Max's brain

Max's brain is fantastic. Recently he's devised a new procedure for bedtime that includes a lullaby he developed and a set of rituals for the passing of the bottle of milk that would make a NASA flight procedure manual read like a Dick and Jane grade school primer.

The lullaby is to be sung to some German nursery tune that Rob and I can never actually name but goes kinda like this....dum dum da dum da dum da dum da dum. Something is lost via the internet. Like the tune. But I'll venture forth anyway. The words to said lullaby go like this, (and CANNOT under any circumstances be deviated from)...

Sleep Maxi Sleep

Your bottle of milk won't make you vomit

Your Daddy loves you very much

Your Mommy loves you very much

Zella loves you very much

Your bottle won't make you vomit

After the singing of the lullaby then the passing of the actual bottle (that won't make him vomit) must be performed. The conversation usually goes like this and no I'm not making this up.

Max: Dada you give it to Mum. Mum will hand it to me.

Dad: Give it to Mum like this?

Max: Yes. Go.

Mum: (upon receiving the bottle) Here you go Maxi.

Max: NO NO NO. You STUPID people. (Okay I made that one up, but his tone is saying it nonetheless) Mum, you give it back to Dad. Dad you put it on the BLUE table. Give it to me when Mum gets me in the bed.

Dad: What blue table??

Mum: Do you mean the orange table Maxi?

Max: No the blue table what has the hammer under it.

Zella: (sticking her head in the door, waiting for her own bedtime ritual to begin) Could we please make this process go a little faster???

Yes, this is the conversation we have with our 2 and half year old son and our 5 year old daughter. This has nothing to do with living in Panama, of course. But won't this ritual be all the more rich and nuanced when our children are barking directions at us in Spanish?

Merry Christmas

Christmas in Panama wasn't as terrible as we thought it might be. Without snow, without family we began to question our decision to stay here over the holidays. But with lots of family arriving in January and February we felt like it was the right choice...back in October. But as the day approached the reasons for staying seemed foggier and foggier. Christmas, for us, has always been tied to snow and family and a long cozy day spent inside visiting with loved ones and roasting meat and vegetables.

So no family. No snow. And a kitchen as hot as h-e-double hockey sticks when you try to roast so much as a chicken wing. We began to worry a couple of weeks ago when the spirit of the holidays hadn't really hit us yet.

But, today was great. Our Christmas tree, imported from NOVA SCOTIA, was fragrant and sparkly. Our kids were sweet and lovely and adored the presents from Santa. And our traditional Christmas afternoon hike, which usually finds us kitted out in snowsuits, was this year spent wandering through the rainforest. We even saw an orphaned baby sloth, being lovingly cared for by Park Staff. And as an aside, there is nothing cuter on the entire planet than an 8 week old sloth.

So we made it through our first holiday down here. We survived and actually made quite a good day of it. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and wonderful New Year to you wherever you might be.

Summer Camp Christmas

We've been wondering what to do with Christmas and getting the house ready. I'm not really one for plastic Santas, light up reindeer and such. In Canada there's a lot to work with. Generally you just wander into your backyard, snip off a few pine branches and frozen berries and you're good to go. Not so much in Panama.

Which is why when I happened upon these pine branches lying by the side of the road this morning I screeched to a halt jumped out and piled the back of our Subaru full. Pine needles in Panama are like palm trees in Canada. Rare. Mind you, they're a little different than I'm used to. Each needle is about 12 inches long. But the smell? It's takes me back to summer camp. As a teenager when I was a summer camp counsellor for many endless summers there was a pine forest that we had to walk through to get to the Great Hall for meals, the smell of that forest has always been one of my very favourite summer memories. The floor was thick with fallen pine needles and in the heat and humidity of a Canadian summer they gave off the most wonderful scent of hot, dry pine. (The stuff that Fire Fighters nightmares are made of, I'm sure).

Our big collection of found Panama Pine, despite it's appearance of a steady diet of uber growth hormone, has just the exact same scent. It's a real Christmas blessing.

Lunch on the patio

After a swim, peanut butter roll ups with apples on the patio produces two sleepy, happy children. The very best part of Panama is the sunshine.

