ayearinthecaymans

our family adventure


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Mother’s Day & My 10+ fav things about being a M-O-M

I don’t make a production out of “special” days, which may be bad news for you if you are my husband or one of my children or someone expecting a blow-out Christmas gift, but the upside of this character flaw is that I’m fairly low maintenance when it comes to celebrating my own “special” days. I can recall my mother saying, “Do you know what I want for Mother’s Day? I want everyone to fix their own lunches,” or “I want you kids to stop fighting and just get along for one day”. She made similar requests on other special occasions but we never took that tiny-timism seriously. I have a few years still to convince my kids that a day off from being their referee or their lunch-lady would be spectacular.

So, Mother’s Day was lovely with a 5-star breakfast thought-up by my eldest, planned by my 5-star husband, executed with help from the girls, and enjoyed by all. The most amazing thing was that Clif cleaned up the kitchen and was on his way to the library by 8 am! If I could bottle that kind of efficiency…

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I am so thankful for this family and these kids who call me “mom”, “mommy”, and “mama” that I want to attempt to explain why this crazy life is the perfect one. Here are the top ten things I love most about being a Mom.

1. The supreme eminence of mothering over any other responsibility or desire. For example, Mother’s Day is now almost a week in the past and this blog hasn’t been updated in months but are any of my friends and family going to complain? Absolutely not! Aside from being a great excuse, I love being a mother because I never doubt how important my job is.

2.Singing with my kids. You probably don’t realize that we do (sing) because we sing mostly around the house and in the car although Alliene has been requesting the Doxology in public places lately (grocery store, on our way across the school parking lot) so that she can practice along with me. Thomas’ favorite is  “hey-ho!” and he’s very good at the “ho!”. I opened the car door to take him out the other day and said, “hey!” (as in the greeting) and he shouted back at me, “HO!”.  NR loves to sing everything. When she was three, I made this video of her singing her favorite song “Look Away” by Chicago. 

3. Christmas morning. Nothing tops it except maybe Christmas Eve.Image

4. Rethinking things I thought I understood. For example, a conversation with Alliene on Monday: “When is Ryder going to CIS, Mommy? Tomorrow?” “No, Alliene, he’s going to start school there next year.” “So, after tomorrow?”. See what I mean? Trying to see these things through their eyes can be mind-blowing. I had a conversation with Nora Ruth one time about a classmate who was being mean and one consolation that I offered was that her friend was still learning to use “manners” (a good, southern concept). And NR wondered when her friend would acquire a sufficient grasp of manners to which I said offhandedly that some people never learned nice manners. WELL. I will never forget the surprise in her voice at the inconceivability that there are adults in the world who are lacking in manners. Makes you want to shine yours up, doesn’t it?

5. Being friends with women like these who are prepared to carry Mother’s Day past 8 am. Women who come to the beach with snacks and kid-friends, who know how to staunch a gushing head wound with a spare diaper and who back me up whole-heartedly when I say, “Back up kids! This is the Mommies’ sandcastle. Go build your own.”

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6. Learning to take things in stride. I can get a little too focused sometimes and having kids helps me to roll with the punches. The result is that life is more fun. Husband wants to go to medical school? Go for it. Move us all to an island? Why not! An expensive island in the Caribbean? If worse comes to worst we can live on the beach like gypsies. Fly home by myself with all three kids? Someone’s got to do it. Little man wasn’t wearing a swim diaper and took a poop in the pool? Okay, I have my limits. 

7. I love watching my kids be daring. Lately its been pier-jumping but there’s also been water-sliding, diving and flips in the pool, bike-riding, tree-climbing, kissing sting-rays, body-surfing, and sailing. It makes my heart smile to watch them being brave. 

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8. Surprises.

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9.Reading to my kids. Read Aloud was something I loved most about teaching and the time I spend reading to my own kids is so precious to me. They love being read to and even my littlest will rumble over and hunker down in my lap if I pull out one of his books about trains or Daddy Hugs. Nora Ruth and I are reading The Borrowers and Alliene really enjoys Mercy Watson. Image

10. Watching Clif be a dad. Because he does stuff like this: 

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and this:Image

11. Bedtime.

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Dishing on Fridays…

One day right after Thomas was born, the girls were playing with our sweet neighbor-friend and while I was indisposed, NR convinced this poor girl that they needed to make me a snack. I walked back into the kitchen 20 minutes later to a concoction of I-can’t-remember-what except that I do recall that it had peanut butter and raisins in it. It is not typical for my kids to pilfer through our pantry or fridge, so my first reaction was to wonder what had gotten into her. But I counted (counting always works) before saying anything and soon realized that I was actually going to have to eat this delicacy and enjoy it because the look on NR’s face was 100% pleased with herself.

