Mother's Day Mañanitas

I don’t sleep well anymore. The reasons for this cluster into two groups: Late Pregnancy Reasons and Life in San Juan Cosalá Reasons.

The first set includes: resembling a manatee and being generally uncomfortable, having to sleep on my side (oh the day I’ll sleep on my stomach or back again!), the baby practicing wushu on my ribs, frequent trips to the wc, and that I’m no longer able to breathe through my nose when lying down. That last one is totally rad, by the way.

Life in San Juan Cosalá reasons are all related to ambient noise, and include: people yelling in the street (For some reason, people are always yelling in the street. Why are they always yelling? Why?), gas truck jingles, the neglected and chained dog next door always barking, soap operas from the tv downstairs and the cranked up tv next door, trucks braking with their motors as they pass in front of the house, cars with loudspeakers broadcasting the sale of watermelons and blenders, pigs screaming from the slaughterhouse, drunk people at the beer store across the street, and the stereos of the trucks of the drunk people buying beer from the beer store across the street.

This morning, however, I awoke at the late hour of 7:00 AM, and not to passing gas trucks nor to the stereos of early morning beer runners. No, today was Mother’s Day, and so, obviously, I awoke instead to the sound of a rather lively marching band. Clearly.

Yes, apparently the tradition is to serenade your mother early in the morning with a live band to show her how much you appreciate and love her. Nothing says “Mom, I love you” like an early morning snare drum.

This runs counter to my belief that if you really wanted to show appreciation, you’d let the woman sleep in for once, maybe make her some waffles. But no. Here, you hire a band to play her las mañanitas, which I guess is a song or set of songs that you sing to someone on a special day, such as Mother’s Day or their birthday.

We ran out on the roof to watch the street from above. The band was actually quite good. And we spotted a shirtless fellow really getting down to the music, which naturally only enhanced our own enjoyment. Later, we heard other bands around the neighborhood, including a mariachi group.

I’m told that I must have been really tired to have slept through the earlier mañanitas, because they start as early as midnight on Mother’s Day. I’ve made it clear to Hernan that should he ever wish to serenade me, the afternoon would be a better choice. I also suggested matching costumes and coordinated dance moves terminating in jazz hands and maybe confetti. We’ll see what happens. I probably won’t even get the waffles.

So, yes, Mother’s Day. Weird, but suddenly this day applies to me. It’s like I’m joining some new club or something, or like I lied about my birthday so I could get free cake in May – that’s kind of how it felt. My nephew-in-law made me a paper flower and stuffed it with very strange marshmallow candies. And Hernan made enchiladas for everyone, which, actually, is far better than any waffles.

That’s about all that happened. The rest of the Hernan’s family came over and we made carne asada and roasted corn. Then everyone spent the rest of the day watching bad movies on tv, while my mother-in-law cleaned up after everyone, you know, because it’s her day. Or something.

Now it’s evening again, and I can look forward to another night of little sleep. I enjoyed the mañanitas this morning. I guess I prefer waking to tubas than to gas truck jingles.