Archive for August, 2009
Know what I like about our friend Karen and her family? They are almost always up for a no-notice playdate or impromptu get-together. Since I’m not so good with pre-planning or being anywhere in a timely fashion it’s nice to have people you can call to hang out with little to no notice.
It was a lovely Monday and I had an itch to head down to the local beach as soon as the proverbial whistle rang. J already had Ava from daycare so he had everything ready to go as soon as I got home and we were on the beach in short order – with Mom2My4 and 2 of her 4 (and husband) soon to follow.
Ava was all about the sand, especially since we actually remembered the bucket and some of the accessories this time.
But not so much about the water…until she saw the others dive right in. Peer pressure (Heavens! Already?) worked though and she was soon following Kelsey and Rachel about.
I have no idea what on earth she was doing/thinking in this picture but apparently she was happy.
As was Kelsey:
Rachel was too – it was just harder (nigh upon impossible) to get a picture of her since she was way more interested in swimming underwater than in having her picture taken.
We stayed until the sun was on its way down and bath/bedtime was imminent.
But look what we saw (1 of 4) on the way out!
Unfortunately the last picture was taken with my phone so it isn’t quite as detailed as I’d like but she was sooo pretty – just hanging out in someone’s front yard only a couple of blocks from the beach.
And yes, we saw 4! deer on our way home which never happens. Needless to say we drove very slowly and very cautiously until we were out of the danger zone.
I was at Targ.et the other day and ran across a toy camera on clearance for $2. I’ve been picking up cheapo toys in preparation for the upcoming loooonnnnggg drive to Disney but I hesitated on this one because it was age recommended for a younger baby. I picked it up anyway ($2!) and, like most of the other things I’ve bought for the trip, I caved and gave it to her right away. (Just like the bouncy thing that I bought to put up for Christmas that’s now taking up 2/3 of my dining room because I couldn’t wait.)
Of course you know what’s coming, right?
She carries this camera EVERYWHERE. It’s so freakin’ cute becuase she wants to take our “peek-chur” a gazillion times a day and is always telling us (and the dogs and the cats) to say cheese. She adjusts the zoom, cleans the lens, and generally does everything that she sees me do with my camera – to include trying every different angle possible in order to get the perfect shot.
Of course the biggest difference is that my camera didn’t come with built in 70′s model shoot music and a disembodied voice shouting out things like “Faaabbb-u-lous” and “Lookin’ Gooooood.” I’m somewhat jealous that the $2 model comes with those features and my so NOT $2 camera didn’t come with anything like that. Hmmph. Design flaw, Nikon?
It’s absolutely hysterical watching her follow the animals around trying to get one to sit still for a picture and getting madder than a hornet when they won’t listen. (Heh – now you know how I feel sometimes, kid.)
This time it was LilyCat in the crosshairs.
Poor, long suffering LilyCat.
Ava decided a break was called for during the impromptu photo session so she could teach Lily how to operate the camera. So cute listening to Ava tell her to “poosh dis button.”
Lily is apparently quite a persnickety model, however. The shoot came to a rapid end when Ava requested that LilyCat model the very latest in hand-me-down Barney toddler underwear.
Can’t say that I blame LilyCat for walking out. Preserving her dignity, I’d say.
A water play area (with Elmo! Singing!) and indoor shopping. Much more enlightened thinking on my part this time for another scorcher of a day.
Out friends were taking their girls up to the local amusement park so we decided to go too, with the caveat that we would only be there in the early AM until it got beastly hot. That didn’t take long but J and I mitigated the pain by fighting each other as to who got to stay with Ava while she played in the water. Accidental splashes, you know. Mist from the water spouts, etc. J won most of the time. Ava wanted me on the sidelines and Daddy in the water so that’s mostly how it went. It’s okay, though. I got some girl chat in with my friend which is always a good thing although it’s funny as can be watching the differences in personality in the girls. Izzy is fearless and will blast into any situation with no hesitation. Ava is much more cautious and has to watch for a while before she decides if something is okay or not. (I think this is a good part nurture, not nature, as I’m exactly like that.)
But once she decided it was safe to venture in, all bets were off.
After watching Elmo and friends sweat it out, while dancing and singing “Hot, Hot, Hot” for the millionth time we headed out to grab lunch and convince Ava to take a nap in the car. That was not nearly as easy as it sounded although she did finally drop off for about an hour while we drove around and ate lunch in the car. J always finds the neatest places to drive and we ended up in this little town with tons of old houses to look at – one of my favorite pastimes. Once Ava finally woke up we met up with my sister and brother in law at the Yankee Candle shopping emporium.
