Bite Me, part l

It wouldn't be a vacation to paradise without a Mak meltdown to go with it. We showed up for our flight to Georgetown and hooked up with our friends and their two children who were traveling with us. We arrived in time to find out that the flight had been delayed two hours so I killed time by going up and down the escalator with Makena about thirty times when I wasn't shoving candy in her mouth or replaying the Barney birthday DVD until it ran out of juice. Jack was easy-going and handled the delay by sighing deeply and sucking back vanilla-soy Chai. (He's a West Coast boy.)
But we made it!
The house was in fact a compound. We had a cook named Jolly, a cleaning-lady named Gloria and sunshine... for about six minutes... then the rain came and we were housebound for three of the seven days with a million mosquitoes and some mysterious bugs called "no-see-ems" (which I suspect were fleas.) We were devoured. It was insane. It was torture. EM and Jack both counted over fifty bites on their calves, alone. Makena was raw. We had her sleeping on a mattress on the floor before we realized what was happening. To see us was to think we were suffering from chicken pox. Our bug repellent seemed to attract them. The meals Jolly prepared were the highlight of our days. He brought in his eleven-year old son, CJ so that the kid could play with him and that helped a lot.
A few highlights included feeding lemon sharks at a nearby fishing lodge and restaurant called Peace and Plenty...Another, was a morning of watching a helicopter circle above the property for an hour. We had planned a treasure hunt for the kids (something they could do in the rain) that day and we sent them to the neighboring lagoon to dig up a clue. They arrived there at the same time as the DEA! There were men armed with machine guns everywhere inspecting an abandoned boat. They quickly flashed their badges at us, realized we weren't drug runners and then resumed their search. We peeled out of there as fast as we could. Our own Pirates of the Caribbean vacation!

Jolly offered to take us to watch CJ at Junkanoo practice one evening -- a parade that happens all over the Bahamas, the day after Christmas. People don elaborate costumes and dance intricate choreographies and celebrate their African heritage. They start preparing in the summer for this. CJ and his sister were going to be part of it and were having a rehearsal while we were there that week. The night we were supposed to go, we canceled because of the bugs. It turned out, to our horror, that CJ's friend's brother was murdered at Junkanoo practice that very night! He saw it happen and then showed up the next day to play with the kids, seemingly unaffected. ( We would have been witnesses had we been there!) We decided not to tell the kids about it but it left us all rattled. More pirate action.
The sun finally came out and we took the boat out to go visit some nearby keys. We took too long getting ready to go and our craft got stuck on a sandbar in the middle of nowhere. We had to sit the tide out a couple of hours and wait for the water level to rise so that we could continue on our adventure. It was at once surreal and fantastic. The water was turquoise, the sharks were somewhere else and Jolly caught a conch and we ate it raw -- Jack, of course, was the first in line to try it.
The weather was warm. We were finally beginning to relax. Jolly took us to Leaf Key where they shot the actual Pirates of the Caribbean movie and we were about to spend the afternoon on the beach when I decided that it would be a fun idea to toss a sand ball at my girlfriend -- this, after having pushed her overboard. My aim was a little too perfect and she caught most of it in the face. After about fifteen minutes of trying to rinse the sand out of her eyes and not getting anywhere with it. We rushed her off to get (gulp) medical attention. I hadn't felt like such a schmuck since accidentally spilling guacamole on my friend's mother's (pink) wedding dress. (It was her third wedding, I was eleven and the incident clearly marked me.)

We left the kids on a deserted island with EM, some water, his book and a lawn chair and hightailed it back to Little Exuma so that we could drive her to the clinic. All the while having visions of our boat sinking and no way of letting anyone know about our little lords of the fly terrorising EM and running amok over Leaf Key...

Is - to be continued

Family reunion

You might remember that I won a trip to the Bahamas last spring when my number was drawn on the "lucky ticket" raffle at Jack's school fundraiser. Well the time finally arrived to cash it in and travel was set for the week before Christmas. So I pulled Jack out of school a week early, signed paperwork stating that I would home-school him, and scheduled a two day stop-over in Orlando to visit with two of the families that traveled with us to China last year.

