i dream these days are about the sea

Today was Ethan's 15 month well-visit. I love well-visits. I especially love our amazing pediatrician (hi, Dr. A!) who makes me feel a little less crazy and puts my mind completely at ease when I start listening too much to what other people think, say and suggest. I asked my routine million questions, watched Ethan totally ace his physical and got reassurance that he's not totally weird for sticking things in his ears all of the time. Apparently that's normal. Apparently the toddler meals I'm up all night making are worth it and doing great things for my child. Oh, that justification that I'm not totally crazy -- I love it. I love well-visits. What I don't love are vaccinations and neither does Ethan, despite the fact he got Garfield band-aids. Under normal circumstances, he would have starting "MOW! MOW! MOW!"-ing his little heart out upon seeing Garfield's picture but these weren't normal circumstances. These were "why did you let them do this to me, mommy?" circumstances in which case Ethan could not book it out of that office quicker if he tried. I had to dress him in the doorway after he threw his shirt to the side and took off.

Sometime this afternoon it dawned on me while writing an e-mail to my husband about something totally different that Ethan and I should have a picnic on the beach this evening. I spent his naptime cooking and packing up our dinner: turkey and zucchini meatloaf with roasted sweet and purple potatoes and a mixture of organic fruits for dessert. I decided to "kabob" everything to make it more beach friendly and, well, I basically spent an hour slicing, dicing and shoving food onto sticks.

The beach picnic was wonderful. Hundreds of pilchards had washed up to the shore and the seagulls and pelicans were feasting on the sad display of deceased, tiny silver fish. Ethan is on a bird kick so he spent the entire hour and a half we were at the beach trying to offer the birds some of his dinner, hoping they'd surprise him and take the food from his hand. They didn't.

We surpassed our paid meter time by twenty minutes and I hoped no one would notice as I lugged our beach comforter, two bags and my 27 pound toddler up the sand. That was enough to erase any guilt I had about skipping Stroller Strides on Wednesday morning. I think we both could have stayed there for another hour and a half, on the empty stretch of beach, letting the water slowly touch our toes (but not too much -- Ethan isn't so sure about the ocean just yet). The storm clouds began to push the cottony white clouds out of the way and from far away, thunder began to rumble. The time became apparent, too, as Ethan started to rub his eyes and let out a few yawns in between exclamations of "HI!" to the seagulls. (Friendly salutation and all, they still weren't interested in his food.)

Today was a good day.