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And it's here! We have lots to do today. There are the cookies for Santa that we must bake (or break off, tomato, to-MAH-to), the carrots to leave out for the reindeer, the letter we must write for Santa thanking him for stopping by with his gifts, and putting out the gifts we have brought for others (Grandma and Grandpa). Soon, Grandma will start baking her ham and maybe even some homemade rolls, and if the girls are good, they will be able to help too.
I hope to go to an early church service this evening so that Lily can experience the joy and beauty of the Christmas service with the Nativity and candlelight singing. She is finally old enough to understand it and her sensitive soul will really be moved by the unity, the community. While I am not religious and have been out of a church for years now, I do know that "Jesus is the reason for the season" and want Lily to identify with that, rather than the cashing in via Santa program. My dear girl whispered to me last night, "Mommy, I don't want a train anymore from Santa. I just want whatever gifts he wants to bring me." Love her.
Last night I stayed up wrapping some of the gifts for the girls while my mother wrapped hers and finished her very-last-minute Christmas cards. Just imagining the girls' faces as some of the gifts are discovered, I got the giggles. After years of take-it-or-leave-it Christmases, the idea of reliving the magic through the eyes of the wees has me all tickled inside. I think I might have overdone it with the gifts. I just couldn't help it. I want them to feel special, that Santa considered them. My inner baby girl just wants to be thought of, considered and I would love to head these two off at the pass on that long road called psychotherapy. I am considering them and want them to know it.
Twas the night before Christmas and my babies don't know
that Mommy is planning a hell of a show.
I cannot wait to see their little faces. Merry Christmas, Little people.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Three days, two nights. We have been at my parents' house since Monday morning. As we were meant to wake up at 4:00 am on Monday morning to prep for our trip, Didier and I put the girls to bed at 6:15 pm and enjoyed a quiet evening together saying goodbye. I hate these times and drank more than my share of a great wine, flirting with and kissing my husband, secretly devastated that the "we" was Lily, Virginie, and me again. At least for two weeks. My goodbyes are so teenagery, ridiculously so. I have always been hopelessly romantic and desperate, but desperate in the "hearts aflutter, I can't breathe without you" kind of way, not the "I am a freak and will do anything for attention" kind of way. Maybe they are the same, I don't know. I just know that while trying to make the best of it, the fact that I am away from my husband and have taken my children from their father, no matter how noble the reason, gives me pause.
I am torn. I had hoped that we would make a go of it and do it together, even if it meant that the kids would spend the holiday in Barbados seeing their father sporadically. But then I thought, Oh God, spending the holiday in Barbados would depress me to no end and on top of it we would be without Didier? Two children, both talkative and artistic and creative, are just overwhelming and exhausting at any time. Add in the spectacle and wonder of Christmas time and I would be crushed could I not provide them with that magic, that joy, that heartwarming spirit.
Of course I know that there are people for whom this is a common occurrence. I have such respect for their resolve and their courage--soldiers, single mothers, people who must make the choice to serve the greater community. How do they endure the looks on the faces of their children as they try to explain where they are going and why? I just cannot imagine how that tears at the heart. How do they pretend that being without their loved ones holiday after holiday doesn't phase them, especially as they watch others celebrate and create memories.
While they are very hard to discern, there are seasons here in Barbados. This, December, is winter time and it has been a bit cooler. It rains less and is generally less humid than during rainy season. As it is a bit dryer and will only get more so, food, fruit trees and I suppose some other sources, deplete, leaving the monkeys a bit desperate for food. I do feel for the little buggers, but am still not particularly thrilled to find them trolling the garden looking for mangoes, fig bananas, or hand outs. The hand outs, I thought, we had cleared up. Whatever the former tenants and the ones before them had done, ie fed the monkeys, we have not been doing and will continue not to. It has been a year and a half. There will still be no more food coming from my hand to the mouths of wild animals in my yard and I have driven that fact home to all members of the household.
This week alone we have seen the roving band of monkeys, watched the mongoose flit from one wooded section to the next, and had two birds fly in and get stranded in the house. Poor Didier, assigned as the "get animals, whatever they may be out of the house" man, had to pick them up and carry them out, releasing them to the skies, after, of course, a little poo in the hand. A few days ago, while chatting with my landlady in the yard, we both keep turning our heads in response to a tinkling noise that was distracting and curious at the same time, only to discover a group of young monkey kids had taken down a wind chime from one of the patios and were racing back and forth on the rooftop dragging it. Complete silliness. She tried in vain to get them to return it to us. I think I would have just freaked if she'd been able to get them to understand her. Like all little kids, her pleas caused them to run faster and wilder, climbing higher into the trees. Small wonder Lily and Virginie love the monkeys so.
I was certainly not as cavalier about les singes when we first moved in. My first week here I discovered that the sound of the crying baby had them racing to the burglar bars around the house straining for a closer look. I could walk into the living room from the bedroom and there would be heads poking in, eyes darting around the room. Cowering in terror and shrieking at the top of my lungs were pretty much the order of the day, every day, every time I saw those golden tails pass the window. I didn't even like to be outside for too long because I needed to maintain the perimeter and truthfully, it was exhausting.
We have spent more time in the garden walking, playing, sitting on a blanket or lounging on lawn chairs, as we expect that our time here is soon over and we want to enjoy as much of the lushness before we head off to parts unknown. Never did I say that the landscape of Barbados is not beautiful, or that I didn't appreciate, while not-so-quietly fearing the wildlife and its close proximity. There is beauty here. There are moments that are surely mapped in my psyche, maybe even my heart, that I will draw on later in my life.
