My doctor assured me that the cyst was probably nothing to worry about, that it was most likely water-filled, or a benign growth like afibroid or a dermoid. But a post-surgical biopsy showed it to be a low-malginant potential tumor, which isn’t cancerous, but isn’t benign either, and a CT-scan revealed that I still had two small cysts on the back of that ovary.

Some people counseled me to have that ovary removed, pointing out that your chances of getting pregnant are the same with one ovary as with two (because the remaining ovary steps up its hormone production and releases an egg every month instead of every other). But I was young (27) and very single, and didn’t know what the future held, so I wanted to keep both ovaries just to be safe. So I opted to have routine ultrasounds to make sure that the cysts hadn’t grown in size.

They stayed the same for the next ten years, even throughout my pregnancy. Then last week, in my six-month post-delivery checkup, we did the usual ultrasound and it revealed an 8-cm cyst on my right ovary (actually, the cyst is so large it has sort of swallowed the ovary). Everyone agreed that it (and, this time, the dwarfed ovary) had to come out. It was déja vu all over again.

Only this time everything felt totally different. On the one hand, I was much better off than I had been during my first surgery, when I was young and single and had no idea if I’d ever have children. I now have the incredible husband I wasn’t sure existed, and we already have one very funny, highly adorable baby. A baby who came partly from an egg that the problematic right ovary had dropped (I know because during my pregnancy ultrasounds we saw the corpus luteum cyst, which remains when the egg is released, on the right).

But that’s where things get complicated. That what’s changed the most since my last surgery–this little baby. She depends on me for everything, down to the food she eats. The truth is, she’d get by just fine if I weren’t around–she has her papi and three grandmothers and loving aunts and grandpas and all the rest–but she’s also such a delight to be around that I don’t want to miss watching her discover the world, not even for the day I’ll be surgery. She gets so excited feeling the wind or watching the rain or when a stranger waves at her, and I want to see every one of those smiles and hear her guttural little laugh.

The oophorectamy I’m having today is an outpatient procedure. If all goes well, I should be in and out the same day, and after three days of pumping and dumping (and Amalía’s grandma giving her milk I’ve stored) the anesthesia will be out of my system and I can feed her again.

So I’ve been trying not to get all Terms of Endearment about what I hope what will be a minor procedure. The doctor told me that there’s a 20% chance the mass is cancerous, given my history and the tumor’s size, but I’ve been trying to focus on the 80%. And eighty percent is pretty good odds, even though it’s a B-, and nobody likes a B-, not even in gym class. That’s probably my problem–my life is the equivalent of grade inflation; I have the family I always wanted (although I would like to keep adding to it), and my novel is coming out in a week; maybe I’ve been too lucky and now I want everything to be A+ all the time without the interference of clear-liquid diets, surgery, and whisperings of mortality.

But I’ve been talking to some of my girlfriends, and I think it’s not just me and my unrealistic expectations. One friend was about to go in for dental surgery when I called her, and, knowing she was about to be put under general anesthesia, she said she couldn’t stop thinking about who would raise her child if something were to happen to her, where her husband would move, and what influences would dominate her baby’s life. It may be maudlin, but it’s also natural and unavoidable. Everyone tells you that everything changes when you have a baby; this is just one of the unexpected ways in which that is true.

I think that’s one of the most significant things that changes when you have a child; you become aware that if something were to happen to you, you would miss out not only on experiencing your life, but also on witnessing his or hers. The joy of life doubles, but then, so does the risk, the potential loss.

I realize this blog’s a bit of a downer. And that’s how life has been lately, but only in moments. Because every day there are incidents that are so amazing, watching Amalía laugh at her grandparents who are visiting, as she tries to bite their knuckles to soothe her teething, or they pinch her nose. And those moments are so purely fun that they’re not even outweighed by the fear of missing out on them.

So I’m trying not to worry too much, to stay calm until the surgery happens and to hope everything goes well. I do what I can to feel in control, employing the rituals that give me comfort. I pray. I went to church and took communion. I bought my mother a necklace with an image of Ganesh, remover of obstacles, on it. And I had my toenails painted, because every time I look at them while I’m having a medical test they cheer me up.

I also see signs everywhere, or I hear them rather; “the Rose” was playing on the muzak system during my MRI, and I remembered singing it with my sister in the backseat of the car on a drive across Greece with my parents. “Dynamite”, which was sort of a theme song of our wedding reception, played on the radio the way to one doctor’s appointment, and I had to laugh out loud that I considered a cheesy disco tune to be a message from on high. I saw a big rainbow en route to my pre-op blood typing. And every time Amalía chuckles her vaguely evil little chuckle I think it’s a promise that I’ve got a lot more of those coming to me.

Because after the initial appointment when I learned I need surgery, I rushed home to relieve the babysitter, who was already late for her next appointment, since what was supposed to be a routine doctor’s visit took so long. Then I wheeled Amalía’s stroller down to the beach to show her the ocean and to promise that there’ so much more we’re going to discover together in the future, and she laughed to show she understood what I was trying to tell her.

Bird's Eye View of Amalía

A couple of months ago a young male friend asked me, “How has motherhood changed you?”

I thought about it but I couldn’t quite put into words how everything had changed, and yet, thankfully, I still felt like myself. But I wanted to give him an honest answer, so I tried to think of some concrete examples of how my life had changed.

“Well, I cry at everything now–grocery store commercials where a family sits down to dinner, “the little drummer boy” on the muzak system in the GAP. I never know when I’m going to get all choked up,” I said. “Also, I used to find it sort of relaxing to watch those Law and Order shows sometimes. But now I can’t handle anything violent. Some starlet is up there playing a missing stripper, and all I can think is ‘she’s someone’s daughter.’”

My friend took a sip of his mojito. “So, mainly, your life has changed for the worse, then,” he summed up.

But that wasn’t true at all. Sure, I have lost my ability to watch endless cop shows, but I can live with that (and there are seasons and seasons of Real Housewives just waiting for me to use them as my guilty pleasure). And the tears can be inconvenient, but I can always pretend to have allergies. While my life is messier and more expensive, I think it’s infinitely better now that Amalía is in it.

