There’s Still Sand in My Hair

After leaving my aunt and uncle’s house in Sumner, we pretty much drove straight to the beach, with one extended stop in Montesano for gas, nursing, diaper changing, and a potty break.  I was thoroughly impressed that James slept the whole way – during short trips around town, he sleeps in the carseat about 50% of the time.  The other 50% is spent screaming.

 

Charles also did very well, and, true to form, he had to go potty about ten minutes from my parents’ house.  The kid’s getting to be an expert in side-of-the-road peeing.  This is significant because he did not pee his pants, not even a little bit, during the whole trip.  He CAN be potty trained when he wants to be.

 

Monday was filled with fun at the beach as dad and I tried to fly the kite we brought for Charles… we were unsuccessful, so he made a kite at the kite-making tent that flew beautifully and held his attention for all of five minutes.  Much more interesting?  The elephant ears.

 

Why don’t elephant ear vendors at fairs and other locations sell them with a variety of toppings?  Everywhere else besides Long Beach seems to sell elephant ears with either cinnamon and sugar or jam.  You know what the best topping is?  Maple.  Sweet, delicious maple.  A maple elephant ear is like a maple bar without all that useless donut taking up space.  Actually, it’s probably good that you can’t find maple elephant ears everywhere – the only time I ever buy one is at Kite Festival.

 

On Tuesday, between the hours of 7 am and 11 am, Charles peed through every pair of shorts and underwear we brought with us.  Why?  I have no idea.  He knows when to go potty, he just ignores it.  He also had lots of juice boxes, something we don’t have at home. 

 

To say I was frustrated was putting it lightly.  I had a complete meltdown.  I was dealing with children all alone (my dad was there, but he doesn’t so much parent as grandparent, which is totally different, is done mostly from the couch, and does not include diaper changing or preemptive potty visits), I hadn’t had much sleep, and I just couldn’t handle it.  I was thisclose to packing up and going home, but we had laundry in the wash, and mom came home to convince me to stay until the next day.  She, of course, knew that I would calm down by the morning.  So we took Charles to the beach for the afternoon, and things got much better.  But he didn’t get any more juice boxes the whole trip.

 

 

There was a guy with big beach ball flowforms set up and he was letting the kids play with and in them.  Charles was really frightened.

 

 

You see that big flowform in the background?  Kids were playing in it.  If that’s not a kid’s dream come true, I don’t know what is.  But Charles was scared, and he refused to even look at the cute frog on the ground.

 

But then!  Then, we walked about a hundred feet farther and Charles suddenly realized, “Hey!  That could have been awesome!  I want to go to there!”  So he ran back to play in the flowform.  We had to physically pull him out to leave awhile later.

 

The moment of realization

Running back

So rad.

 

The next day, Charles got to go to the beach early with grandma and have breakfast (where everyone was impressed with how much he can pack in), ride in the golf cart, and play in the bouncy house:

 

 

We hung out with Ruary and Milo (“My friends!” says Charles) and my parents and Tony’s parents got some time with Jamie:

 

 

On the way back, after stopping to see a friend in Hoquiam, we hit the worst traffic ever on I5.  I’m used to backups at Fort Lewis, but this traffic jam lasted from Olympia to north of Everett.  My boys, though?  They were ANGELS.  The one slept, the other sang, and ate snacks, and talked a blue streak, and watched “WoodyBuzz” on the iTouch. 

 

We will not be visiting the Kite Festival without Tony ever again, though I’ve been spectacularly calm this week because, really, it can’t get much worse than last week.