A Mommy in Brazil

I like Sundays. It is the longest day of the week for me even though I find it pass by really quickly. It is the day when I go to the farmers market in the morning and enjoy buying vegetables for the week. It is the day when we splash out on a nice breakfast and eat “coxinha“. It is the day when I feel I have peace to work on my things instead of others. And it is also the day when I am very domestic.

If you come by my house now you will find lots of clothes hanging to dry outside. Most of it has been washed in our lovely little washing machine that I am lucky to have and some have been washed by hand. I don’t really want all my clothes turning blue because of son’s school uniform so that was a necessity really although I  strongly dislike washing by hand.

My mother in law loves washing clothes. And I mean really loves, she does it every day! When we first moved here she did quite a lot of washing for me and even came to my house to take clothes when I was working. That was when I worked outside of home so I only found out afterward. I had to tell her to stop eventually as it drove me nuts not to know where the clothes were, if they were clean or not. But I love my MIL, she is a wonderful person really.

Sunday is also church day, I try to go every Sunday although some I stay at home with my non church going husband.

For me Sundays is the day I do all those things around the house that I should have done during the week but that got left behind. I am trying to make myself go and iron that pile of clothes that has been sitting on the kitchen table for some time now…

Somehow self persuasion doesn’t work so well…

School has been good for my son and I can tell he is liking it. He is learning new things and making new friends. The other day he came home and told the story about the boy that said he was sorry and apologized for the bad things he’d done.  So now my son is apologizing for things all the time out of the blue. Funny, I’ve been telling him this since forever but that obviously didn’t help. lol.

Every day we go home with another boy and his mom and today the other little boy told me that Choriço had cried for his mommy. I was almost chocked; what cried after me?? Turned out it was true.

This “terrible “mom felt good hearing that. It was a reaffirmation that I am a good mom and missed every now and then. I thought that was so sweet.

I must be doing something good if I’m missed…

Carnaval flew by this year, thankfully. I mean I do like that it’s a bank holiday which means a few days or extra rest but I do find it so incredibly boring.

Don’t get me wrong, Brazil would not be Brazil without carnival but when you don’t go out to see the carnival trains and dance on the streets there really isn’t much fun to do.  Watching carnival all day becomes a tiny bit boring after the first day. Every tv channel is showing the latest carnival news and when you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all in my opinion.

OK, maybe not. I just didn’t find it very exciting this year. And even though it finished last Wednesday officially there are still carnivals going on in some cities. Didn’t they get enough dancing five days in a row already?

One of the things I admire the most about brazilians is their enormous creativity. They have this incredible way of coming up with new things all the time, I have never seen as many craft ideas as I’ve seen these last four years here. Carnaval is a great opportunity for these creative people to show what they can come up with. The creations are wonderful!

Well, now it’s just another year until it is carnival again…

Just writing this title gives me the creeps actually. Yesterday we had a horrible experience here at home and I wish no one to go through what we had to go through.

We had just come back from my in-laws when this happened. I went out to the front to read in the hammock, my husband went to the back to check on his birds and little Chroriço sat in the living room with his daddy’s little toolbox. In this little toolbox there are mostly nails and screws and Choriço often plays with it. I had not even been in the hammock for a minute when I heard my husband calling. I could tell it was not the normal “come here” calling but a desperate sound. I quickly ran inside asking what had happened.

Choriço had a metal ring around his right hands index finger and the ring would not come off. I’m not sure what this ring is called really but it is the flat ring you add before you add a screw to secure the screw somehow. Hope this make sense.  Well we tried removing the ring with oil and soap but nothing worked. My son was screaming it was hurting and his finger started to swell. I told my husband to call 911 who told him to go the the hospital. Thankfully we live close to the best hospital in town. Only that when we went to the car little Choriço had been fixing with the alarm somehow and the doors to the car wouldn’t close. So we left the car open and ran over to my in-laws who live a street away and borrowed their car instead.

We arrived at the hospital and had to wait for about 30 minutes or so before they called my son. I told my husband to go with him as he has the power to remain calmer than me in situations like this. They went inside and I sat outside waiting. The waiting room is literally outside the hospital and you can not get in without passing through the doorman. They have a little “chapel” with a few benches where you can pray and I went there to pray that everything would be OK with my son.  After almost an hour, I had no watch so I’m not entirely sure how long it was, I went up to the doorman and asked if I could go see my son. The doorman was this grumpy old man who started complaining to the secretary about the rules of the hospital and so on and let me know I could not enter. He said something like “well they just squeeze a little here and there and it comes off” I replied “well if it was that easy don’t you think he would have come out by now then?” The man didn’t say anything but remained silent.

About ten minutes passed and suddenly the fire brigade comes to the hospital. The men quickly got out of the van, picked up a toolbox and some other stuff and went inside the hospital. This is when my heart started jumping even more and I told the lady sitting next to me waiting that it must be because of my son. I mean why would the fire brigade come to the hospital and go inside with a toolbox? I waited a bit more and about ten or fifteen minutes passed and one of the firemen comes running outside to get something from the van and I couldn’t stay calm outside any longer. I went to the doorman and asked him if the fire brigade was there because of my son and he sighed and said yes. Grumpily he told me he didn’t want to tell me because he knew I would get upset but finally told me where to go.

I couldn’t find the room where my son was but heard him screaming. When I finally found the room I could hardly see my son because the room was full of people. My son was screaming “it’s burning it’s burning” and I could hear the sound of an electric saw. I finally saw my son  but had to grab a  doctor and ask where my husband was because I couldn’t see him. My husband was squeezed in to the corner of the bed holding my son. I swear that everyone in the hospital came to see what was happening. Me, I tried to stay calm and continued to pray. I felt so helpless and was on the verge of tears but didn’t cry out of fear that if I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.

They finally manged to cut through the ring but it was still stuck on his finger and every time they touched it my son screamed that it was hurting. After what seemed as an eternity the ring came off. My husband had to go outside and move the car and I stayed with Choriço who only needed two minutes to recover to his old playful self. We spend another two hours in the hospital doing an x-ray and waiting for the Dr to release us. During this time my son almost made me and the other patients crazy as he could stay still but it was good to see that he was fine again.

This was a horrible moment and we were afraid that Choriço would lose his finger or something worse. I have still not recovered from yesterday. I truly hope to never have to go through anything like this again but I thank God nothing worse happened. I’ve now told Choriço that the only thing you can put on your body is clothes and when he gets older he can have a ring, a wedding ring. lol. The little toolbox is now forbidden and we will be ever so careful about letting him out of sight again!

Today we are celebrating with a cake as it is his 5th birthday today! Thank you God for this wonderful little miracle I have in my life. He is a true blessing!

For those of you who have children; please be attentive and pray for their protection. Life is so vulnerable.

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