the Grind

I’m sorry that there’s nothing extraordinary to report this week. And I’m not going to organize these thoughts much because I am utilizing naptime to do some simultaneous reporting AND cooking. “Why?” you ask. Well, because Clif and I have a babysitter for the night and we are going…wait for it….OUT!!

Do any of you ever feel like you get psyched up for a sitter to come keep the kids so that you can get some fresh air and then once the sitter arrives, you’re wondering if it would be too much to ask them to strap the car seats in their car and take your kids away so that you can lay on your own sofa to enjoy the peace and quiet? I think that if I had a sitter more often, I would not want to lock them outside of my house with my kids so badly. But seeing as how I can’t remember the last time that I didn’t wake up with my kids at 6 and tell them “good night” at 7, I might be the craziest mother this sitter has met in awhile.

So, what do we do for 12 raucous hours a day?

1. We feed the chickens, pretty much on a daily basis. We ride our bikes/scooters up and down the street and when we need a break, we make a stop up the road where the chickens and roosters tend to congregate. The girls throw oatmeal while I run defense on the neighborhood dog, who I already love like my own- but he eats chicken. As discussed previously, my mornings would be quieter for longer with a few less roosters running around but probably at the cost of pleasant dreams if the girls had to watch Spice maul and eat a chicken.

At the public beach park

2. This week we have played many a round of our new favorite game, ‘Take the Cake’. One of Clif’s friends bought it for the girls last weekend and we are wearing it out.

3. We swim at the swimming pool. Although swim time has been slim this week because ever since the rain, the mosquitos have been vicious. The mosquitos at home are bad in a pesky sort of way but Caymanian mosquitoes act as if they’ve been naturally-selected for terror. I use a brand of bug spray that is all-natural and it works like a charm at home. But here the mosquitoes just hover until they sense we’ve all sweated our bug spray off! Furthermore, while we were swimming on Sunday, I sent Alliene over to the “rocks” (which adjoins a fence, which separates the pool and property from a wooded area) to “farm-pee” (my neighbors term, now very common in

Public Beach park

our daily conversation) and when I looked up to make sure she was going to get there in time, I realized she was trotting straight for a HUGE black snake. Supposedly none of the snakes on this island are poisonous but do you think I care??? Unfortunately, given the snake conversations I’ve had with my two next door neighbors, I don’t think it would be kosher for me to hack up a snake with a garden hoe or, better yet, run one over with my car if I happened to be so lucky as to see that nasty sucker in my driveway.

Public Beach park…Cooling off from the toes up

4. On Wednesday we picked Clif up from school, took the kids back to Cemetery Beach for some snorkeling, and I packed a picnic supper. A little backstory: we’ve decided that leaving our hot water heater unplugged helps with the utility bill. Well, with all that’s going on in this house daily, its really hard for us to remember to plug it in and unplug it when we need to take showers. Plus, its so hot here all of the time. So, we’ve been leaving it unplugged and taking cold showers. Crazy!! I know. Well, when we’ve taken trips to the beach and the girls have had to take an impromptu shower, Nora Ruth is miserable. The child likes her water unnaturally, scaldingly hot. When I told Nora Ruth we had beach plans for Wednesday afternoon I thought that she would be thrilled. Nope, she didn’t want to go. When I asked why, she said because she didn’t want to rinse off in a cold shower, so I had to promise her a hot bath before bed.

Thomas loves Cemetery Beach

5. We visited the public beach playground. It is v ery easy to get to (on the way to pick up Clif) and close to the ocean so we can go cool off. The only downside is that there is not much shade and there is not enough sunscreen on this island to keep my fair kids safe from the sun.

6. Yesterday we picked Clif up at 4 and we took the girls to a beautiful park down in South Sound called “Dart Park”.  According to Clif, the Dart family is well-known

Grand Old House: Going….

on the island for making paper products (or maybe for making a lot of money) and they have really done a nice job on this park. I’ll get more pictures of it the next time, I promise. The playground is one of those big, sturdy contraptions but the grounds are absolutely beautiful with lots of shade and mature trees. The ocean is about 70 yards away  and you can walk across an iron shore and search for snails and crabs and other “treasures”, as Nora Ruth calls anything I would prefer she leave outside. Then we took the kids to Grand Old House where

…Going…

Thursday night is $10-Make-Your-Own-Pasta night. Nothing to write home about but there were fresh veggies and the price was better than most options here in Cayman.

…GONE (it was just ice cream, people)

Those were the high points of this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend. I know many of you will be joining me tonight in my quest for “Real

Grown-up Time” and I’ll be thinking of you, too, as you pick up your car keys, give your sitter instructions, kiss your kids goodbye, and drive to the nearest quiet parking lot to recline your seat and take a nap!

Daddy and his brood at Grand Old House