Hello sweet snugglebunny all cozy in your crib, and Happy 20-month Birthday! You had a busy day, and seemed quite ready to put on your duck pajamas and get under the covers tonight. You played with your Nana all morning, then went to baby school this afternoon, and then the park! I think you had a good day, but you miss your Nana. I do too.
You two were so cute yesterday. Nana showed you how to make cookies, and you followed directions expertly while standing on a chair pulled up to the kitchen counter. You’d get so excited about cooking that you’d stomp your little feet in anticipation when it was time to put the bunny dough on the cookie sheet.
Waiting was the hardest part, but finally the timer would go off and the cookies were done. “Ookies!” you’d yell as Nana pulled them out of the oven. Then the best part – eating them, of course!
You got to spend a lot more time than usual with your grands this month, which has been wonderful. You had plenty of one-on-one attention from them while we were in Cuba, and both of your grandmothers have since come here to visit. In fact, your schedule has been pretty crazy lately, and I’m afraid it will take your Daddy and me some time to undo all the spoiling. In addition to all the extra grandparent attention (and rule-breaking), we were all sick last week, so you pretty much got your way. We all kind of felt like we’d been run over by a car, so if you wanted to lie in bed and watch Elmo, that was fine by us. None of us felt much like eating, so if all you wanted for dinner were grapes (the purple ones, NOT the green ones), then that was A-OK.
Except, you’re not sick anymore, but you still expect a steady diet of furry red monsters and purple grapes. Sometimes you’ll look at me and ask, “Elmo?” And I’ll say, “No sweetie, we’re not going to watch Elmo right now.” And then you’ll furrow your brow and turn your lips down and moan “Eeeeeelmoooooh!” like I had sliced into your heart. At dinner, I’ll bring over a plate of something sensible including green veggies, and you’ll take one look and shake your head. “No. No. No.” you’ll say. Thankfully, tonight you seemed a bit more compliant, only asking for Elmo once, and actually eating your pasta and peas.
You really are such a sweet, adorable person even when you’re being stubborn. And you’re certainly not stubborn all the time. In fact, most of the time you’re happy, playful, and ready to offer up a laugh or a kiss or whatever your mama might need.
You still love to play pretend, and are still very much into your baby dolls. Your daddy bought you one called “Oscar Baby,” because it’s a baby doll wearing a really cute Oscar-the-Grouch outfit. You love the baby doll, but you can’t stand for any of your dolls to wear clothes. Not even the Oscar outfit! Sometimes your Daddy puts the outfit on the doll at night while you’re sleeping, and when you wake up and start playing with it, you almost immediately begin tugging at the velcro. “Cohz! Cohz!” you say, which is your word for clothes. “Off! Off!” You won’t calm down until Oscar Baby is naked, being strolled through the house in the doll stroller.
You’ve really started mimicking us this month, which is adorable and scary at the same time. I really have to start watching what I say, because I’ll be talking to someone else and suddenly you’ll repeat a word I just said or react to it in some way, even though I had no idea you were listening. You’ve also started taking an interest in cleaning, something you probably would’ve done sooner, except I usually do my cleaning at night. Because I have to be at work all day, I really want the little time we have together in the evening to be quality time, so I wait until you’re asleep to clean. But then I decided I didn’t want you growing up thinking magic fairies come to the house during the night and clean house, because you’d be in for a big disappointment, so I started doing some more cleaning with you around. The other day, you helped me mop the hardwood floors. You carried the mop from room to room chanting, “Mop, mop, mop.”
Later, I walked into your room to find you sitting on the floor, furiously scrubbing the rug with a washcloth like a tiny Cinderella.
One of your favorite things to do this month is play in your crib, of all things! One day we walked into your room, and you ran up to your crib and started yelling, “NIGHT NIGHT! NIGHT NIGHT!” and reaching up like you wanted to get in. I mean, you haven’t fought against your crib in a long time, but I was still surprised you wanted to get in there when it wasn’t nap time or bed time. But you insisted, so I put you in. You plopped down to your belly and said “Night night!” and pretended to go to sleep. If I talked to you, sometimes you’d put your finger to your nose and say, “SHHHHHHHHH!” Yes ma’am!
