The trip started out bumpily.
My daughter threw up in the car on the way to Hyannis. She’d never ‘thrown up’ for me before, and I didn’t know if it signalled serious illness, minor car sickness, or something in between. I called my pool of ‘uber moms’ (ie the pros) and got through to someone who gave me excellent advice. I bought a thermometer in Hyannis and took my daughter’s temp before getting on the ferry. She was fine. Her color was better and she was raring to go. So we proceeded with Plan A.
The trip over was fine and the weather held up. But once on the island I ran into the next serious bump: while fitting her child seat to my friend’s car, I took my eyes off her for 7 seconds and that 3 year old rebel ran towards the street with a ‘hah hah’ look on her face. It needed immediate action. I picked her up, looked her in the eye and said forcefully ‘dont ever do that again’. She started to cry, really cry. But she had to get the message on this one. It had to start seeping in. No number of constant reminders had been doing the trick and it was important that she learned.
Luckily, in true 3 year old fashion, she quickly pulled out of it and was ready to start enjoying herself 10 minutes later. And we had a blast the rest of the time.
Our good friends Frank and Homa live on the island, and they have known Rada from the very beginning. Only Frank was in residence this weekend, and he gave us a wonderful tour of this beautiful island, called the Gray Lady.
We went to several beaches, one that we had all to outselves, and one that we shared with two other people and their dog. That was it. It was a long expanse of beautiful sand, crashing waves, bright sun, crisp sky and one little 3 year old body running in and out of the water laughing and splashing. It was so much fun to be with her that I couldn’t even get out the camera to take pictures. Sometimes the moment is everything.
These pictures are from the next day, which was grayer, but still beautiful:
On the ferry home, my daughter curled up in my lap and went to sleep. The rumbling of the ferry engine must have been soothing.
{ 2 } Comments
Hi Molly – It sounds like you handled both of these situations like a pro. But I can’t help but laugh a little envisioning Rada getting sick in the car and you pulling over and making a series of phone calls for advice!
I’m sure that’s not how it really happened, but that’s the image I got from your post. That’s probably what I would have done. In fact, I still do things like that. For example, when my car makes a strange noise, instead of calling a mechanic, I’ll call my dad to see what he says before I take any action.
Hi Stacy,
That’s exactly how it happened! I’m probably showing the extent of my ignorance when it comes to child rearing, but until Rada came into my life I was pretty much a dilletante when it came to kids. I had no idea of the nuts and bolts of it all…. but I’m learning.
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