Penny's Big Moves

Penny was checking my blog recently and was dismayed to find pictures of her are considered "gratuitous" or are completely missing for a month at a time. So she decided to step up her progress this week in a bid to get her own feature. She succeeded.

Penny is curious and adventurous by nature, so she is always trying out new stuff and bypassing our various babyproofing measures. Here she is just before she opens a cabinet. This cabinet used to contain her toys until she started opening it. Now her toys are on an open shelf so she can get them whenever she wants. The open shelf also seemed a good idea so I didn't have to fetch a new toy every time she got bored.

Ah...a good idea until she started climbing onto the shelf to get her toys. She climbed so far at one point that she almost fell behind the shelf into the corner (table is diagonal to wall because it has the TV). She was busy pulling herself through by yanking the wires and didn't quite realize her own strength. Luckily, all wires are unplugged and the TV is still too heavy for her to pull off. So far. We'll see what new tricks she finds for this corner.

Penny is no longer the youngest kid in our building since the arrival of Liam last month, but she still has four elder kids to learn from. Often after hanging out with the neighbors (including the very mobile 9-month-old Paul), Penny tries some new moves. While Mommy and Daddy were visiting with sea turtles, Penny spent some time with Isla. Isla was born here in Grenada and is just a month and some change older than Penny. As a more experienced young lady, Isla probably showed Penny or at least discussed with her some of the benefits of big girl stuff. One of the most pleasant surprises was that on Wednesday, Penny was pretty excited to start eating food from a spoon. She rapidly demolished a carrot cube and an ounce of oatmeal (and a good area on the floor). She seemed so excited about eating that she now gets a morning and evening meal. I wonder how she has already learned the post-Thanksgiving, "I'm so stuffed I have to unsnap this diaper" recliner move.

The icing on the cake this week, though, was while Dan and I were eating dinner. Apparently, our turkey burgers and veggies smelled just too yummy to pass up. Penny crawled to my feet and then pulled herself up. She stood using my legs for support and grabbed repeatedly at my plate. Luckily, I was in shock with the standing, but managed to salvage my plate. Dan managed to get some quick shots too!

As you might be able to tell from our sadly blurry pictures, the camera flash just wanted to embarrass us with the turtle folks. I can't get it to flash indoors to save my life. It's definitely no good to have a dysfunctional camera and such a photogenic/adventurous little girl, so we may have to take drastic action.

Turtle Watch

First, a gratuitous Penny video.

Dan, Maria, Matt and I went with some other friends to see the sea turtles nesting last night. It was an amazing experience! Grenada is one of the few nesting areas for Leatherback turtles. They are the largest turtle and the largest living reptile in the world. Saying they can get six feet long doesn't quite convey their hugeness. Think of your standard box turtle or pond turtle with its teeny little head and giant shell. The leatherbacks we saw last night had heads the same size as ours. We overheard the measurement of the shell length on one animal last night and it was bigger than some adults in our group. You can get some idea of size from videos of leatherbacks in the Pacific at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The turtles like to nest at the very northernmost end of the island, so we had a fun nighttime drive through the rainforest and mountains. That end of the island is sparsely populated by comparison to our end, so we could see an incredible night sky (even a shooting star that fragmented as it crashed into our atmosphere). The beach was a wide soft expanse with no shadows of plants, just an upside-down rowboat. As we arrived, we could see tiny red lights ahead, the headlamps of the researchers helping to conserve this critically endangered species.

We first encountered some researchers gently placing eggs into a nest. The turtle had dug her hole so close to the surf that her nest would have gotten waterlogged when the tide came in. So once she finished her nesting, the researchers (and probably some vet students from SGU) dug a new nest and moved all her eggs further from the surf. They counted all the eggs -- did you know there are two kinds -- labeled the nest with the tag numbers from the mom and the date of laying, then covered them in sand. Some eggs are the size of tennis balls, these will become babies in 50-70 days; while others are the size of ping pong balls and act as filler to ensure airflow around the eggs and keep the babies from being crushed under the sand.

Next we saw the mom of that batch camouflaging the spot where she laid them in the first place. Here's this "small," maybe only half-ton critter, dragging itself around around a huge area so predators can't figure out where in that mess she actually laid her eggs. Leatherbacks aren't designed for land movement, so she's huffing and puffing, getting sand on people four or five feet away. She put in an amazing effort, made a huge mess and then started off to the surf. As she made a break for it, our guide allowed us to touch her shell (we weren't allowed to touch previously because we might distract/confuse/scare her). She was actually fast enough and we were tentative enough to approach such a huge creature that she made it into the water before some in the group had a chance to feel her shell.

