You've Got Mail!

I've always loved getting mail. Personal mail, not junk mail, although at one point, before the advent of internets and all of its' online shopping glory, even junk mail in the form of catalogs etc was welcome in my house.

I remember writing letters to my Avó and erupting with glee whenever a postcard found its way to my home. I was fascinated by the little pieces of cardboard and all that they'd been through in order to reach me. When I started traveling myself, I always made sure to send cards to my friends and family from wherever I was traveling.

So when I first heard about Postcrossing, it seemed like an ideal fit. Postcrossing is a great site set up by a couple of fun Portuguese folks to facilitate the exchange of postcards amongst like minded peeps around the world. It's been a very rewarding experience and I've even become pen pals with a few of the dozens of people who've either sent me cards or whom I've sent cards to. If you like postcards/getting real mail in your postbox, I highly recommend it. Plus it's free! Well, you have to pay for the postage on the cards you send of course, and buy some cards to send out. But you could also use old cards you've picked up but never had the chance to mail :o)

But before Baby F. was born and definitely before I joined Postcrossing, I had thought that it would be great to get some postcards for her. I've mentioned it briefly before - I asked our friends and family to send her a card either from where they lived or of something they really enjoyed, as well as a short note to her on the back. She ended up receiving 20 or so cards which I then displayed in a photo holder in her room. I also went ahead and laminated all of them, so she could play with them *and* they'd survive her infancy.

Here are some highlights from her collection:

All the way from where else, the wondrous islands of the Azores, from our cousin A.

A vonK from New York State

Couldn't resist including this adorable drawing by our dear friend A vonK, on the back of the ESB card :o)

A building dear to my heart - i once worked there - from Baby F.'s godmama

K. and N.'s current city, Hoboken

Adorable doggie with I assume cute text in Japanese :o) from L.

Always a fave, Klimt from P.

Cutest bear in all of Madrid from C.

Loneliest pigeon in NYC from S.

Beautiful Van Gogh from A. in Portugal

Horseys! From Wyoming! From dear friends K. & J.

...is all you need :o) From S. in Queens

...Is it me you're looking for? Yes :o) From S. in NYC

I'm hoping that in a few years, when she's just a little older, we'll look at all of these and she'll realize how much she was loved even before she was born. I also hope they'll inspire her to dream of exploring far off places and to want to learn about all sorts of things.

Television…the drug of the (toddler) nation

Before Baby F. ever came along, I had certain ideas of what I'd do in regards to her television watching.

Outdoor Antenna of the kind we didn't have ;o)

We didn't want to be too severe - both Papa-in-Training and moi had been reared on telly and didn't feel it had ruined or stunted us. But then again, I'd grown up in Portugal up until I was 11 when there were only two channels to watch…and only one if you didn't have an outdoors antenna, i.e. you didn't want to pay the tv license by advertising to the authorities that you had a telly. Shh! Don't tell the tv license people, they might still want to collect after 30+ years ;o)

So we thought we'd let her watch some television when she was a little older - maybe 2 or
3 - but until then, we'd try to keep her away from the boob tube.


Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

[let me regain my breath a bit]


Yeah, that completely went out the window soon after birth.
All the guidelines, all the best practices, are great for ideal situations, when baby is always entertaining herself or there's always someone else around to help take care of her.
But what if there isn't? What if your brain has turned to mush and you'd like to watch some tv yourself but the baby is still awake?
Well, then you watch anyway, 'cause they can barely see beyond their face at the beginning. So you and your partner get a chance to relax and spend some bonding time with the baby because really she's not even aware that there's some sort of magical object that emits pictures and sounds at this point.

But once she can see and hear better, then surely no tv?

Yeah, phtttfff!

We were really good at first. Maybe she'd watch a little Jeopardy with me in the evenings, maybe a little Big Bang Theory - Baby F. seemed to like Sheldon in particular - but that was about it.

But then we discovered PBS. Well, *we* didn't discover it. I mean, I've been a devoted fan for many years. I was watching Masterpiece on a weekly basis waaaay before Downton Abbey came along and made it all chichi for everyone in the nation to watch ;o)

More specifically, we discovered Curious George. And that, my friends, was the beginning of the end.
Well, that and a certain bunch of squirrels headed by Bana & Flapi…but more on that a bit later.

Back to the monkey…

We discovered George and soon we were watching him and his friends on and off PBS. We have Netflix and they have all the available episodes on demand! This is at once an amazing thing…and a dreadful thing.
Because Baby F. now knows we can bring up an episode whenever we'd like.

And so every morning,

Said pillow complete with built in cat hair for a more authentic touch.

after having her brekkie and while I'm usually still waking up (some days I'm still half asleep honestly), I will put on the next episode of Curious George and Baby F. will sit in front of me on the couch - in between my legs (it's a deep couch) - or next to me on my left, using her favorite couch pillow, and will suddenly erupt in pure glee at the playing of the first notes of the theme song. She will do a little dance of joy while sitting next to me and will follow along with all the crazy adventures our little monkey friend gets up to.

Sometimes we might watch an episode of Sesame Street afterwards, where no big surprise, she seems to like Elmo's World the best, but it doesn't quite have the hold that George has on her.

We've tried other shows - Bob, the Builder; Thomas, the Tank Engine; Babar; Pocoyo - and although she might like them a bit, they do not envoke the joy that the curious monkey gives her.

That is, other than Bana & Flapi.

What the heck is that, you may be asking?

