I thought of those comments when we left Kaiser Hospital in Oakland after Trinity was born. As we walked out with tiny Trinny in her car seat carrier, I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face. I also couldn’t understand why no one around us seemed to react. The gardener continued gardening, the two staff members continued smoking and gossiping in the corner, the other patients continued on their way into the hospital. People noticed us, but didn’t seem to realize that we had HAD A BABY, that I had GIVEN BIRTH and that the world was hugely different from now on.

I felt this way again a few months ago when I went to our grocery store, Commercial Mexicana, to buy Trinny’s medications after her febrile seizure. I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all (although Trinny had) and I was a bit of a mess. I kept looking around and hating everyone who had a smile on his or her face or seemed to be laughing. How could people be so happy when my baby was so sick last night? Couldn’t they see this was a moment for sympathy and quiet?

Today I feel it again, this time on behalf of Norma and her family whose lives have been irreversibly changed by the sudden death of her son Jose. Every time I do something that should be normal – watch TV, do yoga, laugh and play with Trinity – I feel like I’m doing something wrong. No one should be normal and happy when this unexplained loss has just occurred. I can only imagine what Norma and her family are feeling. The only consolation I have is knowing that with time, everyone will adjust to this change too, and things will eventually feel somewhat normal again.

We had the unfortunate “opportunity” a couple of months ago. We were quietly making our way through the bedtime routine with Trinity when my world was briefly turned upside-down. I reflect back and realize that there were a few indicators which, taken together, should have warned me that Trinity wasn’t feeling well. She refused dinner, which isn’t always surprising. She spit up the one spoonful of yogurt I managed to get her to eat, which also was not unusual. She lost her balance a few times in the bathtub, but I figured it was because we had been swimming in a pool the previous day, and perhaps she had some water in her ear. Then she felt really hot when I put her pajamas on, so I tried to give her some Tylenol and she refused the second dropper-full. That’s not particularly unusual in itself, so we decided to wait a few minutes to get the rest of the dose down her. It was only a few moments after that that she started convulsing. She was having a febrile seizure, a seizure as a result of a really high fever that spiked quickly. We now know that this is something that sometimes happens to small children. It doesn’t make us feel any better to know that, and at the time it was happening I thought she was going to die.

I have always thought of myself as someone who could keep their head together in an emergency. Maybe it’s true, and to give myself and Andy some credit, in less than five minutes after the seizure started, Trinity was with a doctor. But as soon as the seizure started, I felt like my brain disconnected from my body. I started first looking for the number for Red Cross to get an ambulance here, and then quickly realized I wasn’t reading the numbers. Then I tried to call the “tourist” doctor, because I figured my Spanish would fail me, and I couldn’t find his number in my Palm (it was actually programmed into my cell phone). That’s when Andy and I decided to just hop in the car and drive to the hospital immediately. Luckily Andy reminded me to put some clothes on (my nursing bra and undies cover more than a bikini, but it still would have been inappropriate). I ran out of the upstairs living room without even closing the door, much less locking it. I grabbed my phone and the Palm, and ran to the car. We were heading to the hospital when we realized that Red Cross was only 3 blocks from our house and we would be passing it on the way to the hospital. I pulled into the driveway at Red Cross and yelled out the window in Spanish, “Help me, my baby cannot breathe!” As it turned out, Trinity was breathing, but Andy was too busy struggling against her convulsions to keep me posted on what he thought was going on.

The Red Cross facilities are frighteningly bare, but they did what needed to be done to reduce Trinity’s fever. They put cool cloths on her head and tummy, and fairly quickly after that the fever started coming down. Andy ran out and purchased some medicines they prescribed, one of which was a fever reducer, and they took effect pretty quickly. Then they said Trinity needed to be in a warm bath. They filled a large paint bucket with water and stuck her in it. Andy carefully poured water on her with a kidney dish while I ran back home to get a towel, a diaper, and some money. In my panic while the doctors were examining Trinity, I had called Rai and told her I needed her. I realized that we really didn’t need her at the Red Cross, so I asked her to meet us at the house. I guess I just needed that calming element of Rai’s friendship to contrast the chaos in my brain. I returned to Red Cross to hear Trinity kicking up a fuss. Apparently she didn’t like the paint-bucket bath, but the fact that she was protesting made me heave a sigh of relief. As the doctors had said all along, she was going to be fine, although I didn’t believe them until I heard her being normal again.