The adventure started off with a bang when our nanny (for the past year and a half) surprised us and quit two hours before we were to leave for the airport. I can't get into details but we were all left crying and stunned. The emotions were compounded by the fact that she didn't bother to say goodbye to Jack or give us enough notice to transition Makena to a new care giver. Of course in grand Isabelle fashion, I wasn't packed. Nevertheless, I crammed what I thought would be the appropriate gear into one suitcase and called it a new beginning.

I headed off to the airport upset about what happened and with my two children in tow. (EM had to work and would join us for the Exuma portion of the vacation later.) As feared, Makena did not sleep on the red-eye, the people in the seats around us gave me the evil-eye for five hours and Jack had his smelly toe-jammed feet wedged into my neck. We got off the plane bleary-eyed but in one piece. An added perk was that the terminals for the connecting flight from Miami to Orlando could not have been further apart from each other, so we were able to add a little cardio to the whole experience. I'm pretty sure my deodorant had stopped working somewhere over Texas, but we did finally arrive at our destination and Jack was able to reunite with his friends and their sister, Valerie, and me with Wanda, their mother. Our friend, Barbara (www.ourdaughtermia.blogspot.com) arrived later that night with Mia and booked a room in the same hotel so that we could maximize our time together. We had a great time, I think.
(Mia pictured with Jonathan and Jack.)
Mia and Valerie were very sweet, well-behaved and tall - Possibly an inch more than Makena (and she is in the 80% for height.) Mia spoke in sentences and bravely tolerated Makena's bullying, snatching and hitting. She sat in her high chair and ate without considering getting down. (Valerie pictured between Jack and Jonathan.)Valerie was shy, spoke in English and Spanish, and was potty-trained and tolerated Makena's bullying, snatching and hitting. Makena acted like Helen Keller in the Miracle Worker -- save for the fact that she could see and hear. ( I keep telling myself that this is the Tasmanian Terrible Two faze and that she will grow out of it.)(Valerie and Mia unsure about Makena's outbursts.)As soon as we added water to the mix, the three girls were in their element and managed to play together easily. Jack had a sleep-over with the boys and was in heaven. I think that being able to spend time with Valerie's brothers, who had the same adoption experience as he did, made him feel especially connected to them. I also think that the visit was good for all of them in that respect. The visit ended twenty-four hours later with our return to Miami and a stay at the In-airport hotel to wait for Dad who was arriving on a 5Am flight the next morning.

We checked in and I was in the process of getting Makena ready for a bath, ordering room service and purchasing a movie for Jack when Makena locked herself in the bathroom. The bath was full and the phone and DVD player were charging on a shelf. Water + Electricity + 2 year old = Mom has nervous breakdown. I called down to front desk, told them what was happening and to send someone up urgently. Three frantic calls later, a maintenance man showed up with a screw driver. He took a look at the door and saw no screw to unscrew then said, "Oh, this isn't good." I think I was shaking by then. Makena, I knew was okay because she was banging on the door, crying. I decided that the time had come to bypass the hotel and call 911 when the man pulled out an enormous ring of keys. He looked them over and over and over, then selected a smallish key unlike the rest. He inserted it into the lock... and it opened. I couldn't believe it. Jack was stunned. It was the man's turn to start shaking. He was practically in tears with relief. Makena was naked and pissed off but otherwise out of harm's way.

The man looked at me and told me that 2 hours before he received the call, that he had found the key in a drawer and had no clue what it was for. He debated a long time about whether to toss it or keep it before deciding to add it to his ring. I looked down at his name tag and realized that he had the same name as my maiden name. The experience was at once shocking and karmic, like someone was looking out for Makena and that our fates were entwined because of this key. I tried to tip him out of gratitude but he wouldn't accept it. He was just relieved that he hadn't thrown it away and that the baby was safe. He was an angel.

