Triumphant Return from Florida (HOL 42)

House of Laughter 42

I have been swarmed with e-mails wanting to know why I hadn’t posted anything in several weeks. (Okay to be honest, my mother in law is the only one who asked, but still it made me feel good.) I didn’t want to write about getting ready to go on vacation because it seems like a really bad idea to post when you are going to be out of town on the internet.

We spent a week in St. Augustine, Florida where you can’t throw a dead cat without hitting a historical marker announcing that you are standing on America’s oldest “fill in the blank” (i.e. schoolhouse, drug store, cider press, Gap, T-shirt shop). Isaac’s first birthday (August 5) was that week and most of the family came up to celebrate with us. Our condo was filled with family and friends, and there was this wonderful chaotic energy during the festivity. There was a great-grandmother, four grands, two aunts, two uncles, five cousins, and four friends we were sharing the house with. There was a way cool pirate cake (Thanks Terri), sand castles, and swimming at the beach and pool.

Isaac is now one year old, and I’m amazed at how much he looks like a real kid and not a little baby. He can walk four or five steps now unassisted. He sings for us. He can mimic some words. He likes to sort things and take them apart. He loves to climb. He loves to sit in his own little rocking chair and rock back and forth.

For those of you who don’t have kids, a lot of hoopla is made about the first words, first steps and such. I haven’t found that to be quite true. For example, I’ll grunt and then Isaac will grunt. The next day, I’ll say “Cow”, and he will say “KAwr!”. So what is the “real” first word? I am fascinated by the process. I love to watch him work and make connections between sounds and ideas.

The same goes for walking. If he is pushing a toy, chair, or the dog around does that count as a “first step”? I’m not obsessing over the milestone, but enjoying the ride.

Back to the vacation for a minute. We rented a condo with our friends the Sassers. I spent a good deal of time with their two boys, especially Adam. We would go out on the back porch and blow bubbles, feed ducks, or, when that got boring, chase ducks. Adam and his brother, Daniel, played full contact games of “King of the Mountain” on piles of sand that Jeff and I dug up. An evening walk on the beach turned to muddy splashing through tide pools for the boys. It only took ten minutes at an ice cream stand until Adam was shirtless and stained red from chin to ankle. In summary, they seemed to enjoy a week at the beach in the full tilt, balls-to-the-wall way that only kids can.

One of my favorite images from the trip is when we went to the Alligator farm. Adam had been obsessing about alligators for months. My in-laws gave us tickets to the St. Augustine Alligator farm, and Adam was excited for days. The highlight of our trip was when Jeff, Lynn and the boys got to hold a real live alligator and have their picture made. The look on Adam’s face when the alligator came out of the box was a uninhibited mix of excitement, joy, and fear.

Nancy and Isaac have both started back to school. I saw a copy of Isaac’s class picture the other day, and he is the only one smiling. I was pretty proud.

I was in the restroom earlier today, and Isaac came into check how I was doing. I was standing with my back to him and didn’t see him come in. When I looked down, he looked me in the eyes with an expression that said “Now how the hell are you doing that?? That is incredible!!”. He then wanted to examine the process more thoroughly by trying to catch some of the mysterious liquid in his hands. I ended up having to shuffle around and pin him to sink with my hips while not making a mess in the bathroom (oh and I was laughing hysterically at the time as well.)

Finally, we lost our wagon. We took it to the beach with us, we are pretty sure we brought it home, but danged if we can find it now. Nancy is convinced it was stolen, I think we left it. It’s driving me nuts because either way we are out a wagon (and it was a nice one with cup holders).

Strength and Honor

Matt