The paper earplug is the new nose paci.

Lily spent just about three years with her pacifier and another "nose paci" on cords around her neck.  The paci was meant to soothe and she took it whenever she felt it necessary, nothing too remarkable about that.  But the nose paci, basically a broken pacifier that Lily would balance on her pacifier between it and her mouth, was something else.  Pretty strange and completely hilarious.  Had never seen anything like it or since.  Until...

The paper ear plugs and mustache were introduced by Virginie.  These people are totally bizarre. 

(c)  Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

40 the new 20?

Turning forty really wasn't such a big deal. I felt young, looked cute, was surrounded by people who'd made my life sweet, except, of course, for my husband who had to stay in Barbados to work.  Story of my life, the wife of a chef.  I felt like I could do anything and that 40 really was the new 20. But it's not the new 20, not for me.  Maybe 40 is the new 20 for people who had their kids right out of college, in their early 20s, and now find themselves empty-nesters while still hot, active and energetic.  I could use some of that energy right now.  I am bone tired and too old to be chasing after these people.  My kids are four and 17 months and are not considering, for one second, giving me a break.  More like breaking my back. 

I am sitting here in Barbados where the toads and creepy crawlies at night are chirping and burping and doing whatever their mad as a hatter conductor's got them doing and I am wondering how the heck I think I am going to make it on so little sleep again!  That is not a 20, that is so a 40 going on 60.  When I was twenty I could sleep three hours after a night of hellish partying or studying (mmm hmmm), open my eyes, brush the teeth, get on some clothes and stroll into the next day looking camera ready.  With five hours pasted together from all the stops and starts -- "I need a drink of water,"  nursing, checking diapers and beds for wetness, toads, toads, and more toads, a bit of snoring from the French nez next to me, and my oversaturated, never to have a kidney stone again bladder urging me out for one more go, I now wake up looking like I'd rubbed Vaseline all over my face, blinked in some sand, and gone to sleep with that white elementary school paste in my mouth.  It takes until about 11:30 am for that look to start wearing off. 

In my twenties I said funny things like, "I sometimes forget to eat.  I am just so busy," or "I just keep losing weight, I don't really know how."  I slept in, went to the movies on a whim, got funny looking haircuts that kind of looked cool, made love whenever, even wherever I wanted to (gasp!).  Now that is definitely not 40 over here.  (Imagining the look on Lily's face were we to allow ourselves that adventure.)  At twenty years old I lived for myself. Didn't have enough self-love or connection to anything really to love as I do now, to live as I do now. We have come to terms with the fact that we are older parents and that there will be some level of sacrifice to raising decent human beings.  We are none the worse for it. 

Maybe if we were back in New York with the lure of a nightlife worth committing to, museum exhibitions, gallery showings, concerts, lectures, adventures fun for the kids and parents alike, we might try to maintain a level of hipness, of cool.  Maybe in the youth culture perpetuated by the creativity, raw energy, and tension of the Big A, we would be working out, updating our looks, be able to show our children a little of the world's cultures all funneling into and surrounding the island.  But that would still, for me at least, have come with the wisdom of age.

Forty definitely feels like a beginning, but not a "just starting out in life" beginning, but the culmination of all those stops and starts, successes and failures, hideously beautiful moments that brought me to the place where I know one thing to be true. I love these people. I was meant for these people. I want to grow as a human being for these people and share the rest of my life with them. Even as they send me hurtling towards insanity or something close.  Sometimes the day to day is a real pain in the ass. We are tired and irritable and short-tempered. But the truth is, when I look at Didier, when Lily and Virginie wrap their arms around me and hug and kiss me, when I hear each of them breathing at night over the sound of those damned tree frogs, I don't want to be doing it with anyone else. There is a lot of life in my life right now and it is my experiences, getting to 40 that have given me the grace to appreciate it in spite of it all.   That's a good start.

(c)  Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Under the weather

Last week I left the bedroom to check on the girls after hearing one of them on the monitor and returned to Didier shivering, wrapped in a sweater and all the blankets on the bed pulled up to his neck.  He was burning with fever and asked for even more cover from the chill.  He had pain in the lymph nodes in his neck and seemed a bit crazy, like insane, to me.  Dengue fever.  After watching him take some Tylenol and drink lots of water, I took my pillow from the bed and told him I would sleep with the girls.   I checked on him twice that night to make sure he was OK, well, alive actually.  I had never thought of losing him, but the way he looked and the way he was acting, I felt a tear in my heart.  I just wasn't sure.


