Little Miss Muffet

So, I haven't written too many posts about the critters here.  There are many things other than mosquitoes (pthhhht on them!) that creep and crawl and sometimes fly in our apartment.  Recently, elephantine spiders have been all the rage.  In fact, knowing, as I'm sure you do, the precious nature of the sleep of an infant (sleeping like a baby, ha! what a silly phrase), you will appreciate the horrific nature of these beasts when I tell you that not once, but TWICE we chose to sacrifice the sleep of Bean in order to kill one of these spiders.  It had to be done.  The day after the second kill, I found a group of ants working diligently to carry up the wall and presumably out the window a spider leg that we had missed in our clean-up.

Sure, it is photographically weak, but ITS LEG IS AS BIG AS A DIME!  Creepy.

Now, let me go back.  I said "we" killed these spiders, but it was really Wonderman.  The first two were all him.  The third was spotted when Bean and I were home alone and she had just fallen asleep.  It was right by the open door that led to her bedroom.  It had been a struggle to get her to dreamland.  I wasn't about to forfeit that if I could avoid it.  That's right, I faced the behemoth and I won - silently.  The silent part took great self-control.  And this time I got slightly better pictures.  This one is for the ick factor:

And this one is just for relative size (Keep in mind that this is the monster curled up in death.  In life, with legs radiating to grotesque lengths, he was much larger):

Conclusion: Sometimes a princess in a tower remains alone and has to fight her own battles.

It Simply Isn't Sound

So, many of you have heard the story of our friend ordering a meatball sandwich at Subway here on the island.  It went something like this:
"I'll have a foot-long meatball sub."
"We don't have enough meatballs for that."
"Ok, I'll take a six-inch."
After this conversation, the person behind her in line ordered a meatball sub.  They received it.
"I thought you didn't have enough meatballs for a twelve-inch sandwich?"
"We don't.  We only have enough for two six inch sandwiches."

That story has come to  exemplify the many idiosyncrasies of logic (?) we find here on the island.  My recent favorite was going to the pizza shop for Friday Fun Day.  A pepperoni pizza cost $43 EC.  A cheese pizza cost $41.  A half and half pizza cost $47.  I asked if they could put pepperoni on just half the pizza, so the other half would be just cheese.  Guess how much that would cost?  Sigh.  $47, of course.  We had all pepperoni.

Conclusion:  It really does require serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

Paradise?

Dominica, being in the tropics and all, gets a lot of sun.  For someone who is brown-ish and "ethnically vague" like I am, this is no big deal.  For someone who is white and pink like Wonderman is, it is a big deal.  Bean takes after her father.  Sigh.  I have come to the conclusion that a person like me (brown and completely unaware of sunscreen) to have a baby like Bean (white, white, white, and a little pink) in a place like Dominica (S-U-N-N-Y) is the perfect storm of bad luck.  Thankfully, I did think (by chance really, but I am very grateful) to buy her a sun hat before we came down.

 Conclusion:  Sometimes protection can be fun.

Eaten Alive

Um, all my posts may begin to seem a little Bean-centered.  Good thing she's so adorable, eh?   (Don't answer that.)

So, we live on a tropical island.  It sounds like paradise.  In many ways it is.  Not so much in all ways.  One not-so-paradisaical element is the beast known as "mosquito."  They always seem to eat the newcomers first.  Both Bean and I seem to count as new-comers.  After just a couple of days here, her little face looked so sad (and yet she grins), with all the bites on it:

And her little arms and legs were worse.  Especially the tender (ok, it's all tender on her) under-arm area, since she always sleeps with her hands above her head as though she is surrendering to a brutal police force.  Thankfully, a friend of ours had a mosquito net he was willing to lend us.  Now she sleeps like this:

The puffy pink spots have GREATLY decreased.  They really didn't seem to bother Bean (although she is just developing enough body awareness to rub her eyes when she's tired, so maybe she doesn't have a way to show that it bothered her), but it definitely makes for a much happier mommy.

Conclusion:  Armor of all kinds has value.

In Hot Water

Bean had a conniption fit during her first bath (I was rebellious and didn't let them bathe her at the hospital.  I probably would've waited even longer than I did to bathe her if her daddy hadn't been leaving.  He wanted to bathe her, so she got her first bath at two days old).  Both Wonderman and I were doing everything we could think of to make it less horrible, as her tiny body turned purple from screaming so hard.  Bath time slowly got better as time moved on, but there were still many nights that she screamed, and screamed, and screamed when getting out of the bath.  I think it was the combination of being tired and COLD.  Cold is not so much an option here in Dominica.  And she almost always loves her bath.  She ends her baths with a smile:

It's so much nicer this way.  I'm not sure what to do if I ever have a baby in the winter time again.  I don't think we'll be living on a tropical island for the rest of forever.  I suppose I'll just have to enjoy it while I can.

Conclusion:  Take joy in simple pleasures

Blessed

Did I tell you that Bean got a name and a blessing (ok, so she had the name for a while before this, but it became official on the records of the church) on January 2, 2011?  It was a sweet day.  I got choked up as I heard Wonderman start to speak, then he got choked up as he blessed her.  We are quite a pair.  Then Bean took over for both of us and cried heartily throughout.  Of course she stopped as soon as it was over.  We think the bouncing was, in fact, too vigorous with so many hands working together, trying to keep her happy.  Alas and nevertheless.  It was a good day.

Adventures of arrival

So, I just barely took my camera out of my backpack, which means that zero pictures have been taken of our trip or settling into home.  However, I just thought I'd toss in a couple cents. 

We got to Dominica just fine.  Bean was screaming every time we boarded the plane (three different flights), but once we got settled and she got to nurse she was quiet and asleep for essentially all the flying time.  Hooray!  That is one big worry down.  She seems to like it here.  She likes the warmth and the breezes.  She is taking some time to get used to her new crib.  Still, I think all in all the transition is going remarkably well, even if there are times when I wonder if I'm going to survive because she is screaming for no apparent reason.  I think those times are decreasing.  I hope. 

I am fully enjoying being back on the island.  I'm glad we came in January so I could enjoy some of the "cool" weather before it gets all crazy again.  The first day we were here, we walked to campus and to a store and I realized that the "walks" I went on in Utah were ridiculously easy and didn't count as exercise at all.  Sigh.  And I've found that carrying a baby makes it hard to carry anything else.  We'll see if at the end of 8 months I regret my decision to wear Bean instead of pushing her around in a stroller.  However it goes, it is good to be home and delightful to be a family that's together more than just for a nightly Skype session.

Wonderman is back to the grindstone and doing well.  It amazes me how much he puts into this.  I've come to the conclusion that not only do I never want to go to med school, especially since it would be mostly just to prove I could do it, not because I want to be a doctor, but a regular job is much easier than med school or motherhood.  That may seem obvious to you, but it is still a bit of a revelation for me.  I already have found myself thinking about how easy my life used to be when I just had to go to work.  Ah.  If only I had appreciated it then.  :) 

And that's it.  The adventure continues.  I'll try to take some pictures and post them later.  Maybe soon-ish.  Maybe not.

Until then.