Happy Birthday, Little Big Girl Now

When we arrived in Barbados, Virginie was only 3 1/2 months old.  Much of my fear and paranoia came from feeling unable to protect her (and Lily and myself).  I did not know this country, the Caribbean, anyone here at all and could not figure out how we'd found ourselves, a New York couple of something or others in the middle of this developing country, nearly out in the jungle.  There were lizards and monkeys and a mongoose and huge moths, bats, mosquitoes and debilitating heat surrounding me in a house full of boxes with wrought iron fencing on every window and door.  We had no neighbors on either side and the street was quiet and dark once the sun went down.  Virginie was nursing (ha! Still is, made you look.), could hold her head but could not sit up, and had not even gone to solid foods.  New mothers feel inadequate, but this was ridiculous.  I already had Lily but did not feel like I could even do any of the basics.  Virginie, though healthy and chubby and cherubic, seemed more vulnerable than tiny little angelic Lily had seemed.  The sensation was primal.  I felt terror and my fight or flight mechanism was on a hair trigger 24-7.  After the soporific experience of my pregnancy with her, this was a strange turn of events.


I carried Virginie heavy and low.  And by that I mean I had a big fat ass.  Seriously.  Each week as my ever increasing belly was measured, I was two centimeters larger than expected.  For example, at 20 weeks, one is usually about 20 centimeters and I was 22.  Funny, in the first trimester I actually lost one pound from the all-day-long sickness but made up for it in spades during the rest of the pregnancy.  At 25 weeks, with 15 weeks to go my doctor, in her sweetest "I am incredibly concerned you are going to be fork lifted out of your apartment to the hospital" voice asked if I was perhaps indulging in too many "too manys."  I really hadn't been, but Virginie was an insanely hungry caterpillar.  With Lily, I craved bananas and peanut butter on toast at 4 am and drank more orange juice than I would ever care to.  But with Virginie, we were so concerned about keeping her in there that I fed her everything under the sun under the guise of making sure she was inspired to stay.  Uh, yeah.  It wasn't that I ate too much, but I certainly didn't follow any plan to maintain a weight increase of 25-30 lbs.  I think that was pretty obvious to everyone.


My belly was just so big and I was still carting Lily around.  By early afternoon, I was on my face, even though Lily had a sitter 5 days a week in the mornings!  I was so nervous that Didier would get called away to Barbados before the baby was born that I had regular freak outs.  I wondered if I would have to give birth alone.  If I was capable of doing it.  If I wasn't, who would I ask to hold my legs, grip my hand, listen to me scream, have one of the most private moments of my life with in the place of my husband.  It did not come to that.


We already knew that we would be moving to Barbados and thanks to shoddy file management (It seems paperwork kept going missing while visas et al were in the process of being procured.) Didier was able to stay for the birth and even a few weeks after.  I suppose that should have been a premonition of things to come, but what did we know.  We were exhausted, overwhelmed, hopeful about a new position, a little scared about a new place to live, wondering how Lily would take to it all.  Secretly, I feared for this little wiggly worm.  I just wondered how this little girl would follow in the footsteps of Lily?  Lily who is so intelligent and sensitive and beautiful and kind and funny.  I cried so many nights imagining future confrontations between the "second sister" and the angel.  Lily with that gorgeous head of curls and the baby, yet unnamed looking all squishy and gooey on the ultrasound.  I said a prayer for her and told her I would look out for her, poor thing.


Didier had chosen Lily's name from the Marlene Dietrich song, "Lily Marlene" so it was "my turn" with Virginie.  We batted a few names around, leaning heavily on the French, mainly my suggestions.  I loved Eugenie and Clemence, deemed too old and too religious by Didier.  I also liked Vincent before we knew the babe would be a girl.  Didier liked Theophile.  Again, ah no.  When Virginie rolled off my lips, we both looked at each other knowingly.  That my father is from Virginia and that her name could hold a significance for the Penns too made it all the more certain. We chose Clementine as a softened Clemence and Belen for the woman who cared for us (my sister, brother, and me) when we were children, Belen Nortez Jones, a beautiful Cuban woman who sang songs to us in Spanish and taught us dance moves and demonstratively loved us.  I don't know that I ever showed her back the love she'd given me.  But I could share her forever with my child by giving Virginie her name.


