This morning I walked Evan out to Shaun’s car in my pink bathrobe, then I rolled the trash to the road.  It was cool and crisp, and when I headed back up toward the house the sun was rising from behind it, making it only a silhouette against the starburst of orange rays.  Chickens were bawking from somewhere nearby, and it seemed so very fall in that moment, with Charlie trotting briskly beside me.  But that all changed, of course, when we got in the car and the kids wanted to hear Jimmy Buffett for the 5th morning this week.  I would have no problem with that- I love summer year-round, and I love Jimmy Buffett (how do you think they know about him)- except that Jack loves The Volcano Song.

And ONLY The Volcano Song. 

It’s one of those avenues he uses to show us all JUST how strong-willed he is. 

After listening to I don’t know- I don’t know- I don’t know where ima-gonna go when the vol-ca-no blows 500 times this morning, Madalyn politely asked to hear The Cheeseburger Song. 

Sure.  No problem.  (Except, of course, that you won’t be able to HEAR it over your brother’s blood-curdling protests.)  And our poor car-pooling friend that had to witness the fury… 

Really, Jack?  Really?  Over THIS? 

But their song choices are fitting this season of life.  Right now, Madalyn has the disposition of a cheeseburger in paradise, not too particular, not too precise- and Jack is an unpredictable volcano, ever-ready to erupt.  I should be the one singing “I don’t know where ima gonna go when the volcano blows.”  Okay, but to his credit, he’s getting a little better, choosing his battles.  (Why The Volcano Song was one of choice, I’m not sure.)  But  after drop-off he asked to go to Gracie’s house, and to the store, and was told no to both.  Instead of making me suffer, though, he gave a very emphatic, OH, MAAAN!  But I will take that ANYDAY to my bleeding ears.  Ear-bleeds for 18 months is enough to make anyone crazy… SO crazy, in fact, that that person might decide to have another child and add to the madness.  (I mean, does it really matter at this point?)  I say that with a smile, not pessimism; with a crazy, foaming, shaking, drooling smile.

Labels: autumn, beach, dumbhead parenting, humor, Jack, Madalyn, making music, phases

Okay, I'm not gonna lie.  Starting Kindergarten has been rough.  Maybe that's because I didn't expect it to be.  I expected it to be like Preschool, and it's not.

Like when Shaun ended up in the middle school drop-off line and a teacher left Evan standing in the POURING RAIN of Fay without any direction... like when Shaun looked in his rearview mirror and saw him chasing the car, crying, with his arms stretched out and running his duck-footed run.  That wasn't like preschool.  Not at all.

Nor was it like preschool when Shaun got out of the car to console him and the pitiful excuse of a teacher manning the car-line led Evan away by the hand, scolding him while he sobbed his way to class.

In preschool, there was no early dismissal day of the week.  It was always the same time.

Which is why when he was in preschool, his pitiful excuse of a mother never forgot what time to pick him up.

He never cried because all the children had been picked up except for him- never felt that moment of panic and isolation, when he couldn't see his white car anywhere.

At preschool there was no such thing as "extended care" with unfamiliar teachers and students.  In preschool, someone he knew would've sat with him till they found me.

But he's a big boy now and preschool is far behind him. 

No more fire drills by manual whistle blows.

He's onto the real thing, with flashing blue lights and screaming sirens. 

The other kids cried.

But not him, because he's a big boy now.  He saves the tears for bigger issues.  Like abandonment.  

Labels: beach, bittersweet, dumbhead parenting, Evan, milestones, pics, summer

Yesterday, I asked him to go to time out and HE WENT.  And stayed there.

I told him no bath until he at his green beans, and he ATE THEM.

I think we're making progress. 

On a side note, does he look like Brangelina's older baby girl here to anyone?  I thought so.  (I think it's the swollen Angelina mouth from the sunburn.)

Hot dog, I love that smile. 

Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggety dog...  (He loves that Mickey Mouse Song.)  He also loves the Thomas song and rides his Thomas car around the house humming hm hm hm hm- hmhmhm, hm hm hm hm- hmhmhm...

This morning he picked up a small plastic bag from my jewelry box that had blue buttons in it. 

Those are buttons, I said.

He tried to open them.  Candy, he said.

No, they're for your clothes, see, (I held them to my shirt.)

Oh, maaan, he said.

Okay, I know I said we were leaving the dunes last post, so let's leave already.