But the monkeys, the monkeys, the monkeys. Try as I might, I cannot stop watching them and bugging out every time they come close, which is nearly every day. With them, I am like one of those people who are told to act naturally in front of the camera, but as soon as they see the camera they are as stiff and unnatural as can be. I see the monkeys and I am called to attention and watch them until they hop over the wall, climb over the fence, or swing from one tree to another off property.
More than likely, when we leave Barbados, we will leave the girls' swing set behind as it is expensive to ship back and not really fabulous enough not to be replaceable. I think the monkeys will appreciate my parting gift. It will be theirs to use freely and frequently until the next tenants come along and decide how they would like to proceed with monkeys in the garden. I wonder if they will miss me as much as I will (probably) miss them.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
(Last two photos were taken at my friend Wendy's house. She gets lots of monkeys as the cabdrivers hoping to impress tourists with the sight of the monkeys, feed them rather close to her home.)
I've never once considered the rope when watching the game of tug of war. If it is strong enough, it will withstand the pulling and tugging and tearing by the two contested teams and should it not be, it will fray or fall completely apart, snapping in the middle. I have always enjoyed the physics of watching evenly matched teams redistribute their weight and have one team, somehow find more strength, a better position. And win.
Except that now I consider the rope, as the rope is me. I have worked so hard to have both girls see how special they are in my eyes. When one gets a hug, the other does too. I divide snacks evenly and do not offer one if I do not have another for the other. I encourage them both to see the talent, intelligence, beauty, skill, you name it, of the other and make sure that we all applaud achievement, good manners, and politeness. Yet, Lily and Virginie will go to blows over who gets more attention, affection, and the unspoken, love, from Mommy. I say it over and over, "Mommy has love for everyone" and "Mommy loves her two girls so much." But let one of them do more drawing on the dry erase board or one more dive in the pool or stand on the step stool to watch Mommy make toast and all my talk becomes chatter. The pulling starts.
It's strangely humbling when trying to raise children, to find that they are indeed their own individuals and while our job may be to guide them, we can never change their behavior, reactions, what they show is all their own to the core. Virginie is not even 20 months old and whenever Lily even dreams of creeping closer to me, her hawk eye spots it and she shouts, "Move! Move Mimi!" Lily will wake in the middle of the night and whisper, "Mommy, I want you to be in the bed with me. Don't sleep next to Virginie." Even if, miraculously, I am not even in the room with them! They do also tell each other "Good job" and "Yay" and all those encouraging expressions, but there is a lot of "look at me, look at me" in my daily routine.
Some mornings I take Virginie to her swimming lessons and support her as she swims and breathes all across the pool and turn around and do the same thing for Lily hours later in the afternoon. With my minimal driving, I still manage to get them both to these lessons and give them all I have. I have started my "soccer/cheer/dance mom" duties early. On the drive back, the girls inevitably ask me to do something that is nearly impossible. Open a bag of chips. Take something out of the bag in the seat behind me. Pick up Virginie's ear, nose and toe paper from the floor. Never have they asked their father to do anything while driving other than to turn the music up. But they imagine that Mommy is capable, or at least foolish enough to attempt all requests.
I am not sure if the tugging works my nerves more than the following. Both Lily and Virginie follow on my heels wherever I go, even if they had been playing or doing something they love. Once they realize that I have gotten out of their sights, they hightail it. Lily in particular drives me mental on this one, as she also has that character down, the little dog who nips at the feet of the bulldog saying, "Yeah, Spike. You are the best, Spike. No one like you, Spike," much to the consternation of Spike. I am Spike.
With all the responsibilities at home for dinner and bedtime prep, come many opportunities to give one of the girls more attention than the other. One more floret of broccoli, the better washcloth, more juice, one more hug, kiss, glance. I am so conscious and attentive to my own behavior with each of them, that by the time the day is over, I am spent. It would seem that after the girls have fallen asleep I could get a break, but then Didier comes home with his needs and demands. Pull.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
I know some of us like to forget this era as not too many were looking as good as we do now, but when Michael Jackson's Thriller came out, that long jheri curl look rocked by Miss Nola Ray as the object of MJ's affection was quite an inspiring 'do for the young black ladies watching videos late night in the rec room. My mother booked appointments for my sister and me at a Beauty School where we were to have our tired, French braided kid styles transformed into the glow of Nola's shiny long curls. I probably should have realized we were headed for a different kind of curve when those tiny rollers came out, but my young heart was set on the hotness and I was sure, as I'd brought the picture for reference, that they got the vibe I was going for. Maybe it wouldn't be exact, but it would be fresh.
My first glance in the mirror and I knew we hadn't made it. I bore no resemblance to Nola Ray or any love interest of anyone, certainly not Michael Jackson in Thriller. I looked more like Jermaine or some other lesser Jackson. My bad skin and braces were not helping the situation much either and I vowed never to be seen again in public. There was the unfortunate issue of having to attend school for the next few years and the fact that my mother did not sympathize with me in the least. A full weekend of non-stop crying ensued and then Monday morning. I wore a headband and didn't take it off for the next three years. No really. If you can find the photos you will see this is true.