We made our way further along the moonless beach. We could see the silhoettes of Sugarloaf, Green and Sandy Islands as gaps in the star-filled sky. The breeze off the Atlantic was had a refreshingly cool mist to it. It was my first venture in Grenada where I wore pants and long sleeves (more for bugs than for temperature, though). We couldn't use flashlights because that might confuse the turtles, but there wasn't really anything to trip on in the evenly patterned sand (though later we seemed to find a few ditches that might have been the paths of other turtles).

We soon came upon another group of researchers with a turtle who had almost finished digging out her egg pit. She cupped her impressively mobile back flippers, gently inserted them into the three-foot deep hole, smoothed the edges for a bit, then excavated a bit of sand. She alternated back feet doing this for some time. As she got into position to start laying her eggs, the researchers sprang into action, clearing space for them to lie just behind her. One lady laid on the ground with her hands cupped just under the turtle's vent to catch the eggs as they were laid. Then the eggs started coming. A turtle can lay more 80-120 eggs, and I don't think the spacer eggs are counted in that. The lady caught, counted each kind as they came out in little spurts, then gently placed them at the bottom of the nest. Other researchers got a tape measure and gauged the mom's shell length and width. They may have already tagged her before we arrived because she had labels attached to each of her rear flippers.

Since I had missed my chance earlier, I took the opportunity to touch the turtle while she was laying. After brushing off the sand she'd been flinging around, I found her smooth black shell. It's tough to describe the texture exactly because I can't think of anything quite like it. The shell wasn't cold or hot, just about air temperature. It was firm, but fleshy, kind of like a watermelon. When you look at most turtle skeletons, they closely resemble the turtle you see at the pond because the shell is all bony. Leatherbacks are called that because they don't have bony shells like most turtles. For leatherbacks, their shells are tough rubbery skin with small bony plates embedded inside.

Apparently, they have done studies to determine what exactly bothers the turtles and when they're bothered by it. So everyone is using red flashlights because they use light to navigate (light = out to sea), we were supposed to stand at the rear of the turtles so we weren't as much in her line of sight, and they keep the number of people in the group below 13 so there aren't tons of people making noise, etc. They also know there's pretty much nothing that will bother her when she's "in the zone" laying the eggs, but during digging, camouflaging and other times she needs a little more personal space. For the past couple of months, our automatic camera has refused to flash. This is terrible for indoor pictures of Penny's escapades, evening pics of flowers for my collection, etc. We figured it would be GREAT for pictures of turtles because flash is not allowed. Wouldn't you know, that was exactly when our camera chose to flash!! It was so embarassing, not to mention potentially annoying to the poor turtle. Luckily, she finished what she was doing just fine and we yelled at and hid our camera (which now appears to be functioning normally). Pictures for this blog are courtesy of NOAA, not from our unlucky shot.

As the turtle began the process of camouflaging her nest, we started to wrap up our visit. The midnight ride home through the mountains was spent discussing the wonder of what we saw. The sound of labored turtle breathing, a path lit only by starlight, the promise of hundreds of little turtles making their way to the sea. These are marathon swimmers, finding their way to Newfoundland, Africa and more over the course of their more than 100 years of life. I'd definitely recommend similar tours to anyone who's interested. It is better to go with a tour company who can provide background info, answer questions and ensure that your visit won't adversely affect these amazing creatures.

Bumps in the Night

Last Sunday something happened that reminded me of when I was in fourth grade. My family was in the living room watching Star Wars. Mom returned from checking something, pressed stop and told us to go to our rooms. I imagine we were a little upset at the abrupt interruption, but we went upstairs anyway. I shared the master bedroom with Amanda (who couldn't have been more than two years old). The room has a nice view of both the front and back yards because it has a big bay window. Something caught my attention in the window facing the front. Ours was a corner house and there was a car with it's left blinker on to turn into the sidestreet that runs beside the master bedroom. It wasn't turning, though. The person on the driver's side was very red, though I couldn't see any details. I don't remember any other people being outside, though my mom went out briefly and gave the driver a towel before returning to the house. I was transfixed because I knew something was very wrong. I remember feeling like the person needed help and no one was providing it. Eventually, paramedics or police came and took the person away, though I think I may have been ushered away from the window by then.

When watching the news later that night, I learned that the woman had been shot in front of our house. She had an abusive boyfriend who had followed her from Columbus to our neighborhood. She was turning down our little sidestreet because that was the entrance to the local police precinct office. The news said she was in critical condition, but like many tales of violence in violent neighborhoods, there was never any press coverage of it beyond that first mention.

