Chlorine joy

Photo courtesy of the Big Cooks, who are leaving tomorrow, and will be much missed.

Vacation Report

We're home. We got home at 9 last night, and Dutch slept until 10 this morning (she did wake up at 7:30, flopped out to the kitchen, and asked for a hug - when Cook picked her up, she fell asleep on his shoulder). We're all glad to be home.

We had a great vacation- lots of family and beach time. Dutch had a wonderful time. She now owns a fabulous Barbie life jacket, courtesy of her Granddad. Flying was not so fun, though both kids behaved reasonably well. Skipper screamed bloody murder during the landing on the way home,* and calmed down (somewhat) only when the strange old man across the aisle leaned over and started snapping loudly in her face. This was somewhat invasive and obnoxious, but it worked. Thanks, strange old man!

This was our first air trip with four people, and it was kind of exhausting. It's not easy schlepping two kids, plus all our luggage, and two car seats, to and from the airport by public transit. Also, Skipper was not so thrilled about the beach vacation as her sister - she was clearly bummed out by the breaking of her routine, and all the being-dragged-around. But she was a trooper, and cheerfully kicked the cat in the head when he tried to investigate her.

That's about all I've got to say about that. We're home! And it's not horribly hot! Hooray!



*After we landed, the lady sitting behind us helpfully suggested that it might have helped if I'd given the baby something to suck. Apparently she was the only person on the plane to whom I did not flash my nipples as I desperately tried to get Skipper to nurse.

Vacation Report... the preview!

More later. We just got back.

I'm too sandy for my blog.

I'm on vacation. Maybe I'll post tomorrow, if I've emerged from the vacation daze, and have anything interesting to say. (It's unlikely.) So sandy it hurts.

Cranky at tummy time

Updates

Yesterday evening, when we got home after an afternoon spent out on the town with visiting friends, Dutch was totally cheerful and chatty. She played a board game with Cook, and didn't cry when she lost. She tried repeatedly to pronounce the word "diagonally" and could only manage "diannagonly," which she declared was a "mouth problem, because my mouth is too small." She asked Cook what kind of beer he was drinking, and when he told her it was an IPA, she said enthusiastically "Wow! Did it come all the way from India!"

Anyway, she was cute, and nice (if overwhelmingly talkative), which made me feel bad for all the complaining I've been doing about her. She is, actually, a really nice kid. She's just got a little too much drama in her queeny soul to make her easy for everyday living.

Hey, we're going on vacation! There's a lot to do to get ready! When I said this to Cook, he said, in genuine bafflement, "What is there to do?" This is yet another indication of how different our personalities are. This is what I see to be done - empty trash, do laundry, take out recycling, water plants, pay bills, buy diapers, pack snacks for the trip, clear out fridge, help Dutch put together a bag of stuff to entertain her while we're en route, charge camera battery, buy batteries for the movie camera, follow up on a professional contact, pack clothes, return library books... etc. Cook will throw a bunch of his clothes in a bag five minutes before we leave and call it good. If he was in charge of all the trip preparations, very little of the above list would get done. Which would be fine, but it would drive me crazy.

Last item of interest - Skipper has now officially laughed three times, real little chuckles of glee. We can't figure out a pattern to her sense of humor - once she laughed because I was bouncing her, once because Dutch waved string cheese at her, and once when I was changing her diaper.

Following up...

Yet another reason not to have more kids - fighting climate change one vasectomy at a time!

Oh, Paul.

Thanks for writing this. Too bad the people who need to read it won't.

Okay, now it's less hot.

But it's still really really hot - it'll be 101 degrees today. Skipper probably thinks every day is going to be spent like these last few - nursing a lot and wearing wet washcloths on her head. We missed by one degree beating the all-time record high temperature in Portland yesterday!

However, tonight will get down to a low of 65! Woohoo! And tomorrow may drop below 90 degrees!

Yes, it's boring, but weather forecasts obsess me this week. And I have nothing else to report. Pretty much all I think about is how hot I am, how hot I'm going to be, and how I can cool down. Though Cook and I feel like we're acclimating a bit. We're still miserable, but now it's kind of a normal miserable.

No, really, it's seriously hot.

It's the beginning of our third over-100-degrees-hot day. We survived yesterday by going to lots of air-conditioned places, and then lying around the park in the shade for four hours. (Cook met us there at 5:30, bringing the dinner we'd cooked in the morning). Then we went to the pool for "Family Play Swim" at 7:30 PM. Dutch showed off all her swimming skills, and Cook and I relished the feeling of actually being slightly chilled. Skipper liked the pool, but not so much the splashing of the nine thousand other people who were there.

I looked at myself in the mirror at one of our air-conditioned stops in the morning (Dutch had to pee), and was shocked. I looked like a refugee,* with greasy hair, shadowed eyes,** gnawed-on lips, and a general expression of sweatily miserable resignation.

It's just... so... hot. There was a breeze in the park, but it was a HOT breeze.*** And the nighttime cool-down isn't very cool, so there's very little respite. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, when it's cooling down to 97! Woohoo!


* A fat refugee, perhaps fleeing some sort of molasses-flood-type disaster.

** Not only have Skipper and I both been sleeping poorly in the heat, but Dutch woke up panicky in the middle of the night before last, very upset because she was unable to sleep at all. I explained that she had, in fact, been sleeping solidly for hours. She said "Really?! I'm asleep right now!?"

*** Like the sirocco, except not as fast, or as dusty, or in Africa. But otherwise, very much like a sirocco, which was all I needed to go around whispering the word to myself all evening. Sirrrrrooooooccccoooo....

the hot

It peaked at 102 today, and it's 95 degrees now, at 9 PM. The overnight low will get down to 73, and tomorrow and Thursday are expected to hit 104, with even higher overnight lows.

Tomorrow, we'll be mostly at the park, in the deep shade - it's no fun for me to spend a long time there, because I can't put Skipper down for a nap and get a break from her, but it turns out it's also no fun for me to spend extremely hot days hiding out in our apartment, since everybody gets so hot and miserable. Dutch and I spent part of today arguing over where the fans should go. And it's really hard to get a baby to go to sleep when the air blowing over her is 100 degrees hot. At least she likes fans.