This month we traveled to Nicaragua, spent a weekend at the beach, and had a few trips in and out of San Jose. While Adele is a good traveler, we found that she much prefers the cool climate here in our valley to the hot and humid weather at other locations!
Adele continues to smile all the time, and has even let out a few giggles. She keeps exploring her new sounds and has started to enjoy squealing in a high-pitched voice just for the fun of it. Her neck muscles are getting stronger and she can lift her head high and turn it while on her tummy. She now prefers to be sitting up or "standing" all the time so she can see and be a part of everything going on.
Adele is finally getting through the stage where she has to be with mommy all the time. She still has her moments, but she enjoys going with other people now too. It's fun to see our students take so much interest in her - it's addicting to try to get her to smile! This past month she has also preferred David over anyone. As soon as he walks in the room, her eyes light up and she smiles huge as she follows his every move.
While Adele is sleeping pretty good at night, she still only likes to take frequent but short naps during the day. It makes those 30-45 minute intervals for me a time to run around and attempt to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time!
Having a baby in Latin America brings some very funny moments for me. I'm sure it's the case anywhere in the world that women love to share with new moms lots of advice. But sometimes the advice I get here creates a lot of amusement. Here are two examples:
1.) Adele often gets the hiccups. Right after she was born, I was told that to get rid of the hiccups I should put a piece of wet paper on her forehead. I though this was funny, but a few different people gave me the same advice. We were at a dinner party with some Costa Rican friends and as soon as she got the hiccups, our friends told me to try it. So I did, and it didn't work. I was told this was because Adele is a gringa, not latina. Later on a Nicaraguan friend gave me the same advice about the wet paper on the forehead and I told her I had tried it but it didn't work. She told me it was because I didn't have enough faith that it would work. :)
2.) I never planned on getting Adele's ears pierced when she was a baby. Apparently that's the right thing to do in Costa Rica. And if you don't get your baby's ears pierced, it's obviously hard to tell whether or not the baby is a girl or boy. I assumed people would be able to tell based on all the pink clothing, the dresses, and the pink blankets Adele uses...but no, people will look at her ears and then ask "is it a boy or girl?" when she's in a pink dress, followed by "you really should pierce her ears so you can tell she's a girl". :)
Here are a few pictures from the last month:
1 comment:
Sarah,
I know a lot of people have strong feelings when to pierce a child’s ear. “Let them decide” is being replaced by parental decision when mommy intuition knows,“earlier is better” from either personal or friend’s experiences of unpleasant childhood ear piercing.
I was in Mexico for a prolonged period of time studying when we had our first child, a little girl. Most would ask me as well if she was a boy with all pink, so I know how you feel.
I think it just depends on your own personal choice whether or not you wish your baby or little girl to have pierced ears.
Some feel perceived gender of their child is important while others find it a cultural tradition where all infant girls have pierced ears. I found living in a different culture sometimes means accepting part of that culture to let others know you respect whats is the norm within their thinking and acceptance of you. With all that said, this is a perfect age to pierce your dd's ears. Promise, she'll thank you later.
We pierced ours at 2 mos after seeing other babies and little girls with pretty earrings, so I asked our ped. She encouraged me to go ahead and pierce her ears especially when mommy can care for them.
I’d say if your’re thinking about it now, then your mommy intuition is telling you now is a good time and I’d follow your heart. If you’d like our ped’s suggestions for moms having their little
girls ears pierced, write me an e-mail.
Good luck with your decision, but secretly, I think you’ve already made it and it is not a matter
of if she’ll have them done, but when.
Amy
Amyswor@hotmail.com
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