As many of you know, my neighborhood was a bad one, the streets were gated shut in the 90's so that every street was a dead end. Criminals can't get away if it's all dead ends (of course, Domino's doesn't deliver either because they can't navigate the maze in less than 30 minutes). Anyway, there's a certain feeling of helplessness in a place like where I grew up because you potentially endanger yourself by going out to help someone. It feels very cowardly. So I am kinda proud of my mom for being brave enough to go out and bring the towel to the lady to help stop the bleeding.

In any case, I was folding laundry at home last Sunday night when I heard some suspicious noises outside. I thought I first heard some angry dog noises -- normal here because everyone has a "guard" dog so there are frequent standoffs and fights between them. When I heard the lady yelling for help, I figured she couldn't get her dog to stop fighting another one. Then the cries for help continued and were now of the horror flick type, but real. Despite the mosquito risk, I ventured outside to see what I could do. Sadly, I discovered that the voice was fairly distant and impossible to localize because of the echoes from the hills nearby. I got Dan and asked what we should do. Dan's answer was "It depends." If she's not a student, we can call 911; but if she is a student, we have to call the SGU security office to send out police/ambulance. By the time Dan came outside, the screaming had stopped, so there was no way to direct help. Ultimately, we'd slow any response by calling, having them come to us, then directing them to where I thought the screaming was coming from, so we didn't do anything. I had that horrible helpless feeling again. I finished folding, then started doing dishes. Around that time, I heard sirens, so had some hope that help was on its way to the voice in the night.

On Wednesday, I met with Maria to visit some farm animals with kids. While there, she asked if I had heard about the student robbed at machete-point on Sunday night. I said I hadn't heard ABOUT her, but had probably heard her. She was pretty horrified, but she didn't have much detail beyond that. I'm terribly out of the loop because I don't socialize much here and I just don't know how people hear about things. The university obviously doesn't put info about every student injury or incident up on their website, though there is usually a remarkably well-timed generic safety notice shortly after serious incidents. It wasn't until Friday that I heard any more details. Apparently, someone in my building knows the victim, a female student in Dan's class. She broke her arm a couple of weeks ago and had to shield it as she was attacked last Sunday. The attacker luckily didn't use the sharp end of the machete, but did beat her up pretty badly. When I described the person to Dan, he said he wondered why she had shown up with an eye patch in addition to the cast for the exam on Monday -- she took the exam on Monday!! Some people are really tough (and rumor is that make-up exams are wicked-hard, with a ludicrously high failure rate)! I was glad to hear that she took the exam, though, because that meant she was more ok than those screams had seemed to indicate. I had worried when they stopped.

Lest you think this is some especially vicious criminal going around with a machete, bear in mind that it is one of the most common tools I've seen around here. People here use a machete to trim the lawn, prepare food for their goats, get a snack out of a tree, widen roads, open cocoa pods, etc. I've seen 10 year old kids carrying machetes on the street. Our neighbors went camping with some local orphans as a cool outing, asked them to go get some firewood. They took a machete and returned with remarkable speed because it was a familiar tool and task. Though I keep an eye on every person I spy with a machete, I try to be discreet about it because they aren't evil, they're just on their way to work or something.

For those of you worried about my personal safety, the University does take measures to help protect students and spouses. The buses deliver students to their door after dusk. If the driver can't see you enter your home safely, the armed security guard who rides the bus after dusk will escort you to your door. It's a really nice feature generally because you're tired at night and don't want to walk down our pot-holey ankle-twisting not even dirt roads. Now I can see some of the other benefits as well. I'm usually home by dusk anyway because I'm hungry for dinner and Penny gets pretty fussy.

On a far more cheerful note, my friend Elizabeth had her baby on Wednesday -- puts me to shame because she went for 35 hours of labor with no pain meds. Sadly, after all that work, her steel-belted cervix just wouldn't permit Eliana through, so she had a c-section. Everyone is home and feeling good, though. We're almost through the mini-baby boom among my family and friends (one new cousin; three second cousins here, three to go; three new little friends). Whew, so many exciting little people to meet in our upcoming travels!

Mother's Day

Some pretty flowers for all the moms out there. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day!



We had some wonderful Mother's Day weekend excitement here. Firstly, we discovered that we have a burgeoning bookworm on our hands. Penny really enjoys reading her books (ok, and eating them). We have one where you are supposed to find the duck in each illustration. However, you soon discover that the supposed ducks are actually optical illusions. It's pretty fun to use as a way to sing "Old MacDonald" as well. Plus, Penny can really taste all the vegetables the farmer grows. Remarkably, they all taste like the oatmeal I've been trying to feed her.