So I’ve decided to list a few ways motherhood enriches one’s life on a daily basis. Not the major stuff–that’s obvious and also personal; everyone experiences motherhood differently. But there are a number of minor pleasures of motherhood that all of us flawed individuals can and should exploit daily. Below are my impressions of the minor highlights of motherhood:

1.) It’s a major ego boost. To paraphrase a Hallmark sentiment, to the world you may be one person. But to your baby you are a big old rock star. About 12 times a day Amalía looks at me like I’m Santa Claus trotting down a rainbow on a unicorn with a mermaid riding piggyback. Her eyes light up and she smiles a huge, open-mouthed, gummy smile like, “I can’t believe it’s YOU!”

She also smiles this way at her babysitter, the Starbucks barista, and the waiters up and down Lincoln Road, but I get the vast majority of the smiles. And if I’m ever depressed, I just grin at her and she smiles back every time. It’s pretty amazing.

The Dowager Countess is hungry.

2.) You get to talk about yourself in the third person, as if you were the Queen of England or the Dowager Countess. This is fun even if you’re just saying “Mama loves you!” to the baby. But it’s especially great if you’re passive aggressive like I am. It allows you to make demands on behalf of someone else, only guess what, that someone else is you! I realized this early on, when I was pregnant and would say things like, “the baby wants apple crisp.” Now that my little accomplice is on the outside, I have ammended those things to “Mama’s hungry” or “Mama’s tired” and somehow the people listening feel compelled to help me address those issues, because I’m not just gluttonous, lazy Eleni. I’m a hardworking mama! You may be thinking I’m evil by this point (and we’re only on point 2!) But I’m evil like a genius!

3.) The people around you seriously lower their expectations. These days, if my hair doesn’t have vomit in it my husband’s all, “You look great! What did you do to your hair?” And I know that the poor man has to live with me so he’s just trying to get on my good side. But it’s not just him. Unless you’re a celebrity mom–so Halle Berry, Jessica Alba, and Heidi Klum, stop reading right now. You can  join us again next week–people expect you to look as huge and overwhelmed as you did the first month or so after birth for years. If you can manage to put on clothes that match and step outside the house, I guarantee someone (usually a young man or woman who fears motherhood and has never really been around babies or moms) will ask, “How old is the baby?” Say anything under six months and they’ll say, “Wow, you look great!”

It’s not just the looks thing either. You can forget birthdays, stretch deadlines, or cut your productivity in half and no one’s surprised. Now, I realize that I’m outing myself as a slacker here and one shouldn’t really use “Mommy brain” as an excuse for everything. But it’s true! This mommy thing is overwhelming! And you do have way less time to get anything done. So I appreciate the slack people are cutting me and I plan to work it for the next 18-20 years. Consider yourselves warned.

4.) People give you free things. I’ve been given extra slices of banana bread and free iced coffees at two different Starbucks. And I realize that this comes from misguided love for the baby (I think the banana bread guy thought she was capable of eating a piece as well) or plain old pity, or a desire to clear the riff-raff out of the store. (During the iced coffee incident Amalía and I were covered in mashed apple puree and other unidentifiable substances and we smelled bad, too.) But I’ll take it! If we stink up enough Starbucks to feed ourselves for a few years, Amalía can accummulate a nice fat college fund!

5.) You get to sing a capella, made-up songs about poo poo all day long. I didn’t realize that this was something I’d ever want to do, but it’s really, shockingly fun. And it’s not just scatalogical musical humor either. I realize I have made up lyrics and music for virtually every moment of the day, and because there’s a baby listening, no one can call me criminally insane. Like, she smiles a big fat smile, and I sing, “My fatty fat face! You are my fat face! You are the cutest little fat face…IN THE LAND!” (I am trying to ammend this to My Sweetie Sweetface before she starts to understand words, for obvious reasons.) There’s the bathtime song for when I am cleaning the folds under her double chins and in her arms and legs:  ”Can I wash your nooks and crannies? Can I wash them, yes I can. Can I wash your nooks and crannies? Sweetest baby known to man.”

Now, my husband and I have made up the Ballad of Amalía, which makes a lot more logical sense than the above. (It contains lyrics such as “I was born in Miami Beach on an August Day. And if I could talk I’d have much to say. What?”) But most of what  I sing all day is virtually unintelligible or borderline offensive. And the beauty of a baby is–she’s not going to complain. No sir. Whatever crazy thing I sing, she’s going to smile at me like I’m Unicorn-Mermaid-Santa, and that is better than an entire season of Law and Order.

Logo from waterdragon.com

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said “There are no second acts in American lives.” But I suspect that’s because he didn’t know much about Chinese New Year. Personally, I never miss a chance to celebrate it because for me, the lunar new year, which  falls on a different date in late January or early February, is a kinder, gentler new year’s eve. You get all of the good times associate with New Year–eating, drinking, luck-seeking–with none of the stress (resolutions, gym memberships, feeling old).

I’m aware that I might see Chinese New Year as low-stress, high-fun proposition because it’s not the new year I grew up celebrating…maybe Chinese people wake up in the new lunar year hung-over and asking how they got to this point in there lives, and why aren’t they rich/married/successful/whatever it is they thought they’d be by now. So maybe mine is a patronizing, Orientalizing view to take of the holiday. In which case, sorry about that.

BUT I would like to make a case that my view of the holiday as nothing but good times may also stem from the day’s emphasis on luck. On Chinese new year, celebrants eat lucky food (noodles for long life, dumplings for prosperity), wear red, which is a lucky color, and don’t clean their houses for fear of sweeping away good luck (a philosophy I like to follow most days of the year). And anything that involves inviting good luck gets me feeling giddy.

Year of the Tiger from Gameaxis.com

I’ve had some good Chinese New Year’s; in 2010, the year of the Tiger came on February 15th. My husband (then my boyfriend) and I were on the way to a party in Queens and happened upon the dragon parade in Chinatown. We realized we were both tigers according to the Chinese zodiac, so it was supposed to be a particularly lucky year for us. And I think it was; three months later we were engaged, four months after that we were married, and two months after that we were pregnant. Way to go, tiger!