And that’s when I could have disappeared for all Ava cared.
She loves, no – adores, my sister. If Bah-bah is around then, pshaw, who needs anyone else. The only thing competing for Barbara’s attention was the animatronic clock and accompanying show and the toy store located right in front of where we were sitting. She even had a major potty incident (on Barb’s lap – Heh!) since she didn’t want to leave her long enough to go to the potty. Ava, MY Ava, who would prefer to be in my arms than anywhere else said, “No Mama, Bah-bah carry” and left J and I high and dry – J relegated to pushing an empty stroller and me with my hands free to actually shop (except I didn’t). I could get used to that (the hands free part) a little.
The toy store was mighty tempting though. There was a train. And an Ava sized table with books! outside the door just for little kids to sit at. And a princess and a knight.
Remember I told you she’s a girly girl? Photographic proof.
Princess face:
Transition face:
And then the “Urgh – this doesn’t really work for me” face:
We did have our first public timeout here – someone had left a toy on another table and Ava didn’t want to leave it alone despite repeated instructions that it was not hers. I finally relocated it to a table far enough way that it was out of her reach and it quite frankly pissed her off. She expressed this by looking at me and not once, but twice, by smacking the table in front of me hard. Since that’s not cool in our household she was whisked off to the service hallway where she spent 2 solid minutes wailing at the unfairness of being removed from the revered presence of “Bah-bah.”
We wrapped it up after a couple of hours taking up time and space without buying a single thing and headed home to get ready for the upcoming work week.
It was a good, albeit busy, weekend.
Hottest day of the year so far and I decide it would be a marvelous idea to get up early and go hiking. All I need do is say the word hike and J starts salivating like Pavlov’s dog, so it was pretty much a done deal before the word had even completely exited my mouth. Obviously the brain to mouth filter wasn’t working at this point and by the time it had kicked in we were already in the car headed for our destination.
Hike is not even an accurate word, really. This is more like a glorified woodland walking trail with tree roots strategically placed specifically for me to fall over. It’s a 5 mile path (lots of it uphill) but we thought we could knock it out quickly. In the interests of full disclosure the last time we went here was pre-Ava and I was about 5 years younger. My memory has clearly been affected in that 5 years because I remembered that it was a fun and easy stroll. Not so much.
Of course it could have been the 94% humidity or the 24 pound kid strapped to my back or the 20 pounds of camera and baby gear or the gigantic bunch of loud Boy Scouts we kept running into that did me in.
We got about 500 feet in before I realized this was one of my worst plans ever. I don’t do hot well – even less when there’s sweat everywhere. Pride prevented me from voicing this quite yet, though. I think I made it to about 800 feet before I started whining (quietly). I believe Ava had already figured it out. This was taken on our first break – ostensibly it was to view the scenery but in reality it was for me as I quietly gasped for breath and prayed that it would be over soon.
So I talked her into walking. She was pretty stoked about the opportunity. For about 15 seconds.
Let me draw your attention here to the fact that she’s hiking up her shorts. This became a real problem as the walk progressed. Because she’s grown 2 inches and gained no weight clothes that previously fit around the waist no longer do. I didn’t realize that these shorts were in that category until they fell down a time or two and just generally drove Ave (and me) bonkers. We tried rolling the waistband, we tried tucking it under the pack-back strap, and we tried to distract her. Uh-huh. She wasn’t having it so we had to stop every 5 feet for either her or us to pull her pants back up. And where were the extra clothes, you might ask? In the car, of course, so we had nothing to change her into.
We did make it about 2 miles in before the Boy Scouts finally worked through my last nerve so we (I) said heck with it and headed back the way we’d came. At least it was downhill and we knew how long it would take to get out.
Except we had to take breaks. Potty breaks, photo breaks, and Mama-can’t-walk-anymore-because-it’s-too-darn-hot breaks.
She was happy. There was a bench.
To sit with Daddy on.
To lay on.
To look under.
One last smile before setting out again.
And before she decided that, “nothankyou, I do not wish to walk anywhere else in this oppressive heat.”
So she sat down and refused to budge.
After many tears and the none so helpful advice from the busybody lady who walked by and said we should have a carrier for her (Hmmm – what exactly does that thing strapped to J’s back look like?) we stuck her in the Beco and let her go at it while we pushed onward.
Obviously we did make it out alive since I’m writing about it but there were a few times I had my doubts – mostly because J would totally have been in his purview if he’d offed me and left me by the side of the trail, if nothing else to stop the incessant “Are we there yets” that I kept throwing at him.
