Tonight I tried to get Eliza to try pasta (for the 100th time). When she was presented with one of these:
(not the three pieces featured in the photo, but just ONE piece) she offered up this excuse (while all teary eyed):
"Eliza can't try pasta, it is prickly and makes booboos on Eliza's knees."
If there was ever a sign that I should just accept Eliza's liquid diet and move on, this was it.
How in holy hell can pasta make booboos on your knees, prickly or not?
Oh and please refrain from commenting that (a) one needs to present a food multiple times before a child will accept it or (b) many children are picky eaters. I would gnaw my own arm off to have a picky eater, maybe both arms.
Every year, at this time of year, Eliza and I head off to Saba, usually with her cousin Peter along for the fun, and this year was no different, except we had another visitor named Earl, Hurricane Earl.
The vacation started out with awesome weather and great fun, with lots of Commotion in the Ocean. Our cousin Karen joined us for the first part of our vacation and Eliza had just the best time with her. Eliza, Peter, Karen and I had quite a lot of fun at the Cove Bay teaching Eliza how to "surf" on her mini surf board.
Eliza enjoyed time with her cousins and going for walks and hikes:
Peter helped us with some much needed pruning of our mini-banana plantation:
We spent a lot of time with our next door neighbors and Eliza was quite smitten with young Dylan. They had endless fun in the Cove Bay and only spent about 50% of the time yelling "no it's mine!"
(Not to worry, Dana and I had finished off the Heineken!)
See the nice calm water in the Cove? Well a week later it started to look like this:
That's when Hurricane Earl decided to pay us a visit. So we did what any self respecting Hell's Gatesmen would do and had a Hurricane Party, complete with Flamingo guns and good neighbors: The wind in Hell's Gate was pretty strong as you can see in this video. This portion of my house is protected and normally doesn't even see a breath of wind:
Eliza was a trooper throughout it all and didn't mind being shuttered in the house with no electricity or running water. She seemed to think we were "camping" indoors and took great delight in carrying around her little lantern.
The day after, we ventured out for a drive with our neighbors to see what damage had been left by Hurricane Earl. Saba was very lucky in that there was no structural damage or injuries, just lots of trees and plants stripped bare by the winds and some downed lines, but it was still sad to see all of the beautiful plants destroyed and parts of the island looking so bare:
Each time that we leave Saba Eliza cries that she does not want to "ever, ever, never, ever" leave Hell's Gate. I can't say that I blame her :)