Rabbit from chinalawandpolicy.com

Last year, the year of the rabbit coincided with my mother’s birthday, so my family met in New York and went for a dim sum banquet that included dumplings in the shape of rabbits. I was carrying my own little dumpling, who would become the baby Amalía. According to the Chinese zodiac, rabbits are stylish, quiet individuals. Thanks to the gifts of her (real and appointed) grandmothers, Amalía is definitely the former (my husband’s family calls her “Suri” because they say she changes outfit for fabulous outfit more often than Suri Cruise (see her fashionblogspot here)–but then, that’s partly due to her penchant for spitting up). But I have to say that she is not super quiet, particularly now that she is teething (in fact she is making an odd pteradactyl sound, half trill, half shriek, as I type). After a little more research, however, I’ve learned that each year of the Chinese calendar has an element associated with it, as well as the animal, and that 2011 was the year of the metal rabbit, which makes Amalía (and the others born along with her) more resilient and outspoken than the average bunny.

This year, according to the Chinese zodiac, is the year of the Water Dragon, a particularly auspicious animal said to emphasize creativity. It’s my own narcissistic spotlight effect that makes me see the year as the ideal time to launch my novel, Other Waters–which even has water in the title!–but it’s also a good time for marriages, and considered such an auspicious time to give birth that private hospitals in China have raised their room rates. (Hear all about it in this video from the New York Post.)

Sure, there’s some concern that the water dragon will bring erratic weather, particularly flooding, but as someone who lives three blocks from the beach, I’m choosing to ignore that prediction. I learned all of the above about the year of the water dragon last night at a Chinese New Year event at the Standard hotel here in Miami, where Amalía enjoyed her first al fresco happy hour a week after she was born. (Emilio and I have made up a song we like to think she sings that includes the verse: “I like happy hours/and power naps/sucking my hand/and spitting up in your laps”.)

The event took place on the mud dock, where I once slathered myself (and Amalía in utero) in nourishing green mud. But that was back in July and tonight I was fully dressed and joining my fellow revelers in drinking green tea shots and eating dumplings (lucky!) out of take-out containers. An astrologer gave a talk about the water dragon (creativity, floods, you remember), and then sparklers were passed out along with instructions to light a sparkler and make a wish. (I think this is a variation of lighting fireworks at Chinese New Year to ward off evil spirits.) The last time I’d seen sparklers was at our wedding, where guests lit them as we left the reception. It was beautiful to walk through the swirls of light but it was also fun now to have the chance to make my own.

But the highlight of the evening for me came when a number of “sky lanterns” were lit. I’d never seen one before, and to me they looked like mini hot air balloons. Apparently, in some regions of China, celebrants observe the new year by writing wishes on the side of a sky lantern, then lighting it and setting it afloat on the theory that the wishes will be carried to the sky. The sky lanterns set off last night at the Standard behaved like wishes themselves; some sputtered before landing in Biscayne Bay, others soared, and the most dramatic came within an inch of landing in the water until it too took flight.

Along with being Chinese New Year, last night was also the first evening we let Amalía with a non-grandma babysitter. I kept thinking how much Amalía would have loved watching the sky lanterns, but I wasn’t sure why I felt that way until just now, as I was feeding her. I was sitting in the rocking chair in her nursery (also known as my office), and she was so tired she would stop feeding to yawn, but then she’d turn her head to the right to check out the silk elephant string from India hanging down one windowsill, and to the left to see her butterfly mobile over her crib. It was as if she were afraid she might miss something, even though she’s seen the room almost every day of her life. And I realized that the reason the lanterns made me think of Amalía is because she, like them, is full of wonder and possibilities.

As the water dragon would say, Gung Hay Fat Choy. (Yet another reason to love the holiday: the ritual greeting has the word “fat” in it.)

In Nicaragua, where my husband’s from, it’s customary to shave babies’ heads on the theory that their hair will grow in longer, lusher, and healthier.

In New York, where I’m from, it’s customary to shave the heads of convicts and privates in the army, to break down their sense of individual identity. I would never want my precious, four-month-old little lady to look like an extra from a preschool production of Full Metal Jacket.  

But as the robust moptop little Amalía was born with started to fall out, leaving her bald on the sides of her head and with what looked like a not-very-artful toupée on top, my husband kept bringing up the idea of a quick razor cut.

“It’ll help her hair grow in more even and thick,” Emilio swore.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” I insisted. I used to be a beauty editor for women’s magazines; I’ve interviewed trichologists. All the experts agree you can’t change your hair follicles; stubble only looks thicker and darker than the hair that was shaved off.

My husband had his own expert: “My mom said it works.”

“Babies don’t want buzzcuts,” I insisted. Emilio looked unconvinced, so I added a warning: “When we shave her head, we shave yours, too.” He backed off, literally, walking away still facing me so I couldn’t sneak up on his scalp.

I thought that was the end of it. Until we visited his family in Managua. “She lost all her hair!” a cousin said, kissing Amalía hello. “Don’t worry, it’ll grow back thicker when you shave it; go to my salon—they give the baby’s first haircut for free.”

It wasn’t just my husband. His entire country was so devoted to the idea of depriving little ones of their hair that stylists were willing to do it gratis.

Everywhere we went we were surrounded by adorable babies with shaved heads. They looked cute. But they also looked just a little bit pissed off.

Still, I started to doubt myself. Could an entire nation…a nation of people with, I had to admit, pretty enviable heads of hair, be wrong? My side of the family didn’t bring much to the genetic pool, hairwise. In fact, my mother’s hair is pretty thin. No one had taken the time to shave her as a baby. Was I dooming my daughter to a lifetime of stringy hair?

“Am I depriving Amalía of good hair down the road?”  I asked Emilio.

“Sos una mala mama,” his goddaughter interrupted. “You’re a bad mother.” She’s seven years old, and a bilingual evil genius.