I slept very little that night as I worried about him and was kicked and nuzzled, first by Virginie and then Lily, each in her little bed calling or crying for me, sensing my presence in the room.  Even though the weaning had begun the previous evening, I couldn't bear to drop off the screaming puppy in the bed with a boiling cuckoo nut, even if it was her father.  So Virginie nursed heartily and snuggled on me while I was with her, and then I moved over to Lily's bed when she asked me to be with her.  A lot of back and forth.  And checking.

Two days later, Didier felt better and Lily came down with a vicious cold most likely caught by one of her classmates.  She stayed home with us for two days playing like it wasn't just her job, but that she was on the Amazing Race or something and could score some points for some of the reckless craziness. Then she would pass out at night and snore, hack up a lung, sneeze, basically convince me that she was surely not ready to return to her formal education.  I sat up with her too, listening to her breath, adjusting her position, carrying her to the bathroom since I thought the medication might prevent her from getting up on her own to go.  On the first night when Lily coughed out loud and nearly shook the girls' room, Virginie woke up and said, "Mimmy no night night.  Hi."  I feared that our morning was about to begin at 3:30 am, but she was just acknowledging her sick big sister.  Sending her the purest love by thinking of her, considering her.

Now the sick torch has been passed to Virginie.  The poor boo boo is coughing and has mucus caking her little nostrils, but she still refuses to take medicine or be aspirated without an unfair wrestling match of Mommy and Papa versus la Petite.  How she manages to evade two grown adults for so long is something to behold.  She shakes her head and writhes around on the floor once caught.  I feel awful waiting for Didier to finally pin her down, arms and legs finally still under his weight so I can give her the medicine or free her nasal passages.  You'd think we were going to torture the poor thing.

Ever since the kidney stone put me on the floor of our bathroom in a pain reminiscent of unmedicate, immediate childbirth, something I had experienced already, thank you very much, I have thought more and more about my life and how I live it.  I always hated being sick and often felt like I had done something bad or wrong to be felled by whatever ailed me.  But I can see that sometimes we get sick because we need to slow it all down.  Regroup.  Recuperate.  Check in with ourselves and take stock.  Now the girls, well they get sick because they are with little germ generators all day long.  It would take daily Hazmat wear to prevent them from bringing the stuff home.  But Didier and I, we know better.  It was time to slow down.  So we are.  All together.  Medication time is at 6:30.


(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Vanity kills

I know it does.  I haven't had a healthy relationship with vanity, but I did pretty much give her whatever she wanted.  Since I was twelve years old, I have been lying on my side on the floor doing leg lifts while watching TV, talking on the phone, having a family meeting about the next vacation or why no one is talking to each other, whatever.  I have done sit ups my entire life and have slathered my face with pimple creams and potions every single night, even at the end of baccanalian celebration of the arrival of Friday or Thursday or hell, Monday.  I have done squats at my desk, squeezed my glutes while riding on the subway, and hauled six bags of groceries ten blocks rather than pull them in a wagon or cart.  What I am saying is that, if there was something I could do to control the way I looked, I was doing it and a lot of it.


Even after having Lily, when a whopping 25 pounds remained committed to my frame, I would get up at 5:30 am before Didier or the wee one roused and sneak out for 45 minutes to one hour in the gym.  I felt great even though I was bone tired and rewarded myself with an aloe and pete moss smoothie or something like that, I cannot remember.  You get the picture.  I took care of myself . There was a tiny bit of punishment involved, but the results were worth it.  Detoxes and cleanses two to three times per year.  Walking all over the city pushing the stroller rather than taking the subway or shut-your-mouth, a cab!  I ate sushi and seaweed, lots of salads, lean meat.  I believed I looked better naked than with clothes on.  Now who even thinks that who is not vying for a position in a magazine with a staple going through her goodies or some other zone?!  Really.


Well, not me anymore.  I am really tired.  And it is too damned hot!  After Virginie and my 55 pound weight gain, I had little time to even think of taking care of me, let alone getting into fighting shape.  We moved pretty quickly from the apartment to my parents' house where my main source of exercise was walking across the spacious foyer to a comfortable couch to nurse the baby.  I might get in some real lifting picking up Lily who at that time weighed in at a whopping 25 pounds.  When we got to Barbados, the sheer intensity of the heat and humidity stunned me into my best freeze tag position and I am just now beginning to snap out of it. 


Don't get me wrong.  I know it could be worse.  My general shape is still there.  But I am softer, as I think is kinder to say, in some areas than I'd previously been.  My darling husband said something along the lines of, "You might, perhaps, have a coating or something and not even know it."  Hmmmm.  So, what should I take from that?  It's not just about the cellulite or the jiggly tummy when I brush my teeth, I am surprisingly over those.  It's the mommyness of my whole look right now.  I don't wear mom jeans bc it is too damned hot here but I have started to see a look on my face that looks a lot like my mother circa 1979.  Cute inside of there but unable to set that lady free. 


