We haven’t been to the beach in three years. So, the Toddler had never seen it and the Preschooler didn’t remember it.
The floppy-hat-wearing girls immediately adapted to beach mode. But, some of us had something of a rough start to the week. Within twelve hours of our arrival, I fell down half a flight of wood stairs.
My humbling injury aside, on our first night here the Toddler came down with a fever and a seal-like cough that landed us at an interesting urgent care clinic. {Apparently our children have some sort of mutual agreement to only ever get sick on weekends, holidays, or trips. Truly, their medical charts support my theory}. We finally located a clinic in a strip mall where a retired military “doctor” with a pistol on his belt escorted us to an exam room with a full-body skeleton and all sorts of other eclectic medical-themed decor. After he drew a very involved pencil drawing of the Toddler {and her hair} to illustrate her diagnosis, he tried to sell us on the wonders of a special product he claimed is better than hand sanitizer. So much better, he said, “you only have to put it on first thing in the morning and not even worry about washing your hands the rest of the day.” As if we didn’t already have some concerns about the whole situation, the tidbit about his sanitation practices was a little unsettling.
Fortunately, many naps and a few doses of Prednisone later, the Toddler is feeling better. In fact, she’s well enough now to enjoy her private tent on the beach where she camps out, eats snacks, and occasionally pops out to make a request or work on her ocean water experiments.
She thinks the beach is fine, but she’s far more interested in riding the golf cart {or as she calls it, the “golf tart”} there and back. If it were possible, she’d be content to fly around in the “tart” all day. I think it’s the combination of speed and lack of restraint that she most enjoys.
And, speaking of speed… It’s very hard to gain any on one of these surrey contraptions. We went approximately one mile {round trip} in 40 minutes. But, it was a nostalgic mode of transportation for the morning. And a much safer mode than a sock-footed ride down the stairs.
Leave a Reply