The Latin Man

I'm going to start by saying that Mr. Rant is a very involved Father and Husband. He plays with the kids, helps with the kiddo responsibilities, and even does stuff around the house.

That being said, he is still very much a Latin Man.

What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain. You see, this weekend we took a Latin woman friend and her kids out to the country with us. At one point I was annoyed with Mr Rant, which is not uncommon while staying at his Mother's place, when my friend pointed out that I married a Latin Man.

Alright, I'm seeing that I didn't clear anything up there. My point, Latin men are incredibly spoiled by their female family members.

Take Mr. Rant at his Mother's house. The kind of lazy that takes him over is mind boggling. It is as if he forgets that he has children to take care of. Actually, it's more like his Mother expects him to relax and let her and I take care of them.

The problem here is that I am not a Latin woman. That is not going to fly in that if you don't get off your ass and remember that I am not the only one capable of serving juice to small ones your ass is going to go flying right out that window over there.

It is just amazing how time turns back and my husband and his brother become 15 upon crossing the threshold. Sure Mr Rant does play with the kids and, at this point in our marriage, is pretty good at remembering that he is married with children even though he is at his Mother's place. Although there is still a sense of entitlement towards pampering.

Take this weekend. Mr Rant sprained his ankle while snowboarding and thus couldn't go on the hike to the waterfall with the group. He stayed back home and napped with my friend's baby, and took care of the little guy when he woke up. I will say, Mr Rant knows his way around babies.

Anyway, upon our  return and after eating lunch, Mr. Rant declared that he needed a nap... Let me rephrase that, another nap. I laughed. He had to be kidding. I had done everything at that point with our kids and he needed ANOTHER nap?! 15 minutes later I couldn't find him. Low and behold he was napping in his Mother's bed with Mommy.

While I get that we were at my MIL and he did have that life threatening sprained ankle, enough is really enough. I am calling for equal opportunity spoiling! Momma needs a nap!

Wordless Wednesday: Mr Rant is Back!

Rio de Janeiro has her Mr Rant back!

I Love my Gyno

My gynecologist believes that I am becoming Brazilian. No, my pap smear did not come out green and yellow.

So I had an appointment to see her this morning at 830am. Seeing that I am an early riser and Mr. Rant has to be at work by 10am at the latest (more like 1015. Now he is Brazilian) I schedule my appointments early.

This morning Mr. Rant was a super champ. I only had to nudge him once and he was up with The Menace (we take turns being the first one up). Chatterbox woke up closely there after and came to ask if I would get up with him. Screw that. Of course I sound far more loving while saying it to my child.

So I finally drag my sorry ass out of bed thinking it must be like 730am or something like that. Come to find out it was 840am. I was already 10 minutes late. I was just about to call and apologize for missing my appointment when Mr. Rant scoffed at me. Seriously, like a real old fashioned scoff.

"You're in Brazil. You aren't even late. Just go now."

I love a good pap smear as much as the next girl and decided to give it a go. I really didn't think my doctor would be able to see me as she is one of the more organized Brazilian doctors when it comes to her time. Honestly, I chose her because when I was pregnant I had some seriously bad 'I hate Brazil and am going to smack somebody' moments. Waiting for 2 hours at the gyno would certainly bring those up.

I finally arrived around 850am.  My doctor opened the door announcing, loudly, that "So you are Brazilian now!"

I laughed. For starters she doesn't normally answer the door and secondly she is right. I'd NEVER do that my country. Hell, you lose the appointment half the time if you don't show up 15 minutes early. I laughed and apologized for being late. I even started to go into the reason when she cut me off laughing and said "Now you're really Brazilian." FYI, I was blaming my husband.

As we sat down at her desk she semi-seriously said "Please do not pick up on some of the bad habits we Brazilians have. We're supposed to be getting better, not turning the foreigners."

I love my gyno. 

First Language Limits??

Mr. Rant and I speak to each other in English. I have had just about the entire population of Brazil tell me that we should actually be speaking in Portuguese. They tell me that I would be speaking far better if we did. And every single time I just smile and inform them that we already have a challenging enough time with communication. While perfecting my Portuguese would be awesome, it would be very difficult to do if Mr. Rant and I weren’t on speaking terms.

The truth of the matter is that it is weird to speak to him in Portuguese. We have been speaking in English since the day we met! I know Mr Rant in English and that got me thinking, is there something to this? Take a Brazilian friend of mine. I met her upon her turn to Brazil after years of living abroad. She was excited to speak to me in English as that was what she was used to at the time.

Now, over a year later, we still find it odd when we speak to each other in Portuguese. We always slip back into English.

And it goes both ways. I have always spoken to my Brazilian Sister-in-law in Portuguese though she can understand, more or less, when I speak in English. Even on moments where she says to go ahead with English, I can’t. It’s weird but I feel more comfort, for many reasons, speaking to her in Portuguese.

It seems that languages aren’t merely a form of communication but also have a sort of intimacy level when it comes to who you are talking to.

