the beach trip

One of the greatest joys of being a parent is getting to re-live your childhood vicariously through your own child. Long before Caroline was born I was already plotting which of my old stuffed animals I would pass down to her (Paula, Birdie, and Bear), all the parks and playgrounds and museums and zoos I would take her to, all the birthday slumber parties we would plan, which of my favorite kid movies I would introduce her to (imagine my sheer delight when I ran across a used copy of The Neverending Story for sale in the bookstore recently!) So I was thrilled when this past March Bill surprised me with a family summer beach trip vacation as my birthday present. The smell of saltwater! The dippin dots ice cream (ice cream of the future since 1984)! The sand in various orifices that remain hidden for weeks to come! I couldn't wait to share this rite of childhood with my baby. I was somewhat nervous that she would ingest several pounds of sand but figured hey, as long as it doesn't do any permanent damage to her intestines, it should otherwise be a pretty fun trip.

Packing for the trip, however, was nerve-wracking enough to make me want to dig a hole in the sand and climb in and cover myself up. (Death by sand holes. It's a real thing. Which, coincidentally, I discovered just a few days before our trip. Read all about it here. And now you can add 'buried alive in the sand' to your list of things to beware of at the beach. Between that and the sharks and the jellyfish and the ripcurrents, one wonders how a trip to the beach became the all-american summer pastime....) Here's a handy little summary of the packing ordeal.

days spent in packing denial: 3
days spent actually packing: 2
lists made: 6
trips up and down the 2 sets of stairs in our house, collecting needed items: 25
bags packed: 7
hours spent stuffing our car like a sausage: 0.75

To say we looked worse than the Griswolds heading to Wally World would be an understatement. Somehow I managed to stuff all of this....

into this....

With not an inch to spare. Seriously. Bill could not see out of the back window, the baby had her legs propped up on luggage, and the dog was stuck riding shotgun with a vera bradley bag. I think my mom summed it up best when she took once glance at our car and lamented, "Honey I know you want your daughter to be comfortable, but plenty of babies have survived 4 days at the beach without their bath mats." (True story. I packed her bath mat.) But come hell or high water, I was prepared to meet any vacation obstacle with the necessary gear (and the necessary margarita, courtesy of the behemoth blender that was loaded up.)

Since it was such a long drive (8 hours) from Houston to Gulf Shores, we decided to split the drive into 2 days. On Wednesday we left home bright and early at 5:00 am and arrived in Baton Rouge around 10:00, with only a few pit stops for breakfast and diaper changes. We spent the night and continued our journey the next day with my mom, making a stop in Mandeville to drop Winnie off with Bill's parents. Caroline did pretty well with the drive, despite the fact that she refused to nap in the car for more than 30 minutes. The DVD player was a huge lifesaver. She was happy to watch 'nemo' (Finding Nemo) and 'bugs' (A Bugs Life) over and over, with absolutely NO interest in the 6 other movies I had packed. I think I have the entire screenplay of Nemo safely memorized now.

At the recommendation of our friends the Geisers who were also vacationing there at the same time, we stayed at Phoenix on the Bay II. Our condo was awesome, a perfect home away from home. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, fully stocked kitchen, balcony with views of the bay and the awesome pool. We hurriedly unloaded the car (4 grocery cart trips back and forth from the car) so we could dive into the pool and see how Caroline would react. Moment of truth. Would she cry and protest like she had been doing all summer? 

Luckily the pool was a huge hit in her book! It was a kid's wonderland! Lazy river with a tunnel, water slide, baby pool with spray jets, zero entry pool...she tried them all and loved every one! We spent the entire day Saturday in the pool, and she was totally happy with all of it! I had to do some cajoling to talk her daddy into letting her go down the slide on his lap, and she loved it! She wanted to go down the slide over and over again. I took her a few times and I was a kid at heart again as well, loving the thrills of the water slide all over again. I'm so glad I got to share that with her.

Even though our condo wasn't directly on the beach we made a few trips over to see Caroline's reaction to the sand and surf. At first she was a little leery of the water because the waves tended to knock her over, but as long as someone was standing there with her and could guide her and help her out she decided it was ok. And of course the sand was a huge hit, as I fully expected. Luckily she only ate a few handfuls, not a few bucketfuls like I had feared. 

