Beachy Fun
We made it to the beach house! When we rented a beach house last year, it was not that nice. It had that old lady smell, lots of doilies, dusty fake plants and a hodge-podge of furnishing–clearly a rental place with minimal effort put in.
This time we are staying at a semi-wealthy friend’s house who has totally decorated the place in Pottery Barn. I should have known that if someone can afford two homes, they can afford to do it up right. My friend says she would live here if her husband could make a living at the beach instead of in DC–the townhouse is much nicer than their house in Germantown. It really shows. The place is amazing. Even though it is a townhouse, it feels like a regular house inside. I think the smallest bedroom is the size of our master bedroom.
She has guests constantly, and clearly knows how to accommodate them. Tons of beds, tons of personal little touches meant to make guests feel at home (extras of everything you might need, a guest book to sign, etc). We are totally loving this place and I don’t want to go back to reality.
We stayed in almost all day yesterday. Elsa woke up with a slight fever and diarrhea. We had instructions to contact a doctor immediately if either of those things happened. I can’t believe how serious this whole bug bite turned celluitis is. And of course if any child would get it, it would have to be Elsa. I am just glad it is something treatable. She seems to get all the weird problems, which worries me in a way that I won’t even mention.
By the afternoon she was doing much, much better so we decided to stay on at the beach. This morning she seems 100% recovered. Not a single bit of redness around her eye and everything else is good. Of course we will continue the course of antibiotics, but things are looking much better than yesterday.
Since Elsa couldn’t go anywhere yesterday, I took my chance to go alone to the outlets while Mike held down the fort at the house. I always think the outlets are going to be so great, but they never are. The prices are not cheap. The selection is not that great. This particular outlet mall was really run down and felt kind of ghettoish. I don’t know why I bothered. I did get Erik some school clothes, but they weren’t a great bargain, just practical. He only wants pants with elastic waistbands, preferably in camo. Yes, it hurts the part of me that longs for the day of cute little jeans and snazzy button down shirts, but he is who he is and he is camo and sweats. They are not all that easy to find, so when I see them I snap them up.
We hit the beach today and wore the kids out. The beach here is not like the beach from last summer. That beach was perfect for playing in–extremely shallow and mild. This beach has a big drop-off almost immediately and is pretty rough. Mike got knocked over by a wave and lost his hat and sunglasses. Elsa is still freaking out over it, even though we tried to convince her that a mermaid took them to her treasure chest.
Elsa is my little fish child and was having a ball out in the ocean. She was swimming (with a puddle jumper on) and swirling all around, not needing to cling to Mike for dear life.
Erik insists on wearing a puddle jumper even though I can barely close it on him and he won’t go out into the water. He finally went out and clung on to Mike for dear life. I thought he might take Mike down if there was an emergency and was hoping someone near them would help out (lifeguards go off duty at 5 pm–so strange!). I can’t bring myself to go out there. I would if I had to save the life of one of my family members, but I can’t say I would be particularly useful because the ocean completely terrifies me. I got hit by a wave that went up to my knees and thought I was going to have a panic attack about it touching me that high. People saw a stingray right up near the shore where we were playing! A stingray!
At least the sun, sand and surf wear the kids out. Head meets pillow and it’s light out!
Not sure how much beach time we’ll have tomorrow. There’s an amusement park on the boardwalk in the next town over that is supposed to be super cheap. We’ll go there and see what there is to see.
And with that, I am signing off. The kids aren’t the only ones who are worn out.