Barbacue area

Family is growing.

New projects are in the air.

We love receiving friends at home.

Conclusion: the barbacue area HAS TO be rebuilt.

A month before C moved from the UK, I did some works on this area, repainted walls in bright colours and improved the condition of the garden.

The first picture you can see here, is the original barbacue and the following two, are the barbacue after the painting. It took me about a week to get used to the bright orange, but I was very happy with the final result. I usually say that the area looks like a "mexican patio", bright, stunning, cheerful. I like colours in my life, I imagine Frida Khalo's home was painted in similar colours.

However, we need to rebuild this area to use it for new different purposes.

On one hand, I would like to have a closed space where we can receive friends for barbacues, children can also have their own parties and why not, use this area for studying when they are older.

Secondly, we thought of moving C's studio there. The area is big enough as to "divide" the space into two different areas, one where the proper barbacue is, would function as a big dinning room and the other half as an art studio, a cozy living room with an open fire where we could relax, read, paint, etc..

We both believe that we could be able to run our own business teaching music, art, painting, literature, and eventually, this is what we plan to do, and this space would be essential to create an area that we could use for these purposes.

Moving the studio to this space would also would also allow us to have another bedroom in the house. If we move B's (my 6 years-old daughter) bedroom to the studio, it would be possible to organize there a working area for the kids as well, as the studio is a big room. By doing this, we could have B's bedroom, which is the smaller in the house, free and we could prepare the baby's bedroom there. We wouldn't make changes in G's (my 9 years-old son) bedroom then.

The works for rebuilding the barbacue would include (briefly):

- building of the second half of the roof. From the outside would look the same as the other half already built. From the inside, works for roof insulation has to be done and the final aspect would be a wood covering.

- the tiles of the floor have to be changed. I like the rustic style, but some tiles are broken and the floor was not built properly, so it has to be done again. Probably I would choose the same tiles, or at least, same colour.

- would be perfect to build a small toilette with a shower. So that guests/students/friends don't have to go inside the house to use the toilette. Also this area could be very useful for receiving C's family when they come over and a bathroom here would be very practical.

- building of an open fire. We have central heating inside the house and a small open fire in the living room. But it is not worth it (and very expensive too) to build an extension of the heating to the barbacue. However, this one would be a big area and as we are planning to use it during the whole year, even in winter, we need to decide about warming it up. We love open fires, so this would be a good option.

- finally the front of the whole area has to be closed with glass sliding windows. Then it would be a very bright and sunny area.

All those works would probably take a month more or less, and I hoped we could start before the baby is born.

BUT the cost of all this is american dollars 8.000.-, and we only have american dollars 4.000.-

At the moment I can not see how we could possibly make it unless I win the lottery (but I don't bet anyway).

Any idea?????

Baby Thomas' scan

This afternoon, we had an appointment to do a routinary scan.

I am 6 months pregnant now and this was the third scan already.

It was emotional and touching as usual to spy in the screen this small being, moving, growing and developing himself inside my womb. It is amazing how with the fast advances of technology in this area, it is so clear, so perfect and easy to understand and to appreciate all the details of the tiny anatomy.

C had a serious air but didn't stop watching while the doctor/technician was moving the scan around our baby, messuring every little bone, every organ.

It still is a mistery to me how C feels about the baby, how is he experiencing my pregnancy, if he is preparing himself for fatherhood, most of the time I have the feeling that he is not aware that this creature will change our lives in every possible sense.

After the Hospital, we had time for a quick coffee before I return to the office. We talked about how fast Thomas is growing inside of me and as usual I said I hope he has same eyes as his father. C teased me by saying that those cheeks looked exactly like mine.

We discussed what language the baby would speak and we both agree that we should talk to him in English as he ultimately he will learn Spanish with the rest of the family, school, etc.. Of course there's no other possibility for C than to speak to him in English.

C told me that he would like to teach music to Thomas or at least give him all the tools and all the opportunities that come with no effort. I hope our son will be able to appreciate this, I believe that growing in a family that is so interested in arts would encourage him to do something related. I would love him to be a musician like his father, but of course this is something that he will have to decide himself. And this is what I let C know: yes, we will be there for him, to give him all the tools and to be his guide, but I will be happy with whatever he decides to do in life, if he has a passion for it.

Legal Residence

After a whole painful year plus 3 months, the application for C's Legal Residence has finished.

The final resolution was communicated to us today.

I dealt with all the application myself in behalf of C, above everything due to his impossibility of communicate in Spanish, but also did it in an attempt to make his life easier, less painful, once more letting win my obssesion to protecting him.

But at the end of the day, I have to accept it, I didn't want him to be aware of the shameful machinery behind the Civil Service in my country. I just wanted to save myself all the shame and frustration of "translating" to him how this things are done in this part of the world.

I am not going to describe here the endless wasted hours at offices, dealing with incoherent civil servants, the irrationality of procedures, a perfect example of crippling bureaucracy.

I had enough myself.