From that moment forward, I wore my hair short. I'd never dreamed I could be a long hair person. The jheri curl gave way to a Denise Huxtable faux punk rock spiked look, then shaved (my dad really loved that one), and then a natural. I kept it short, neat, cool, relaxed.
Now in Barbados, for the first time in 35 years, I find my hair nearing shoulder length and see photos of myself where I am hardly recognizable to myself. This is no easy feat, as any black woman can tell you, as the humidity, salt water, chlorinated pool water, and sun wreak havoc on our hair. But my other alternative is to have to maintain that short look which turns out not to have been so natural. There is lots of conditioning. Wearing leave-ins for days at a time and hot oil treatments. I have thought about cornrows or braids or something kind of "island style." Not me. When I do occasionally blow it out to remind my husband that I was once totally hot, I take the blowdryer out on the patio so as not to get heat trapped in the house. Seriously. My hair has been lightened by the sun and a little squeeze of lime juice in the hair. You can take the girl out of New Jersey, but you can't take Jersey out of the girl. Word.
Here, as in countless locales around the world where reputable and underground salons house women and men who can work some magic with Black hair, I have chosen not to submit. I do not want to be a slave to the salon. Afraid of getting my hair wet, sweating it out, or having my "kitchen" look raggedy. I wear a ponytail or a bun everyday because to wear it down is to sweat and itch more than I can bear. Seems silly to keep it longer and yet it works. I told Didier I would cut it when we moved away from Barbados. Get a style and get back into style, fashion, character. But for now, all this hair signifies my walk off the beaten path, a journey into myself. I am out of the loop. Lost in the jungle. Thick hair growing around my head. Dare I admit, I kind of like it?
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Two years ago, on an unbelievably rainy morning in New York City, Didier and I, who had secured a marriage license from City Hall one week earlier, trekked down to the Justice of the Peace and got married. We left Lily at home with a sitter, as far as she was concerned we were already married. We'd asked a few friends to meet us, to bear witness, to show support, but we knew we'd celebrate in grander fashion a few weeks later at Didier's best friend's home. I wore a ruffled silk shirt that Didier's mother, Paulette, had given me one Christmas and brown DKNY corduroy pants. They were the only thing that fit me. I was 5 months pregnant. With our second child.
With our friend Dan, whom we both love more than we are even able to admit, we'd gone to the Diamond District and picked out our wedding bands, his a simple platinum, mine simple as well but with a few diamonds interspersed. We'd forgone an engagement ring, joking that our commitment was pretty secure and that Lily, our first, served as our promise ring. That was not really enough for my parents who could barely contain their frustration at my continuing to bear children without sealing the deal on paper. It isn't that we weren't going to marry, but that there was no rush and he'd been married before.
I am not sure why there was no rush on my part. He'd been previously married to a shrew and I think was relieved that I could take it or leave it. I'd hoped to be his wife, but was not really interested in the show. I'm an actress, so I love a good performance, but in matters of the heart and of the spirit, I am often timid to share my true feelings. I couldn't see having lots of colleagues and family members, many of whom had never seen even a glimpse of my heart, come together to celebrate this moment with me and someone that I loved, at the time and now, fights over children and household chores not withstanding, more than anyone I had ever loved in my life up until that point (well, except for Lily). I could hardly articulate it and was often brought to blustery tears as I tried to express my sense of "us" and what we would be to one another. We were already a family with Lily and making it official at that time just suddenly made sense.
There were no traditional vows. I did not say "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health." There was no promise from anyone to obey the other as that certainly could not be fulfilled on any end. But there was love and there was hope and living in New York City and having survived his miserable separation and divorce, we were sure we could weather any storm. And then came Barbados.
With a new baby and two relocations--first to Florida, then to Barbados, we were off to a rocky start. When I arrived and Didier was working ten to twelve hours a day while I stayed at home adjusting to the heat and cultural changes, slowly going mad, I questioned everything. I imagine, if we are truthful, everyone has doubts about their ability to make sacrifices and changes and really make the commitment in marriage. Unless, of course, they are on TV, and it is all pretty easy, Maybe it is just me, but I had serious doubts. Two small kids, one a newborn. A busy husband. A country I could not connect to and did not want to live in. We'd only been married one year. I haven't had the best of luck in relationships. Maybe I really wasn't good at it. I just couldn't see myself hanging on all "real, real housewife style."
But that, that is marriage. And I did hang in there. And I tried to open my heart and myself to the place that we were going to call home for two years. And I stopped blaming him for making me come here. The girls started to grow up and my postpartum depression, which took me down for the count pretty much every single day started to subside some time after the baby turned 15 months. Neither of the girls want me to get any sleep still, but in general, things are looking up. It's hard because I have often not been the greatest team player, having been alone for so long and liking solitude. But I love my family. This is the best team I ever imagined and while I complain about how they are trying to take me down daily, I could not trade them. Any of them.
Today Didier and I spent a wonderful afternoon at the Colony Club on the West Coast having what I think is one of the best brunches on the island. We held hands, drank a cocktail and shared a bottle of wine, while eating to our hearts' content. Our dear landlady watched the girls. Didier and I remembered what it was like when we stole glances, fed each other food and giggled at each others' jokes. We felt like a team, like partners, like lovers, like we knew exactly why we got married.
It was hot as hell yesterday, the actual date of our anniversary. There was no frosty rain or wind to take us back to that moment. But we sat together. Didier. Lily. Virginie. And I. And we celebrated.
