Making the Crossing

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Steph

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The Beach, Continued:

Tuesday

The next day was calmer. Despite the fact that she’d gone to bed speculating exactly where in her room at home she’d lost her pacifier, June slept through the night and made it until 7:00 without waking us (a first for the trip and in fact it only happened one other time). We visited the Crocs outlet in the morning and everyone got a new pair for summer. Beth took the kids for bike and scooter ride and this time she was on her own bike so she could keep pace with them. I stayed behind to do laundry and then I got myself a café con leche and drank it on the boardwalk, reading The Washington Post Magazine until I looked up and was alarmed to see Noah and June go zipping by, apparently without Beth, but she was actually close behind. We all went home and I made lunch for the kids while Beth got a massage. June and I napped (her first non-pacifier-assisted, non-car-assisted nap). When Beth returned she took June on a scouting mission to see which restaurants were open for dinner during the off-season.

While they were gone, Noah and I started Something Wicked This Way Comes. This is more of an adult book than we usually read but he’ll be reading grown-up books in his English class next fall so I thought it might be a good idea to ease him in with some Bradbury. We’re reading my father’s college copy, a paperback with age-softened pages that cost him 60 cents in 1963. It has his pencil underlining and marginal comments. Reading it to Noah makes me feel like I’m giving him a little piece of Dad.

I went for a walk on the beach once we’d finished reading. I meant to go further but I found the ridge where the kids had played two days before and it was such a nice place to sit I stayed there. It was still long, but not as tall now and closer to the water. The tides and children with shovels had carved coves and channels all over it. I settled right above the biggest cove, a shallow crescent big enough to park two cars. It was alternately a flat expanse of wet sand and a whirling mass of water. It was mesmerizing to watch, so I stayed a half hour as the late afternoon light grew golden and the damp sand into which I’d sunk my bare feet grew cold.

I met up with everyone back at the house. We’d told June she could pick a restaurant for dinner because she was doing such a great job sleeping without a pacifier. And so it was that in a town known for its fine dining, we ended up at IHOP.

After dinner, we played four rounds of Splash. June won the second round and announced she was keeping the scorecard. Later I found her winning Rat-a-Tat-Cat scorecard in her bed. She’s not a sore loser, but she is an enthusiastic winner.

Wednesday

It was time for another day trip. We took the 9:15 ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey. Noah hadn’t been on a ferryboat in years and it’s possible June never has so this was the better part of the adventure. We experienced it largely separately, however, because I am prone to motion sickness and wanted to stay out on the deck, breathing fresh air, watching the seabirds soar and admiring the beauty of the Delaware Bay on a mild, sunny day. The kids wanted to sit inside, eat snacks from the café and cruise the gift shop instead. June made her big purchase of the trip, a set of plastic mermaids with accessories; she chose it over a model lighthouse embedded with shells and a sparkly dolphin magnet.

Our first stop in Cape May was the lighthouse. When Noah was little (around three to six years old) he loved lighthouses so we were constantly visiting them. We haven’t climbed one in years; in fact this was June’s first lighthouse. She took the challenge very seriously, charging up the stairs, not wanting to stop at the landings where her mothers wanted to rest and examine the historical photographs and illustrations of Cape May. Once we got to the top, however, she was very nervous on the observation deck and wanted to go right back down.

We went to see the shipwreck on Sunset Beach next. Noah read the informational sign about the sunken concrete ship and gave us the highlights, but the big attraction was the jetty. It was a perfect jetty, made of big black rocks, just challenging enough for climbing, with only a few off-limits algae-covered rocks at the end, and a “secret hideout” where you could climb down between the rocks, and watch the waves through a window-like gap. There were barnacles on the rocks and June found a sand crab when she dug in the sand near the water’s edge. June made friends with a girl her age and that girl’s mother found a jellyfish and everyone had a lovely time. Noah made a game of racing down the jetty, bounding from rock to rock with Beth timing him and then June wanted in on the action to see if she could beat his times (she couldn’t).

It was hard to tear them away for lunch, but we did and after lunch we went to an old-fashioned soda fountain for milkshakes. We strolled through the streets of Cape May, admiring the Victorian architectural confections—all the turrets and fancy woodwork and intricately painted trim. We had to hurry back to the ferry terminal to catch the 2:30 ferry back to Delaware where reading and bath and dinner awaited us. That night June went to sleep sucking on an ice cube so she could have something in her mouth.

Thursday

It should come as no surprise to anyone that my day started at 5:05 a.m., with June informing me that her ice had melted. Later in the day she mentioned in casual, matter-of-fact tone that she could choke on an ice cube, or on the melting water, but people couldn’t choke on pacifiers because they’re made for sucking. Then she resumed wondering where hers might be, under the toy box perhaps? Beth patted her arm, told her she was doing great, and said she thought she was all done with pacifiers. June chose not to acknowledge this remark.

Cape May was our last big adventure. We went out to breakfast and then Beth and June biked to the playground. Noah wanted to go with them but he and Beth misunderstood each other so they left without him and was put out. He had his helmet on and was insisting he was going to find them even though I wasn’t sure where they’d gone and Beth wasn’t answering her phone. He was looking at maps of Rehoboth and various playground locations as I tried to dissuade him. Sometimes when we travel and he’s out of his routine, it brings out the Asperger-like qualities of his personality. (Note: we had Noah tested for Aspergers a couple years back. He doesn’t have it but he faces some of the same challenges as kids who do, albeit in a milder form.)

I finally convinced him to come to the beach with me instead. We packed a picnic lunch of an apple, carrot rounds, cheese and water and supplemented it with boardwalk fries. Next we visited one of the ridges. This one was down to a few mounds of sand, a short cliff and a shallow cove. Noah and I made the cliff crumble by standing at the very edge, thus demonstrating the effect of human activity on erosion, he said. He leapt off the edge, soaking his pants around the knees (he was wearing rubber boots). He found something that looked like a rain gutter and a few feet away a narrow metal pipe with bolts at the end sticking out of the sand. He tried to dig the pipe out, but the sand rushed back into the hole with each wave.

Later that afternoon while Beth and the kids went in search of turtles in a nearby pond, I went back to the beach by myself. I walked north for forty-five minutes until I came to a jetty and found a rock flat and high enough to stand without fear of getting drenched, even as water swirled around me on three sides. It was cold and windy, but I stayed about twenty minutes, until I saw a wave of such size and power and perfect proportions that I knew it was time to leave—it wasn’t going to get better than that—and then I saw a rainbow in its retreating spray.

Friday

I wanted the kids to come to the beach with me the next morning because I’d seen pools of water perfect for wading around that time the morning before, but they didn’t want to come, so I went alone. The pools didn’t appear that day, though, and it was cold and windy; the wind was plucking bits of sea foam off the water and sending them flying through the air.

Later that morning the kids and I met a realtor and toured houses we were considering renting for our beach week in July. (Beth elected to stay home.) Looking at properties online, we’d narrowed it down to two. Both were further from the beach than I’d like but one was close to downtown shops and restaurants. We were leaning toward that one, but when we saw them in person, both kids fell head over heels in love with the more remote house. Interestingly, they both said right away it reminded them of YaYa’s house, even though they meant different houses (current and former–houses that have very little in common in my mind). Anyway, the house is a charming, old-fashioned beach cottage, with a deck that made Noah say, “A stage!” and white, painted wrought iron patio furniture that made June say, “A place for tea parties!” and two attic bedrooms with sloping ceilings and a walk-through closet that connects them. The kids’ enthusiasm swayed me and we booked it.

I took June to the beach in the afternoon. It was still cool and windy but it was sunny so we were warm enough for shell hunting and sand castle making. She enjoyed jumping off the sand cliff without her persnickety older brother yelling at her for climbing in the designated jumping area and jumping in the climbing area.

That night we made our final pilgrimage to Candy Kitchen and had pizza at Grotto’s and our last full day at the beach came to a close.

Saturday

The next morning we packed up the house and went to the realty to turn in our keys and sign papers for the next house. Then we returned to town, Beth got coffee and ran some Easter-Bunny related errands, while I took the kids to the beach. The kite shop on the boardwalk was having a customer appreciation day and there were giant fabric balloons on the beach, a caterpillar the size of a school bus and a puffer fish about half that big, tethered to the sand and inflated solely by the wind. A few kids were diving into the sand under the balloons as they bobbed around and soon Noah and June joined in. There was some kind of narrative about the caterpillar exerting evil power over June and Noah trying to save her, but I wasn’t paying very close attention, preferring to watch the waves. The Easter Bunny was strolling around the boardwalk, and I pointed him out to June but she wasn’t interested. Beth said earlier in the week June had been showing her toys she might like in her Easter basket “in case the Easter Bunny is listening.” This made Beth think June has the Bunny’s number, or at least suspects the truth.

Around 10:55 a woman with a microphone announced there would be races and an egg toss for kids starting at eleven and June wanted to participate but we were supposed to meet Beth at a gazebo about two blocks away right then so I told June we’d come back. Beth still had some more errands to complete, so I took the kids back to the kite store but when we got there I didn’t see Noah. June accepted a piece of candy from the Easter Bunny and we turned back to find her brother, who had just taken such a long time to get his shoes on he was lagging far behind us. We returned and June decided she wanted one of the free bagels so I got one for her and when I came back, Noah was gone again. I was more exasperated than scared. He and I had just been discussing the fact that he’d left his bike lock at the gazebo so I figured he’d gone back for it. I dragged June away from the games for the third time, but when I got to the pavilion, I found Noah’s lock, but not Noah. I was more concerned now and asked the man who was now at the microphone at the kite store to page him. He did, with no result. By the third time Noah was paged, this time with a more detailed physical description, I was crying. Apparently, I can only lose my kids once in a week without losing my cool. A little while later, Beth and Noah came riding and scooting up to the kite store.

“Where were you?” I yelled at him.

“It was my fault,” Beth said, putting her arms around me as I started to cry harder. She’d found him while I was in the bagel line and taken him for a bike and scooter ride out to the summer house, so she could see it. This had been the plan all along so she thought I’d know where he’d gone, but it didn’t occur to me she’d take him when I wasn’t looking so I had no idea. Beth guessed what had happened, though, as soon as a stranger approached them and asked, “Are you Noah?”

By this time, the games were over and June never got to play, so we strolled down the boardwalk, had lunch and drove back to Takoma, even managing to dye our Easter eggs after the unpacking and laundry and dinner and before bedtime. That night June went to bed without asking for her pacifier. We never even looked for it.

Coda: Sunday and Monday

The kids hunted for their Easter baskets in the morning and found them full of chocolate and jellybeans. June got stuffed red monkey that looks like one she once lost (and mourned for years) and Noah got a t-shirt from Grotto’s. Beth went grocery shopping and I did mounds of laundry. Beth and June started flower, vegetable and watermelon seeds in pots and then Beth raised the training wheels on June’s bike and we stood in the driveway watching her make her wobbly way around it. It was a pleasant way to ease back into our home routine, without the pressures of work or school.

Going to bed, I had no idea what awaited us. June wandered into our room around 10:15, sleepy and disoriented, saying she couldn’t sleep. I’d sent her back to her room two or three times by 10:40 when I heard her sobbing and Beth and I both went into her room. Even when I got into bed with her and held her she couldn’t stop crying. I asked her if she wanted me to sing the songs I used to sing to put her to sleep when she was younger and she said yes so I sang them for an hour until she finally drifted to sleep. At one point while she was in the bathroom I pried up her mattress and found two pacifiers in between the bed and the wall. I took them to Beth and we quietly discussed whether or not to give her one. We didn’t, but I came pretty close.

Beth took the kids to Round House in the morning. It was June’s first-ever experience with a full-day camp and she was excited, and a little nervous, to be joining Noah in the fun. When I picked them up, after a day of trying to write about memory and cognition through a brain-fog of fatigue, I learned the theme of the day had been the ocean. The kids were divided into younger and older groups and they performed for each other at the end of the day. June was a crab being interviewed on a talk show. Noah was full of praise for her performance and one of the counselors told me she was “a good little actress.” Noah was the Carpenter in a puppet show version of “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” and another counselor said it was always good to see him. Noah said he couldn’t wait for summer vacation so he could go back to Round House, and June said it was fun, but after lunch and the play period, she’d been tired and wanted to go home. On the bus, I wondered why the kids had fallen silent and looked back to see June asleep, leaning against Noah.

We’ve made the crossing out of the territory of Spring Break. Beth went back to work on Monday and the kids returned to school yesterday. I’m not making any predictions about how long it will take June to go to sleep easily and consistently without her pacifier but the last two nights have gone well so I’m crossing my fingers for tonight.

Wild, Wild Horses

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Steph

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Prelude: Thursday and Friday

The kids’ last day of school before Spring Break was a Thursday. As Noah had no pressing homework and we were leaving for the beach on Saturday, I pounced on him as soon as he got home and set him to work, vacuuming, practicing percussion, cleaning his room. I asked June to help with the last project and when Beth got home around 6:30 the kids were arguing about whether June was being “lazy” and I was at the stove, ignoring the row and stirring risotto. I left the rice long enough to put my arms around Beth’s neck and say, “Thank you for taking us to the beach so the whole break won’t be like this.”

We had spring break all mapped out: Friday June would spend part of the day at Beth’s office, from the first Saturday to the second Saturday we’d be at the beach, Easter Sunday we’d catch up on chores and errands and on the second Monday, the last day of break, the kids would attend a one-day session at Round House Theatre. Theoretically, I was going to work on the first and last day and be on vacation in between, but Friday was a fragmented kind of day, so other than some accounting, I didn’t work.

On Friday Beth took June to the office with her for two and a half hours. June helped her recycle some papers and open envelopes and then she drew pictures and read. I read to Noah and puttered around the house until 10:15 when I left to go fetch June, and after enjoying some time with the newspaper at Firehook Bakery near Beth’s office, I met them in the lobby at 11:30 and we went out to lunch together at Meatballs, where Beth and I ate meatball subs made with lentil balls and June contented herself with tater tots.

Noah had a productive morning at home, doing math and English homework, and practicing his drums again. In the afternoon, we were visited by a reporter from The Wall Street Journal who’s writing a story about kids’ allowances and who interviewed Noah about how he uses Quicken to track his money. While she was at our house, she got locked out of her laptop and Noah fixed it for her, by suggesting she shut it down and restart it (always a good first step but it didn’t occur to me—Beth has trained him well).

Maggie came by for a play date soon after the reporter left, and that evening we had frozen pizza and various leftovers for dinner, Beth and I filled out our absentee ballots and we started packing.

The Beach:

Saturday

Less than half hour into the drive to Rehoboth I realized I had not looked for, found or packed June’s pacifier, which she’d lost the night before. Beth and I had a whispered conversation in which we agreed not to go back for it. This would be our opportunity to wean her from her nap and nighttime dependence on it.

During a pit stop, June mentioned she was tired. I suggested she have a little nap because we were at least a half hour from our designated lunch stop. She agreed happily and as she climbed into her car seat, she asked for her pacifier. Somehow I’d failed to anticipate this. I broke the bad news. She looked stricken, but she didn’t cry. Noah unhelpfully began to intone in a dramatic announcer-type voice, “Will June survive a week without her pacifier?”

“No, she won’t,” June muttered.

Beth sternly told Noah this was going to be hard for June and we needed to be kind to her.

