I was once also fresh off the boat, shocked with the food portions in restaurants, quiet, shy, not understanding much, and thinking that toes were called fingers of the feet.
I used to believe that Americans obsessed so much with eating that they gave food names to objects and living things. I never understood, for example, why butterfly has "butter" in it and was convinced that ear muffs were called ear muffins until someone corrected me. This person said, "I thought you were just being cute, calling it ear muffins."
What that person really didn't understand is that I am cute all the time. :oP
I woke up in the
middle of the night last night, with a random thought in my head, and I had to express it to my sleeping husband. I poked him, "I am having a gringo baby!", to which he said, "huh?""Seriously!" I set up straight, or tried to, because sitting up straight is now a thing from the past, "I am having a gringo baby," I said it now more to myself than anyone else.
And then I couldn't sleep anymore.
I had not thought this through at all.
Heck, I am not even an American citizen and as far as the Brazilian government knows, I am not married and must be a real loser for living with my parents still and having my dad file my Brazilian taxes for me.
My husband is as gringo as they come. He thinks that when he gets a tan (an American tan, not a Brazilian tan, mind you - those things are very different) that he could pass for a Brazilian. I laugh at this because with his blue eyes and square jaw, even if he didn't wear his beige shorts and boat shoes, any one could see the "gringoness" in him from afar.
Baby may come out either a brownie or a whitey, which is a really wild thought. People will think I am babysitting him... being that we are so close to Mexico and all.
It just downed on me that don't know any American lullabies. I find the Brazilian ones more poetic anyway.
Oh, wait, I do know the ABC song, and so does my mom. Her English teacher (an American) makes her sing it, which I believe it to be for his own amusement, really.
My family in Brazil cannot spell Matthew as their tongs get stuck on the "th" sound, exaggerating it and making them spit in the process. I have relinquished to the fact that when talking with his grandparents, Matthew will be called Mateus.
As far as raising the baby to be bilingual, I think this will come naturally, since everything that is sweet and mean that comes out of me is either with an accent or entirely in Portuguese. The unconscious does a 180 degree switch when I am really mad, or when I really love something, and I love my baby.
With alcohol in it, my unconscious is even more amusing, making me speak neither English, nor Portuguese, but a mix of both, leaving at times my Brazilian and American friends staring at me like I have three eyes.
My husband thinks we should fly to Brazil with the gringo baby the first chance we have, so baby can start the introduction to his bi-cultural self. He needs to understand that deer hunting in North Carolina is as much part of himself as is feeding bananas to tiny monkeys in Brazil.
With that in mind and with no sleep in my crazy head, I am off to fill out my citizenship papers.
I have procrastinated becoming an American and having dual citizenship for way too long and can't bring no gringo baby into this world if we don't have the same blue passport.