She who rocks

My sister rocks. She's also awesome at Anthony-Robbins-like-telephone-pep-talks. I love her. That is all.

An advance apology

We went to the Caribbean side of Panama for the first time this past weekend. As the pictures show...it was stunning. White sand. Turquoise water. Tropical fish for the kids to muck about with. Coconuts to kick. Etc. Etc.

And I would like to add to this post that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm putting these up at this time. I know full well that there's 30 centimetres of snow in Canada and that the city of Ottawa (where many of our loved friends live) is facing a harrowing transit strike. So no buses and piles of slush. Sorry. Again. Truly.

But if it helps it wasn't all sunshine and roses on our tropical island. The hotel had bugs and mould. Max pooped all over his legs and the floor. Twice. Zella scraped her shoulder badly on coral encrusted concrete. And Rob and I didn't sleep at all on account of Max waking up at 1am, silently walking to the front door of our room and only yelling for help, (waking us up), when he couldn't unlock the door so that he might "take a walk by the ocean". Save us all from 2 year olds.

So just wanted to throw in that dose of reality with the gorgeousness of this location. It wasn't quite as bad as 30 cm of snow and a transit strike but perhaps it paints a more realistic picture than the photos may offer on the surface. I think we may face this problem quite a bit in the months to come. Panama is getting warmer and sunnier as many parts of the world get wetter and colder and darker. Again, sorry 'bout that. I do promise, though, to try and take photos of the less pleasant aspects of life here. So stay tuned for shots of Max throwing temper tantrums. Zella announcing she's bored. Rob and I doing the dishes. Panamanian store clerks looking at me like I'm pond scum. Those sorts of things. Riveting blogging abounds!

Blessed in my gut

Monday was Mother's Day here in Panama. Zella picked out this beautiful ring for me as a token of her affection, Max handed over earrings and Rob cooked a great bbq salmon dinner. It was a lovely day and it's a nice turn of events to get to celebrate Mother's Day twice in one year.:)

The best part of Mother's Day was the poem that Zella's class were asked to learn and recite to their Moms back at home. IT sounded so beautiful rolling off of Zella's tongue, my mom genes were singing with pride as I heard her amazing Spanish accent and her mastery of the complicate and foreign words. I, of course, understood very little of it. But that didn't matter. It was the effort I appreciated.

Later, Rob passed on the translation of the poem. He, in trying to help Zella learn the poem, had translated it word for word. Here is the poem in it's literal translation...

those that made other lives

blessed in their guts

and they gave their souls

with a love that does not fool

I guess there really is something to said for cultural and linguistic context!

We can come out from under our rocks....

It's sunny again! All is right in the world:) Cue the choir.

Wow. What a difference a bit of sun makes. After 9 straight days of rain everyone is very ready for a bit of a reprieve. I went swimming this morning (at the local Olympic size outdoor pool) and spent a good deal of time just floating there looking up at the blue, blue sky. I came home and took these photos from our balconies. The different shades of blue and green in Panama are unbelievable.

But I shouldn't get too comfortable just yet...the rainy season isn't over. Tomorrow we'll probably be back to Noah-type rains. So we'll just enjoy it while we can....

Happy Birthday to my Mum

Today is the day my Mum was born. My amazing, loving, funny, goofy, wonderful Mum. We love you Mum. Happy Birthday! XOXOXOXO

Like at the lake

We went swimming this afternoon in our pool here at the condo. After the rains for the last two weeks the water was deliciously cold. The kind of cold that you find in a northern Ontario lake at the end of August, enough to make you yelp as you jump in but not enough to make you leave it. The kids and I loved it. I think it must be in the DNA, a Canadian recessive gene as it were. I'm sure our neighbours thought we were insane.

But honestly, if we squinted our eyes up tight, tried to ignore the palm trees and toucans overhead and focused on the dark grey sky farther back on the horizon, it felt as if summer was coming to a close. It was an awesome feeling. We came in after our little lake dip, had soup and put on warm pyjamas and cranked up the air conditioning just to keep the feeling.

Throw a snowball for us.