I was washing the dishes one night and discovered I was being watched intently by this little fellow. We had another such visitor a short time ago whose visit was cut short by the fan in the air conditioner. Luckily, this guy seems to be a bit smarter so far and has found a way to blend in and disappear into our house.

Last night, some of the moms organized a potluck dessert get-together. Why? Well, Dan's semester has a mid-term tomorrow and the other semesters have their finals this week, so it was pretty likely Mother's Day would not be celebrated in the fashion it ought to be. It was really nice to get out of the house for a bit and for once to not have Penny strapped to my chest (she was asleep for the night and that meant Dan could babysit and study). It was funny stuff walking the four blocks or so to get to the event, though. There was a full moon out, so I hardly needed the flashlight I carried on a string. It doubles as protection from the various guard dogs I would pass along the way. The doberman is tied, but the yappy little rascals across from him often pursue one a bit down the street.

It seemed like any number of horror flicks -- dogs barking because they know something is amiss, hazy clouds pass over the moon periodically, a breeze stirs the branches overhead casting scary shadows. Then there's a rustling in the trees...and another and another...If I was the kind of person who creeped herself out, this would have been prime territory for it. Luckily, dry season has ensured that the woody patch I was passing with all the rustling is actually pretty leaf-free and easily visible. And I know that all the crazy rustling is probably our little land crabs because they do exactly the same thing during the day. They're funny scurrying into their little burrows. In any case, I arrived safely, had a fun time swapping delivery room stories (I think we all had someone less than a year old back home), and got a ride home much later that night.

Most importantly, we seem to have had a breakthrough in the solid food situation. There was a yard sale for SOs on Saturday where I spotted this nifty contraption. I had registered Penny for some because they looked great for teething/feeding. I came home immediately and put some baby food into ice cube trays. Then washed this little mesh bag. When Penny started complaining that her gums hurt, I popped a carrot cube into the mesh and handed the device to her. She examined it thoroughly, passing it from hand to hand, but didn't quite get it. I borrowed it and brushed the mesh across her lips, depositing some carrot residue, which she seemed pleased by when she licked her lips. After a few more passes, she seemed to understand that the flavor was coming from the mesh and this was the coolest thing ever. I handed it back to her and she proceeded to alternate between violently thumping the thing against her diaper in excitement and sucking on the mesh gleefully. There was an impressive orange mess in no time, but I do believe more ended up in her than on her, so an overall success. I'll definitely be looking for more of these things when I'm home for the summer (there is no hope of finding one here...they really only have the kinds of things for babies you'd find in a dollar store or grocery store, even in the baby specialty store in the capital). In addition, I had mentioned my feeding challenges at the potluck and Amanda here gave me some plastic baby spoons so I don't have to use my nasty metal teaspoons any more. Yay!!

Thanks for all the prayers for my mom. They figured out that she was having a horrible reaction to the new chemo, so she gets a chemo vacation for a month and then they'll try a different chemical in June. She's feeling pretty awesome for now...only taking pain meds on special occasions instead of as a steady stream.

Reminders of Homes

Have you ever noticed random little things that remind you of home? Today I've got some very strange ones that remind me of several homes I've had over the years. First, the Allamanda Resort. Sounds absolutely frightening to me -- all Amanda (my little sister) all the time. Shudder! It might be worth asking if people named Amanda get a discount when staying there, though. Maybe we can get a visit out of the deal!

Almost exactly a decade ago, there was so little time between graduate school and undergrad (two weeks) that I took on-campus housing at The George Washington University. For just two shining months, I lived a few short blocks from the White House. Never had I imagined being able to afford to move next to the White House again!

Interestingly, there are even elements here that remind me of England. I may have mentioned (or you may have gathered) that it rained almost every day in Newcastle. This had a very direct impact on drainage -- every street, most sidewalks and big flat areas tended to have drainage built in. I searched for pictures and at best came up with this image of the Shambles in York, where you can see drainage in the center of the sidewalk (in part because it used to be a row of butcher shops, if I recall correctly). It's not Newcastle, but drainage in the UK tended to look like this, with perhaps spokes of drainage from the eavespouting leading from buildings into the central drainage or street gutters. Rain there was very drizzly, so the ditches aren't deep. Here in Grenada I feel like I'm in an Indiana Jones movie, crossing chasms filled with unsavory materials on wobbly ancient looking stone or wooden bridges. This is standard roadside drainage in a heavily used commercial area (so a nice setup comparatively), a long covered ditch, which is probably at least 18" deep under these grates. These ditches are closed, but many ditches in residential areas are open with periodic bridges, so they more closely resemble flash flood riverbeds. Between the rain itself and the mosquitoes that undoubtedly result, I'm really looking forward to the wet season! Maybe I should invest in some watertight sneakers.