T-minus 10 days until the annual girl’s beach trip. Well, girls + children… ALL the children. Five to be exact. 3 adults and 5 kids. Eight is great! (or is it Eight is Enough?) We all look forward to this trip every year. It is SO needed. This year it seems especially needed, what with plague and homeschooling (we are all teachers, so in addition to homeschooling our own broods, we were in charge of our respective classroom kids as well)… and now the tearing apart of the country through racism, hatred, and violence. I just want to stare at some waves.
There will be differences this year. Due to plague we will try to go as non-contact as possible. This year we are changing location– instead of Destin, we are heading to my family’s cottage in Panama City. Not as spacious or pool-including as our last home away from home, but we are going to roll with the term cozy. (Plus it’s a closer walk to the beach AND the daiquiri hut!)
Preparing for the yearly trip always makes me reflect on past pilgrimages: our adventures, our comedies, our dramas… We’ve run the gambit from boyfriend woes to blood splatter, spaghetti vomit to beach storms that trashed the lanai. (You heard me! The lanai! How many hours of Golden Girls HAVE we watched through the years?) Today I am going to reflect on our top 5 moments.
Beach Trip Top 5
5. You Wish– On our first trip to the beach, the eldest child in our crew had a catchphrase. And that catchphrase was “You wish!” Rarely said with love or humor, no, this was more of a sarcastic, taunting tone. I actually wrote several blog entries on that trip, so rather than rehash, I will just copy and paste. Enjoy:
Kids say the darndest things!
What’choo talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?!
Eat my shorts!
How you doin’?
You got it dude!
And now, You Wish!!
And not the charming, “As you wish…” from The Princess Bride. But a very snarky 2 syllables often used at time where it makes no sense, or worse, when it does make sense, but makes you violent (see ch. 1).
(photo cred: wrwdc.com)
E1 (as we shall call him) was all about this phrase. Where did it come from? No one knows. Even he has no idea. It made his mother crazy. The other kids imitated him, but never with as much chutzpah as E1.
Any adult in the house: “Hey kids, you want some lunch?
E1: “You wish!”
(not really because if the answer is no, then I can eat first which is AWESOME!)
Any adult in the house: “Has anyone seen E2’s pacifier?”
E1: “You wish!”
(well yes actually, I do, he’s crying and wants it)
Any adult in the house: “Spaghetti for dinner tonight!”
E1: “You wish!”
(no, I know!)
Any adult in the house: “Hey kids, Full House is on in the playroom!”
E1: “You wish!”
(OK, seriously. STOP now!)
And so on, and so forth.
There were only 2 things that were remotely comical about 2, 947 time E1 said this. The first was that several times he appeared to not be paying attention to the conversation at all. Then that voice would ring out from behind the game of Minecraft (which BTW is a whole addendum to the book– what they heck is that all about anyway?! No really, I’d like to know as now my kid is obsessed!) The second funny thing was that sometimes we could use his own catchphrase on him to great effect.
E1: “I don’t want to clean up Legos! I want to keep playing!
EVERY adult in the house: “You wish!”
Once or twice it elicited a rather impressive dirty look for such a young person, which was HILARIOUS! Bazinga!
And this debacle is nothing new– our kids have all had a catchphrase from time to time that they used incessantly. I’ve had kids in my class do it. It’s a kid thing. Eventually it goes away on it’s own, though usually because it has been replaced by a new catchphrase. Maybe this time E1 will pick up, “Yes most charming mother in the entire known universe… I will do everything you ask the first time with no argument or selective hearing (which remember I got from my father)… my will is at your command!”
E1: “You wish!”
(sigh)
4. News from the Outside World– So occasionally on our hiatus we have to talk to those back home. Husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, pets… yeah, you heard me. I Facetime my cats, back off! I do in fact make my husband follow the various felines around so I can speak with them. Cleo is nearly 20 and deaf, so she can’t really be bothered. Carl, my grumpy old man cat, gets VERY upset when I leave (like sits and cries at the front window when I take a walk)- so he loves to try to ignore me on the chat, and Peaches, my daughter’s 3 yr old fat kitten is too ADHD to care. So this is always a fun part of the evening. AVM thinks I am crazy. JML talks to my cats too so she’s totally on board.
Sometimes the outside world invades, as in WEATHER. More than once we have spent the better part of an hour getting the hoodlums changed, sunscreened, and packed up only to herd them to the beach to watch a storm approaching… quickly.