We took Trinity home and gave her another bath, in the bathtub this time. She was playing with the water coming out of the faucet and gave us a big smile and giggle as the water splashed. At that point we all knew that she’d be fine, and we even managed to get her medicine down her. That night she slept, well, like a baby, although Andy and I spent the whole night poking her to make sure she was still breathing.

Rai reported that when she arrived at the house, the upstairs door was open with the a/c running on high. The downstairs door was closed and locked, but the back doors were all open, as were some of the windows. I honestly believe that was the most open the house had ever been with no one home. But as I mentioned, we left in a panic, the only thought on our minds being the health of Trinity. So we may seem a bit uptight with all our security efforts on a normal day, but I assure you, Andy and I have our priorities in the right place. We know the difference between what is valuable and what is priceless.

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I spent the better part of 10 hours at Oakland’s Kaiser hospital waiting to push Trinity out into the world. She has been a constant delight and joy ever since then. And I know I’m biased because she’s my baby, but I’m not the only one who thinks she’s a truly awesome creature. Check Rai’s blog at http://isahrai.com/quixotic to see a couple of recent photos of Trinity and also a video of her singing debut.

Happy Birthday Trinity! It’s been a fabulous year, and we look forward to many, many more!

As I’m nearing the end of this second box of Thin Mints, I was thinking that next year I should actually place an order for some. Andy, being the “problem solver” that he is, immediately started calculating how many boxes I should order. I’m eating 4 cookies at a time, every other day or so…there are maybe 40 cookies in each box…how many boxes do I need to buy to have enough for the whole year? But, he has missed the point. I explained that I don’t need to have enough cookies for the whole year. Aside from needing to purchase a new freezer to store the cookies, it just doesn’t work that way. Part of what is so great about a box of Thin Mints is the fact that it’s somewhat rare – you can only get them once a year. What comes with a box of Thin Mints is that sense of anticipation, of knowing that you waited all year for this. It just wouldn’t be the same if you get eat them any time you wanted.

Next year I’ll place an order for only a few boxes of Thin Mints. A girl has to have something to look forward to.

Today, Trinity woke me up at 6:30. That’s unusual for her, normally she sleeps in until 8:00 am, a much more civilized hour, but she has a stomach infection and I’m sure her little digestive system is messing up her sleep patterns. It was hard to get up because I stayed up too late last night – watching Dr. Who and also an episode from last season of Grey’s Anatomy. However, when she smiles that little toothy smile and points at the ceiling fan and says “dat”, it’s hard to resist giving her pudgy cheeks a kiss and getting up to play with her. While Andy slept in for a change (lately he’s been getting up with Trinity while I have a bit of a lie in) I decided that I had to have blueberry pancakes. Thanks to mom for bringing those boxes of Bisquick on her last visit, I was able to quickly make a yummy breakfast.

Instead of doing yoga during Trinity’s morning nap as I normally would, I decided to catch up on some sleep myself. I had a delicious 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Because Trinity slept for 2 1/2 hours herself, she had a hard time getting off to sleep for her afternoon nap. I spent 50 minutes in the rather warm sun of Zihuatanejo, walking in circles around the neighborhood until Trinity finally fell asleep in the stroller.

Now that she is napping, I’m trying to decide what to do this evening. I think I’ll have Andy go out to pick up some Chinese food for dinner (mu shu pork, Shanghai chicken, bbq pork ribs and spring rolls - not as good as we get in San Francisco, but it'll do). Perhaps I’ll watch another few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. Or maybe I should invite Rai to come over so we can see last week’s episode of Alias. Whatever I end up doing, what I primarily feel right now is that I am a mom, and I couldn’t be happier.

Last night we came back from having a fabulous dinner at De Donde Eres, and while Andy was giving Rai a ride back to her house, I was getting Trinity’s bath ready. We were in the kitchen and I went to check on the bath water, with Trinity following me. I turned around, and she wasn’t there. I went back into the kitchen calling her name, and she wasn’t there. I walked more quickly to my office and didn’t see her. Then I checked the front terrace, to see if she walk out the entryway, but she wasn’t there. That’s when the adrenaline kicked into high gear. I ran back into the bathroom to see if maybe she was under the sink, and I didn’t see her. Then I ran to the kitchen and checked behind the high chair. Then I ran to my office to look again, now calling her name frantically. There was still no sign of her. I decided to run upstairs to see if she decided to climb the stairs by herself, which she never does. As I was heading out the entryway, I was screaming her name in a voice that had become uncomfortably high-pitched and girly. Just as I was about to climb the stairs I heard her plaintive cries. She was somewhere in the downstairs living room. I ran back in, following the cries and finally saw her. She was sitting in the corner behind the water bottle. She had been quietly watching the show of mom running from room to room. She only spoke up because she thought I was going to leave her alone downstairs.