Happy Anniversary, my love. Happy Anniversary, family.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Tonight I gave Lily a pink bracelet with little silver studs entwined as a reward for not throwing up in the car for five days in a row. We have also done stickers and made a rewards chart that is posted on her wall because I want to honor her process in every way that I can. For nearly two weeks, Lily would vomit in the car somewhere en route from our house to her primary school in St.Michael, a thirty minute drive on good days, an eternity on the bad ones. And there had been plenty of bad ones due to a traffic detour set up on the bumpy, semi-paved roads of Bridgetown for the past few weeks.
I did consider car sickness and searched the house frantically for the motion sickness bracelets I wore while pregnant with Virginie who had me spinning like I was on a dingy in the middle of the ocean in a hurricane, but to no avail. I gave her Gravol, a motion-sickness medication before we left for school, but got concerned that she would have to take it indefinitely. Finally, we went to the doctor to have her ears checked because I was sure that either her equilibrium was off, that her not eating enough, or eating too much, or drinking too much citrus on an empty stomach (a glass of OJ), or inner ear damage, was the culprit. But as I kept talking to the doctor I realized that the vomiting episodes happened only in the morning, never in the afternoon. That we never had the problem on weekends or if someone else besides her loving parents was taking her to school. I had thought perhaps I should not go on the school run, as maybe I was the catalyst for the show, Mommy always being the best audience for illness or freak out or loud singing, burping, farting. But she'd begged me to come with her every morning and I liked the idea of the family going together in support of Lily, however she needed it.
Lily was in completely good physical health, but emotionally, mentally, she was feeling down. It seems that, though she loves school, she thought that when she was dropped off, Virginie and I were at home sealing the deal on being best friends in the world and that she, Lily, was being left out completely. When the attention was sent back in her direction, via the no throw up countdown, with the potential for prizes and gifts if all was well played, she stopped. For the last five morning school runs there has been no vomit. No Mommy jumping over her seat to grab the hurl sack and pin it under her neck. No more rides in ratty t-shirts to prevent her uniform from getting stained.
When I gave her the bracelet tonight, wrapped in pink tissue paper and sealed with a sticker, her eyes lit up. She was so excited that I had remembered and honored my promise. As her little fingers peeled back the paper and she saw the bracelet, she smiled so wide and deliciously. A little something special. Just for her. Opened in front of Virginie who exclaimed, "Oh Mimi (the name she calls Lily)!" She wore it to bed and curled her arms around it so as not to lose it and for a brief moment, maybe just even for tonight, Lily felt good and secure. I will keep trying.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Having grown up in the Northeastern United States (New Jersey and New York) and gone to undergrad and grad school in Boston no less, my expectations for Christmas and anything considered a "winter wonderland" are admittedly high. A "Winter Wonderland" conjures images of snowcapped everything with rolling hills of snow and candy canes with snow on top. Elves walking in the snow to and from Santa's workshop as reindeer practice their flying and landing in the SNOW for their special night, well really their ONLY night out, of the year. With my parents now residing in Florida and having had an occasional, OK, one Christmas, spent in Mexico, I do accept that snow does not have to be present for a wonderland to be created. But that snowless wonderland had better be damned good.
Alas, such was not the case this evening at the "Winter Wonderland" event at the Kensington Oval, a cricket stadium near Bridgetown, where magic and spectacle was to be the order of the evening. My expectations were not high. I hate to admit it, but I had little faith, but wanted Lily and her girlfriends with whom we'd made the journey, to feel the sense of Christmas and joy that I'd had as a kid. While I know it is impossible to compare the presentations of say, the Icecapades or Radio City Music Hall or one of the New York ballet company's Nutcracker, to any cultural event in a developing country, I was trying to remain open and leave my staggering expectations at the door. I did get a little nervous when no alcohol was available for consumption in a country where you can buy a beer or rum and Coke at the fast food joint, but I thought, hey, this is for the kids. I don't need no stinking alcohol! Right.
I cheered for a school choir who got the crowd in the mood with some holiday songs and really got into a steel band called Mosaic who seriously could have been the only act on the docket and it would have been enough for me. When the sun tucked itself in for a long night of sleep, the parade began. We started with a gingerbread house lit up like the best house on the block and a wee Hansel and Gretel walking along side it. Cute. I mean, nothing for me to write home about, but it was quite lovely for the kids. It took a really long time for the golf-cart driven float to make its way around the stadium and I started to wonder if it was just keeping Bajan time or where they just trying to get the crowd excited with a slow crawl. Dora and Diego came next and got the kiddies in the audience on their feet! People were cheering and screaming and running onto the field! Oh, OK, no security then, just an announcement to please return to their seats so that all could enjoy the parade.
Turns out there wasn't too much to the parade. Some characters from Nickelodeon, a black Santa (of course, he can be whatever you want him to be!), some elves and sexy cheerleaders. I said it. Sexy Caribbean cheerleaders at a kids' show. Who even knew there were cheerleaders in Barbados? What the heck do they usually cheer for? Tonight, it was for Santa and Diego. There was a little jumping up and some serious dance hall moves, but all in good fun, right? That's as far as we got. After the shabby little parade, a few musical acts took the stage one by one. Looking, at best, like hopeful recording acts at an industry event, they had even the locals screaming for Santa and trying to boo them off the stage. While I don't condone that sort of behavior (I can't handle American Idol reject shows and ice skaters falling because they have so much faith in themselves, even if we don't.), I could see the point. This was a childrens' show and I didn't see much else for the kids to see.
