La Manzanilla de la Muerte

One of the first things we were told when arriving in Barbados was not to handle the tiny green apples on the trees ringed in red paint.  They are the fruit of the machineel tree and are extremely poisonous.  Found along the coast including our favorite secluded beach here, the machineel tree releases a toxin in its creamy white, milky substance.  The Caribs used to use the sap of this tree to poison their darts to ward off intruders and tied their captives to the trunk of this tree ensuring a slow, painful death.  It is said that the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was felled by an arrow dipped in the sap of the machineel by the Calusa in Florida and died shortly after.  What I am trying to say is, the plant is no joke! 

Somehow my husband managed to bring one home (long before I arrived with the girls) and cut one open, curious about its delicious fragrance.  Something prevented him from tasting it which would have surely caused his death, as he would also more than likely not seek medical treatment when the vomiting began.  He was lucky.

Didier's BFF and family are visiting with us for two weeks and on our first trip to the beach I did mention that this plant was to be avoided at all costs.  I think the message was duly noted and no one touched the little apples or the tree bark during our visit to the beach.  Yesterday, it appears, was different.  LB, the eight year old son picked up an apple while on a surfing excursion on the south coast and I imagine that when his mother saw him handling the fruit, she grabbed it from him and threw it.  This morning, young LB's hands were swollen like baseball mitts and nickel-sized blisters were forming at his knuckles.  Day three of the trip.  Off to Sandy Crest 24-hour Medical Center where it was confirmed.  Poisoning for the machineel tree.  It's green fruit is called in Spanish, "la manzanilla de la muerte " or the "little apple of death" and its sting is apparently pretty painful. 

The pus was removed from the blisters and his hands are being topically treated like burn wounds.  He has also been given an antibiotic, pain killers and an antihistamine for the swelling, itching, and pain.  Poor baby can't get his hands wet at all and will return to Sandy Crest on Sunday for a check up.  Oh, and his mom's swelling has just begun on the hand she threw that little sucker away with.  My friend jokes that they didn't have this in the travel brochures, but it did get a little mention. 

The blistering continues.  Listen, as Snow White should have.  DON'T TOUCH THAT APPLE!

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

Melty popsicle

I am a melty popsicle.  It's been hot, but I think this condition is particular to my make up.  Even our guests visiting from upstate New York, in all their whiteness, and I refer only to their physical whiteness, are not stressing from this heat.  They spend more months out of the year in cold and they are not melted.  They are a little pink.  At all times, I am dripping. 

Some people sweat and others glow.  I am drenched.  Here in Barbados, those who have lived here all their lives, don't even look like the heat is phasing them.  When I first arrived in Barbados, my friend Eva, who was visiting and also sweating her brains out, and I were told that after being here a while, our "blood would thin and we would better able to handle the heat."  After careful consideration and commentary from my husband, we realized this was kind of ridiculous and impossible.  As Didier pointed out, "Your blood is going to thin?  How is that going to happen?  So there should be fewer heart attacks on the island then and with the national weight problem, I don't think that is the case."  All said with a smirk and French accent, he still had a point.  I think what the person was trying to say was that I should acclimate at some point and respond less profusely to the temps.  One year and counting.  Sweaty mess.


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

The little mermaid

As a parent, I try to make connections between things Lily and Virginie like and something new and hopefully educational, or at least entertaining.  Lily loves to swim and draw pictures of mermaids and fish and other sea creatures.  She has been introduced to the Disney princesses by other little girls here, though I could have gone on forever without them in our lives.  So making the jump to the Little Mermaid, seemed like a no brainer.  We started out the video together and, though Lily asked lots of questions, some thoughtful and some just inane and exhausting ("He's a man.  What's a man?"  She's underwater?  What's underwater?"), it looked like she was in for a love affair with Ariel and her friends.

And then came the dreaded Ursula, the seahag, the bad guy.  I am not sure how, but Lily has had very little contact with the bad guy, in any story really.  When she does, her reaction is the same, absolute terror and a freak out that ends in tears.  This was no exception.  When Ursula took Ariel's voice as she sent her to woo the prince in three days in silence, I looked over to see Lily recoiling from the scene in front of her.  She kept asking,"Why is she doing that?  Why is she mean?  Is she going to hurt her?"  This device to move on to the love story was a real stumbling block for my little princess and she could barely get past it.

I had to ask myself, how did we miss the bad guy?  When I was a little girl, I always knew the bad guy was lurking.  I was actually terrified of the bad guys and was on the constant look out for one who would certainly appear.  Life was full of bad guys.  I knew this, at least I thought I did, even at four years old.  Was that better?  Expecting bad things to happen or someone to rain on my parade?  Knowing that good people could not exist in a utopia because that was not real.  The bad guys were what made an otherwise perfect world of happiness, smiles, and sunshine, REAL.  Does Lily not live in the real world?  Am I supposed to infuse her life with a little bit of bad guy?  Will it come to her eventually and will she be shocked out of her face and unable to cope when she finally does see something painful in her life?  Now I am the one with all the questions.

And I don't have the answers.  She is a sensitive girl.  I can tell from the things she says when she is sleeping; yes, the girl talks in her sleep, that she knows there is evil out there, but I don't want to force her to see it.  I want her to feel freedom for just a little while longer.  I see the bad guys.  I know they are out there.  I suppose I need to keep vigilant and attentive and let my little mermaid swim freely through life just a little more.  Disney has that good and evil thing down to a science.  All of their movies for kids are set up that way.  I guess we held it at bay for as long as we could and just like evil, it is going to get in somehow.