I suggested he stop sucking his thumb for a week in solidarity, tapping his arm to remind him his thumb was in his mouth at that very moment. Noah did not to agree to this, so I offered not to bite my nails for a week. (I did it, too!)

June fell asleep shortly after this conversation but I warned Beth not to consider it a good sign, as the car is a powerful soporific.

We arrived at the house, unpacked and June and I hit the boardwalk while Beth went to buy food for dinner and breakfast. I was on foot and June was on her bike, ringing the bell every few minutes. “When I ring the bell it means I’m having a good time,” she said. As she pedaled toward Candy Kitchen, June commented, “I’ve had lunch,” in an offhand way. It was late afternoon, close to dinnertime, but I told her she could get something for later. She selected gummy teeth and perused the stuffed animals. She wanted to buy a giraffe, with her own money—despite my broad hints about the Easter Bunny’s propensity to bring stuffed animals. I didn’t have enough cash on me, so it was a moot point and she reluctantly agreed to wait until later in the week, to see if she saw something she liked better.

It was cold, in the high forties, overcast and windy, so windy that the wind was propelling the bike forward as much as June was, and when we turned around she couldn’t pedal at all and I had to push the bike home.

That night we settled June into bed without a pacifier but with a stuffed rabbit, a stuffed cat and a baby doll. We tucked her under her Cinderella blanket and put on her favorite bedtime CD—Peter and the Wolf. “I have to do this all week,” she said. It didn’t seem like a good time to tell her if all went well, she was saying goodbye to the pacifier forever. As I left the room, she was moaning.

She couldn’t sleep. For an hour, I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret to Noah while Beth received repeated visits from June. She wanted the CD turned off, and then turned on again. Beth suggested she try counting backwards and then June came back for more explicit instructions. Finally, around 9:20, we realized she hadn’t been out of bed for ten minutes or so and I peeked in on her. She was asleep. She slept until 3:20 when I woke to her sobs. She was standing in the hall outside the bathroom. She said she was thirsty and couldn’t find a cup for water. I didn’t think this was her whole reason for crying, but I got her a drink and sent her back to bed. Despite being up late and in the middle of the night, June was up at 5:45 and came into our room repeatedly until 7:00 a.m., with newsflashes like this one that woke me for good at 6:10—“I’m bored. I don’t want to play with my toys.”

Sunday

Beth and I were pretty wiped out so I went and got take-out coffee to give us the mental focus for planning and list making. We made lists of dinner menus, a grocery list and a list of possible day trips for the week. We thought a low-key day would be best as three of us were sleep-deprived. Plus Beth needed to grocery shop and she had some work to do, too.

Once our week was planned, I played two games of Hex with June and took the kids to the beach. Noah, irritated that I’d taken June to Candy Kitchen without him, got his turn. He chose raspberry gummy rings while June re-assessed her stuffed animal options. She left thinking she might want Ruby, of Max and Ruby. I thought a bunny might be appropriate for Easter.

It was still cool, but sunny and windless. The sea was calm and sparkly. We found a big plowed ridge of sand, part of a beach replenishment project. It was about ten feet high and at least fifty yards long and it gave the kids’ play a focal point. They slid down it and leapt off it, marking their record jumps with driftwood. June leaned against the base while Noah buried her up to her chin and they pretended she was a mummy coming back to life and breaking free of her bandages (the blanket of sand). They built sand temples and sand volcanoes. We were there almost two hours.

I thought with her poor night’s sleep, biking to the beach and back and an active morning of running and jumping, June might be exhausted enough to nap sans pacifier, but she just couldn’t. About fifteen minutes into her attempt, she started to cry. Noah came into her room to see what was wrong, but she told him, “There’s nothing you can do.” So she didn’t sleep, and I didn’t either. I even offered to let her sleep with me, but that didn’t work either. Beth finished her work and took June to the playground while Noah and I read on the porch.

We had an early dinner and walked down to the boardwalk for dessert. Ice cream was the original idea but the wind had picked up again and it wasn’t feeling much like ice cream weather. Beth got some anyway (she’s dedicated to ice cream); the rest of us opted for fudge. I would have gotten funnel cake if I could have gotten someone to agree to go halfsies with me.

The kids had time for a round of Rat-a-Tat-Cat before June’s bedtime. When I left her room less than five minutes after lights out, she was nearly asleep.

Monday

Monday was one of our scheduled side trips. We spent the day at Assateague Island National Seashore and on the boardwalk at Ocean City.

As we drove into the park, Noah asserted that we’d been there before (true) and that we didn’t see any horses (false). Beth and I had just been reminiscing about our last trip to Assateague during Noah’s kindergarten spring break and his challenging behavior during that outing (Postcards from Spring Break, 4/9/07). “It’s like the ghost of grumpy Noah came back,” I said.

But, other than occasionally insisting we’d never seen horses before and we wouldn’t see them today either, he was in a pretty good mood. Both kids ran down the sandy path of the Life of the Dunes trail, pretending to the superheroes, avoiding the villains (us) spying on them (taking pictures). We all enjoyed the trail, but we didn’t see hide nor hair of the wild horses (only their abundant poop). I wondered if we should have pulled over when we saw people stopping by the side of the road, photographing distant horses.

We were near the beach so the kids played in the sand before we hit the Life of the Marsh trail. On the drive there we hit pay dirt. By the side of the road, just off the parking lot there were three horses, a brown stallion, a brown and white mare and an almost all white foal. The baby was snoozing on the grass. Not only did we see horses, but we saw a baby horse. This was a major parenting score.

We hoped to see water birds on the marsh trail, and there were ducks and quite a few snowy egrets flying, landing and standing elegantly in the water, but there were also horses. Horses on distant spits of land, and then a shaggy brown horse right off the boardwalk trail. We’d have to get closer than the recommended ten feet away to pass it. We edged by slowly. “I wish I could pet it,” June said wistfully. She was sternly instructed not to do so. When we got to the parking lot, there were five or six more horses, all reddish brown, with manes ranging from tan to black.

“No-one’s going to say we didn’t see horses today,” I predicted back in the car on our way to the last trail, the Life of the Forest trail. We had lunch at a boardwalk restaurant in Ocean City. Noah spied the carousel horses that decorated the place and said it was a day of horses and that’s when we saw the mounted police officer out the window.

After lunch, June rode her bike and Noah rode his scooter down the boardwalk. Noah wanted to go to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, so we did, with some trepidation about its appropriateness for a sensitive six year old. It was the kind of day when we just didn’t want to say no. I steered June away from videos of people who’d survived horrible accidents (shark attacks, etc.) and was relieved when she didn’t ask about the foot-binding exhibit or the Iron Maiden. What really caught her attention was the room of statues of the tallest person ever and the fattest, and the man with extreme body modification (green scale tattoos, filed teeth, surgically forked tongue). She was talking about that lizard man for days. The children got their fortunes told by a mechanical Gypsy and had their portrait sketched by a computer—Noah chose the style of Raphael and June went with Rembrandt.

After we’d had our fill of oddities and careful conversations about them, we sampled the boardwalk’s treats. Beth got a shake, I got a dipped cone, Noah got a chocolate-covered frozen banana and June got a cloud of blue cotton candy considerably bigger than her head. We sat on a bench to eat and soon the kids were playing in the sand. I joined them and we made our way down the broad beach to the water. We rolled up our pants and dipped our feet into the water. At 3:50, I glanced at my watch and decided it was time to head back.

“This was a really fun day,” I told Beth as we walked up the boardwalk watching the kids riding ahead of us. It was about to get a lot less fun.

We were almost to the intersection where we’d leave the boardwalk and we couldn’t see the kids. They had gotten out of our sight before briefly and we’d always caught sight of them, but not this time. We stopped at the intersection and looked all around, but they were nowhere to be seen. Beth said a bad word or rather she spelled it, as if the kids were still there and still small enough for that to work. We conferred hurriedly. Beth would stay in front of the restaurant where we ate lunch, in case they thought to go there. I would go down the boardwalk after them. I jogged and walked and jogged and walked for twelve blocks. Once I saw a little girl on a white bike and I yelled, “June!” but before the word was even out of my mouth, I saw it wasn’t her. I heard the distinctive sound of scooter wheels coming from a side street and I looked but it wasn’t Noah. Finally I came to a barrier. The boardwalk was undergoing repairs on the other side. They wouldn’t have crossed it. Part of my mind was relieved because the Ocean City boardwalk is not like Rehoboth’s little one-mile boardwalk. It goes on and on and on for dozens of blocks. I was glad to have the search area confined to a twelve block-stretch. But another part of my mind thought I should have seen them coming back unless…I didn’t listen and searched the area all around the barrier in case they were waiting somewhere nearby, on the beach or a restaurant patio. I yelled, “Noah!” over and over. No answer.

I turned back. I was no longer hurrying, but lingering now, looking all around me. When I got back to Beth, we’d have to call the police, I decided. And then about halfway back, I saw Noah, just Noah. This could be very good or very bad. “Where’s June?” I yelled, before saying anything else.

She was with Beth. The kids had been waiting by the car, where neither Beth nor I had seen them even though we both, independently of each other, peered down that street. They’d argued about whether to remain there, June remembering advice to stay put if you were lost, and Noah thinking we might be just around the corner. He did not leave her and finally he convinced her to come and they were re-united with Beth, who was in fact just around the corner and who sent Noah on his scooter to find me. I’d left my backpack with my cell phone behind with Beth and they had no way to call me.

In case you’re wondering if I’ve learned anything since the last time I lost Noah in a public place (Lost and Found, 7/17/10), I’ve learned this: even though I’d never deliberately leave Noah in charge of June in a crowded public place for upwards of a half hour, I now know they’ll stick together and discuss their options thoughtfully. I know that when it mattered, he had her back. That’s no small thing.

The kids seemed no worse for the wear, though Noah admitted the next day to having been “a little worried.” Beth and I were wrung out. Back at the house, Beth made matzoh ball soup, we made the kids eat their carrots and drink their milk; I bathed June and read to Noah. Beth shepherded a pacifier-deprived June back to bed several times and finally they were fed and clean and safe in their beds and so was I, hunkered down with the only one in the world who loves them as much as I do.

Our spring break adventures continue in the next post…

The June Club

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Steph

On Saturday morning we were having breakfast at the Galleria Espresso in Rehoboth Beach. There’s a place in the restaurant where two mirrored walls come together. The kids love this corner because if you sit there you can see multiple images of yourself. They call these assemblies of images, “The Noah Club” and “The June Club.” Noah had his turn first and June was impatient for hers, so she ended up with a much longer turn while the rest of us ate our pancakes and crepes. At one point all the members of the June Club were exclaiming over how funny it was that they all looked exactly alike. June’s self-amusing like that.

We were in Rehoboth for our annual Christmas shopping weekend, a family tradition that has multiple benefits: we get away from the distractions of home and chores and focus on our shopping while supporting actual brick and mortar stores and a local economy (if not our own), June gets to visit the one true Santa in his house on the boardwalk, and I get a little much needed off-season beach time to tide me over until spring break.

So I walked on the beach at night and the kids and I built whole villages of sand castles during the cold, windy days. June decorated hers with carefully chosen pebbles and shells and Noah smashed his with the bottom of his bucket as soon as they were built. When they tired of this, they buried treasure (more shells and pebbles) and marked the spot with an X. June cried when Noah buried what she claims were prettier shells than she’ll ever be able to find again and they couldn’t find them, but then she got over it and they were burying treasure again. On Saturday June and I were on the beach at 7:35 with the last pink of the sunrise and both kids and I were there at 4:25 with the first pink of the sunset. We got a good bit of shopping done, too.

The weekend was pleasant, but unremarkable to the point that I don’t have much more to say about it. I think this has a lot to do with June being in the Santa sweet spot. She’s old enough not to be afraid to sit in his lap any more (having conquered that fear last year) and too young to be skeptical and full of angst about it like Noah was in first grade (see 12/10/07). So there wasn’t much Santa-related drama. After breakfast on Saturday June found a mermaid doll at Browse About Books (http://www.browseaboutbooks.com/), fell in love with it and insisted Beth take a picture on her phone in case Santa needed photographic evidence, but he didn’t. That afternoon, she clambered happily into his lap and told him she wanted the “McKenna Mermaid doll” (http://www.amazon.com/Groovy-Girl-122080-MacKenna-Mermaid/dp/B001R59PX0) and he seemed to know what she meant. It was all very satisfactory.

Life is pretty satisfactory for June these days. She loves kindergarten, loves riding the bus, loves the rhythms and routines of school. She looks forward to her turns as line leader and door closer, and keeps careful count of her tiger paws. She’s learning to read and working very hard at it. Because Spanish is more phonetic than English she can sound words out better in Spanish, but she’s more likely to know what they mean in English. I’ve watched her switching back and forth from English to Spanish books and back again as she struggles to find something she can read by herself. She is this close, able to read quite of a lot of words, but not quite fluent enough to sit down and really read a book. The contrast with Noah at this age is striking. He learned to read in kindergarten, too, a little later in the year, but seemingly without effort. One day he couldn’t read and the next day he could. June’s more of a step-by-step learner. That’s why Noah was a sight words reader and she’s a phonics-based reader. Either way, it’s a joy to watch, even if we do have to read a lot of words as she points to them, over and over and asks what they say. Do you know how many words there are out there in the world? There never seem to be quite as many as when you have a child who’s on the verge of reading.

I volunteered in June’s class on Tuesday. When I came in the door her face lit up and for a while she had trouble concentrating on her work because she kept glancing up at me, at the table where I sat date-stamping homework papers and putting them in the kids’ folders and cubbies and folding and stapling coloring sheets into little booklets. Of course that’s why I go, to see her excitement at having me there, and also for the chance to spy on a bit of her school day as I relieve the teacher of some of her clerical duties. Señora T read two books, and gave a short lesson on ordinal numbers (the kids had to line up, five to a line and then the remaining children had to say who was primero, segundo, tercero—first, second, third, etc.) First they did it in order, and then she started mixing it up. There was also a short grammar lesson on the topic of “¿Que es una oración?” (“What is a sentence?”) and a free play period. June was at the stencil table, filling in a sprinkling of stars at the top of her page for a night scene. Other kids drew (one of June’s friends presented her with a drawing of a Christmas tree) or painted, or did puzzles, or played with blocks or toy cars or pretend food in the supermarket area. There was an injury when food went flying and I had to escort a girl to the nurse’s office with a scratch on her nose.

When school let out June asked if we could play on the playground before walking home and she showed me how she can go all the way across the monkey bars now. She’s been working on this all year, devoting many of her recess periods to mastering this particular piece of playground equipment. At the beginning of the year she tried the bigger set (the one she fell off) but she has since switched over to the smaller set, which is more her size, and she can indeed go all the way across. I watched her do it again and again.

It reminded me of something that happened over Thanksgiving weekend. We were at a playground in Wheeling, with Beth’s mom, three of her aunts and two of her cousins. This playground is well known to both kids, but they had a new piece of equipment June had never encountered before. It consisted of four chains, strung on a wooden frame. There were plastic handles on the sides, but June wanted to walk all the way across without falling and without holding on. Over and over she tried, and over and over she fell.

“I am going to keep on doing this until I don’t fall,” she told me, and I thought, oh no, how are we going to leave this playground because I didn’t think she could really do it. Well, you know how this story ends, right? She kept on doing it until she didn’t fall, and then she did it a few more times for good measure.