As we left the stadium, we saw throngs of audience members racing to their cars. Lily was none the wiser. She didn't even know there was more to see and enjoyed the characters in the parade, however paltry the offering. My dear friend Wendy and her family stayed to report that eventually, Dora returned to the stage. Stage. Envision the stage at your primary school sitting in the middle of a football field and that will provide you with the visuals. She sang a couple of songs and Diego dirty danced with a cheerleader. Wendy and family rolled out at about 8:30, nearly 5 hours after we'd arrived. She is a trooper and I thank her for staying so long to prove to me that I must seek my cultural events, if a Christmas Spectacular can be called such, elsewhere.
(I hope to have some pictures soon.) It seems that I psychically knew this would be rubbish and I left my camera at home for the first time in weeks. Apparently, with no lighting on the field, the only way to get a decent photo was if multiple flashes were going off at once. Brilliant.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
So one week after breathing a sigh, however brief, in Florida, we are back in Barbados. Didier's allergies have rendered him, quite literally speechless, Lily continues to vomit in the car ride to school, and Virginie is suffering from some gastrointestinal issue that is truly causing me more stress than it is her. I am doing my best to prep us for the Christmas holiday, buying gifts for school teachers and assistants, for the gardening team, for the pool guy, for the garbage pick up men, for the cleaning lady and her crew, for our landlady and her husband, for Lily's friends and classmates, for Didier's team and Executive Committee, and eventually, for our actual families and close friends. I have 21 days.
We will, as last year, spend the holiday apart. The girls and I will travel again to Florida, yes, for one million dollars (done with the Dr. Evil pinky ponder to the mouth), and Didier will stay to cook, serve, and entertain the spoiled guests at his hotel. He will be so busy that on Christmas morning he will be on the beach at 6 am serving champagne to the hotel patrons while his wife and children open the gifts that Santa was so kind enough to leave with Grandma and Grandpa, in the living room of their home. We will SKYPE him to send our love and well wishes some time in the afternoon and then spend a week with my parents. In their home. Where I will be 17 again. Except this time with two children who are truly loved and adored when they are adorable but who need to go behind Door Number 2 when their childish personalities come out and they become "too much." I am working on centering myself now so when I go left of center, I remember where the middle is and don't bug out of my face too much. If we thought it were at all possible to stay and spend time together, we certainly would. But Didier's job demands too much of his time and attention during busy season and the girls would mourn his absence every hour.
This time of year has always been tough for me. I am a real melancholy baby, even though I am outwardly and quite truthfully at heart, very sunny. I am the light and the dark and this time of year reminds me just how much so. I love the time from Thanksgiving all the way to the new year. There is resolution, hope, promise for the new year. But there is also, the end. A reminder of what has passed and what will no longer be. I think in broad strokes at this time of year, so the minutiae gives way to the grander picture which is good. It doesn't help that my birthday falls right after the new year when most people are getting back into routine and the joys of the holiday season give way to real life.
Real life. At the end of the year means gifts, Christmas plays and shows and pageants, letters to Santa, a decorated tree at home, so Santa has a place to leave more gifts for the girls in Barbados and so that Papa will not feel left out of the spirit. Real life also means, celebrating our anniversary with whispers and quick moments of holding hands and packing. Real life means, carrying gifts bought in Florida and brought to Barbados over Thanksgiving, back to Florida because my brain was too tired to consider leaving them there. Real life means a Christmas alone with the girls and my parents when they should have their father there to celebrate too. Real life means turning 40 and then 41 at home with my parents. Real life means coming back to Barbados in time to get Lily sent off to the next term of school while poor Didier continues to do all he can at an understaffed, under-managed hotel.
But it also means planning, dreaming, starting afresh in my heart and mind. Because a new year brings with it the chance to do something completely different. As the new year starts, I don't write resolutions, but I gain resolve and promise myself to achieve something I thought I couldn't. I do it for myself and for the girls because as they see me do something they know I fear, it will give them the nerve to try it themselves one day. And I do tell them that I am doing something I am a little afraid of. I do share with them that it is scary, difficult, challenging, whatever it might be so that they don't think that I have some sort of superhuman strength. So they can see that I am just a person too and that I am willing to try.
So Didier has taken his allergy meds, though he is still convinced he does not have allergies, and has improved immensely. Lily has been given incentive not to throw up in the car by way of rewards for each time she doesn't, which will lead to a small price after five vomit-free morning car rides. Virginie was given a probiotic and lots of coconut water and liquid and is back on her regular cycle. And Mommy? Well Mommy is trying to tackle that on-line shopping list and wrangle the gifts for all who do so much to support us in our lives here. Mommy is grateful and Mommy is hopeful. And she hopes that in her forty-first year, she will find a way to celebrate with her husband and two beautiful girls together in a place that restores peace and hope to our family.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
When I was younger, Thanksgiving was the domain of the grandmothers, and I was blessed with two incredible ladies bearing that title. Grandma Penn and Grandma Schooler, Jessie Mae and Frances, were two of the world's finest--strong, elegant, graceful, peaceful, and God-fearing. Both could cook some food, tell some stories, and pour unconditional love into your heart with such ease I figured everyone did it this way. It was effortless, or so it seemed, and being with them is something I miss more than I allow myself to notice, but is completely unavoidable at Thanksgiving.