After a few minutes of this you like to put your stuffed animals night-night in there too by lying them on their bellies and covering them with a blanket. Then the book bonanza begins. You’ve always liked books, but this month your obsession has moved to a whole new level. Now, you like for me to give you books in your crib, and you’ll flip wildly through them like a little speed reader, then quickly demand another. Finally one day I just put a box of about 50 books in your crib, and you went through each one. We do this nearly every day now, and sometimes several times a day. I think it’s wonderful that you love books so much! And you seem so grown up, looking at books all by yourself. I walked out of your room one time, and when I walked back in you were lying on your back with your feet up in the air, holding Charlotte’s Web over your head, looking for all the world like you were truly reading. It was precious.
Another cute thing you started doing this month is saying “Thank you.” I wish I could say we taught you this, but I think it must be something you learned at baby school. At first, I didn’t realize that’s what you were saying, but every time you’d hand me something you’d say “Day-doo!” When you were finished with your milk, “Day-doo!” When you were done with a book, “Day-doo!” I finally figured it out, and I think it’s so cute! I say “Day-doo” to baby school for teaching you that!
We’ve also been working on counting this month, and for about a day you would count from 1 to 5. We got so excited every time you’d get to 5 and we’d cheer and yell – but that sort of backfired on us. Now, you skip right from 2 to 5, because I think you’re ready for all the shouts and adulation. So, we have to work on 3 and 4 some more, as you can see from this video.
Camille Counts To Five from Ginger on Vimeo.
Sweet Camille, thank you for being the wonderful little girl that you are. You amaze me every single day, and I love everything about you – from the top of your little blond head to the tips of your tiny toes. I’m already looking forward to seeing you and your little duck pajamas in the morning so we can start another month of adventures together. I love you so much, sweet Camibear. You are delicious.
Yesterday, we were still sick at home, but beginning to feel just a tiny bit better. Just enough to give us cabin fever. We love to take Camille places – the park, the store, the mall, the playground – but when she’s sick it can be very isolating because I don’t want to expose others to her germs, or introduce new germs to her.
But yesterday the sun was out and it was warm and I felt we could both use an outing. So I compromised and we strolled to one of our neighborhood parks that is mostly benches and greenspace and not usually full of many other people or kids.
I strolled her, but I also brought along her new baby doll stroller. It’s been a hit around the house, so I thought she might enjoy strolling her baby doll in the park.
Well, she did, except she couldn’t decide which stroller was best.
Here she is taking her baby doll out of the doll stroller (yes, the baby is naked, and that’s another story for another blog post):
“Baby wants to be in the big stroller! Yeah!”
“Safety first.” She always tries to close the front bar.
“Push! Push!” Her words exactly. She loves to get behind the big stroller and say “Push!”
“Changed my mind! Let’s go to the baby doll stroller. C’mon baby!”
“In you go!”
“All set baby?”
“Wave to Mama!”
“And off we go!”
Ugh. Poor Camille has the flu, confirmed by a test at the doctor’s office. I think her Daddy and I have it too. I’m aggravated because we all got our flu shots, but I understand the vaccine wasn’t a great match to the common strain this year. I’ve had a couple of docs assure me that we’d be feeling much worse if we hadn’t gotten the flu shot, and that even though it wasn’t a perfect match it provides our immune system a boost – so at least that’s a plus. But we’ve been out of school and work, and buying stock in Tylenol and Motrin.
So here are some pics to make me feel better. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Oatland Island Wildlife Center with Elsie and her parents and had so much fun. Camille really enjoyed the farm area where she got to see a cow, ducks, chickens, a pig, sheep and goats up close.
She also really liked the aviary, but not so much because of the birds. They have a big, fake nest you can play in, and she thought it rocked. I love this picture of her with Elsie. Here’s what I think the caption should say:
“Hey! I laid an egg! Look, you did too!”
Camille usually wakes up from her nap asking for Mama. So today, I was a little confused when I heard her little voice saying, “Boo? Boo? Boo?” at the end of her nap. I stood outside the door a minute, trying to decide if she was really awake. I cracked the door, and sure enough she was standing in her crib, and she looked and me and asked, “Boo?”