Has anyone else noticed this or did I just publicly confirm my craziness?

Grandma Brings the Booty

Not that kind of booty people! That's my fabulous Mother you are thinking about! Anyway, not only is she playing Santa by hauling piles a crap to Brazil, she is also my guest post for the day. Read on and see where I get my sass from:

____________

Heading for Rio for Christmas…Santa and his wife flying economy on American Airlines. I get two suitcases at 70 lbs each. Looking at the booty piled in the dining room I think I’m already screwed. I’ve been eyeing Santa’s suitcases…he can get all of his clothes in a carry-on. It’ll be hot…how much does he really need.

I have mad packing skills. I’ve hauled down a desktop computer, a Diaper Genie, Thanksgiving dinner minus the turkey, the entire toy aisle at Target, the candy section three aisles over, piles of little boy clothes and shoes, Bisquick, Campbells soup, A-1 sauce, shower heads, a million Zip Lock bags and a zillion disposable diapers…and a blow-up rubber ducky bath tub.

Ducky was the last item in the bag, smoothed out over the top of a box of Lego’s and a set of Tupperware, with his bill stuffed in a crevice on the side. I could hear him quacking as the suitcase rounded the corner on the conveyor belt. The TSA left me a note saying they had cut my TSA approved (they have a key) lock off and searched the suitcase…bet they were sorry. I think they took some of the peanut butter cups as compensation…

I have a growing list on the fridge and the doorbell just rang…UPS dropping off another box of must have toys and a few shirts Only Daughter found on line and had shipped here…I may have to pay for an extra suitcase.

Dear Mr. Rant…when you pick us up at the airport you may need an extra car….bring backup.

Hoarder's Anonymous

We are preparing for our move to the smaller apartment. I'm really excited about living there, just not about getting all our crap out of here.

So now I have a math equation for you:

If a woman has managed to fit 400 square meters of utter crap into a 130 square meter apartment, how does she then manage to pack and contain all that in an 80 square metered apartment?

The Answer:

Throw crap out! We are having a cleaning, hoarder's anonymous, purging of the home all week long. This will be the time where I will open the junk draw and actually be honest with myself. There will never be a moment where I will really wish that I had kept the finger flashlights or those broken crayons. I am not going to miss the wrinkled pizza restaurant slips nor is there an actual emotional attachment to the ticket stubs from some bad random movie.

This stuff is going into... gasp... the recycling bin.

Now don't get too scared for me. I have already sent a Tupperware, large enough to fit Mr. Rant, full of his crap to the in-law's house. As they were the ones to encourage his collecting of CDs and comic books, they can house them.

It's 80 some odd square meters of living space which means there is only about 20 left for actual stuff.

And this isn't the real challenge. The real challenge will be me keeping that little place organized and free of clutter. I'm going to be honest, I am horribly lazy when it comes to organizing crap. I just can't be bothered, and I'm even a Virgo. So stuff that in your face astrologers. I prefer living in organized chaos.

But in the best interest of my children, I am going to reform.

So here goes the first week of the rest of my life cleaning up and organizing my crap. Maybe you should be scared for me...


This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

The Annual Argument

Mr. Rant and I have our annual argument today. It comes about at some kind of family lunch or event. It is always centered on our children and it is fully due to cultural differences.

I don't know why I let it get to me still. It really is just the culmination of a bunch of tiny little things over a lunch or a family weekend that seem to push me over the edge.

Take today for instance. My Mother-in-law was kind enough to take it upon herself to make my boys' plates at lunch. I have no idea why it rubbed me the wrong way because what she was doing was her being helpful. But I have just never warmed to the idea of my children equally belonging to everyone in the family. It annoyed me to see her automatically determining what they would eat and not at all consulting me. At the same time, we live here. She is with the boys all the time. It's not like their habits are a mystery to her. Just the same, I felt that burning annoyed feeling when she cut up pork on Chatterbox's plate, the exact meat I had just finished saying that I do not think is good to eat. Side note, I think pork (minus sausage because there's no real meat in it anyway) is a dirty meat. I do not purchase or serve it to my family.

So that was the first annoyance, and I'll admit that it was something I should be over by now as it has been the story of my life here. No one died. Chatterbox was happy eating it. Not a biggie...

Then the Menace decided he wanted to roam around the restaurant. I'm not too anal about this but I do expect my kid to finish eating before they start running amok. But today there was a little girl sitting behind us and the family thought it was adorable that the Menace wanted to talk to her. I was thoroughly annoyed because we are working on exactly this with the Menace, sitting down to eat and then getting up. I'm being a hardass as he has been being a pain in the ass.

Was this respected? Nope. And since I was already cranky I did actually put my foot down. I told them no, the Menace got a talking to, and he actually cried. I thought I was going to get stoned right there in the restaurant. Holy crap I held my almost 3 yr old accountable and he did not like it. How dare I! I obviously should have been like the woman with the 4 yr old girl who had to keep calling her back to the table to spoon a mouthful in before she ran off again.

