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