If you really love something and do it a lot its pretty standard that your kids will take an interest in it, as well, right? So my girls see me cooking all of the time and for the last 6 months or so, NR has been very keen on helping in the kitchen and talking about what she would like to put together (sugar is usually a primary ingredient). Is her interest a good enough reason to let her in the kitchen ASAP? Probably. But as much as I enjoy cooking, I dream of the day when my three kids will all pull their weight in this household, especially in the kitchen, and THAT, in my opinion, is the best reason of all to include NR in all of the cooking that goes on around here.

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Enjoying “her” meal

 

So far, she’s planned and cooked 3 meals for us. In December it was spaghetti and zucchini chips, January was pizza, I don’t know what happened to February (its a short month), and this month it was veggie quinoa chili and cheese toast. She picks the meal (sometimes we just talk about it and sometimes we decide to look online for a recipe), she makes the grocery list & does the shopping, and then there is the washing, chopping, measuring, stirring, tasting (her favorite), serving, cleaning up…. So far, I think she’s learned the most about washing and chopping different vegetables. And I do let her chop. Scary, but I’m always close by, usually reminding her to slow down. She really picked a fantastic recipe this time, I recommend it! It was a perfect choice because I bought a massive bag of quinoa at one of the bulk stores and, as you will see, we’ve been eating a lot of quinoa lately and still have loads more to use up.

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making zucchini chips

So here’s what we’ve been eating (most of our school lunches are leftover dinners!) for the last two weeks and the grand finale is NR’s veggie quinoa chili!

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quinoa mac&cheese, blanched green beans, strawberries, Bran muffin w/flax

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twice-baked potato, blanched green beans, celery/swiss/apple/salad (Food for Thought), pumpkin-quinoa muffin, grapes

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oxtail ragut w/stoneground grits (an idea I had from watching Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives- LOVE that show),  apple slices, pumpkin-quinoa muffin

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veggie roll (avocado, carrot, red bell pepper, cucumber, cilantro), apple slices, pumpkin-quinoa muffin, edamame

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veggie roll (same as above), plums, smoothie (spinach, banana, pineapple, ginger)

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pea/feta/mint pizza, apples, smoothie (spinach, pineapple, banana, ginger), popcorn

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pork belly/sweet potato/callaloo quesadilla, cantaloupe, corn on the cob

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veggie-quinoa quiche (spinach, red bell peppers), corn on the cob, clementine, blackberries, sweet potato-quinoa muffin (used this recipe again but cut sugar in half, used sweet potato instead of pumpkin and raisins instead of chocolate)

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cilantro lentils on basmati rice (Food Network Magazine- thanks, Mom!), clementine, and….another sweet potato quinoa muffin

IMG_1678veggie quinoa chili (made by NR!) w/cheese, sour cream, and avocado, a clementine, and bagel cheese toast (I always slice the bagels 2x so we get 4 pieces of toast out of one bagel. It goes a lot further and we eat less bread!)


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Thomas is ONE

A year has flown by. What else is there to say about how quickly time passes and how fleeting babyhood and childhood and adolescence (for some of us, anyway) is? When I brought Thomas home from the hospital a year ago I was more than overwhelmed. Clif was already away at school and I was on my own with two toddlers, a new baby, and a house to pack. I clearly remember my distress over not having enough energy for the girls, coupled with delirium from lack of sleep, and anxiety about not having enough time to get the house packed and, although I lost my temper a few times, none of these inspired terror or sent me into a tailspin like diapering my new baby boy did.

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I am so glad that I snapped this photo for posterity. Up until this point, diapering had been one of the least stressful parts of motherhood. Note how he is screaming and clenching his knees up to make sure that I have plenty of mental and physical obstacles while I try to shield my head, torso, bedspread, carpet, curtains, bedside furniture, etc…from the stream of urine or two or three that are no doubt waiting. The screaming and clenching also makes for spontaneous, violent BM’s which is why I have two diapers ready and waiting.