Ponytail or bun.  T-shirt with shorts.  Flip flops.  No jewelry (other than the wedding ring as a buffer to the freaks who hit on everyone with boobs and to prevent losing my earlobe to a hard tug by Virginie).  Soft, mushy spots where, as they say, the shit was once tight!  There are no leglifts here.  No sit ups except for the just  finished watching a makeover show I can do this reps followed by weeks of Twix cookie bars in bed and the leftover chicken hotdog chunks from Virginie's snack tray.  Sigh.


I promised myself I would try a little harder.  Get on the elliptical more.  Stop using it as a playground for the girls or a clothing rack.  Snack less.  But mostly I just visualize.  And then go to sleep.  I can't do it all.  Lily and Virginie definitely think I am pretty.  That's what I am going for right now.  So I am totally hot in an alternate universe kind of way.


(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Mommyhood: Paradise or deserted island?

I once saw an episode of Oprah Winfrey's show where working moms and stay at home moms were doing battle over who had made the right choice.  This could have been any season as it seems this conversation comes up in some form every year.   Because I cannot work here in Barbados, by default I have fallen into the stay at home category.  I am home with Virginie 7days a week, helping her in her development, playing with her and cleaning up behind her, while also being entirely responsible for the household.  On the weekends, we just add Lily and hope that Didier has two days off in a row.  I certainly listened intently while watching that episode of Oprah, but I don't think I'd really taken a position either way.  Back in New York, I had a job where I could audition, even work for just a couple hours a day and still spend quality time with Lily, so I thought I had it all worked out. 

It seemed natural carrying Lily with me everywhere I went in the city either in the Bjorn, the Hip Hammock, or the stroller.  New York is a walking city or at least easily accessible on foot, by subway, or by taxi, and I still felt that I had a certain amount of freedom even though she was with me all the time.  I took her to many of my auditions whether for print, commercial or voiceover and the kindness of my fellow actors was always astonishing.  We could get in, get out, and get on with our day without too much fanfare.  Sometimes Lily would want to be with me while I was in the room or in the booth, but she had a portable DVD player with her and lots of actors around her to make faces, sing songs, or just chat.  However small, I did feel like I was making a contribution to my family's financial situation and I felt a sense of self and place.

The move to Barbados changed all of that.  I was suddenly a stay at home mother with two children, no freedom of movement, and really nowhere I needed to go, without even the possibility of working.  Not only is the market for my business minuscule, but I have no permit to participate anyway.  Overnight, I became the household maven for a three-bedroom house with a garden, guesthouse, and lots of heat and dust AND two children. 

Respect.  This job sucks.  Well, not all the time, but I can assure you that this job is tough and endless and often thankless. (Yes, I know, thanks comes in different forms and the hugs, smiles of your children blah blah blah.  People, that is the stuff that makes you think it is easy!  I ain't gonna lie to you!)  Before working as an actor, I worked in non-profit arts management which is a fancy way of saying that I worked for organizations that regranted government money to different arts organizations in both New York City and before that, in Atlanta.  There were reviews of organizations, both artistically and fiscally, site visits, peer panel reviews, sometimes long days.  I have been a hostess in a restaurant, manager, maitre d'.  All jobs required multitasking, thinking on my feet, dealing with difficult clients or guests.  Yet none prepared me for this job.  Motherhood.

Back to Oprah.  What I now find ridiculous is that this group of women were taunting, threatening, demeaning each other about making the wrong choice to either stay at home full time or work.  Working out of the home or staying at home, it's ALL work.  All the time.  I have friends here on the island who not only hold it down in an office or at a pool (One friend is a swimming instructor.), but also do the drop off and pick up of their older children from school, are primarily in charge of the food, clothing, shelter part of the equation, do the bathtime, storytime, nighttime ritual, and then clean up!  We are all dealing with the same things and sadly, guilt factors in for everyone.  The women who work feel they do not spend enough time with their children, especially the small ones while they are at work.  I feel guilty that I want a moment away.  That I want a break. That it is not all spun sugar and baked cookies.  That I miss work. 

We are all tired and the support I get from these women, the camaraderie, the commiserating helps me get through the boring, lonely quiet of my desert island. It's a long way from my life in New York.  This job is hard and whatever else one is doing on top of motherhood can break you unless you find a way to build yourself up.  For me, it is writing this blog, giving myself a pass when I go berserk over the first note of the Backyardigan's theme song, imagining how grateful the girls are to have me at their beckon call.  Right. 

