Long lost twin

So Max has a new friend, Sean. Max and Sean are such dead ringers for eachother even I get them mixed up! They both love cars, yelling and food. It's a match made in heaven.

Lucky for us Sean has a sister too, exactly Zella's age. Es muy perfecto.:)

Pool or the beach? One for each

Tomorrow morning we'll pack our bags amid much chaos (as is always the case with a 2 yr and 5 yr old in tow) and head to the beach again. Just one night. But a good fish dinner and a lot of swimming will hit the spot. Still the pool for Max and the ocean for Zel...but who knows? Maybe we'll convince Max to get his feet wet.

UPDATE: Max went boogie boarding with Rob on REALLY BIG waves. So in typical fashion he didn't just get his feet wet, he jumped right in. I think the fear of the ocean is over. Of course, we forgot the camera. Damn.

New additions to the family

Zella's newest joy is making stuffed animals for her stuffed animals. Yes, you read that right. Dollies for the dolls. These are the two that were made this afternoon. As yet unnamed. She is accepting any and all suggestions and will check in regularly to see who has been able to navigate the "leave a comment" function and come up with the best suggestions.....her only requirement one be a boy name and one be a girl name. As Zella put it, "and they get to decide but I will pick...you guys will get to help me but it's my decision in the end". Aha...so really you're only being asked to participate in a consultative process.

And as an aside, if you're really looking to help out here you're going to want to come up with something so sickly sweet, over-the-top cute, ridiculously embarassing that you probably won't want to leave a comment admitting to it. But do it anyway. For the sock bunny and for Zel.:) (nobody will laugh, or at least you won't hear them anyway....)

What your tax dollars do for you...

We recently had a situation in which we began to fully understand where our Canadian tax dollars went. Here in Panama there's so much to love, great weather, great beaches, beautiful wildlife, etc etc. The list is long. However, there are some basic services that are missing. Services that we rely on. Services that are paid for by our municipal (I think?) tax dollars at home in Canada. Like animal control.

If an animal is hit and killed on your residential street in Canada there's someone to call to take care of it. I don't know who...everytime I've ever seen a dead animal in said situation it's usually gone the next time I look. Some mysterious service, that I've never had to give a second thought to, does the job of coming to take the poor creature away. It's a given.

Here in Panama...not quite the same. No mysterious service to pick up dead animals. The tax dollars are needed elsewhere and rightfully so. However, when a very dead cat is sitting outside of your patio door and your two small children are able to see, in graphic detail, the entire decomposition/back-to-the-earth cycle you begin to feel like you might have to take the whole thing into "your own two hands". Ha.

Rob did just that. Awesome dad that he is. Here's his account...

"The limits of my dedication as a father were well tested a couple weeks ago. A small white cat was killed in the street directly in front of our condo building. Directly in front of our 1st floor balcony to be precise. There it lay, blood-splotched white cat rotting in the gutter. In the gutter that you had to walk past to get the kids to school. Day 2 - there it lay. Panama being Panama, there would be no expectation of this thing being cleaned up before it simply washed down the sewer grate. So when I came back from Lima, the first job I had was to go out with garbage bag in hand and peel said dead cat from the road to spare innocent Max and Zella from a graphic lesson in post-mortem mammalian physiology. After answering Max's question the next morning about where the cat had gone, I heard nothing but "touch it?" "with your hand?" for the next two days."

So that was Rob, 20 minutes back from the airport and Peru. In full business attire plucking dead cat from the road. Our neighbours think we're crazy.:)

A walk in the park....

Today we went for a walk in the rain forest on Cerro Campana, a small mountain 30 minutes outside Panama City. The kids loved it. Highlights included another Blue Morpho butterfly sighting and Max learning to pee standing up. The two had nothing to with each other, though. Much to the Morpho's relief, I'm sure.

Another big highlight was the cooling breezes and relief from the humidity to be found at that altitude. I think we'll be going back often!

Tomorrow promises more excitement. An electrician is coming to hook up our dryer. Finally dry towels!!

The new 'do

Max got haircut No. 4 of his whole entire life yesterday. He and Rob went to the local salon and had head massages, cappucino/agua in a sippy cup and generally got fawned over. Both of them loved it. But Max has spent the last 24 hours saying hello to everyone with a "Hola! Like my new haircut?" Let's just say he's feelin' his new 'do.

It was about time for a cut, too. We noticed a funny smell emanating from Maxi recently- his hair was getting a bit mildewy. Not unheard of when the humidex runs at 300. Hence, the new buzz cut.

Spiders and such

I've had several requests to go back and take that picture I promised of the humongous spider I see while I'm walking/running/heaving myself through this heat. This morning I managed it. She (as I have come to think of her) wasn't at the best angle and I am by no means National Geographic quality in my photo taking. But I think you get a feeling for how stupendous she is. Her mint green colour and gold iridescence don't come across, which is too bad, because that's what makes her look like a Dr. Seuss character. The picture doesn't really show scale but take my word when I tell you she is about 5-6 inches across, from leg to leg, on her MASSIVE web. I was thoroughly creeped out as I had to actually step off the path and put myself near the primordial mess of jungle that is just off every sidewalk in our neighbourhood.

