(Well, it turns out that she woke up after 5, then slept til 10 after she ate a little and I changed her diaper -- Yeah!!)

I thought I would write to tell you how our days have been. It's hard to believe we've been here for 4 weeks, then again, it seems like a long time since we've been home and seen everyone. Everyone seems to wonder what we do all day. Actually, so do I.

Well, for starters, shift the normal day by two hours. (Coincidentally, we are two hours ahead of Chicago.) i.e. We get up at 9 - 9:30, eat breakfast at 10, lunch at 2, dinner at 8:30, go to bed at Midnight.

We are staying at what they call a "Flat" which is generically means a hotel with a kitchenette, but for us is a small apartment (about 7-800 square feet) with two bedrooms with connected bathrooms on either side of a middle room with a frontroom / kitchenette. We are on the 11th floor, and there is a balcony which is accessible from all 3 rooms. (And I thought that our apartment in Chicago was too small for us!) The building has 15 floors, there are 6 apartments on each floor. It was built this year and opened in March, and is the nicest flat in all of Sao Paulo (we know because we checked it out). Dark wood furniture/cabinets, neutral carpet and upholstery, black granite countertops in the kitchen. The bathrooms are a white-ish granite floors and countertops with stainless fixtures. Our bathroom has a box shower and jacuzzi, and Maria's has a long shower (so you can shave your legs). The kitchen doesn't have an oven, or hot water (how people can do dishes in cold water is beyond me), but it does have a full size (Brasilian standards) refrigerator, gas stove, and microwave. We have maid service every day (she does the dishes, changes the sheets/towels, vacuums, dusts, washes the balcony, etc.). A buffet breakfast (fruit, breads, cold cuts, cheese, cakes, yogurt, cereal, eggs to order) is also included.

The flat is in Itaim, a commercial/residential mixed neighborhood, a nice area in Sao Paulo. Everything is in walking distance, which was a requirement for me. It is a good, central location, which is good for Todd to get to the office and clients. The people at the hotel are generally nice, but don't jump cartwheels like the people at the last hotel Todd stayed at.

Now, Maria is just 2 1/2 months old, so there really isn't a schedule, but this is as close as we come.

OK, so usually Maria wakes up between 6 and 7. This is about the time that Todd's 1st alarm goes off. Sometimes we have 3 snoozes, sometimes 10. I get her up and bring her into our bed and feed her and change her, and then we go back to sleep til about 9. Todd is usually gone when we get up for good.

We watch the end of my housewife show with recipes and craft projects you can make money at (yeah, right... they even tell you how much you can sell them for... like leather belts, lampshades covered with used coffee filters, etc.) and how to throw a bridal shower. It's over at 9:30. I really like the hostess of the show. This is my Brasilian housewife culture 101 class. The breakfast is over at 10, so we usually get down there by 9:45. I bring Maria down there in the stroller, and she usually entertains herself while I read the paper and have my papaya, scrambled eggs and cake. Once she gets bored, we might have a conversation, then I know it's time to go back to the room. 

Then we go back to the room, I feed her and I read her Grimm's fairy tales in Portuguese. Sometimes I stop to look up words. She doesn't seem to mind. Then I change and wash her and get her ready for the day. Then I get ready myself.  By this time, she might be ready for a catnap.  Then I eat lunch, and we might go replicate if she's sleeping. Or we will go for our walk, and I help out the Brasilian economy. It seems that I am always needing something. We make 1 or 2 trips to the big grocery store a week (if I need 1 or 2 items, I'll go to the little one up the street), they have a papeleria (paper store) that I like to go to to buy envelopes, cards, pens, folders, etc. (I like paper.) Or else we'll go to the mall to buy diapers, to the post office, to get Todd's shoes fixed, to a coffee shop so I can get a cup of coffee, to the 1-hour photo place, etc. Travelling through Sao Paulo with a stroller is like walking thru a war zone... the sidewalks are broken, the curbs are high, the sidewalks will be blocked off for construction, or better yet, not blocked off, and they will still be doing construction, the cars come racing around the corners without even slowing down, and during lunchtime there are so many people on the street they will bowl you over. I'm getting used to it now.