Virginie let me wait it out until the end.  I'd heard rumor that second children often came earlier than expected and as big as I was, it seemed like a no brainer that even at 37 or 38 weeks that little babe would be fully cooked.  She came on her due date.  Thanks to the workings of my inventive doctor and something called "stripping the membranes" my water broke after an early morning appointment at both the hospital and her office.  Dilated 4 centimeters.  Not a contraction in sight.  And then--whoosh!  Walked into the hospital smiling and waving like a princess on parade.  Was screaming like a banshee minutes later and in well under an hour the most beautiful brown eyes I'd ever seen were staring at my naked, howling face.  Naked because I was so hot while giving my personal information to the nurse that I'd started to remove my clothes to put the gown on and found myself at 10 centimeters dilated before I had the chance to get the damned thing or the admitting bracelet on! 

I loved that baby right then and knew in an instant that she could hold her own.  I'd had nothing to worry about this one.  Virginie, though born in New York and a New Yorker, is a little Bajan girl at heart.  She loves the sea, the sand, the sun.  She is naked and cool and fresh faced and relaxed.  She loves Lily.  She loves Mommy and Papa and chatting and just being.  She is so Zen.

Each night before bed, when I kiss the ladies and we watch the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars slowly fade, Virginie tells me that she is a "little sesser and a big girl now."  Sometimes she gets tangled up in her excitement to talk and tells me that she is Mommy's little big girl now.  And she is.  Happy Birthday, Little Big Girl Now.  I love you so and learned to love Barbados for both you and Lily.  I'm a lucky mommy...and I know it.

 (c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Captured

Pulling back the curtains this morning to let in some light and the freaky white lizard's newest hiding place was revealed.  As expected, I screamed my face off, into the telephone while chatting with my sister who promptly advised me not to go batty over the lizard or the girls would be scared.  As I screamed, they did too, but more to mock their hysterical mother. 

Virginie kept shouting,"Lizzer!  Lizzer!  Get it, Mommy!  Oh no, a lizzer!" 

Lily, ever so calmly, directed Didier as the thing wiggled across the wall.  "It's over there, Papa.  He's going over the lights, Papa.  You can get it, Papa but you have to hurry up."  Didier, God bless him, chased after the thing with a plastic box and large mailing envelope but did indeed get the bugger into the box.  As my sister shouted into the phone, "Don't kill it,"  Didier took our white lizard mascot outside to set his beady-eyed pinkaliciousness free.  Far away.  In the grass.  Nowhere near the house.  And just like that the spell was broken and we were released from the fear of finding that miserable mosquito-chasing, wall-scrambling lizard behind just about anything in the house.  We are free.  At least until the next one gets in.

(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.



Lair of the White Pink Lizard

The white pink lizard inside the house is back and the terror alert level has risen to fluorescent pink, hysteria, run for the hills supreme.  What I am trying to say is, HELP!  THE WHITE PINK LIZARD WITH BLACK BEADY EYES WHO SUSPENDS HIMSELF FROM THE CEILING AND WIGGLES ABOUT IS CAUSING TERROR AND SLEEPLESS NIGHTS IN MY HOME!  I have heard, thank you very much, from the professionals of the animal kingdom, read all my friends here in Barbados, some of whom pick up the toads with their bare hands (Yes, pick up. With BARE hands.) that these delicate creatures are "our friends as they eat mosquitoes and other pests and are more afraid of me than I am of them," blah blah.  Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous the paralyzing fear is and yet, I am afraid, there is very little I can do about it.  I am also not too keen on the Bajan folklore surrounding the sighting of a white lizard in your home which is supposed to foretell of a pregnancy to come.  Uh, no.  BCPs in full effect with support materials.  More babies?  Not from this lady.