The Menace and the family ended up winning that one as it had jumped into the impossible battle.
But I informed him, if you don't sit to eat you don't get ice cream afterward. He accepted that, played with the girl, and ran back to grab bits of food off his plate occasionally.

And it is just this that I find so frustrating. I know we are at a restaurant with the family but why because we are with them do I lose rule over my own children?! How is that? Of course I am the only one bothered by it as the Grandparents take control and my kids obviously choose the way which means they get to do whatever the hell they want.

Anyway, we finally left the restaurant and headed out for ice cream. The in-laws didn't think that I was going to stick with the rules. They actually called the Menace over to get ice cream. I didn't let it happen and the Menace accepted it. He saw Chatterbox with his and when he asked for some I asked him "Did we sit and eat our lunch?" He smiled, said no, and went on with his life.

That is just the thing, culturally Brazilians are not as rigid with their kids as some of us Americans are. Sleep routines, bedtimes, consequences, or standard rules are not part of the day. Just like the rest of life, in Rio de Janeiro at least, they just go with the flow. You know what, it works for them. I see parents spoon feeding  7 yr olds at restaurants or small children out until midnight during the week and everyone seems ok with it. I have Moms tell me that their children will only eat sausage and thus that is what they feed them, everyday. Fair enough. To each their own. They obviously didn't grow up in my home where I quickly learned what "putting your foot down" means.

But as someone who is so not like that, it drives me insane. I can be pretty damn flexible with my kids but I draw the line at running after them to eat. I can not stand listening to people trying to convince kids to please do something. No, you do it or you don't get to do this. If you are fine with that then great. If not, do what you are supposed to. There is room for discussion but not everything is a discussion. I'm sorry but I just don't have the time nor the energy for it.

And it drives me insane to feel like someone is undermining my parenting because they feel that they can handle it better, as if they are coming in to save the children and smooth things over. Back off dude. I am the Mother.

At the same time, it is never going to change. In Brazil the Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, close friends etc have a certain amount of authority with your kids. In some ways it is great, in others it is extremely annoying. The key though, it is not done maliciously. No one is trying to actually undermine me or anything like that. In their way they are helping. They are being involved as all good Brazilian family members are. I can totally appreciate the positive and helpful place it comes from. I know my in-laws and the rest of the family adore me and my kids. We are their family. Though sometimes the American in me wants to throw a stinking fit and cry.

Oh wait, I did that this afternoon. I guess you can check that off the to do list. ;)

Freaking cultural differences! Which ones have you experienced? 

Secret to Marriage: Outsourcing

The New York Times just busted out another classic article. It's all about "equally shared parenting." When you think it's impossible to over-think children and families, someone offers another view.

So the deal there is that each parent is equally involved in everything. They have equal work hours, equal quality time with kids, equal responsibility of the home, and equal 15 minutes bouts of boring sex.

Obviously I read this and felt the need to put a Brazilian spin on it. I'm getting quite predictable on this blog, or as I like to call it "equally shared topic use."

Anyway, Brazilians have an easy answer to the equality at home issue, they outsource. Hell, I think most marriages here come with a full-time maid to clean and cook. Depending on the financial situation of the parents, come little Jr. there could be the addition of a nanny, the expansion of the job description of the maid, or the abuse of extended family members.

Yes, the family helps. You have the Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Siblings, and goodness knows however many cousins the parents feel comfortable having help. The Brazilians have the tribe style of raising kids down.

So in the middle class two working parent situation, Brazilians have that stuff down. Not only do neither of them actually have to do housework, sometimes they hardly need to raise their children unless they really want to. I think that explains why I'm the Mom getting annoyed with my kid's tantrum and the Brazilian parent is calmly lecturing them on how it makes Mommy feel... all while the kid is screaming.

In the past I have always accounted the parents I encounter's patience with just being more patient. I would swear to myself that my pregnant Mother really should have gotten her butt on a plane and birthed me in a more acceptable country. Turns out, upon reflection, that maybe this patience comes from having help. They are not burnt out by their kids or household duties. They do not have to argue with their spouse over who never does the dishes because Valeria or Lillian is coming in to handle them in the morning.

In all seriousness though, they need the help! If you have two working parents with semi-decent careers the hours are a bitch! Mr. Rant can go from getting home at 630pm one week to 830pm the next. It doesn't matter how early he starts his day. It's that damn 6pm meeting that every Brazilian seems to love to schedule that only actually starts at 630 or 7pm. That meeting will bite you in the ass weekly!

So I guess when you are in Brazil you do what the Brazilians do, unless you are me that is. I'm a glutton for punishment and can't manage a maid more than twice a week. Call me crazy but sharing my box of an apartment with another woman, who talks more than me by the way, is enough to send me to the Brazilian crazy house. Trust me, not the crazy house you want to end up in!

How do you or will you handle your household?