The waters at 20 months of Cora

I am apparently doing better.
Better put, I am practicing the fine art of resilience. I keep bouncing back, bouncing back, bouncing back.
There are moments, there are days, when I feel like I'm drowning in myself, eternally swimming to keep my nose above water. There are moments, there are days, when things are okay, just floating along perhaps even enjoying the sun. But I would love to get to a beach, really, that would be ideal.

I get confused easily, dazed easily, my feet not quite on the ground. Or, to keep the metaphor going, floating in a large expanse of some strong liquid which alters my perception of up and down and all around.

I think so much about mothers, about mothering. I see women on the street with children, and I see how invisible they are, these mothers going about their daily lives. Does anyone ask how they are, what they are going through? Does anyone realize what is happening? I worry about mothers getting enough support, about people speaking out on the issues of motherhood beyond the superficial things we get advice about on sites and blogs and just in every day conversations. In ever woman I see, I see a story that is going unseen. I wish I could do something more than just worry about this.

So here, at home...
What I have beed doing, Cora-wise, is just taking it a day at a time, and facing this work at home experience as an experiment in early child education. After struggling with the idea of pre-school, no pre-school (and all the strings that come with it - financial, family configurations, cora and mine's emotional selves…) I have backed down from the idea, for now. For now. 2015 will tell another tale, perhaps. Or even next month. I don't know, honestly.

So we have at home pre-school…and I feel it helps me keep focused, remember where my feet are and even have fun with the whole thing.

We paint.
We play with beans and containers, spoons and cups.
We read books.
We eat. We snack. We experiment with new foods.
We practice our English.
We go to the park, we see ducks and monkeys, sticks and grass.
We go to the playground, we dig and bury our feet in sand and get absolutely filthy.
We take showers together and play with buckets and rubber ducks.
We snuggle. We nurse. We nap.
We color, we scribble.
We clean the house, sponge and cloth and brooms in hand. She is quite the organized and clean girl, I love it.
In the morning, there is iaiá, some afternoons, for about 3 hours, her grandma fafá.
And in the midst of all that, there are the cartoons, the pretending to be a duck/cat/dog/elephant, the chasing her around the house, playing hide-and-seek and just other silly-nessess.

And somehow, somehow...I find ways to translate, to type type type away. I honestly don't know how this keeps happening. Week after week, jobs get done and Cora keeps growing and I am not losing it completely. It could even be said that I am thriving in my own mayaesque way.