Would Amalía hate me one day? I wondered. It’s safe to say she will, but I don’t want it to be because of the hair thing.

“So no one in your family had their head shaved?” Emilio asked, no doubt wondering what kind of people he had married into.

None of these are my dad...but I bet they all have great hair.

I couldn’t lie. In the Greek mountain village where my father grew up during the post-World-War Two famine, they shaved little kids heads’ so that they wouldn’t attract lice. Truth be told, the man’s in his mid-seventies now and he still has a fabulous mane of hair. But my baby is fat, happy, and lice-free. And I plan to keep her that way.

“Of course, sweetness,” my husband said. “If you have that kind of cultural baggage associated with head-shaving, I can see why you wouldn’t want to do it.” He smiled at me benignly, as if I were the one with the weird hang-ups about babies’ hair. “But how about a trim, just to clean her up a little?”

Do four-month-olds even need trims? And wouldn’t that defeat the whole purpose—wasn’t it the shaving that was supposed to magically empower hair?

“She’ll go from looking like Adolf Hitler to Audrey Hepburn,” he continued.

 Amalía did have a bit of a Chaplin-in-The-Great-Dictator combover happening. And, like I said, marriage is about compromise. So my husband, my mother-in-law, and I brought our little Greekaraguan angel to the salon. The stylist had her sit on my mother-in-law’s lap in the adjustable chair, and draped a smock around her. Amalía grinned. She may not have opinions about her hair—yet—but she knows how she feels about lots of attention.

“We’re not going to shave her head,” my husband began.

The stylist raised her eyebrows but said nothing—she is a hair care professional, after all, and she could tell this nice man was married to a crazy foreigner, so his judgment was impaired.

“We just want the ends shorter while the top grows in.” He knelt a bit so he’d be eye level with Amalía’s hair and the stylist’s scissors.

Amalía smiled throughout the entire procedure. But I was frowning, at least internally. What if this wasn’t just a haircut, but the beginning of an entire lifetime of cultural mores to be fought over, with my daughter’s tiny body as a battlefield. How did my husband feel about lower-back tattoos? Mohawks? Acid-washed jeans? None of which I would ever want Amalía to desecrate her body with. Why had none of this come up when we were dating? Whatever Emilio thought about these issues, I now knew a whole tribe of relatives, and, perhaps, a whole nation of people, would stand behind him, sharpening the razor.

When the haircut was over, I felt a fraction of what Abraham must have when the good Lord told him, just kidding, you don’t have to sacrifice your child. It had been a close call, but Amalía had come through just fine.

“She’s even cuter now,” my huaband crowed. “Admit it, this was the best idea I’ve ever had.”

I had to give credit where credit was due.

“She looks adorable,” I admitted. “Although…do you think she looks like a boy now?”

He stared at her precious little face. “She won’t,” he said. “Not if you finally let her get earrings.”

Angela Wylie's photo of Theophany in Australia from theage.com.au

I love Miami Beach, but I yearn for New York. Let’s keep in mind that my people invented nostalgia. (The word comes from the ancient Greek nostos (homecoming) and algia (pain, think neuralgia or fibromyalgia). Given the etymology, nostalgia is a pain for coming home, or a longing for home. But I think it’s less about the home and more about the longing, the yearning or wistfulness for something that you once had and now don’t.)

Anyway, it’s a gorgeous day here in Miami, so  there’s no good reason for me to be longing so for Nueva York, except for the fact that I subscribe to the enewsletters of several Greek Orthodox churches…don’t you?….and today I got one from the Church of the Annunciation on West 91st street–a church I don’t even attend, given that the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity is a few blocks from my apartment in Manhattan. The bulletin included this gem: “On Sunday, January 15th, our parish will hold its first annual blessing of the Hudson River in commemoration of Holy Epiphany. After church services, we will process down to the Hudson River and submerge the Holy Cross and bless the waters.”

See, Epiphany is the celebration of the Son of God becoming human in Jesus Christ (the word epiphany means “manifestation” or “appearance”), so it commemorates many events that highlight His physical presence. In Catholic countries, the focus is often on the visit of the Magi to the Baby Jesus/Papachu/Christoulis, but in Orthodox churches, huge emphasis is placed on Jesus’s baptism in the River Jordan. Hence, the blessing of the waters.

Tashlich--Rosh Hashanah sin-casting--in a park in London, Ontario. Photo by Walter Zimmerman on flickr.com

I love blessings, I love processions, and I love annual events (especially first-ever annual events) but I love a ritual involving water most of all. Not sure why. Maybe it’s because when I attended Miss Jenny’s Cottage Kindegarten in Athens, Greece, my favorite recess activity was “water play” which involved splashing one’s hands around in a plastic tub full of the stuff. Maybe it’s the sound or the movement of water. But like some people brake for yard sales (or claim to–the bumper sticker on my dear departed Pappou’s car used to say, “I brake for candlepin bowling,” even though I can’t imagine that he did, given his leg problems), I brake for water rituals. I want to throw bread on the lake in Elm Park in Worcester when Jews assemble to do so on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, thus casting off their sins into the sea of forgetfulness (awesome!). I sympathize with the Hindus who make offerings to their gods by setting coconuts sailing in Jamaica bay, to the dismay of park rangers. And now I’m missing my chance to watch a priest throw a cross into the Hudson.

The truth is, if I had gotten my act together last Friday, I could have driven several hours to Tarpon Springs, FLA, where a large Greek community observes Epiphany (or, as it’s also called, Theophany) with a water blessing. There, as in other areas where swimming is possible, young men dive in to retreive the cross the priest tosses in the water, securing good luck for themselves. If I had made the drive, I would have seen a historic event, as this year–the 106th annual Blessing of the Waters–no one bobbed up wielding the original cross, so a back-up cross was thrown in, the first time since 1976  that a round two had to take place.

Normally, this would make me a little nervous, an annual event not coming off as it usually does. The only two times locals in Markopoulo, Cephallonia can remember holy snakes not appearing at the convent there on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6th, were the year the Nazis invaded and the year of the earthquake that leveled most of the island’s towns. See what I mean?

