A Week of Adventure

On Friday Hayden and I went down to Marblehead for the 4th of July with mom. Brian stayed back to work on Operation We're Not the Clampets: Stage 2, The Pool. It's going pretty well now, but I did make the decision not to come home until there was water in the pool, because looking at a mud pit in the backyard was just getting to be too much for me.

I wasn't sure about taking Hayden to see fireworks. I figured, best case scenario, she'd sleep through them. Worst case, she wouldn't. And that could be unpleasant for everyone else trying to enjoy their evening. But, in the afternoon we went for a walk to Fort Sewall while Hayden napped in the stroller. While we were there, they set off a cannon. My kiddo slept through it. The decision was made then....fireworks it is.

We went down to the beach at about 8pm, and Hayden had a bottle and hung out people watching in her stroller. When the fireworks started, she was so busy looking at a baby nearby that she didn't even look up. I finally got her attention, and she watched for a minute, and then she became obsessed with another kid. It wasn't until the fireworks really got going that she got interested. She reached over for me to pick her up, and I held her in my lap while she watched. She LOVED them. Her eyes were wide, and she kept looking over at me as if to say, "can you believe this?!" She was fantastic. She snuggled in and watched the whole show, even the finale, without so much as a squirm. She was transfixed. As soon as it was over, I put her back in her stroller and she was out. She slept till 7:30 the next morning. :)

We stayed in Marblehead for a few days for the Festival of Arts. It was fun, but I've realized that my ability to handle large crowds is really compromised with a stroller. I just don't enjoy the navigation, the curbs, avoiding people's ankles. I mean, I'll do it, but I found that I really just wanted to hang out in the park on a blanket listening to music. That's much more my speed these days.

On Saturday night we went to my cousin's house for a lobster bake. Hayden got to see her first live lobster out of the tank. She thought it was pretty cool. What she really liked was her cousins' playroom with all kinds of cool kid toys. She played and hung out till I put her down in her pack-n-play to bed, so I could enjoy a kidless lobster dinner.

On Monday morning, the Cub and I drove down to the Cape to see my friend Mara, who was staying down in Chatham with her extended family. HUGE house just minutes from the beach. It was glorious. Again, I wasn't sure how Hayden would handle it all, but she did great. She loved the beach, and I loved seeing her loving the beach. The best thing about it all? She's back to her pacifier (long story short: She gave it up at about 4 months, but is obsessed with it again now that she's teething.) I hated the idea until the past few days, but now I'm loving it, at least for the beach. She had her pacifier in her mouth the whole time, so I didn't have to worry about sand, shells, seaweed, or anything else being popped in there. So, she played in the sand and loved it, and I was able to relax a bit. The ocean was a tough sell at first, but once she realized the waves weren't going to kill her, she was all over it. She liked sitting at the edge of the water anticipating when the next wave would touch her toes. Of course, we did have those rogue waves that knocked her a bit, but I was there to lift her up as they came, so it wasn't bad. Then, we headed off to a little tidal pool by the dunes, and that was a huge hit. She could sit in the bath temperature water playing with seaweed, and neither of us had to worry about waves. What did scare her? An enormous inflatable dolphin toy. Terrified her! She was not okay with that at all. But the rest of it went over well.

Yesterday morning she got up at 6am, and I took her outside to play so nobody else would wake up. We played till 8am, when Hayden was ready for her nap. The rest of the house was still asleep when I put her down. She napped for another hour and I sat outside with my coffee and a book. Now that's a vacation. That one hour was just blissful. And, later when we went to the beach, Mara watched her for a while while I went swimming. Pure heaven.

Hayden was so wiped out from the trip that she slept until almost 8:30 this morning. That's so late we both woke up in a panic wondering if she was alright. Now she's out for her second 2 hour+ nap of the day, and Brian is putting water in the pool. I'm so glad that project is almost done. The yard is still a wreck, but at least we have the pool back. The rest will just have to wait.