Nerds, Hypocrites, and Assistants

We've had some pretty funny moments with our kiddos recently and I need to document them before I forget them.

The first was a month ago when we took the kids to see Daddy's School. When we drove onto campus, Kate asks, "Daddy, is this a nerd school?" Ha! We got a pretty good laugh over that. (If you've seen Big Hero 6 you'll understand where this came from). Nerd school or not, it's not a shabby campus to look at, that's for sure. Actually, Chris and his buddy Ryan say that it looks better on the outside. Guess it's not so pretty on the inside. :)

As a side note, the airport is on the peninsula that the kids are looking at in this picture. This is also an incredible spot to watch the sunset. It's breathtakingly beautiful.


The next was yesterday on our way home from the black sand beach (which I'll hopefully post more about later). Kate was sitting up front with me and I asked her to be in charge of passing snacks back to Chase and Maddie. She was all excited and put on her best Mom voice and says, "OK, Mom, from now on, I am your assistant mom. Chase and Maddie can call me Mom." After some discussion we decided that it would be too confusing to have two "Moms" in the car so we settled on calling her Kate, but she could still be my assistant. Give that girl a little power and she will totally take over! Sheesh. (Hopefully we can instill a little humility and compassion into her before we set her loose in the world.) ;)

Then tonight at dinner Chase totally drowned his mashed potatoes and steak in gravy. This lead me to make a snarky comment, "Have some potatoes with your gravy, Dude." Then Chris tells him to look at my plate and say, "Mom, You're a hypocrite." (I kinda like my potatoes and gravy too). ;) So Chase starts laughing hysterically. It's what he does when he's nervous. And then the little stinker says it! His face was bright red as he said "hypocrite." He was laughing so hard and it came out super high pitched. I wish I would have recorded it. It was sooooo funny. I don't think he realized it was a real word so we had to explain to the kids what "hypocrite" meant. Then Chase says, "Like when Daddy said, don't climb the wall like this, and then he did it?" HA!! Totally backfired on Chris! Yep, exactly like that, Chase. Exactly.

Our First Experience with Grenadian Healthcare

Today we marked one month of being on the island! Wahoo! To celebrate we took our first trip to the doctor. Sounds like fun, right? We just want to make sure we have the full Grenadian experience while we are here ya know.

So, I picked Maddie and her friend Jake up from school at 1:30 today and drove Jake home. I got a little carried away talking with some friends (go figure) and Maddie was whiney and clingy the entire time. I didn't think much of it because she's been like that a lot the last few weeks. I mean, A LOT. But then we get in the car to leave Jake's house and she full on starts having a meltdown. "My ear is bugging me!" Over and over and over. By the time we get home she's a blubbering, slobbery mess.

Conveniently, I couldn't find my local phone. I had gone to a yard sale that morning and could not, for the life of me, figure out where I had put the blasted phone so I couldn't call any of the pediatricians on the island. When my friend Harmony brought Kate and Chase home at 2:30 I told her what was going on and she let me borrow her phone. And, this is Grenada here (TIG), the pediatrician's office was randomly closed early. Sheesh. Harmony offered to take Chase and Kate to her house and off Mads and I went to the SGU Clinic.

As I parked at the clinic I had a thought to look in the glove box and guess what was there! My local phone!! Yay! I was so relieved. Mads and I waited an hour and a half to see the doctor. (once again, TIG) She cried and cried and cried some more. One of the receptionists was sweet and brought out a magna doodle for her to play on. So we created these triangle and square robots. She actually drew them all by herself. I thought they were pretty cute. I tried really hard to get a pic of little Miss, but she wasn't having it today.

When we finally got to see the doctor, he did a full on exam. Now, I totally understand that she was a new patient and they want to be thorough, but she was pretty much hysterical by this point so it was really trying my patience. That and his phone kept ringing and HE ANSWERED IT. TWICE! Seriously, you have a borderline screaming child in your exam room with you, LET THEM LEAVE A MESSAGE!! (The all caps makes me sound really mad, but I was more annoyed about it than anything.)

Really
Really
Annoyed

M was really a trooper though. With a little coaxing, she calmed down enough for him to poke and prod her all over and listen to her breathing and all that good stuff. But when it came time for the Rx/instructions, I could barely hear a word he was saying because she was crying so much. Did I mention she shed a few tears? I couldn't read his handwriting on the script and half of the medications were Spanish so there was no way I'd remember them anyway...I wasn't sure what I was going to be giving my child, but I was pretty desperate by this time.

By this time it was 5:00 and Daddy is done with class! So we picked him up, ran to the pharmacy, which was more like a 7-11 crossed with a drug store, and we got her antibiotics and went home.

She is happily sound asleep now and will hopefully wake up a new girl tomorrow. She's got a big day ahead of her at school. They are celebrating the Grenadian Independence Day and she gets to wear her new Grenada dress. Oh la la!! She's pretty stoked. :-)

Getting settled

We are getting settled here in Grenada and making some new friends. First of all, the Branch (Church group) here on the island has been amazing. They arranged rides for us from the airport when we arrived as well as dinner. Our landlords have also been amazing. We don't have a car yet, which has made sightseeing a little difficult as yet, but they have been so kind to offer us rides whenever we need it. The Whitesides and Jacksons took us to the grocery store on Monday to get some essentials. Two days later, when I realized we needed lots more, I called Holly up and she took me back to the store to pick up more food/essentials. 