Even when I believe I am such a tolerant, patient and pacifist person, more than once during this year, while I was waiting endless hours at those offices only to hear later the absurd replies of the wasted civil servant on duty behind a desk, I could not help but remembering a violent Michael Douglas getting stuck in the traffic jam in that day of fury in Falling Down... I am sure, one day, someone will get as demented as him.

Foggy week

The last past week has been stressing.

C has been feeling miserable most of the time and obviously, this had a huge influence in my mood as well.

I would like to think that all this stress was due to so many things he had to cope with at the same time: he had to prepare himself for a singalong, he was performing at the annual school play (also he composed all the music for the same play) and he was struggling to adapt himself to a new job as an Art Teacher.

Obviously the new job is probably the big issue here.

When he got the job, the first days of August, I saw it as a fantastic opportunity for him to commit himself into something he likes and he is prepare for (he has a degree in Fine Arts) in one of the best schools in this country (if not the best). It's an american school (the only one here) and its first language is English (second language Spanish) while in every other bilingual school it is exactly the other way round.

Children from diplomatic families go there and, only 30% of its students are local. Considering this aspect and that the teachers are from different parts of the globe, there's a cosmopolitan feeling there that, in the whole, makes it attractive to C who still struggles so much with our latinamerican culture.

His salary is not completely arranged yet but he felt he could communicate good enough with the new Head Director (an american guy who has only been here for a month) and he accepted the job.

He teaches Arts to Elementary and Primary School and Music as an extra curricular activity. He was very positive at the beginning, he even bought books related to the subject, and had a lot of projects to start working with them. However, the first week proved to be hard.

I do understand that dealing with small kids could be difficult. However, I've been in one of his classes and I was amazed at how well he could handle the kids, how easily he communicates with them, how patient he is and also I could appreciate how the children responded so well to him too. Not all classes are supose to be like that, but I got the picture.

Being a teacher requires a lot of work outside the classroom and preparing for his classes proved to be painful as he moans all the time about not having time to play his music as he used to. I do believe that all that extra time at home guitar playing was a bonus he had to take advantage of. Sooner or later it would come a time when he should have to commit himself into getting an income, for his own expenses and for contribuiting to paying family bills.

But these changes only made him very unhappy. I started to hear only negative comments: the kids getting difficult to deal with, the crowded bus trips to the school, the rushes from one school to the other, the heat, the cold and everything.

I did what I could, try to did my best to be out of his way, to be positive and to make him look at the bright side of all it.

I can not remember a single warm gesture from him during that whole week. Probably he was too busy to notice I was there. I stroked his back everynight as usual in an attempt to make him feel better. But again, this is something that I usually do until I fall asleep.

One day in the the middle of the week I made a short visit home at lunch time to organize a little bit the house work so that everything would be more or less ready for when we all return home in the evening. I did supermarket shopping, I collected the washing and put some more washing outside, washed dishes, etc.. I had to rush as I only had an hour and a half before returning to the office (the trips at 100 km/h along the coast also counted). But I still had time to left a bar of chocolate on his desk, the one the I know that he likes so much, with a little funny card with a cartoon of a smily cat on it. I wrote a few words in it, wishing him a sweet afternoon (I knew he would arrive home in a couple more hours) and I rushed back to my office.

In the evening when I returned home, he didn't even move from the coach in his studio, he didn't even make any attempt to kiss me and he had that miserable face again. His only comment was "sorry, but I eat all the chocolate", I replied that it was for him anyway. I went downstairs and started dealing with dinner and my son's homeworks. After a while he came down to the kitchen too... only to serve himself some more coffee and to throw some papers into the dustbin.

And then I saw it.

He was throwing away my card. Suddenly I felt tearfully. In that apparently insignificant, silly event, I saw him as summing up his last days' attitude. And I felt pathetic, stupid, utterly sad. All the frustration of the last days was fighting not to be shown together with my tears.

I let the days pass as I knew there were important things to come in the following days and I didn't want to put more pressure on him by having a conversation that, I acknowledged before hand, at least, would stressed him. Friday was the singalong, Sat and Sunday were the last performances of the school play (and we were also taking the kids to watch the play).

It was already Tuesday of the following week when I managed to send him an email putting into words some of my feelings and some of my pain. It felt a relief to be able to get out all those words that have been boiling up inside me for so many days.

Again I repeated to him that I do not want him to work anymore if he can not put up with the frustration of "working for other people" as he usally says. But what I can not deal with is his misery.

Of course I also explained to him that I don't agree with what I was suggesting: I strongly believe that being at home, spending his days shutting himself up indoors was not a "healthy" option at all. Wasting hours and hours of his precious life in front of a screen, and watching porn is not "real life" and it is not what I want for him. I stated this very clearly.

I explained to him how concerned I am about trying to make everybody's lives better and easier. That I do my best, and that I had the feeling that even this was not appreciated at all, that I could be killing myslef but I was taken for granted. I didn't pretend to moan, but I wanted to let him know that even when I have my own worries, concerns and frustrations, I still try to be positive and have a smily face when I arrive home.

I also said to him that I've always wanted us to have an open and honest communication but that lately, I've been struggling to express how I feel as I am so afraid that he may say things that I do not want to listen.

