Last night, we ran out of cooking gas. My husband put the tank in our trunk and went to buy some, only to find that there was no cooking gas for sale anywhere! Supposedly, some cooking gas would come into the country at 3am so there would be none for sale until later this afternoon (ah, the joys of living in a third-world country!). So, this morning, when I woke up to no cooking gas, I had to figure out a way to creatively cook--and so the electric rice cooker became the answer. Now, the electric rice cooker is a lot more useful than I thought. You can cook rice, of course, but you can boil water for tea, boil eggs, cook pasta, veggies, etc. You can actually make a whole meal in this one pot! I already knew this before I tried it because one of my friends here had to spend a few days cooking all her meals in a rice cooker and she had gotten creative with it. But I have to say that it has saved the day!
In the meantime, the baby was tired, fighting sleep and crying on and off (that soft "ay, ay, ay" crying that little 2-month old babies often do). After trying to entertain him with music, his mobile, a walk around the backyard to take some sun, and just plain cooing to him, into the swing he went and voila! he was asleep in a few minutes. No more whimpering, no more "ay, ay, ay" complaint-crying that makes mommy feel bad and inexperienced and guilty for not solving baby's problem instantly.
So, I stole a few minutes on the laptop to begin typing this, as my iron warmed up so I could iron all of the baby clothes I washed yesterday. Since I don't have a dryer, all of baby's things have to be ironed after they dry. I used to hate ironing. Wouldn't do it for anything, ever. But strangely enough, I have come to enjoy ironing the baby's things. Not because ironing is a fun activity, but because I seem to lose myself in my thoughts during the time I'm ironing. It is completely like meditating for me. I have to do it when the baby is either sleeping or happily lying in his bassinet, watching me, watching the world.
I am getting really good at looking for creative solutions for little problems and using up moments of time, instead of large blocks of time. Now, if I could only convince the baby to stay still long enough in the sling or the wrap to sit down and work on creative writing...I guess that's the next challenge.
1 comment:
It seems like only yesterday I was cuddling and taking care of my little guy. I remember him vividly at two months, it was such a joy, now he's 9!!! A little man and it shocks me how quickly the time has gone! Enjoy your little fellow as much as you can now, soon he will be going off to school and asking you not to kiss him in front of his friends!!
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