Los problemas?

Little Charlotte turned seven months yesterday and on the very same day she got her US Passport from the consulate in Monterrey. I'm so relieved to be past all this paper collecting and so happy for her to be able to travel to the US. She's a real American now, or at least it feels more official since she has a passport.

Too bad she isn't feeling so well. The poor thing has been vomiting nearly non-stop for the past 24 hours and seems to have the same icky, little bug we all have. Seb delayed his departure by a day so that he could help me out with our plague filled household, and I am so thankful that he was here. Our water was cut off for four days for a few mysterious reasons and I think I will always have fond memories of rinsing baby vomit from my hair with the precious supply of bottled water we were left with. It's amazing how after nearly a year in Mexico these sorts of things like not having water for days on end don't even phase me. Two weeks ago there was a mysterious problem with the gas for five days and we had no hot water or cooking capabilities. "No problem!" I said and just cooked on our campstove and heated water for washing up things. Mexico has definitely taught me not to worry about trivial things. The joke about the country is that the unofficial national motto is "no hay problema" and this may be true from an outsider's perspective. I think it's probably become my motto too over the past year.

We are selling our car today which is kind of sad. We'd have liked to keep it but the logistics are just impossible--continuing the payments without help, carrying the insurance, transport fees, and the idea that we may not even be able to register it in France. It would just be too much to worry about with all the other things we have going on. Oh well, life changes you know and sometimes it's for the better. Still I loved that car for the short time we had it. I'm refusing to go outside while Seb transfers the title because I'm afraid I'll get too sad. Not so much for the car but because it represents the end of our time here. I always have a hard time with endings and I need to learn to see that there are often better things around the corner so it's best to not fight change. I'm still learning this. "No hay problema," right?

Little S is being all weird lately, packing all kinds of things like his trains and his favorite stuffed animals. I don't know where he got this idea of our leaving from because even if we hinted at it we never really explained it to him. The funny thing is he thinks we're moving to Florida because I heard him pack Elmo* and say "we're going to Florida Elmos..." very matter of factly like you know "I hope you're cool with that." So I guess we will let him go on believing this because explaining all the steps involved in our moving is leaving me baffled. How do you explain the difference between a short term expatriation in Mexico, a vacation to Florida and a new home in France? He already calls our house in Mexico "Mexico" because he thinks when we travel to France and say "we're going back to Mexico"that it means specifically our house and not so much the country, because country is such an abstract idea to a three year old. So when we go grocery shopping and return home he spies our house, applauds and says "It's Mexico! yay!" It's cute and we don't really think it's worth correcting him because would he even understand all this crazy stuff? No probably not. I don't want to belittle his capacity for intelligence but I just think he lives in the moment like most kids his age, and hey maybe we are doing a little of the same thing too right now, and to that I say wholeheartedly "no problem."

*yes Elmo is still with us.