Babies come from Paris

From the crazy whirlwind of our romantic getaway on rue Champs de Mars, Paris, we fell straight into the moist embrace of a family Christmas. We were still under the effects of the city of lights, or at least, I was, so I was apparently propense to cuddle. Except this was now happening under the watchful omnipresent eye of my mother in law. She knows what's up. She sees we're being sort of amorous.


"Babies come from Paris!!" she pinches my cheek, and pokes me in my belly, maybe trying to turn it on for its intended function. "Let's see if you two did anything weird down there!" (like what? from what I've learned through the years, babies don't come from any of the weird shit...) "Your son had a cold," I answer laconically.

The message is clear though. The older son must bring home some babies. To make this possible, we are presented with the privacy of the master bedroom, while the in-laws sleep in the small living room, and the boys' old room is taken over by younger son, wife and kids. Grandma keeps her room.

So here we are, sleeping on the parents' bed. The parents are behind the headboard in the salita. The Grandma is to my right. Further down the hall, two little kids are seeing their 7th dream. In the room, baby pictures of my husband and brother in law are abound. The wall closet has mirrored doors, behind which hang my mother and father in law's clothes. As if that is not enough of an aphrodisiac, this is what's looking over us:

It's the Virgin. Does she look judgemental, or beneficent? And the two beheaded babies on each side, is that some sort of symbol?

Gulp.

Babies may come from Paris. They don't come from Portugalete, though.