Last night after getting the wild and woolly girls down to sleep, I came out to the living room prepared to enjoy a glass of Rose D'Anjou with the computer and the silence, when I heard some strange scratchy, wiggly sound on the ceiling.  I looked up to discover our friend, last seen in my bedroom nights ago, on the living room ceiling in some sort of panic.  He twitched and turned as if responding to my movements and took off down the hallway towards, gasp!, the girls' bedroom.  Luckily, that door was closed so I did not have to go in and perform some sort of rescue mission, which for the sake of my children, I would surely attempt.  I did, however, send my husband a text message.

"Warning.  Just so you know, the white, pink lizard is back and it has gone down the hallway towards the girls' room.  Be advised that when you get home from work, you will have to find it and handle it.  Big kiss.  xxBee"

When my darling husband got home he did look first at me and then at the glass of wine.  I know that gesture.  I know what that means, but no, I had not had one sip prior to sending the urgent SOS.  Not only did I know what I was talking about, but I was indeed of sound mind, save the hysteria from seeing the damned thing, and still had every intention of seeing him carry out his mission.  Poor soul.  In his chef's whites and underwear, Didier walked the hallway and attached rooms but found nothing.  "You know what this means?" I demanded.  "You will have to look for him every night until he is found and returned to the wild."

Sighing, Didier asked if it might be alright if he could have a glass of water and maybe some bread as he had not eaten since the afternoon.  I saw him changing the subject.  And while I offered him a glass of water and apologized for not allowing him a quick snack, I did tell him that I was quite serious.  In spite of the madness, he still loves me.  He took one last look.  No white pink lizard.  Maybe it was grey now.  You know they change colors too.  Whoop.

As with many of the wild animal posts, this one is to be continued.  I am hoping that I get up the nerve to take a photo for the next post, but each time I see one, I just get freaked beyond sanity and envision the thing turning and jumping onto my face as I try to capture its image.  What's funny is that I am not completely a city girl.  I have gone camping and fishing and like going hiking and all that stuff, but the close proximity to the slimy creatures (oh, and the monkeys) is not my bag.  Until that thing gets out of here, I feel like I am trapped in the lair.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Finding Strength in Spring Break

I don't think I could create a better test of patience for myself than waiting for my incredibly chatty, nearly 2 year old cherubic/demonic daughter climbing into the car and then into her carseat with the hopes of strapping herself in as I watch the clock knowing I have just 4 minutes to collect my other daughter at her school break/art camp at a facility up the street.  A two week break and I certainly didn't plan well.  I was here in Barbados for the entire thing.  While Didier's mother and brother were here for that first week, certainly I could have run out of the country for some sort of break for the last week. 


Oh, but wait.  It is never a break whether I stay or go, as these two people are mine to care for.  Left here to my own devices, I could enroll Lily is some sort of camp, mind expanding experience that she could enjoy with her friends or other kids and then come home to her own toys in her own room with her sister in the life that she is comfortable and familiar with.  Or I could pack up the two girls and myself, board a plan to somewhere, my parents' house say, go through Customs and Immigration on both sides and a nasty 3 hour and change flight and find myself at some time pushing or pulling one while carrying the other and all the accessories required to travel with children.  Only to have to take care of them in a house that has not been child-proofed and has too many expensive bits and bobs that dazzle the little girl mind.  Hmmm.  So what did I do during my Spring Break?


It was not the worst experience of my life.  I think I improve dramatically with each extended break on my own.  At first, Didier would dread the school holidays and breaks, getting a sense that craziness was about to reveal itself in the face and demeanor of his lovely bride.   Me.  Craziness.  I cannot even deny it.  In the beginning I would be so ambitious, reviewing home projects on the Internet, papier mache, homemade clay, fingerpaints, popsicle stick architecture.  I would plan a swim time, car washing (There is nothing wrong with getting some work done during this time and besides, cleaning the car is a lot of fun, said the taskmaster.), fancy lunches with opened face sandwiches from which the girls would eat only the bread or the cheese, but never together.  I figured we could go for little drives to the store or the playground but then the thought of the unregulated, hardly safe, certainly scorching hot play equipment or faraway parking space at the grocery store left me with visions of 24 hour medical center visitation and I would back off.


