I left Isla Mujeres after nine nights on the island.
Sad to leave, but excited about the upcoming family time and the baby shower on Saturday.
The first day back was spent with Claudia at a beautiful house ( this is an understatement ) on the beach on the Cancun side of the water separating Cancun from Isla Mujeres. The owners of this house are the parents of Claudia’s good friend Maura. Claudia was looking for a Plan B location for her maternity photo shoot since we were unable to go to Isla Holbox due to the heavy rains last week. Claudia asked Carmen, Maura’s mother if she could come to the house for a day. Carmen not only said yes, she also fed us lunch later in the afternoon when Maura came with her family to say hello.
The photo shoot was very interesting. Danny, a friend of Claudia’s was the photographer and I was the gal Friday assisting Claudia as needed and acing as the lighting crew for the Danny. We used a spare bedroom as a staging area.
By the time I arrived via taxi from the Isla Mujeres ferry dock about 12:30 that day, Claudia and Danny had complete the planning stages, had chosen her outfits for the shoot, and she was getting dressed while Danny rested in a very comfortable lounge chair in the bedroom. We spent about 90 minutes in the yard
and beach areas taking lots of poses in Clau’s white dress. I was too busy trying to be good helper to a professional photographer to sneak in an iPhone version of these two settings,
but after our 60 - 90 minute lunch break, I did get a couple photos from the dock at sunset.
Before we headed back to the house to pack it up and return home.
Baby shower preparations were in full swing by the time I arrived. Claudia had been in town from home in Oregon for almost a week and had been setting up party favors and decoration plans, and was busy running errands. Lupita worked on her house and party staging between seeing patients. I did a lot of resting and knitting in the palapa hammock in the back yard, but I was able to be helpful with party favor construction during parts of the next two days.
The baby shower festivities started about 1PM on Saturday when four of Claudia’s closest friends, her sister Isa, their close family friend Daniel, Lupita and I gathered in the palapa in the back yard for a special blessing ceremony for Clau and the baby. There was relaxation breathing to start.
Then inscence,
music and spiritual prayers to the heavens and earth. We each offered blessings of love and support to Clau
and brought a small but meaningful (to each individual donor) charm gift to the baby which we then made into a necklace for Clau to bring to the birth experience.
I was not the only one experiencing tears of emotion and joy for being able to participate in this beautiful ceremony.
Afterward, we all had a delicious luncheon,
then continued to prepare for the party ( except for me- I went to my room for a nap because there was plenty of help and both Clau and Lupita were well attended).
The main event started about 5PM. About 30 friends of Clau and Lupita were there to offer suggestions for baby names,
express opinions on the sex of the baby, write words of encouragement to Eric and Clau ( these will be assembled into a notebook that can be read during their birth experience, share words of love and support to Clau as we added a ribbon to what became a headdress for Clau to wear.
There was lots of good food and drink, of course and antimated conversation- much of which I did not understand, but I got the spirit of it and participated by smiling and nodding and answering Yes or OK a lot:). I eagerly helped with the cleanup so Clau and Lupita could skip that part, and visit with the late stayers, but Lupita did find herself in the kitchen a fair amount as well. When it was all over, I requested this celebratory photo with the lady of the house
and my future co-grandma. Hola bebé!
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