From a previous post:
So we lug all this down. No children were run over (BONUS!) No cart to attempt to drag through the sand this year (SWEET!) We get settled– umbrellas up with minimal hassle! We are there *MAYBE* an hour… (insert sudden wind, black clouds, and rain)
“Maybe it will blow over…”
Nope. No chance. We pack up (quicker than any of us would have believed) and start herding children back to the house. We make it about 1/2 way before the heavens open up and attempt to drown us all. AVM and I get the bigger kids back and in the garage (only time we could find the opener with any real success). I head back and grab E2 from JML.
The best though was definitely when a storm came and trashed the lanai. The story was basically the same as above, only we were at a different house– one with a pool complete with tables and umbrellas. By the time we made it back (soaked), got all the children in (read: made sure we made it back with all the children), we had forgotten about the stuff outside. Then one of the kids said, “There’s an umbrella in the pool!” Indeed. Along with everyone’s swimsuits and any cups we had left outside. The suits and cups were no biggie– we could get them later. The umbrella seemed important to remove. (sigh) Let’s just say, I will not be adding pool boy to my list of possible new jobs anytime soon.
3. Well prepared: for the beach, breakfast, and the world’s largest doll tea party– Gone are the days of throwing tasty beverages in a cooler, grabbing a towel and a book and heading to the beach for the day. When you travel with small people, you travel heavy.
First there is the general trip packing. My daughter likes to bring eleventy billion stuffed animals. AVM’s princesses prefer 300 dolls. Not small Barbie-type dolls, the American Girl variety/ size. And don’t forget all of their accessories! Everything from a bathtub to an entire grocery store. JML’s kids basically stick to electronics and beach toys… and balloons, naturally. (That said, they totally brought a Grinch doll once!)
Getting TO the actual beach is a whole other adventure. One year the house we stayed at had a handy-dandy cart to use at the beach. Worst. Idea. Ever. It was all hunky dory rolling it to the gate and walkway to the beach. The stairs on the walkway proved annoying, but doable with two people. The rolling of the cart ON the actual sand: not so doable. I dragged that thing a mile, uphill both ways…. We won’t even mention all the mishaps with tents and umbrellas through the years. Let’s just say, they fact none of us (or anyone near us) have every been impaled is amazing.
Things we take:
3 chairs
Bag of sunscreen
Each kid has a backpack with whatever toys
Boogie boards for each kid
2 umbrella
2 cooler bags (beer, gatorade, water)
Watermelon cut up
snacks
towels
phones in ziplocks
garage door opener
4 shovels, buckets, rake
5 kids
Well sure! you say… a day at the beach requires lots of supplies. Y’all, we are usually down there for 2 hrs, 3 tops. By then the natives are restless. Someone has to use the restroom, someone else has discovered they have sand on their hands and they HATE sand on their hands, another swears they were attacked by a jellyfish. (sigh) Time to pack up and head back.
And food! Well, you can imagine with this many children we require a lot of food. We have yet to be brave enough to venture out to eat more than once a trip. It is easier (& cheaper) to eat at the house. This requires many bags of chicken nuggets, boxes of mac and cheese, bags of chips, popsicles for days, frozen pizzas, and about 96 watermelons for the week. Every morning I am the pancake master. I make pancakes for all small people. Olaf (Diva’s sister) is a bottomless pit. For the adults I switch to bacon and eggs/ omelettes. I love to cook. I gladly trade cooking duty for bath time/ child wrangling. Thank God for Walmart pickup! On our first trip we made the huge mistake of taking all children with us to shop. Oy vey! Never again. While we still usually have to make daily trips for this and that, they are now solo runs made by whichever adult is in the most need of some “Me Time.”
2. Blood Splatter (& other medical maladies)–
STOP RUNNING! I swear kids, I am NOT going to the ER for stitches tonight!!
Like any group of children (& moderately clumsy adults), there will be blood! Or at the least, vomit, pee, and loose teeth.
2 years ago, nearing the end of our beach week in a lovely home with charming WHITE rugs and WHITE tile floors, we noticed blood one evening. Lots of blood. All over the floor- carpet, rugs, tile! It knew no bounds! Now with 5 kids who were constantly on the move, running hither and thither, and oblivious to surroundings, it could have been anyone. It was late in the day. We had used the pool. We had been to the beach. We were burnt and tired. So we did what any group of parents would do, we just picked one. JLM chose her eldest, who, at that time was doing most of the relays around the house. She yelled at him to stop. He yelled such things as, “No!” and “Why?!” (There might have even been a “You Wish!” in there– yep, that kid) After what seemed an eternity of yelling and chasing and all but rugby tackling, we found out that he was NOT the free-bleeder. Then who?!!
