La Paix de Smith

That’s right…Cosby did it. On his most recent-most conscious- visit to the beach, he ate the sand.  Every baby eats the sand and every adult waits for them to do it.  It’s something of a right of passage into further babydom or something.  Quite honestly I wasn’t to keen on the idea.  Out of six adults standing around Cosby, I was the only one who seemed to want to skip of this right of passage

“Oh Look! Cosby’s eating sand”  “Yum, Is that good Cosby?” “Some one get that sand out of his mouth please!”  “Oh! He’s eating more!“  Please stop letting him eat sand!” “He really likes it!“  “This is ridiculous! Cosby NO!”

As much fun as vacation is, it’s hard work with a baby.  All the driving time, the un-taken naps, the late nights.  In our total driving time, we had a crying or fussing baby at least 75% of the time.

With the complaining out of the way, we had a WONDERFUL time.  We took down with us our friends Drew and Emily and their baby Poppy, who is 2 weeks older than Cosby (and much more advanced…long flowing hair, walking, 8 teeth and jabbering like a wallstreeter).  Cosby loved the water, it’s not seeming that he has his mommy’s fear of H2O.  We spent a lot of time just floating in the ocean and the pool.  Our first night there, we ate at a restaurant called the Mellow Mushroom and Cosby drew his first picture with crayons, it looked something like a Van Gough and later that night we went to Barefoot Landing and he saw his first fireworks.  

The beach was quite a milestone marker, and way to short a trip.  I can’t wait to go back!

In preparation for our trip to the beach, I shaved my face tonight.  I was trying to avoid what I have affectionately come to call an “academician’s tan.” (I’d show you, but Karly dropped our camera in the pool.) I felt sad as I shaved—partly because I always feel sad when I shave my beard, like my computer just crashed and I lost months of hard work, or like an amputee who has just lost part of herself, (except that my beard will grow back, so maybe it’s a little more like a lizard that just had part of its tail cut off).  But more than that I felt sad because the last time I shaved my beard—in preparation for our last beech trip—Cosby didn’t recognize me. When I went in his room the next morning to get him up, instead of his typical grunts and ear-to-ear smile, he just looked at me with mild suspicion—the way you look at someone you know you recognize but can’t figure out from where—and then he cried. It broke my heart. I couldn’t stand the thought that he was scared of this stranger breaking into his room, or that he thought dada left and mama was already shacking up with some young, sexy, beardless guy. I almost cried. No doubt it’s the way Christ must feel when we fail to recognize him in the strange face of the homeless, the sex-offender, or the Iraqi. Fortunately, Cosby caught on in about fifteen minutes. Or else, he still thinks he has a new dada and has just come to terms with it.

Joe, my sister and I decided this evening we all needed some McDonald’s frozen treats.  Why anyone ever decides they “need” McDonald’s is beyond me.  I don’t think I’ve ever finished eating something from there and thought “Man, I feel great about myself now!”  Anyways, we get up to the ordering box and Mackenzie gets a McFlurry, Joe gets a hot-fudge sundae and I get a half hot-fudge/half caramel sundae, which by the way was  the opposite of hot.  After my order is mentioned the guy tells us to hold on and then a few seconds later a little +40 cents comes up on our menu… “hey Mr, Manager… We’ve got an issue at the drive-thru, this lady wants half and half and I’ve only gotta whole, wudda I do?!”.  I’m sure this is what he said during those few seconds of silence.  Now I ask myself  “Why am I getting charged 40 extra cents when I could get a hot fudge sundae for a dollar and I can get a caramel sundae for a dollar and I’m just asking for half of each.  That should be 50 cents and 50 cents….equaling a dollar.” But whatever,  my sister was paying.

So we get to the 1st window and what do my eyes behold…a sign that says “Ask us about our fun times.  It’s free!”  Gandhi on high, I thought, this is my lucky day.  I thought for sure that this meant that the drive-thru worker was going to take the 40 cents off, maybe even give us our whole order for free if we just mentioned the fun times sign!!!  “Joe, Joe,” I say “ask him about the fun times! Please, just ask him!”  Joe then reluctantly asks “Sir, can you tell me about your fun times?”  The worker replies…”Uhhh, ya want one?  Itsa kids magazine.” “WHAT?” I shriek “That’s what they call fun times? Eating horse dung sounds  better than their idea of fun times!!” (I didn’t really say that last thing, that was just an embellishment, but it is true that their idea of fun was slightly different than mine).

Needless to say, we got our frozen treats and ate them all.  Now  I feel disgusting (I’m slightly lactose-intolerant) and schisted for eating low quality food at an extra 40 Cents.  Moral of the story….Just don’t go to McDonald’s,show the world that you have a high standard of fun.  And when you think you “need” McDonald’s, remember that you don’t and think back to the last time they schisted you because, come on now, we all have a story.

Today I had the wonderful privileged of watching my friends baby, Maicey, for the day.  She’s almost exactly 3 months older than Cosby. They’re old enough now to where they can interact with each other and it is so darn cute!  The shared a spoon to suck on, stacking blocks and even shared a cracker.  If you want a picture of the Acts church’s’ “sharing everything they had,” then there you go! An interesting thing I’ve discovered today…I know babies are cute, you know babies are cute, and it even seems that babies know babies are cute.  I guess that explains why Cosby’s favorite thing to look at in the house is a picture of himself!

I thought a long time ago that having twins would be horrible, but today proved it to not be so bad, although… we had a few accidents.  I decided that I was going to get them both ready and put them in the baby pool together, because what’s cuter than 1 baby in a baby pool?…2 babies in a baby pool.  So I got them all lathered in sunscreen and put their swimming costumes on and we were ready to go. ( The thing that I have found most difficult about have 2 babies at once is the whole carrying thing. ) With both babies on my hips and my camera in my hands we went out to the kiddie pool and I proudly plopped them the water and oops, my camera went for a swim too.  I got it out and shook it off (although, after a traumatic experience like that, I don’t think it it will ever be the same) and tried to take some pictures of the cute babies- look below for the results.  After the camera incident we had another little “accident”… that’s right, some baby got a little stool in the pool.  So we had drain the pool, and to their dismay, fill it with much colder water from the hose.

All in all, today was a wonderful day and it’s not even over yet.  As I write this, both babies  are all tuckered out and asleep after a long 30 minutes of some serious splashing.  Now I’m listening to the bird chirp outside my window and wondering if maybe I should be napping too.