It is hard to believe that it was only a year ago when this was the most daunting part of my day. So much has happened, changed, evolved. And although I am still changing Thomas’ diapers (I’m happy to report that I haven’t been peed on in over 9 months) he’s growing up in so many wonderful ways. Here’s how much difference a year can make:

Walking (20% of the time), crawling (20% of the time), but mostly demanding to be carried (the rest of the time). Eats solid, real people food and drinks lots of water. Loves the sand and the ocean and enjoys swinging his arms and kicking his feet to swim but hasn’t yet learned to hold his breath underwater. Gives big open mouth kisses when his sisters ask sweetly and bat their eyelashes. LOVES Baby Einstein’s ‘Old McDonald’ video and watches happily for 30 minutes. Similarly, loves the chickens and roosters running around our neighborhood and likes to yell “aaa-a-a-a-aaaa” at the roosters (sounds just like cock-a-doodle-doo). Has a huge gap between his two front teeth that melts my heart when he smiles. Sports a tan that most of us only dream of. Loves his corn on the cob, however he likes it ocean-flavored (he drops it in the sand, dips it in the water, takes a bite, repeat). Likes steps/stairs but seems to realize that he should only bite off as much as he can chew and climbs to the first or second step then comes back down carefully. Does lots of babbling and says a few words: Mama, Dada, Toots, ice, up, down, book, no, grunt (which translates to yes). Likes to twist his fingers together when we sing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and is just starting to wave his hands around to help finish out the song. Loves to clap to ‘BINGO’ and ‘She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain’ and sometimes he’ll even do a little be-bop of a dance to whatever we’re singing. Loves to run (crawl) from his sisters. Loves balls and has an innate need to throw things. Opens and closes all of the doors in the house and even though he has gotten all of his fingers pinched under or in a door, he continues to play with doors and thinks its hysterical to open and shut them. Attempts conversation with me in the car by calling my name several times, “mama?”, and I answer, “yes, Thomas?”, and he says again, “Mama?”, and I respond until finally, after the 3rd or 4th time he answers me with a garrulous stream of babble. Holds and eats an apple all by himself. Climbs the ladder to Nora Ruth’s top bunk (why this doesn’t register ‘scary’ like the stairs, I do not know). Sleeps from 6:30pm until 6:30 am and takes one two-hour nap in the middle of the day. Still cuddling Joe (his trusty giraffe) for every sleep. Has a fetish for sunglasses and a temper that I am still trying to figure out how to work through, around, out. Wears a size 6 shoe (is that big? it seems big) and size 12-18 month clothes. Loves being outdoors (especially at the beach) and usually snaps out of any fuss he’s in if we “go for a walk”. Is just the most handsome boy either of his sisters has every seen (they’re biased, of course).

 


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Dishing on Fridays…

I’m pretty sure that if you look up “half-ass blogger” in Merriam-Webster online you will find a link to this blog. For a[brief]while I was doing a good job of taking lunch pictures and told myself that I would post them all in one big, apologetic Dishing post and then the pictures started piling up and so I have only a fraction of yummy school lunches to share. I make no promises about doing better in the future. Life is a circus right now, folks.

IMG_0975a Greek Salad (w/avocado, apparently), curry chicken salad, an almond muffin, kiwi

IMG_0976A turkey/swiss croissant, corn on the cob, zucchini tots, (flourless) raw brownie, watermelon

IMG_0977grilled cheese bagel (Pesto/Gruyere), caesar salad, apples, walnuts/dried cranberries

IMG_1065mexican lasagne, chef salad, apples & cookie dough (tofu) dip

IMG_1069BBQ chicken pizza (corn, carmelized onions), blanched fresh green beans, graham crackers, pomegranate/oranges

IMG_1077(more) BBQ Chicken pizza (deep dish, this time!) , apple & cookie dough (tofu) dip, popcorn & dried cranberries

IMG_1083cheese burger, baked sweet-potato fries, broccoli salad, apples

IMG_1142butternut squash mac & cheese muffin (Ina’s mac&cheese minus the tomatoes, plus as much butternut squash (roast it first) as you like, salad (bleu cheese, avocado, apples, raisins), watermelon

IMG_1367 salmon patties, superfood salad, grapes

IMG_1452cream cheese/asparagus croissant, apples and cookie dough (tofu) dip, grapes

IMG_1523bean/spinach dip w/carrots & pita chips, quinoa granola bar & apples, corn on the cob

IMG_1537greek pita (hummus, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, kalmata olives, feta), kiwi & grapes, oven garlic fries


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Christmas was more than memorable this year. There were parties and decorations, candy and Christmas crafts, Santa Clause and Christmas lights. And then there was a two-week long trip to Mississippi to see grandparents, cousins, aunts & uncles, and friends. In all the melee, Nora Ruth became a snaggletooth, Clif spent a week in Haiti on a medical mission trip and met a 24-hour Haitian bug, and Santa Clause paid the Scott’s a visit.