I told him that I tourture myself all the time thinking that he may regret everything he did to be with us (me), that he even regrets becoming a (future) father, that he may regret leaving his ex partner and his former life with her as all that I hear is how much he wants to come back to the UK.

And how much this whole week of silence between us hurted, this whole week of not doing any good to our relationship with that attitude, this whole week of not taking care of it.

I got a big hug when I arrived home that evening.

Sex and Pregnancy

It's been a while since my last post.

Dealing with so many changes and a few difficult domestic situations kept me away from my blog for more time than I have expected.

I am still experimenting some of the fears and doubts that usually pregnant women experiment at some stage of the pregnancy period. I am still concern about the toxoplasmosis issue and I will probably be until the day I give birth. However, I started to feel better after the first trimester and little by little all those symptoms of fatigue and nausea dissapeared. I am working as usual at the office from 9 am to 6 pm and my daily routine did not change at all, with the exception that I had to give up acting for a while as I bear a noticeable tummy already.

I've been visiting the doctor monthly, doing the usual health tests and routinary scans and everything is perfect. The doctor said I am very healthy and I am a very positive person, so he asked me to watch my weight and go on with my usual activities.

Everything seems to be under control.

However, there's something that has been bothering me, making me feel miserable, moody and agressive, and this has to do with my current sex life.

I was very aware that there were going to be changes in our sex life.

I was never concerned about this in my two previous pregnancies, because sex with my previous partner (the father of my two kids) was disastrous and I did not care at all how he might had seen me. The problem was not my pregnancies but the absolutely lack of chemestry between us, our minds were never connected, needless to say our bodies were the same.

Since I met C, all that he gave me was the possibility to enjoy my sexuality, to feel free to express myself sexually and not to be ashamed about it, and above all, he was happy to share this with me. I realize how signifcant, how important his attitude has been to me, I felt that, now in my 30's, I was experimenting a sexual awakening. Due to this, now that I am pregnant, I do need to feel that I am accepted in this "new body". Also I need C to be involved emotionally. It will be his first experience as a father. I would like him to enjoy this period, it's an oportunity not to be missed.

I truly believe that open communication is the key, try to keep an honest dialogue. I do not know why I do struggle so much, why I've been finding it so difficult to talk to my husband about what I need or what I want. Maybe because I am a bit embarassed of hearing the same comment from him: "you are one track mind". Some time ago, this label used to be kind of funny and I used to feel "proud" about such stament, but lately turned to be a repetitive comment from him and eventually, caused me to withdraw. I realized that I was not asking any more, that I stopped teasing him, that I was not "playful" anymore. And that made me feel a lot of sadness, as I was hidding something that was so important to me and that I needed so much.

I do not mean that our sex life is inexistent at all. I am just stating that it changed utterly and that I am finding very hard to cope this new state of things. From being very playful and naughty, from being very sensual, we are now like noun and priest, only making love sporadically.

I know that some women report changes in their sex drive during pregnancy, from experimenting a tendency to be lower to a dramatic increase. Obviously, the second, is due to the changes in hormones that your body goes through in order to support the pregnancy, increasing the amount of progesterone in your bloodstream. I can not say this dramatic increase is my case. I prefer to think that I am a woman who enjoys sex and I am not passive about it, not really obssesed with it, but I am learning to be open and express my needs and desires and this makes me feel a lot better with myself. So even when I could be more enthusiastic than the average, I consider myself normal.

As a consequence of my husband's suddenly lack of interest, I started to have a hard time dealing with my new image: my breasts are growing, my belly is becoming roooouuuuunder, I am putting weight and feeling "sexy" or just attactive is becoming unreachable. No way, mainting a positive and confident body image is tough.

While I heard that many men find pregnant women very sexy in their new curves (my friend J, thinks that pregnancy only enhances women sexual attraction!!!) seems that it is not the same for C.

I believe I am tolerant, because I am aware that men's sex drive may also fluctuates. The problem is that I was expecting him to experiment a renewed sense of closeness with me now that I am pregnant, and as a result a more fulfilling sex. On the other hand, he lost his desire and motivation for sex... with me.

C is a very sensual being. I am aware that this huge change is exclusively with reference to his attitude towards me. His usual habit of looking for porn in the internet haven't changed at all, and I guess nor his usual masturbation. This activitty was something that we used to enjoy together, and it did work very well to enhance our intimacy or just for fun. At the moment we are not sharing this anymore but he is doing it daily on his own.

This fact is also affecting me immensily as all that I can see is that in his mind there's only place for his fantasies and for all those beautiful women on the screen, while I am only feeling more and more ackward in my new shape.

He doesn't seem to notice my misery, but again, I don't have the strenght or the confidence to talk to him about it, which in a way, makes the whole situation a lot sadder.

So many doubts...

Is he having troubles to reconcile my identity as a sexual partner with my new (and increasingly visible I should say) identity as an expectant mother?

Is he anxious about the burdens of parenthood?

Is he afraid?

Is he indifferent?

Where has all the passion gone?