We will have to come back once more for Evan, (I'm just warning you now, you're not clear out of the dunes yet.)

Like any other two year old boy, he hated the chair.

Why, oh WHY would I make him sit on a sinking green chair when there is so much wide-open space to run in? 

Oh the injustice!  The inhumanity!

But he doesn't understand that THIS...

is very difficult to keep in focus.

Freedom makes him happy.  So I treat him like any other client and suck it up, I do what makes him happy.

And happy is good.  So what if my quads hurt from running in a bent stoop to catch this.

I do it for other kids all year long, why not do it for him?

THIS frozen moment makes it all worth it; totally worth feeling like I actually went to a gym and did the stair master. 

And I guess can make that sacrifice.  

Labels: baby, beach, boys will be boys, conversation, Jack, national lampoon family vacations, photography, pics, summer

I hope you don't get sick of hanging out at the beach with us this week. 

I, for one, am tired of the dunes.  So come on- let's go to the water!

Ahhh, there.  Her sunburned body up close.  Much better.

But I love that scraped knee, I really do.  Let me tell you how she got it.

All day, the day before we left, she begged me to take her on a walk with Charlie.  ALL DAY.  So I finally consented even though I was trying to pack.  We put him on a leash with her on the other end, headed out the door, and can you guess the rest?  Yes you can- two seconds later Charlie was walking her... dragging her, actually, down the sidewalk. On her face. 

She was lucky to come away with only a scraped knee.  We turned right back around and went inside to bandage her up before starting all over again.  With Evan holding the leash.

But all is well now because the salty ocean worked its magic.

Now she is busy making new boo boo's to keep count of.

Childhood is good like that...

You don't dwell on yesterday's wounds.

You wallow in the present. 

Labels: beach, boo boos, Madalyn, national lampoon family vacations, photography, pics, sugar and spice

This was my slip when I was little.  I had no idea how to pose like this when I was little.  I was too innocent and pure and naive.

Just kidding.  She totally gets that from me.  I'm a poser.

My mom has pictures of me in this slip and I am quite brown from the summer sun like she is.  Okay, okay, she's red because I didn't reapply her sunscreen.  But normally she's more brown than I ever am or was. 

I wish I had those old photographs to post with these.  Mine were done in front of a mirror in a studio, though, with the white hazy effect of the 80's, and I kind of hope to imitate those some day. 

But "some day's" tend to never come.

Comparing our personalities is much like comparing our photographs, though.  She's not completely like me.  She is and she isn't. 

She can make friends with a lamp post, (and in fact, she made friends with a little girl not even in our group this trip and spent an entire day with her,) but she's not nearly as sensitive as I was when I was little.  She's hard to offend or upset, which means if someone hurts her feelings it makes me MAD.  Because it takes a lot to hurt her. 

She's tough, and sassy...  saucy.  She's saucy.  I like that word.  I learned it when I read Wuthering Heights in high school.  It might be one of my favorite words, and I'm so glad I have a daughter who fits it.

My Aunt Carolyn described her as having a "coy" way about her, which would be another completely perfect description.

(She looks a lot like my baby pictures in this particular one, don't you think, mom?  Nana?) 

She's more girly than I was, though.  I secretly hated pink, and matching mother-daughter clothes, and just clothes in general.  I preferred water-skiing and bike-riding, though I did love my baby dolls.  L-O-V-E-D my doll babies.  They went with me everywhere.  But I preferred THEM to wear the frilly pink things, not me.

She loves pink.  L-O-V-E-S pink.  And doesn't really care for baby dolls for more than five minutes at a time.  She would rather mother her stuffed animals.  She prefers the frilly clothes to be on her, not on her toys.  She is attracted to anything sparkly, shiny, glittery, flashy, fancy, much like a Barracuda.  She recently told me she didn't want to wear a particular outfit because it wasn't "fancy enough." 

On this beach trip, case in point, we had to make her wear a t-shirt the last day because she was getting too red ( don't pretend you didn't notice.)  The t-shirt offered by a friend was a Batman one.  She was NOT okay with this- I repeat- NOT okay.  She threw the biggest, most unexpected fit I've ever witnessed out of her.  When I asked what was so terribly wrong she told me the t-shirt hurt her feelings.  I asked her how on earth a shirt could hurt someone's feelings.  She said, "because it doesn't appreciate me." 

