8 more random things you might not know about Argentina

More of the low-down on Argentina that does not include all the usual tango, maté, soccer, gaucho, asado, plastic surgery, blah blah blah.

See the previous list here.

1) The portion of a woman's bum that is covered by 'normal' underwear is totally different here.

Thongs are still thongs, of course, and granny underwear and boxer shorts and that kind of thing are also exactly what they sound like. But normal, non-thong underwear - your typical bikini-style bottom - cuts the bum cheek at a different angle. Rather than the 20-25° angle common in my North American world, it is more like a 45-50° angle, making the front and the back of your panties be kind of hard to tell apart.

This style is not just for the young, or the cellulite-free. It is the standard. And I must say, though it reveals more, it is a more flattering look, generally giving a smoother, rounder appearance to your behind under pants, and avoiding that I-have-4-bum-cheeks problem. (I did mention I would be talking about random things).

2) The word 'turd' - as in, piece of poo - is actually used quite a bit, sprinkling (so to say) a number of expressions, and just an all around kind of useful word.

You might especially like to learn the phrase, están cayendo soretes de punta. This means that it 'is raining cats and dogs' or 'it is pouring / raining really hard', but it translates literally to 'turds are falling endwise' or 'vertical turds are falling'. Used by young and old alike. True story.

3) You can go to a shop and buy just one band-aid, one balloon, one candle, one aspirin, one diaper, one cigarette.  (Pretty much true all over Latin America, as far as I remember).

And it is generally not much more expensive per item than buying the whole package.*

It seems so strange, in fact, to buy a whole package of any of these things, unless you are in a larger scale supermarket or pharmacy, that I sometimes will ask for just a few, even though my intention had been to buy a package. I ask for birthday candles, for example, assuming they will give me the whole package (almost nothing is self-serve here, you have to ask for everything over the counter), and they ask me how many. Umm, give me four, I guess. 

* Eggs are also sold individually, but they pile them into a plastic bag here in Macondo, instead of wrapping them up in newspaper as I've seen in Buenos Aires and elsewhere. This creates the 'One Will Always Break' rule, which makes it more economical to buy a dozen, than to just buy two (losing 8% of your purchase as opposed to 50%).

4) They have the best system for helping a kid when she/he gets lost at the beach.

Seriously, check this out:

When a child gets lost at the beach, a tall man lifts him/her up onto his shoulders and starts to walk up and down the length of the beach. As they walk past, everybody (and I mean everybody) claps loudly, drawing attention to the pair, and allowing the parents or caregivers to quickly and easily find the child.

How did this get started, and how can it be imported everywhere? And why does it only happen at the beach? A kid gets lost in the mall here and people act as if they don't already have the Best System in the World for helping her/him get found.

5) Birthday parties for grown-ups involve the birthday boy/girl hosting family and friends at home and providing all food and drinks.

I may be just a grump, but I find this to be a hassle. I love a good dinner party and everything, but cleaning the house, doing a major grocery shop (spending lots of money) and then cooking for many is not my idea of a fun birthday. On the other hand, it's generally not a fancy thing (unlike birthday parties for kids). Homemade pizza seems to be a standard, which Macondo Papa has perfected to an art. Then there's salads, boring beer, fantastic wine, and the best ice-cream ever.

6) Ice cream places deliver.

Holy crap, is that not amazing? Not here in our little Macondo (the ice cream place is only open on Saturday night and part of Sunday), but they deliver in just about any urban centre, as far as I can tell, and definitely all over Buenos Aires.

7) The Olympics barely exist. The winter Olympics do not exist.

Who really cares? But I do miss watching figure skating.

8) Many perpetrators of crimes against humanity during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, responsible for stealing babies, tossing people out of planes and disappearing 30,000 people are currently (still, finally) being tried for their crimes, and finally being given the life sentences with mandatory prison terms that decades of impunity had protected them from. 

This might be last on my list, but it is HUGE, in a historic, international justice, society-healing and collective memory-constructing kind of way.

Here's a good, recent article about it in English.

Our backyard birthday romp

When I thank the birthday stars for Monster's 4th birthday party going so well, this is why:

Not only did a 40% chance of rain turn out to mean that it would be a lovely day, but nobody showing up for the first painstaking hour turned out to mean that the perfect mix of kids and grown-ups would come and a great time would be had by all.

