This was a great day to have small people on the brain. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about things I will share with the next little Smith, like songs, stories, crafts, and Schoolhouse Rock. It’s gonna be great watching a new person discover all the things we learned and tried along the way. We can revisit things we once enjoyed, moved on from, and forgot about. We can experience the joys all over again.
Rotary gave me multiple chances to think about these things. Our charity fund presented a check to the Born to Read program. This group provides a tote bag to every new mama in area hospitals, with a board book, information on the value of reading (and speaking) to babies from the very beginning, and baby’s first library card. They have versions of their gifts in both English and Spanish. I got a chance to talk to the woman who was there representing the charity after the meeting, and I asked her the best way to start providing our incoming family member exposure to both languages from the earliest opportunity. She recommended sources for finding board books in Spanish (they buy theirs directly from Scholastic), which seems like the place to start, since none of us have ever done more than dabble in that language. We can all learn it together.
Our main program was given by an enthusiastic midwife. She told a compelling tale of educating folks in Afghanistan and Uganda, training locals as midwives and family planning advocates. Within the last fifteen or twenty years, Afghanistan experienced the worst rate of maternal death ever recorded, but with programs such as theirs, they now no longer rank in the top ten annually. Their work in Uganda is producing similar triumphs for maternal and infant mortality rates. As a woman who had a near-death experience in childbirth, this subject is very dear to my heart. I took home the literature, and will keep these people in mind when I have charity money or volunteer energy to share.
While I was pretending I wasn’t checking my phone (because I am as addicted as any of you), my daughter sent links to fun kid outfits she found online. She found a black onesie with what looked like a yellow tarot card with a red devil, captioned “el diablito.” We have way too many clothes already, but man, I hope she gets that one.
No comments:
Post a Comment