Tomorrow Arlo is 1 month old! Whoa! Which means a month ago today I was laboring away like a madwoman. Arlo is turning into quite the little handsome butterball. I don't know how much he weighs now but he is noticeably heavier to pick up!

I'm feeling pretty good. We've gone out twice now, out into the world, as a tiny family. Yesterday we went to the grocery store with Arlo passed out carried by Andres in the Moby carrier. Our roles have reversed! I used to carry Arlo and Andres used to do all the lifting, shopping, carrying, etc. Now Andres carries baby and I get to do stuff! I missed doing stuff! And walking is so much fun now cuz it doesn't make me sore!

Things are getting noisy around here though.. every day trucks pass our house blaring presidential campaign nonsense. One truck passed announcing how awesome "Gladys" would be for Sacatepequez diputado and through the loudspeaker asking, I love Sacatepequez and you? (Yo amo a Sacatepequez y usted?) I opened my window to check it out and trailing the loud truck was a little pickup with none other than Gladys driving and I instinctively waved at her. I'm such a sucker. I did the same thing in March when I saw ex-president Oscar Berger at Pizza Hut in the airport and I waved and he gave me a head nod back, then I was like, oh I should have given him a firm talkin-to about the crappy things he did as president. Oh well. I was star struck.

So each presidential candidate has taken a popular song and changed the words and plays it from a truck that circles Santa Ana all day. There's the "Mano Dura" use of La Bamba and Rigoberta Menchú's original techno dance tune. It's mostly annoying how catchy the tunes are and I find myself singing them. The other day I was taking laundry down singing something about Luis Zamora, a candidate for mayor of Antigua.

Andres' mom has been here for a few weeks now knocking out loads of laundry. Whoever decided to cloth diaper without a machine is nuts. Oh, that's us. Anyway, she's been awesome. One morning she came in the room with an armload of fresh off the line clothes & diapers and I said to her, Whoa mucho trabajo - lotsa work, and she goes, Oh this ain't work... Work is caring for my pigs. Aaahh perspective. Andres says his mom considers this "light" amount of laundry (heck, it's only 1 baby), that washing is like a hobby.