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Cutting teeth in the wild

We have been so preoccupied with Lily's foray into big school, the tears and panics, that I have all but forgotten my dear Virginie.  She's been going along for the ride and taking it all in stride, that apart from not being able to wean her, she has been easy.  I must have said it aloud, as it seems the fates were tempted and Virginie let out a huge roar!  Well, more of a whine and a scream and a constant hum like the air leaking from a stretchy, animal making balloon.  Our girl has six teeth coming in, four of them molars.  Oh the joy.

It had been a while since those first eight teeth in the front came in, so my memory of that torture seems to have faded.  When she started waking in the middle of the night screaming and nothing I'd offered could soothe her, I remembered.  For the past few nights I've tried all sorts of remedies--ice on the gums, Oragel, massive amounts of nursing (Say nothing.  I know.), serving soft foods--yogurt, oatmeal, hot dog chunks, ripe cantaloupe.  None of this has cured her from what appears to be immeasurable suffering.  And so I have returned to the amber necklace. 

I know it sounds like hocus pocus, but it works.  Apparently, amber has some sort of healing property and when Virginie is wearing this necklace, she is at peace.  Or at least not screaming the paint off the walls and the hearing capabilities from all within a 10 kilometer radius.  I have three necklaces.  She might wear two tonight.

Lily too was a monster teether and I remember our neighbor in Manhattan banging on the paper wall between us in the middle of the night begging us to abandon Lily and leave her on the subway.  I don't know what she really expected, but I did feel her pain.  Actually, it was my pain.  Lily too was an ear shredder.  In Barbados, we have relative peace and quite.  I have only to worry that the monkeys will find her screams enticing and coming running to see what all the commotion is about.  And I don't think I need to tell you again where I stand on the monkeys running over to the house.

Virginie is meant to be our last child, and as she passes each milestone of babyhood, I do feel teary-eyed and nostalgic.  Her teeth will all soon be in and she will continue her chattering away and the sleepless nights sitting with her while she screamed in pain will be in the past.  I see how the youngest child can get spoiled with love.  When you know there is not another tiny baby coming, that this is it, you hold on a little tighter, indulge them a little more, endure screaming fits of terror and torture in the middle of the night with a tiny little smile at the corners of your lips, heart filling with love. 

OK, I admit it.  I have gone crazy.  Call the authorities.  I do love these people so.  But man.  The days of seeing 3:00 AM at the side of one's lover are O-V-E-R.  After an intense conversation contemplating the secrets of life, D-O-N-E.  There is no more romance in three in the morning.  It is just the way station to the 5:30 wake up call.  I pray that this baby can get all her teeth in at once and immediately.  This mommy needs to get some sleep.

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.

The trigger

Lily continues to struggle with the morning drop off.  I know she likes it at school and keeps up with the work, but saying goodbye is proving too difficult for her.  And for me too.  I can stay in a funk for hours after the separation because I wonder and I worry.  Any suggestions or recommendations leave me more confused than just minutes earlier.  I wish I knew what would be best for her.  Should I take her in alone, without Didier and Virginie?  Should I forgo the trip altogether and let Didier drop her off?  Is she crying for me or is she truly scared and overwhelmed?
This hits me at my stuff.  Psychiatry speak for "this feels really familiar and I am being triggered by the entire experience, reflecting back to myself."  I feel shame and fear around Lily's crying.  I never felt safe as a child to cry or show my feelings, especially sadness or fear.  There was something about not feeling strong enough, tough enough to "take it like a man," which of course I was not and, as should be noted, am still not.  I was silent a lot, difficult to imagine now, but I would bite the inside of my cheek and try not to let tears or a shaky voice reveal my fright.  I know the loneliness, the feeling of alienation that makes crying involuntary.  It just wants to burst out.  When I see Lily's little quivering face, I already know what's coming.  I feel it too. 

Because I am an adult, I know that there is nothing to be afraid of.  That her teacher is a wonderful, loving, caring person and would never allow her to be in harm's way.  That the other kids too, are a little nervous and want to make friends and have fun.  That I will always come and get her and give her all the love she felt she missed in those six hours.  That she is OK, just as she is.

One of the hardest things, for me, in being a mother, is watching the girls, especially Lily right now, experience those painful but great learning experiences, that not only will give her character, but eventually strength.  I envision my first forays into this arena, walking into a school, into a class, in front of children I do not know, and offering myself.  Just me.  And hoping that I am enough.  When Lily turns around, I want her to see me, even if only in spirit, holding her up and lending her the strength until she has her own.  On her first day, I tapped her heart and said, "You feel this right here?  This is your heart.  And here is mine.  If you feel sad, tap it and know that Mommy is right there with you.  I will tap mine too and we will always love each other."  She gave me a sly smile and a hug and went off to the classroom.  If I have to do that every day, I will.  But it is breaking me down a little bit each time.

(c) Copyright 2010.  City Mom in the Jungle.