Not only is this move to Bolivia a wonderful learning experience… it is funny as hell. The other day I went to the grocery store with The Cook to do some shopping and familiarize her with our tastes. Apparently she didn’t believe MH when he said we’d eat anything that she put on a plate. Besides the fact that I didn’t recognize some of the fruits and vegetables (or didn’t care what she bought and this disturbed her to no end), the trip was pretty successful – or so I thought. I mean, we even found vanilla yogurt – The Boy’s favorite snack besides applesauce and “cwackers.”
After dinner on the first night we tasted some of The Boy’s “yewwow yogurt” and realized that it was the best thing we have ever eaten. It is so creamy and delicious… almost like custard. The next day after The Nanny and The Cook saw me serve The Boy another small bowl of yogurt they gave me the Spanish equivalent of an ear-full about how unhealthy the yogurt was. Apparently, we had gotten “Light” yogurt which has “no vitamines” and is for “the diet”. They kept holding their waists and sucking in. Now, my Spanish is limited, but I got the idea. I tried to explain that I wasn’t worried because The Boy gets a lot of vitamins from other sources plus they consider skim milk unhealthy because it doesn’t have enough fat. I sort of pointed out that The Cook was with me when we bought the yogurt and they explained that they thought my esposo (MH) was trying to lose weight. Apparenlty they knew it wasn’t for me because I am nursing and I need my extra calories (and I am not a gordo like MH?).
So how do I tell MH about this conversation without revealing that our staff thinks he is a fatty? Well, I didn’t. I thought it was so funny because we have both lost a ton of weight just from being at this high elevation. I brought a few pair of pre-pregnancy pants with me that I hoped to fit into and they are waaay to big for me now. So I highly recommend doing a post-partum stint at 12,000 feet or so. Unfortunately, MH did not think the yogurt incident was as funny as I did even after people explained that it is not a stigma to be a little gordo here. I suggested he try to have a “thick skin” about the whole situation… I know, poor choice of words. I understand that he can’t help but feel insulted especially after what occurred the next day.
The Nanny arrives around 8am and I shower while The Boy is sleeping or eating breakfast. After breakfast he spends the majority of his morning running around in the yard. I have no idea how he does it because simply carrying The Girl up the stairs makes me pant. But then again, he does sleep hard for three to four hours in the afternoon. While he was playing with The Nanny in the garden (and by “in the garden” I mean he was getting nice and dirty) I was rocking The Girl. The Cook came in and from our gestures and my limited understanding of Spanish (based on my less-limited understanding of French) I gathered that she was offering to entertain The Girl while I showered. Why is it that when I don’t shower I get compliments on my hair and appearance and when I do shower people think I need to focus on my hygiene? When we were in the States and MH or The Babysitter would comment on my apparently-showered-state I would think “Result! No one knows I am a slob.” Now, I am starting to get a complex and I refuse to heed my own advice to MH when he was insulted by the fatty comment. The worst part of all this is that we are literally paying for these insults… granted it isn’t much by our standards, but we’re still paying for it!
