The Luxpats

Tag: family

  • More Nomad Baby News: Big Changes

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    We’ve had an interesting past couple of weeks, and some new nomad baby news to share. I’ll tell you right now that both baby and Mama are fine, except for my sore leg from a gnarly charlie horse last night and a certain amount of annoyance about constant insomnia. So it goes. The third trimester…

  • Wish You Were Here: Playa Del Carmen

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    I don’t know how an unseen man playing the saxophone on a rooftop can make it feel like Christmas on a sunny afternoon in October, but he does. My husband says he’s seen the man, but I can never find him. As I sit out on our narrow balcony and search the uneven landscape of…

  • Giving Up the Script: The Lead Up

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    On a Sunday afternoon, we stood on the side of a road above the ocean. We didn’t glance at the Camps Bay houses spread out below us, nor the sea beyond them, though I’m sure we must have been shading our eyes, for at a certain time in the South African summer afternoon, the ocean turns…

  • The Carousel of Houses: Part III

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    In the afternoon we sat together on the couch, waiting to move again. Including hotels, it would be the fifth and hopefully final move in two months. We fanned ourselves in an amicable silence. We don’t always analyze our fights anymore, at least not right away. Before Spencer, we performed constant maintenance. Ours was a…

  • The Carousel of Houses: Part II

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    Green Point, where we’d been living, is an upmarket little neighborhood that slopes gently up from the beach. Cool breezes dry the sweaty foreheads of its residents as they enjoy sundowners on their porches, and there is little real wind there. In Vredehoek, where we moved the next day, you are perched upon the steep…

  • Nannies: The Thaw

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    My paranoia about A’idah kidnapping Spencer got worse and worse. Every day, I’d be in a good mood when she arrived in the morning and a black mood when she left to go home. I was surprised to acknowledge, however, that I didn’t dislike A’idah. In fact, she and I got along wonderfully all day,…

  • Nannies: Paranoia

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    luxpat
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    Every night before she leaves to go home, our nanny makes a joke about taking Spencer home with her. I don’t think these jokes are very funny. Call me paranoid, but with each new joke I get a little more uneasy. It’s not in A’idah’s favor that she wears these thick-rimmed bifocals that make her…

  • How Long Would You Wait at a Free Clinic?

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    When I walked into the hall at 8:30, I was given a number and a piece of paper to fill out. The man who handed it to me wore a surgical mask. I sat next to a young woman, who leaned over conspiratorially and said, “They don’t care about us. It’s all about them. It’s…