Back at home we've been learning the art of drying our clothes outside. I'm afraid with a family of 5 I'm going to be monopolizing the laundry lines. I hope the landlords and neighbors don't mind! Kate was extremely excited about her "job" of holding the laundry basked under the clothes as Chris unclipped them and made them fall into the basket. I wonder how long that excitement will last? (Putting her clothes away is apparently as boring as ever because I still have a whole couch full of kids clothes that need to be put away.)

Our landlords, Daiva and Ashton, have been so, so kind. Daiva is from Lithuania and is super friendly. She made Chris a coconut cake for his birthday yesterday and Ashton drove us to the best beach ever yesterday (more to come on that in another post) and to the kids' school today (I'll post more on that later). They also have a puppy named Coco, short for Coconut. He is a cute little thing and super fun for the kids to play with. Kate has been wanting a puppy so bad ever since Daddy put the bug in her ear last Christmas. I seriously get asked a zillion times a day when we can get a puppy. Now I can just send them downstairs to play with Coco. Problem solved! Best dog situation ever!

Today after school we were going a little stir crazy. So, I sent my friend, Harmony, a message asking if she would mind giving us a ride to the beach and dropping us off for a couple of hours. She said they were actually on their way to the University Club pool and invited us to come. So, we piled our family of 5 into their car with their family of 5 and drove Grenadian style to the pool. Now, before you think we are terrible parents, the top speed on the island is about 30 miles an hour on the "highway." And we weren't on the highway at all, just some smaller roads. So it's not really that bad. ;) I didn't take a picture of the pool, but I should have. It's completely gorgeous. There were a few other students there so we got to get to know them as well. The kids had a BLAST.

So, that's life in a nutshell so far. I'll post more in the days to come, but for now just know we are having a blast and loving it so far! We do miss our friends and family. If you want a Caribbean vacation, we have a place for you to stay!!

We made it!!

On Sunday evening we finally made it to Grenada!! Yahoo! The first thing Kate said as we walked down the steps from the airplane was "Mom, I'm hot." Ha! Get used to it, kid. ;)

I guess I should back up a bit. About 6 weeks ago Chris was accepted to St George's University School of Medicine. After 7 long years of prerequisites and applications, we finally decided to try out the Caribbean schools. And we got accepted to the "Harvard of the Caribbean!" (there's a snippet from the TV show ER where they call SGU the Harvard of the Caribbean. I'll have to look it up and post it in here at some point). Anyway, we accepted the offer, and spent the next 6 weeks getting the house ready to rent and packing up. It was a whirlwind of chaos, especially at the end, but we have amazing family and friends that made it all possible. I seriously think we would still be in OK wrapping things up if it weren't for them. ...I should probably do a whole post on that at some point too...

Anyway, we made it to Grenada without a hitch. A couple of delayed flights, but nothing too traumatic. :) The kids each took turns napping and playing on their new kindles and were amazing travelers.

We arrived, waited in the line to get our visas for what felt like forever. Maddie was getting a bit whiny by this point so we entertained her by scooting her around on the booster seat. She thought that was a blast and it entertained the rest of us while we waited.

After immigration, we headed over to get our zillion bags (actually 19, but who's counting anyway?) ;) We loaded them all on a tiny luggage cart and headed over to customs. The lady asked me what was in the bags and I seriously couldn't think of a thing. My brain was so fried by that time. "uhhhh, clothes, diapers..." She just waved me and the kids through and sent Chris to the customs lady next to her to verify his school acceptance. Which, dun, dun, dun.... We didn't realize we needed the acceptance letter AND the immigration letter from the school. So the next 20 minutes was a little chaotic with me and the kids and luggage outside while Chris was inside trying to verify his acceptance over wifi on his phone inside. I kept having to run into the airport to bring him different documents to see if they would work while the kids and luggage sat outside. (The kids weren't too happy about that, but they, once again, were troopers). I felt so bad. Welcome to Grenada. But wait, Mom's gonna leave you alone in a foreign country for a minute. The security guards kept saying, "they'll be fine. Just go." I promise, I was barely out of their line of sight when the doors closed for a second and then darted right back out. Don't turn me in to DHS.

Anyway, once that trauma was done, we crossed the road and our entire luggage cart fell over. So we scrambled to pick them all up. It was chaos.

Then this guy from our Church was there to pick us up. (Our landlord had waited for 2 hours and just left, but was happy to come back to get us.) Josh, the guy from church, took the kids and I home. His wife had packed banana bread and ice water for the kids to munch on while we traveled as well as eggs, milk and bread for breakfast the next morning. And some mosquito repellent. It was amazing. Oh, and some mac n cheese. (if you know us, you know that was perfect). They were so kind. The landlord was also so very kind and welcoming. Another family from our Church brought us dinner and we chatted for a bit. We felt so welcomed and loved. They even came to take us to the grocery store the next day. AND, tomorrow one of the girls is coming back to take me to the grocery store AGAIN because I forgot so much the first time. The people here are amazing and so friendly. I'm so grateful to have good friends, good landlords and a beautiful island to enjoy for the next 2 years.