Five pushing six is a magical age, full of challenges to master, words to read and monkey bar and chain bridges to cross. It’s a good time to be a member of the June Club.

Rain or Shine

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Steph

Sunday
“I’m sorry,” Beth said. We were embracing on the screened porch of our rental house early Sunday morning. “You have no idea how much.”

She had driven us to the beach the day before and she was heading straight back home. The Verizon strike that had started a week prior and caused her to work long hours and late nights ever since meant she had to skip our vacation. YaYa had elected not to come this year and my sister cancelled when she found out right before the trip that her cat had inoperable cancer so it was just me and Mom and the kids.

Now it would be unseemly to complain too much about a week at the beach with a grandmother to help, but it was still a sharp disappointment to find out within a few days of each other and right beforehand, that neither my partner nor my sister was coming. And to make matters worse, rain was predicted all week, after a very dry summer.

But the beach is the beach, rain or shine, and I was glad to be there. The kids and I had already made the best of a week without seeing much of Beth. We’d gone for a long creek walk, been to the pool, made chocolate-marshmallow candies from a kit, hosted two play dates and been to two drum lessons. We’d make the best of this week, too.

Beth drove away at 8:45, after taking June to play on the beach for a little while Noah and I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the screened porch. I watched the car go with a pang and kept on reading.

Later Mom and I worked out a set of menus and a grocery list. Both kids wanted to go shopping with her so I hit the beach. It was cloudy but not uniformly so. There were thick bands of dark clouds in the West but in the East there was just about every kind of sky you could imagine: patches of blue, puffy white clouds and big rapidly moving dark gray ones, scuttling in front of the lighter ones. I thought my swim could be cut short by a thunderstorm so I got in the water right away. I swam for an hour, until my fingers were wrinkly and I was all over gooseflesh.

I got home shortly before Mom and the kids, helped unpack the groceries and made lunch. Then June and I, who had been up for an hour and a half in the middle of the night because she could not sleep in an unfamiliar place, collapsed and slept for two hours. Every now and then I half-woke to hear Noah laughing as he and Grandmom played Roundabouts, but it was a pretty solid nap.

Afterward, I was energized enough to take the kids to Funland. Noah tried some new rides this year—the Freefall (which is one of those tower-like rides with seats that just take you up and drop you) and the Paratrooper (which looks like a Ferris Wheel except it tilts in addition to spinning). June stuck to her old standbys, but insisted on going on the mini-Ferris wheel alone, not with Noah and definitely not with me. She wanted to ride the Freefall, and she is tall enough, but I wasn’t quite ready to put her on it, and I also didn’t want to take away from Noah’s pride at riding it for the first time by having his little sister do it the very same year, so I told her next year. She’s the daredevil, if you hadn’t figured it out already, and he’s the cautious one.

It had started to rain hard while we were in Funland and it didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon so we walked home in it. Even with umbrellas and June in a rain jacket we got soaked so when we got home Mom and the kids changed into pajamas and called it a pajama party. Noah even found the song “Pajama Time” on his iPod and played it while we cooked dinner.

After dinner it had cleared and the kids wanted to go to Candy Kitchen so I took them to the boardwalk in their pajamas (Noah pulled on a pair of shorts over his pajama bottoms). Before we were halfway there it started to rain again but the sun was still shining so we saw possibly the most amazing rainbow I have ever seen. It was huge, 180 degrees, right over the ocean. Everyone was taking pictures and I tried to take one with my phone but I couldn’t get the whole thing in the frame. Beth called while we were looking at it. It was hard to talk much because of the noise of the rain and the crowds, but she sounded sad.

We got fudge and a wide variety of gummy products (worms, frogs and teeth). On the way home it started to rain harder and we got soaked again. June needed a second pair of pajamas. We played Hex and checkers until bedtime and our first full day at the beach was over.

Monday
I’d wondered if my long nap would keep me up but I went right to sleep Sunday night and slept eight and a half hours, waking before June who slept until 7:25. The kids were sleeping upstairs in the attic bedroom and I was in a downstairs bedroom and I slept magnificently. The room was dark and quiet. I was not able to hear all their little sleep movements as I do when they are just next door to me at home. The kids and I played a hand of Go Fish after breakfast and were on the beach by 9:10.

We proceeded to spend the longest chunk of time I think I’ve ever had on the beach with both kids—over three hours. I was the one who had to make them come home for lunch. They were in the water before I could even get sun block on them and I had to call them back to the towel. They jumped in the waves, made dribble castles and regular castles and dug a very deep moat around one of them. We watched a large pod of dolphins (the first of many we’d see that week). Noah buried his legs in the sand down to the knees and seemed to enjoy sitting and watching the ocean thus weighted down. June played in the water until she was shivering and her lips were blue. And even then she resisted coming up onto the sand for warming-up breaks. I snuck in a five-minute swim while they were building things in the sand, but I came out in a hurry when I saw them approach the water. The waves were better than the day before so I was sorry not to have a real swim, but it was a fun morning nonetheless. I think I could have even read or written a little if I had brought a book or writing supplies because they played independently for long stretches of time. It’s been a long time—a decade—since I’ve been able to read on the beach without getting someone to watch the kids. It was tantalizing to think it might be almost within my grasp again.

That afternoon, post-nap (June’s—I read to Noah while she slept as I did most days that week) we returned to Funland. Noah got bored quickly because his new favorite rides are not under the roof and kept getting shut down by the intermittent rain. He did get to ride the Freefall once more but he got drenched because it started to rain during the ride. June wanted to ride the helicopters, which are also outside and she waited in the line twice, only to have them shut down when she would have been in the next group. So we mostly stuck to the kiddie rides under the pavilion. Once again, we walked home in the rain and the kids ate dinner in their pajamas. We considered going to the boardwalk that evening but we decided to stay inside and dry. We talked to Beth on the phone, Noah played games on his iPod and read a 39 Clues book (http://www.the39clues.com/). Meanwhile June showed off her new mouse skills for Mom, playing phonics games on the Between the Lions web site. June went to bed at 8:45 and Noah at 9:15, but they were up talking until 9:45.

Tuesday
June slept in until 6:55 and when she woke me I saw my first glimpses of sun since we’d arrived. After two consecutive nights’ good sleep I was ambitious enough to make veggie bacon, eggs, toast and cantaloupe for my breakfast and June’s (Noah opted for cereal).

After the breakfast dishes were done and I’d started a load of laundry, I took the kids for a scooter ride on the boardwalk. Scooters are permitted on the boardwalk before 10 a.m. in the summer, or so I thought. Once we were on the boardwalk, I noticed the sign that said bikes are permitted before 10 a.m. but scooters are prohibited from May 15 to September 15. Why the distinction, I have no idea, but we turned off the boardwalk at Rehoboth Avenue (not before passing a police officer, but she didn’t seem to care about our lawless ways). We fortified ourselves with raspberry latte, chocolate milk, juice and a bagel with cream cheese (for June who was already in need of a second breakfast) before returning home via a non-boardwalk route, as much as that pained me.

At home June wanted to stay behind and act out medical dramas with Grandmom while Noah and I went to the beach. On the way I told him, “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I always enjoy your company,’ I said.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“I thought so,” he said cheerfully.

We waded into the water together but the waves were breaking too close to shore so it was too rough at the depth where he’d normally play, plus the water was full of swirling sand and tiny pebbles so that the waves were really kind of unpleasant. I tried to coax him deeper into the water where the waves would be gentler and less gritty, but he wouldn’t come. So he went back to the shore to pile wet sand on his legs again while I swam. The waves were unsatisfying, so I floated on my back, feeling the coolness of the water around me and the warmth of the sun on my face. With my ears underwater the shouts of nearby swimmers were softer and the soothing sounds of the waves were more audible.

After fifteen minutes or so, I joined Noah on the sand and helped him bury the parts of his legs he couldn’t reach. Every so often the water rushed over him and washed away our work. Rebuilding it was a pleasant, mindless sort of task. A few times I asked him if he was comfortable—did he have too much sand in his suit, was the sand too heavy on his legs where it had eroded away under his calf and left it unsupported? He answered he was fine. We did this until it was time for lunch.

After lunch we read Harry Potter on the porch while June napped and we watched as for the second day in a row Mom set out for the beach around three, only to come right back because it had started to rain. When June woke, we returned to Funland for the third time in three days, where we met up with the Ground Beetle and her family (which we’d planned—I knew they were staying in nearby Lewes) and with the Field Mouse and his family (which was a happy accident). The Beetle and the Mouse have younger brothers so at one point there were five Purple School students or alumni riding in a row on the motorcycles. June and the Beetle were so happy to see each other they did not stop talking the entire time they were together. When they rode the carousel, they named their horses. The Beetle presented June with a small seashell with June’s name written on it in marker. The Beetle has been moving steadily up the wait list for the Spanish immersion program at June’s elementary school. Her parents are hoping she will get in sometime this school year. We do, too.

Noah had originally decided against another trip to Funland but he changed his mind so Mom brought him. He was rewarded with clear skies and working rides. He rode the Freefall twice and the Paratroopers once.

After Funland we went out to dinner. We intended to go out for Mexican but there was a 35-45 minute wait so we went looking for other options and ended up at a café where we ate crepes (me and Noah), grilled cheese (June) and fajitas (Mom). I tried to call the Mexican place to cancel our table, but the #7 on my phone was malfunctioning and there was a 7 in the number so I couldn’t call. We had some downtime waiting for our food so we called Beth. Noah had the brilliant idea of having her call the restaurant to cancel our seating. Dinner was followed by frozen custard for the womenfolk and a chocolate-dipped frozen banana for Noah. We at them on the beach while admiring the sunset. June and I waded too deep into the water (at her continual urging to go “a little deeper”). On the way home, June, in a sleeveless dress, sopping wet to the waist and having just eaten a frozen custard, was freezing. (It had been not just rainy but cool all week.) We hurried the kids home and off to bed and our beach week was half over.

Wednesday
Wednesday was another sunny morning and I had good news in my email. Beth, who had been planning to drive out on Friday evening, now thought she might be able to come Thursday night instead. This was exciting news.

Mom took the kids to Jungle Jim’s water park (http://www.funatjunglejims.com/) and I had a few hours of long-awaited alone time. Thanks, Mom! I puttered around the house a bit, finishing the breakfast dishes and then set off on some errands. We needed sun block and while I was along a commercial stretch I ended buying a caramel latte and a secret stash of chocolate crabs for myself and a t-shirt for June. I was drawn to it right away when I saw it in the store window. It’s pink with a skull-and-crossbones wearing a heart-shaped eye patch and a bow on top of the skull. It says “Pirate Girl.”

Next it was time for the beach. I decided to stay near the food establishments on the boardwalk so I could have lunch. It was more crowded than our regular stretch of beach, but I found a place for my towel. I swam and read a few chapters of the Agatha Christie novel I started at Chadd’s Ford (and hadn’t picked up since then). I watched dolphins and swam again. Around 12:45, I went up to the boardwalk and stood in an extremely slow-moving line for fried clams for ten minutes before giving up and getting fries elsewhere. Then I headed back to the house, where Mom and the kids had just returned. Mom said the kids liked the river ride best and did it six or seven times. June went with Mom first and then alone. This was not exactly on purpose as they got separated. June found this a very satisfactory outcome, but Mom was more than a little scared by the experience.

June’s nap started later than usual so I had to wake her around 3:40. Mom was at the beach for the first time and we were supposed to meet her there but neither of the kids felt like going so I decided to get a jump on dinner. I made a pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes, garlic, Portobello mushrooms, basil (from our garden), and black olives. Then I told June she had to go to the beach (we left Noah to practice his drums and read) and we left.

Once we were there, June made a beeline for the water and was soon jumping up and down in the water yelling, “I love the beach! I love the beach!” After fifteen minutes the lifeguard blew the five o’ clock whistle, meaning everyone had to get out of the water while they go off duty. On our way out of the water, June and I spied an enormous sand sculpture of a lobster we’d somehow missed on our way into the water. She went right to work building her own miniature replica while I went back into the water. The waves were not big (there were no big waves all week, alas) but they were rolling in a pleasant rhythm out beyond the breakers so I stayed there. As I bobbed in the water, I could see Mom in her chair and June huddled over her sand creation and the big lobster and a big sand castle that ascended in a spiral pattern and the iconic orange Dolles sign far down the boardwalk. I had to wrench myself away to go home for dinner.

I wanted to finish dinner in time for another boardwalk jaunt because Noah had decided early in the week that this was the year he was going to try to Haunted Mansion and we hadn’t yet been to Funland in the evening when it’s open. As it happened, we didn’t get there until 7:15, which was later than I’d hoped (though we had a nice walk, seeing both a rabbit and more dolphins). By 7:20 I’d purchased tickets and Noah and I were in line. My original plan was to take a test ride by myself because Noah had a really bad experience in a haunted house when he was seven (see my 11/05/08 post) but when I saw the line, I knew we’d have to take the plunge together. Based on the ages of the kids in line (many younger than Noah and a few not much older than June) I thought it would be fine. And it was. Noah was keyed up throughout the entire forty-minute wait, but in a happy way. He kept noting our progress through the line and pointing our details on the exterior (a vulture I’d missed, a severed arm over the sign that says to keep your arms in the car) and when were seated, he said, “We’re really going in the Haunted Mansion!”

It was quite tame. There were a great many skeletons popping out at you—the one that came out of the picture frame actually startled me—Frankenstein’s monster, and some big spiders, but no gore. I kept my hand resting lightly on his thigh, but he never took it. Afterward he said it was “nice,” which I thought was a funny description of a haunted house, but it was nice, scary enough to make him feel brave, but not traumatized, which is after all what we want from scary things.

We tried to call Beth from the boardwalk so he could tell her all about it but now my phone was inserting random 7s into any number I tried to dial, so I had to write her an email about it when we got home.

Thursday
Thursday morning I took the kids for a walk on the boardwalk and down Rehoboth Avenue to get Noah his annual t-shirt from the T-shirt Factory. I knew it would take him a long time to select a shirt and a design to have applied to it, given the sheer number of choices, so to keep June occupied (and because we’d left her backpack full of toys at home) I let her pick one toy. I thought she’d go for the set of four plastic mermaids with different colored hair (pink, purple, red and blue) and a tiny brush and comb, but she picked a fuchsia and white striped stuffed rodent of an undetermined species. (June thought it was a squirrel.) She named it Fruity. Finally Noah selected a design of two bare footprints and the words, “Rehoboth Beach, Delaware” and had them applied to a white t-shirt. We celebrated a successful shopping trip with a café con leche, two chocolate milks, a muffin and a bagel at Café a GoGo, where the coffee is heavenly but where I normally won’t even take the kids because we have gotten too many dark looks from the stern Mexican owner when they’ve been too boisterous. But they had been well behaved all week so I chanced it. They sat down immediately, gave me their orders and wouldn’t even come to the counter to look at the pastries because they were a bit intimidated by previous experience.

We went home, got changed and headed to the beach. After playing in the water, we built a pool for June that filled with water whenever a big wave rolled up on the shore. I decorated the back wall with dribble castles. It was quite an elaborate production.

