In a nut..er..seashell...

It was not my children who repeatedly ran cars on glass tables, banged on glass tables, played with light switches, flushed the toilet, turned the tv on and off, ran through and hid behind the vertical blinds, wandered away from our shady spot on the beach, ran away from us in the aquarium, dumped sand on his brother, got sand all over me, knocked down sand castles that weren't finished, screamed at his brother, whined about being in the car, were loud and obnoxious at restaurants, ran around the pool, hit or bit his brother or fought sleep like they were fighting a war.

It was, however, my first child who ate like a champ, jumped in the pool over and over again (when he wouldn't put his face in the water three months ago), sort of learned how to boogie board, enjoyed tumbling in the waves, ate a strawberry ice cream cone with no drips on his clothing, read books with his brother, held my hand walking on the beach because he wanted to, was curious about sea turtle nests, was too scared to sit in front of the alligator exhibit and didn't want to leave the beach.

And it was, however, my second child who drank from a glass tumbler without spilling (much), liked to "jump like mermaid do" in waves, tried to pop the bubbles of the sea foam, fell asleep on Daddy's shoulder walking back from fireworks on the beach, learned that the object of mini golf is to put the ball in the hole, got more interested in peeing in the potty (but never actually did), patiently hung out in the stroller as we walked to the boardwalk and talked the whole way, hung on my back as I swam or jumped around in the pool, loved seeing all the sea creatures at the aquarium and touching some, wanted to go to "ocean 'gain?", was full of curiosity and questions and was ready to come home.

And us, well, we tortured our children and each other with cold spray sunscreen 3-4 times a day and didn't get burnt except at mini golf, learned how difficult it was to de-sand two adults and two children when returning from the beach, watched the boys discover sand, waves, seashells, mole crabs and coquina, tried to be good and cook dinner (but still had two dinners and a lunch out), unpacked everything as soon as we got there, snuggled with our boys watching the fireworks on the beach, had quite a mini golf fiasco in which we grumbled and fussed but now laugh about, tried our best to take care of Cathy's condo, treated the boys to ice cream twice, enjoyed seeing old friends, had the best day of boogie boarding ever (Mark, not me), enjoyed sitting sometimes and just doing nothing, got competitive playing Dots, slept horribly with the spotlight from the pool shining into our room and are glad to be home.

So I hope this will work! Here's the link for my picture and video slideshow. I really wish I could have added captions. The two videos at the end were taken on Saturday morning, just after high tide, with Hurricane Bill hundreds of miles off the coast. The waves and rip current were too much for me, but man, the surfers sure did love it!

This was my contribution to MckMama's Not My Child! Monday blog carnival. You can head over to her site to see what her children and other people's children have not been doing!