Drained, I blew off the bath, room service went uneaten and when I woke up the next morning, EM was in the bed next to ours, asleep.

Is-exhausted-before Exuma

Happy Hole days

What do you do when a truck destroys your kitchen and your house? You turn it into your holiday card, of course. Pictured are the kids in front of the construction "hole" that used to be our kitchen. We chose it because it represents our good thoughts to everyone for the New Year.

We wish you all a happy and "uneventful" 2008.

Love,

Mak and Jack's Family

For better or for worse

For better: EM and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage a couple of weeks ago. In honor of this occasion, I decided that the time had finally come to put our wedding photos in an album. What can I say? I'm good at starting things. Not so good at finishing them.

Until I set foot in the photo lab to get the process underway, the negatives had resided in a manila envelope inside a giant plastic box along with a thousand other photographs. Along the years, I had hauled that box out of hiding and stood ready to evacuate with it when the need arrived -- which so happened, last October 21st. (Coincidentally, the sixteenth anniversary of my mother's passing.) The teenage girl at the lab looked at me in disbelief when I told her how old the negatives were. I was hoping that her reaction stemmed from the thought that I looked so young, she couldn't possibly imagine me being married for so long. But it wasn't. She thought I was demented for making such a request and processed them under protest, letting me know that I would probably be disappointed with the end result because of all the wear and tear.

By some miracle, the proofs came out brilliantly. Ha! So much for those negative negative comments. It was awesome to see all the photographs of friends and family members who had gathered along side us such a long time ago. Some, sadly, were no longer with us. Some, we had lost track of and some -- like our ex-dentist -- we no longer spoke to. (Why? Because he ate one of the live goldfish from my wedding cake and then made out with someone -- not his wife -- in front of our rabbi! But I digress...)

I thought I would post a picture of my surreal wedding cake. The heart of which had been cut out to make room for a fish bowl. I thought the goldfish would bring our marriage good luck... so far, so good.

For Worse: I thought that Jack should dress as a sushi handroll for Halloween this year. I thought it was an inspired choice since he loved Japanese food so much (and since I came up with the idea). When I told him what I had planned for him, he burst into tears. He cried that he didn't want to be creative, that he only wanted to be normal. EM decreed that as a punishment for traumatizing his son by trying to make him wear that sort of get-up, that I should walk the talk and dress up as the handroll. Oh, yeah? I accepted the sentence. I embraced it. It took some thought, some foam, a mound of packing peanuts, hot glue, green felt, and a lot confidence. I worked hard on it. I modeled the costume on the day and Jack asked, "Where's the fish, mom?" And I said, "I'm the fish, Jack!" At which point he answered, "Yep, you're going to embarrass me."

Nevertheless, I showed up for the classroom party and then for the parade. I found my friend, Jill, dressed as the gingerbread man and we hung out together, eating subway sandwiches and talking about potential pilates classes. We had a blast.

When EM opened the newspaper the following Thursday, he blanched at the picture of me and mumbled something about humiliation... It's a good thing he didn't see it earlier, or we might not have made it to our fifteenth anniversary.

Jack wouldn't pose for me so I have no photographs of his road kill costume and Makena threw a tantrum when we attempted to dress her up as a pink poodle, so I'm all you've got.

I'm thinking that next year, I'll be a sexy Christmas tree.

Is- still married.

Two much

Our little Miss Sunshine turned two on October 28th. I had planned to take her and some of her friends to the Santa Barbara Zoo for a picnic but after having been evacuated, spending three nights in a hotel and then returning home to pack up the last of the house and move into the new rental, it all proved too much. I was psychically exhausted. I canceled her party and sort of left it at that. I didn't even have the energy to order her toy kitchen. Jack and I made a pilgrimage to Toys 'R Us but I couldn't manage to select one. Brain dead, I left the store with a glittery purse and accessories box that contained plastic keys, cell phones and glasses (pink girly stuff I never in a million years would have purchased for her before she came into our life). Jack chose a plush Barney toy (another banned character when he was a baby,) I grabbed a couple of puzzles and called it a day.