Only the most amazing cartoon about squirrels ever devised :o)



I watched this sweet little show when I was a child and fell hook, line and acorn over its' protagonist and his forest adventures. There were no VCRs when I was little, so when a few years back they decide to release the series on DVD, I was utterly thrilled. Unfortunately I
was only able to pick up a couple of the volumes, leaving me with lotsmissing in between. This wasn't that much of a big deal…until we discovered that the DVDs are magic.

Once upon a time, we were having a hard time getting Baby F. to eat. And then one of us, I forget who, thought, 'Why don't we pop in a DVD and see if that will distract her enough to eat?' And so, with this thought we doomed ourselves to repeated viewings of the same episodes of the little squirrel.





And before you mamas and papas get up in arms, yes, yes, babies should be fed without distractions, yada yada yada. But you know what? These little squirrels got her to eat her nom noms almost every time. Because unlike with other programs that we might have on that she'll barely glance at whilst playing next to us, Bana & Flapi thrills her to no end. She actually pumped her fist in the air today as we told her it was time for lunch *and* for Bana & Flapi. She, of the as of yet, limited vocabulary, said 'Yay!' and pumped up her fist.

She also makes the kookiest facial expressions while watching particularly thrilling episodes - spoiler alert: there's a scary one involving a ferret.

Have I sometimes been singing a certain ditty in my head only to realize I'm singing the Curious George theme song?
Am I growing slightly annoyed at my childhood favorite's theme song playing everyday at meals?
Do I find the repetition of the handful of episodes we own being droned into my brain day after day unsettling?

Maybe a little.

But seeing the fun and happiness Baby F. has while watching Curious George and Bana & Flapi makes it all worthwhile.

No Barney though. That's where I draw the line.


P.S. I have recently found that seemingly all episodes of Bana & Flapi are available through YouTube. For some reason they've all been divided up into two parts each, but that's a small price to pay for my sanity and that of Papa-in-Training's :D

P.P.S. Sadly, I'm unaware of any English dubbing of Bana & Flapi. The original was in German and it also aired in Spain and Italy, I believe, but never in any English speaking country :o(

Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Part I

We started planning our spring vacation earlier this year. We were heading to Portugal to see my family for 15 days, sponsored by the US government (in the form of a healthy tax refund) and by my parents' generosity.

There was a lot to plan out since a trip to the homeland for me isn't as simple as picking a beach and there staying for the duration. I have relatives in various places and a visit to each must be made since we only see each other every couple of years. Plus this time little F. would be coming along to meet everyone for the first time.

Logistics had to be figured out so that no one felt left out and yet the three of us still managed to have a good holiday and not one of those 'if-its-Belgium-it-must-be-Tuesday' types.

I figured out that we could stay 5 days in each locale. Five days in Estarreja, the town with the nearest decent hotel to our relatives in Murtosa and Salreu; five days in São Gião, a small idyllic mountain village where my father hails from and where my Avó still lives;  and then five days in Tábua, a large town where my Tia lives with her family.

But of course in between these mini-stays, there would be travel from one place to another, as well as day-trips and the seeing of friends. Phew! Getting tired just remembering it.

All of this would be fatiguing enough if it was just moi and Papa-in-Training, but we also had Baby F. with us. We'd never traveled farther than a little north of NYC with her, so we were understandably apprehensive about how she'd do with both the long-distance train and car travel as well as the biggie: transatlantic flights.

Gah!

Maybe we should put it off for a couple more years. Then she'd be a bit older and better able to deal with plane travel. But the tickets were bought and paid for and my family was super excited to see us and meet the baby.

Both Papa-in-Training and moi are air travel veterans. During our courtship a few years back, we spent more than our share of time shuttling back and forth between Newark and Heathrow Airports. We'll be recycling and upcycling and wearing out our clothes to threads and not owning a car forever in order to make up for the damn gigantic carbon footprint we acquired during that period. This is all to say that we are well familiar with babies on board. I'd long ago learned to tune out their cries by well, using ear plugs or headphones and realizing that there was nothing to be done and you might as well make the best of it.

But we also remember how crazy other passengers could get when there is a crying baby on a flight. I myself witnessed the pure uncensored fury exhibited by one grand example of humanity who seemed to be advocating that we throw the child out of the plane, so that he could get his 6 hours of beauty sleep.

So to say that we were a bit worried about how F. would react is perhaps an understatement.

I'd spoken to her pediatrician who'd recommended that she always have something to suck on, either a pacifier or a bottle during take-off and landing. She also recommended we give her some Benadryl but we decided to ignore that advice as my own reaction to having taken it once wasn't good. I wasn't about to medicate my baby just so she wouldn't make noise - we weren't about to try and escape North Korea for fuck's sake, just get from one continental shelf to another.

Baby F.'s First Plane Ticket! (technically this is her return ticket, but i couldn't find the other one. oops.)

We dutifully made sure that F. always had something to gnaw on and, behold, for there was quiet joy!

She barely made a peep during the whole trip. She cried a couple of times out of tiredness, etc, but she only cried for about a minute or so each time, which if anyone had a problem with, well, they can just go take a hike.

Having myself experienced non-stop crying jags on planes, I could barely believe our luck! The flight attendants fawned over her, other passengers cooed to her, and the flight was a success.

…Well, I didn't get any sleep, but that's normal for me on planes ;o)

But then we arrived in Lisbon…and still had to travel up north…

(To be continued)