Smoking Spaniards

I read something very shocking today in a magazine unimaginatively titled Nino. It said that 56% of Spanish women who smoke don't quit smoking when they are pregnant and of the 44% that do quit, 80% of them (37%) return to smoking after their pregnancy. So, by my math, of the Spanish women who smoke before they are pregnant, 93% are smoking when they have small babies. What a beautiful, progressive country. You'd think a place with social medicine and tight knit family structure would give more of a shit about the next generation being smoked upon, but they don't, which is why no spanish woman in a smoky cafe with her baby, or smoking while pregnant, gets even a sideways glance from her countrymen.

When Ewa takes Bianca to the Pan y Moja they always try to sit near the big open entranceway to keep smoke inhalation to a minimum and if those first two tables are taken they don't go in. The other day Ewa was sitting at the second table and Bianca was asleep - and bundled up - in the stroller. The waitress, when Ewa went to pay, asked why Ewa left the baby in the doorway; as if the clouds of smoke emanating from the back 2/3 of the cafe weren't a clue.

Here are my girls watching the Easter processions on Easter Sunday. Such a cute pair in the rain.