This week off, Lily went to ArtSplash (www.artsplashbarbados.com) from 8 until 12:30.  The theme for the week was Alice in Wonderland and they made beautiful work of the Cheshire cat and worked on sandwich boards of playing cards.  Lily made a book called "Lily's Wonderland" with a claymation cover and wonderful watercolors and pen and ink drawings.  She made a little bunny rabbit out of clay and put some of her shells inside and has since asked me hourly if she would be going back.  She loves art making, something that makes her artist parents very excited and proud. 

Though she was gone just 4 1/2 hours each day, Lily returned contemplative, mind blown open with ideas, and enthusiastic about seeing her baby sister who was, as expected, nearly in a state of hysteria on Lily's return.  There would be 6 or 7 more hours to go before Didier's arrival, but somehow I felt able to endure with a morning spent away.  That is, of course, until the hitting or screaming often caused by a lack of sharing began.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Did Lily want the toy Virginie was playing with before Virginie picked it up? or did Virginie pick it up because she knew Lily wanted it?  These are questions for the Oracle.  I do not know.  But I do know that the road to time out was well worn this week with smacks, crying, apologies, rinse and repeat.  In between the visits to the time out guestroom, we ate noodles and pasta, not to be confused with each other, chicken tenders and fries made from scratch and fried up in the fryer, popsicles, popsicles, popsicles.  We played on the swings, camped out in the tents, walked the garden looking for "seeds," who knows what the heck those are, but Lily did find a trove of them.  They've all been replanted.  Let's see what grows, maybe a beanstalk.


There were castles built and knocked down, an occasional review of school vocabulary words, lots of visits with girlfriends also home from school, and lots of lying around naked chatting, singing songs by Lady Gaga, The Waka Waka song from the World Cup, and Virginie's rousing renditions of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, the ABC song, and Baba Black Sheep for anyone on Skype who cared, or did not, to hear them performed.  The days were long, but they went by painlessly, though the evening rituals done alone reminded me of how much I miss company, someone older than five to spend the time with, someone to share my thoughts, to witness the depths of insanity one can sink to trying to persuade, cajole, implore small people to do the smallest of tasks.  But one day followed the next and without too much fanfare we'd made it to the weekend.

We ended our extended school hiatus at a Grand National Horse Race party, where I won some money (or should rephrase, with the addition of Lily and Virginie in my corner, I won something as I never, ever, ever win contests or betting games like that) and where the girls got their full on swim, run in the garden, jump on the trampoline, dress up, face painted good time that "was not anyone's birthday" according to Lily, and Mommy got to have a few glasses of wine and chat with adults. 

Nearly three weeks off of school seems like too much to me, even still, but I am grateful for the relationship that is developing between my girls and me.  I asked God to give me strength about thirty times a day, but many of those times I was giggling.  Sure, this break took me off my program.  There has been little writing, no exercise, hardly any sleep.  But as I shared with the girls, listened to the girls, played with the girls, kissed and cuddled the girls I discovered that loving them, being in love with them and allowing them to love me has given me the strength I called out for. 

Before you gag on all the sweetness and sugar though, please know that Tuesday morning came and I leaped out of bed to waiting ironed uniforms, packed lunches, and cleaned carseats, all the better to get those people back to school quicker.  I love them, but am so ready for my spring break.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

De France, avec l'amour

If I thought having visitors with a toddler, who cooked, cleaned, watched after my children, rented and drove their own car, did their own laundry and some of ours, and generally took care of themselves while enjoying beautiful Barbados was tough, I could not be prepared for the visit of Didier's mother and brother for their two week stay.  Not since Virginie was a newborn and Lily had begun her struggle as the jealous older sister, have I had so little sleep.  Just when I thought it was not possible for me to have more to do, I am trying to keep up our household with the addition of two adults, one in the Master Bedroom, the other in the guesthouse, who speak primarily/only French all day long.  As is expected, when one's family comes to visit, especially one's Belle-Mere, all details are to be taken care of by the hosts.  Read Didier and me.  Didier is doing all the driving and cooking.  I am doing all the rest.  And all the rest is in addition to the care of Lily and Virginie who have begun a two week break from school and are home for most of the day.

