The Huntress

Pigeons, pigeons everywhere and not a dropping-free surface anywhere.  The perpetrator is our church next door.  It’s a grand old theater with literally thousands of pigeons roosting in its roof.  One of our friends at church suggested poisoning the pigeons, but that didn’t go over so well with animal-loving folks on the same committee.  And what happens after you poison them?  I’m envisioning a mess.  Lots of dead carcasses that no one can locate stinking for weeks in the Caribbean sun.  Another person shared how her U.S. city fed pigeons something that killed them hours after they ate it.  She said it resembled Armageddon with pigeons falling from the sky. 

Enter into this dismal scene one quasi-feral cat, who’s had three batches of kittens this calendar year alone.  When she’s nursing kittens (she had five in her last litter), she takes down a pigeon a day.  In-between litters, her tally is slightly lower. Previously known as the cat of questionable origin and dubious vaccination record, who goes through our garbage, sleeps in our kids’ stroller, and leaves piles of blood and feathers in the wake of her kills; she is slowly winning our affection through her hunting enterprises.  She even lets the kids pet her.  Naomi is her biggest fan.  Hannah vacillates between “bahhhhing” her away and shyly attempting to pet her.

Now that we have animal-loving neighbors, she’s become our friend.  In cat world, this means we now have the honor of being among the first to see her kills.  She proudly shows off her pigeon catches.  This week she even ate the bird right in front of our house.  Ewwww.  Cristen, one of our new animal-loving neighbors, did the honors of moving the half-eaten carcass downstairs so that our new cat friend could finish enjoying her hard work.  Thankfully, Eddie, our building maintenance man who “owns” the cat (which as far as I can tell only entails finding homes for her kittens vs. feeding or caring for the cat), cleaned up the rest.

Pass the Soap, Please

Naomi is in the midst of her 15-18 month picky-eater stage.  At least this is what her U.S. pediatrician assured me.  “Keep presenting balanced meals, and don’t make it a battle.”  Her Dominican pediatrician informed me that I needed to offer her each new food at least 14 times before she will try it.  Well, we’ve long surpassed the 14 and no luck.  Naomi still won’t eat a piece of fruit to save her life. 

In November, Naomi decided crackers were the world’s only edible food.  “Cracka” was her first intelligible word apart from our names.  This month she’s living on pretzels.  In truth, she’ll usually eat Joselyn’s oatmeal for breakfast (not mine) and rice and beans too.  The poor kid didn’t do too well in the U.S.—no proper arroz y habichuelas, no Joselyn oatmeal.  Thankfully, we did have crackers. 

The one funny aspect to our food predicament is what Naomi will eat.  Soap?  Oh, yum.  Paper?  Pass it on over.  Crayons and markers are also favorites.  Her mouth is regularly green or purple from sucking on markers Hannah carelessly left lying on the floor.  Sigh.  Our bar of bath soap literally has little teeth marks all over it.  In this picture, she's featured proudly drinking the bathtub water, which is not potable—we live in the Dominican Republic.  Though maybe I should remove the cup from the bathtub toy collection.  While she won't drink regular water from a cup, apparently forbidden bathtub water is irresistible.  

We’re eagerly awaiting this eating stage to pass.  In the meantime, we’re supplementing the soap with gummy bear vitamins.

A Christmas Picture

Does this happen to other families?  First of all, neither Andy nor I are particularly photogenic, so our expectations were low, but really?  I cropped this photo from a larger family picture of all the grandchildren taken at my parent’s house in order to demonstrate what we’re working with.  Andy and I died with laughter when we saw this picture.  

While I cannot put it on a Christmas card, I can put it in a blog entry!  Someday I am hoping for a nice family picture with all four of us facing the camera and smiling naturally, but unfortunately that day has not yet arrived.  My fridge is covered with adorable family photos from friends with kids around the same age.  How do you guys do it?  

Believe It or Not

I’m pretty sure the Dominican version of the FDA either doesn’t exist or is woefully negligent in carrying out its mandate.  This entire bag of (very delicious) deep-fried plantain chips is only 30 calories and 8 grams of fat.  Really?  Food labels like this throw the entire nutrition labeling enterprise into suspicion.  Though, what if it’s true?  What if eating a bag of chips every week isn’t so terribly bad after all?

Our Friendly Fern

We’d only been in the country three months and I’d yet to find a plant store.  We were enjoying lunch at a nearby diner.  I’d just finished regaling Andy with my plant sagas, and voila!  God really does provide.  Along came a man with a large fern on his head carrying a tray of smaller plants.  I relieved him of his head fern and a “tu y yo” cactus to begin my plant family. 

Apparently here in the D.R., you can just pop a seed in the ground and it grows—like magic.  Unfortunately, I have not experienced this phenomenon to be true.  Simple ferns seem to thrive pretty much everywhere here—except my apartment. 

My fern grew well for a while, then its leaves slowly began turning brown and yellow.  “It’s pot constrained,” declared the experts.  I bought a bigger pot with new soil.  “Ferns love the sun, you must move it outside.”  The sun simply turned the leaves yellow and brown faster.  I began pruning the ugly stems and leaves.  Maybe it’s just going through a weird adolescent stage. 

Nothing worked any miracles.  My fern has managed to muddle through almost a year under my care.  I’ve recently started adding nutrients to the soil.  Maybe chemicals will do the trick.  Regardless, Hannah greatly enjoys giving our fern regular haircuts.  She has permission to cut off the brown portion of the leaves—a rule she adheres to very loosely since scissors are so fun. 

Cursive Curiousity

I had to buy a textbook for Hannah’s class this year.  To my surprise, they are teaching the 3-year-olds to read and write in cursive!  Isn't that strange?  Although maybe it's a new teaching rage in the U.S. too.  

According to my cursory research, many Dominicans think (1) it’s easier for young children to write in cursive than script, and (2) having nice cursive handwriting is really, really important.  Honestly, I don't even remember how to form 50% of the letters in cursive.

After slightly more than 3 months, Hannah can now write an “a” in cursive.  It looks kindof like a "q" to me.  Hmmm.  She can write Hs, As, and Ns in script.  Not to brag or anything.  Especially because as hard as I try, I cannot get my daughter to put these letters in the correct order to spell her name.  She writes them in a long string “HHAAAAAANNNNNNNHH” in the order of her choosing, which in her mind spells her name just fine. 

Actually, the cursive thing might work well because she associates Spanish sounds with the cursive letters and English sounds with the script letters.  I pointed to her cursive “a” and called it an “ā” (as in “āte”).  “NO, mom, it’s not an ā, it’s an aaaaaahhh," (pronounced like ŏ as in “pŏt”)!