In Sum

We’re back! Patrick and I are comfortably sunburned, just enough to feel like we spent some time in the sun. Not to rat him out or anything (okay, it actually is) but the only place I burned was on my back where Patrick was supposed to spray the sun block. He only burned on the front, where he sprayed himself. Just sayin’. I am proud to report that Colin did not get any sunburn at all, save for a little stripe around his left eye that has such perfect edges that it is abundantly clear that I just didn’t rub in the goop well enough. Guilty, here.

Colin developed a love-hate relationship with the water over the course of our time in Destin. Each morning, he would run – RUN – to the glass doors of the balcony, press his snotty nose against them, and scream “WAWER!” as if he’d never seen anything so thrilling. Upon arriving at the beach and seeing the ocean in person, he would repeat the proclamation with equal if not greater excitement. Touching the water, however, or god forbid, being in the water was another matter entirely. In that case, he kept up a constant running dialogue of “out out out OUT! Ahdone. Out? Out. Up? Up up up out ahdone out.” He tried different tones, seeing what worked. “OOOOOOOUT!!!!!!” would garner giggles from us while the meeker “out?” would make us coo at him. His “ahdone” (all done) statements would usually work, seeing as there isn’t a good way out of that one from our side other than the ol’ “you will enjoy this, young man, do you understand me?” routine.

Overall, he had a great time on the beach and I’m so glad that this latest kid-sickness waited just long enough for us to have an uninterrupted vacation together. The last night, Patrick and I put Colin to bed and polished off the beer and wine out on the balcony. We watched the moon rise and work its way across the sky. We talked about the whoknowswhat that you do. Colin. The ocean. How much the dogs would love the beach. Our first grown-up, stay in the master suite vacation had been a huge success and we thought forward to trips our little family will take together in the future. Maybe we’ll try the mountains next time, or Europe, or the Pacific Northwest. We sat on the balcony, the breeze keeping the sweat from our faces, and realized why people take vacations every chance they get. Getting away from it all is the place to be.

Now that we’re back, it feels a little like we never left, actually. I’ve been trying to catch up on the zillion emails that pile up while you are away as well as tie up/get going on school stuff. I have a research paper to get started on and need to learn to tie surgical knots in the next few days. I still need to pay my summer tuition, go to the bank, get my haircut, and I briefly considered painting the living room but probably won’t get to that.

Colin is sick again, so we were off to the doctor this morning and now we’re watching Cars for the second time today. He is snuggled into my chest with his thumb and his blanket, popping up from his sick-stupor only when Mater or Mack come on the screen, at which point he runs over to the TV and shout “CHRAH!” (truck). Then he wavers a little where he is standing and wisely stumbles back over to my lap.

He is currently experiencing that anomaly referred to as the “language explosion” and we find that nearly everything we say in his presence is mocked in a weird, consonant-lacking falsetto. He is clearly trying to communicate with you and becomes understandably frustrated when you don’t get what he’s saying. However, his words are not always the clearest to us, so, for example, the words ball, book, boat, bite, and bag all sound like “Ba!” and context clues become critically important. Or the fact that he talks about his “Daddeeeeee” all day long but doesn’t refer to me as anything in particular. The word “Ma-ma”, or, more specifically, “ma-mai” or “ma-met”, are called out in desperate reference to his all-important blanket. THE BLANKET. I tried in earnest to teach him the difference between his real Mama (meaning me) and the Blanket over the last few days, even resorting to repeating “bankie” over and over, but with no results other than growls from me and peals of laughter from him. My only consolation is that another of his mix-ups is “daddy” for his cookies.

In sum, vacation was fun, Colin is the Best Kid Ever, and I’m ready to be a fourth year.