I tried to figure out what she was asking for. Book? Fruit? I picked her up and headed for her stack of books, but she wiggled down and started walking toward the door. “Boo?” She asked again.
Then I remembered. Grammie is visiting, and Grammie likes to call Camille “Boo.” When Grammie comes into the room, she’ll often say, “Hi Boo!” to Camille just before scooping her up.
Soon, my hypothesis was proven. Later that day, Camille pointed to me and said, “Mama!” Then she pointed to Lee and said, “Daddy!” Then she pointed at Grammie and said “Boo!”
The rest of the night all she wanted to talk about was “Boo! Boo! Boo!” For whatever reason, Camille has not yet said “Grammie,” and she seems elated to finally have a name for her Grammie. I imagine one day she’ll call her Grammie, but for now, she is most definitely Boo. Although, with a little southern Cami flair, because it often comes out as a polysyllabic bit of drawl sounding like “Baaoooooooo!”
Here’s a pic of Camille and her Boo playing in a tent in our living room. It’s hard to see Boo, but it’s not easy photographing a busy girl in a little tent!
So glad he was born, and so glad he’s mine.
Happy Birthday to the love of my life.
Aside from the architecture, the other sight that catches your attention immediately is the old 50s era vehicle rambling down the bumpy highway next to you. Before the revolution and ensuing embargo, most of the cars in Cuba were apparently American-made vehicles. Post-embargo, most people either can’t afford new cars or don’t have access to them, so thousands of these vintage automobiles are rolling around the streets of Havana. It’s like a time warp.
Unfortunately, parts for these cars are also difficult to acquire, so they’re kept running through many creative patches and tractor parts and whatever else keeps the wheels turning. The effect is that most of them belch awful black smoke from the exhaust pipes and I found myself choking a bit on the fumes, especially when we first arrived. Between that and the cigar and cigarette smoke (people smoke EVERYWHERE), I realized how much I’d taken for granted those gulps of fresh air I get at home. But, at least the cars were fun to look at, even if you have to hold your breath when they cruise by.
One of our first tasks upon arriving in Havana was to find a way to call home and check on Camille. We bought an international phone card at the hotel, and began trekking through town trying to find a phone booth that would accept it. There are lots of pay phones, but many are broken. Of the ones that work, very few were programmed to handle international calls.
This was the only phone booth we discovered in all of Havana we could call from, so we made a daily pilgrimage the 5 blocks or so and waited in line to call. It was across from the “May 13th Plaza,” a nice tree-lined square that we felt particularly fond of because our first date was on May 13th.
One advantage of visiting with seasoned travelers is that they know all the good spots to go, including La Guarida. La Guarida is a paladar, which is the Cuban term for a restaurant inside someone’s home. When Cuba began to open it’s country to tourism in the 90s, the government allowed select people the right to operate restaurants and hotels from their homes. When we pulled up to this particular paladar, I had reservations, and I’m not talking about a table for 20. It was obvious that the building was once a fine three-story mansion, with tall wooden doors carved with intricate designs. But push open those doors, and you step into a crumbling foyer. At one time, it was a grand entrance – there is evidence in what’s left of the beautiful plaster ceilings.
A large marble staircase spans the entryway, but the railing was broken, the statue decapitated, and a sign hung on the side cautioning us that it was fragile.
With care, we climbed the three stories to the top floor. The home has been split into about 25 apartments, if you can call them that. They are small flats with little or no privacy. You hear everyone’s music, everyone’s television, and can peer directly into their living rooms. This particular shot is of someone’s front door, except there is no door – just a shirt hung across the doorway.
But to the left of the stairs is a set of real doors. To the left of the doors, a doorbell. We rang it, and the doors opened to reveal and honest-to-goodness restaurant, with candelabras, art on the walls, and tons of charm. We drank fancy drinks and ate red snapper, and I was torn between feeling excited about the experience and guilty because I knew the other people living here probably couldn’t imagine this meal. How can such a nice restaurant exist in the middle of all this? Another Cuban contradiction.
