Days Three and Four of our Vacation

Day Three:

Weather: Surprisingly nice during parts of the day.

We went to Sunset Beach on Sunday night, but a cloud obscured the sun just as it was setting.

There's an old shipwreck just off shore there and Lily observed, “Ariel would love this place!” We had promised Lily some ice cream, but we're still in the off season, so a lot of the local places are still closed.

We wound up going to Wawa where Lily got an orange push-up. Then we came home and watched Iron Chef. Lily is a big fan of Bobby Flay!

On Monday we went to the Cape May Zoo. I took a bunch of pictures of the giraffes, because I know my friend Karen really likes them. Here you are, Karen. Giraffes, just for you!

Lily fed some goats and really enjoyed it. I imagine they did too. Lily proclaimed it “the best, best BEST vacation ever!”

We're trying to teach Lily the value of money, so we've been putting aside any cash she received in cards for Easter and such. We thought we were doing pretty well explaining that it's a limited resource and she can get what she wants, but if she spends it now, then she won't have it to spend later. Jen got out the little wallet she was using to carry Lily's money and Lily yoinked it, Jane Jetson-like right out her hand and ran over to the soda machine we had just passed.

This put in a bind, because we just told her that she could spend it how she wanted, but we didn't mean that to supersede our prohibition on soda. Fortunately the soda in the machine was $2.50 (!!) and she hadn't put in enough, so we told her one of those lies to which parents are entitled, that the machine was out of soda, but, hey, she could press this button to get her money back as quarters.

We had another meltdown on the way out, and went from the best, best, best vacation to the worst vacation. (She sometimes says that it's a “forgetting” vacation and when I asked her what that meant, she told me that the vacation is so bad that she wants to forget it.) I think she's going to start oscillating between the two states so rapidly that we'll be able to harness her as a power source.

We got back from the zoo and we all had a nice nap. Lily woke later than we did and walked into the room when Iron Chef was on and said, “So, what's the secret ingredient?”

Day Four

Weather: Misleading.

Lily was late to bed last night and frightfully early to rise to rise in the morning. We worked on some projects, and when I told Lily that she was doing a nice job coloring like a big kid, she replied, “Thanks daddy, I appreciate the compliment that I'm coloring it nicely like a big kid.”

This is a sentence from a child who missed the cutoff date by three days and who is going to have to wait another year to go into kindergarten. Le Sigh.

We kind of dicked around all day, because the weather kept calling for these horrific thunderstorms that never came. I walked around town and got lost. I think everyone interested in reading this has already seen the weather report I posted on Facebook.

Rotten Liars!

Jen took some time and went birding. I suppose the biggest news of the day was that Lily got a decent amount of time to practice riding her bike. That was nice. It's a big milestone for a little kid.