Kevin Tighe's Tarpon Epiphany photo in cltampa.com

But this unusual Epiphany has a happy ending; both crosses were eventually retrieved, by cousins actually, so I think we’re all going to be OK. (See the video of some very cute 17-year-olds being carried into the church here. For some odd reason–the sweet earnestness of these hulking boys?–this gets me all choked up, but I cry at everything since becoming a mom, from The Little Drummer Boy over the muzak system in a store to Amalía laughing.)

Anyway, we did go to church this Sunday, so we Epiphanied it up a bit. And afterward, we had coffee at some friends’ house while their daughters set stone crab traps into Biscayne Bay. But I still miss my water, both for Epiphany and for the new year; I’ve spent several new year’s in Benares, India, on the shores of the holy river Ganges, where, one New Year’s Day, a clay statuette of Laksmi, the goddess of abundance, washed up at my feet. A similar statuette plays a significant role in my upcoming novel, Other Waters, with the Ganges symbolizing new beginnings.

my Laksmi

One of the things I learned in India is that Hindus believe all rivers are the Ganges, all waters are holy. So I’m going to put that philosophy to work and, instead of yearning for the frigid waters of the Hudson this Sunday, pop Amalía in her jogging stroller and take her to our own first-annual two-person Blessing of the Waters on South Beach. Maybe she’ll even dangle a little toe in the water as a precursor to all the other beaches, lakes, and rivers that await her.

Cotechino con Lenticchie from ricette.giallozafferano.it/

Now here we were on the other side of that hurdle (thank God), with our adorable, wailing baby, trying to decide what to eat. One of the items on the menu was cotechino con lenticchie, or sausage and lentils, a traditional Italian New Year’s Eve dish, because lentils represent money (since they’re vaguely coin-shaped). It’s sort of the same idea as hoppin’ john (black-eyed peas and bits of pork), which is a traditional lucky, money-bringing New Year’s dish in the South. The pork itself is lucky because it’s rich-tasting and also, I learned from an article on Epicurious, pigs symbolize progress because “the animal pushes forward, rooting itself into the ground before moving.” For this reason, Austrians scatter marzipan piggies around the table at new year’s.

Us with a magic cake and teething baby

Despite the overwhelming magical power of this dish, neither my husband nor I opted for the lentils. But that was only because we had our own cross-cultural magic food up our sleeves. We spent the first of January at the home of Cuban-Greek friends who were having a pig roast (suckling pig being a Cuban new year’s tradition). And then we came home to have our own vassilopita, the Greek new year’s cake that has a coin hidden in it for good luck. My parents served a vassilopita in Massachusetts too (naturally!) and Amalía got the coin in absentia. Our Florida vassilopita was divided into pieces for me, my husband, Amalía, the house (everyone would share the luck) and Christoulis (which is Greek for Papachu, which is Nicaraguan for Baby Jesus). We dangled the cake in front of Amalíaso she could choose her slice, and she slapped her meaty little palm on the largest piece. It also happened to contain the coin, making her lucky twice over.

“It’s sort of too bad,” I told my husband. “To have all this luck when you’re too young to remember it.” When you’re older, there’s so much you want luck to bring you–romance, adventure, career success. Whereas a lucky day for Amalía means multiple relatives to cuddle her and all you-can-suck breast milk, two things she has anyway, most of the time.

My husband just stared at me. He didn’t grow up in a superstitious family and is not used to all this parsing of luck, to him luck is good anytime, and food is for nourishment and pleasure, not for magically influencing fate or changing the direction of the new year. He doesn’t even believe in New Year’s resolutions, arguing that change only comes when you’re really motivated to alter your behavior, not because the date on the calendar has flipped or because everyone else is making themselves over.

But when you lay down with folklorists, you wake up with folklore. I’m slowly starting to alter his worldview, so that even if he doesn’t quite believe you can manipulate your luck, he’d rather be safe than sorry. He once told me that before he met me, he’d never heard of the Evil Eye, the idea that others might compliment your adorable baby or shiny new car or great hairstyle and inadvertently, by pointing out your luck, curdle it, making your baby cry, your car stall, your hair frizz. You can avoid the Evil Eye, of course, by spitting when you compliment someone (so as not to give it) or wearing protective amulets or saying certain phrases (so as not to receive it). But it’s hard to be ever-vigilant, so I felt a little guilty that I had infected an otherwise positive-thinking man of action with my superstitious views.

Then, last week, while we were in Nicaragua visiting his family, his grandmother’s nurse caught sight of one of Amalía’s dirty cloth diapers we were carrying to the laundry area. “In my neighborhood, the older people say that when a baby’s poop is green like that, it’s because people complimented her too much because she’s so cute.” She shrugged. “The doctors I work with don’t believe in it, but you can cure it using a certain root.”

“What do you call it, this sickness people give by complimenting babies?” my husband asked.

She giggled shyly. “We call it the Evil Eye.”

I felt vindicated. I hadn’t brought the Evil Eye into my Nicaraguan husband’s life. It had been lurking in his cultural subconscious all along. I was starting to feel like a rationalist by comparison.

“Green poop is normal,” I told him. “All the books say so.”

“I know,” he said. “I took the classes too.” He paused. “But maybe you should call your aunt and have her take the Evil Eye off of Amalía; she is pretty cute.”

He’s right. She is cute. So is he. And I consider myself lucky to have had them both snoring along with me as the new year waltzed in. Ftou, ftou (that’s the sound of me spitting).

Manger scene in the church of San Francisco

Some people are social conservatives; I’m a seasonal conservative. I insist that my family strictly adhere to every holiday observance, from putting the angel on the tree on Christmas Eve before attending the Christmas pageant at church, to stuffing stockings for every member of our family even though the youngest is over 30 and therefore a few years past believing-in-Santa age, to eating the traditional vassilopita on New Year’s Day. But this year, my second married Christmas, we would be visiting my husband’s family in Nicaragua, so it was the first I’d spend away from my natal family in over 35 years. This year I would answer the question: what does a Christmas without snow and my sister look like?