In honor of Ernest Hemingway, we ate at a restaurant in Cojimar that he frequented, and we visited La Bodeguita del Medio, his favorite place for a mojito. We did a little of this:
And a little of that:
And it was all quite good. La Bodeguita is about half a block from Havana’s cathedral – a beautiful old building surrounded by tropical flowers in bloom.
On our second full day in Cuba, we met up with Alaberto Cuellar, a retired pastor who has become friends with our pastor over the years.
He’s a kind, gentle man who has worked hard to spread his faith in the face of some impossible circumstances. He has found success in recent years, with the building of this new sanctuary in his hometown of Guanabacoa (just outside of Havana). It’s a nice building, and compared to those around it, it’s exceptional.
But he seems especially fond of “la finca,” or the farm. It’s a parcel of land atop a hill on the way out of Guanabacoa, with two buildings situated on top with a garden and some chickens wandering the campus. It serves as a retreat for area Baptists to gather and hold meetings. From the roof of the main building, I snapped this photo of la finca’s main caretaker looking at the expansive view of the land below.
This is when our trip started to make a little more sense to me, because my church and several others raised money to help Alaberto purchase la finca. This is a peaceful haven that wouldn’t have been possible without help, and I’m quite proud to belong to a helping church.
Alaberto doesn’t speak much English, and our pastor doesn’t speak much Spanish, so the tour of the sanctuary and of la finca was difficult at times. I used to know a decent amount of Spanish, but it has been many years since I’ve used it and I’ve forgotten so much. But I concentrated very hard, and was able to help translate as Alaberto showed us around. I’m sure I probably got some things horribly wrong, but I know I also got some things right, and that was a wonderful feeling. I finally felt like I learned that language for a reason, and it came in handy throughout the trip.
We also visited a Jewish cemetery in Guanabacoa. Because so many Cuban ex-patriots cannot return to pay respects to their loved ones who’ve died, our traveling companions from the Savannah synagogue wanted to pay respects for them. A special prayer was said as we gathered around the holocaust memorial – I didn’t understand the Hebrew words, but I didn’t need to.
Saturday, we checked out of the Hotel Plaza and loaded up into our two vans to head for Sancti Spiritus, a town about the size of Savannah in Cuba’s interior. We rode along the autopista, which is a 6 lane highway built by the Soviets, but unfortunately no one has bothered to maintain it. The trip felt like a 5 hour roller-coaster ride as we swerved to dodge pot holes, and bounced around on the pot holes we couldn’t avoid. We also had to swerve around an ox cart and lots of horses and buggies. On the main highway. I kid you not. Our view changed from cityscape to rolling hills with small farms dotted by palm trees and thatch-roofed houses.
Rolling into Sancti Spiritus, I noticed some of the same poor housing, but without the choking fumes and crowded streets of Havana. There were bus stops, but horse carts picked up the waiting residents for their trip through town. Our hotel was just amazing – it was an old doctor’s mansion that had been converted into a 16 room bed and breakfast.
Our room had three balconies overlooking a city street and a square, with the carved wooden doors typical of that Spanish style. This was our view from the rooftop.
The main house had an interior courtyard open to the sky, with rocking chairs beckoning you to sit and relax.
Across the street was La Casa De La Trova, a wonderful music venue featuring local artists. Our first night there the place was too crowded for us to get inside, so we went back to our hotel room and just opened a balcony door. The musicians play in an open-air courtyard, so their music rose up into the air and could be heard perfectly from our room. This was fantastic until we were ready for bed – then problematic until the party stopped around 2 or 3 a.m. Then promptly at 8 a.m., the church bells from the cathedral across the square were pealing to be sure we were awake. Thanks.
But we were awake, because this was our day to go to the service at our sister church, The Geneseret Baptist Church of Sancti Spiritus. It was my favorite day of the trip, but I’ll have to write about it later if I plan to get any sleep tonight!