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my little Christmas elf

 

 

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Santa Allie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll have to start cataloguing all of my thoughts on Christmas card photo-taking now so that I can blog about it next Christmas. It is heavy, heavy stuff. The first picture is of “Caribbean Santa” and his NO.1 Fan. I think you can see clearly how tickled she is to be in his lap. How cute is he?? The second picture is my favorite because the look on Caribbean Santa’s face says that Thomas is about to land on the “Naughty” list. Finally, the third picture is the best of the bunch; two out of three is generally the score around these parts. Speaking of which, #4 photo very nearly was my Christmas card. Getting three children to look at you, much less SMILE, while you are trying to take their photo is mission impossible. Half a beer later and I was starting to feel a ‘little’ better.

The day before we left for the states I had to drive out to Savannah to pick up the export permit from the Dept. of Ag so that Toots could travel with us. On my way, I passed a large house set back from the road on a big piece of property that was flooded with Christmas decorations- lights, scenes, inflatables, you name it. Since it was our last pre-Christmas night in Cayman Clif and I decided to defy the odds (and the traffic) to see this spectacle. The kids explored every inch and loved every minute. My favorite “scene” was a Cayman cottage with a sand covered lawn lined with conch shells. Several times while we were at Barker’s Beach in Nov/Dec we observed people shoveling sand and carrying it off. Clif asked one of the sand-poachers what the sand was for and he said they were using it to cover their front yard in “snow”.

These next pictures are from our first week in Mississippi. We spent our last morning in Cayman at Governor’s Beach and the weather was incredible. The kids woke up to winter weather (notice the house robes, courtesy of YiaYia) and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We spent the weekend at the farm, where Nora Ruth lost one of her front teeth and was paid yet another visit by the tooth fairy.

We went back to Columbus for the last Sunday service before Christmas at our beloved Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church. And before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve!

The girls were thrilled with their Christmas presents from Santa.

Although Santa brought Thomas a top-of-the-line, slim-profile carseat, he remained ambivalent about the whole Christmas morning experience, preferring to lick and chew and wrestle with all of the Christmas decorations that had survived his week-long onslaught. Cement Santa was about the last one left.

He did become more than a little interested when one of the girls tore open a Nubi Ball from Poppy & YiaYia. He wrestled it but when round one went to the Nubi, Thomas was back to taking down Christmas decorations.

The day before we left to come back to Grand Cayman, we paid a visit to Aunt Laurabeth and Uncle Duke. They have 8 baby rabbits and we had fun holding & feeding them.

Our first week back in Cayman was great! Both of the girls were sad to leave Mississippi- lots of “why’s” and “when can we go back’s”- but I for one was pumped to see my old friend the sun again. I think it must have been overcast 12 out of the 15 days we were home. This weekend Nora Ruth played a sport the Canadians call “ball hockey”, which is hockey played on asphalt with a ball. From what I can gather, Canadians are desperate to play hockey. If they don’t have ice, they put on rollerblades, but if there’s no rollerblades, they’ll play in their running shoes. Nora Ruth and her friends had a blast and for a kid who’d never even seen a hockey stick before, Nora Ruth really enjoyed playing! She also won her first medal and wore it around the island for the remainder of the weekend.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2013!


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Happy Big 3 Allie!

Alliene has been looking forward to her birthday since May when Nora Ruth and the two little girls who live across the street all celebrated birthdays; and in case you are wondering, YES, we have had too many circular conversations about periodization these last 6 months. We were driving to school one morning when I realized that the day was November the 1st and when I told Allie, she excitedly asked, “it is? Today?” and the countdown really began.

The night before her birthday, as we were getting ready for bed, I explained that when she woke up she would be three (or “free” as Allie says). It almost worked too well. I had to pull her out of bed to read some bedtime stories. When the lights were finally out, she got out of bed several times to go potty and about the third time she looked up from the throne and sleepily asked, “Am I free now?”.

In the morning we serenaded her with Happy Birthday as we came into the girls’ room to get them up. Then we had our traditional birthday donuts and while the rest of us enjoyed our plain glazed donut, the birthday girl wore a beautiful emerald crown that she helped me make the night before and ate a sparkly-green donut. We opened her birthday presents- a LeapPad from Mommy & Daddy, a case from Nora Ruth, and a game from YiaYia and Poppy- and then she and Nora Ruth sat down to play their LeapFrog games and compare notes. We took the kids to Motions Gym for one of their “free-play” days; it is a fabulous place to play although quite pricey ($30CI for all three kids and YES I have to pay for Thomas to crawl around there!), so it was the perfect thing to do for a special occasion.