EM was concerned. He knew how much I relished birthday planning and there was nothing to plan because nothing was going to happen. He asked, "You're at least going to get her a cake, right?" I shook my head, "Too many carbs." He encouraged me to call a couple of our friends and invite them over for lunch (remember I have no kitchen) and sing "Happy Birthday" to Makena. Of course he was right, I couldn't let the day go by without celebrating it in some small fashion and so I went into psycho/nervous breakdown mom mode. I called 3 friends (less than 24 hours notice) attempted to drive 40 minutes to Los Angeles to pick up a store-bought cake from this amazing bakery and drive back but I forgot that I had agreed to let Jack go to a friend's house on a sleep-over -- thirty minutes away, in the opposite direction. By the time I retrieved him, the special cake the whole party was being built around, was nixed. The two Chinese restaurants I had planned on getting take-out from were closed for lunch! So I ended up at the supermarket purchasing an ice cream cake and a handful of Barney, Dora and Elmo balloons and then headed to KFC for some fried chicken. That was it.Can I just say that the look of pure glee that spread across Makena's face when she saw the balloons (of course, I don't have a picture of that,) made it all worth it (as did the look of horror on my friends' face when I served them the Colonel's secret recipe). That was the best gift of all. That was all she needed and she was overjoyed.She loved the cake even though it was half-melted by the time she blew out the candles and the "entertainment" part of the party was when Jack decided it would be amusing to do a face-plant into the cake and did. I was slightly horrified but then glad because he couldn't come up with an excuse not to shower. Ha!

It was a great day.


Happy Birthday Makena Rae Lihan. You are truly our beautiful gift of Sunshine.

We love you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!


Isa-Mama, 'dee and Jack.

Grandpa Ray

Mak and Jack's Grandpa turned 85 last week (before the fires,) and because Grandma was in the hospital (she is doing much better) and EM was sick, I got Makena's nanny to spend the night and I took Jack to San Bernardino on an overnight, to do something special for him to celebrate the occasion.

Jack and I decided to take Grandpa out for Japanese food for dinner. The evening quickly became a success when we assured him that he wouldn't have to eat anything raw. The following morning we took him out for a breakfast buffet and then followed that up with two courses of mini-golf. Grandpa showed up dressed for the sport and ready to play. I suspect he didn't hear the "mini" part in mini-golf. We thought he looked rather chic and stylish and not a day over 49. I looked haggard and disheveled and not a day under 45 -- ergo, no pictures of me.After figuring out that the game was less risky as long as we set the ball down for him and picked it up at the end of a round, he played thirty-two holes in all!We had a great day.

Happy birthday, Ray. We love you.

Isa - daughter in-law.

Almost over.

I feel like the accidental tourist. I'm in Santa Monica for 48 hours and so close to so much shopping and I can't find my way into any store because of the lure of the news coverage on TV. San Diego county is devastated -- which is making the Malibu fires look like a camp fire. One of Jack's best friends had the fire fighters camped in his driveway fending off the flames at the top of Las Flores canyon, last night. His dad stayed behind to play hero and we don't know if their house is still standing, so we're thinking about them. We heard from a neighbor who snuck back into our hood that our house is fine. It has a lot of soot and ash everywhere, as well as broken branches scattered about, from the wind damage (not to mention the hole the truck left behind). So we have decided to stay here one more night because I don't want the kids breathing in so much soot and residual smoke.

And now my attention is turned to the Arrowhead and Running Springs fires wondering if I need to start worrying about our place in Big Bear Lake. This "Mercury in retrograde" is starting to really annoy me.