Our trip was great – an experience I find hard to explain. People ask us, “How was Cuba?” – a fairly straightforward question, but the answer isn’t as simple. I’ve never been anywhere quite like Cuba, a place that can be at once beautiful and awful, inspiring and depressing – a study in contradictions at every turn. The architecture is amazing, but crumbling. There are excellent doctors and hospitals, but not enough medicine. There are modern bus stops, but many are serviced by horses pulling carts. And worst of all is a government that promised freedom but delivered a different kind of slavery. True, the revolution in 1959 gave Cuba freedom from outside rule for the first time after hundreds of years of repression and many failed revolutionary attempts. But now the repression comes from Fidel Castro, one of their own. Many would argue that life is better now for most ordinary Cubans than it was before the revolution, but it was clear – at least from our experiences – that all things are not well, and change has to be on the horizon.
Lee and I were driving to the Savannah airport early Tuesday morning when we turned on our local NPR station. The first story we heard was about Fidel Castro’s resignation. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” was all I could think. I hadn’t been scared about traveling to Cuba, but this gave me pause. How would the Cubans react? I was relieved when we met up with our traveling group and I saw them all laughing, joking, and relaxed. They told me what I now believe to be true – that meaningful change in Cuba will take time, and won’t likely happen until Fidel and Raul are dead and can no longer threaten people with retribution for new ideas. In fact, once we got to Cuba, the few times Cubans seemed willing to talk about politics, they were more interested in discussing Barack Obama then Raul Castro. They all want to know when and if the U.S. embargo might be lifted.
We spent one night in Miami, and the Wednesday we left for Cuba, this was hanging from our hotel room door:
The Miami Herald with it’s blazing headline of uncertainty in the wake of Castro’s announcement. Great. Fan-freaking-tastic.
Our group chartered a plane from Miami to Havana, with 14 of us from our church and about 30 from our local Jewish synagogue. The flight was fine, customs was a breeze (much easier than usual, I’m told), and soon we were riding through the streets of Havana headed toward the Hotel Plaza. I was first struck by the billboards at the roadside. None were advertising any products for sale, which makes sense in the absence of capitalism. Instead, they were part of Castro’s propaganda machine. Three-quarters of them were pro-revolution, pro-Castro, pro-socialism slogans and images. The faces of Fidel and revolutionary hero Che Guevara were everywhere. The other quarter were anti-American and anti-Bush. Even though I’m very unhappy with our current administration, it was still a little shocking to see a picture of my president on a billboard with the word “Terrorist!” emblazoned beside it.
I began to really worry about how the Cuban people would treat us, but my concern was unfounded. No one ever seemed openly hostile toward us, and several people even seemed excited to meet Americans. We met two different Cubans with family living in New Jersey, and because they’re usually so cut off from the U.S., I think they were happy to meet people who live in the same country as their loved ones.
Because the Cubans have so few interactions with Americans, and because the anti-American messaging is so prevalent, I felt a strange sense of responsibility to make a good impression. Most of the time that wasn’t an issue, but there are plenty of people there looking to make a buck off of tourists, and my naivety allowed us to be taken advantage of a few times. But most people we met were kind and welcoming, and for that I am very grateful.
We spent a couple of days in Havana, and in addition to attending a few church services with the group, Lee and I used the opportunity to wander around town and take it all in. To be honest, I was shocked by the conditions these people must endure. I’d been reading about Havana, and the writing described the city’s wonderful old buildings in a very romantic way. True, there was evidence that these old buildings were once wonderful, with ornate carvings in the edifices and grand entrances and marble staircases. But they didn’t seem romantic to me at all. They were falling apart, neglected, crammed with people and in such disrepair. Balconies had caved in. Doors were rotting away. Communism provides homes for everyone, but these houses made Savannah’s worst projects look pretty good.
For example, this is Cuba’s Capitol building (modeled after our own), which has been restored and is actually quite beautiful:
But this is across the street. People live here. We watched a woman take her laundry off the clothes line across her balcony.
Dilapidation could be seen everywhere.
Yet, tourist accommodations are quite nice. This was our hotel – a wonderful old building overlooking a city square.
But it was hard to feel cozy amid the surrounding conditions. Instead, I felt guilty. Ordinary Cubans aren’t even allowed into this hotel. Men guard the door, watching all who come and go, stopping any locals from entering. Obviously, this is a point of contention for many Cubans.
This was the view from the upper terrace of our hotel, looking out over the neglected city.
