maternal guilt

Clearly it wasn't just the 50 kilos of luggage that we brought with us to St Cristobal. My maternal guilt also travelled with us in the suitcase and it has been kicking in big time.

Firstly there is Clover, who spent the first few days here being thoroughly miserable and not sleeping. It's hard to say whether she was teething, jetlagged or just hating Mexico, but whatever it was it did not have a great effect on my psyche.

Thankfully she is back to being her usual happy shouty self, which makes me feel a whole lot better about things - the amount of sleep I'm getting helps too! She is still refusing to roll over, but likes the baby walker we've borrowed from Mariet (she can't actually walk anywhere because it has a wheel missing but at least she's upright) an is eating prodigiously and giggling like a loony at all and sundry.















Then there's the tricky business of leaving Daisy at nursery. That's hard enough when your highly articulate child is able to communicate with her teachers, but when they speak not a word of English it's far more difficult. Especially when she's screaming "I don't want to" at the top of her voice, which I think everyone understood despite the language barrier.

I spent most of this morning wracked with guilt while we left Daisy for her first morning at the nursery school. When we returned she was quite happily playing and had done painting, cutting out and eaten several tortillas. She's now so addicted to them that when I ask her what she wants for lunch she wants "tillas" above pasta, which is high praise indeed.

It helps that there's a half Canadian girl in the nursery who is bilingual. The class Daisy should be in consists of three boys, so Daisy is in the older class instead with the five year olds, who are looking after her wonderfully. We're so proud of her... and she's learning more Spanish all the time. She likes to shout "adios" at everyone in the street - luckily it is used as a greeting here so she isn't just shouting "goodbye" at everyone.

















She's also getting far too accustomed to getting taxis everywhere, and every time we step out onto the pavement she shouts "where's my taxi" and tries to flag down passing cars. Since cabs cost £1 a ride here it's a luxury we can afford when her feet get tired, but she'll have to get used to London buses again when we get back to the UK.

When I've not been feeling guilty about the kids we've been revisiting friends and old haunts. The chocolate seller is still here (thank goodness) and remembers us far too well. I think we were his best customers! We've also been catching up with the Hernandez Moshan family.

The girls, who used to babysit for Daisy, popped over while we were doing bedtime the other day. They seemed a little confused by "hairy maclary from Donaldson's Dairy" - they may have studied english for years at school but they can't speak a word. Daisy refers to them as "my ladies" in a most proprietorial way, so I think there is some recollection there.

We've also visited their dad, Manuel, who runs a hamburger stall by the bus station. We'll see the rest of the family on Sunday when we're going to take them out for lunch after church. Their church involves hours of dancing so it should be quite a workout for all concerned.

Having Daisy at nursery leaves us better equipped for shopping at the market. She might be the same height as most of the ladies there but it would still be easy to lose her so it's quite stressful to shop with her. Today, with just Clover, we spent around £7 on the most wonderful cornucopia of fruit and veg, along with some chicken for dinner.












Daisy and Itamar then spent most of the afternoon immersing themselves in water on the balcony. It's been extremely hot here and very bright and sunny, but at least the balcony has some shade. They've been using the plastic bath we bought for Clover as a paddling pool and that, along with some dishes, some plastic people and a tea set, kept them quiet for most of the afternoon without too many tears or too much translation. At least that isn't something Daisy could do at home at the moment, and she loves it so much it assuages my guilt a little.