We are six people, four adults and two children, scrambling around the island in one car as a rental car has not been pursued.  We are two different meals (You think the kids want to eat a seafood pasta with calamari, crab, and shrimp?) , lots of dishes and no dishwasher, well other than me or anyone else who might like to volunteer to get their hands in the murky water.  We are trips to the beach, to all points of interest, to four coasts, to swimming lesson catch ups, and back for nap times.  We are speaking and listening in French, heat rising as semi-cool Barbados "winter" has begun to give way to blazing sunshine and humidity.  We are different parts of a family, but we are indeed family.  And you do for family.

While I am blotto, this has been magical for the girls and, I hope, for Didier's mother.  We dreamed that she and Jean, Didier's father who could not make the trip, would have the kind of time that my parents have often had with the girls.  It is no secret that none of us is getting any younger and at 78 and 81 respectively, Paulette et Jean, Didier's parents, are up there.  They are not in bad health, but not great either and are certainly mentally active, but our living in the Caribbean while they spend their days in France make frequent travel difficult, and time has gone by quickly.  To get to Barbados, Paulette and Didier's older brother had a five hour train ride to Paris, then a 6 to 7 hour flight to Martinique, where they stayed overnight with a friend as there was no suitable hotel for them there, a fifteen minute flight to St. Lucia and finally another fifteen minutes to Barbados.  That's quite a trip for an elderly lady.  Add to that the jetlag and extraordinary humidity and you can imagine how courageous it was for her make the trip for us.

Creating memories can be hard work.  I have been happy to practice my French and see if the Rosetta Stone is really working.  It is.  And even more excited that Lily and Virginie are hearing their father's mother tongue spoken and tuning their ears to it.  In the first days, they began calling me "Maman" because Grandma in French is "Mami" pronounced similarly to "Mommy" and they wanted to be sure that we knew to whom they were speaking and making demands.  Of course, I knew.  But I can say that Virginie demands that it is Mami who gives her her medicine or helps to brush her teeth and Lily asks Mami to do puzzles with her and look at the animals in her drawings.  Maman gets to get up in the middle of the night for water, trips to the potty, and early morning stories or TV watching...as it should be.

We have seen Barbados again from another set of eyes and while I have come to love the picturesque landscape, I have never counted all the flowers or marveled at every bird and vista.  But I have pushed my chest out in pride at the girls' swimming, been thankful that the coconut guys came just in time for a performance for Paulette, and that Mr. Arthur, the pool maintenance guy is such a great character.  All of this and the love from les petites has given Paulette more memories to share, more life to consider, more love to receive.  Even through my tired eyes, I can see the beauty of this. 


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Inspiration on Facebook

I have a friend on Facebook called Denise.  She was a friend, more like an acquaintance actually, in high school, whom I always liked, but never knew very well.  Before my twentieth high school reunion, I got back in touch with so many friends, classmates, even practical strangers from high school in anticipation of that reunion and the reconnecting was intoxicating.  Whether currently or previously friends, nearly strangers or teammates, buddies, church friends, all of those people went through those developing years directly or peripherally attached to me.  It was such a head trip.  Where once one would walk off in to the sunset never to see or hear from some of these people again, there we all were...on Facebook.  For better or worse, a little better than, certainly older than we once were walking through the hallways of FTHS.


I never thought I would care.  I wanted out so desperately that I raced out of town, never looked back, and my parents' move from town when I was 19 years old, made it easy to forget from where I'd come.  But nostalgia did get the better of me and I was curious.  Though I'd signed on to Facebook at the request/invitation of a former lover, I got attached to it catching up with folks from high school.  And it is here that Denise became my inspiration.