The Penns and the Schoolers genuinely liked each other and though they knew each other only because of the marriage of their children, they gave love and support to each other like old friends. Many Thanksgivings, we would drive either from Martinsville, Virginia to Durham, North Carolina or vice versa to celebrate with both families. And if that could not be worked out, one family would travel to pay a visit to the other. I never knew that this was not the norm. They greeted each other as family and welcomed each other, as they did everyone, into their homes. As both of my parents come from large families, there were always cousins and aunts and uncles and second cousins and somehow-cousins milling about. We would play games and tell jokes, listen to old stories about slavery times and our family trees, connecting the dots of our past with the dreams of our future.
Both sides could boast of intelligent, creative, and exciting characters who made the best of what they had and "turned it into something." The importance of both family and education could not have been stressed enough and it would be a particularly proud moment to tell the grands about a new achievement or dream fulfilled. They loved hearing these stories and were so proud of us all. In our family, Thanksgiving more than Christmas brought everyone together, because it was at this time that we all travelled. We would come from everywhere to share that time together, with extended family and friends, giving thanks for all we'd achieved and accomplished that year, and feeling blessed to have wonderful people with whom to share the news.
The food was always good and abundant. Turkey, honey-baked ham, collard greens, sweet potatoes, 7-layer salad, black-eyed peas, corn bread and homemade rolls, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, cakes and pies and ice cream, Cokes in old-fashioned bottles, and wine, maybe even some corn liquor on the sly if Jessie Mae was pouring. Hearts and souls and stomachs filled, that was Thanksgivings past.
And of Thanksgiving present? My sister and brother and their families, including my brother's mother-in-law, my Godbrother and his wife and his mother and his wife's mother all came together at my parents' home in Florida to keep the tradition and maintain the bond. The table was a little more elegant, the wine was certainly improved, and the numbers were smaller, but in all, the setting and the food and the company were marvelous. Watching cousins play and fight and make up and play again. Grandma Schooler's delicious rolls made by my mother. Two hams devoured in two days. A macaroni and cheese by my sister that brought tears to the eyes. We didn't have the chance to go around the table to talk about what we were each thankful for, but a grace given at the table by my dad, with folks holding hands around the buffet of food, gave us closeness, companionship, and warmth that came from inside and not the Florida sun.
I am truly grateful for all that I have accomplished in life, daily complaints aside. For my family. For my children. For my friends. Having a sense of community, the feeling of belonging has been something I have sought in so many places and with so many people for much of my life. Being with my family, my parents, my brother and sister, my Godbrother and the families we have made brought me closer than I have ever felt before to belonging. Though the moments of peace were fleeting, they were there and I felt them. That is what makes being in Barbados so difficult for me. Though I have run from these people nearly all my life, nothing can sever the tie. And as the energy cords between us are stretched to breaking with me in isolation in Bim, I dream of home. I know it isn't a place. But I also know that for me, for my family, it isn't here.
I need a space where my roots, spiritual, emotional, physical, familial can dig deep and anchor. A place where I am reminded of all that I am thankful for and can spend less time and energy praying for release. I am thankful for my time in Barbados because it was here that I learned my own strength, found my own power, learned that I could not do it all, conquered some of my demons, and discovered that I could choose to save myself and that I would. Choose me. I chose me. And for that, there is thanks giving.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
It was our intention to take Lily to school yesterday to give us more time and focus on packing as we prepared for a quick trip to the States to celebrate Thanksgiving. But Lily had other plans, though they may not have been intentional. As we raced to get in the car after lunch packing and letter writing to her classmates, a little writing project developed at her school, she looked green and said she wanted to throw up. It never happened. But neither did we take her to school through the heavily trafficked Bridgetown, which meant that packing, expected to be a relatively painless endeavor lasted over 4 hours. We are only staying for four days. Four sets of clothes for four people for four days.
Our travel time from Bridgetown to Miami was 4 hours. Four hours of sitting with the girls and drawing, strategically placing stickers, watching videos on God's gift to parents, the portable DVD player, going to the bathroom, snacking, looking out the window and imagining we could walk on the clouds, diaper changing in the seat, going to the bathroom, standing on our seats (some of us), kicking the seats in front of us (the same some of us), eating and drinking and spilling and fighting and hugging. But alas, here the law of fours did not apply. There was only room for three of us in our row, row 25, seats D, E, and F. So poor Didier was left out of all the fun while he dozed and I believe dreamt peacefully in row 26. (Of course, he did offer help and step in when I needed to move about on my own, but he missed the constant companionship of les petites filles. He wasn't really asleep, but I am taking a little license here.)
While still relatively chaotic, Miami International Airport was more organized mayhem than in previous visits. Maybe it was the addition of Didier helping me to navigate the crowds and carrying bags and leading the charge to pass the slowpokes. Perhaps my dear Lily is growing up. Sure, she was pretty restless and Virginie cried her face off and took her shoes off and ran barefoot through the very serious Immigration Department, putting smiles on faces with her way-too-cuteness, but it was all relatively painless, though exhausting.
Suddenly we were in the Navigator, leaving Miami and heading to my parents' home where family, food, champagne and cocktails were waiting for us. The journey was for this. As I told Lily, we were going to celebrate Thanksgiving, a time when we give thanks for everyone and everything that makes our lives special. She asked me if I would tell her when we got to thankful and that innocence, that sweetness, made me smile. For my family, for all that we have when so many have not, I am thankful. We have arrived.