After nap and Harry Potter, I made a tostada filling out of zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes for dinner and we all joined Mom at the beach. It was the first time all four of us had been down there at the same time. The kids and I played in the water until June decided she wanted to look for crabs, shells and pebbles with Grandmom. They found no crabs and not a whole lot of shells but a lot of pretty pebbles, which June collected in a pail to decorate her sandbox at home. Noah was befriended by a younger boy who attached himself to him. I couldn’t tell if Noah wanted the attention or not. He seemed a bit puzzled as to why the boy was talking to him at first but then he relaxed and they played in the waves together. With both kids occupied I was free to take a brief swim. Coming out of the water, I noticed another sand sculpture, this one a swordfish.

We went home, had dinner and then went out for ice cream. On the way we stopped at a shop on the boardwalk that sold the same mermaid set June saw in the t-shirt shop. She’d had buyers’ remorse about the stuffed animal because she “really, really” wanted the mermaids now. I suggested she use her own money. June’s been getting an allowance since she turned five in March but she had yet to spend any of it. I don’t think she realized she could. And I still don’t think she gets it because even after I purchased the mermaids, saying she could pay me back at home, she kept asking why I got them when I said she could only have one toy.

On the way home we walked on the beach. We admired elaborate sand castles and the kids jumped into a big pit someone had dug and climbed on the lifeguards’ chair. Noah leapt off it and after some consideration, June did too. It was a big jump for her and she was pleased with herself.

We got home to an email from Beth saying she was on her way, so I stayed up late (for me), talking to Mom and waiting for Beth. She arrived just before eleven and we had a lot of catching up to do so we’d only just fallen asleep around midnight when there was a thump from the other side of the big attic bedroom. We thought it was June because she’d been sleeping horizontally across the bed with her legs hanging over the side, but it was Noah. I found him sitting on the floor, so disoriented he didn’t know what to do so I helped him back into bed. In the morning he had no memory of this.

Friday
At one a.m. I gave up trying to sleep in the upstairs double bed with Beth (we’re used to sleeping in a queen) and went downstairs to my bedroom. I heard movement upstairs at 6:30 and by 7:00, the kids were piled in bed with Beth and I was sitting on the edge of the bed as Beth combed mermaid hair and we planned out our last full day at the beach. She’d work in the morning, and in the afternoon, we’d make a final trip to Funland (where the kids would use up the last of the 88 tickets we bought over the course of the week and Noah would ride the Freefall with Beth watching) and we’d have pizza at Grotto’s. Beth couldn’t stop smiling at us. It was good to have her back. She’s the one that I want with me, rain or shine.

Spring Break Trilogy: Part II, The Beach

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Steph

Day 4: Tuesday

Tuesday morning we packed and then drove the full car to the kids’ dentist. June was very brave and co-operative, though she had so much trouble with the bite wings that the dentist, having found no signs of cavities, decided to skip her x-rays. June got a bag of toys, a Dora sticker that said, “No cavities! ¡Ni una caries!” and had her nailed painted by one of the hygienists. She chose five different shades of pink and purple. Over the past several days I keep catching unexpected, startling glances of her painted nails. They make her look older, still like a little girl, but like the next step up in the category of little girl, if that makes sense.

Noah had two cavities in baby teeth that are about to come out, so no treatment was necessary. From his x-rays, the dentist predicted he’d be losing the last of his baby teeth soon and all at once. She gave us the cards of three orthodontists. I can’t believe it’s time to start thinking about orthodontia, but apparently it is. He got some trinkets, too, and declined the manicure.

Then we were off to the beach. We listened to Series of Unfortunate Events #10 (The Slippery Slope) while June was asleep and some Magic Tree House books while she was awake. We arrived in Rehoboth around dinnertime and went out for Mexican. The food was good but we may never be able to go back to this restaurant because in a distracted moment when both kids and the waiter were all asking me something at once, I called the waiter “sweetie.” Somehow I managed not to die of embarrassment on the spot.

We went back to our hotels, bathed the kids and put them to bed and I slipped down to the beach. It was cool enough that I needed a jacket but not so cold that I felt I needed to keep moving so as not to freeze, so I sat on the beach and watched the ocean hurl itself onto the shore.

Day 5: Wednesday

Wednesday was gorgeous, like an early summer’s day plopped down into the middle of April. It got up into the mid-80s according to the digital clock/thermometer on Rehoboth Avenue.

We ate breakfast on the boardwalk. Afterwards Noah took a scooter ride all the way down to the South end of the boardwalk while June and I played on the beach. She drew a unicorn in the sand with the edge of a shell and dug a hole, looking for dinosaur bones. Not finding any, she decided to bury a cache of seashells, as treasure for someone else to find. When she’d filled in the hole, she marked it with an X.

We found a big pool of water that had formed in a depression in the sand and soon she was wading and splashing in it. She was bare legged, but soon her skirt and underwear were uncomfortably wet and she wanted to leave the beach. I suggested she get changed into her bathing suit. She was surprised but pleased by this idea. Her bathing suit? Outside? In spring? It was lucky the hotel had a pool because otherwise we would not have even brought bathing suits.

Noah joined us on the beach just as we were getting ready to go back to the room to change so he got changed, too, and we spent the rest of the morning on the beach making castles, wading and running around like maniacs (well, that last one was just the kids). The warmth and the sunlight were intoxicating, as they always are the first day spring shows you a foretaste of summer.

After lunch, June napped in the hotel room while I worked on a project I’m doing for Sara, rewriting and simplifying medical abstracts. This set was about a compound found in tea that has relaxing properties. It took June a long while to fall asleep (she’s used to being alone when she naps) and she was chatty, but about ten minutes before I was about to give up my work plan for lost, I realized she’d been quiet for a couple minutes and sure enough, she was asleep. When she woke, Beth took both kids to the pool while I continued to work. Then Beth took June to pick up some Chinese takeout while I read the last two chapters of The Sea of Monsters to Noah. They were gone a while, so he had time to practice percussion as well. (He has a practice pad so it’s not as loud as you might think.) Beth and I ate in the room and the kids ate on the balcony and then we took a stroll on the boardwalk.

It was still warm, in the low 80s. We ended up sitting on a bench, most of us bare legged, eating frozen custard and watching the sky grow pinker and pinker. June kept pointing to different parts of the sky, indicating which was the “most beautifulest.” Finally she said, “I don’t think anything in the world could be more beautiful than this.” I had to agree.

I went to the beach after the kids were bathed and in bed. It was hopping down there, full of kids with parents less strict about bedtime than we are. I remembered being nine years old, in bed on summer nights, listening to the shouts of the visiting children of our tenant, a divorced father. They were playing in my yard when I had to be in bed. It was almost unbearable. My nine-year-old self chided me for putting the kids to bed on time, but I ignored her.

I found a place near the water, away from the crowds, where the sand was comfortably inclined and sat down with my back leaning against it. The sand was cool but not cold, the waves roared, I could see the Big Dipper, or maybe it was the Little Dipper. I’m not good with constellations. I felt profoundly at home.

Day 6: Thursday

Temperatures were more seasonable Thursday but it was still sunny and beautiful. After breakfast we flew kites on the beach, and then Beth had a massage while June and I took a walk to the North end of the boardwalk and Noah stayed in the room and practiced percussion again. When June and I came back, we ate Mexican and Chinese leftovers and played our second game of checkers of the day. We’d had a surprisingly close match at breakfast but now she was tired and even with advice from Noah, she was not playing as well. When I had eight of her pieces and she only had four of mine, she declared, “This game is boring.”

After Beth got home and had her lunch, she and Noah left so June could nap and I could work. This time June fell asleep almost at once, but I ran into technical difficulties with the PC and had to call Beth to come back and help me so I lost more than half of June’s (fortunately long) nap. I scaled my goal in half and finished while Beth and the kids swam in the pool again.

I read the first chapter of The Titan’s Curse to Noah while June had her bath and after Noah’s bath, we left for dinner. Then we came home, read some more, and put the kids to bed. I resisted the urge to hit the beach and did two more abstracts before bed.

Day 7: Friday

By Friday morning it was downright cold, 46 degrees and overcast at 8:05 when June and I went out in search of breakfast. Noah had been in bed absorbed in Car and Driver when June was ready to go so we’d decided to split up. We went to a coffee shop and played three rounds of Hex (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_(board_game) while she ate her bagel and I ate my oatmeal. It was the first time she’d ever played but she won one round. We were supposed to meet Beth and Noah on the boardwalk at nine, but when I called Beth she said Noah was still reading and still in his pajamas. June was not warmly dressed so we went back to the room. Noah had finished reading and had decided he wanted pancakes. Beth just wanted a muffin and some coffee so we agreed to switch kids and I took Noah out to breakfast at a diner.

Since I didn’t need to eat, I read to him while he ate. We’d agreed to try to read together every day during Noah’s break and we’re now making much more rapid progress than we had been through the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Jackson_%26_the_Olympians)
Noah received for Christmas. It’s been satisfying and fun. At first Noah was concerned I was reading too loudly and that it might bother the other patrons. So he joined me on my side of the table and snuggled up next to me while I read more softly and he ate his chocolate-chip pancakes. He’d been self-conscious enough to worry about being read to in public but not too self-conscious to put his head on my shoulder. He’s a very young almost ten in some ways, but I can’t say I mind.

Because we ate breakfast in shifts, it was ten-thirty by the time we’d finished, so we hit Candy Kitchen for some treats to take home before going back to the hotel to pack in time for the eleven o’clock checkout. (Well, Beth and I packed while the kids played on the luggage cart.)

The whole time we were in Rehoboth, June had been seeing toys she wanted, a set of four mermaid dolls with different colored hair you could comb and brush, a stuffed pony, and a purple unicorn beanie baby with a sparkly pink horn and hooves and disturbingly large eyes. The last two were at Candy Kitchen and while we were in there she renewed her appeals. After I’d said no, and after she’d given up saying, “But pleeeaaase,” I spied her kneeling on the floor, silently petting the little unicorn. That did me in. I decided to go back later and get it for her Easter basket.

Earlier in the trip we’d noticed a newly opened bakery that allows kids to decorate their own cupcakes and we’d promised to go back. As the beach trip was practically over we were running out of time for this activity so we went over there and watched as the kids arranged sprinkles and M&Ms and lollipops on a frosted cupcake. Then we had them boxed up for later and left. Now that we had enough sugar to last until the Second Coming, we were just about ready to leave the beach.

Beth took the kids while I snuck back to Candy Kitchen, bought the unicorn, pulled on my boots so I could wade in the ocean I and had my last ten minutes on the beach until August. It was lunchtime by then but no one was all that hungry, so we just got smoothies and hit the road. All the way home, I tried not to think about how very long a time four months was seeming. But luckily, the beach is always here, patiently waiting for us to return.

Fear Not

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Steph

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

Luke 2:10

On Saturday afternoon, around 3:45, Beth and I were walking along the boardwalk; Noah and June raced ahead. Every now and then he would tug on her arm or grab her coat to slow her down, telling her she couldn’t go inside Santa’s house until the adults caught up with them.

“Let go of her hood,” I yelled as Beth yelled almost identical words. It’s not like she’d actually go inside without any of us, we joked to each other. June’s always been shy around Santa. In years past it has taken all the courage she can muster to walk into the little house with Noah at her side and stand in Santa’s general proximity while Noah relays her requests. We weren’t expecting anything different this year.

But before we got to the house, a woman dressed as an elf peered around the corner and asked if it was okay for the kids to come in. We indicated it was and hurried up a little.

When we got to the doorway, June was already sitting on Santa’s lap and he was asking her what she wanted for Christmas. She had her answer all ready: “A princess book and a princess doll.” Santa told her to go to bed early on Christmas Eve so he would have time to deliver her gifts. We barely had time to snap a picture before it was Noah’s turn. As the kids came out, admiring their flashing necklaces–hers was in the shape of a stocking and his was a Christmas tree- Beth and kept looking at each other and exclaiming over June’s unexpected bravery.

I’ve been somewhat afraid of Christmas this year, or rather I’ve been afraid of the emotions it might stir up, as my father died in mid-January last year and my last visit to him started on the day after Christmas. But so far, it hasn’t been too bad. I mean, I’m thinking about him a lot, and I even had a dream recently about going to visit him but being unable to find him because I was supposed to meet him at his new office, which was on a street with completely random street numbers. But Christmas music and decorations and sweets seem the same as ever, more comforting than sad. When I am hit with sadness it comes unexpectedly. A few weeks ago the kids and I went to a marionette show at a nearby community college with the Toad and her mother. One of the puppeteers looked a bit like my father. It wasn’t even a very close resemblance, but it was still hard to watch him up there on stage. I think grief is like that–you don’t get to decide or even predict when it will come to you. So I’ve realized it does me no good to go in fear of eggnog lattes or Christmas carols.

And the Christmas story itself is, at least in part, about overcoming fear. How would the shepherds have felt, seeing the angels swoop down on their field at night? How would Mary have received the news about her impending unwed motherhood? I imagine they all would have been sore afraid indeed, at least at first.

After we left Santa, we did some Christmas shopping (this being the ostensible reason for our annual December weekend in Rehoboth—but if you know me at all you know the real reason). Beth and I split up and bought many of June’s Christmas gifts right under her nose, including a princess book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paper_Bag_Princess) and a princess doll. I will not say what, if anything, we bought for Noah because he reads my blog now. Sorry, Noah Bear.

Then we headed to Grotto’s to order a pizza to take back to our hotel room. June had slept poorly the night before and then skipped her nap that afternoon and she was clearly exhausted so our evening plan was pizza and a movie in the room. I was expecting her to conk out on the bed pretty early in the feature presentation so we bathed both kids and got them into their pajamas before starting the movie.

We were watching Christmas Is Here Again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUpxgaH4F4g&feature=related), which is one of the stranger Christmas films I’ve ever seen. We found it at a video store two Christmases ago and it’s become one of the movies in our regular Christmas rotation. It’s a rather dark tale about an orphan girl who sets out to find Santa’s stolen sack, which has been missing for over thirty years and without which Christmas can no longer celebrated. The girl is accompanied by an elf, a baby reindeer, a polar bear and a fox, one of whom is a double agent, but I won’t give away that part. They have to journey down into the mines of the devilish villain where child slaves toil to extract coal and precious stones. And it goes on like that. The villain, Crad, is very creepy, a shrouded fellow with crooked teeth and red eyes. He scares the pants off June every time. In fact, sometimes Noah only has to sing “I stole Santa’s sack/The sack he carried on his back./I stole Santa’s sack/And I’ll never give it back!” to send June running out of the room.

Nevertheless, she insists on watching this movie, and we let her. I struggle a lot with what’s too scary for the kids to watch, especially June because she’s both younger and more sensitive to on-screen scariness than Noah was at her age. (Interestingly, some of the books that spooked him when he was a preschooler do nothing for her.) But if it’s rated G, I will usually let her watch it, as long as we’re not at a movie theater where the screens are bigger and her habit of running of the room at the scary parts would be more inconvenient for everyone involved.

And she did run out of the room at least twice, even though she declared several times before we started watching that “This is not a scary movie for me.” I accompanied her to the bathroom and we waited for her to be ready to come back. After a while she decided she could just hide under the covers whenever Crad came on screen, and that’s what she did. Much to my surprise, she did not fall asleep during the hour and fifteen minute film, though when I put her to bed soon after, she fell asleep quickly and slept an impressive ten fours and forty minutes (from 8:05 to 6:45). She may not have made it through the entire movie without hiding, but some year she will. She’d already overcome one long-standing fear and that’s plenty for one day.