There is so much more I want to write about our trip, but I need to go to bed. I knew I couldn’t get it all written in one night. More to come.
Hello sweet busy bear! You are 19 months old today and I’m so proud of you. Every day you seem so much bigger, stomping around the house, giggling, screeching, and playing. I laugh so much when we’re together, like when you’re lying on the floor and I tickle your belly with my toes. You laugh so hard your whole body shakes, and it’s very contagious. I laugh at the way you love to wear your pink sunglasses and your hats like my prima donna princess. I laugh at you when I tell you to “march!” and you waddle around the house in little stutter steps.
Sometimes I laugh at you when I know I shouldn’t too, like when you threw a tantrum yesterday as we left the mall. You loved the carousel and didn’t want to leave, and as we walked out you arched your back and starting yelling “No! NO!” But I had to turn my head to hold in the laughter because your fury was kind of cute, and I knew it would dissipate in seconds. Which it did.
I wish I could tell you “Happy 19 months” in person and scoop your wiggly self into my arms for a big kiss, but I’m in Miami and you’re in Tennessee. And tomorrow, when we leave for Cuba, we’ll be even further away. That’s not cool. I miss you so much. One day, I think it would be a lot of fun to take you on an adventure like this, to learn together about other cultures and people. I keep imagining you as a ten year old, tagging along while we head for the baggage claim. But for now, I think you’re having much more fun with Nana and Granddaddy. At this age, I don’t think you would enjoy being with us while we wait for bags, stand in the line for shuttles, etc. But from everything I’ve heard, you’re having quite an adventure of your own.
You love having new and different toys to play with, and seem quite fond of your Nana and Granddaddy. They tell me you ask about us sometimes, but haven’t had any miserable meltdowns because we’re not there. Nana said earlier today you brought her cell phone over, asking “Mama? Daddy?” We’ve talked to you several times on the phone today, savoring your long-distance kisses.
You are so cute when you wake up from naps. Your hair is usually wild and adorable, and you are a very cuddly monster. On weekends, I often take you downstairs so we can lounge on the couch together and you’ll lie on me or nestle in the crook of my arm. It’s one of my favorite times of the day.
One of your favorite things to do these days is color. When you wake up in the morning and head back to your play area, you usually start looking for your Elmo tin that holds your crayons. “Paper? Paper?” you plead. We’ll pull out your huge drawing tablet and watch you color. Sometimes we sit and draw with you, seeing if you can figure out which animal or shape we’re drawing. You, my little genius, can recognize, point out and name a circle, triangle, square, heart and star. You’re also very interested in knowing the name of each color. You’ll often go through the crayon tin, one by one, holding up each crayon until we tell you what color it is. You can usually name two of them on your own – yellow and black. I am so proud of you, even if they are Georgia Tech colors. At least your favorite colors aren’t orange and blue for now.
And how cute is this picture your Daddy took with his cell phone camera? When he dressed you in your UGA football uniform the other day, you took one look at yourself in the mirror, raised your hands above your head and shouted, “Touchdown!” I was floored when he told me. Back when we were watching Georgia play their bowl game, I tried to get you to say touchdown, but you weren’t interested. But apparently, you remembered, and have been chanting “Touchdown!” periodically ever since we put your uniform on.
Thanks to a little stuffed animal you have that recites a child’s prayer, you like saying the word “Amen.” That means you also like saying the blessing before a meal. We all sit down at the table, and your Daddy and I reach out for your hands. You grin, and obligingly grasp our fingers while we pray. When we’re done, you add a simple, “Nah-nee,” your word for amen. I love it!
You also still like playing pretend, and you are SO FUN to watch. When you put your baby dolls “night-night,” you still lie them down on their tummies and pat their backs. But now you also say “Shhhhhhhh…” too. So cute! You even shush us from time to time if the babies are going night night. You had a cold recently, and we had to give you breathing treatments for a couple of weeks. One day after your treatment, you decided all your stuffed animals and baby dolls needed a breathing treatment too. You held the mask up to their faces and made a humming noise like the nebulizer. You are so adorable you break my heart.