People stop me all over the place to tell me how pretty Maria is. (I think she is too.) And so smiley, and she's big for her age, and she's holding her head up, and I miss my grandchildren, blah blah. And 9 of 10 people think she's a boy, even though she's all in pink, I think because she doesn't have pierced ears.

Undoubtedly, Maria will sleep in the stroller for 95% of the trip, even if we are stationary for a long time. She doesn't like to sleep when we stay home. I'm not sure what it is. Today I put her in the stroller and took her to the business center to replicate (on the Mezzanine), and she slept for only 1/2 hr even though she was tired and I was moving the stroller. 

When we get home, it's time for another feeding. We sing and dance to a children's CD.. usually this Brasilian one I like. Then it's time to start dinner. We hit an all time record of eating in 9 days in a row. I never thought I'd see that. I've made Aunt's gravy, chicken soup, stew, fried pork chops, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, stuffed green peppers, chicken tetrazzini, boiled pork chops / cabbage / carrots / potatoes, mashed potatoes, beef stroganoff, fried steaks, applesauce, milkshakes... I tried to make potato pancakes, but that was a disaster, and I've vowed never to fry anything again. I've about cleared every non-oven meat recipe in the cookbook. So, if you have any stovetop or microwave dinner recipes, please send them along. Todd said that he liked the gravy the best, but I think that's only because I felt bad because it didn't turn out how I wanted. There's a great / famous Sao Paulo pizza place down the block for the weekends, and a liquor distributor around the corner, so I keep us stocked with beer and wine. There's also a Blockbuster down the block, so that helps our married with children entertainment.

While I'm cooking dinner, we have our Portuguese lesson as we watch a Brasilian soap opera Sabor da Paixao. It's supposed to start at 6 and go to 7, but sometimes it starts at 5:54, sometimes 6:07, sometimes it ends at 6:46... I can't figure it out. When that's over, we watch Caroline in the City and Friends re-runs on the Sony Entertainment Television cable channel. (The baby books tell you not to have the tv on if you don't really want to watch, but I figure the Caroline in the City crap won't impact her too much.) Everybody Loves Raymond used to come on at 8 but now it's That 70's Show (so now I turn the TV off). How did that show get into syndication? I can't even get thru the first 5 minutes. I used to hate Everybody Loves Raymond, but now I think it's hysterical. Must be the mom gene. So then Todd usually calls to say he's running late, or he's in traffic or something and he usually gets home by 8:30 and we have some tasty dinner.

Mind you, Maria decides to get cranky when it's time for me to make dinner. And she doesn't get cranky until I'm cutting up an onion or my hands are mixing up the ground beef and everyone on the floor thinks I'm a bad mother for not stopping her crying right away. So, I end up taking a lot of short cuts that don't usually pan out and burning a lot of crap while I'm making dinner. (But Todd doesn't complain.) Plus, the gas burns too high on my stove. Make that one more think to talk to the manager about. During this time, she's eating off and on.

Then Todd gets home and he changes like Mister Rodgers, except he puts on shorts and a t-shirt, and then he takes over the baby and opens a bottle of wine while I get dinner on the table. Then we eat, sometimes she cooperates, sometimes she doesn't... Then he usually changes her and gets her ready for bed and she might take another catnap during all this time. We might watch something on SET like Ed or Law and Order, then Seinfeld at 11 and Newsradio at 11:30 (another stupid show, not sure why we waste our time) or just read (he's reading Lord of the Rings, I've been pretty fickle between reading a brasilian cookbook that I bought, or the history of brasil or baby room decoration magazines). She usually falls asleep between 11 and 12, and we go to bed at about midnight.

And that's pretty much every weekday. I'm not bored with the routine yet, but I imagine it's coming soon. But, I made a promise to myself that I can't start any projects until all those thank you notes are done. Talk about a monkey on my back. Well, he's an orangutan by now. There's a pottery painting place on the next block. But the schema's a little different here. You pay for "lessons" PLUS all the materials and firing. What more they can teach you than the 5 minute spiel we got at the pottery place on Armitage is beyond me, but I just might do it (after the thank you notes are done).