My fear off stepping off the sidewalk made me think of a book I'm reading right now that is describing, in great detail, the plight of the Jamaican and Chinese workers that came here to dig the canal a hundred years ago. It describes them as having to bed down on the jungle floor and live through the rains and humidity 24/7 without adequate food and housing. They did this for 2o cents a day. The mind boggles. Anyway, I think of them as I realize how ridiculously cushy my life is and what they must have coped with. And anything you're using today, anything made in China, most likely came through the canal that they dug, in many cases, by hand.

Which brings me back to my spider and how not really all that brave I was to take the picture. But I am glad she's out there and I'm not.

Fair and balanced reporting....

I don't want to be accused of only reporting on the happy, sunny, vacationland type posts that eventually drive people away in droves. So here's the other side of things. Two emails from friends today, and a phonecall with my sister last night, have rendered me resolutely homesick. I miss Ottawa. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I'm ridiculously weepy. And the humidex is still hovering at 300. So bad hair in the mix as well.

There you have it. This is my attempt at fair and balanced reporting. I will now go and scour the neighbourhood for potential friendlies. I'm sure I will be ever so successful with puffy red eyes and beyond-frizzy hair. 'Night all.

The beach

Everytime we go to the beach we come back relaxed and happily exhausted. The slideshow is an addition to share some photos, not sure if it'll stick around for a long time. On the other hand, it took so long to get the bloody thing working I'm not sure I'll ever figure out how to delete it. We may be stuck with it for the duration!

Ridiculously off topic...

While cruising Craigslist trying to scare up some friends (to no avail, I might add) I happened upon one of the funniest classified ads I've ever seen.

If you've ever hated living in a noisy environment or had a love of minotaurs this is something you MUST read. Also, if McCabe is your last name or in your DNA the absurdity of this one will hit the mark. It's just a little off in left field....:)

Enjoy.... http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/min/733317143.html

Things we see...

These are some of the things we see. Downtown Panama City shots. Too much commentary here might start to sound like a second rate version of Frommers. So I'll just let the pictures talk.

Something lost and a fairy visit

We've got something big to show off. Lost teeth. Two of them, in fact. Zella's two bottom teeth are gone! She's been madly picking at them for about two months now and finally her efforts have paid off. The teeth fell out. And teeth that have fallen out are in the realm of the tooth fairy! Even more joy!

Zella would like everyone to know the following (straight from the horse's toothless mouth...)

"It feels like, kinda like I'm a baby again because I don't have these teeth anymore and now I only feel my gums. Just like a baby." She also would like to describe the tooth fairy, "She's got a red dress and a little wand and a money machine to give out money to kids with no teeth. And I know that because she gave me two dollars already." And what does the tooth fairy do with the teeth? "I can take one guess. And I think what she does is that she takes them to her castle and then what she does is uses them to build her castle. She uses baby teeth instead of bricks. Like a tooth castle."

And there you have it.

Four and counting

I've now seen four blue morpho butterflies. Keeping a mental tally is easy because they're so ridiculously beautiful. Each one is about 4 to 5 inches across at the farthest wing tips. And when I see them flitting by their colour is so shocking it always stops me in my tracks.

Such was the case this morning as I attempted a run/walk and came across one of these guys in a particularly wooded area. As a side bar, I've never sweated so much in all life for a measly 25 minutes of exercise. It's hot. See previous post for description.:)

Anyway, back to the wildlife. I also saw a spider that was mint green with golden spots, it was about 6 inches across. Tomorrow I will attempt to take a picture. Those of you that know my fear of spiders will understand what a big mental hurdle this is. But this spider was definitely worth the effort. Hopefully it will still be on it's massive (6 ft) web tomorrow when I head out for another sweatfest.

No diaper. No pool.

Today must've been over 40 degrees with a humidex hovering somewhere around 300. Not sure what made today feel so different...every day here is stinking hot. Opening the patio doors felt like opening the dryer, after it had been running for 6 hours straight. With fireballs in it. While drinking freshly squeezed hot pepper juice.

Would've been nice to spend this kind of a day in the pool. But not possible because 2 yr old Max has decided that he will no longer wear swim-up diapers. We spent 30 minutes debating/fighting it out in the front hall. Him standing naked and yelling, "No swim up, mum. Just my penis." Which would've been fine, except that the pool is shared by the other 30 families that live in this complex. Max has not mastered the art of using a toilet yet and, in fact, sometimes takes great pleasure in NOT using a toilet. Let's just say he likes to pee in corners. Zella yelling, "Mom, Max is peeing on my (insert various items here) again" is a very common phrase these days.

So no pool for us. Maybe tomorrow.