Since he was such a good sport about it he got to pick the restaurant for lunch. We have a new Chipotle’s in town (yay!) so it was a foregone conclusion that we would be eating there. Ava loves it – only because I have the weirdest food eating kid ever AND I have photographic proof of that statement.
I present to you Exhibit 1:
If there is sour cream available she will bypass all other food and eat the sour cream by itself. If I take away the spoon in order to (theoretically) deter the behavior then she will then eat it with her fingers. If her father tells her not to eat it with her fingers she will then stick her face into it to lick it off the plate.
That’s my kid!!
After carrying around a weird throat/ear infection for a couple of weeks I decided to sneak out of work a bit early. The coughing and the ear pain were wearing me down so off I went to liberally dose myself with pain meds and assorted other pharmaceuticals. Going back to work afterwards would have been a bad idea so J (easily) convinced me that we should pick Ava up from daycare and head down to the (real) beach. He was driving, meaning that I could medicate freely, so off we went. Ava was a bit freaked out when we both showed up at the same time (totally confused her) but was thrilled once she figured out we were heading out on an adventure.
The trip down was NOT fun. Since we were only playing hooky for a couple of hours we hit all the traffic heading toward the oceanfront on a blazing hot Friday afternoon/evening. The trip easily took us an hour longer than it should have which led to frayed tempers all around leading to a DUH moment when we tried to park in the city lot only to discover that neither one of us had any real cash on our persons. I felt like I was in high school all over again as we held up parking traffic so we could scrounge $5 from various pockets, purses, and change containers in the car. We did it – mostly in quarters – and set off for the beach.
By the way, when did people start playing dodgeball on the beach? Volleyball, I get…but dodgeball???? Gah – brought back horrific memories from elementary and middle school where I would cower in the middle of the Coliseum waiting for the lions to enter. I always got hit first, mostly on purpose as that was the quickest way to not have to participate in the bloodsport any longer than necessary.
Anyhow, being that it was around 430PM by this time people were starting to head home which left us a perfectly uncrowded section of beach. Nice. Ava parked herself there with a shovel and bucket and proceeded to spend the next 6 hours or so (felt like it anyway) moving one pile of sand to another. No interest whatsoever in the water until we carried her, kicking and screaming like we were purposely trying to drown her, into the waves.
It took one wave breaking over us and she was a convert. I held her, toes digging into the stand and standing in the spilling breakers, while J blocked us from direct hits from the biggest waves. She held on to my neck tight, tight, tight (while wearing a life jacket, of course) and screamed in delight at each and every one. After about 30 minutes of this I had to take a break (fighting waves wears you out, especially when you’re not in tip-top shape anyway) and Miss Ava came back to do her part to erode the beach even further.
The problem here, however, is that she was not nearly as interested in sand movement anymore and was far more interested in water! And waves! J pretty much spent the rest of the day chasing her to the water…
and back.
After I reached sand overload and the bossy little one began to get hungry we packed up and set out in search of foodstuffs. Remember now, we had no cash so that already ruled out fast and easy from a boardwalk/street vendor. Not to mention that my very favorite (fancy-ish) restaurant was only about 10 blocks away. Did we dare??
We did. We took her to a restaurant with tablecloths, linen napkins, multiple silverware settings, and no kids meals or plastic cups in sight. And she did beyond great!! She flirted with the GQ-esque waiter, dined on foccacia bread with spicy oil, ate the olives (yuk!) from my salad, noshed on Flounder alla francese with lump crabmeat (J’s) and veal (mine) with some Chex mix thrown in for good measure. She tried her best to grab my drink (no way, baby – you are waaaaaayyyyy too young for that particular beverage) but happily settled for water from a wine glass anyway. She even got to potty in the fancy bathroom even though I still don’t know how much you’re supposed to tip the bathroom attendant.
After waddling our way back to the car, fighting off timeshare salespeople (head down, never look ‘em in the eye while mumbling “We’re local, we’re local” as you hurry past) and being sidetracked by the really, really bad Patsy Cline impersonator/tribute show we made it to the car only to be astounded by the bicycle with a boom box strapped to the handlebars and spinners zip tied on to the tires and being ridden by a leisure suited man. J wanted to take his picture soooooo bad, alas we were camera less and dependent on the iPhone for photos.
Trip home – easy. No traffic. Kid asleep in the back seat in minutes although we totally had to wake her up for a shower to de-sand her once we got home anyway.
I don’t play semi-hooky often (ever) but I’m so glad I did this time. My husband, my kid, and one of the best restaurants (IMO) on the East Coast. Not a bad way to kick off a weekend.