Despite the birthday traditions of extravagance, commercialism and junk food here in this small town in Argentina, we managed to have a fun, low-key, backyard birthday romp without offending anyone (that I'm aware of) or violating too many sacred rules (relative lack of junk food notwithstanding).

Other than one family we are very close with, we don't have any friends here (boo hoo), so our invitations consisted of some mid-week phone calls to invite a few acquaintances with kids, and a last-minute decision to invite two of the Monster's classmates (a third was ruled out based on the unacceptability of having to make small talk with her parents). In all, we invited 9 kids and their parents, and 5 kids and their parents actually showed up.

We had a good supply of juice, water and maté, bakery munchies and meat sandwiches (I'm the only vegetarian around these parts), chocolate birthday cake made by the beloved abuela (grandmother), and some apple slices I put out as an experiment just to prove a point (a few did get eaten).

The all-important party gear included whistles, party hats, clown noses, masks, face paint, dress-up stuff, musical instruments, chalk for drawing on the walls, bubbles for blowing, and kids' music at a reasonable volume.

Our shocking birthday party attire? Monster wore his favourite shorts, his nose painted red, and a big spider web painted on his chest (his idea). I wore my bare feet, a skirt and a tank top. Monkey wore a diaper, and Macondo Papa relied on his standard shorts and t-shirt. I only include this fashion note because of the contrast with other birthday parties we've attended here (and with some of our guests).

The alternative piñata I stuffed was full of balloons, whistles and little plastic animals. The awesome loot bags we gave away had bendy pencils, a pencil sharpener, little plastic animals, a little package of plasticine, a little (store-bought) container of bubble solution, and a lollipop.

I know, you're all reeling from my creativity and counterculture audacity. What can I say? This is revolutionary stuff here in Macondo (check out these parties for comparison).

(Let me just stop for a minute to award myself a non-commercial medal for trying harder than was reasonable to find all of these things without a TV or movie character plastered all over them. I went out of my way and over the top. Beyond the call of duty. I'm talking about going all over the nearby city trying to hunt down birthday items without barney, without barbie, without anything disney, without spiderman. The more I looked, the more determined I became that I would NOT get that stuff just because there was no other option. And I got pissed off, too. Anyways, now I have my very own medal to prove it all.)

Up our sleeves, should they be needed, we had a few party tricks, like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, hide-and-seek and a treasure hunt.

As it turned out, the kids ran around and yelled and jumped and danced and laughed and painted and blew bubbles and blew on whistles and got dirty in the dirt. There was a fairly bizarre game of hide-and-seek, in which all the kids would hide together in the same place, every time, and one kid would look for them in the same place, every time, and then they would all run together to the other end of the yard, every time. Good times.

So good, in fact, that except for when I was needed to help find a special whistle, put on a mask, take special care of a piece of cake or provide refuge during the happy birthday song, I barely saw the Monster at all.

The grown-ups, too, had fun. There was some dancing, but mainly talking. With promises to spend more time with one of our acquaintances who may soon become a friend. And connections with two of the Monster's classmates, who now have open invitations to come and visit him and enjoy the beach and our backyard when they want to get out of the city. I would say there is no chance that their parents will become our friends, but at least an afternoon of forced social interaction while our kids play seems tolerable. This may not seem like much, but you have no idea. Trust me.

The only mishap occurred when a pair of scissors made it into some enthusiastic hands, causing a slight alteration to our curtain-that-keeps-the-flies-out-but-not-the-mosquitoes-so-what's-the-point (the subject of an ongoing debate with Macondo Papa). The fact that it makes it into a kid-sized door makes it kind of cute, I think (especially since the curtain was useless anyways, against mosquitoes, that is - ahem).

Here are two additional party moments:

Me: Monkey! Where are you? Monkey?
Daughter of our close friends (2.5 years old): [Runs out from behind a bush] We're sitting behind that bush giving each other kisses.

Son of our close friends (5 years old): [In the car on the way home] That was the best party ever. I played with everybody. And I didn't get a lot of candy in my loot bag, but it doesn't matter because now you don't have to decide what I can eat and what I can't. And I got lots of cool stuff to play with.

Now that it's over, I have relaxed, and so I have predictably gotten sick. Thankfully, this time I'm the only one that's sick right now, so I get to lie in bed and moan a bit, which makes it much better.