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

Because

I love language, languages really, although the development of a passable French still escapes me, and hearing an interesting turn of phrase or expression in any language makes me smile.  Listening to Lily and Virginie as they navigate the worlds of English, French, Spanish (the language primarily taught in Barbados), and Bajan, which I tell you is insanely difficult to comprehend, is just incredible.  As Virginie is new to talking, but no slouch, she has a few key questions she asks everyday.  One of those is "Wheh? Wheh tasi?"  This is pronounced like the New Yorker that she is and means," Where?  Where is my paci(fier)?"  I think we hear this question no less than 75 times a day. If we do not answer, she asks, "Oooh?" which in French, "Ou" is where.  You see?  Learning.  There's a lot of "I'n ge' down" and "some, some," typical toddler fare and a request for "booby," which yes, I know, means it is time to stop nursing, but I particularly love rambling songs of conversation in the lost alien language that only babies and maybe the insane can still recall. It's just amazing and shocking that one year ago, I was worrying about Virginie falling on this hard tile floor from up high and now she is lecturing me like I am the teenager and she, the mother. 

Lily is a champion talker.  Seriously, if there were prizes given out, she would win all the time, and this is not just a proud mother bragging.  It is endless. Some nights I have to tell her to just stop talking, don't move her mouth or make another sound and once she finally shuts up, she passes out on her face like she was meant to do earlier, but the talking prevented.  My favorite discovery of Lily's is "because."  It is in nearly every sentence uttered and keeps the conversation, well monologue, lecture, diatribe, going for hours.  Everything is connected from Dora's City of Lost Toys to her recently turning four to her going to big girl school to Virginie's superwet diaper with "because."  Not only tall tales, but entire universes of observations, all interconnected.

I am engaged, enthralled even, when she tells me something that I thought she had not caught being discussed between "big adults."  As she recounts what she'd heard, all the nuances in speech are still there, but the hidden meanings are all lost on her four year old self.  Last night she told me, "I have to move my head from this side of the bed to this one because I am sweating like shitake mushrooms.  The conditioning must not be working good.  It is making me a piglet."  Stifling a giggle, I helped her move.  Shitake mushrooms is my euphemism for the expletive and Didier often says, "Sweating like a little piglet" at the heat of the day when everyone is wiping his brow.  The conditioning?  The AC.  And needing to move her head?  Well, that is because she wanted to be closer to Mommy nursing the baby.  I don't mind that.  I love being close to these ladies and will listen to them until they have talked my face off, just because.

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

Hot, crazy, tired

I am going to try to keep from writing every single day about the heat and the state of my diminishing brain capacity to the exhaustion caused by extreme temperatures.  But I must say today, it is boiling.  I know it is pretty hot all over the globe right now, but if you are not reading this from the Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the rainforest, or somewhere scorching with only fans and water to cool you down, save your weather reports, especially if you are in the United States.  Your beloved air conditioning, even if just in the grocery store, movie theater, or retail shop prevents you from going absolutely mental from the heat.  Crazy from the heat?  That is what I am talking about.

Add to it the mommy fatigue of nightly visits to the girls' room for nursing session, diaper changes, and a wake-and-take to the potty, followed by a 5:30 am wake up on a Sunday morning, a Sunday morning! and you have the confused, aimless, totally clueless shrew I have become.  I do dress it up nicely, insisting on getting up and putting on a dress, coiffing the hair, read putting up the ponytail or bun, and adding a little mascara to tired looking eyes, but don't be fooled.  I feel like I just spent the night with the Senior Girls during the overnight at Happy Time Day Camp without a shower, drenched in the sweatshirt I'd slept in on the open pavilion at night, and then had forgotten to take off during the day as the temperature climbed.  My body aches like it did then after a night of eating Doritos and too much candy and soda, no nutrients to motivate myself through the day but full from the junk.  Ugh.  I want to go back to sleep.

 But the truly a crazy ride, the day to day, staying-at-home with two little girls for hours on end as the "summer" winds down, has just begun.  Any mom with more than one knows what it's like to get tossed into the center ring and asked to juggle for the first time like a pro who went to the Circus Academy or clowning school.  I have to laugh at myself or I will surely cry.  I find myself completely unable to concentrate on what character just did the funny thing and which one is mean.  I laugh at all of them to Lily's dirty looks and scowls saying, "What kind of a person would laugh at the bad guy hitting someone?"  She's right.  What kind of person?  The tired lady sweating her face off on the floor.

Funny, once the morning's fatigue has worn off with either a cup of coffee or tea, I forget about it and get into the rhythm of our play.  Lily and Virginie are so smart, so entertaining, so engaging, that it is hard to hang on to my grudge about another sleepless night.  My grandfather used to tell us he would sleep when he was dead (and he lived to be 104) and at this rate I think the same is true for me too.  Being bone tired seems to be the general state of all mommies and I am no different. 

In a few weeks, Lily will start at primary school and I will miss her during the day.  I will miss the inquisition, the constant chatter, the questions I'd never considered, and the observations I'd never made or forgotten about.  Having small children is a young person's game.  A friend of mine recently said something to this effect, "Having children later in life either keeps you young or will send you to an early grave."  While my back and the bags under my eyes probably believe the latter, I think my soul feels revived and refreshed by these two characters.  I love them and they love me.  And even in this sticky heat that has us all, at times, lying down on the floor, I will relish their wet nose kisses and nuzzles.  In the future, sitting in a freezing cold air-conditioned room while the girls are making summer plans that certainly do not include their mother, I will miss this, all of it.

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