Here in Nicaragua, the weather is beautiful, we’ve been attending nonstop parties with the most fun relatives, and Amalía has been held by so many people that I don’t think her diaper-clad butt has touched a piece of furniture since she got here. But despite all the joy of being with Emilio’s family, it was hard for me to muster the Christmas spirit at first. There was no snow or crisp winter air. There were Christmas trees, but they’re all faux and perfectly decorated as if by a professional, not aromatic pines covered in ornaments you made in 5th grade art class, like a tree should be (although the mini Martha Stewart in me was wildly impressed by a tree draped in live calla lilies). There was no sister Marina to sit with me and write letters to Santa. And there was also no cell phone, since mine was stolen on my first day here, and, often, no wi-fi to collect cyber Christmas greetings. I was quickly turning into a Grinch.

Wise Man at work.

But then Emilio’s Tío William, a man who refers to himself as a walking happy hour, mentioned that he was going to be riding around from nativity scene to nativity scene the following evening to check out the installations, and he’d be bringing his bar with him (and a driver, fear not). And thus a new tradition was born: Nacimiento Tailgate. (I’d appreciate it f you could stretch the words out over 6 syllables and clap three times at the end: Na-ci-mien-to Tail-gate, clap, clap, clap!)

This is how we do it: Nacimiento Tailgate. Abuelita, Amalía, Papi and Mama.

Wine and folk art? This sounded like my kind of holiday observance. So we bundled up Amalía and followed our leader to the first Nacimiento, on the grounds of a school for at-risk youth. You have to Nacimiento Tailgate at night, because that’s when the nativity scenes are lit up, and music is broadcast over the scene. This nativity had everything in the Bible, it seemed, from Herod’s castle to a manger awaiting “Papa Chu” (or maybe it’s Papachu), which is what people call the baby Jesus here, I’m not exactly sure why–Emilio speculates it’s because Chu is a nickname for the name Jesus (as in “Hay-seus” for the honkies out there). Other families were Nacimiento-ing (if not tailgating), spotting scenes and images from Biblical literature (“that volcano is the inferno” I heard a grade school aged boy say), and popular characters from folk songs, such as the little donkey who is the star of the Nicaraguan Christmas song “Mi Burrito Sabanero” about a plain little donkey traveling back and forth to Bethlehem.

Our next stop was in a private home, where, each year, the family puts together their Nacimiento in a different way, adding different characters. This year they had Roman centurions along the side and a fisherman reeling his catch up from a fishing hole. It was like visiting the Neapolitan creche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Christmas tree, one of my favorite New York holiday traditions, where angels and wise men mingle with Neapolitan villagers going about their daily business.

We had to end our tailgate there, because the littlest tailgaters were getting sleepy, but the next day I saw another Nacimiento in a relative’s neighbor’s home. The most moving part was that, until the 25th, he covers Papachu in the manger with a cloth bearing the image of his deceased father.

By now, I’d forgotten my lost cell phone and missing wifi; it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. One thing I’ve always loved about Christianity is the emphasis on a little baby as a sign of joy and salvation. This year, with my own little baby in my arms (and in everyone else’s) I felt this human connection even more so. At mass on Christmas day, Amalía’s Abuelita took her up to touch the statue of Papachu before the priest set Him in the manger, now that He had finally been born. After the mass concluded, a couple brought their own three-month-old baby up for a blessing and rested her on the altar table, where she lay in ray of sunlight looking like a living Nacimiento.

Later that day, Tío William took us on another adventure, to a Purísima at the home of his driver. Purísimas are celebrations of the Virgin Mary and are usually held in early December when the Immaculate Conception of Mary (a belief held in Catholicism but not in Orthodoxy) is observed. There was an altar to Mary, much singing, dancing, and shouting back and forth, and the setting off of fireworks. There were also favors–not goodie bags but goodie buckets filled with fruit, fermented barley drinks, candy, and other traditional offerings. I was surrounded by mothers holding baby’s on their laps, and I remembered something one of Amalía’s said to me earlier in the week. Holding the baby, she said, “You guys are so lucky, you get to see that smile every day.”

I still miss snow, but that is what Christmas looks like to me now–a grinning baby and a smiling mother. And in another Christmas miracle, my husband was able to fix the Wifi so we could Skype with my family and share Amalía’s smile on Christmas day.

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s questionable Christmas card. And if not, and this is the first time you’re seeing it, you’re welcome. In an attempt to support the city’s wildlife museum, which is, apparently, a monument to the art of taxidermy, Mayor Jorge Santini  had his family photographed with various dead animals arranged in exciting tableaux, including a leopard “killing” an antelope, and a penguin whispering in the ear of his son (let’s hope he’s not taking lessons from the Son of Sam’s dog).

A Christmas elf had the good sense to post said photos on Awkard Family Photos website, where they went viral, getting the attention they so richly deserved. Reaction on the web has been swift, intense, and repetitive. People have been tweeting the photo along with captions including: “Wrong, wrong, wrong” and “Weird, weird, weird.” But I think any Christmas card–especially one that gets you talking, thinking, or best of all, laughing-–is oh, so right.

My favorite thing to do in the wind-up to Christmas is to sit in my parents’ tree-lit living room, inhaling the scent of pine needles and laughing at the holiday cards they’ve received. Often I’m laughing in joy at  the photo of a wedding or a new baby, or in mirth (they have one friend who draws amusing cartoons around his and his wife’s heads, putting them in interesting predicaments like rushing downhill on sleds or floating in life preservers in the ocean. Another pal sent a photo of herself with Tony Soprano and the comment “Hanukah? Christmas? Kwanzaa? Fuhggedabout it.”). But just as often I’m laughing in horror, not so much at an awkward family photo (I’m not on the Santini’s Christmas card list) but usually at the text parents write, obliviously, and inadvertently, humiliating their children. One of my parents’ friends described a family trip they took along with their married daughter and son-in-law and their other, single daughter. “Jenny sometimes felt like a fifth wheel, but it was a lovely vacation,” they wrote, turning what I’m sure their daughter thought of as a nice, all-expense-paid trip with her family into an announcement to all that they saw their youngest daughter as a hopeless spinster. (Fear not; a few years later Santa dropped a card with a photo of Jenny’s wedding down the chimney.)

