This morning just before 5am began 2 hours of blaring music and firecrackers in our little neighborhood of Santa Ana. Just before 5am means the hour starts with a 4. Luckily, looking on the bright side here, the music was crooner Mexican ballads and not brain-thumping bad techno-versions of Latino music like usual. Anyway, somewhere around 7-ish it stopped and I slept again. I usually wake up before 8 or a little after but this morning I slept more to make up for lost time. Knowing today is Mother's Day in Guatemala, I asked Andres for some assurance that all that noise was indeed for the holiday (in my head, Please let there be a reason, some order to this madness). Of course, he was like, Yeah probably.

I was like, Well why the heck do they have to start so early? Why not start now? He started to say something but I already had my answer/theory so I interrupted and shared (my bad). My theory is that was like Hey it's Mother's Day All You Moms Get Up and Get to WORK! Because in my mind, Mother's Day should be a quiet morning where mom's get to sleep in, right? Not be awake since 4-something am.

Then Andres told me in his village they wake up at 3am (nice) and once he remembered actually woke up all the fathers! Playing music and reading poems about how stupid being macho and sexist is and that mom's should be respected and today is their special day. Then they served tamales and coffee at 4am for all the moms. He called it a serenade.

Well as a mom-t0-be I pick American Mother's Day where there's no 4am, or 3am, wake up call. I used to be a much better sport about stuff like this - I think it's 8-months pregnant talking, a good sleep is already so far from my recent memory. At some point we'll probably be living down here, and Mom's Day will roll around and, well, we'll see how those 4am tamales taste.