For the 4:15 am wake up call, I am not so thankful.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
I have no idea what I did when I was a four year old with a baby sister, looking all cute and sweet and delicious as she was, to get attention. But I seriously hope I was not working the moves that Lily has going on. While I stress on a regular basis because I was once a four year old with a cute and sweet and delicious baby sister, that both girls are wonderful and special and precious and valuable to me, Lily is determined to win my attention by any means necessary. And today, that meant urinating on the floor in her room, through her underpants and then coming to tell me, "I have no undy-bundies because I peed in my room because I didn't remember where the bathroom was and I am...(wait for it)...really sorry." Say what? Excuse me? You didn't remember where the bathroom was?
I walked outside. Of the house. To regroup. She was looking at me through her bedroom window crying for me to come inside and give her a hug. I told her, with my lips snarled and my teeth clenched in a position only a mother with TMJ could assume, that I needed a minute to think because I was so angry I was purple. This, of course, brought her to tears but seriously, am I not expected to be peeved out of my face? I had just put Virginie down for a late nap. Lily had spent a good time with two of her girlfriends swinging and running in the mud, and jumping on the beds in her room with muddy feet, and laughing and playing and swinging some more, only minutes earlier. Had she taken some peyote and actually forgotten that her bathroom was right next to the room in which she had chosen a corner to pee? Oh, wait, no. She is four years old.
This incident is just one in a series of late where Lily does something completely outlandish and ridiculous and then says she is really sorry and requires a hug for her transgression before I even get the chance to fully understand what has taken place. Drawing on her sheets in gold marker. Writing on the wall. Leaving the refrigerator open. Washing her body with a washcloth and then using that same cloth to wash the wall, the floor of the shower, or better the toilet. Refusing to give toys, pacifiers, whatever to Virginie. Telling on Virginie for doing A, B, C to her and then crying because I do not punish the little thing.
I tell both girls, all the time, that I love them and that they do not have to show off for me. That they can just be their curious little selves without having to impress me because I am already impressed. I know it is difficult for Lily as Virginie right now still demands so much of my attention. Virginie is still a baby. Still needs diaper changes. Still needs a cuddle or two to convince her of certain things. But I offer Lily the same number of cuddles. The same of everything. I am aware of her struggles for independence, street cred, and the need for Mommy's love and affection. I know that I am home alone so much that it does seem like she needs to compete for the only adult in the house, rarely do we have two parents and two children together at the same time. When we do, they just jump through fire hoops to get Didier to notice them.
I have a target on my back. Lily the attention-seeking missile is headed straight for me and though she drives me completely insane at times and the urine on the floor sent me screaming into the jungle to cool my jets, I love her madly. I guess I just need to find a way to guide, show her how I love her without all the craziness, all the show, all the bad-attention-is better than-no attention attention. I feel her pain and I remember it well. Maybe going through this, I can heal us both.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
There is a war going on in our household and it is waged mostly at night on the battleground that used to be my gorgeous, perky breasts, but is now a flattened landscape with pulls, chews, and scratches. Virginie, my wee little person, who can talk and asks to go potty (though is not fully trained, of course. I know what that does to babies doing it too early, anal retention. Her father trained before 2 years. No more to say.), refuses to give up the boobs. She is still nursing is what I am so crudely trying to say. I swore to myself and anyone who would listen that she would be off by the time she was 12 months old, even earlier than I'd weaned her sister. But Lily moved on on her own, fascinated by purees and those tiny Cheerios she could pinch between her little fingers.
There has been a battle of wills raging here and our horns are locked. She is an Aries/Taurus and I am a Capricorn. We go head to head on this nearly every night which has involved screams at top pitch, head shaking, shouting, pinching, biting, and finally everyone in tears. I have moved her for the past three nights from her shared room with Lily, to the guestroom where she can shout it out loud until her little voice gives out and that is often two to three hours from when we began. Her favorite time of night seems to be 2-2:30 am. I hate it. I am exhausted. But I have hunkered down and will meet her there every night until she gives them up.
In my mind's eye is that scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's genius film, The Last Emperor, when a nearly pre-teen Puyi, the last emperor of China, son of Heaven, removes the blouse of his mother/wet nurse and begins to suckle. I have terrifying visions of a yammering three year old Virginie talking about something to some other children, or worse yet, some adult, and then turning to me and saying,"I am ready for my boo boo's," our current term of endearment. Like much else that goes on over here, I am doing this alone. My sister reminds me that plenty of single mothers found a way to get their kids off the teet, so I should figure it out my damned self, thank you very much, hence the early morning showdowns between Virginie and me.
I am tempted to try the aloe on the nipples. While it is non-toxic, I hear it just tastes awful to the babes and that Virginie will be so turned off by me that she will roll over, never to return to suckling again. I hate to consider it, but I have been losing sleep, a whole lot of sleep, and I just don't think Virginie NEEDS it anymore. I think she wants it and that it brings her some comfort, but it is no longer necessary. She has a pacifier, her nose and ear and now toe paper. What more can she do with my poor shrunken mammaries?