Thank you, birthday stars

We've been pretty absorbed here in the Macondo household with preparations for the Monster's 4th birthday party.

At the Monster's previous birthday parties, I used to stress about whether he would enjoy himself.

Crowds, noise, too much attention - these things are not for him. He hates it when people sing happy birthday, for example. And he is not particularly generous with hugs and kisses and thank yous, which some people like to force on little people whenever they can, regardless of how well they are received or how willingly they are offered.

He can get whiny and clingy, and I can feel pressured to try to manage and compensate for him. I can sometimes forget that these things are supposed to be fun for him, and not for all of the guests who come with their own expectations about what a birthday party and a birthday boy are supposed to be like.

Well, I was still worried about whether he would have a good time - his moods can be kind of unpredictable - but he and I have both gotten better at dealing with other people's expectations.

I don't insist that he kiss everyone, as is the standard greeting here in Argentina and is expected of everyone. It makes him seem unfriendly or grumpy to those who don't know him or don't 'get' shyness, but who cares, really? Kids are like that. He'll figure it out.

'Thank you', on the other hand, seems important to me. I guess it is just another adult convention, and there are lots of other ways of showing gratitude, but it is also a simple and tangible way for him to acknowledge other people's efforts or their kindness, and I think that matters. I've struggled with this because I don't want him to say it without meaning it, so I don't want to just force it (as if I could!), but I do want him to say it.

We had a great talk about 'thank you' on the morning of the party. I reminded him how good it made people feel to know that he was happy, that he wanted them to be there, that he liked the presents they had chosen for him, and so on. This making-people-feel-good explanation seemed to click with him - he seemed to get it.

And he told me this:

I do say thank you. I just don't let anyone hear me say it.

What can I say? When I was his age I was waaaaaay shyer than he is, so I get it. When I was little, I said so much more in my head than ever came out of my mouth. I was quite a friendly and gracious and thoughtful person in my head, but appeared to be a rather silent, unhappy little snob for many years.

I told him I knew how he felt. We talked about how it couldn't make people feel good if they couldn't hear it, and left it at that.

Then, during the party, after each present he received, I asked him if he had remembered to say thank you. About half of the time, he went right up to the person and (shyly) said 'thank you', and ran away with a proud smile on his face. The other half of the time, he asked me to say it for him (instead of refusing to say it, which is different). He would come with me, and I would say, 'Monster wants me to say "thank you for the present" for him.'

I think we were both really happy with this arrangement, it felt like a real accomplishment. And to my relief, others received his thanks in a way that didn't compound his embarrassment.

We got through the 'happy birthday' song (in two languages) with him in my arms, not loving it, but dealing with it. It all got better when the kids decided that it was OK to eat all the chocolates off the cake before we cut it.

That night, in bed, when I told him how much fun I had had at his party, he said,

Me too. The only part I didn't like so much was when everybody sang. But it was okay.

And it was okay.

All this, of course, would not have happened had he not been having an excellent time. So I am thrilled to report that the Monster's long-awaited 4th birthday party was an unqualified success, despite our unprecedented departure from birthday party tradition, here in Macondo.

This is you at four years old

My little Monster is turning four on Saturday. In addition to the obligatory birthday party, I'd like to mark the occasion with something he can look back on when he's older, to try to capture this age that he will never be again.

I've been thinking about asking him a series of questions and recording his answers, creating something like a little snapshot of him and his 4-year-old ideas. Or, to be a little less structured about it, maybe somehow recording a conversation about something special.

What would this look like? I thought about asking some of the following questions and just kind of following him where he was willing to take me.

- What's your name? Where do you live? Who do you live with? Tell me about your family.
- Where were you born? When did you move to Argentina?
- What do you love to play? What do you love to eat?
- Tell me about your school. What do you want to do at school this year?
- What's your favourite colour? Song? Book? Toy?
- What would you like your job to be when you're older?
- Do you want to have kids? Tell me about them.

Too boring?

I'd love to get his answers to things like: what are twins, what are planets, how do cameras work, and all the other great things we muse about here...but I'm also prepared for him to refuse to show his face or open his mouth the minute the camera is on.

I told him about my idea this morning and asked him if he had any ideas. He suggested that I could ask him why he always asks 'why'.

That might be a great start.

