December 2021

Mateo’s New Suit

Proud Mateo and tailor in the mercado

My son Mateo recently discovered my old Mamalita blog and told me he loved reading about himself when he was a little boy. So I decided to cut and paste entries into a file and put together a little book for him and Olivia–the baby book I never kept except for my years of blog posts. 

Here’s an entry from Spring 2013, written during a trip Mateo and I took to Antigua, Guatemala, just the two of us. Lovely to remember.

Mateo’s New Suit

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably figured out I’m Catholic and my husband and I are raising our kids Catholic. What does that mean, exactly? A lot of things, which I won’t go into here because I believe every religion is valid and to be respected, as is the choice of no religion at all, by the way, and I’m not telling this story as a platform to discuss my faith.

No, my reason for bringing up Catholicism is to share the experience of buying for my son Mateo his very own First Holy Communion suit, from the charming purveyor of First Holy Communion suits in the photo above, who practices his fashion genius somewhere in the depths of the municipal mercado in Antigua, Guatemala.

The year before, Mateo and I had bought a suit from the same distinguished gent, intending to save it for the Sacrament this April. What we hadn’t counted on was Mateo’s growth spurt, which steered the original suit pants and jacket toward clown costume territory.

But try finding the same tailor in the maze of the mercado! My remembered directions sounded like this: “Walk down the right side aisle, through the section with the pirated DVDs, past the candles and flowers and soccer balls, turn left at the section with the raw meat hanging, through the wrapping paper and baskets and candy, past the shoes and wallets and leather belts, beyond the place with the sacks of rice and beans and the guy who sells machetes. Somewhere around that.”

Fortunately, the lady in the First Communion dress section knew exactly where the tailor who sold First Communion suits was headquartered and she kindly escorted us to the proper stall. Success!

Not shown here are the suit’s handsome complementary items: the white ruffled shirt, the black bow tie. For that, we’ll have to wait for Mateo’s First Holy Communion “big reveal.”

xoxox

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Adoption editorial in National Catholic Reporter

Heidi Schrumpf’s editorial in the National Catholic Reporter, “Don’t overromaticize adoption in pursuit of pro-life goals,” only could have been written by someone who understands the complexity of adoption on a cellular level, the way Schrumpf does as both birth and adoptive mother. Every thought she expresses resonates, with these sentences standing out:  

“The reality of adoption is that it always begins with loss — and that loss can haunt adoptees throughout their lives.”

and

“[A]doption is complex and complicated and traumatic. There is much joy in adoptive families, but adoption is a wound and a continuing struggle for many adoptees.”

As an adoptive mother myself who has spent the past 20 years listening to adult adoptees and thinking and writing about adoption, I’m amazed at how adoption is simplified and misunderstood, often by those with no direct connection to it.  For this reason, editorials such as Schrumpf’s are necessary and vital.

Thank you for reading here.

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Fangirl

Sometime in the middle of Covid before vaccines when we were completely locked down, I became obsessed with watching videos of Sutton Foster. I’d heard of her in a far-off way—Broadway actress, Tony Award winner, on the show Bunheads. But I really didn’t know her work.

Then a friend pointed me toward a 90th birthday tribute to the great Stephen Sondheim, whose plays I’d long adored, with performances by actors who had starred in them. And it was there I first heard Sutton Foster among the other Broadway legends, in her apartment against a plain curtain backdrop singing, from Anyone Can Whistle, “There Won’t Be Trumpets.”

At the phrase, “The play isn’t over by a longshot yet,” I held my breath and almost stopped breathing. Sutton Foster’s voice—so pure and authentic–stilled me. By her interpretation of the first chorus, a slower and quieter lyric “There won’t be trumpets or bolts of fire,” I was a forever fan.

Stephen Sondheim died this week. His genius lives on in his musicals and performances like this one by Sutton Foster. His legacy is eternal.

PS: I recently discovered Foster is an adoptive mom to a daughter named Emily. I loved her before I knew that, but now I love her more. In case you haven’t seen this, watch her singing There Won’t Be Trumpets here.

(Thank you for indulging me. It’s just that when I love something, I really really love it and want everyone else to love it too!)

“There Won’t Be Trumpets” by Stephen Sondheim Performed by Tony Winner Sutton Foster – YouTube

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