From what I have gathered, she endured a pretty crap marriage and hideous divorce but has emerged like a gorgeous butterfly with two incredibly articulate, artistic, caring, charming young boys, a gaggle of friends and family who love and support her, and a joie de vivre that makes me forget my stuck-in-tar shoes and try to take off into the world.  Every morning.  As she does.  She is a teacher and artist, an incredible photographer, whose posts reveal that she is often to bed late and up before the sun, creating, thinking, dreaming, living.  She works non-stop, writes words to motivate and inspire, sends love in abundance to her friends.  Even when she is sick, she sees the blessings that life has given her and does not wallow.

The photos of her friends and family make me want in on her life.  They beg me to have her in my life somehow, more.  I dream of her taking photos of my life and my family so that we can remember and I can recall that we did live a charmed life and we were beautiful and life was good.  Each morning when I just cannot imagine how I will exercise and write and maybe draw and clean and get the kids to their lessons and endure my suffering on a tropic island (said tongue in cheek), I consider her drive in to work (where there is always traffic and often snow or rain), her really doing it alone, her finding the silver lining, her patience, her love, her commitment , her spirit and think, you need to count your blessings, fool.  Seize it, live it, love it.  Crazy kids, wacky French husband and all.  This is life. 

In the unlikeliest places, one can find inspiration.  One can see the signs.  Now that is not to say that I don't have any complaints in me or that overnight I have become Mary Sunshine.  That things don't somehow wear me down.  That a bad night of sleep cannot leave me groggy and bitchy and tired.  But I can learn and I am learning.  We have teachers all around us if we choose to see them.  And on this monstrously addictive social foolishness called Facebook, I have been inspired.  Thanks, Denise.  I look forward to your next post.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Let the games begin

Sports Day at St. Gabriel's is a real affair. The Infants' Department, which comprises the younger classes, aged 4-7 years at St. Gabriel's School, held their Sports Day last Friday on a sunny, soon to be devastatingly scorching morning, on the campus of the school.  The children had been practicing for weeks for a few events--the sack race, balancing (a beanbag on a paddle), a running race, and a hula hoop jumping for the wee ones and jumprope running for the "older" kids.  The day is an opportunity for the kids to show their parents, families, and friends their physical prowess and be celebrated for their achievements.  There was a food canteen with fishcakes, rotis, doubles, pizza, sodas, chips, and other goodies run by the school's PTA, as fascist an operation as any in the States.  At every event in Barbados one can find fishcakes and rotis, in the same way that one can find hamburgers and hot dogs in the States.  We'd brought our visiting friends along, so it was nice for them to experience a Bajan/West Indian school event, so like the States and also quite different.


Lily loves physical activity, but her competitive streak runs mostly in the passive-aggressive vein.  She does not defend herself outright and more enjoys games where one is able to run around and be crazy but no one wins or loses.  (I am not sure from where she gets this as Didier and I will compete with anyone for anything it seems.  Didier is sure he is racing some Grand Prix at every trip in the car and I will try anything to see if I am good at it and the only way to tell is to beat someone at it.  I know, petty as hell, but at least I speak the truth.)  All that said, during the trials, Lily was winning quite a lot of heats.  I did not hear this from Lily as she truly is unphased by it, but her teacher and some of her classmates told me that she is quite a little athlete and wins all the races. 

On that day, it was not meant to be for Lily in all races, but as every child was rewarded just for participating, first with a green ribbon if they did not place and finally with a beautiful medal in a closing ceremony that ended with both fathers' and mothers' races, everyone felt like a winner.  The day went from 8:30 am until promptly at 12 noon.  I wondered at first, how and why with all those children were we really going to finish at noon and then the sun began to turn and reduced shadows and shade to a memory.  It was the heat that would end this day and a burning hot sun overhead shining laser beams down on our heads. 

Both Didier and I participated in the parents' races to show Lily that even though we did not think we would win, we still enjoyed participating in sport.  And with parents ten to twenty years younger than us, we certainly did not win.  She was so happy to see us laughing and smiling and running.  With Virginie spending the morning at Blossoms Nursery School, she had us all to herself.  She was proud.  And so were we.

(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.