Once June was asleep, I took Noah down to the hotel lobby where we could read and then I brought him back up and put him to bed at 8:45. Beth had gone to bed herself and seemed to be asleep. I sat on the bathroom floor with the light on and read for twenty minutes until Noah was asleep and then I got into my warm socks, rubber boots, coat and woolen scarf. It was raining out but it’s not every evening I have the chance to walk on the beach and I’m not afraid of a little rain.

Real Gone

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Steph

Slow down, you’re gonna crash,
Baby you’re a-screaming it’s a blast, blast, blast
Look out babe, you’ve got your blinders on
Everybody’s looking for a way to get real gone
Real gone.
Real gone.

From “Real Gone” by Sheryl Crow and John M. Shanks

..such a gone sweet little soul…Oh we talked, we talked…

From On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

Day 1: Saturday

At 11:35 a.m., two Saturdays ago, we pulled out of the driveway with the opening song from the soundtrack of Cars playing; we were aiming to get real gone.

It was an uneventful drive, compared to our last beachward journey, if slow around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. We listened to the middle and end of How to Train Your Dragon, which we began on the way home from the Outer Banks, and the beginning of The Reptile Room (the second book in the Series of Unfortunate Events). We had lunch at Taco Bell and dessert at Dairy Queen and by 4:45 we were pulling into the driveway of our rental house.

My mom and sister arrived about a half hour later and my mom presented the kids with gifts—a book about oceans for Noah and a pair of white sandals with daisies on them for June. These were just the first in a cascade of gifts for the kids from the older generation that eventually included lobster socks for both from Aunt Carole, a shark t-shirt and shark’s tooth necklace for Noah and a pink, flowered dress for June from YaYa.

Mom, Sara and I took June down to the beach while Noah stayed behind to practice riding his bike up and down the block. Beth was hoping to take the training wheels off this week and after some initial reluctance on his part, he’d gotten enthusiastic about the project. But since he rides his scooter everywhere, it’s been months or more likely years since he’s ridden the bike so he wanted to practice a little first with the training wheels raised but still attached.

At the beach, June wanted me to pick her up and carry her “deep into the sea.” We didn’t go as far as she would have liked—she kept urging me further on—but we got deep enough so that the waves came up to my chest and her waist. We stayed in until my arms ached from holding her.

Day 2: Sunday

The thing about vacationing with kids is that you never get quite as gone as you would like. Your everyday life keeps intruding. For instance, the kids woke up at 5:20 and 5:35 respectively on our first morning of vacation. It was a dark, rainy morning, too, perfect for sleeping in, but apparently they didn’t think so. This made the several-hour stretch of time when we’re awake but the rest of the house isn’t even longer and more challenging. At one point Beth issued an ultimatum that if they couldn’t be quiet, there would be no Candy Kitchen that day. Despite repeated warnings, they failed the test. As the kids and I walked away from the house at 8:20, June was trailing me, her arms crossed over her chest and a pout on her face. When I inquired if she was upset about the candy, she just grunted. About a block later, when I glanced back at her, she deigned to speak: “No fair!”

Bur soon June and I were at the beach, absorbed in building a sand head with facial features made of shells and Noah was riding his bike on he boardwalk, with strict instructions to stay on the right, look out for pedestrians and to come back either to the shelter near the footbath or to come find us on the beach. I let a half an hour elapse and we arrived at the shelter just as Noah did. Beth met up with us there at 9:00 a.m. as I was applying sunscreen to the kids. The sun was just coming out from behind heavy cloud cover. June was trying to talk me into letting her make her Candy Kitchen purchase now, even though she wouldn’t be able to eat it until tomorrow. At first I said no, more or less automatically, but after hearing, “It would be a good compromise, Mommy” several times, I started to think maybe it would be. And I thought if the candy was in the house, staring them in the face, it might become a more effective motivator. So we set off down the boardwalk, June and I walking, Beth and Noah riding bikes. We met at the candy store and June selected cherry taffy. Noah decided just to browse until he was eligible to eat his treat.

During June’s nap, Beth and Sara went grocery shopping while Mom took Noah to a coffee shop where he ate coconut cake and beat her at Roundabouts. Later in the afternoon, I took the kids to Funland (http://www.funlandrehoboth.com/). Noah wanted to know if he could have his tickets and go off on his own. I thought about it and said yes, provided he come back to a designated bench after every other ride. Then I took June from ride to ride—the airplanes, the merry-go-round, the mermaid boats, the fire engines, the mini-Ferris wheel and back to the airplanes. I offered to go up in the Ferris wheel with her but she was insistent on going alone. So I stood there and watched her rise into the air, beaming and waving. I could make out Noah on the nearby helicopter ride and I imagined a time when they’ll hit the boardwalk and Funland on their own. It suddenly seemed a lot closer than I had imagined and that made me happy and sad all at once. I am sometimes conflicted about how much of my old freedom I want back. Not that it matters what I want. Either way, my sweet gone little cat and chick will grow up.

After the kids had used up all their tickets we joined Mom and Sara at the beach. Noah jumped around in the waves, proclaiming them “totally awesome fun.” June built a wall of sand and at Noah’s request, I buried him in the sand and gave him a merman’s tail. He kept sitting up to see it and cracking the sand on his chest. It was cool and cloudy and soon the kids were cold so Sara swaddled them in towels. Only June’s head and feet protruded. “We’re the handless people, “ Noah proclaimed. Then he pulled his towel over his head and became a headless person. June was a duck, no, a penguin, no, a duck. She waddled up the beach, chanting, “I’m a duck. I’m a duck. I’m a very big duck!”

We had dinner on the big picnic table out behind the house, a black bean and avocado salad Sara made and a tortellini salad Mom made. After dinner, Noah went off to read Prince Caspian, and June busied herself building a nest from pine needles for a ground-dwelling bird while the grownups chatted. After Beth and I finished the dinner dishes, we showed the kids their new, special morning toys—a Little Mermaid coloring book with a special color-revealing marker and two Little Mermaid magnetic dress-up dolls for June and two invisible ink mystery game books for Noah.

Day 3: Monday

The kids were quieter the next morning, not what I’d call really quiet, but good enough to release their candy. (Beth took Noah to Candy Kitchen later in the day and he got gummy sharks and gummy teeth. “A classic,” he said.) I took the kids to the beach after breakfast. Noah had planned to ride his bike, but he changed his mind at the last minute. He’d had trouble balancing the afternoon before after doing really well in the morning and he didn’t want to try again. In fact, we never got him back on the bike for the rest of the trip.

Once we got down to the beach, the kids started fighting almost immediately. There was a big pile of sand the lifeguards had used to buttress their chair the day before, but because it was 9:00 a.m., an hour before they come on duty, the chair itself wasn’t there. Both kids clambered up on top of the sand pile but almost at once, Noah started to worry they would wreck it and he jumped off and ordered June off, too. She paid him no mind. I told him it was okay, I didn’t think she’d hurt it and even if she did sand structures are by their very nature temporary and he didn’t build it so he didn’t really have any say over it. All these arguments were lost on him. He sat in the sand and cried and screamed at June for five very long minutes while June danced on the mound, taking a little too much pleasure in his distress for my liking. I sat next to him and rubbed his back, trying to soothe him and wondering if I should stop her. Did she need a lesson in compassion more than he needed one in flexibility? In the end, she got bored, hopped off and he recovered his equilibrium. They splashed in the waves, watched dolphins and made dribble castles peaceably until 10:30 when Beth arrived. She had been delayed by a work crisis (her own impediment to getting real gone—it ended up talking up a lot of her time both Monday and Tuesday. After that she stopped checking her work email). She took the kids away and I had almost an hour alone at the beach and enjoyed my first swim of the trip. I had my second one that afternoon because neither of the kids wanted to come down to the beach.

YaYa and Beth’s aunt Carole arrived that afternoon while I was at the beach and our party was complete. Beth and I collaborated on dinner. I made a cold avocado soup and she made tempeh and roasted vegetable sandwiches. Then we celebrated Carole’s seventy-third birthday with cake. June had selected it at the bakery, so it had pink roses on the frosting. Noah and June’s evening argument concerned whether or not she should sing songs from Cars. Noah wanted Sara, YaYa and Carole to watch the movie and he wanted all of it, even the songs, to be a new experience for them. My mom, who watched it in the Outer Banks, offered to take June into another room when she felt like singing. Happily, this solution pleased everyone.

Day 4: Tuesday

By Tuesday morning the kids knew the drill, and even with the added challenge of not waking Sara, who had joined us up in the attic once YaYa and Carole arrived, they stayed pretty quiet.

Sara and I took the kids down to the beach in the mid-morning. She watched them while I went for a swim. When I came out of the water, June wanted to show me a little sand person she’d made. She’d very carefully etched a face into the sand with her finger, shaped sand into hair on top of its head and stuck shells into its sides for arms. Noah splashed a long time in the waves and seemed to be conversing with some other kids, though later he denied it. As we did many times that week, Sara and I discussed her adoption plans. After years of considering it, she’s taking the plunge and starting the process of adopting as a single mom. It’s a strange and happy thought that in a year or two there might be another kid or even two, my kids’ cousins, on our family vacations.

Back at the house, Noah played Crazy Eights with YaYa, warning her ahead of time, “I’m totally strategic. I’m practically a machine.” The 3:1 adult to kid ratio meant he was able to play a lot of games over the course of the week, with both of his grandmothers, his aunt and his great aunt. He was pretty much in heaven. The abundance of adults in the house was a boon for Beth and me, too.

Mom and Sara took the kids back to Funland while I went to the beach. At least once in every beach trip I catch a wave that sweeps me up and drops me down so perfectly I laugh out loud. Also, on each trip, I lose at least one ponytail holder in the ocean. Often these events coincide, and they did this afternoon. The waves were big and fast and close together. I was a fun swim, well worth being thrown down into the sand a few times and losing my second purple ponytail holder of the summer. (I lost the first one in North Carolina.)

It was a windy afternoon and there were two men parasailing farther out in the water. I watched in amazement as the wind in their sails lifted the boards straight off the water, as high as twelve feet up into the air. A crowd had formed along the shore to watch. Back on shore, I also saw a lot of impressive sand castles. I think people were practicing for the Sandcastle Contest on Saturday (http://www.milfordbeacon.com/lifestyle/x84680732/Sandcastle-contest-fun-for-all-ages-at-Rehoboth-Beach). Over the course of the week, we saw ones that looked like a Greek temple, plus an elephant, a fish, a cat and many others on our little stretch of beach.

Coming home I ran into Mom, Sara and the kids on the boardwalk and heard all about their trip to Funland. June had made a friend on the trampoline and played in the ball pit with her and she rode the merry-go-round with no adult standing next to her, at her own insistence. Noah rode the helicopters three times. This is his favorite ride this year because you can control some of the up and down motion yourself. June rode them, too, but was unable to work the navigation bar.

We walked back to the house and ate a delicious dinner of YaYa’s signature baked macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob and green beans and then Noah finally got most of the group to watch the first half of Cars. Afterwards, we ate leftover birthday cake on the screened porch.

Day 5: Wednesday

In the morning we took the kids to breakfast because Noah had a hankering for crepes and it would cut down and the amount of time we needed to keep them quiet. He got banana, I got triple berry, and Beth and June got bagels. By the time we returned, everyone was awake and Sara and I took June to the beach. Noah opted to stay home. When I left he was playing Quirkle (http://www.mindware.com/p/Qwirkle/32016?SG=QWIRKLE.COM) with Grandmom.

At the beach, June made another friend, who turned out to be about her age, although June didn’t even reach this girl’s shoulders. They played on the sand, making more sand people and down by the water, splashing in the waves and drawing in the wet sand with their fingers—unicorns were a popular theme. June was more interested in the water, though, and Olivia in the sand, but despite this they bonded enough to hug when they parted and back at the house as June waited for her grilled cheese to cook, she composed a letter to Olivia in case she ever saw her again. (We didn’t.) When she’d finished, she told Beth a dramatic story about how she was nearly swept out to sea. (My version: She fell on her bottom in shallow water and didn’t even get her face wet.)

In the afternoon, Beth took Noah into town for orangeade and Sara and Mom took June to a bead store so she could pick out beads for a bracelet Auntie Sara would make for her.

Meanwhile, I went to the beach. (You were thinking I would do something else?) I did swim eventually, but for a long time I just sat on my towel and watched the waves. It was a cloudy afternoon, like most of the afternoons on the trip so far, cool but not so cool that I wanted more clothes than the bathing suit and t-shirt I wore. The sea was mostly gray, but green in places when the sun broke through the clouds and touched it. The waves were moderate-sized and had a steady, hypnotic rhythm. I studied the water, aware the week was more than half over, and I tried to soak up enough ocean to last me until winter.

We went out for Japanese that night at The Cultured Pearl (http://www.culturedpearl.us/) because it’s the nicest restaurant in Rehoboth with food the kids will eat. June wore her new bracelet and her new sandals along with a yellow dress with daisies my Mom bought her in North Carolina. “I’m a kid princess,” she said, twirling around after Mom dressed her. The kids loved the caged birds, the koi ponds with the bridge we walked over to get to our seats, and the stand of fake, but realistic-looking bamboo near our table. We feasted on edaname, seaweed salad, vegetable tempura and sushi, among other dishes.

Toward the middle of dinner, the kid princess started drooping. She wanted to lie down on the bench and she felt a little warm. She’d had a vaccination five days before, the kind that can create a delayed reaction. We discussed whether that might be the cause of her lethargy. She perked up before dinner was even over, though, and we decided to continue with our dessert plans of ice cream on the boardwalk. We got home late, around 8:30. The last couple blocks June was tired and complaining about being outside walking “alone in the dark when we should be in our warm, cozy beds.” For the record, I will state she was not wandering the street alone but with seven members of her extended family and also, that there was still some light in the sky, not to mention the streetlights. By 9:15, both kids were in their warm cozy beds, drifting off to sleep.

Day 6: Thursday

June slept until 7:20 (except for a diaper change at 5:15), which was a rare treat for me. Beth and YaYa took the kids to Jungle Jim’s water park (http://www.funatjunglejims.com/) in the mid-morning and Mom and Sara set off to explore the nearby town of Lewes, where they took a trolley tour, shopped and went out to lunch. I tried to catch up on blogs and then went into town to get myself an iced café con leche to enjoy on the boardwalk. Afterwards, I went for a swim, but there were almost no waves so I got back out after ten minutes. Finding myself alone in the vicinity of fried clams near lunchtime, I decided to have lunch on the boardwalk. The kids don’t know about my very occasional departures from vegetarianism. (I will eat clams because they don’t have eyes and therefore could never have looked me in the eyes.) After my semi-illicit lunch, I headed back to the house, folded some laundry and once the Jungle Jim’s party returned, I washed the chlorine off the kids in the bathtub and listened to tales of Noah’s exploits on the long slide called the Anaconda.

