Beach house musings
We're back from our annual beach vacation. It was fun if exhausting, for all of us. My family members were their usual selves...we could politely call it "boisterous," or less politely "irritating and loud," or we could just say what I usually say, which is that being with them resembles being stranded in an episode of The Muppet Show. For poor Brennan, who is used to our apartment with a grand total of three humans and four guinea pigs, it must have often seemed like a nightmare carnival scene from a bad scary movie. The first night he started to cry from overstimulation, and I tried to move him somewhere quiet. I turn one way, and Uncle Richard is jangling a toy at him and saying "come on baby." I turn another way and my half-deaf-half-blind grandmother is loudly and enthusiasticly misinterpreting his crying as some sort of beautiful baby babble. I turn again, and my drunken grandfather is trying to make a joke out of dipping his finger into his Manhattan and shoving it toward my son's mouth. Another turn, and Uncle Frank is turning the television up and complaining about not being able to hear it and not having any more of the right kind of potato chips. Another turn, and my mother is obsessivly asking me if this or that will help: a drink of iced tea for me, a pillow, a blanket, warmer clothes for Brennan, lighter clothes for Brennan, yadda yadda yadda. Brennan reached Uber-critical fuss and it became Time To Go (thank GOD they rented us a second house on the bayside where it was quiet), but my mother didn't stop; "do you need this at your place? Do you have toilet paper? What about this bag, is this yours? Do you want me to bring this over? Should I go to the store?" And remember, on top of all that was the constant aircraft-engine yell Brennan makes when he has truly and completely lost it. I thought my head would explode.
Fortunately we got better at navigating the whole situation by the next day, and managed to avoid any further incidents of Uber-critical fuss, although we had a few Less Critical Fuss moments. Blair and Brennan and I spent a lot of time as our own little nuclear unit in my parents' bedroom at the oceanside house, some of us sleeping and some of us reading. Brennan's first encounter with the sand and the sea was nothing less than magical for me, once we finally got there. I'll never forget the sight of his little round toes curling tentatively into the wet sand under a puddle of ocean that had washed up over a little hump of sand. His favorite part was the dry sand, which was apparently fun to kick. He had a special bucket that my mother bought specifically for him to play in with water; we ended up using it on the porch of the ocean side house twice, but never with ocean water because he never stayed content on the beach long enough. It was a good thing in the end, because the jellyfish were pretty unrelenting this year. After he got used to the noise and the number of people (and after a quick call to the pediatrician and a run to Happy Harry's took care of a very un-fun digestive issue that I won't get into) Brennan started to enjoy the attention and giggled quite a lot. We were visited by Tig with her boys Nick & Alex, who got thoroughly sandy and gross and happy. Later in the week JoAnn came with a bevy of family, including her little girl Eliana. Eliana and Brennan were greatly amused by each other in a wonderfully photogenic way. On the more adult side of things I got to see my Kim and my Jen Beall and my Francie, all of which I needed. A lot. Blair was far more socially isolated but dealt with it heroically and did a lot to help me have a great time. Now that we're back I fear we're going to face a whole new round of sleep-related issues with Brennan, as naptimes have been somewhat of a battle lately. Blah. But it was good at the beach, I'm glad we went. Here's a link to the pictures I took. I went a little nuts.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/nsechler/album?.dir=b9bbre2&.src=ph
Fortunately we got better at navigating the whole situation by the next day, and managed to avoid any further incidents of Uber-critical fuss, although we had a few Less Critical Fuss moments. Blair and Brennan and I spent a lot of time as our own little nuclear unit in my parents' bedroom at the oceanside house, some of us sleeping and some of us reading. Brennan's first encounter with the sand and the sea was nothing less than magical for me, once we finally got there. I'll never forget the sight of his little round toes curling tentatively into the wet sand under a puddle of ocean that had washed up over a little hump of sand. His favorite part was the dry sand, which was apparently fun to kick. He had a special bucket that my mother bought specifically for him to play in with water; we ended up using it on the porch of the ocean side house twice, but never with ocean water because he never stayed content on the beach long enough. It was a good thing in the end, because the jellyfish were pretty unrelenting this year. After he got used to the noise and the number of people (and after a quick call to the pediatrician and a run to Happy Harry's took care of a very un-fun digestive issue that I won't get into) Brennan started to enjoy the attention and giggled quite a lot. We were visited by Tig with her boys Nick & Alex, who got thoroughly sandy and gross and happy. Later in the week JoAnn came with a bevy of family, including her little girl Eliana. Eliana and Brennan were greatly amused by each other in a wonderfully photogenic way. On the more adult side of things I got to see my Kim and my Jen Beall and my Francie, all of which I needed. A lot. Blair was far more socially isolated but dealt with it heroically and did a lot to help me have a great time. Now that we're back I fear we're going to face a whole new round of sleep-related issues with Brennan, as naptimes have been somewhat of a battle lately. Blah. But it was good at the beach, I'm glad we went. Here's a link to the pictures I took. I went a little nuts.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/nsechler/album?.dir=b9bbre2&.src=ph