Heading Home

Yay! Dan's exams are finally over! It is exciting to have someone watch Penny so she isn't climbing up my leg while I wash the dishes and such. I am also quite proud to have finally rid our house of the world's largest box of instant potatoes and various other cabinet items that the ants would surely feast upon in our absence. Now it's down to emptying the frige and removing the giant block of ice in the freezer before we go. We gained some experience in power conservation while in England and hope to have a zero energy use home while we're gone to save a little in utilities.

We're heading out later this week, so we have a little time to strategize about which items we take home to the US. We shipped ridiculous amounts of stuff from England because we managed a cheap shipping deal, but that means we have many things here we'll never use and won't be able to afford to ship home. Wish us luck as we yet again cull our possessions to maintain our minimalist lifestyle.

I'm sure I'll have many lovely stories to share while we're at home, but it may be a bit before I post again. Hope to see many of you while we're in the States!

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there new and experienced! It seems the past year has seen the induction of several new dads into our various family and friends. I would have Dan share a few thoughts on what it is like being a new dad, but the Pathology final is tomorrow and so we're in major study time. I gathered a few pictures to help capture some of his dad-ing experience for you, though.

There is definitely a deep reflection part of being a new dad. Dan has occasionally commented on how amazing it is that this little person could become anything in the whole world. We also get to shape who she becomes and that is a huge responsibility and gift. There are many comments at random about what we'll have to do when she's a teenager (mostly in reference to beating boys off with a stick, preferably pointy).

Penny likes to throw the occasional curve ball to Dad. She is always surprising him with some goofy look or gesture, seeming to indicate an understanding that he just made a really bad joke or did something ludicrous. One of Dan's current favorites is that if he shaved recently and is quite smooth, the next time he holds Penny she spends quite a bit of time examining his face. She seems to be investigating who this strangely smooth person who looks sort of like Daddy might be.

There are, of course, the practical aspects of being a new dad. Dan has tried his hand at most of the Penny-care tasks so far. He does draw the line at scraping poo out of the cloth diapers, though he has finally started to put Penny into cloth of his own free will. Dan is officially in charge of burping Penny since he is certainly the best at it. During feeding emergencies, I often occupy Penny (with solid food or comforting) while Dan makes a bottle. Feeding is still the thing Penny gets most upset about, so it is important to be able to speed the process of getting her food in this way.

Then there's the general fun of being a dad. Penny gets really excited whenever Daddy comes home. Often, Dan comes home from class, Penny stops whatever she is doing, he washes off some of the sweat from walking home and then picks up Penny. She then has a good giggle about having everyone together. Dan was a bit concerned that she seems to enjoy his presence so much because he's obviously studying so much of the time. I try to assure him it is good to have her enjoy something so much - every little bit of joy is key.

So that's my little two cents on being a dad. Hopefully as exams begin to wrap up, Dan will be able to enjoy it a bit more. He's already starting to break himself in a bit by doing an additional diaper here or there to learn Penny's new tricks. He'll get to enjoy even more while we're at home in July. Keep Dan and all the dads out there in your prayers and we'll see you soon!

Rainy Season Begins

It looks like rainy season may have finally kicked off. For the past few days we've had respectable amounts of rain - lasting several hours and being pretty heavy at times. No big floods, which I've been told to expect, but I also get the impression we haven't seen full strength storms yet. They seem to move quickly, which means an awesome breeze and it doesn't get hot until later in the day.

We had the official running of the ants and running of the termites as well. The termites were fun - they're black and bigger than any termites I've ever seen (1cm body with inch-long detachable wings). The colonies must have been preparing since the humidity increased, so they were ready to send out the colonizing troops as soon as the first big rain hit and cleared. The ground was littered with the wings discarded after mating and before going back into our houses to establish new little colonies of their own. The ambitious ants pictured above are collaborating to bring home the hind leg of a grasshopper. We have an incursion of ants this size almost daily - they appear within 20 minutes of any food prep, consumption or dirtying of dish. They never cease to amaze me. Dan fears he may one day awaken and find himself on a soft tickly bed of ants carrying him noiselessly down the road.

The rain seems to have brought out cool breezes, ants, termites, and board games! At long last, I got to pull out our Settlers of Catan Travel Edition, which had been gathering dust in three countries. I am excited to get some new people hooked, and to find that there are already several addicts here in my neighborhood. Hopefully I will not let my excitement get the best of me and still set aside time to prepare to go home -- only 17 days until we are in NYC!

In other news, Penny's newest second cousin arrived this week. Christopher Madison Coote made a dramatic entry in Brooklyn early last week (yeah, Monday-ish, but also two weeks before his due date). You can read a bit about his exciting debut on our cousin Sharon's blog. Definitely proud of Sharon for bravery in the face of dissent and apparent disaster. Ok, it's not a stork standing on the power line, but it is another wading bird who eats fish (feet aren't designed for wire-sitting, so I was impressed by this feat).

Little Adventurer

One of my mom's big concerns for me here in Grenada was what I'm going to do with Penny as she continues to get bigger and my arm still isn't quite functioning properly. When I last saw the neurologist, he specifically told me NOT to wear a baby carrier because the weakened shoulder muscles make me more prone to dislocating my shoulder. Fun, right? But seriously, I have to get around on this island and that's all I have. So for a long time I just tried to minimize how often I wore the carrier (not many trips out). That said, I was starting to notice my shoulder being pretty sore after carrying Penny in our Baby Bjorn for errands in May.

Luckily, as classes for everyone but Dan's term ended in May, there were lots of moving sales and I picked up a couple of strollers for really great prices. I got an umbrella stroller for bus rides and a stroller with big tyres (spelling in Grenada) and independent suspension for walks on rough roads. I can still use the carrier as a pseudo-seatbelt on the bus or in cars, but stroller for use at the destination. When Penny and I visited the small animal hospital for SGU (they have a veterinary school here as well), that was pretty much the last time I used the carrier as the main transport for a field trip. BTW, since when do cows and donkeys count as small animals?