While Noah read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and played cards with YaYa and Carole, June and I took a long nap and afterwards I read her a chapter from The House at Pooh Corner so it was 4:30 by the time the kids and I left the house again. I had promised them another trip to Candy Kitchen (as their stores were running low) and a little beach time. It was a moderately long walk to the candy store so I knew we wouldn’t be at the beach long, but a promise is a promise and I had a hankering for something sweet, too, so off we went. After an extremely long deliberation, Noah chose more gummy sharks and some gummy frogs. While he was deciding, he dropped a lollipop on the floor, causing a network of very fine cracks to appear on its surface. I was going to make him either choose it for his candy or buy it with his own money but the salesclerk said it was not too badly damaged and we didn’t have to buy it. Meanwhile, June had picked a bag of assorted taffy and then she occupied herself by playing with the Sesame St. dolls they keep at floor level. I got cinnamon bears for myself, and chocolate-peanut butter fudge for the house. We left only to return a few minutes later because June’s taffy was missing from the bag.

It was 5:35 when we finally got to the beach. This was around the time we should have left but we stayed until 6:00. Noah was jumping around in the waves the whole time and June went back and forth between the water and the sand. Noah told me he wished he could live on an island so he could go to the beach every day. I thought it was a funny comment from a boy who often stays at the house while we’re at the beach, but I think he was sincere. He’s a homebody so it can be hard to pry him out of the house but once he’s at the beach, he always enjoys it.

The thunder started as we washed our feet at the footbath on the boardwalk and the rain started pattering on the roof just after we got inside the house. It didn’t last long but it was too damp outside to eat on the picnic table as we’d been doing, plus it was later than we’d intended to eat and we’d planned to watch Cars that night so Mom and I set up a buffet of leftovers and devilled eggs she had made and everyone camped out in the living room to eat and watch the movie. We actually managed to finish it, which made Noah happy.

Day 7: Friday

Friday morning, our party shrank down to six, as YaYa and Carole left, hoping to beat the weekend traffic.

By that morning on our last full day at the beach, the muscles around my collarbones were sore from sweeping June up into my arms whenever a too-big wave approached and I got the bright, if belated, idea of suggesting to her that she run away when a wave looked too scary instead. She took to the idea right away as it left her in control of the decision. No reprimands because I did not rescue her and no more indignant cries of “Mommy, put me down!” when I misjudged the other way. The first time she tried it she slipped and fell in the shallow water and I thought the wave would catch her but she was up on her feet and scrambling up to the dry sand lickety split. Soon she was squealing and dashing in and out of the water with abandon.

Noah got knocked over by a wave and completely submerged soon after. I was up on the beach playing in the sand with June when I saw it happen. (For the first time this year, Noah played in the ocean without me at his side.) He got to his feet and came up to us. I asked if he was okay and he said yes. I asked if it was scary and he said yes. He was subdued for about fifteen minutes and then he was back in the water. This time he cut his foot on something sharp, a tiny little cut, hard to see once the blood was washed away, but that was it for him. He didn’t go back in the water the rest of the morning, but instead sat at the water line with the little waves rushing over his legs until it was time to go up to the house for lunch. He wanted the seawater to heal his foot, he said.

That afternoon, Beth took the kids on their third visit to Funland, while I hit the beach with Mom and Sara. We stood at the water’s edge, got wet and looked for the rainbows that were forming in the sea spray. Later we met Beth at the kids at Grotto (http://www.grottopizza.com/) for pizza and gelato and then Mom and Sara packed up Mom’s car and drove back to Philadelphia so Sara could catch a flight out to Oregon the next day. And then we were four.

Day 8: Saturday

Saturday morning we packed up the house and checked out. The kids and I headed for the Sandcastle Contest while Beth looked for somewhere air-conditioned to read. It was a long walk to the sandcastles, almost from one end of the boardwalk to the other and it took a while. Along the way, we bought going-home treats (including pink cotton candy, which the kids had been wanting). Once we finally got to the north end of the boardwalk, we cooled off in the ocean for fifteen minutes or so before wandering from one sand creation to the next. Many people were just getting started so it was hard to guess what they would make, but we saw a replica of a twenty-dollar bill, a bust of President Obama, a monkey and other animals and lots and lots of castles in different styles. I liked the Gothic ones best, with their spindly towers and intricate decorations in pebbles and shells.

We met up with Beth for lunch at the crepe stand and then the kids and I went down to the water one last time to say goodbye to the ocean. As we walked toward the beach, Noah suggested we call up the cat-sitter and ask her to stay “a little longer” so we could stay in Rehoboth. How long, I asked. How about another week, Noah suggested. It sounded like a good idea to me.

We’ve been home two days now and we’re trying to get back in the swing of things. Beth goes back to work tomorrow. Today she took Noah to his appointment with an educational psychologist who we hope can tell us what kinds of help he needs to have a better year than he did in third grade. (I was going to take him but had to stay home with a sick June.) Noah resumed work on the summer math packet he’s been neglecting since the middle of June and he got back on his bike today. School starts in three weeks for him and in four for June. I’m trying to plan out the rest of our week and to remember what it is we do all day when we don’t go to the beach twice a day. It’s hard to recall. I guess that means I got real gone.

The Bad Beginning

Posted on June 28, 2010 by Steph

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle.

From The Bad Beginning, by Lemony Snicket

Day 1: Saturday

“Isn’t anyone going to get me some veggie sticks?” June asked in a petulant tone at 9:15 a.m. We were pulling out of the driveway but she sounded as if we’d been on the road for hours. Maybe she knew something we didn’t. The drive to the Outer Banks we were hoping to make in eight hours would end up taking eleven and a half. It was the longest it’s ever taken us to get there, longer than when the kids were nurslings, longer than the time pre-kids when I was traveling with Mom and Jim and we decided to detour to see the Great Dismal Swamp and got hopelessly lost. (We never did see the swamp.)

This time it was just traffic. Over and over again on road after road, we slowed to a crawl. And then to add to the misery shortly before noon, June threw up. We pulled into a Starbucks, got her cleaned up and changed into new clothes in the parking lot and got some lunch, including a fruit cup we would later refer to as the Fruit Cup of Doom. It was purchased for Noah but he didn’t want anything to do with it. He said it tasted funny. Now half the food Noah tries tastes funny to him so I didn’t think anything of it. I ate the kiwi, which seemed fine to me, and June chowed down on the grapes.

Traffic continued to be excruciatingly slow and every now and then June would start to moan and look pale, sweaty and anguished, but she didn’t throw up again during the rest of the ride. The last time she looked really close was just before we stopped at a Taco Bell in Kill Devil Hills at seven.

All through the long drive the kids were patient and well behaved. June did cry when I told her I’d forgotten to pack her Cinderella blanket, but by that point she had been sorely tested. Noah sang the theme from Cars: “Life is a highway./I wanna ride it all night long” and then commented cheerfully that we might be riding all night long. But we found ways to pass the time. We listened to twenty Frog and Toad stories we’d downloaded for the trip and a mixed CD of kids’ music Noah made a while back. But the best entertainment was the audio version of The Bad Beginning, the first book in the Series of Unfortunate Events books Noah and I read last summer and fall. Tim Curry is utterly brilliant as the narrator. You must all download this book and listen to it at once. It’s that good. As soon as it was over I wished we had all thirteen.

Another small bonus: On the whole drive I saw only three Confederate flags (two car decals and one actual flag). Twenty-five years ago, when my family first started coming to the Outer Banks, it would have been a lot more. A bigger bonus: Because we were so late, we were driving along the loveliest stretch of dunes during the sunset.

We pulled up to our rental house at 8:45, having met my mother and stepfather in the parking lot of the realty. Despite living two and a half hours to our north and having left an hour later and having been lost for forty-five minutes (misled by their new GPS), they beat us to Avon and had been driving around, trying to find the house.

As I was trying to hustle the kids into bed, June asked for a snack. I gave her a strawberry from the fruit cup. Remember the fruit cup? Well, at 11:30 and again at midnight, June woke up vomiting. We don’t know for sure if it was the strawberry but it was too long after we got out of the car for car-sickness and she seemed perfectly healthy the next day so that’s our best guess. We threw the rest of the fruit cup away.

Unfortunately, June’s favorite doll Violet was in exactly the wrong part of the bed when June got sick. I wiped her off as best I could and hung her up in the bathroom. In the morning she looked clean, though some of her elaborate up-do had come undone and she smelled horrible. (“So you forgot her best blanket and her best doll is ruined?” Noah clarified, causing June to cry all over.) We didn’t think Violet would survive the washing machine so we hung her up on the clothesline on the deck and the sea air proved remarkably restorative. Within twenty-four hours she was nearly as good as new.

Day 2: Sunday

In the morning we explored the house. It had an airy, open floor plan on the top floor with bedrooms below. There were several decks, screened and unscreened and ocean and sound views from almost every room in the house. There was an alcove with built-in bookcases stocked with books for kids and adults that Noah called “the detective nook” for reasons no one fully understood. Our bedroom was partially in a turret and had an interesting shape. And did I mention the ocean and sound views in almost every room? I love this house.

I’d brought some work with me, revisions on an article on Coenzyme Q10 due Monday evening. It was difficult to stay in the house working so early in the trip, so I had Beth put the computer facing a window with an ocean view and I split the work into two chunks, one for Sunday afternoon and one for Monday afternoon.

Sunday morning June and I went down to the beach. She was ambivalent about the waves, sometimes wanting me to carry her in deep, sometimes seeming scared, so I had to work to find her comfort zone. In practice this meant a lot of going back and forth, down to the water, up to the sand and back again. We built castles, collected shells and took a long walk up the beach, or maybe I should say I took a walk and she took a run. The beach was sparsely populated so I felt comfortable letting her get far ahead of me and she, always one to seize whatever freedom she’s given, took off. I watched her run across the empty expanse of sand, a little figure in a turquoise and white bathing surfer-style bathing suit, tearing down the beach. Every now and then she would pause and look for me over her shoulder, but not very often.

Sunday afternoon Beth took the kids on some errands and I worked, until I got sidelined by computer problems so then I helped Mom make dinner until Beth came back and was able to get me back on track. It was Father’s day so my Dad was on my mind. I proposed we go to Dairy Queen after dinner. Ever since he died I’ve found myself taking comfort in foods I associate with him, especially ice cream. I got a chocolate malted, a favorite of his, and gave a silent toast to him while I drank it.

Day 3: Monday

Monday was the Equinox. I took both kids to the beach in the morning and we welcomed summer by splashing in the waves, making dribble castles, digging holes and observing how they changed shape as they filled with water, finding and liberating sand crabs and otherwise enjoying ourselves. Noah kept saying that maybe there would be a freak wave or a tsunami and he sounded kind of hopeful about it. Every night he reads to us from his 100 Most Dangerous Things on the Planet book (http://www.amazon.com/100-Most-Dangerous-Things-Planet/dp/0545069270). When he does so he assumes the persona of Dane Dangerfighter, a character of his own invention, who lectures and quizzes us on how to survive various dangers. Perhaps Noah wanted an opportunity to put Dane’s advice to use. Then he said I like the ocean so much I should be called TsuMommy.

I took my first beach swim of the year in the afternoon (cold water, decent waves) and collected some golden-colored shells for June, who had requested I bring back some treasure. Then I headed back up to the house and finished my article and we had a lovely first night of summer dinner (veggie dogs, corn on the cob and roasted new potatoes, with angel food cake and strawberries for dessert). After dinner, I washed the dishes while everyone else watched Cars. Noah was eager to share his favorite movie with Grandmom and Pop. It took them most of the week to finish it because we never had much time between dinner and bedtime.

Day 4: Tuesday

Having finished my work, I felt ready for an outing on Tuesday. There are a lot of possible day trips on the Outer Banks, but we wanted to stay close to the house so we could spend more time on the activity than in the car and still get back in time for June’s nap so we settled on the hiking trails in Buxton Woods (http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/northcarolina/preserves/art5593.html). Beth promised Noah it would be an adventure and it was.

Beth and I have been to Buxton Woods but not for a long time, possibly not since before Noah was born. Still the turnoff didn’t look like what either of us remembered. There was a trail map and then a long, sandy road leading through the woods to the various trailheads. In places the road had been covered with wood chips for better traction.

Beth said later there was a little voice in her head telling her to go back, that we were going to get stuck, but there was no good place to turn the car around so she drove on. And then we got stuck. We all got out of the car and looked at the wheels. The right front wheel was sunk in the deepest. We had no shovels or planks. Beth had just removed Noah’s long-handled shovel from the car that morning, but it probably would not have been up to the job. Beth got out her phone and found she had no signal, so we all headed down the road in the direction we’d come looking for a place where Beth could place a call.

“Why didn’t Dane Dangerfighter tell us what to do?” Beth asked Noah as we walked.

“Because it’s not one of the one hundred most dangerous things in the world!” he answered, somewhat exasperated. “Now if it was quicksand…”

The road was lined with ferns and pine trees. There were grasshoppers leaping along beside us and dragonflies zooming past and butterflies fluttering around us. June kept stopping to collect pine needles and to sift the dark, silty sand through her hands. Soon she was filthy. She probably thought this was the promised hike and we didn’t tell her otherwise.

We didn’t need to walk far until Beth got a signal, though it was a patchy one. It took several calls to find out her auto service would need to send someone from Nag’s Head (an hour away) and to decide to engage someone more local instead. The tow truck arrived within ten minutes of the last call. Noah got to see it in action, which for him was probably more fun than a nature hike anyway.

“You were right, Beth. That was an adventure,” Noah said as we drove home. Overall, though, it was a manageable adventure, not so long that June missed her nap, no so dangerous that we needed Dane. Beth’s service will even reimburse her for part of the towing charge.

Beth took the kids to play miniature golf that afternoon. Noah got two holes in one and on one of the two holes she bothered to finish, June beat both Noah and Beth. Meanwhile, Mom and Jim and I went to the beach. A tidal pool had formed and I saw something I’d never seen before. I’ve noticed bubbles rising from crab holes when the water covers them, but these holes were forming geysers, two to three inches tall. They were fascinating. We sat on the beach and watched a parasailor and admired the pelicans gliding over the water and thought sadly about their Gulf Coast cousins. I made a silent wish that the oil would not make it this far north, not to the Outer Banks, not to the Chesapeake Bay, and please, please, not to Rehoboth Beach, my very favorite beach of all.

After dinner and more Cars, we had root beer floats and put the kids to bed, and then I took a walk on the beach. It had been a clear day, but the sky was partially clouded over, though I could still make out the Big Dipper. There was a three-quarters moon and the sea was dark with glints of silver. Several bonfires burned and the air smelled of wood smoke. I looked for the little phosphorescent creatures I often see in the water in North Carolina, but there were none. Possibly it was too early in the season, the water too cool. There was the usual assortment of night beach-goers–people fishing, teens running around with glow sticks wrapped around their wrists and necks, kids with flashlights and nets chasing ghost crabs, and the occasional solitary walker such as myself. It was hard to leave and I got back to the house later than I intended.

Day 5: Wednesday

Wednesday morning I took Noah out to breakfast at the Froggy Dog (http://www.froggydog.com/) while Beth took June to Uglie Mugs (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ugly+mugs+coffee+and+tea+avon+NC&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=f&oq=&gs_rfai=) for some one-on-one mother and child time. When we split up, we usually do it the other way around so it was nice to have some alone time with Noah.

I thought about having a meaningful conversation with him about how he was feeling about the end of the school year and changing schools but I decided to go for something lighter. I asked him what his favorite part of the trip had been so far. Golfing and getting the holes in one he answered right away and then he recounted how his ball’s exact course as it bounced off an obstacle and rolled up a hill and back down again before going in the hole. Then he added that he kind of liked the long drive. What about it, I asked, surprised. Listening to The Bad Beginning, he said and then he laughed anew at some of the amusing parts.

