Argh!

I hate blogging. I really do. I've been submersed in a culture for the last 6 and a half years that rejects email for being too impersonal. Blogs are totally out of the question for Mexicans- many of whom do not even have internet in their home out of principal. But living in Provo I have no family or friends close by except for a sprinkling of cousins and random assorted work-place buddies, so I guess it's time to jump on the bandwagon since a lot of my peeps out there don't even know WHERE I live these days, much less what I'm doing. So here I go.

Andrei's birthday is coming up this weekend. Actually he turned 6 on the 3rd, but we're having his birthday party on Saturday the 12th because it is a mammoth beast that could not be contained in a single holiday weekend. I was talking to my mom on Sunday and she asked if we were going to have any friends coming or if it was going to be just family. The answer to that question is kind of embarrassing if you don't have some background knowledge about Mexican culture, so I digress. I'm a digressive thinker. Deal with it.

Mexicans are dramatic people. And keep in mind I'm not talking about U.S. born Mexican-Americans. They follow a whole other set of cultural bylaws. I'm talking about Mexicans from Mexico. Drama. They over d0 literally everything from cooking a simple family meal to dressing themselves to throwing kids birthday parties. When I started putting together the party a month or so ago, we sat down and brainstormed the guest list. First we included family- that means Luis's family. Not mine. Of course we have to include everyone including siblings, parents, aunts, cousins, and second cousins. If we don't, they'll be offended and start a huge chisme. That put the list at about 15 people. Small by family standards. Then we agreed that we needed to include Luis's cousin's wife's sister's kids- because they are practically family. Plus 7. Then we decided that if we didn't include Andrei's close friends he'd be bummed out. Of course the child is just as gregarious as his dad, so we had to define "close friends" as children whom he sees and/or plays with at least once a week... but we have to invite their brothers and sisters, too, because they're Latino families and you can't just invite one kid from a Latino family to a birthday party because that would be rude. So you see where this is headed...

After we added in Luis's friend's kids, people we're obligated to invite because they've invited us to parties, and a couple of kids from the ward, we were lucky that the guest list is under 50. Oh! And it's not a cultural norm to drop their kids off at parties, because that would be too impersonal. They stay. And they bring people who aren't invited. I'm planning dinner for 75. That's not weird. I went to a 1st birthday for a kid at a trailer park a few years ago that had over 100 people in attendance and a DJ.

So as I was saying, this monster that is the birthday has taken on a life of its own. It's a carnival theme, so we're dolling up the back yard to look like an actual carnival complete with carnival games (ring toss, etc.) balloon animals, a water slide bounce house, slip-n-slide, and the entire stock of cotton candy available the day we stopped by Dollar Tree. By the way, if you're in to carnival stuff, go to Dollar Tree. They have really cute popcorn buckets, candy, toys, etc. this summer.

My sister-in-law is a professional cake decorator, so she's putting together a roller coaster cake, and I'm making a Carousel out of cupcakes. We're also doing fireworks. Illegally. ¡Si se puede! Because we're a Mexican family and so we have to do our part to reinforce negative racial stereotypes in the neighborhood.
It's a good thing that I have a tendency to over do everything too.

So dear family and friends, if you wonder why you don't hear much from me for the rest of the week- that's why. I'll post pictures when they're developed.