Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sin una Fombra

I hope I said that right. lol So I'm finally giving up on my rugs. When I moved here and the many times visiting previous to moving here I hated that everything was tile. Where was I suppose to sit and play with my baby? And I don't like wearing shoes but I also don't like having cold feet, yes I know what a picky person. When we first got here my oldest daughter was almost 2, she celebrated her 2nd birthday 3 weeks after we moved. And of course at that time there is a lot of playing on the floor. We had a much larger apartment then and it didn't seem a big deal to clean around the rugs and to sweep the rugs. We looked everywhere for a vacuum and the only thing we could find was a shop vac type of thing. So we bought it and because its a major pain to vacuum rugs this way it only happened every so often. But to tell the truth I'm a shedder and my hair is everywhere. So the rugs would get hair balls, Yummm, right? Ok but with a 2 year old its not a big deal except she is scared of fuzzies of any kind and would scream like a spider bit her when she encountered one. Honestly this would always give me a good laugh and was not a reason to git rid of my rugs. I learned quickly why people don't have rugs in Mexico but I didn't care I was keeping mine even if it meant having to shake them out off the roof frequently to git rid of all the dirt. And that is what I have done for a year and three months. Well my youngest daughter is now six months old and will soon be all over the place. Already when I lay her on a blanket on top of the rug she will have a hair ball in her hand and of course strait to her mouth before I can turn around. With my oldest daughter I combated this issue with a play mat that was inside a huge gate type thing(this was when we were living in the States). Both of which we cant afford this time around. So its time to get creative and no longer rely on money. The other bad thing about the rugs is that it makes it hard to move furniture and clean behind it well (we now are in a much smaller apartment than when we first came). This is only an issue because our couch is high enough off the floor that I can see the baby crawling under it in a couple months. So part of my baby proofing is to git rid of the hair ball rugs. This will make cleaning my house a lot easier but might mean... I HAVE TO WEAR SOCKS IN MY HOUSE THIS WINTER. (and the crowd gasps with disbelief) Yes I know I will live through it and it is nothing compared to some of the other things I have started to get use to. I still have rugs in our bedroom and as long as my feet have even a few steps to wake up in the morning before I step on cold tile I think I can do this. So now the baby will be placed on a blanket but if she gets off of it I know the worst is a short face plant to the tile and no choking on hair balls or rolling her face on carpet that needs to be vacuumed. Im use to moping everyday so that is no big deal.

I'm curious to how my fellow Americans living in Mexico adjusted to all the tile. It seems kind of a silly thing but seriously I missed my carpet and I think if I could remember it (because even the rugs were not the same) I still would. Please comment about that.

12 comments:

  1. The solution to your problem is "chanclas" :)

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  2. On second thought, in the winter you will probably want "pantuflas" :)

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  3. Amanda, I hear ya about the vacuum, I ranted about this last month: http://inveracruz.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-need-vacuum.html. I am going to the US in a couple weeks and am going to try and ship a vacuum I have there. I have not purchased any rugs yet b/c of this - I do not want to beat the rugs out every week, and even that doesn't really clean them well. I also don't like using the broom to do the cleaning, I don't think it cleans as well. Until I get a vacuum here I will not buy rugs - too much work and here in Veracruz it's HOT most of the year, so no worries about cold feet...I like the cool tile. Or as Bob suggests, I wear chanclas a lot!

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  4. Oh my goodness! How I missed wall to wall carpeting when we first moved to Mexico! I'm one of those barefoot is best gals and walking on cold tile was just the worst. Plus it isn't good for my asthma. During the winter I wear flip-flops or socks around the house, but as soon as the weather turns warm, its HELLO BAREFEET. The thing I've noticed is that Mexicans aren't used to barefeet. My hubby's family and clients see me walking around barefoot and look at me like I'm some crazy person. I laugh, because as they walk away I hear them mumble "Gringa loca"! :)

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  5. I'm not a big fan of all this tile either. Kitchen: fine. Bathroom: also fine. But the whole house? I've thought about this too - when my baby gets to crawling around do I really want him crawling around on my in-laws tiled floor? Even freshly mopped it seems dirty (maybe that's because I always think about the raw sewage that runs by the side of the house from the neighbor's house.) We always had a shoeless house before moving down here and all those shoes that have been walking through all that raw sewage... But I guess that's another issue, because tile IS easier to clean than carpet. And I know there's ABSOLUTELY NO WAY my in-laws would ever start taking their shoes off in the house. SO I don't know either. I've been thinking about it, though, and my best idea so far is just to throw down blankets for floor time, which are easier to clean, since they fit in the washing machine (feeble cleaning machine, though it may be).
    Otherwise, here are some more ideas:

    flipflops, slippers, or socks.

    cut up some socks to make leg warmer type things for baby's knees

    get some machine washable rugs (do you have a washing machine?)

    shave off all your hair?