On another note, I had a long standing appointment with an allergist yesterday, for Makena, because of her constant runny nose. She tested her for 24 different allergens and Makena reacted alarmingly to shrimp and outdoor mold. So no seafood for Mak and she has to be on daily doses of Astelin until further notice and I have to be really careful feeding her Chinese food! I also have to change her out of her clothes after every visit with the horses. I'm thinking of having her run around naked for the next three years -- which is something she would much prefer, anyway.

Her two-year check up is tomorrow. I'll have a better idea of her growth. At 18 months,she had crept up to the 43rd percentile for height (up from 5% at 10 months when we first got her) and 46th for weight. We're aiming for 50th. Which is straight down the middle -- exactly where I aim to keep my parenting skills (no more or no better than any other mother). Ultimately, I think I sleep better that way.


Is-average

PS Happy birthday to Stefan. I did manage to grab your present when we left and I will post it to you soon. xo.

Holy smokes!

There's nothing more unsettling than waking up in the dark, smelling smoke -- which is what happened yesterday. I bolted awake and ran outside to smell even more. The power was out so I ran down to the corral using my cell phone to light my way. I checked on the horses and went out onto the street to see a convoy of cars driving out of the neighborhood. My neighbor was out as well freaking out because his driveway gate would not open (it was electric). He told me to start gathering stuff and get out! So I called my hauler (waking him up) and asked him to please get over to me and evacuate the horses. I ran back up and woke up EM (by then, it was 5AM)and we fumbled around gathering adoption papers, passports, insurance papers, photographs and then we woke Jack up. He was really scared and upset so we had him wait in the car while we grabbed some paintings and rounded up the tortoise and the dog.

Cops showed up, telling us to evacuate just as the hauler arrived. I loaded the horses onto his trailer, got a vague idea of where they were being taken to and then went back to the house to get Makena (who slept through all this) while EM and Jack made a made dash to the new house to rescue the Geckos. We were supposed to move into the new house last night, so all our clothes had already been moved there along with other personal items.

Figures that the truck in the kitchen wasn't enough excitement for our family. We had to add the fires to it because things were simply starting to get boring.

I'll post more later.


Isa -flame

Hello out there

As days rolled into weeks and then months since the last time I posted, I kept trying to sum up this crazy summer I was having but I could never manage to sit down long enough to post about it. I had initially set lofty goals of trying to keep things simple and easy-going but when I look back on the calendar, I now see how insane it all was.

