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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.
I was starting to get worn down. Very little sleep at night, followed by hot and humid days that quickly faded into dark nights. Nothing seemed normal and as the mom, I was meant to provide the normal. It is in spots like this that I usually begin to fade. I am just not that good at it. I like comfort. I don't really have that Pollyanna, make lemonade, sunshine that my smile belies. I am exhausted. Short-tempered. Hot. I just want a break, but I don't want Lily and Virginie to feel the stress of my fatigue and angst. I am still not quite sure if I am succeeding in this department. I know I am trying, but they see the cracks. I can tell when Lily tells me, "Thank you," when I tell her I love her more than anything in the world. I know it when they run back into place when they see me coming down the hallway. I know it when Lily asks if I hurt myself and then tries to kiss wherever it hurts and she figures everywhere.
My friend Wendy, God bless her for certain, has me come over and do some laundry, have lunch with her and her family as Lily has been called back into school. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I start driving and take the car and drive over there. I am nervous, of course, but it is different without Didier in the car giving me Formula One, rather than regular road tips. I manage to make it over there safely and not too slowly either, I might add. I do not think I qualify as a "snail," what Didier likes to call most of the drivers on the road here, but I did not try to pass everyone on the West Coast Autobahn either. There is a balance.
The afternoon is lovely and when Lily is dropped off by another angel friend at Wendy's, I leave her there for a swim with her friends and take Virginie back to the house to gather a few things. Plans have changed. A break in our future. We are to stay at the hotel, which too has no power officially, but a generator. We stay in a small room with air conditioning, television, hot running water, a bathtub, and a king-sized bed with cool sheets. We stay for two days until the power is restored at home. It is a small piece of heaven and a reminder of the fact that I am just not hardcore.
When I allowed myself to feel, really let sink in, the fact that many, probably most on the planet do not enjoy the comforts that we take for granted, take as a given, I felt ashamed. Really. We endured living with no power for all of three days before we could not take it any more. I thought I would kill Didier just because of fatigue and stress, and heat exhaustion. The girls clung to me with their humid little naked bodies and whined about the heat and the dark and I lashed out cruelly. I begged them to be quiet, to give me some peace when they were just confused and hot and tired too. We had water. It never stopped flowing at our home, but many, even friends who had electricity, lost their water. We had gas to cook with. The house was strong and sturdy and kept us protected from the elements. We had each other. Lamps. Batteries. Candles. Mosquito repellent. And we were alive.
I'd thought about giving a play by play of all five days without power, but I think the reality is evident. It was not easy. It was scary and frustrating and confusing. But it all came back and life is back to normal. We are truly blessed and fortunate. Many in Barbados, but especially in neighboring islands, St. Lucia and St. Vincent, suffered devastating losses and as they do not register with much of the First World as destinations for respite and hedonistic tourism, no one is talking about what they have suffered, continue to suffer. I may whine, sometimes often, but I do count my blessings. Sometimes one has to come up against a hard time, a disaster with no one to blame, to see them, the blessings I mean, swarming and keeping you safe.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
Because on Saturday, the tropical storm caused the island to be declared in a state of emergency, the hotel was closed and Didier was home with us. It seemed a little bit like camping in the house. We were all snuggled up in a bed on the floor in the living room with flashlights, candles, and a portable DVD player playing Madagascar for the 1000th time to satisfy our tiniest campers. I say snuggled, but more as a figure of speak, as snuggling usually involved wrapping up in some cuddly blanket in someone's arms and we were more like, sprawled out on the hot sheets sweating very close to one another, but you get my drift.
As the hotel was actually meant to open the upcoming Monday, Didier had to return to work to see what was going on over there and determine if and when he would be able to start cooking and teaching the new menu to his rag tag staff. Turned out there was still no power at the hotel, as at our home, and he would be going in to help with the removal of debris and fallen trees from the property and to see if there was anything salvageable in the refrigerator. Like many hotels on the island, as we discovered, his hotel had a generator that had not been well maintained and was not providing power to the hotel. That included the rooms, offices, refrigerators, freezers. Pretty much anything that required electricity was now not working. Strangely, even were the generator working, the freezers and refrigerators were not considered essential and were not connected. Go figure. (Now it could be that because I am the wife of a chef, I consider the food stuffs of value, but perhaps rising food cost and waste is not as important as I imagine it to be.)
While the hubby toiled away at work, I prepared to cook as much of the food I thought possible to prevent it from going to waste. I cooked 12 sausage patties, a pound of bacon, twenty-four chicken tenders and did all the dishes too. It seemed I was doing dishes all day long for fear that our water would go too. There were rumors about the water supply and many friends had already lost theirs. We listened to my iPod on a portable iPod base left by some of our visiting friends and did puzzles, drew, colored, danced, and exhausted ourselves so that I could coax both girls to nap.
The nap wasn't quite long enough as we were all just too hot, but it was a welcomed reprieve. After the nap and a snack, we went for a walk to see how other properties had fared and saw felled trees, downed power lines, signs torn from their hinges, sidewalks overturned due to uprooted trees. The hotel is just a short walk from home, so we found ourselves there. With a crew of executive and rank and file staff, we found Didier hustling to get the generator installed. He was sweating and looked stressed but determined. To show our support for him, we kissed and hugged him and then went back towards home. It would soon be dark and I surely didn't want the girls out there on the street with me.
We picked limes from our fallen tree once we were home, and went inside to prep the house for the darkness. It was fast approaching 5 PM and though we had an hour before blackness, inside the house was already a dark grey. The water pressure was fading and I feared we wouldn't have the chance to shower. Then it dawned on me that once when our solar panels had failed in the main house, we'd still had water in the guesthouse. The two units were on different water tanks! I ran the girls over to the guesthouse where, in still, nearing darkness, we took a warm shower together, lotioned up, and walked back home just as the sun was sinking into the sea. Didier pulled up at that moment and I sent him over there for a welcomed surprise shower.
We ate red meat for dinner and the girls had pasta or noodles or some other carb to fill their bellies and I transfixed them with a video before we passed out at 7:30. There would be no school tomorrow as much of the island was still without power, so I counted my blessings and thanked God for small mercies. We were all together in the living room again, sweating it out. Again, very little sleep and every sound roused me. The instinct to protect my cubs is quite strong and I envisioned looters, animals, and another storm at every sound. I prayed for a break. I missed a chat on the phone with someone, anyone to commiserate.
(c) Copyright 2010. City Mom in the Jungle.
