In the midst of the fiesta de amor, there have been a few minor trials and reminders that Madelena Sofia is as fallible and prone to human frailty as other, lesser babies.* At breakfast yesterday in the beautiful courtyard at Kaffe Fernando, she spit up all over herself and down the front of my shirt. Given that she is eating solids and had just eaten an egg, spit up is a euphemism that I used to dampen Gregg’s gag reflex. We left him at the table to finish his meal in peace, and walked the 100 yards to our Posada.
Back in our room, I stripped her down and prepared her bath. This is no easy feat in a room filled with tile and sharp corners and no jumpy seat or excersaucer in sight. But I was feeling confident – one armed though I was – sure that all my mama skills were back in high gear. Finally one of us was naked and the other shirtless and the smallest of us was settled in the bath. Still, the smell of spit up pervaded the room. As I began to consider the source, Madelena got on her hands and knees to explore. And to drop one of the most lengthy and colorful floaters ever seen by a horrified mother into the once-clean bath water.
It was scoop and run time, as she reached for this new fun toy in the water, something perhaps as squishable as the cereal she so loved to scoop out of her own mouth and mash into her fist and then hair. As I lifted her, she attempted to step on it on her way out of the tub and seemed truly chagrined to have missed out on this possibly fabulous tactile sensation.
Gregg, fabulous father and partner that he is, has one weakness: squishy things. Be it baby food, soft diapers or, in this case, the new kids now floating in the pool. I knew it was a matter of moments before he’d be home and see the evidence of our child’s lack of fealty to him and his delicate senses. As he entered the door and headed to the bathroom I screamed “don’t go in there!!!!” He looked at me kindly, sure that I was embarrassed by something I HAD left in the bathroom, some trace of my own humanity. I decided not to disabuse him of this notion — better he know that I am human than be afraid to ever bathe Madelena in case of an encore performance.
The rest of the day, no matter where we went, all I could smell was spit up. It haunted me at Nim Po’t, the fabulous gallery of Quiche arts and crafts where we picked up a beautiful huipil for our home, textiles to adorn Madelena’s walls, a wooden quetzal for Shawn Joaquin’s room and beautiful art work to mark this very special week in our lives. The spit up smell followed me into Frida’s, down the street to the Plaza, and back to our hotel. It was in my nose. It was in my lungs. And it was, as I ultimately found out four hours after the incident, in my hair. Ah, motherhood. All poop and spit up and lack of sleep and all, ultimately, vale le pena.
*I apologize to all the readers and friends who have perfectly beautiful, perfectly perfect babies. I am still in the throes of love and figure I can get a hall pass for 60 days of hyperbole.
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