June 22: Jack gets out of school.
June 26 - July 3: Oldest friend arrives with husband and two sons for week-long visit.
July 5: Pick up nephews from airport for two-week visit and stop thinking about blogging.
July 12 - 16: Celebrate Jack's birthday in Big Bear with five of his friends + moms + cousins. (Yeah, that's keeping things simple.)(The gang on our walk to breakfast.)
(With Makena after breakfast.)
(Jumping in the lake.)
July 17: Put Jack on plane to Montreal with his cousins.
July 18: Put myself on plane to Montreal with Makena. Why? because number one son refuses to fly on same aircraft as his sister. (Refer to "re-entry" blog for explanation.)
July 19: Stay in hotel with Makena to avoid bickering with my sister.
July 20: Drive Jack from Montreal to Vermont (with Makena) and park him at Teela Wooket camp for 2 weeks (cold-turkey, first time at camp, with no friends going with him,) certain that he will have a blast.(Roxbury, Vermont.)
(Saying goodbye to Jack at camp.)July 21: Hang around Roxbury for 24 hours to make sure Jack is okay. Leave, after I realize that I have no way of really knowing.
July 22-24: Visit Makena's friend, Pip, and mom in Wilmington Vermont and get to play Scrabble.(Makena learns how to hold frogs and to screech spontaneously at the top of her lungs.)
July 25: Drive back to Montreal to catch flight home. The plan is to have my sister pick Jack up at the end of camp, keep him for a couple of days and put him on a flight home.
July 26: Have anxiety attack. Can't leave Canada without Jack. I make a couple of calls and decide to ride it out at Mont Tremblant at Anouk's lake house until Jack's stint at camp is over. Reschedule flights and send word to Jack to let him know that I'm staying around to bring him home.(Anouk, Makena and mom in lake Tremblant.)
August 3: Pick up Jack from camp with Makena. Boy is he mad. He feels short-changed an adventure with his aunt and is really angry that he has to fly home with his sister. Desperate, I promise him another trip to Montreal without me + $20 for having to put up with Makena on plane ride. (Dr. Phil, where are you when I need you?)(Mak and Jack, reunited.)(More appeasing of Jack with a pilgrimage to Ben & Jerry's on the way back to Montreal.)(Saying goodbye to cousins before heading to the airport.)
August 6: Realize that I am hosting 14 families from our China adoption group at our house (in less than a week) and shift into panic mode. I fire the caterer after I finally receive her bid for feeding everyone and I hire Taco stand and Frozen Margarita machine, instead.
August 8: Meet with Social worker for one-year home visit, thus completing paperwork obligations to China.
August 10 - 12: Makena's first year anniversary of adoption. Party at the house for two days without running out of margaritas. Have a blast and only cry twice.August 13: Collapse.
August 14: Put Jack in art camp and alternate days in surf camp.
August 15: One year anniversary of our adoption of MakenaAugust 16: California re-adoption of Makena. Makena will now have a one-page California birth certificat and no longer have to present the Chinese documents. (In the judge's chambers, having signed the paperwork.)
August 22: Pack for Fiji tripAugust 23: Travel to Fiji with three other families. Makena sleeps through the night on the flight to Nadi and connecting flight to Savusavu. Consider having Jack pay me $20.(Makena and mom on tiny airplane.)(The airplane we flew in on!)
August 25: Hand Makena to hotel nanny, grab a deck chair by the pool with "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and start reading while EM sleeps and Jack learns how to spear fish.August 26: Hotel nanny lets me know that Makena is "active" and enlists help of second nanny.
August 27: Finish (excellent) first book and begin reading "Interpreter of Maladies." Go scuba diving to Nameina with EM.
August 28: Really starting to relax. Jack is catching fish, Makena enjoys company of other babies and new nannies.
August 30: Get woken up by phone call that a truck has crashed into our house and destroyed our kitchen and Makena's play yard. Huh?(The truck stops here.)
September 1: EM and Jack make flight arrangements and leave vacation early, while it is decided that Makena and I will stay in Fiji until house is taken off the red-tag list.
September 5: Makena and I are still in Fiji. We miss Jack's first day of fourth grade and the truck being cut into four pieces and craned off the property. The street is closed for 8 hours, in both directions, with 2 fire crews standing by in case of emergencies. The event turns into a neighborhood block party.(Jack, heading off to school.)(The last of the truck before it is craned away.)
September7: Makena and I fly back to Los Angeles.
September 10: We pick out cabinets for the new kitchen and await the structural engineer's report.
September 11: Thankful we weren't home at the time and grateful to be alive.
September 12: Rent house for 4 to 6 months. Start Makena in preschool/day-care 2 mornings a week.(Makena on her first day of preschool.)
September 13: Start packing.
September 14: Get called into office at preschool to discuss Makena's biting and hitting. Explain that the baby has grown up having to fend off her nine-year old brother and his gang of friends and that she doesn't know how to act around small children. Beg for mercy. Tell them about the truck.
September 16: Everyone is home sick from catching colds. Start purging garage clutter to make room for furniture and continue packing.
September 26: Start blogging again as a way of regaining control of my life...

That sums up my summer.

Is-xhausted.

Gidget

Makena's love fest with the ocean continues. We purchased a wet suit for her so that she wouldn't freeze and because the idea of stepping foot on the sand and not going into the water is something that she does not comprehend.
So we let her splash around in the surf.
But watching her brother and his friends boogy board was an extremely frustrating exercise. Nevertheless, she observed them for a while...
And then she figured out that if she laid flat on her stomach, she could wait for the perfect wave!

Is - mother to a future surfer.