vacationing

Clark is turning into a toddler. Willful. The other day the cashier at the ice cream shop asked Frances what her brother's name was and she said, "Maniac." Perhaps we should stop referring to him as that so often.

Last summer when we did this nutty 2-week all-over-the-place vacation I swore we wouldn't do it again, but here we are. It wasn't so bad this time though. Last year I had a 4 month-old and a toddler not yet 2, and this year things were much easier to handle. For those of you wondering, we were at a family reunion (Mitch's) in West Virginia for 2 nights, then my dad's in Virginia for 2 nights, then 4 nights in Winston-Salem while Mitch flew to California and back for a conference and we took day trips to Durham to see friends, then a week at the lovely beach in NC.

Then a hell drive home, which was hell mostly because the kids were done done done with traveling (Clark trying to physically bust his way out of the carseat), I was very premenstrual, and I95 was a traffic jam. A stop at Ikea in Virginia, since we were practically sitting still on the highway and we thought we'd get some meatballs and let the kids run around the showroom, turned into a 3-hour rest stop (during which we did acquire a very nice easel for F for her b-day. and the meatballs were yummy). Mitch wouldn't let me look at the textiles.

But the beach! Oh the beach is a wonderful place. It was still tiring, schleping both kids (my cousin and her husband were also there with their kids: 4,2, and newborn) to and from the beach. I kept fantasizing about how much fun the beach is going to be 3, 4, 5 years from now. Fun! We'll be able to play with them in the water rather than being on constant watch, build sand castles rather than constantly trying to keep them from eating sand (or throwing it on her brother), go to the water slides, the ice cream shop, the surf shop without having to worry about naptimes. At the beginning of the week someone would stay at the house in the morning while Clark napped, but by the end of the week we let him sleep in the stroller on the beach which was nice as we could play while he snoozed, but sleeping in his wet swim diaper gave him a yeast rash that was unbelievable. The kids all got along really well and we reserved a much bigger house for next year that's even closer to the beach. Yay!