Imagine an extravagant birthday party for a four-year-old...

...and then get a load of this.

I hereby present you with another Macondo birthday party anecdote. (I wrote about our first experience with the local birthday party scene here.)

No matter what we end up doing for our Monster's upcoming birthday, he will seem unloved and deprived in comparison, so phew, the pressure is off!

----------

The party

On Saturday night (6-9:30pm), I ventured out with the kids to a birthday party for one of the Monster's classmates. She turned four, just like he will this Saturday.

Aside from being too-pukey pink and with the volume turned up to Your Ears Will Buzz for the Rest of the Night, there were just oh-so-many things oh-so-very wrong with the party. For starters, it cost thousands of DOLLARS, and to spend that kind of money on a party in Argentina, you really have to try pretty hard. There were about 100 people there. It was about equally as extravagant as the bar- and bat-mitzvahs I attended way back when, and waaay more extravagant than every wedding I have ever attended (except for one, which was also pukey).

Features:

- hall rental, complete with linens and food servers in tuxes
- beer, wine and soft drinks
- junk food, finger food and use your imagination for the cake
- face painters
- inflatable jumpy trampoline thing
- two clowns, who animated the party with fun things like, 'who's smarter, the girls or the boys???'
- bubble machine
- smoke machine
- DJ
- live band
- really really loud grown-up music, including a pukey recorded version of happy birthday (no, the kids did not sing happy birthday)
- several LARGE displays of balloons and ornate pink things, all arranged very artistically
- serious loot bags, including a notebook and pencil crayons, personalized mugs and copious amounts of candy

The completely bizarre part? This is a typical birthday party here for the wealthy. A little bit extravagant in some of the details, but perfectly in line with what the rest of the parents and kids are used to. I kid you not.

They all invite all twenty-something of their classmates, along with their parents and siblings. They all blare music (grown-up music, I should add) at unhealthy, eardrum-damaging volume (and there were several very tiny babies there, too). They all dress the girls in long, uncomfortable, frilly party dresses with bows and matching hair ribbons. They all go completely overboard on the soft drinks, crappy food and amount of candy the kids bring home with them. And all the other mommies wear heels and have their best boobies on display (though I am the only one to actually flash mine, when I nurse my little Monkey).

Am I so out of touch that this is actually common in other parts of the world? Would anybody in Toronto or Buenos Aires actually send their 4-year-old daughter to a birthday party in an ankle-length frilly dress with lace and large bows (unless, perhaps, she begged to be allowed such ridiculousness)? 

The Monster does not like loud music or crowds, so he does not enjoy these events. He clings to me, cries easily, appears to be miserable, but doesn't want to leave. He enjoys little windows of fun, when the music is slightly lower and he chases after the bubbles, or other such fleeting moments.

Then, the next day he goes on and on about how much fun he had.

He pigs out on potato chips, but doesn't mind at all when I get him a glass of water while the other kids are drinking fanta, and by the next day he pretty much forgets to ask about all the candy he had taken home with him. (His little brother is going to be an entirely different story, however.)

The one big moment the Monster really cares about is the breaking of the piñata, which is why we had to stay to the very end. I have taken note and will be sure that there is a piñata at his birthday party, NOT filled with little plastic guns and swords and princess tiaras, mind you.

----------

The post-party conversations with Macondo Papa

We have decided that the ear-drum damage is unacceptable for our little toddler and will not be bringing him to any more parties. It's actually unacceptable for all of us, but we don't want to be anti-social meanies, so we will let the Monster decide if he wants to go to his classmates' parties, and support his preference to stay away from the loudspeakers.

These encounters with 'society' - along with our discouraging explorations of the available schooling options - also serve to reinforce our Plan to leave here before it's too late. That is, to stay another 1 or 2 or 3 years, to enjoy our river, our beach, our monkeys and toucans, our long and lazy siestas, and then please let us move somewhere at least a tiny little bit progressive and cosmopolitan. Please.

Upcoming rituals and celebrations

I am not very good at planning or celebrating rituals. I like the idea of them, especially for the kids, but I do not follow through. Macondo Papa and I almost always let our birthdays and anniversaries fizzle away with a clink of wine glasses, a kiss and the intention to do more next time.

I did manage to scoop a spoonful of honey into my kids' mouths on their first day of school (for a sweet year, a bit of appropriation from Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year - but that's okay).