And she really enjoyed playing with Katy Lou and Mary Beth, the Geisers daughters who watched over her like little mother hens. Technically though their son William is much closer in age to Caroline (only 1 year older) but Caroline was entranced by the 'big girls.' So cute.

We definitely took full advantage of the fresh Gulf seafood that was readily available. Thursday night we ate at a new restaurant that was recently built out of recycled shipping containers. It had a huge outdoor deck and grass and sand areas with lounge chairs....wonderful beach ambiance. The best part of the evening was running into some of my good friends from college...talk about small world!

Friday night we had deeeelicious shrimp at the Shrimp Basket, Saturday night we boiled our own Red Royal shrimp in the condo (my absolute fave), and Sunday night we joined the entire Geiser clan at Bubba's Seafood (more Red Royal shrimp for me, although my mom had king crab legs and said those were delicious and Bill was enthusiastic about his grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich). 

One of the best parts of the trip was having my mom along. She thoroughly enjoyed getting to participate in Caroline's first beach experience, Caroline was delighted to spend time with Nana, and Bill and I were able to have a little more flexibility with childcare duties. It was so nice to be able to go out to dinner alone, or hang out at the pool while Caroline was back in the condo napping, or stay up late visiting with Nick and Kelly in their condo after her bedtime. Bill was completely infatuated with the lazy river, and on our last night he convinced me to go explore the adjacent property's lazy river (which turned out to be 3x as big as ours!) It was so nice to have Nana along so he and I could have some fun time alone. I'd forgotten what that was like!!

On the way home we split the trip in half again, stopping overnight in Mandeville to visit with Bill's parents. Caroline was happy to spend a bit of time with Granny and Grandpaw. She particularly loved it when PawPaw showed her how to operate the lazy-boy's vibrating massager! All those buttons! Wohoo!

So after logging over 16 hours driving in the car (not including pit stops for lunch, the outlet mall, the produce stand, the gas stations...) we finally made it back to Houston, with the sunburns and sand in the floormats to prove it. It was a great trip but I definitely learned a good lesson about the value of packing light. Any time total strangers passing you on the interstate do a double take at the amount of luggage crammed in your car, it might be time to reconsider your packing strategy. Turns out we never even used the blasted bath mat anyway. (Although we did put the blender to good use!) 

Testing the Waters

I learned to swim when I was pretty young (less than 2 years old) so I have no memory of ever being afraid of the water. Swimming was always the preferred summer pastime of my youth, and my sister and I would spend hours and hours playing in the pool: perfecting our swan dives and backdives and cannonballs and front handsprings (in retrospect, the front handsprings were probably not the brightest idea), synchronized swimming and water ballets and races and diving for pennies that would always inevitably end up beyond reach in the deepest end of the pool. My sister achieved legendary status at the swim club when she happily jumped off the diving board (into my mom's waiting arms) at the ripe old age of 21 months, bulging soggy diaper and all. And my brother....lord knows that child made so many falls into our backyard pool that he practically taught himself to swim by default. 

So when I signed Caroline up for swim lessons late this past spring I envisioned another champion water-lover continuing in the Herrod tradition. I knew she loved bathtime from the day she was born, and that she always enjoyed splashing around in the shallow steps of bill's sister's pool. All indications that she would take to swimming like a duck in water.

Alas, it was not to be. Instead I've created the shrieking water-hating banshee. She now associates all pools=swim lessons, so she goes bananas and cries and clings to me. She wants NOTHING to do with the pool.

At least I can take comfort knowing that I have achieved my goals of making sure she won't drown. Swim lessons were effective in that a) she now hates the pool so much that she cries as soon as she SEES one, so I'm quite sure she will never voluntarily approach one on her own free will and b) she has mastered the survival float. We did swim lessons for 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week, for 3 and a half weeks and she cried during every.single.lesson. I was hoping that as she mastered her skills she would grow more confident and not cry, but that never happened.  Instead, she started figuring out where we headed each day and began crying sooner and sooner. At first she didn't start crying till we pulled up to the house. Then it began as soon as we entered the neighborhood. Then it was as soon as we got on the interstate. Now she cries as soon as I pull out her swimsuit. Luckily though she's still fine playing at the splash pad, so I am crossing my fingers that the pool at our beach condo has a toddler-friendly splash area.

