Let's back up for a minute: every Friday Fun Day, the lifeguards let the kids pick out one treat from a bin of cheap plastic toys. These toys are basically worthless pieces of junk. Last Fun Day, the girls each picked a plastic whistle that doesn't actually work, so I had the pleasure of listening to Madeleine walk around with the whistle in her mouth, releasing loud, shrill squealing noises out of her own throat to compensate for the lack of actual whistle noise.
So it's kind of no surprise that the tattoo that Julia picked out this past Friday didn't actually leave an imprint on her hand. That was no consolation to Julia, however, who burst into bitter tears over the ineffectual tattoo. Auntie Shannon and I, both needing to go pick up medication at CVS, promised Julia we could look for another kiddie tattoo there.
So off we all went to the CVS: Julia, Madeleine, Auntie Shannon, and I. CVS did not actually carry any kiddie tattoos, though I found a rack of stickers from which the kids could choose a sheet. Madeleine immediately grabbed some stickers, but Julia was more choosy, opting instead to browse the other CVS toys in a different aisle. So we all trucked down to the toy aisle, whereupon Julia found a book of Barbie figurines with accompanying magnetic outfits that she chose as her toy. Before I knew it, Madeleine ALSO wanted a book of magnetic outfits, so I told her she needed to choose between the stickers of the magnetic book. Madeleine, of course, opted for the magnetic book, so she and Auntie Shannon left to go return the stickers to their rack.
After about ten minutes, Julia and I started to wonder where Madeleine and Auntie Shannon had disappeared to. We started to roam the aisles, looking for the missing members of our party, and finally spotted Madeleine, still wandering around holding her stickers.
ME: Madeleine! What are you doing?
MADELEINE: (holding out the stickers) We have no a HECK where this goes!
Luckily, I remembered exactly a heck where the sticker rack was, so I was able to return the spurned sheet of stickers and buy Madeleine her magnetic book instead.
Both girls were so enthralled with their magnetic dress-up outfits that Madeleine insisted on bringing hers in the car on our way to the Cape on Saturday. Given that there are about 50 little magnetic pieces, some of which are teeny tiny, the book didn't seem like an ideal thing to bring along on a trip. I tried to persuade Madeleine to leave it home.
ME: Madeleine, honey, I don't think this is a great thing to bring in the car. What if you lose some of these little magnet pieces? What if they drop or you lose them?
MADELEINE: Uh, Mama, I won't. I'm SURE. I'll be CAREFUL.
No sooner had we set out onto the highway than Madeleine dropped the book off of her lap and the little magnetic pieces spilled ALL OVER the car floor.
At any rate, the girls were amazing troopers, despite the magnet spill, because we wound up in over three hours of Cape traffic. There was nary a whine from the back seat or a repetition of my favorite question, "Are we THERE yet??" The girls remained cheerful and happily talkative, enjoying the Beatles music we listened to, and finding things to ask questions about even as we sat at a standstill in traffic.
JULIA: Mama? Is this a HIGHWAY that we're on?
ME: Um...kind of. It's not a highway that takes you between different states. It's more like a local highway.
JULIA: What do you MEAN?
ETHAN: Well, if you stay on this highway, it can take you all along the Cape, but it can't take you to Rhode Island, or Connecticut, or any other states nearby.
JULIA: Are LOCAL HIGHWAYS what MOST highways are?
ETHAN: Most highways take you a really long way. Like if you got on I-95, you could get all the way down to Florida.
ME: A local highway only takes you between towns within the same state.
I guess this all proved too much for Madeleine.
MADELEINE: Mama, can we just STOP talking about local highways, because...it's FREAKING ME OUT.
We did finally arrive at Devil's Foot Island, where the girls had an absolute ball playing in the ocean, collecting seashells, and spending time with their second cousins and other family members:
Madeleine even struck up some conversations with random people she didn't know, befriending another little girl who happened to be on the beach, and touching the bare chest of an elderly man to ask, "Why do you have MUSHY breastes?" Both girls had so much fun at the beach, neither wanted to leave, but they certainly didn't mind once we got to our next destination. We had the chance to attend a brick oven pizza party at the home of another relative, where, of course, the girls didn't really care about the pizza, but instead about all the outdoor toys and play equipment.
Madeleine had so much fun, in fact, that when it was time to leave, she lamented, "But Mamaaaa! Why can't we just live HERE?"
I had hoped that at least Madeleine would conk out on the drive home, but alas, she was too interested in the differences between the view out her window (which was of trees off the side of the highway) and Julia's (which overlooked the traffic from the other direction of the highway.)
MADELEINE: Mama! It's BEDTIME out my window, and...and...and it's ALMOST bedtime out Julia's window. Because...it's DARK outside my window, and it's NEARLY dark outside Julia's.
On the bright side, however (or the nearly dark side?), we got home late enough that both kids fell right asleep with very little pomp and circumstance.
Today's task looming ahead of us is a big clean-up of our very messy living room (aka toy room.) The kids have been informed that they will be helping. Let's home Madeleine can figure out a heck where the toys go.
Wonder what their farts smell like?
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