Sick Monkey

Well, the Monkey came down with a rough sounding cough last night, and will therefore not be heading to preschool this morning.  Best to keep her at home for her own health, as well as to keep the other monkeys in her class from getting whatever she had.  Don't love going to the preschool and seeing little ones hacking up a lung and spreading their germs around, and since I am at home I have the option to minimize the spread of this particular bug, at least through my child.

Of course, this likely means a trip to the doctor later - with the Catalan public health system, you go to one of these clinics called a CAP, and see the pediatrician there.  Luckily, ours is just a three minute walk from our house.  I hope we get the morning doctor though, the afternoon one is grumpy and insists on speaking Spanish all the time.  My Spanish = dreadful.  My Catalan = passable.  Therefore, I prefer morning doctor.

Hope she improves soon and a fever is not on the horizon.  Fingers crossed.

Half-Mornings

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, my three-year-old hyperactive Monkey goes to preschool.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays she has appointments with her psychologist and speech therapist, respectively.  That means that on M, W, and F I have something of a 'free' morning, as I am only caring for one child, our four-month-old son, Mr. Bean.  Of course, these are not their real names, but tend to be the monikers I use on a daily basis.  Lucky children, as they actually do have proper names, and I have no doubt there are actual children out there in this world that have the names Monkey and Mr. Bean listed on their birth certificates.

On Mondays, our lovely cleaner comes to the house for two hours to do the tidying I can't ever seem to get motivated to get around to.  At this time, I usually wander down to the vegetable and fruit store, as well as the grocery to pick up odds and ends that we didn't grab on the big Saturday grocery run.  I have only a double stroller, and feel a bit silly dragging it out with only Mr. Bean occupying the back seat (and we have big hills, and I don't particularly enjoy pushing that monster up the hill back home when it is fully loaded with produce).  I love the fruit and veggie store, as it is full of fresh, cheap options and friendly South Americans.  They couldn't quite get the Visa machine to work today, and allowed me to carry my veggies home and return with cash.  That is one of the nice things about living in a small town.

Not so nice is that fact that there are absolutely ZERO ethnic restaurants within the city limits.  Catalan cuisine as far as the eye can see.  Of course, we do have a Wok restaurant.  But that fine dining experience deserves its own post.  Maybe tomorrow.

Right now, I must get to eating my golden kiwi and Activia and squeezing in a nap before the Monkey wakes up and my Half-Morning 'free' comes to a close.

Blogging is for narcissists...

Okay, not really. I don't consider myself to be narcissistic, but it does irk me that our society seems to encourage people to share every minute detail of their lives with minute to minute status updates consisting of 140 characters or less.

While I do enjoy taking a few moments (or more, if I am stuck with a happily snoozing four-month-old boy on my lap) perusing Facebook to see what randoms from my past and present are up to, I do not need to know the precise location and activity of said randoms, and even less so to have this updated on a twice hourly basis.

When I first moved overseas 5 and a half years ago, I was encouraged to start a blog by my great-uncle (he is very technologically with-it, despite being both 90 years old and having a dial-up internet connection). I did, and felt a bit vain myself in doing so, as who would possibly want to know the ins and outs of my rather typical life (well, typical for someone who basically desires to live anywhere but their home country for various reasons we will get to at a later date). Back then, there were lots of blogs...but not near the huge quantity that exists today. Since there were (relatively) few blogs out there, I did get a fair amount of readers from far and wide who enjoyed peeking into the life of a single girl in her early thirties living life in the great metropolitan city of Berlin.

I do not expect the same response with this blog. Things have changed since those times - both with the pervasiveness of blogging, tweeting, facebooking, and general oversharing of one's life, and with my own life as well. A single girl I have not been in five years, now married with two children. I also no longer enjoy the amazing city that is Berlin as my home...I do live in what many would consider another exciting European hotspot - Barcleona. However, like many married ladies with kids, I do not live exactly in this cultural mecca per se...but in a small town (okay, technically a suburb if you want to put that label on it) just a 20-minute tram ride away. Though I rarely venture in for myself alone (at this point in life, I am rarely alone). I do manage to get within the city limits just barely each week...for my daughter's speech therapy appointment. Qué exciting.

I am also no longer in my early thirties...am now on the other side of 35, each birthday pushing me closer to 40. My life no longer entails much variety, similar to most mothers of children under 5. Even though I have left my lifelong home of Indiana to live abroad, I imagine my life is not so much different than those Hoosier Mamas living in my home state. I go to the pediatrician, to the grocery store, to the park, and to the aforementioned Speech Therapist. I pick up my daughter each day at preschool, and hear from the teacher about how she refused to eat lunch again (though they serve rather odd food at her school, and I can hardly blame her for not eating chickpeas and spinach - she is only three after all!). Of course, most of this is done in a foreign language, which does add a bit of spice to my life. Especially when I am not functioning on all cylinders due to lack of sleep and general loopiness.

I like my life, don't get me wrong. There are things that could be better...I wish that I had more close friends here, but that takes time. My real goal with this blog is not necessarily to share my life with the masses, but to give myself an outlet with which to chronicle my ups and downs, ins and outs, and forwards and backwards of everyday...and to see how the 'blogosphere' (I really dislike that word, by the way) has changed since my first foray back in the day.

Plus, writing every day keeps my mama-addled mind agile and gives me a chance to think with grown-up words for a bit.

Now, if I can just keep my son sleeping for a spell longer, I might also get in a shower and a tooth brushing...

Happy trails, Campions!