So here she is demonstrating her new survival float skills. She has only 2 more lessons next week, where she'll practice falling from the side of the pool, in fully-clothed conditions, so it would closely mimic a real-life situation. She passed with flying colors. She can save herself if she ever falls into the water. But given the fact that she now abhors the water, I don't think we really have to worry about her approaching any water bodies. (NOTE: She leaned over and took a big bite out of my shoulder right before I handed her over to her swim teacher. She was NOT HAPPY about going swimming and she decided to share her emotions with her teeth.) (Also note: on all these videos press the small grey rectangle button next to the words "you tube" on the bottom right of the screen to make the video pop up larger.)

She's also been testing the waters in a more figurative sense as well. I wouldn't say that we've reached the full-blown terrible two's (which can begin way sooner than their second birthday), but she is definitely pushing the boundaries and seeing what she can get away with. She absolutely knows what activities are off-limits, but she tries to get away with them anyway. She smiles and says 'no no no' as she plunges her hands into Winnie's water bowl and splashes to kingdom come. She looks back and watches me as she approaches the tv and starts pushing buttons. She loves to drop food from her high chair in slow-motion fashion, stretching arms out, hands loaded with food, watching me for my reaction. Then SPLAT. (Sometimes this sequence is altered when she notices Winnie standing near her chair, in which case she will first offer him a bite. Mr. picky-eater-pug has become a big fan of whatever she's handing out, rom grilled cheese to green beans.) If she's standing in her little chair and I tell her to sit down, she complies, then stands right back up again. 

But it's hard to stay angry for long when she turns on the charm two seconds later. She thinks laughter is contagious, so anytime anyone laughs she laughs too. (One of her favorite exhibits at the Children's museum is a little window with shutters; when you open the shutters a recording of a baby laughing plays. She thinks it's HILARIOUS and laughs right along with it. She'll stand there for a good 3 minutes opening and closing the shutters, laughing away.) She loves to dance and will happily practice her moves at a moment's notice, whether listening to a good jam at the grocery store or rocking out in her carseat.

She also loves to be a good 'helper' and will usually obey simple commands: "go get your shoes from the closet and bring them to me" "go put your pajamas in the laundry basket" "pick up your blocks and put them in the box". One cute little trick she developed on her own is handing me my towel when I turn off the water in the shower. She stops whatever she's doing, toddles over to the tub, and picks up my towel and hands it to me.

Dr. Jekyl, meet Mr. Hyde. How can the same sweet baby who hands me my towel each day also be the same shrieking demon who took a chomp out of my shoulder?? Ah the joys of toddlerhood. I guess she and I are both learning how to navigate this unchartered territory. I'm being tested in my patience levels, and she's being tested in everything else, from verbal skills to swimming skills to dancing skills. I supposed one day we'll look back and marvel how quickly we sailed from one phase to another! 

Griswolds at the blueberry farm

Pick your own fresh blueberries!

It sounded like a good idea. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and apparently, so is the road to the blueberry farm. Our innocent little day trip turned out to be an epic fail worthy of a national lampoons screenplay.

When Bill's sister invited us to join them on a berry hunting excursion on Saturday I eagerly accepted, visions of homemade blueberry pie dancing in my head. Being the city slickers that we are, our only knowledge of blueberries was that they came in a little plastic carton at the grocery store. We had no idea of the labor-intensive swooping and bending that is involved in gathering the little buggers. And to make matters worse, I had taken my very first step aerobics class at the gym the day before, and awoke on Saturday morning to every single muscle in my legs screaming in agony. EPIC BERRY FAIL #1. So I popped a few Advils and we all loaded into the car and set out on our journey.

The second mistake was choosing to meet Bill's brother and sister and spouses/kids at Cracker Barrell for breakfast before voyaging out to the farm. Don't get me wrong, the hash brown casserole was delicious, but it meant that we didn't arrive at the farm till about 10:30. EPIC FAIL #2: it was already 87465827 degrees outside. EPIC FAIL #3: Being 10:30, this meant every single other person within the entire city of Houston had beat us to the farm. I kid not. This was the scene that greeted us upon arrival.

This would rival
rush hour in the Houston Galleria.

Not a good sign when your fun-filled family produce gathering journey could be mistaken for the parking lot of Disneyworld. We thought surely they must be running some kind of 'buy 1 pound of berries, get 10 pounds free!' special. But no. This was just blueberry picking season in Texas.