Next he tested the theory that when you block out one sense the others are heightened. He listened to the music playing with his eyes shut, looked at the art on the wall with his hands over his ears and tasted his juice with his nose pinched shut. Then our food came and we were absorbed in pancakes (him) and fried eggs, biscuit and grits (me). It was a fun meal.

We walked home along the beach. Noah sat in a chair someone had dug out of the sand and splashed in the surf. He wanted to get the almost healed scrapes on his knees wet. He wiped out on his scooter on the first day of summer break and Beth had told him seawater has healing powers. Of course he got his shorts all wet, but I said it was okay. Then he ran ahead of me on the beach and I found myself walking behind another one of my kids, watching, wondering how far he’d go. It’s what we so often do as parents.

Back at the house, I chatted with my mom and then left her and Noah to a game of Sorry while I went back to the beach for a morning swim. Conditions were not ideal, though. I’d had a good swim on Monday afternoon but every time I’d tried to go in since then the waves had been breaking too close to the shore, making it more likely that instead of bobbing along in shallow water between waves that I would be thrown to the gritty sand. The older I get the more cautious I get about ocean swimming. Beth says this is a good thing. I’m not sure. In either case, I hadn’t been staying in the water very long and I didn’t this time either. Even so, I hurt the big toe on my right foot when I came down on it still tucked under my foot. It hurt a lot but probably not as much as it would have if it hadn’t been immersed in cold water so I stayed in until the throbbing subsided and then I hobbled back to my towel somewhat dispirited. My younger self would have stayed in, but I’m not the fearless swimmer at forty-three that I was at thirteen. Later that day the whole foot swelled up and over the course of the next few days a reddish-purple bruise formed along the base of my first four toes and along the big toe itself.

By the time I returned to the house, Beth and June had returned from their morning adventures. After breakfast they went to the realty-owned pool. I can’t say I approve of swimming pools at the beach, but they had fun.

That afternoon Beth took June back to the pool and I took Noah to the beach. I was sorry my usual beach buddy didn’t want to come, but I was glad of some more alone time with Noah. We were able to go deeper into the water than we could with June. Noah was already in the surf as I was arranging the towel. “Mommy!” he yelled to me. “This totally rocks!” As we played by the water’s edge, he speculated about wave physics and made names for different kinds of waves. Big ones were “kings.” Little ones with surprising force were “vipers.” When he wasn’t chattering he was running and shrieking. “This is a lot of fun, but it’s also scary,” he confided. Every now and then he checked his knees to see if there had been any visible healing. He thought there had been. (In fact, later in the trip he would try to avoid getting his knees wet because he said he wanted to observe the healing process at its natural pace.) After he’d stepped on my bad foot twice, I asked him to stay to my left and he was better about remembering to keep us arranged that way than I was. Once when he was up on shore, I waded out deeper to dive under a wave and suddenly heard him talking behind me. I was pleased he was confident enough to go out that far, but also alarmed because although he’s made great strides in swimming lessons this year, he’s still an inexperienced ocean swimmer and I need to know where he is when he’s in the water. Our beach visit was cut short by a bathroom emergency, but I was glad he’d come with me.

That evening Mom and Jim went to Manteo to see the purple martins that migrate there every summer (http://www.purplemartinroost.com/). We stayed at the house and watched a little of Sleeping Beauty. June was determined to make it through the whole movie this time. (She’s scared of Malicifent.) For the portion they watched, she managed it.

Day 6: Thursday

In the morning I looked at my foot, trying to decide if the swelling had gone down. I thought maybe it had. “Your foot looks worse,” Beth said immediately upon seeing it and when I put on my Tevas, I had to admit she was right. The pain was not too bad but it felt very stiff. Undeterred, I headed down to the beach. (Beth and the kids were headed to the pool for the third time in two days.)

I ended up having my longest and best swim of the trip, but it didn’t start out that way. I was standing in the surf for the longest time dithering about whether or not to try to get past the breakers. It looked like there were some good waves out there—big, slow and gentle—but I’d have to get through a short, rough stretch to get there and I was afraid of landing on my foot wrong again. After maybe a half hour of wading in and then backing some or all of the way back and changing my mind about whether I was even trying to get in and debating whether caution is a good thing or a bad one, I saw my opportunity, a long expanse of placid sea, like a sign from the heavens. I strode in and soon I was in the sweet spot, riding up the sides of big, glossy-smooth waves and sliding back down, just as the tips of the white crests were starting to form. There was plenty of time for considered landings and mostly I landed on just my good foot. I drifted north and eventually found myself in a place, which while still quite close to the shore, was past the breakers all together, so I wasn’t so much bobbing between waves as between little swells. At this point I turned my mind to the question of how to get out. Sometimes getting out of the ocean can be as hard as getting in and sometimes a big wave just sweeps you right back to the shore, which is what happened this time.

In the late afternoon I lured the kids to the beach with the promise of the tidal pool I’d seen the last two days around that time. I wasn’t sure exactly when it would form because I didn’t have tide chart, but I was hoping for something in between 4:30 and 5:00. However, when June and I joined Mom and Jim at the water’s edge at 4:30, I could see the dry, rippled sand where it had been, far up the shore. It didn’t seem likely that the tide would progress fast enough to get there before we had to leave for dinner. So Mom played with June and I swam and Noah came down about twenty minutes later and we all played together and watched dolphins (we all saw them except Noah) until the blowing sand started to bother June and we left around 5:40. There was a trickle of water reaching the trough-like depression in the sand with each of the bigger waves by now but I didn’t mention it to anyone.

As we trudged up through the dunes, June was annoyed by the hot sand on her bare feet and then at the way the sand sifted through the holes in her crocs when she put them on. “I’m telling you,” she said, “I’m never coming to the water again, only the pool.” A few minutes later she added, “Why do they have a beach with no boardwalk and no Candy Kitchen?” Rehoboth Beach is her gold standard for beaches. She finds the Outer Banks somewhat lacking, superior natural beauty and all. I understand, the Outer Banks are more stunning but Rehoboth is more homey, more ours.

We didn’t manage to get dinner on the table until seven so the kids resumed watching Sleeping Beauty until it was ready. June cracked and ran out of the room at least twice during the scary parts. She just can’t take that witch. The kids went to bed soon after dinner and Beth and I took her laptop to the screened porch to work on the last of the several questionnaires we need to fill out for our Aspergers parent interview next month.

Day 7: Friday

Friday morning I folded the load of laundry I’d done the day before and decided to pack most of it since we were leaving the next day. I asked June to pick out two outfits, one for today and one for tomorrow. She caught on right away. “We’re leaving tomorrow? We only have one more day to go to the pool?”

It was true. Beth, who had yet to set foot on the beach, made her fourth trip to the pool that morning. I went to the beach alone and a little sad that June didn’t want to come. Still, it meant I could swim. My foot felt much better (and fit into its sandal perfectly) so I decided to start with a walk on the beach. I headed south and got into the water along the way drifted back to my towel. There wasn’t much going on beyond the breakers so I floated on the surface of the water, trying to feel the Earth’s gravity wrapping the water and me tightly to itself.

I came back up to the house for lunch. Mom, Jim and the kids had just finished watching Cars and Jim was making a fire on the grill under the house for toasting marshmallows. Mom and Jim both claimed to have the most perfectly toasted marshmallow. Mine caught fire both times and the kids’ got coated in ashes, but everyone proclaimed the sticky treats delicious.

After June’s nap, I joined Mom and Jim at the beach while Beth and the kids went out for ice cream and ran some errands. They were supposed to join us to launch the rocket Beth and Noah had constructed from a kit the day before, but the sky was growing dark and we weren’t sure if they’d beat the rain. They did, showing up at 4:30 just as Mom and Jim were about to call it quits and go back to the house. The first and third launch attempts were duds but they got in one good flight in between before running out of fuel (baking soda and vinegar). Then Beth went down to the ocean to rinse off the sand and so she could say she’d been in the water. June and I lingered on the beach after everyone else went up. June found a gull’s feather and immediately made plans to glue it to a picture frame, thus combining two of her main interests, nature and arts and crafts. As we walked up the path through the dunes back to the house, it started to drizzle.

At the house, June colored, Beth and Noah played Battleship, and we ate pizza, packed and cleaned. Our beach week was all but over.

Day 8: Saturday

We woke and packed and cleaned some more. It had stormed during the night and at 7:00 a.m., we could still see streaks of lightning in the sky. By 9:00, the rain had let up and Noah and I went down to the beach to say our goodbyes. We let the waves rush over our bare feet (fourteen times was the number he thought right). This is an old ritual of ours, but he added a new part. We each picked up a shell and said, “Goodbye, ocean!” into it and threw it into the dark blue-green waves.

Then we came back to the house, finished packing and cleaning and drove home. Admittedly, our trip got off to a bad beginning and no beach trip that does not end in someone telling me I’ve won my very own beach house can be said to have a truly happy ending, but despite the tow-truck incident and my injured foot (which is still bothering me after two days at home), I’d have to say there were more than a few happy things in the middle.

Rites of Spring

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Steph

Spring has now unwrapped the flow’rs,
Day is fast reviving,
Life in all her growing pow’rs,
To’rds the light is striving.
Gone the iron touch of cold,
Winter time and frost time
Seedlings working through the mould,
Now wake up for lost time.

From “The Flower Carol,” Folk Song
http://books.google.com/books?id=7zF6mDo_GJgC&pg=PA59&dq=jean+ritchie+flower+carol&cd=1#v=onepage&q=jean%20ritchie%20flower%20carol&f=false

April Fools Day
No one played any April Fools jokes on me this year but the representative from Washington Gas might have thought I was playing one on him when I called to report a gas leak in our basement that turned out to be…nothing.

Thursday morning I was putting a load of laundry in the dryer when it wouldn’t start. A half hour later I was back in the basement when I thought I smelled a faint odor of gas near the dryer. I called the emergency line and took June out to play in the yard while we waited for someone to come check out the situation. We had to wait about an hour and while I was sitting and watching June collect the tiny white wildflowers in the yard, I noticed the grass was starting to get long so I decided to give the lawn its first mowing of the year. I got the front and side yards done and pruned the butterfly bush, which suffered a lot snapped branches when it was buried under three feet of snow back in February.

Around noon I proposed a picnic lunch to June and right around then the service rep showed up. I took him down to the basement. As we approached the dryer I noticed the smell was completely gone. He turned on his meter, which detected nothing. He checked all around the basement and found nothing. Then he left and though he was very professional and told me to call again if I smelled gas again, I couldn’t help feeling a little foolish.

I should mention a peculiar thing about myself here. I sometimes smell things that aren’t there. It happened most often in my late twenties and it was usually pleasant smells like baking cookies. It still happens occasionally but not often and since the dryer was broken and I was under the impression it was a gas dryer (turns out it’s electric) it seemed logical and it never occurred to me it might be one of my olfactory hallucinations.

June was still excited about the picnic so I went through with it. I made a pitcher of lemonade (“the bestest lemonade in the world” June told me), laid a beach towel out on the lawn and we ate vegetarian salami, American cheese, saltines and sliced strawberries amid the damp clothes hanging on the drying rack and draped over the slide, the soccer net and our lawn furniture.

There were errands I’d planned for that morning that didn’t get done but I did get an hour and a half outside on a warm, sunny day, a half-mowed lawn and two loads of laundry with that incomparable dried-outside smell. Maybe I wasn’t so foolish after all.

Good Friday
“Is the beach talking to you?” Beth asked me. We had just gotten back into the car after a pit stop at for lunch at the Taco Bell near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

“Yes,” I answered.

“”What is it saying?” she wanted to know.

“Why on earth did you take that job?” I said. We were headed to Rehoboth for weekend getaway in the middle of Noah’s week and a half long spring break, but I would need to spend a few hours of it at the computer working on an article for Sara about an enzyme derived from fermented soybeans that has cardiovascular benefits. I’d hoped to have it mostly finished before we left, but due to the cats keeping me up half the night howling one night and only being able to find a sitter for one morning when I hoped for two, I’d only gotten about a third of the way through it and Sara needed my draft by Monday.

We arrived at our hotel around 4:00. There was a hold up getting into our room, but by 4:45 the kids and I were on the beach making sand castles. June preferred to decorate hers with shells while Noah elected to tunnel under his until they collapsed. He has loved doing this for years, ever since he learned it was an authentic medieval siege technique.

The last time we came to the beach in April it was so cold the kids wore their winter coats, but it was sunny and almost 70 degrees and we were all in bare feet. The warm sand felt good under my feet. Even the shocking little frisson of the frigid water felt good, too, as I fetched bucket after bucket full of water for the kids. I almost never feel so alive and present in my body as I do at the beach.

After a visit to Candy Kitchen (Noah got gummy teeth; June got a foot-shaped lollipop—what’s up with the body parts, kids?) and a pizza dinner, we bathed the kids and put them to bed. I slipped down to the hotel lounge for a half hour’s work on the article and then the sea called me and I answered.

A fog had fallen and the wind was whipping it around the beach in tatters. The air was cold and wet. Even in corduroys and a fleece jacket I was soon chilled and my hair hung damp around my face. I watched the waves crash over the remains of someone else’s sand castle and then, thrilled and joyful, I walked back to the hotel.

It was a Good Friday indeed.

Let’s Go Fly a Kite
We saw the Easter Bunny on Rehoboth Avenue after breakfast on Saturday, or rather a person in an Easter Bunny costume, as June was careful to correct me when I said, “Look! It’s the Easter Bunny.” Much to my surprise, she went right up to the Bunny and selected a Starburst from the basket of candy and even posed for a picture with the big rodent.

Beth took the kids to play miniature golf while I holed up in the room and worked. In the afternoon, after June’s nap, we took June’s new Barbie kite to the beach. Yes, you read that right. One of June’s friends gave it to her for her birthday. The picture on it could be worse—it’s just her head, but still… Barbie has breached the perimeter.

The morning had been cold and foggy so we’d put off the kite-flying expedition until afternoon, hoping the fog would burn off, but it didn’t. Still, Beth got the job done, getting the kite into the air. I never thought I’d see Beth flying a Barbie kite on the beach, but now I have. The amusement factor made it almost worth owning a Barbie kite. Almost.

Easter
The kids awoke Easter Sunday to find the Bunny had left two chocolate bunnies (milk chocolate for June and white chocolate for Noah) on the bedside table in the hotel room. It was a down payment on the candy they’d find in their baskets once we got home.

The day was warm and sunny. June and I played for hours on the beach and took a long walk down the boardwalk. She tested my hypothesis that no matter how many buckets of water I carried to her she could not make a puddle that would stay. She rode the car with the clown on the boardwalk that used to scare her. She made multiple attempts to talk me into another visit to Candy Kitchen, each as if the previous conversation had never taken place. She admired the “eagles,” as she calls them.

I could tell when church let out because all of a sudden the beach and boardwalk filled up with little girls in fancy dresses and boys in polo shirts and khakis or madras shorts. All the people in their finery gave the scene a festive feel. It was the kind of day when cold weather was such a recent memory and warmer weather seemed so imminent, that we saw people in everything from winter coats to bikinis. The sartorial diversity was a truly glorious thing.