    Good luck. I'd like to know what ends up working best for you.

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  6. I have tile in my living room/dining room and kitchen now and am always barefoot, and like Leslie, all the old school Mexicans like my mother in law are always telling me to not walk barefoot porque "te van a doler los pies".

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  7. Is this just an American luxury? I LOVED my carpet... but couldn't find it in any rentals here in GDL. The one house that did have carpet had crappy office style carpet that apparently, no one knew how to take care of an vaccuum. It was one big mess. Right now, I only have a few rugs, but the damn dog drives me nuts with HIS damn hairballs.
    WOW. I've never really thought about it... but everytime I'm at abuela's house and i spend the night... the next morning I'm in the kitchen with coffee, of course barefoot... and EVERYTIME she's got something to say. haha... apparently, we GUERAS are livin la vida loca!!!

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  8. Bob- those are house shoes righ? ;) The thing is I like bare feet and actually I'm less clumsy when my feet can feel the floor, but I do believe I will wear my house shoes when it starts getting colder.
    Leah- I read your rant and like I said on there the only thing about a vacuum is the electric
    Leslie- Glad to hear there are more bare feet in Mexico. Even when me and my husband first got together in the States he was bothered by my constant bare feet. There I would go almost everywhere with out shoes. When I was a teenager I use to get kicked out of the grocery store because I had forgotten to put shoes on. And yes his family all give me trouble about it when I'm at home bare foot. They would just joke with me but when they saw my daughter bare footed they started lecturing.
    Vadose- so far a blanket is doing ok for the baby although she does roll or scoot to the edge of it a lot and end up on the tile. Im lucky that we live on the third floor and have mats on the first floor and outside our door, and clean neighboors. So not a lot gets tracked in and since I do the floors with some bleach IM pretty comfortable with her face landing on it ever so often. Although I do like the idea of knee pads out of socks. Ill try it in a few months when she needs it and let you know.
    Dreamer- that is great about your abuela, mine has given up on saying anything. She now just smiles and shakes her head. I love her to death. She is so accepting of me and my differences so much more than some of Issacs aunts.

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  9. I know what you mean! As others have said, tile in some parts of the house is great but everywhere - not so great. For me it's more a problem of keeping in clean. I don't know if it's just the areas we've lived in but our floors get dirty within 10 minutes of sweeping and mopping. It's so frustrating! I always wear sandals. Having a baby is difficult - the thing that bothered me more was the possibility of her falling and hitting her head when she was learning to crawl and learning to walk. There have definitely been some painful moments (tile is HARD!) but she survived. I used blankets and even pillows on the ground to avoid the possibility of a really hard bang. Actually, my suegra bought something called a colchoneta - it's like a thick padded blanket - and that became our daughter's play blanket. Of course, after a certain point you really can't keep them confined to the blanket because they want to go all over the place!

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  10. i'm also a bare footer. i HATE wearing shoes and socks. when i go out i usually only wear flip flops. which my mom usually gives me crap for.
    i wear them inside too sometimes but i prefer being barefoot. but if i am the floor has to be SPOTLESS cause i have this thing with getting dirt on my feet. it's like a phobia haha. now that i'm home all day i'm constantly sweeping. especially cause of the dog and he goes in and out of the house very 5 minutes.

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  11. Laura- I doubt it was just where you live, everywhere I have been in Mexico is dirty, and I say that meaning lots of dirt. Luckily right now we are on the second floor and the only door we have opens to a hallway so the dirt entering is controllable. The baby bumped her head the other day just from laying on her stomach and it was red but I was like dang how bad will it be when she starts walking.
    Adelina- I love seeing you on here, keep reading.

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  12. I hate carpeting, wall to wall is the worst. You would never want it again if you saw all the dirt that you cannot vaccum out. My house in California had wall to wall carpeting which I tore out to reveal hard wood floors and tons of old dirt that had sifted through the carpets. I love the tile floors, easy to clean with a dust mop, easy to wash with a squeegee. Much more sanitary. I wear chanclas all the time Chanclas are flipflops, tatamis, or thongs depending upon where you are from, chancletas are slippers, like mules or pumps.
    In the winter, I wear socks or peds, but it is cold in my house.

    regards,
    Theresa

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