where it almost made its debut on the dumbo ride, which would have been so fitting, except that i made the mistake of saying that i thought that movie was sad. as the day went on, my initial excitement turned into anxiousness, then irritation, and finally into indifference.

later that afternoon, when i had already forgotten about the whole thing, i felt a nervous hand searching for my finger in the quiet, pitch dark of the pirates of the caribbean ride, between the blue bayou restaurant and the first drop, before all of the yo-ho-ho-ing. the ring felt heavy on my finger, but heavier still was the frustration of not being able to see it. i was so preoccupied with this that i completely forgot about the drop and suddenly felt the rush of weightlessness. the elephant fell off the boat and was replaced by laughing and hugging and kissing.

here's a lime green elephant that you can actually ride from danish company, bObles: http://tr.im/DmrH

quinceañera

i've only been to a quinceañera once in my life. it was not mine and i was not fifteen. i was probably around seventeen when my lifelong and then inseparable friend, ev, invited me to his cousin's party.

i met ev at the cute little french school in guadalajara (in mexico, not spain) when we were around three-and-a-half years old. he had extremely straight, shiny, dark hair, which he later dyed royal blue in high school, and very squeezable cheeks, which he still has, under his beard. he loved dinosaurs and slimy goblins and had a birthday party at guadalajara's first mcdonald's, which was so avant-garde at the time.

after many years apart, we reconnected in los angeles, when he came to visit with his family. we were delighted to discover that we were both avid listeners of the smashing pumpkins and other similar bands. we were moving back to mexico and ev, with plenty of encouragement from my parents, convinced me to go to his high school. soon after that, i myself turned fifteen, for which my parents gave me a very special gift: a pair of silver eight-hole doctor martens.

so here we are, around seventeen and at a quinceañera, dancing exaggeratedly like we've always enjoyed, mouths halfway open, arms flying everywhere. ev tells me in a serious tone that we have to talk. oh my god. the talk. this is going to ruin our friendship. he's totally going to tell me that he likes me. wow, it really took him a while to realize it, but it was bound to happen. now i'm going to have to tell him that we're just friends, but it'll never be the same again. i ineffectively try to avoid the talk and it eventually makes its way to my ears, but wait! what just came out of ev's mouth? did he just say that he's bisexual? i love it! i give him a big hug and tell him how great that is.

how embarrassingly enormous was my ego? huge. and how horribly wrong was my gaydar? very. ev is now a super talented artist in the gay art scene (http://ivanlozano.net).

you say tomato

the best halloween costume i have ever had is, by far, the custom-made tomato costume i wore when i was nine years old, and again when i was ten and living in another city in another country. i tried wearing it after that, because i am a firm believer of extending the useful life of things, but, sadly, i could not fit into it anymore.

my thin limbs were made red by leggings and a turtleneck, and my midsection was completely covered by a red bubble, giving me warmth, while providing me with much appreciated room to expand my stomach, privacy to scratch my bellybutton, if necessary, and storage space. the hat was the finishing touch, soft and lampshade-like with a green stem sticking out at the top, also doubling as an emergency treat bag.

now that i think about it, this would have been the perfect costume for me when i was pregnant, two years ago, had we celebrated halloween. it's super comfortable, the red accentuates maternal glow, and you can secretly stash all of the candy you can get your hands on, while giving a healthy impression to others, especially kids. the only drawback: running into naughty nurses, desirable devils, foxy french maids and feeling, well, like a big about-to-burst blob.

trencadís

every week i add a new recipe to my limited repertoire, as an attempt to expose coco to new flavors and ingredients, especially vegetables other than peas, tomatoes, corn, and the occasional carrot. last week, i made this zucchini lasagna (http://tr.im/BQ3O), which, of course, coco didn't even touch. can't blame me for trying.

when i make lasagna of any sort, i usually miscalculate the noodles, even though i use the super easy non-boil kind. foodies, say what you will, but cooking anything more elaborate than a quesadilla around a toddler is a feat. i just say, good thing these lasagnas aren't buildings.

in this occasion, i had to use my creativity to make up for missing sheets by summoning the pasta-shattering powers of antoni gaudí. with my yucatecan salt and pepper shakers looking on, i put together this masterpiece, that was later covered up by a sticky ricotta and cream cheese mixture and, by absorbing moisture from other ingredients, expanded in my toaster-oven, hiding its cracks forever.

by the way, coco didn't touch it because it had zucchini and because she didn't believe the white stuff was cheese, but it really did turn out delicious.