Actually it was more like- becuzz it duzzent uhhh-priiii-shaa-aate meeee- ah-ho-hee-hee-hee....  (face crumpled in distraught.)

In adult terms: it ain't flattering.

And she does say some funny, funny things.  I am sad to have forgotten a lot of them already.  Yesterday, though, she said while hanging from the handle of a grocery cart upside down and thinking it was hard work, "WHOA, I can't handle this!!"  To which Jack parroted, "WHOA- I can't HANDLE this!"

She says sweet, thoughtful things, too.  She tells me I'm her best friend in all the world.  She tells me I look so very beautiful when I SO don't.  She says I'm her sister.  AMEN!  We are sisters, girl!  We certainly are.

She used to tell me she loved me soooo strong, but she's old enough to know that's not how people say it anymore.  And that makes me want to cry.

She asked me the other day if God could ever die and be gone.  Could he be run over by a car? 

We talked it over some and I realized that what she was essentially asking me was whether or not we could ever be separated from God, and was this something she should worry about?  The Lord brought two of the few verses I have hidden away in my heart to mind- Psalm 139-

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
       Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
       if I make my bed in the depths, ^[a] you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
       if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
       your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
       and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
       the night will shine like the day,
       for darkness is as light to you.

and:

38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8

(Of course I paraphrased these verses to meet her understanding.)  Then I asked her if God answered her question.  She nodded.  I said, "where did he answer your question,"  (thinking she might say the Bible, His word,) but instead she pointed to her heart. 

I couldn't have understood it,  nor expressed it better myself.

But back to that saucy thing.

She likes to shake her "bon-bon."  Like her teacher taught her.  At PRESCHOOL.

Please tell me how I'm supposed to refrain from laughing.  Oh, I don't even try.  No, in fact, I ASK her to do this, though in these pictures, and quite often, she doesn't require any asking. 

She shakes it freely.  

Like her mother, Shaun would say... to the pizza man... when the kids run to the door naked. 

Labels: beach, Madalyn, national lampoon family vacations, parenthood, photography, pics, sugar and spice, summer

In a perfect world I would live in a cottage on the beach. 

Okay, I'll keep it real- not a cottage, exactly, but a sizeable house that still FEELS like a cottage.

I would have a chef and a maid who not only clean but do our laundry, and not because they have to, but because they love to do these things like I love to take pictures, (so that we wouldn't be putting anyone out.) 

They would be funny and endearing and trustworthy, like part of the family, (so that they wouldn't be putting us out.)  And they would have beautiful Spanish accents and be of older age.  Because it's my perfect world and I said so.       

The house that looks like a cottage would smell good all the time.  In the morning it would smell like blueberry muffins, at lunch time it would smell like fresh basil and produce, in the afternoon it would smell like pineapple and coconut, and in the evening it would smell like a good roast. 

At sunset it would smell like chocolate.

I would never snap at the kids because my house would smell so good and my laundry was clean, and temper tantrums would be a snap with nothing else to do but cope with temper tantrums. 

We would play on the beach all day, and I would take pictures in the evenings.  Some of the evenings. 

Other evenings I would read, or take long walks with Shaun and have sex on the beach.  (The drink, of course.)  Or as far as you know.

And I would be able to edit every picture just by looking at it.  (Which would mean my need to do all in both color and black and white would not be an issue.)  Oh, and because I would have unlimited storage space that was guaranteed to never become corrupt but last until the end of time, naturally.

Shaun wouldn't have to work.  He would play in the sun with us all day long, and sunburns and skin cancer wouldn't exist.  Neither would sharks. Nor algae nor mildew.  Nor jelly fish.

Only suntans and dolphins.  And minnows. 

And game fish that don't mistake humans for prey.  That would be okay, I guess.  For Uncle Steve's sake.  And Uncle John and Uncle Justin and Grandpa Boonie.  (I'm thoughtful like that.)

Jimmy Buffet and Bob Marley and Brooks and Dunn and The Temptations would fill our house with simple songs through speakers in every room.  And there would be hammocks and rocking chairs and a wrap-around porch, and we would have a guest room or two for anyone who wanted to visit.

Charlie would never pee on the floor.

We would be silly all day long.

And no one would ever grow up.

In a perfect world. 

Labels: beach, dreaming and scheming, national lampoon family vacations, photography, pics, summer

Just in case there's any controversy, I think it's evident that THIS one's legitimate.

Labels: beach, daddy, humor, Madalyn, pics