Brilliant at being casual

I wish I had something brilliant to say.  I wish you could visit here every day and see something that makes your day, something you never thought of before, something that helps you see things in a new light or put a great meal on the table or decorate a room for $100.  I wish I could do that for my readers.

I read a lot of blogs, and the ones I seem to visit over and over again are the ones that do something for me: they entertain, enlighten, or provide information.  Think about the blogs or sites you read and you'll probably come up with the same answer.

As for me and my blog?  We seem to just exist for each other and no other reason.  The blog...it's just been sitting on a shelf for a long time unattended...waiting for me to bring it down and fluff it up a bit.  I don't have a list of subjects waiting to be researched, or a stack of innovative (and yet inexpensive and kid-friendly!) recipes waiting to be posted every Thursday, or a list of valuable websites you've never heard of but can't live without.  I don't even have any decent pics to put up here, since a lot of them are already on Facebook and I feel like I'd be cheating to post them here, too.

I can go on and on about what I don't have (forgot to mention side bar links that work).  I could do a post every day about what this blog isn't.

But I'll spare you all that.  Fact is, this blog is my casual friend who is there for me when the mood strikes, which isn't often.  Maybe we'll step it up when school starts and the boys are gone...sniff...every day for six hours.  Maybe I'll get more intense about my writing.  Maybe I'll actually look up a source for a post.  Or take more than 20 minutes from "new post" to "publish."

Until then, it's casual and hit or miss and sometimes posting.

And me and my blog...we're happy that way.

Last day on the beach

It's our last morning here in Panama City Beach, and yes, I made time to write.  How is that possible, you might wonder, when we have a plane to catch and our belongings are strewn all over the condo like they own the place?

I'll tell you how: because the sun in the Florida panhandle RISES at 5:45 in the freaking morning, that's how.  And our bedroom window faces directly into it.

So here we go, things I know I'll be remembering about our trip:

1.  "DAD, get in the FUN!"  Uttered by Carson as we crept along in traffic on Front Beach Road.  Seems people feel the need to toot their car horns or moped horns or whatever they're driving, just for the heck of it.  So Dwayne obliged by honking the horn of our very hip Impala.

2.  "Swooooshhhh!"  The sound of Dwayne's Oakley sunglasses being sucked off his face by a gigantic rogue wave and pummeled to the bottom of the sea never to be seen again.  The only thing not really true about that statement is the "gigantic rogue" part.

3.  "Mom, can we live in Florida?"  From Cooper, who would be happy to live anywhere they have an arcade on site.

4. "Where are my sticky hands?!"  "Stop slinging the sticky hands!!"  "The sticky hands made a mark on the ceiling."  Some idiot decided that a hand-shaped piece of rubber with a long tail on it would be a fun toy.  And let's make it STICKY so it leaves little residue on surfaces.  And really flexible so kids can twirl it around in big circles for long periods of time.  And then let's roll it up and put it in vending machine bubbles in arcades at big resorts.  I would like to punch this idiot.

5.  "Mom, let's go down to the beach..."  I think I've dreamed of hearing those words for many, many years.  Watching the boys fall in love the sand and surf and "get in the fun" was by far the greatest part of our vacation.  I hope they nag their dad every day until next summer to bring them here again.

Many other things come to mind, but for now I have to go wake up two exhausted boys.

Make that three.

Beachin' dude!

If we left Panama City Beach today and went home, it would still be a perfect vacation.  It's as if rains planned their daily schedule to fit ours, the boys have been agreeable with anything we're doing*, and the Fourth of July fireworks were the icing on the cake yesterday.

Oh, and a milestone for Coop: he sat through an entire theater movie today during one of our rainstorms.  We all went to see Toy Story 3...what an amazing and fun and sweet movie.  Pixar...just when I think I've seen a great film from them ("Up") they outdo themselves again.

