One particular harbour

"I know I don't get there often enough

But God knows I surely try

It's a magic kind of medicine

That no doctor could prescribe

And there's that one particular harbour

Sheltered from the wind

Where the children play on the shore each day

And all are safe within."

- Jimmy Buffett, One Particular Harbour

It's late July, which means another annual Padre trip has come and gone. As always it was a fun time.

I have to admit this year's trip was kind of a big blur though. The kids being at the age they are, our time was pretty much spent keeping them safe and occupied. Not much time to just be in the moment and take it in. It was fun anyway, just not many distinct memories from it.

We went with my parents and our friends Nicole and Marko and their kids Alejandro and Gabi. Ale and Gabi are a few months older, respectively, than Daniel and Rebecca and the kids have always played well together. Of course my kids were thrilled to be with Mimi and Baba again. Rebecca immediately attached herself to my mom and stayed in her arms as often as she could over the next 5 days. Both kids loved having swimming with my dad and having guest readers for their bedtime stories.

Daniel has really made impressive strides in his swim lessons and I knew he'd enjoy the water. He and Alejandro really had fun tossing their toy boats into the surf and chasing them. They also had fun playing with sand toys.

Love this picture of Daniel and Gabi walking up from the beach together:

Rebecca enjoys bathtime and playing in the pool so I figured she'd enjoy the beach. It turned out, though, that she hated the feel of the dry sand. When we first tried to set her down on the sand she set a toe on it then bent her legs up and refused to stand on it. 

Here she is realizing that this beach has sand, yucky!

Eventually she made her peace with the sand and decided in its wet form it was okay. She pretty much stuck to the surf area. She liked the tide coming in but wasn't a fan of water hitting her in the face.

Rebecca and the sand kiss and make up:

It rained our first full day there, which rained out the guys' fishing trip and forced us indoors for the afternoon. Fortunately the condo has an indoor pool so the kids didn't miss a beat.

One evening my parents and Marko's mom graciously offered to babysit the kids so we could get a parents' night out. We went to the place that has become our go-to "night out restaurant" over the last 3 years, Gabriella's. We sat out at a patio table to enjoy the nice weather and a few relaxing moments.

There were a handful of moments that did stick out to me for this trip, and one was our last evening there. Because we were planning to eat leftovers in the rooms, there was no need to hurry up to get ready to go out to eat or cook. So Kevin and the kids and I stayed out till after 7 and had the beach largely to ourselves. The kids had fun playing in the surf for awhile. Then the four of us dug a big hole and built a sand castle.

One of the few pictures of all four of us. Sidenote, check out Daniel's expression. Future heartbreaker there, people.

Having a "hole" lot of fun!

That night we watched the summer supermoon rise over the ocean.

And the kids enjoyed one last storytime with their beloved grandparents:

The guys did end up getting their fishing trip in the last full day we were there. Fortunately or unfortunately, they caught their limit so we had pounds and pounds of trout and redfish to try to eat. We gave it our best shot. Here's less than half the catch at lunch on our last day:

Yeah, it was a lot of fish. More than we could eat, really, but we gave it our best effort.

One last picture from that lunch. My parents had had to go on ahead to catch their flight so it was just us and the Rangels by this point. And all the kids sitting on an alligator because why not?

Running on the beach on my last morning I was thinking about past trips and future ones. The ones my parents took my brother and me on when we were growing up. The ones Kevin and I took with my parents pre-kids (I think the only year we've missed since we started dating 9 years ago was the year Daniel was born). Daniel's and Rebecca's respective first trips. 

And thinking ahead, to next year when the girls aren't napping anymore and the kids are more comfortable in the water. Later years when the kids need to be coaxed out of the water, not into it. When Daniel and Rebecca are old enough to go fishing too. When boogie board and tubes make our packing list and sand toys stay home. When I have a running buddy or two for morning runs along the beach. When the kids are teenagers and wanting a night out on their own.

This year's visit was just another link in the chain going all the way back to my dad's boyhood in the valley. It was fun and we're already looking forward to next year's.

Also, unlike last year, we did not have to visit the emergency room this year. So bonus for that!

Belly draggers

At the end of year celebration in Daniel's previous classroom, his teachers gave him the "Most Imaginative" award. Lately he has lived up to that title well.

It all started a few weeks ago. Mommy was trying to use the bathroom in peace and Daniel wanted to come in. I locked the door, which didn't sit well with him. But so far as I knew, that was that.

Later that night when I was lying down with him before bed I asked him if Mommy loves him all the time or just some of the time. Without missing a beat he replied "you didn't love me when you were in the bathroom!"

Then he said that while I was in the bathroom no one was taking care of him and the belly draggers came and took him away. They carried him off on their spikes which hurt his back and wanted to eat him. Then he said "here they are again, at my door!"

Lying there next to him in his bed, I felt like I was taking a pop quiz I was thoroughly unprepared for. I knew that one of these days he'd be afraid of imaginary creatures but I hadn't expected it this soon and hadn't thought about how to address it. His class was studying dinosaurs that week so I figured they must have talked about how some of them were "belly draggers." 

So thinking on the fly I decided to address the belly draggers now presumably crouched in the doorway. " You silly belly draggers," I said, "this is Daniel, not Danube. You're in the wrong house!" I told Daniel that the belly draggers were looking for their boy, Danube, and had just come to the wrong house on accident. Then in another voice the belly draggers said "Oops, sorry!"

Then I told Daniel if the belly draggers ever came back he could shake his toy rattlesnake (which, by coincidence, a teacher had just given him) at them and it would scare them away. He laughed and seemed satisfied by that, and I patted myself on the back for a crisis averted.

A few days later I was reading to Daniel's class (one of the perks of self-employment, if I want to go read to my son's class in the middle of the day I don't have to tell anyone or ask permission, I just go). I asked his teacher if they had talked about "belly draggers" and she hadn't heard the term. I wondered where he got it from but didn't really think about again.

Then the other day he was showing us his yoga poses and he said he was going from downward dog to belly dragger. Hmm, I thought. Sure enough I asked one of the extended care teachers the next day and she said belly dragger was one of their yoga poses.

So on his own, he synthesized dinosaurs and belly draggers and turned them into something that came and stole him away while Mommy was in the bathroom. Imaginative indeed.

(For the record, I wasn't even in the bathroom more than a minute. Those belly draggers are sneaky and fast, apparently!)