I’ve read cards bragging about stellar SAT scores (a delight for proud parents, a nightmare for shy kids). But the worst text I’ve ever seen described a seventh-grade boy’s multiple accomplishments and then added, “and yes, he has discovered girls.”

Which leads me to the first rule of holiday card and newsletter writing, which I’d like to offer as a public service: Puberty has no place in your holiday newsletter. If you have a pre-teen, it is already all over your photos. Please, do your sensitive child a favor and ignore any references to a social life and/or physical developments. This will not only save your relationship with your child, it will spare me, the reader, from flashbacks to my own awkward years.

In a similar vein, vacation shots on holiday cards are great. Bikini photos, not so much. I say this as a person who finally had to tell her mother I didn’t want to see my breasts on any more holiday card newsletters. She, the creator of the newsletter, hasn’t worn a bathing suit since the Nixon administration, despite countless summers on Greek beaches. And yet it actually took some work to convince her that bikini shots of me and my sister frolicking (or eating fried calamari) did not serve to make anyone’s Christmas merrier.

While we’re on the topic of body image, you should know that if I receive a photo of just your children, not you and your children, I’m going to assume it’s because you don’t want me to look at the card and see how much weight you’ve put on. (That’s harsh, and not in the spirit of Christian charity and lovingkindness, but I’m telling it like it is.) Your kids are adorable, but you’re the one I went to college with; I want to see your smiling face, too! Of course, this year, our own Christmas card features just the delightful baby Amalía, but that’s because it’s doubling as a birth announcement. And because I don’t want you to see how much weight I’ve put on.

But the biggest faux pas you can make holiday cardwise, as far as I’m concerned, is not sending one at all. I LOVE getting regular mail (in fact, when I see old British TV shows or read Agatha Christie books and everyone’s rushing to make the morning post so their note is delivered in the evening post, I feel the most delicious combination of envy and delight). I LOVE seeing photos of people I may not have seen all year, and hearing what they’ve been up to lately. I find vacation photos of places I haven’t been to inspiring. But most of all I love the feeling of connection, the sense of human contact that comes from seeing handwriting, or tearing open an envelope someone else sealed, knowing it has news of a loved one. If it’s beautiful, I get choked up. If it’s somehow dishy or embarrassing I get an evil thrill.

To me, Christmas cards are better than Christmas gifts–they’re always surprising, and you never worry that the giver spent too much on you, or have to feign liking something you can’t use or will never wear. Opening a holiday card is opening a window onto someone else’s life. When you receive a card, you know someone thought of you as they addressed it, just as you’re thinking of them reading it. There’s something magical about the power of mail like that, the way it makes the world feel a little bit smaller.

In the spirit of sharing, I’m including our own Awkward Family Photo, featuring a wailing child dressed as a turkey who fears she’s about to be eaten by a grinning band of fire-worshippers. It’s no leopard attacking an antelope; but maybe next year. In the meantime, I wish Mayor Santini the most feliz of navidades.

Saint Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read from the church of San Giuseppe alla Lungara in Rome

Today is Saint Anna’s day. You may know her as Jesus’s grandma, as Anna and Joachim were the parents of Mary. Anna is not a flashy saint. She’s no Mary Magdalene (hubba hubba!) or John the Baptist. But for people named Anna, she’s a patron saint. And there may be others who choose her as their patron as well, because they feel a special fondness for her, or were saved from a tragedy on her nameday (it’s sort of like a spiritual Big Brothers/Big Sisters mentoring kind of thing). She’s not my absolute favorite (that’s the Virign Mary), but I do have a soft spot for Anna, partly because of a wooden santos from Puerto Rico I was given by a dear friend, which depicts Anna reading to a child Mary. I love this image of her; a mom like any other, reading to a child, a commonplace event made exceptional  because of the people involved and the tenderness of the moment.

Tuesday, December 6th, was St. Nicholas’s day. Now that’s a saint who’s a headliner, having been turned into Santa Claus because of his generosity. A fourth-century bishop in what is now Turkey, he was the original perpetrator of random acts of kindness, known for giving secret gifts to people, including throwing gold coins down the chimney (or through the window) of a poor man who had three dowryless daughters who would otherwise have had to follow the career path often ascribed to Mary Magdalene. (In the chimney version, the youngest daughter has hung her stockings in the fireplace to dry and the cash dropped right in, ka-ching! Thus stocking stuffers were born to the delight of retailers everywhere.)

  St. Nicholas is known as the patron saint of single women (there was a particular icon of him at Holy Trinity in New York I often venerated in the days before he sent me my beshert), thieves (not sure why, maybe it has to do with all the sneaking around chimneys), and fishermen (he’s often depicted saving sailors from shipwrecks and is sort of conflated with Poseidon in Greek folklore, maybe because of the beard, but that’s my own little theory). He was also the patron saint of an uncle-figure of mine, Themis, whose life was saved twice on St. Nicholas Day.

The first time, Themis was a 17–year-old policeman in Athens when the Nazis occupied the city and rounded up the entire police force in the station. Nature called and he excused himself. While in the bathroom, wondering what the Germans had in mind for the policemen, and sensing it wasn’t anything good, he noticed an open window. A skinny teenager, he climbed out the window, pulled himself up onto the rooftop and jumped from roof to roof of the neoclassical buildings in the Plaka neighborhood until he reached his own home, where he hid under the bed. The Nazis proceeded to march the policement to a nearby hill, shoot them, and leave their bodies in a ravine.

The second time, he was driving on a winding mountain road on St. Nicholas’ Day when he rode off the edge. The car flipped, but he was able to walk out of the twisted wreckage unscathed, leaving the car’s remains on the mountainside. Whenever I see a mangled auto carcass on the side of a mountain road in Greece (which is surprisingly often) I think of St Nicholas.