Eventually it became clear that the youngest of the brood was the victim. By this time, he had continued to prance around (I say prance because he is usually without pants, and really isn’t that how one moves room to room when pantsless? They prance. Pantsless-Prance.) spilling more droplets of blood all over.
So at this point, E1, the initial suspect is upset because every adult in the house has been screaming at him for tracking blood all over the white-washed house. JLM is crying because she feels so bad for yelling at E1, and is apologizing to him profusely. I meanwhile, took control of E2 explaining to him that he was in fact bleeding (a fact he continued to deny through huge sobbing tears), finally managing to show him the cut on his foot (God knows how that came to be!). Once he calmed down and E1 calmed down JLM (“It’s ok mom! Really!”), it was band-aid time.
I watch a lot of true crime shows. I have seen every episode of Forensic Files multiple times. So once the point of origin was located and sufficiently bandaged, it was time for crime scene cleanup. And that means one thing: Dawn dish soap. We attacked the white rugs and carpets with the magic blue liquid like the Golden Girls attack a cheesecake in the middle of the night. Now, at this point we were hysterical– JLM still crying for being “a horrible mom” but now also laughing because of E2’s insistence that he was not bleeding, even as blood poured from his foot (“It’s NOT me!!”)
I was just stoked that FINALLY all my true crime show knowledge was being utilized.
What could be worse that blood splatter you ask. Well, 2 words: spaghetti vomit. Last year the Diva got sick after dinner. She had eaten well (unfortunately). She had not complained of feeling bad. There was zero warning. Then we hear it. While watching some murder documentary on Netflix, we hear a retching sound from the bedroom. Then BAM! Noodles everywhere. It should come as no surprise that the all-white floor covering people would also have all white sheets. Well, they did.
So here we are back to another crime scene cleanup. After getting Diva to the bathroom and cleaned up we went in for the sheets. Oh God. It was so gross. JLM couldn’t hang so she handed us Clorox Wipes from around the corner. I promptly used these to fashion myself an N-95 mask just so I could inhale. AVM stripped the bed, but it was clear we would need to rinse the sheets before putting them in the washer, or then EVERYTHING would be noodle covered. I sucked it up Buttercup and made the rinsing my job. It wasn’t easy or pretty. In hindsight I should have gone out on the lanai and used the hose. Or better yet, just thrown the sheets away. Who are we kidding? They were never going to be used again.
Upchucking spaghetti isn’t Diva’s only claim to medical drama fame on beach trips, oh no! This child always has something bizarre to offer up. One year it was an EXTREMELY loose tooth that she refused to pull or let anyone near. But boy did she whine about it. I seriously almost sneaked in to pull it while she was asleep. I don’t think that thing ever came out on the trip. And then there are the multiple times that Diva needs to pee while at the beach. She flat refuses to sit in the sand and just go… or wade out in the water (gross, I know, but you know everyone out there is…) THEN, to top it all off, she has said emphatically that she CAN’T go once we get her back to the house! She’s crying because she HAS to go, but swears she CAN’T go. We’ve sat her on the toilet for hours… put her in a bath with warm water running… had her call and talk to her dad and step-mom… Needless to say it all eventually works out and we breathe a sigh of relief… until the next day…
1. My Foot Got Stuck in the Carseat: A Parenting Memoir– Another gem from our first beach trip together. Before you read, remember, it was hot. The van was overcrowded. 5 children is A LOT. It was hot. Oh, and I am not the most patient person. Again, a former blog post excerpt:
And the title you ask? Well, while attempting to strap my daughter into her booster seat in the middle row of an extremely hot van after dinner, my foot became entangled in the booster seat of my friend’s son. At first I didn’t know what it was– it was just highly irritating. I began to kick. Then I thrashed. I’m pretty sure I cussed some too. Finally I hear the mixture of laughter from my 2 friends who informed me that they were trying to detangle me from the seat. It took a few minutes for my overheated, very frustrated brain to register, so I kept kicking and cussing (and sweating profusely, I might add). Then I realized my friends were trying to help me, and I calmed down (somewhat). They were laughing hysterically, wheezing out, “You…..got….your….foot….stuck…. in….the…. carseat!”
Personally I find this the perfect metaphor for life as a parent. This one’s for you JML & AVM!
wildly believe 