However, my attempt at a Christmas stocking ritual was not so successful, and to this day I am delinquent on following through with some New Year's reflecting.

I have two main problems.

The first is that these dates always seem to creep up on me.

For years I've been saying that I wanted to start my own Passover seder tradition as soon as I was far away from the maddening right-wing seders of my uncle's family in Toronto. A secular, child-centred, age-appropriate, anti-oppression celebration of solidarity and struggle. How cool would that be?

But Passover is next week. I don't have the time to think and read and prepare, and I don't have the time to start talking about it with the Monster, planting seeds and building interest and excitement so that the ritual might mean something.

My second problem is that these dates always seem to happen in bunches.

Starting next week, we will have my inlaws here for a week, and we will celebrate the Monster's 4th birthday, Macondo Papa's 40th, Passover, Easter and my birthday, all in a two-week period. This is what did me in with the whole Christmas, Chanukah, Solstice, New Years and Three Kings Day crunch. And the Monster had wanted to celebrate Kwanzaa too (thanks, Elmo).

So I am going to let Passover go this year, and try again next year. And I will leave Easter to my inlaws, who I'm sure will have an Easter story or two up their sleeves to share with the kids while they're here (which we will then further discuss as needed - I'm not sure if they'll get into resurrection and all that, or what, but some follow-up analysis will probably be required).

That leaves the Monster's 4th birthday and Macondo Papa's 40th. Both are biggies. I'm thinking face-painting, a treasure hunt and a piñata for one of them, and a new book, breakfast-in-bed and a group pasta-making fiesta (with all 3 of our friends) for the other.

Maybe not creating a deep, meaningful sense of tradition, but perhaps at least a little happiness and joy all around?

parental culture shock part 1 - food

i want to write about the multi-faceted parental culture shock that i am experiencing, but i am getting seriously bogged down with it and it is getting harder and harder to untangle.

this great post at the (always beautifully written) golden papaya really strikes a chord with me, and in an effort to build a conversation around these issues, i am going to force myself to put pen to paper, so to speak. (plus, i promised a whole series of these posts, so i better get started).

obviously, things are different here than where i grew up. there are many levels to these differences - some are differences between argentina and canada:

a latino culture instead of a largely anglo-saxon & multi-ethnic one (with all the caveats about the diversity that is also present in argentina and is also invisibilized in canada); a 'developing' country instead of a 'developed' one; a hotbed of social and political activism instead of a breeding ground of exasperating apathy and complacency...

 and some are differences between macondo and toronto:

a small town in a small province instead of the very centre of the universe itself; a poorly educated population instead of a highly educated population; rural poverty instead of urban affluence (again with all the usual caveats)...

see? i'm already bogged down.

*****

back to my parental culture shock. i knew that one of the hardest things for us would be the racism, sexism and homophobia that is so present in the media and in the many kinds of everyday conversations we are bound to have here.

i've learned that we can and will stand up at times to speak out about things. racism, sexism, homophobia are not ok. i'll do what i can to teach that to my kids and to say so to their teachers, friends and relatives. it will still really upset me, and it will be a challenge to identify when it is worth the angst and who isn't worth the energy. but f. and i are both on the same page about this, which makes everything a lot easier.

FOOD

other things no longer seem as important as they did even recently. nobody here worries about sugar in kids' diets, for example. bring on the medialunas con dulce de leche and the chocolate birthday cake. i admit to having fretted about this, but really, i've chilled out. we have no fast food, no soft drinks, in fact they almost never eat anything packaged at all. so sugar? yeah, okay. they get lots of exercise. they're not particularly hyper. i can live with it. i think (see below).

when i see the cheesies and coca-cola and lollipops and endless other crap many kids here have as regular parts of their diets, i wonder how long it will be until our little guys start begging for junk food. but this is a concern that i can safely tuck away until later.

for now, they're only exposed to junk food at birthday parties or when their cousins come to visit. we (selectively) let the monster indulge a little bit (a tiny bit of coca cola mixed with water, a free-for-all on potato chips since he only sees them a few times a year), and so far, he's okay with that. he will even just ask for a few sucks on the lollipop that the señora at the local shop gave him before asking me to put it away for later.

i regret that i can't get anything organic unless i go to walmart, of all places. and even then i can't get the organic stuff i really would like: milk, cheese, yogurt (i can't even get plain yogurt here, it's all flavoured and sweetened), apples, pears, green beans. but i can't do anything about this, so that's that. we get local honey, fresh eggs, and i have a little fantasy of myself making my own yogurt one day, but have yet to make it a reality (along with lots of other ways in which i'd love to be a little more domestic...)