Sweet little girl, you are getting so big and I’m very proud of you. I don’t know how we got so lucky, but I am thankful for every centimeter of your sweet soft self, and I can’t wait to see you again soon. Please have fun with your grands, and know that you are loved beyond measure. I love you. Night nght. Shhhhh…
One thing is certain – I need that little girl. Walking away from her this afternoon felt like ripping my heart out and watching it flop all over the mall parking lot like a fish, gasping for air.
Lee and I drove to Columbia, SC today to meet my parents halfway to Tennessee and hand over our soul (in the form of a bouncy blonde 18 month old). I’ve spent a night away from her before – one night on three separate occasions, and barely 24 hours each time. But tonight is the first of 9 nights in a row away from my baby, and that’s a pretty steep slope. I know she’s going to be cared for very well by her grands. I sent them about 5 pages worth of instructions, which is insane since they all raised children perfectly well on their own. And I know we’ll have to put her through detox when we get back because she’ll be so spoiled rotten. But what if she misses us and can’t understand why we’re not there? What if she needs us? And how can I go that long without looking into her baby blue eyes? Couldn’t we have gradually worked our way into this sort of separation?
But an opportunity arose, and we decided to grab it. Our church has a sister church in Sancti Spiritus, a town in the heart of Cuba near Trinidad. A couple of times each year, our church sends a group of people there on a mission trip to bring medicines, toiletries, and good old Baptist solidarity. We’ve heard about these trips and always thought it would be fun to go along, and suddenly a spot opened up for the both of us. Several things fell into place, and it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Back in September when we decided to sign up for the trip, I remember having reservations about leaving Camille for that long. But I thought, “She’ll be 19 months old then, it’ll be easier.”
Now, I think that was a dumb thing to say to myself. Does it ever get easier? The three of us have become quite the bonded family unit, and any time one of us is missing I feel like some of my limbs have been removed. I need that little girl. I need her hugs and smiles, her eskimo kisses, and her laughter.
But I truly do believe this trip is important and I hope it will be fulfilling to us in many ways. I think it’s important for Lee and I to have time to be a couple, to be sure we don’t forget how to talk to each other without using baby language or calling each other “Mama” or “Daddy.” I also think it’s an important trip for us to take with our church, and I’m very interested to see what I’ll learn about my fellow church members, about Cuba and its people, about my husband and about myself. Moving out of my comfort zone has always been eye opening.
I’m excited about experiencing Cuba, which I’ve heard is like stepping back in time. We’ll get to spend some time in Sancti Spiritus and Havana. Only 90 miles from the Florida keys, but a world away. I’ve gotten myriad reactions when I’ve told people where we’re going – a mixture of confusion (is it legal?), interest, and alarm. When I told the receptionist at my office, she said, “You must not watch the same TV shows I watch! If you did, you wouldn’t get off that plane.” She sounded convinced that we would be kidnapped and held for ransom or tortured. I hopped on the elevator I waved good-bye and told her I’d see her next week. “I hope so. I’ll be praying for you,” she said, shaking her head in dismay that I hadn’t immediately canceled my trip.
Well, it is legal thanks to our religious visas. And I’m traveling with a group of seasoned Cuba visitors so I think I’m in good hands.
And I’ve got another reason to make it back in one piece. My little girl. I need to see her again so I can pick my heart back up and put it in my chest. Oh how I miss her.
I noticed the first peek of pink last week on my way to the grocery store. There in the bushes in the median on Washington Avenue – azaleas in bloom. I did a double-take. I’m always excited to see them, because spring is my favorite time in Savannah. Soon the fountains will be green for St. Patrick’s Day, and the weather is already starting to warm (albeit temporarily). Temps were in the upper 70s today with a wonderful breeze, and I snapped this photo as we all headed to the neighborhood playground to enjoy the weather.
The buds are just forming and considering opening up to drink in all that sunshine. In just a couple of weeks, that same stretch of sidewalk will look like this photo I took last March.
Bright, cheerful flowers as far as you can see. By the time we get back from Cuba, I bet the flowers will really be popping out.
Cuba… now that’s another blog post or two. Tomorrow, perhaps? Right now it’s time for bed.