I know some would argue that these are tales of luck, and the date is coincidence; why would St. Nicholas choose Themis instead of all of the other policement or mountain drivers? But that’s the nature of patron saint relationship; they’re mystical and faith-based, they’re about feeling and belief not demonstrable knowledge. And above all, they’re personal, a connection between saint and supplicant and no one else.

I once wrote a paper for a nonfiction class that investigated an icon of the Saint Irene in Queens that was said to be crying (a not-unheard-of phenomenon among icons of female saints; some icons of male saints have been observed to emit a sweet myrrh-like scent, but there arren’t any cases of crying St. Nicks or his brethren, at least none of which I, and the priest I iterviewed for the paper, are aware). The priest I spoke with told me that he fears the furor over miracle-working saints or crying icons could detract from a worshipper’s belief in Christ Himself, which is the main event of Christianity. (Perhaps the multiplicity of saints feels too familiar to polytheism for this particular priest’s comfort.)

I see his point, but I sort of like the idea of having a personal relationship with a saint who looks out for you, one to whom you can confide your smaller problems when you don’t want to break out the big guns. Just like I like the idea of a saint who once read to her baby daughter before she grew up and became the Virgin Mary. I’m all for awe and wonder, the splendor of a cathedral. But I like my religion to have room for coziness too, the intimacy of a small chapel.

That’s what I think Elizabeth Barrett Browning was referring to when she wrote that she loved Robert with “a love I seemed to lose/With my lost saints,” a love that mixes simple fondness with profound faith that someone is watching out for you.

Ready for dinner

Last week was the first since the inception of this blog in which I didn’t post. I could make some excuses about being preoccupied by traveling with the baby, spending time with family, meeting some article deadlines. But the truth is I was too busy eating.

It started when we arrived at my parents’ house the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and my aunt insisted on touching her finger, dipped in sugar, to Amalía’s lips to ensure that she have a sweet visit and a sweet life. I was a little weirded out…Amalía hasn’t had anything but breast milk and her liquid vitamin and I know we’re supposed to introduce all foods slowly, one at a time, to see if she has allergies. Besides, sugar is the crack cocaine of natural foods and there’s an obesity epidemic in this country. But I do want Amalía to have a sweet life and it basically just looked like she was having an exfoliating lip treatment, with the grains rubbed against her baby mouth, so I went with it.

Ferris's "The First Thanksgiving", taken from Wikipedia.

That was the extent of Amalía’s binging (she’s really much more of a purger; she spit up so much we had to change her party clothes six times in one day). But while Amalía gorged on the attention of two grandmas and lots of great-aunts, her mama started eating and didn’t stop. First there was Thanksgiving. I know the pilgrims were grateful to God for having survived that first harsh winter, but I have to think that they were at least as grateful to the Native Americans for introducing them to such delicious foods. I can just see Priscilla Alden leaning over to Massasoit and saying, “Love the wild rice, and the cranberries–delish! I was worried the menfolk wouldn’t let us eat them, the berries being red and sweet and flashy like those forbidden love apples, but I guess when you’re starving, anything goes. Now, if you could just talk to them about us adopting your beaded jewelry trend…so becoming!”

Our own 2012 Thanksgiving had cranberry relish (good times!) and a turkey that weighed about 6 pounds more than Amalía, but it also some unique traditions, such as Joanie’s chocolate kahlua pie. (I’d like to pretend that this pie is a harvest-themed nod to the indigenous tribes of Mexico, but it’s really just deliciousness for its own sake.) I enjoyed all the food, traditional or nouveau; I’m an equal opportunity enjoyer.

The next day we had an open house so my aunts and cousins could meet Amalía. Everyone else ate Greek Christmas cookies and drank champagne; the honoree spit up breast milk. The highlight of the day came when she had thrown up on everything else so we dressed her in a Mrs. Claus outfit that Yia Yia Joanie had bought her. Suddenly cameras surrounded her like bait in a feeding frenzy, but she is used to paparazzi by now, so she refrained from further spitting up until the photo opportunity had ended.

On Saturday, my mother made a turkey pie with the remains of the Amalía-dwarfing bird. The recipe was a testament to American ingenuity, meant to make short work of Thanksgiving leftovers and making excellent use of frozen Pillsbury pie crust. But I forced her to “Greek chic” it, as my friend the cookbook writer likes to say, to add a little sprinkle of Greekness, by writing the date 2012 on the top of the pie in shredded turkey.

Last year's kreatopita

When I was growing up, every year on New Year’s day, my family would eat kreatopita, meat pie, with the date of the upcoming year written on the top in lamb bits (you think I’m joking, but it’s true). A coin (wrapped in tinfoil for sanitary reasons) is hidden in said pie, and whoever finds it in his or her slice is supposed to have good luck all year round. Then, so that you’ll have two chances at good luck instead of just one, we have a sweet, vegetarian version for dessert, the traditional vassilopita (St.Basil’s cake, since January 1st is St. Basil’s day). I’ve tasted other versions, but our vassilopita is a moist, dense, intensely comforting orange pound cake–like a citrus hug. In any case, since I knew we wouldn’t be in Massachusetts for New Year’s Day this year, and would have neither kreatopita nor vassilopita, I insisted that Joanie turn the turkey leftover pie into an ersatz new year’s day celebration. My husband, Emilio, got the coin–again! He got it last year, too, and the new year brought him a baby daughter without any of the swelling I had to go through to get the same prize. Who knows what 2012 will have in store?

I’m happy the luck ended up in our household, but I would have been just as delighted if my aunt had gotten it, or my cousin, sister, or parents. The truth is, I’ll take any excuse to consume delicious food or equally delicious folklore. When the food itself is what’s magic, all the better, even if it means rubbing sugar on my baby’s already-sweet lips (after all, when we announced our engagement, the same aunt whipped up loukoumades, honey-dipped dough balls, so that we’d have a sweet life together. What kind of mother would i be if I denied my daughter the right to the same wishes, just because she doesn’t eat solid food yet?)

There are many ways we show love. Feeding each other–whether it’s from the breast or the bakery–is just one of them. But it might be my favorite.