I slept with the girls again while Nathaniel camped in the tent and it didn’t go super well. Sonja spent about an hour pooping, cheerfully. Then Maddie puked and puked and puked. She didn’t want to puke in the toilet but she puked everywhere else. Poor little muffin. Too much Easter.
We had breakfast with Uncle Pete at Clock, which I highly don’t recommend. Then we headed to the ocean! Finally! After months of waiting and all of Maddie’s anticipation, undaunted by Benjamin’s warnings against going in because of sharks, we were actually headed to the ocean! When we stopped and Maddie asked (as she always did whether we were stopping for gas or a pee break), “Go swim in the ocean?” we could say, “Yes!” Only, on the way there, she puked again. A terrible spewing puke that went everywhere, all over herself and Sonja and their car seats and clothes and hair and special blanket and scared the bejesus out of Maddie. She was tied into her car seat and it was just too sad. Nathaniel got us off the road immediately and we stripped her down and cleaned her and settled her down and tried our best with the car seats and Sonja and wondered if we should cancel the ocean. It was so unfair! We decided to keep driving to Tampa and see how things went. She dropped off to sleep once we were on the road again.
Maddie with her puke bucket and Sonja's blanket since hers was a biological hazard
We got most of the way to Clearwater Beach before she woke up and started telling us her belly hurt. We stopped and let her have some fresh air and did this many times before we caught up to my parents, who were waiting for us near the shore. Sonja had exploded a poop all over herself and we were all a little ragged by then but we sucked it up and soldiered on. My parents helped up change the girls and Nana took Maddie down to the water while I fed Sonja in the car. I missed it, but Nathaniel said that he took Maddie into the ocean and she just hated it. She had gobs of suntan lotion and sand running into her eyes and snot coming out her nose and the waves just overwhelmed her and she said, “Out of the ocean, please. Out of the ocean, Daddy.” Nathaniel said it was just too sad.
He brought her back to the beach and she ran up to our blanket behind the lifeguard station and wanted Nathaniel to come too. But he sat in the sand and started making a seat for Sonja in a little pool of water and told Maddie that he was going to stay near the water. And he said that he could see her decide, right there, to have a good time. And to enjoy the damn ocean, in spite of everything. So she came back and played in the sand and her eye didn’t stop crying and her nose didn’t stop running and I’m sure her little belly still felt crappy but she had a good time at the ocean.
Maddie, making the best of it and loving the ocean!
We put Sonja in the pool of water and she sat up! All by herself and for a long, long time! We now have a sitting up baby! Maddie helped bring her water and build a little fortress around her and she even went out into the ocean to bring back endless pails of water like a little sorcerer’s apprentice. Way to go, little trooper!
She really did like it until I took a picture! I swear!
When we were oceaned out, we rinsed off and de-sanded as much as was humanly possible (the white sand was so fine that it didn’t even grit in your teeth like regular sand does. It got everywhere. It got into my dad’s closed car trunk. I forgot how much sand is a part of the ocean experience.) We hit the road and drove to Ruth Ann’s house in Tampa for dinner with her family and Uncle Walt and Aunt Claire. It was so nice to see everyone and they fed us a delicious, laid-back meal. I was so tired. I hope I was sociable. It was nice to be with some Meuniers! I love having such a large, generous family!
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