I know this is not over and it will not be until she is off and as happy about that as I will be, but I must see this through. It does make me feel good that this little one has such incredible willpower, that she can handle her own and takes care of business, but I fear our not being on the same team. She is really a force to be reckoned with and my soon-to-be 41 year old self is not sure she can handle these little skirmishes. I intend to win this war, but Virginie is kicking my ass in the hand-to-hand street fight. Stay tuned.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
As we slowly tried to settle ourselves back into real life after Tomas, the toll of the moving about and the heat and the exhaustion and fatigue started to set in with everyone. Talking to our family doctor, I heard stories of all kinds of sicknesses and under-the-weather feelings with people all over the island. Lily and Virginie shared their pent up stress one morning on the way to school through crazily detoured Bridgetown by vomiting, one after the other all over their little bodies, clothes, and carseats. After turning around to get them both back home and in bed or on the couch or jumping from one piece of furniture to the next, you know, to recuperate, neither one of them looked worse for the wear once we were actually home and they were naked. (Naked being the state preferred by all household members, save me.)
Sometimes in the silence just after the girls have gone to sleep, the lack of noise, the deafening call of my name ad infinitum suddenly over, I feel the solitude the most. Not because I am missing the girls, they are right in front of me sleeping like angels on clouds. It is because it feels like the spooky quiet after a really great concert. The energy, the pulsating heat going through and around my body, and then stillness so eerie and otherworldly that I am sure I have been abducted by aliens, taken to another planet, and sent back to earth with some sort of message that I don't yet know. Maybe I don't even know the message is there but know I have missed some time that feels like forever but it's been just five minutes. My ears ring. My eyes dart around the room catching everything, even in total darkness. I feel like I don't quite belong to me. So I wait.
I rarely leave the girls' room and jump back into life. I don't get on the phone or watch TV or have a cocktail listening to music. I stay in the quiet. I might write or do something resembling meditation for the scribble minded (Scribble-minded being like the characters in Charles Schulz's Peanuts who had a bubble over their heads with scribble in it, usually in response to someone doing something strange or confusing. I always wondered if they were frustrated or just so overwhelmed with their own thoughts that they had no comment.), but I mostly try to regroup.
I know that I am suffering the effects of some sort of sensory manipulation. I know this because I jump at the phone ringing or hush anyone, everyone when I hear the girls crying, even though they are not crying. I wake up before they call me knowing they are about to call me. And they are always about to call me. I wince at the tiny frogs singing songs all night long in the garden because they disturb the silence. I don't have thoughts of killing them or anyone else for that matter, just dreams of calm, peace, love.
A good friend here said to me that it is not a problem to do all of the mommywifeystuffs. It is just being acknowledged or getting some love in return for all we try to provide. After a full 14 hours of kiddie/household time, walking into the silence of a quiet house should be a blessing, a slice of heaven. But for me, it has been so incredibly lonely. I miss myself the most in this quiet. It would probably be different if after a long day, I could retire with Didier at my side and we could watch movies, tell old stories, debate something, anything as we like to do. But most nights, I see him as I am about to close my eyes, too tired to discuss more than the passing inquiries about our days. Only something extreme warrants further discussion and even then, we are both often too exhausted for words. So it waits until the morning when it has lost its impact, poignancy, or really relevance as new issues present themselves as the sun rises.
So I ask myself in the silence, if I know all that I have done in service to my family each day, but no one else does, did it really happen? If I do it everyday and my only witnesses are 4 years old and 18 months old, does it count? Is that enough? Should it be? It probably should be but I still want someone to tell me, when it is finally quiet, and I brought the quiet, that I did good. And there is no one.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
I have a lot of friends with two kids. Two girls. Two boys. A boy and a girl. Whatever the combination, every last one of the couples raising these cherubs is exhausted. My husband, who is definitely not known for his political correctness or holding his tongue once told a mother at my daughter's school, a woman with four children, that she was crazy. That four was too much. He said it in English and French, he was so serious about it. She spoke English and French and looked at him aghast. I am certainly not telling anyone else what to do with their time or their energy or their family planning budget, but I do know, that in the Penn-Virot household, these two people are enough.
I suppose that I cannot be surprised that two girls of mine love a little chatter, but man, these two have my eyeballs busting out of my head. Between that and the nonstop cleaning, flash cards, extra activities, trying to remember all the characters from all their favorite programming, recognizing all the squiggly animals from the daily drawing pad, breaking up fights, (Yes, between a 4 year old and an 18-month old, usually over a toy or a pen or a silly band), watching all the cartwheels, dance moves, rolls, fast "hopscotching," jumps on the couch, off the couch, you get the picture, I just don't have anything more to give. Add to that the management of the finances, payment of household bills, school, and extracurriculars, laundry, housecleaning, and all that entails and one wonders how we have even done so well with the two!
And yet, people ask, "Do you want to try for the boy?" "Virginie is getting so big, would you have one more?" If I were still in New York, I am sure the answer would be something along the lines of "Hell to the naw!" TRY for the boy? Like I am playing skeeball and if I get it in the top circle we got it?! I don't think I ever got it in the top circle! It's not a risk I am willing to take. But here in Barbados, when asked, I find myself saying things like, "Well, if it is God's intention," or "I would have to take another baby as a gift." But that is mostly because I really don't think God is trying to see that through. He knows I am doing my best with the girlies I got now. I know that I, armed with my 28-day, do not intend to chance it. Frankly, I think we need another solution. Even the pill is only 99% effective and I am soon to be 41 years old. After a week without power and two little girls boa constrictor-wrapped around my head and neck and shoulders and waist and ankles, I just can't imagine that I would not be institutionalized should another wee one make his or her way to our abode. I seem to be teetering on the line as it is.
