Caroline's first trip to the beach
My sister Michele’s baby Caroline, who had surgery just a couple weeks ago, is doing just fine. She’s happy and gaining weight, two things that couldn’t be said a couple weeks ago.
In fact, she’s not quite two months old, but she’s on her first trip to the beach.
The weekend before I departed for my six week stay in Reno, Brooke, Dylan, Ella and I were supposed to go camping with our Sunday School class, a yearly trip that we have come to enjoy quite a bit. It’s nothing rugged, simply a weekend at a campground with a gaggle of kids and some good friends and good food.
Needless to say, with everything I had going on, we had to bow out. This past weekend was our “make-up” date. Along with 3 1/2 other couples from our class and their kids (20 of us in all), we spent Friday through midday Sunday at the KOA campground in Boone, N.C.
On Friday evening, after everyone got set up and settled in, we all went to eat at the Dan’l Boone Inn. It was pretty good. Kind of like an all-you-can-eat Wade’s. In the same vein, but not as good as the Dillard House. Definitely not on the same level as the Blue Willow Inn.
Dylan got to play nonstop with his friends for two days. And despite a bit of whining, he was pretty good for the most part. He got to play mini golf and swim on Saturday.
On Saturday afternoon, we went with Stuart and his two boys on a short hike, easy enough for 4- and 5-year-olds. We drove to the other side of Boone to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at the Cone Manor House, near Blowing Rock and overlooking Bass Lake. The grounds are home to numerous horse and foot trails. We probably hiked between a mile and two miles. We also saw a couple dozen horseback riders.
Ella was the hit of the camp. Some of the kids wanted to hang around her the whole time. And she was the only one in our tent who had absolutely no trouble sleeping. She got a bruise when Dylan ran into her pack-n-play with a big metal dump truck. But she was a trooper. She even enjoyed the hike from her perch atop the carrier we have that Brooke wore on her back.
After we left Sunday, we stopped by the Mast General Store in Valley Cruces before heading home.
While I didn’t sleep well … a combination of the hard ground, the cool nights and the four of us in a two-person sleeping bag … I’d have gladly stayed another week rather than come back to work and wait to hear who’s going to get laid off.
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Much to my wife’s anguish, in the just longer than five years my son has been alive, I have managed to get him hooked on anything and everything Star Wars. Really, I think she may be upset because at 5, he may have a better grasp on the movies than she does.
Anyway, he asked for anything Star Wars for his birthday. My wife found this cool birthday card with Darth Vader on the front, ad when you open it, it plays the “Imperial March.”
A couple nights ago, as he was winding down, not too long before bedtime, Dylan sat on the floor looking at a Star Wars comic book. But while he turned the pages of the comic book – he can’t read it all yet, so he’s just looking at the pictures – he would open the card beside him on the floor so that the song would play.
Each time the song would play through and finish, he would close the card and open it again, starting the song over.
He kept repeating this, over and over, until he was finished with his comic book, like it was his own little soundtrack.
I read these kinds of stories on the wire all the time at work, and it’s pretty hard to read them and not get upset. In fact, too many nights in a row reading these stories, and it’s hard not to be in a downright depressed mood.
I used to read stories like this, before I had children, and while they were disturbing, I could forget them easily.
But now, as a parent, I can’t. I read them, and I feel sick to my stomach and I want to cry.
If I ever found out someone I knew was hurting a child like this, or someone I didn’t know was hurting a child I knew like this, I’m not sure I’d want to be held responsible for my actions.
Dylan’s birthday party was Thursday afternoon. He had a pool party, along with his cousin, whose birthday is like a week from his.
We’ve gotten into the habit of having their parties together so that family won’t have to make two parties in the same week.
Anyway, he got some cool presents … Star Wars men, A Yoda T-shirt, Spider Man walkie talkies, a LeapFrog reading pad thingy, etc. Thanks to all who are helping us spoil him.
One thing he didn’t get … AAA batteries.
Big mistake.
He spent a good part of Friday afternoon broken-hearted because, while I was home with him before I went to work, he wanted me to show him how to use his walkie talkies and his LeapFrog thingy.
No batteries, so no dice. I had no car, so I couldn’t take him to get some. I told him, we’ll simply have to wait. Try that with your 5-year-old.
I don’t blame the people that gave him the gifts. Batteries are expensive, and when you’re picking out the gifts, it’s easy for batteries to slip your mind.
But when your 5-year-old simply doesn’t understand that Daddy doesn’t have the batteries to put in his new favorite toy, it doesn’t matter why you don’t have them.
So I’m making a resolution that from now on, any gift buying I’m involved in will include buying batteries for whatever I get for whichever kid I’m getting it for.
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