skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It's not what you think. I haven't woken up on a cloud and I am not on drugs. I will still be happy to make my move to a place that's right for me, where I don't feel so alienated from the things that make my heart sing, where I am not confronted with the hassles that living in Barbados presented and still continue to present. I just had to make a choice. And after coming out of the fog of my post partum depression, after a release from gut-wrenching pain, hysterical tears, and infinite sadness, I am here. One more year on my husband's contract, the current earner in an economically difficult climate. Two children to feed, clothe, entertain, and educate. Bills to pay, money to save, plans to make. What would you do? Really. Because I have considered it all.
I suppose I have really become an adult now because I recognize where the sacrifices need to be made, and many of them are on my back. I am happy to have my family and want to do all I can to preserve it. I love my husband and my children but I certainly don't profess to consider this current arrangement even remotely satisfying. I wish it was about getting a sitter and going out on the town to have some fun, but it is so much more complicated than that.
Didier is old school. The arguments we have are all cliches of parenting books and there is no stopping these conversations from going down. I hear them play out before we even begin. He has a job. It is very demanding. He has just enough to concentrate on that job and perform well in shark-infested waters. It is hostile and stressful and exhausting and when he comes home he wants a break. And the break he gets, is on my back. Because I am taking care of and running this household and raising the girls on my own, save his two days off when he plays with them while I take care of the household and handle anything pertaining to life outside of the hotel. He does cook when he is home. Lovely, delicious meals for us and pasta and pizza for the girls. The pizza is made from scratch and is extraordinary. And for the cooking, I pay back tenfold.
I want for Lily and Virginie everything I couldn't get from my mother who was frustrated at having the responsibility of taking care of three children while her husband worked and offered little help at home. I know that the anger can turn one away from the children and that that can never happen with my girls, not with me. So I play with them and read with them and draw and paint and swim and swing and make dinner and bathe them and get them dressed and brush teeth and go pee pee on the potty and then one more time because "it didn't all come out that time" and get a glass of water and turn the light just so and put on the monitor so I can hear them in the middle of the night and tuck them in and stay with them until they are asleep...and then come out into the empty house. I make something to eat. Wash the dishes. Read. Some nights I wait up and others I pass out. I turn off the lights on a tidy, orderly house, and get into bed, listening to the girls on the monitor.
I am up at the first cry or call and check for wet diapers or undies. I change the baby, the sheets, if necessary, take Lily to the bathroom and depending on the time of night or how tired I am, just get in bed with whichever babe gives me the most room. Always up first and always before 6:30, I start the girls on the morning rituals. Making beds, getting dressed, making breakfast, lunch, turning on the coffee, making our bed once Didier is up, finding a minute to brush my own teeth, maybe shower, pull my hair back for the ride to school, making sure everyone feels loved and appreciated and we are off to school by ten after eight. After dropping Lily, I wish Didier a good day at work, pray for less stress, offer him words of encouragement and praise and return to the house with Virginie no later than ten to nine.
And then my day begins. I am not delusional. I feel full of hope because it is what keeps me sane right now. I am making friends, getting into new things. Writing. Trying to learn French. Trying to lose those last five pounds. Breathing. A friend of mine called me an independent woman and I burst into tears hearing that comment. It has been so long since I allowed myself to consider me, to acknowledge the "just me."
Barbados isn't the only problem by any stretch, but it just doesn't make it any better.
(c) copyright 2010. Citymominthejungle
Lily turned four years old today! After a party a couple of weekends ago with her classmates,she will celebrate today at school with mini-ice cream cones, chocolate and vanilla for all the kids at camp. Camp for Lily is basically school without the uniform and lots of fun projects and some older girls to copy and look up to. She wore a special t-shirt with ballet shoes on it and took a birthday hat and mask and noisemaker to get everyone all riled up!
July 27th, 2006, I went to the hospital with Didier to have an ultrasound. Because I was over 35 years old and 40 weeks pregnant, I was to go to the hospital twice a week to make sure that all was safe and sound with the baby. It was a crazy summer in New York City that year. We were in the midst of a massive heatwave with temperatures over 100 degrees for 5 days in a row. To get to Beth Israel Hospital from our apartment was such a complicated trip, that we had timed a subway and bus ride faster than a cab!
That morning it was so incredibly hot and I was so huge I just couldn't eat a thing. I took a glass of water and we left the apartment to make our way to our appointment. Once there, after a stress test and a look at the active little monster on the screen, the doctor came in to ask me if I had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Any 'contractions. Any water leakage. Nothing came to mind. I just felt huge and nervous and incredibly hot. "Well", she said, "we are going to admit you and start you on a drip and I think we are going to induce this baby. Your fluid is low and I think she is ready to come on out."
Say what?
From that moment I was not permitted to eat or drink and was told I was more than likely looking at a long day...and night ahead of me. I was taken to another floor to a birthing room where Didier was told to kiss me goodbye and go and get my things. Which, of course, were long packed and ready to go waiting at the bedroom door. He left me looking scared to bits, I am sure, and ran off to take care of the remaining details. The folks at the hospital got started on me. With a drip of pitossin started, it looked like Didier might not make it back. I dilated fairly quickly and handled the pain pretty well for about 7 hours and then...not so much. The epidural slowed it all down to a halt and we watched movies and napped and hung about waiting for a sign from the babe that we were getting ready for some action.
At 5:01 on the morning of the 28th, Lily Frances Grace made her way into the world. All bright eyes and screams. Didier says she flew out like a fish and even though he had promised not to look, the first mention of the hair and he was in there like someone's obstetrician. I loved her immediately. Like I had never loved another human being up until that moment. The love a mother has for her child is different that being loved by a parent, by a lover, by a sibling, or by a friend. I looked into her beautiful brown eyes and saw life, the lotus, God, a promise. I was nearly speechless and whispered only, "Oh my God. Oh my God."
Most Sundays we try to get out and see the island, a new beach, even a beloved familiar one, different parishes, cane fields, anything to get out as a family and create new memories for ourselves and the girls. This weekend after visiting the beach near our home, we decided to travel up to North Point in St. Lucy again. We have gone up there a number of times and have never visited the Animal Flower Cave, one of Barbados's oldest treasures and a destination with stunning views where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the cave again this time either. But we did catch up with a friend and her family--Sue, Bella, Mimi, and Manuel--who not only live up there, right at the Cave, but who own and run the place.
Living right at the edge of the site, Sue and Manuel have a sprawling home with a lovely play area for the girls with swings, hammocks, and the sweetest treehouse. Lily and I had just been talking about treehouses, so she was thrilled out of her mind to get to play in one so immediately. Lily actually could have stayed there; she was so smitten with Bella and Mimi and all their dress up costumes. There was a menagerie of animals. Dogs, cats, an iguana, two turtles, one of whom, Polly had been laying eggs about the property. Mimi, Sue's littlest, found a tiny baby turtle wandering in the garden and they'd put it in a box with some squash to eat. Virginie also was happy to experience something new and had the dogs licking her hands and face as she fed them dropped Cheese Sticks (Cheetos to my American friends).