One thing's for sure: when school starts and my boys have to get up at 7:00 IN THE MORNING, they're going to think it's the middle of the night.  Every night they stay up as late as we do and every morning they sleep in until 9:30.

We're staying at a resort for families, without a doubt.  There's a giantic shaded water playground and lots of 3 ft. deep pool areas.  And for the last four years I've moaned and groaned about how I've missed the beach and wanted to bring the boys even when they were small, since I knew they would love the beach and everything about it.  But now...they're four and six and I am SO glad they're not two and three while we're here.  Yes, they'd have enjoyed it, yes, they'd love the sand and pools...but Dwayne and I?  We'd be exhausted chasing them all over the place.  And still in the throes of their unpredictable potty behavior.  And for all our hard work our boys wouldn't have any real memories of the trip.  I have a feeling I'd have spent a lot of time here in the condo doing the same things we do at home.  Now, they've got enough stamina for about three hours on the beach, which about matches mine and Dwayne's.  I think waiting until they were a little older was the best way for all of us to bring back happy and relaxed memories of this trip.

Oh, and the Fourth of July fireworks were awesome.  We had a pretty good view of the official show at Pier Park down the beach a ways, and plenty of folks, including Dwayne and Carson, were down on the beach shooting off their own.

I spent the evening in the condo with Cooper, who is still terrified of anything that pops or threatens to pop.  I bought him earplugs thinking that would help, but he spent most of the time with his hands clapped over his ears.  And when I'd go out on the balcony to see the fireworks, he'd say "CLOSE THE DOOR!!" as if roman candles were being shot directly at us.  By the end of the evening I had him convinced that sparklers were not evil, and he said he might be willing to try one of those tonight.  We'll see...


* However, if I hear "I wanna go to the arrrcaaade..." one more time I believe I'll scream.

Mornin' ya'll

Could it be?  Could I be awaking from my blogging slumber?  Seems the mood has struck me this morning for a little writing.  Aw, I don't know, could be the vacation we're on in Panama City Beach, FL.  The sound of the waves on hitting the shore outside my condo door has that effect on me.

We got here yesterday after flying most of the day.  I called it the boys' first flight; Carson likes to point out it's his THIRD flight, but that he gets to remember this one.  Frankly, I'm the one who needs to forget flying with him when he was 15 months old...

Anyway, our flights were uneventful and the boys were good little traveling buddies.  Of course, they'd loaded their backpacks with all kinds of stuff, but they were happy to watch out the window a lot of the time.  And Cooper's enthralled these days with "tootsie putty," so we spent most of our layover in Memphis watching it bounce all over the airtport.

And for the parenting dilemma of the day, by the way, can I just say Dwayne and I are beyond frustrated with Coop's inability to keep his freaking hands off things?  Every store we go to, every vehicle we're in, every restaurant...he must be touching everything, punching buttons willy-nilly, flipping switches or levers, or stacking and sorting stuff.  So while we waited on our flight I decided to frustrate myself even more and walk them through an Elvis-inspired gift shop in the airport, and he's touching everything in sight (must get that boy a guitar) and he becomes intrigued with a box of mints shaped like a guitar.  Pretty soon the mints come open and fly all over the floor, kind of like one of those surprise snakes out of a can.  So I got on to him maybe a little too harshly and I must have hurt his feelings because then he burst into tears, in the middle of the puddle of mints.  I tried to pay for it but the clerk mumbled something like "damage it out" and I thanked her and swooped my traumatized son outta there.

Thing is, even with my telling him "keep your hands to yourself," a million times a day, he doesn't seem to remember that advice when I need him to the most...

Never a vacation for being a parent I suppose.

So this morning I got up at a crazy hour for being on vacation but I got to step out onto the balcony and witness sunlight here...it's supposed to be rainy for the next day or so.  And the sound of the waves...I could just listen to that forever.  And all three of my boys are still asleep so it is extra peaceful around here. 

But come to think of it, it's gonna be peaceful when they all wake up, too.