So we parked on the side of the road behind the other cars lined up, loaded up the kids and strollers and hats and sippy cups and sunscreen and baby carriers, and started trekking to the entrance gate. After we'd been walking 10 minutes in the sweltering sun we began to question how much further the entrance gate would be. 15 minutes into the walk people who were driving out of the facility were rolling down their car windows and telling us how there was ample parking up by the entrance gate. 20 minutes into the walk and we were audibly cursing Justin for his choice of parking locations. After twenty-two minutes of schlepping along the hot dusty road we finally arrived at the entrance. And lo and behold, there were more open parking spots than you could shake a blueberry stick at. So Justin and Bill decided to take one for the team and walk alllll the way back to the cars and move them into one of the closer spots. EPIC FAIL #3: After they'd been gone about 5 minutes Kristen realized she had the keys to their car. So Jeff picked up the relay torch and grabbed the keys to go bring them to Justin. 

So the 2 Kristens and I and the kids finally rounded the corner at the entrance gate, ready to get our berry hunting on. And this is what we saw when we walked in.

Nothing says 'family fun' like sweating in line
for 30 minutes with 875 other sweaty folks.

EPIC FAIL #4: a line of people as far as the eye could see, waiting to pay for their blueberry bounties. We made a unanimous decision that when the boys returned from moving the cars they should automatically jump into line and start the waiting process. Do not pass go, do not collect any blueberries. Just stand in the heat so we and the kids don't have to.

We huffed our way past the never-ending line, growing all the more fearful of how my husband would react when he realized his fate. (Patience is not his strong suit. Patience in the 900 degree sweltering heat, even less so.) We strolled past color-coded signs, presumably indicating different types of blueberries but we had no idea what they were, so we just settled on the first bush that looked like it had a fair amount of berries available.

Cousin Riley was somewhat skilled in the berry-hunting department, being able to distinguish the ripe blueberries from the pink un-ripe ones. So she happily tackled her task and gathered a respectable (for a 2 year old) amount of berries. Baby Caroline on the other hand was not interested in searching for berries. She was much more interested in running and roaming and wandering off out of sight. So my berry hunting consisted of whatever I could grab as I was dashing off to catch her.

We decided to take turns waiting in the line, so eventually Bill made his way back to the berry hunters. After, oh, 15 minutes of intensive gathering (one of us gathering berries, the other one gathering the runaway child) we were the very definition of HOT MESS. Surely this is where the phrase originated. Luckily the line seemed to be moving faster than we thought so it was time to go join the spot-holders and pay for our berries. Justin and I stood in line to pay, while the others went straight to the cars to cool off and load up the kids.

smile and say 'immigrant labor!'

As we were waiting in line I couldn't help but notice that most people's buckets looked like this.

we decided that this guy, and everyone else, had
been gathering berries since approximately 4:30 am.

And after all our efforts, with 6 adults and 2 kids, our bucket looked like this.

is this even enough to make a pie??

EPIC FAIL #5: we probably wasted more money in gas getting to the farm than we would have just buying a carton of blueberries at the store. But as the great Clark Griswold says, "It's all part of the experience, Russ." Except we were more in danger of heat exhaustion than hypothermia, but the principle remains the same. Extreme physical discomfort is the only way to develop greater appreciation for the convenience of store bought items. Another good reason to say in school, kids!

Being utterly sweat-soaked and exhausted from our little adventure, we all decided that a dip in the pool at Kristen and Justin's house is just what the doctor ordered. So we drove all the way back to their house, suited up, and hopped in the pool. And then came EPIC FAIL #6: Because Caroline has decided that pool = swim lessons, she cried the ENTIRE time we were in the pool. Whereas before swim lessons she would happily splash and play in the pool, this time she just cried cried cried. I was cursing myself up and down for ever embarking on that bright idea. 

So we finally had to cut our losses and hop out of the pool, which was the only way to make her stop crying. This does not bode well for our pool-centered beach vacation next month. I have no idea what we're going to spend our time doing if she spends 5 days eating sand on the beach and crying at the pool. Looks like there might be a lot of mini-golf and souvenir shopping in our future....

So stay tuned for the next fun-filled family adventure next month. I have no doubt we'll be making the Griswolds look good again.