*****

what i find hard about all of this is not so much what the kids end up eating, which i have more or less come to terms with.

(credit has to go to my partner f. here for helping me to let go of a lot of worry about all this. cookies for snacks, so much sugar in everything and all the white flour stuff just made me feel like a Bad Parent. but f. is good at that thing called The Bigger Picture, which i highly recommend looking at every now and then.)

what i find hard is that sugar isn't even on the radar here as something to try to minimize. some people (very few) do shun soft drinks and cheesies and other types of junk food, but cookies and dulce de leche and ice cream and cake and tablespoons of extra sugar in the kids' chocolate milk are just yummy, and their intake is not limited.

this is the culture-shock part of it.

because in canada, people eat lots of sugar too. but there is a general consensus that it's not ideal, that it makes kids too hyper, that it messes with their sleep, with their teeth, with their health. but here, when asked why i want to keep sugar out of their diets, to the point of wanting to make sugar-free treats and snacks, i stumble to find an answer. we take good care of their teeth, they're active and not at risk of obesity - why indeed does it seem so important to me?

i don't know.

i never ever questioned it before, and now i'm at a loss. (even google couldn't help me this time). it's these kinds of speechless moments when i really feel the parental culture shock. how seriously should i take this? by letting go a little and going with the flow, am i not doing the best i can to protect my kids' health?

i lose my bearings all the time over issues just like this.

*****

some of the topics still to come:

- argentina-time (10pm dinner; no bedtime (gasp!))
- dealing with lice & parasites
- angst about hiring some help around the house
- teaching diversity
- insisting on bilingualism
- can you believe that they (meaning moms or the hired help) IRON the kids' t-shirts??

some wonderful things about visiting the inlaws

i love buenos aires. it's a beautiful, fascinating city, overflowing with great film, dance, theatre, music, funky craft fairs and plazas. there is high-quality, abundant children's theatre, and you can get the best puppets i have ever seen in almost any plaza, direct from the self-taught puppet-makers. it has stunning architecture and design; the best cafés, streets and people for people-watching; and it's bursting with gut-wrenching, mind-blowing, ideology-transforming history and activism. it is full of all those stark contradictions of child labour and glitzy shopping malls; street kids, slums and high fashion.

but this time, i didn't 'do' buenos aires in this way. it was just a plain old visit to the inlaws, in the suburbs, way too painful and hellish a train-ride away from the hip and hopping core. still, it is not macondo. it was a mini family vacation, including a 1000km road trip each way, which the kids dealt with pretty well.

by far the best part was our visit to the top specialist in children's growth, who put to rest our worries about the monster's littleness. yay!! it also had its difficult moments, which i'm still trying to figure out and will probably write about here eventually (including a total crying breakdown mess over the monkey's birthday cake). i might be a little more depressed than i thought...

in any case, i also found pleasure in little things, including enjoying time with my kids. and:

• hot water

• water pressure

• doting extended family for the kids, sometimes meaning several hours in a row of not even seeing the kids - they're perfectly happy without me. can you believe that??

• sweaty, dirty, hilarious cousin play, ending in shared baths, bruises, overtired kids and sleepovers

• buying the paper around the corner in the morning (can't get it until the afternoon out here in macondo)

• cable tv (lovely to trash out now and then, and great for following the current political mess about a new, so-very-important communications law here)

• ice cream delivery! why doesn't this exist everywhere?

• vegetarian empanada options - yum

• patched and falling-apart sheets and towels (i love the old-timeness and the eco-qualities of having these same items for a lifetime, though the i-desire-comfort part of me isn't so thrilled about it. i have only love though for the fridge still in use from the 1960s. so eco and so retro...)