I quickly picked her up and hugged her close to me while I tried to get my breathing back to normal. As I wiped the tears away from her face and told her everything was okay, I was doing all I could to not burst into tears myself. The whole episode only lasted a matter of minutes, but my heart was still racing, and I had seriously high doses of adrenaline pumping through me. I already knew it, but it had become clearer to me last night: the walking-thing is going to be challenge.

Although I have chilled out a lot since we moved to Mexico, I have begun to realize that you can take the uptight yuppie out of the City, but you can never really get the City out of the uptight yuppie (even if she is less uptight and less yuppie). Granted, we live in a Mexican beach town where if people have shoes, they are flip-flops, getting dressed up involves wearing something other than shorts or a swimsuit cover-up, and when the power goes out, you call it quits for the day and have a margarita. But as great as it is to be in this environment, we still remember what life was like before we moved here. We remember the way things were “back in civilization”. You never really get over city life.

As a result, we still expect to receive a bill for the phone and electricity before they are shut off for failure to pay. When we find a jar of Best Foods Mayonnaise at the grocery store, we expect to be able to buy more when we run out. But that is not how things are done here. So the result is that if the bill hasn’t come by a certain point in the month, we check in with the phone/electricity companies to see when our bills are due. When the grocery store has cheddar cheese in stock, we call all of our gringo friends to make sure they know before it’s gone. We happily take a 3 1/2 hour road trip over 80 speed bumps to Acapulco or a 4 hour road trip on a toll road to Morelia just to buy tofu, coconut milk, rice noodles, mango chutney, Best Foods Mayonnaise, and to check out the latest appliances and furniture in Sears. Okay, the tofu was for Rai, but I bought all the other stuff, including appliances and furniture.

We also discover exactly what we can get away with as far as airline luggage requirements. We have paid extra and checked or brought onto the plane: 2 Japanese shoji screens, 6 electronically controlled air-conditioner ducts, an ice-cream maker, a marble pastry board, a Dutalier Glider (rocking chair) and matching ottoman, a co-sleeper/pack’n’play crib, a flat panel computer screen, more than 100 books, and lots of other smaller items. When we first moved to Mexico, most planes allowed 2 free pieces of luggage up to 70 pounds each. Over the last few years, all the airlines have reduced the weight to 50 pounds each. I believe this change is a direct result of my own personal abuses of the system.

So although I think I’m being really laid-back and chilled out, I still go to certain extremes in order to have much of the “stuff” I would probably have if we were still in San Francisco. I have the tools to create an awesome meal, we have the décor that we really want and I have the comfy rocking chair for all those hours I spend nursing Trinity. I haven’t gone as far as the Yoga Mamas in the AOL article, (they buy only the best, brand-name things for their babies), but I have to admit that I recognized many of the brands that were mentioned in the article.

So, I guess I’m not a new millennium hippy. I haven’t gotten over what it’s like living in “civilization”, and even when funds don’t really permit, I find myself loading up my suitcases (or those of visitors coming here) with familiar items that I miss and just can’t get here. Call me lame if you like, but tonight’s dessert will be homemade cherry pie a la mode, (the flakey dough rolled out on the marble pastry board, and the rich vanilla ice cream made in my ice cream maker). I think I’ll continue to strive for my kind of civilization, even if it means I’ll never really be a hippy.

So, here it is, my own website, containing photos with cool categories, and also a blog. I have a blog. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to read what I would have to say, but for those of you who get concerned when you haven’t heard from me in a while, check my blog, and you will probably find out what I’ve been up to and why I haven’t been writing. (At least my intention is to post to it regularly.) However, the quick answer to why you haven’t heard from me: I have an 11-month-old baby.

In addition to posting current photos on the website, I’m hoping to go through old photos and post them, so you can see our house, both before and after shots, and our cats, and our friends, and whatever other interesting things I can find to put on the site. I’m really excited about this! The photos I’ve posted so far are only up to New Year’s Day, so there’s many more to come, including a ski trip/family vacation with the Greens and most recently a 2-week visit from my parents.