We picked this weekend to have Allie’s birthday party so she has had an exciting couple of weeks-worth of birthday celebrating and planning. Alliene’s idea of a big party was to invite all of her friends over, “turn out the lights and have a tea party” so she was overruled and we decided to throw her third birthday party at Governor’s Beach. One of those May birthday’s that I mentioned earlier was celebrated at Governor’s Beach and it was the most amazing morning with all of the kids playing in a postcard-green-and-blue ocean. We had the party from 9:30-? and I wanted everyone to stay and enjoy the beach for as long as possible, so I made brunch for Allie’s friends and their families.

We gave all of Allie’s friends swim tubes and, as you can tell from the pictures, they had a lot of fun with them. The older kids were quick to get competitive about who could wear the most rings at one time.

In lieu of gifts, we asked our guests to bring donations for the Cayman Humane Society, something we’ve done for Nora Ruth’s birthday for the past couple of years. This was Allie’s first time to have a big birthday party and to collect donations for a charitable cause and I have to say that she handled it very well. She will get to deliver her donations tomorrow and I can’t wait to watch her doing something so important.

I am happy to report that Alliene is very proud and excited to be three. The day after her birthday she asked us whether or not she was still three and she is already thinking ahead to her next birthday (she’s planning on turning 5) and I’m thinking that her passion for birthdays is the motivation she needs to be the first in her nursery school class to master the calendar.


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Catching Up (One holiday at a time)

I’m a full two holidays behind now on the blog and so I’m afraid this will have to be quick because Cayman was gearing up for Christmas before we could even think about making American Thanksgiving plans. But I’m already getting ahead of myself talking about Thanksgiving. Let’s start with Halloween, shall we?

I’ll be frank…I’m not someone who likes to give little people lots of choices. Democracy’s cute and all but anarchy is just around the corner. I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will not get to be the boss forever and one of the mandates that I will miss the most is who wears what for Halloween. Because I think children’s lit is the greatest, I’ve always tried to dress my kids as characters from children’s stories.

Here’s our first Halloween…Nora Ruth’s favorite book at the time was Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. We had to read it every night and she loved to talk about the “moon”. I could either fight with her over keeping ears on her head or let her wear a pillow around her waist. She talked about the moon more than the kitten anyway.

The next Halloween we were into Alice the Fairy by David Shannon. I’ve been searching for those Halloween photos for an hour and can’t find them anywhere! I did find this sweet picture of NR, wearing bits and pieces of her costume on some ordinary night. Its hard to see her face for that big prego belly that she’s kissing.

Things got a little bit trickier in 2010 when I had a second Halloween costume to envision and create but it all panned out eventually. Allie was a cute little cheshire cat and Nora Ruth was Alice. Alice’s favorite part of the costume? Her new, shiny, black patent shoes.

In 2011, I got in on the action to be Miss Clavel to their Madeline (Can you tell that I’m a prego nun?). This was when I discovered that Alliene, the more obstinate of my two girls, is amenable to wearing hats! I never thought she’d make it through pictures with her hat on, but she never took it off and if it somehow became askew she was very insistent that it be put back on right. Again, Nora Ruth was most excited about shiny, black shoes.

This year I failed to come up with coordinating costumes for all three kids but both girls have really been into Pinkalicious, Purplicious, and Goldilicious by Victoria Kann, so I did my best. Nora Ruth’s favorite color is indisputably pink, pink, pink. And Alliene’s favorite color is indisputably green, green, green. It’s not easy to find everything you need here in Cayman (at a reasonable price) to make a costume, but a little spray paint, hair paint, and face paint goes a long way! Pinkalicious and Greenalicious were too cute this Halloween. And poor Thomas, I wasn’t inspired by any other characters in Pinkalicious, so he was the odd-man-out as baby Harry Potter.

We had a great time trick-or-treating in a neighborhood called Snug Harbour, not too far from where we live. The wonderful residents of Snug Harbor had beaucoup decorations and many of them were in costume themselves. We parked in the neighborhood and walked from door to door, shielding Alliene from any scary costumes or decorations along the way. Allie was having NONE of the scary. One of my favorite moments was listening to Nora Ruth, my thrill-seeking adrenaline junky, attempting to explain why spooky is fun. Alliene listened stolidly as her eyes scanned the street for signs of more jumping, shrieking decorations and watched carefully to see who was opening doors and handing out candy to all of the children ahead of her. Thomas had the best seat, cruising in the stroller and taking it all in and getting the occasional “ooooh, he’s sooo cuuute!” from teenage girls passing by. And he was, too, in his white polo, diaper, and scarf with face painted spectacles and lightening scar.

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