Now that I can move Penny around without a carrier, I've been taking the opportunity to get out and see a bit more of our beautiful island. Last week, we visited the botanic gardens. The botanic garden currently serves as a setting for all the government offices, but once showcased the various trees, shrubs and other flora that inhabit our island. The paths are mostly in poor repair, so not too stroller friendly, but we did do some off-roading and find this lovely Cannonball Tree in bloom. These flowers come in giant stalks shooting straight off the main trunk (I originally thought the tree had vines all over the base with these flowers). The flower itself is the size of an outstretched hand. The little sea-anemone-looking part in front is a landing pad with all the pollen and then the female part of the plant is at the center of the yellow circle (oddly, it looks just like a breast).

Penny and I also take every opportunity to explore the rest of our neighborhood. Since we're in the Beverly Hills-like neighborhood, most of our roads are paved for the majority of their length, so we can see a lot of cool stuff even with our umbrella stroller. Here is Penny at our tiny mangrove swamp. You can tell we're in a mangrove swamp because the trees in the background are sticking their roots into the air like hundreds of tiny soda straws. They live right in the tidal area, so their roots are underwater much of the time and they still need air, so they send shoots up to get the air.

With such a thick bed of spiffy hiding places, mangrove swamps serve as nurseries for lots of animals, including fish, birds, crabs and other fun invertebrates. Penny and I spied this cute little grab crawling around in the leaves (probably dead seagrass, but it felt like autumn leaves). My Grenadian plant guide flags mangrove swamps as one of the must-see habitats on the island. It did have lots of cool inhabitants I hadn't seen elsewhere as yet, so I got lots of pictures for my flower collection. I'm hoping to go back with friends and maybe check out the water section of the habitat because it should be really shallow for a distance - might have fun critters to see and/or be a good place to fish (for my friends with poles here on the island).

In other news, the first little points of a tooth have emerged in Penny's gums. She seems excited to experiment with chewing on my poorly prepared mashed potatoes. How do potatoes crystalize in the freezer? She's also climbing all over the place, which leads to an inordinate number of bonks to the head, which may explain why she hasn't complained about the tooth coming in (too much of a headache in general). I'd share my videos of her climbing prowess, but these videos are excessively long since she's still taking her time finding hand, foot and mouth holds. I think she's trying to build her repetoire of cool tricks to show off when she gets home. If you can't be the biggest kid, try to be the coolest.

BTW, keep our newest little second cousin in your prayers. Christopher was born this morning at 2am, but wasn't breathing. He'll be spending the week in neonatal ICU. His mom is fine and was home by 8am after delivery, but I'm sure she'll feel better when the little guy is home with her.

People in My Neighborhood

So who are the people in my neighborhood? Well, as mentioned when we got here, our neighborhood is like Beverly Hills, so lots of people who have tired of swimming in their money and decided to swim here instead. For example, Dan met some people out walking and they were looking for somewhere to park their boat for a while. They are retired and sailing the world, but they had to take a break and fly to New Jersey for the weekend for their son's graduation from an undisclosed, but likely expensive school. So other than the folks around here who attend SGU, I have little in common with my other neighbors and don't really find them all that interesting. That doesn't mean there aren't cool folks to meet in the neighborhood, though. Today we have a collection of some of my cool neighbors.

There are all kinds of new birds here, some kinda familiar and some totally new. This lovely blue wader is about the size of a cattle egret (which also seem to be here). He's probably a migrant and will head off to see you guys up North soon (if he hasn't already).

I was out taking pictures of flowers (my hobby while I'm here) and noticed these beautiful lacy patterns on the bottoms of some of the leaves on a sea grape tree. I know a bug when I see one, so got as good a closeup as I could muster. If you enlarge the picture, you can see little guys that look like white moths. They are actually "true bugs," so they are related to cicadas & aphids and drink the plant's blood with their little soda straw mouths. These are probably Whiteflies.

One afternoon, I spied this sleepy fellow taking a nap at the top of the porch pillar. Thankfully, we have several bats visit us each night to eat our mosquitoes and pollinate the flowers in our yard. Every once in a while, you can hear a squeak of distress as the owl who prowls our peninsula tries to snag one of them.

This caterpillar is large enough that most of the folks on campus have noticed it munching away at the local shrubbery. In case you can't tell, he's a good 4-6" long. I've seen him eating the Allamanda flowers, but his main food source are the lovely frangipani shrubs everyone plants in their yards. I thought swallowtail butterfly at first because of the dohickies (very technical term there) sticking out of either end, but he's actually going to grow up to be a sphynx moth (a BIG one, mind you).

I already showed you the lizards we've had move in with us from time to time. This is an outdoor one, though. There are TONS of lizards of varying sizes and patterns everywhere. This guy is the winner of a little standoff I observed while waiting for the bus. The two were facing off, with the one flaring his orange neck pouch. When I approached, the loser dashed off and the winner made a show at me. He took my reaction to be one of awe, declared himself the overall winner, then moved a safer distance down the wall to bask in his glory.

Not everyone is thrilled with these large and plentiful neighbors, but again, I appreciate their mosquito-eating potential. These orb-weavers put the nice little zigzag lure in their webs to attract tasty snacks. You can see one such snack wrapped up for later to the right of the spider. This lady and her friends all have webs in a row above the drainage ditch by the bus stop. So if she doesn't get a mosquito as it emerges from the festering pit, her friends will.

We have a lot more and faster folks in our neighborhood, but I just can't get them on film yet. I'll keep you posted if I find anything especially exciting, though.