We left Rehoboth after a boardwalk lunch and drove home. The first hour of the ride was pleasantly quiet. June was sleeping and Noah was reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. We met up with YaYa and Aunt Carole in Silver Spring. They’ve come for a brief visit to see the cherry blossoms. We ate on the patio at Eggspectations (http://www.eggspectations.com/usa/index.html). They kept getting our orders wrong, but we made do with what we got and when they comped us a free dessert and brought the wrong one, it was just too funny to be annoying. (I did make them bring the right one, though, because it was a slice of Smith Island cake—http://www.smithislandbakingco.com/– a Maryland tradition I’ve heard of but never sampled and which I’d spied in the dessert case when we arrived.)

We all came back to the house to dye Easter eggs and eat Easter candy. YaYa and Carole talked about how they loved the simplicity of dyeing eggs and discussed plans to make their own dye from onion skins one year. They left for their hotel before we applied the stickers with eyes, noses and mouths and taped little hats to the tops of our now not so simple colored eggs.

We got the kids bathed and in bed. Beth fell asleep in her clothes on the bed before I got June settled down. It had been an eventful weekend.

Loveliest of Trees, The Cherry Now
I love the cherry blossoms, enough to go every year despite the hassles, and there are hassles no matter how you go. Parking is hard to come by, the shuttles from the remote parking lots are not particularly convenient and going by Metro adds a lot of time to an already long trip. We decided on Metro this year but it was clear from our discussion of logistics that morning that there was no way we could get home by noon, which is the latest I like to get June home from a morning outing.

We left the house at 8:15 drove to Silver Spring and met YaYa and Carole at their hotel. From there we walked to Starbucks, picked up some snacks and boarded the Metro. It was already 10:15 when we arrived at the Tidal Basin. June was complaining she was tired before we even arrived. We’ve been stroller-free for about two months (the big storm that left sidewalks impassable for weeks was the impetus) and on some days it’s been harder than others. I had a feeling this was going to be one of those days. I told Beth I didn’t think we were going to make it all the way around the perimeter. We rested and ate for ten minutes or so by the water before we starting walking. We set a goal of reaching the FDR memorial, which was slightly less than half way around.

Noah had a map and pretended to be a tour guide as he read to us about the points of interest we passed along the way. June kept stopping to collect petals from the ground. When YaYa and Carole planned their trip, the peak blooming period was supposed to extend into this week, but warm weather caused the blossoms to open early and we’d missed the peak. More than half the blossoms were already off the trees, but it was still lovely. It’s always lovely. We admired the Jefferson Memorial across the water and posed by the stone lantern. As we approached the FDR memorial, it was eleven and June was really dragging. We didn’t go through the whole thing because it was so late, but the kids enjoyed seeing the waterfalls.

On the way back I picked June up and carried her every time we got significantly behind the others. I would carry her until we caught up and then I’d put her down again. We proceeded this way, with June whining, “I want my nap!” over and over again until Beth made threats against her Easter candy if she continued. She continued to whimper from time to time, but she didn’t say the word nap again after that. As we passed the Department of Agriculture, we saw a landscaping crew digging up some tulips that hadn’t even finished blooming yet. Who knows why? The way they are constantly changing the plantings down on the mall is irritatingly wasteful. Anyway, the gardener must have thought the same thing because he offered a bunch of tulips (with two bulbs still attached) to June. June ran to show them to Beth, arriving before I could with the explanation and Beth gasped, thinking (naturally) that June had yanked them out of the ground. We carried them home to put it water and I will try planting the two bulbs in the yard. We have crocuses, daffodils, hyacinth, irises and tiger lilies but no tulips, so it was a fortuitous gift.

Our first train was delayed for ten or fifteen minutes by a sick passenger on another train ahead of us on the track so it was a relief to finally get moving and to transfer to the second train, where we could sit down and rest our weary feet. I was positive June would fall asleep on the train and ruin her nap but some how she stayed awake not only on both trains but in the car, too, though it was a close thing. In fact, when Beth asked me if she was asleep and I said no, June insisted that she was and she didn’t seem to be playing a game.

We got home at 1:15 and June dawdled over lunch so it was nearly two by the time she fell asleep. She then slept for almost two hours. I was intending to lie down for just a little while and then get up and work but I fell asleep and slept for almost a half hour. Spring can be exhilarating, but it’s also exhausting.

You’d Better Not Cry, I’m Telling You Why

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Steph

You’d better watch out, you’d better not pout
You’d better not cry, I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming town

From “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Gillespie Coots
http://www.6lyrics.com/music/bruce_springsteen/lyrics/santa_claus_is_coming_to_town_coots_gillespie.aspx

“Don’t sit there!” June cried, as I started to slide into the seat next to her at the Taco Bell near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge late Friday afternoon. We were eating an early dinner en route to Rehoboth for our annual Christmas shopping trip.

I stood and stared at her, waiting for an explanation. “Lillian’s sitting there,” she said. Early in the drive, she’d informed us that her older sister Lillian, who is five years old, was sitting in the back seat, in between her and Noah. Noah has had the same imaginary mouse friend since he was three years old, but June’s imaginary friends come and go so quickly it’s hard to keep track of them. In fact, while we were at Taco Bell, she acquired two more sisters. One was named Sally and I can’t remember the baby’s name.

A classmate of hers has a baby brother on the way and June’s a bit put out that we refuse to supply her with a baby sibling as well. She seems to think the Yellow Gingko is getting an unfair advantage here. At least that baby is a boy because otherwise June would be even more jealous. She really wants a “she baby.” Along with June’s newfound attentiveness to gender norms has come a preference for all things female, the more insistently marked as female the better. The stuffed penguin with the ribbon on its head is better than the one with the Santa hat, for instance, because “it’s a girl and I like girls.”

We arrived at our hotel around 7:15. There was enough time to let the kids burn off some of their pent-up energy from the drive jumping on the beds. I was hoping by bedtime they’d be calm and sleepy so I could slip away for a walk on the beach. Silly me.

Well, they were in bed by 8:05, but the sleeping part wasn’t happening. We’d put them in one double bed, reserving the other one for ourselves. Noah and June have never slept in the same bed before and the novelty of the arrangement was exciting. So exciting June felt the need to poke Noah repeatedly, causing him to squeal and squirm and jump out of the bed from time to time. Around 8:30 I gave up trying to get them to sleep and I decided to leave for my walk. I told Beth she was authorized to separate them if she thought it was the only way to get them to sleep and to issue any consequences or enticements to sleep she thought might work. June started to cry as I left. Wincing with guilt, I ignored her and slipped out the door.

Even though we were in an oceanfront hotel, it was a ten-minute walk to the beach because the section of the boardwalk in front of the hotel is undergoing repairs and there’s no beach access for several blocks. Once I got to the boardwalk, I was surprised to see the colored lights that usually light up the boardwalk around Christmas were nowhere in evidence. Even worse, I didn’t see Santa’s house. Half the reason we come to Rehoboth in December is to see Santa in his natural habitat. Yes, our children believe (or believed in Noah’s case) that the only real Santa you see this time of year is the one at the Rehoboth boardwalk. If he wasn’t there, we’d be in trouble the next day.

I took a short walk on the beach, but I was too disturbed by the Santa problem to fully enjoy it. I decided to go back to Rehoboth Avenue and scout around. I tried the bandstand first, then the area in front of the huge Christmas tree. No Santa house. Just as I was about to give up I spied it. It was on the sidewalk in front of Grotto Pizza. Relieved, I checked his hours and found Santa would be receiving visitors starting at 3 p.m. Saturday.

I returned to the room at 9:15. I was sure Noah would be asleep by then but I wasn’t so sure about June. She’s been resisting bedtime the past few months and it would not be unusual for her to still be up at 9:15, even at home. I tried to enter the room as quietly as possible. Both Noah and June sat straight up in bed. I was back! Where had I been? Why did I take so long? Beth reported they’d consulted with each other and decided I was out buying them Christmas presents because there was no other explanation for such a lengthy absence. After they came to this conclusion, June composed and sang a ballad about how I’d left them and was never coming back. (Both of the children sing non-stop but whereas Noah’s singing has the cheerful tone of show tunes, June’s songs resemble mournful-sounding mid-century folk music. Think Joan Baez, circa 1959.)

I lay down with the children and sang some lullabies in hopes of getting them to sleep but the poking had resumed and I decided to separate them. Beth joined Noah in his bed and I carried a limp and exhausted June to the other bed. I told her I was going to take a shower and then I’d come to bed with her. Noah fell asleep before I emerged from the bathroom, but it was past ten before June slept. I think Beth fell asleep before she did. Once the room was filled with the sleeping breathing, I stood in front of the sliding glass doors and watched the waves crashing on the beach for ten minutes before I crawled back into bed. I fell asleep listening to the sound of the sea.

Noah popped out of bed at 6:05. He went to the bathroom so he could turn on a light to read without disturbing anyone. June was up by 6:30. I was hoping she’d sleep later because she’d been up so late, but no dice.

Intermittent rain in the morning and steady rain in the afternoon was forecast so our plan was for me to take the kids to play on the beach after breakfast if it wasn’t raining since it might be our only chance all day. Since we’re always up for hours before any stores open, it seemed like a good plan: play on the beach, shop, lunch, nap, Santa, more shopping, dinner. Well, it was raining pretty steadily when we woke up, and still raining during the reconnaissance mission June and took to see what restaurants were open at 7:30, and still raining while we ate our blintzes and bagels at the Gallery Espresso (http://thegalleryespresso.com/index.html). (I had the pumpkin blintzes, which I recommend if pumpkin pie for breakfast sounds like a good idea to you.) It was a hard, cold rain, too, so the beach was out and it was past nine when the first few shops open so we decided to start shopping.

Beth and June went to Browse About Books (http://www.browseaboutbooks.com/) while Noah and I swung by the hotel so he could change shirts. (The berry blitzes he ate for breakfast were hard on his pale blue button down.) When we got to the bookstore, we found June pushing around a little shopping cart and filling it with many items, quite of few of them pink and sparkly. I tried explaining that when we Christmas shop, we try to select items the recipient will like and not things we like. June considered this and suggested brightly that we just buy everything in the cart for her.

“I suppose you’ve already had this conversation,” I said to Beth. She nodded. We decided to let June continue with her shopping unfettered for a little while longer so we could browse for our own gifts. But eventually the moment of reckoning had to come. I picked through her cart and actually a few salvageable items. There was a little book that allows you to write limericks by filling in the blanks. Noah likes poetry and Mad Libs so we thought it would work as a gift for him. There was also something crafty I thought my sister might enjoy doing with June so we said she could buy that, too, for Auntie Sara. Everything else would have to stay in the store, we told her. June was crushed. How could she leave Lila at the store? Lila was rag doll in a princess costume with blonde hair streaked with pink. It was a bad sign that June had given her a name. Clearly, she was in love.

Beth threw out some broad hints that maybe June would get something like Lila for Christmas. Then she suggested they take a picture of her holding Lila so she could keep that as a memento. They were still deep in negotiations as I wound my way to the checkout counter with June’s purchases, a birthday card for my stepfather, and a copy of Black Beauty for Noah. He’s been reading the A-Z Mystery series (http://www.ronroy.com/atoz/), which is so poorly written it inspired me to buy him some classics. There was a book signing by Bam Margera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bam_Margera) scheduled for noon and an hour before the start time, the store was jam-packed with teenagers standing in a line that snaked through the aisles, so we agreed I’d wait for them at the front of the store instead of trying to fight my way back to the children’s area.

As I waited I heard crying. That sounds familiar, I thought. I hoped it was someone else’s kid, but I didn’t think it was. Beth arrived with a sobbing, doll-less June in tow. She left her with me as she went to make her own purchases. As Beth walked away I asked if I should offer to make our previously scheduled stop at Candy Kitchen our next stop. “That sounds like a great idea,” Beth said. With that promise, June’s tears started to taper off. And once we were in the store and she had a lollipop of her own, she was even able to listen to Beth’s instructions about what kind of treats certain people like best and to look for them. I’m not saying she’s embraced the spirit of giving yet (that’s a long, multi-part lesson) but I think we made a little headway.

After lunch and a nap, it was time to visit Santa. Still curled up in bed with her, I told June that Santa might say “Ho Ho ho,” and then he would ask her name. Concern crossed June’s sleepy face, “But he knows,” she said.

“He might not recognize you from last year since you’ve grown so much,” I said, thinking fast.

June beamed. “He’ll be surprised to see I growed into three!” she said.

Noah, who hasn’t believed in Santa for two years, had agreed to go through the motions for June’s sake. He went into the house and greeted Santa. Santa asked if he knew what he needed to do to get presents. What? Listen to his mother and try his best in school, Santa answered. Then he asked if Noah knew what he wanted. Noah was coy and wouldn’t say. Santa knows, Santa assured him. Then Santa turned to June, who needed a little convincing to step into the house, even with Noah still in the room. Santa said she didn’t need to sit on his lap. Some children like to touch his finger to see if he’s real, he suggested. June held out her finger and they touched fingertips briefly. Did she know what she wanted? She was unable to speak. I asked Noah to convey her request, which she’d gone over with us many times during the past few weeks. A princess tent, Noah said.

“A princess tent. We have a lot of those in the workshop,” he assured her.

Then Santa’s assistant gave both kids little bags of cookies and we left.

June was keyed up from her encounter with Santa. “We didn’t shake hands. We shook fingers!” she said giddily.

The rain was still coming down but I hadn’t been to the beach all day and I couldn’t wait any longer, so I got myself a 20-ounce hot cranberry tea and wrapped a wool scarf over my head (it was too windy for an umbrella and my jacket has no hood) and I went out to brave the elements. No one can say I am the beach’s fair weather friend.

At five, we met up for dinner at Grotto’s. There the kids got balloons. Noah’s was red and he named it Cherry. June’s was pink and she named it Pig. Pig met a sad end in the hotel room and for the rest of the weekend June carried the scraps around with her, saying, “Pig was my most favorite.” Noah kept speculating about whether or not Cherry would pop and neither Beth nor I laughed. We didn’t even crack a smile. We are that good.

When the sun rose on Sunday morning, the skies were blue with big, puffy pink clouds. I took the kids to play on the beach after breakfast. June and I built and decorated five sand castles with shells and pebbles and sea grass and I built several more for Noah and June to stomp on. The kids, who had not had much outdoor time that didn’t involve hurrying from hotel to stores to restaurants and back the day before, tore around the beach like wild things. June traveled long distances in search of pebbles that were identical to the ones near her castle site. Noah got too close to the water while trying to collect sea foam and soaked his feet. (He was the only one of us not wearing boots.) We left after forty minutes, only because of Noah’s wet feet.

Sometime Sunday morning, June had a brainstorm. We could go get Clara from the store and show her to Santa so he would know what she looked like and he could bring her on Christmas. Clara? Further conversation revealed June had changed Lila’s name. (There was an abridged Nutcracker book at YaYa’s house Thanksgiving weekend, which I assume is where June got the name.) Santa wouldn’t be in his house until after lunch, and we were leaving after lunch, we told her, but we were pretty sure he knew about Clara already. Didn’t he already know what Noah wanted?

While the kids and I were at the beach, Beth went back to Browse About and bought Clara.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Beach

Making the Crossing

Wild, Wild Horses

The June Club

Rain or Shine

Spring Break Trilogy: Part II, The Beach

Fear Not

Real Gone

The Bad Beginning

Rites of Spring

You’d Better Not Cry, I’m Telling You Why