• kids playing with wood and iron toys - carts, trucks, bikes, animals - made by my brother-in-law
  

what a party

[note: pictures added for indignation factor]

i don't even know where to start. on saturday we went to a birthday party for one of the monster's classmates - it was our first, and i was completely unprepared. i had insisted that we go. the monster is still too little to really care one way or the other, and the last thing f. wanted to do was to drive to the city for a preschooler birthday party for a little girl we barely know. but, i argued, it would be a chance for us to meet some of the other parents, maybe there's an interesting one lurking in there. plus, it would be good for the monster to do some socializing outside of school. he doesn't have anyone to play with where we live.

okay, so i know that our resistance to the imposition of highly structured gender norms on 3-year-olds is wacky here in macondo, as is the absence of television in our house, our blissful ignorance about ben10 and stephanie and the like, and the monster's inexperience with cheesies and coca-cola. and i knew that this birthday encounter would be one of our first steps towards that moment when we will eventually say no, this is not what we believe in, this is not what we want for our family.

i know our time is limited as we learn and prepare for that moment, when the monster starts to become part of this place and want the toys, the tv, the food, the lack of seatbelts that his friends have. i know we'll have to find a reasonable balance - between okay, i guess there's no harm done, and no, we don't do that in this family - so that he can interact with other kids and enjoy their play, get their jokes, share in the fun.

i've already come a long way in accepting that i will have to make these compromises, somewhat encouraged by the (wavering) belief that in the long run, we will still have an important influence on the people our little monster and monkey will become. we can still expose them to diversity, to critical thinking, to solidarity, to ideas about justice and dignity and rights.

i have no doubt that as they grow, this will be our biggest challenge. i think that would be true for us in any community, anywhere in the world, but here in macondo it promises to knock the wind out of me at every turn.

so back to the birthday party. they rented out a pelotero - standard birthday party tradition here - a place with lots of balls, tunnels, ramps, slides, trampolines, like a really well-equipped mcplayland...

the only conversation we had (not because i'm a grump, but the music was too loud!):

f. to one of the monster's classmates: wow, i heard that you sleep alone in your room now!

classmate's mom: oh, you heard? yeah, she got a television and dvd player as a present, so we took advantage of the moment and set them up in her room. [us: what??? she's 3 years old!!!]

f. to little girl: ahh, so now you can watch tv in your room, eh? what do you watch?

girl: hi 5. [us: what's that?]

mom of a different classmate: ah, all the kids are crazy about that.

now i just can't figure out how i could have participated in that conversation in any kind of sincere way, beyond sharing the little girl's pride in her sleeping alone accomplishment.

a few snippets:

- very loud and bad pop music blaring from the speakers the whole time, like at a bar you decide not to go to with your friends when you want to actually talk and not just dance, because you'll have to yell all night (what about protecting our kids' hearing? what about playing some kids' music? they're 3 years old!!!)

- time to break the piñatas - first distribute plastic ben10 bags to the boys and stephanie bags to the girls. be sure not to make any mistakes!

- time to sing happy birthday. no wait, they just blare a recording of happy birthday through the sound system.

- time to cut the cake. no wait, first get out the full-size ben10 and stephanie cardboard cutouts, set off nicely with green balloons on the boys' side and pink balloons on the girls' side (i must admit that despite my interest in reporting on this important occasion, i didn't get close enough to this whole spectacle to inspect the cake, but i'm sure our imagination will suffice).

- moms were all dressed up, wearing high heels (oops, are flip flops okay too?)

- many little girls were wearing looooong pink and/or white frilly dresses down to their ankles noticeably getting in the way of climbing and running.

- ALL girls except for 3 were wearing pink and white - some were quite comfortable, but its prevalence made it seem like a uniform.

- boys were all dressed differently - some more and some less formally, but no discernible uniform.

- loot bags for boys were decorated with ben10 stickers, with candies and a ben10 toy inside. loot bags for girls had stephanie stickers, with candies and a tiara-like hair thing inside.

- there were also ben10 'colouring books' for the boys - i heard the birthday girl ask her mom for one and her mom said 'no silly, they're for boys.' full of stimulating material like drawings of ben 10's sidekick girl with her unbelievable boobs and activities like 'colour in ben10's watch' and other advertising.

i have to stop here. i'm still processing it all. it made me want to have a little girl so i could raise her differently and so my boys could see how girls don't have to be subject to that. and it made me tentatively thankful (but still wistful) that while i have the daunting task of raising feminist boys in this setting, i don't have to face sending a girl of my own into that princess jungle.