I just came home from a week-long vacation on the Connecticut shore, a first for me — not only visiting that part of the state, but vacationing with all three of my children (at least since they were really children), and all three of my grandchildren, in one house — plus, for one evening, my ex-husband and his wife, who took us all to dinner at a fancy restaurant on the harbor. It was an interesting experience, sometimes trying, but often wonderful, and always intense.
First, the annoyances:
The mosquitos, which were so bad that we couldn’t sit on the deck and the children couldn’t play outside — disappointing because we had envisioned these as being some of the perks of renting a country house. Then my son’s flight back to Georgia was canceled because of storms, so after driving hours to Newark, he had to get to LaGuardia for a flight seven hours later, which was then delayed hours more. And on the last night, when the others had left and my daughter and I were alone in the house with my two young grandchildren, one of them, Madeline, slipped in the shower (I think she was dancing, and the floor had no mat), and split open a gaping wound under her chin. My daughter had to make a quick decision whether to take her to an emergency room. It was a stressful judgement call, since we feared they would wait for a long time and it might be stitched unnecessarily. The child was understandably hysterical with fear. I was impressed with my daughter’s cool: she IM’d a friend of hers in another state whose husband is an emergency room doctor, and he recommended a butterfly bandage rather than the ER. She found an open pharmacy and got the right bandage, and the next day, when she took her child to her pediatrician in NYC, her doctor affirmed that she had done the right thing.
Then there was the good stuff:
Madeline, age eight, carrying her tiny cousin, age 14 months, and his learning her name, which came out “Maa”, calling out exuberantly whenever he saw her (he’s an exuberant baby by nature). All of us laughing at the antics of Baby Oscar, and our delight in his burgeoning vocabulary of new words and animal sounds. The children playing at the beach, where we stayed for five or six hours one day — Madeline quickly connected with new friends in the water (she’s the social child in her family) and Liam, just turned five, contentedly did all kinds of things with sand and water, so my daughter and I actually got a chance to talk, something we don’t often find time to do when the kids are there. After the beach, we went to a terrific cafe with tables right on the harbor and I ate a warm lobster roll and homemade cookies while the children admired a beautiful swan that hung around in the water near our table, probably hoping for some lobster roll or cookies.
My favorite routine was waking up when the little ones got up in the morning, feeding them breakfast while my daughter slept, then walking with them while they scootered the half mile to town. Got the New York Times in the market, and deposited them in the very friendly bookstore next to the market, where Madeline read to Liam and they browsed books for a half hour or so. Meanwhile I picked up coffee and a pastry from the neat little bakery right next door, and read the paper on a bench outside. Then I met them in the bookstore, which had a lovely children’s section, and bought them each a book of their choice, plus a few I picked out, like Shel Silverstein’s book of comic poetry, Where the Sidewalk Ends (I read it to them at bedtime, and it was a bigger hit than I’d anticipated). I spent a lot of money on new books, something I rarely do, but it was fun to see them so into reading, and it gives me special pleasure to read them books my own children loved. Though the two kids are competitive and fight quite a bit, these morning excursions to town were slow-paced, peaceful and harmonious. We left when we felt like it and came back when we were ready to. It made me realize how much we tend to rush the kids to go here and there, and do this and that, and how stressful that is for everyone.
My favorite moment of the trip was the last morning, when my daughter was busy packing up and I was sitting on the couch with the children. I said something like “We’ll be sleeping in our own beds tonight, if all goes well.” Madeline, who picks up on every nuance, immediately wanted to know why I had added “if all goes well.” I explained, laughing, that I say that kind of thing because my parents did, and it has to do with the superstition of “kayna-hura” (I’m spelling it as my mother pronounced it), the Yiddish Evil Eye. This led to a long discussion of what a superstition is, what the Evil Eye is, whether or not it’s true, and how people used to believe in superstitions of all kinds, like knocking on wood. Liam, who is a thoughtful child, asked me, “How do you know what people did in the olden days?” I said that I study history, (which I then had to explain), thinking while I answered that I wish my students would ask such good questions.
And I did sleep in my own bed last night, and so did they, and though we were all exhausted, all went well.
Tags: Connecticut shore, family vacation
