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Evidence I deserve PARENT OF THE YEAR:

I drove myself and my two children (sans husband) to Florida for a five day vacation with family.  I am one of the few-ish people who can actually claim Florida, Daytona Beach as my birth place.  I have spent the VAST majority of my life out of the state but I still have family living there.  Since I have a ginger husband and fairy-skinned children, we don’t often take beach trips consisting of spending all day baking in the evil, evil sun.  Actually, we tend to avoid peak exposure sun times in general (I *am* the Sun Avoidance Nazi) and the thought of crisping our children in the tropical Florida sun makes us absently caress our 50 SPF sunblock and peruse UV-sheilding bubbles on the internet SO we don’t venture to those parts that much except to visit family.  And since I am a considerate and understanding wife, I do not force my husband to endure endless days of My Crazy Family time so what I’m trying to say is that it had been a loooooong time since we had been there.  This time, Bryan could see the longing in my eyes to spend time with my fabu cousin and her children, my aunts and so forth so we agreed that I would go down with the kids, camp out on my cousin’s floor and he would opt out of the trip.  My Mom and Dad surprised me by planning to go down at the same time so the theme of our vacation quickly turned into “reliving Grace’s childhood”.  We went out to eat places my Mom took me when I was a little girl.  We went to the same beaches where I learned to catch sand fleas, search out shark teeth and get beat up by the wonderful Atlantic waves (sans TAR!).  We went to Blue Springs which is an actual Cold Spring of fresh water feeding into the St. John’s river and my Mom swam out with me to explore the hole (deep, deep, deep) and watch my kids shiver in the delightfully chilly water.  It was awesome.  And we had a blast.  And my kids and I all managed to survive the long, boring ride to and from (over 8 hours with potty breaks…frequent potty breaks).

Please ignore the general state of sandiness of my children, see, I was taking pictures of my cousin’s lovely family on the beach and while I had my back turned, my cousin and her children burst into laughter.  I turned around to see Malyn and Drew making SAND ANGELS.  After I had already bathed them, dressed them up and got them ready for pictures.  Kids.  Ugh.  Also, I think it’s obvious that my daughter is a wee bit dramatic.  Every.Single.Pose is a Huge, Sweeping Movements Dramatic Pose!  Waa-laa, I am HERE, PEOPLE!

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Evidence I deserve daughter-in-law of the year:

I brought my MIL on the trip.

Not really the entire trip but I did drop her off in Jacksonville to visit a family member on the way down and I picked her back up on the way back.  14 hours in the car with your MIL makes anyone worthy of admiration, I suppose.  While my MIL and I get along FINE, JUST FINE, we do not share the friendy-friendy, talky-talky relationship that some people do.   But, on the whole, it was a positive experience.  She was very helpful with the kids and she refrained from muttering about my driving (which is more than most people can do, honestly).  She was graciously appreciative of the ‘favor’, although it was absolutely no trouble to let her travel along.  She has a disorder/disease that effects her balance and depth perception and while she’s fine driving short distances in areas where she’s familiar, she cannot drive long periods of time where she doesn’t already “know the streets”.  We even stopped at one of her “every time I travel to Florida, I stop here” haunts to pick up a pecan log.  A pecan log?  I still don’t even know but anything log-shaped, brown and covered with nuts is not on my list of culinary delights.  My kids, however, thought it was raucous-crazy-delish.

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Evidence that I am a freaking paranoid hermit:

Wait, just let me adjust my aluminum foil hat here and fiddle with my electric dog fence/backyard parameter defense system.  I had been planning on taking that trip to Florida but I didn’t tell write about it either here or mention it in tweets or facebook because I am a crazy, psycho weirdo who doesn’t want people to know when I am not at home or home alone or what not.  Yeah.  But I use my real name and my kids’ real names here.  Because obviously I am an INCONSISTENT freaking paranoid hermit with a shiny hat.  So that’s why there has been virtual silence from me lately.

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Evidence that I might string together a few paying photography gigs:

Good Lord.  Up to my EYEBALLS in photography and editing.  Unfortunately, most of it is NON-PAYING FAMILY members who have been pressed into posing for me so I can expand my portfolio and experience BUT I have a few portrait sittings where the people have actually paid me and a few more prospects coming up so while I maybe shouldn’t give up my day job (oh, wait), there is a chance that I might be able to score some vacation money from this whole endeavor.  Or possibly a newer, shinier Big Girl Camera.

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Evidence I am a horribly mean parent:

Whilst on vacation in Florida, we were eating at one of the restaurants my Momma used to take me to when I was a little girl.  I ordered my kids a milkshake on a lark along with a water.  The waitress brought the kids their waters first and I overheard her say (the kids were sitting at a different table with their cousins), “Here are your waters, kids.  I will bring your milkshakes out in a minute!”

Malyn’s reply:  ”What’s a milkshake?”

My kids have never had a milkshake before.

They’re seven and nearly five.

So, we went crazy and had an ice cream!  An actual ICE CREAM on a CONE!  With “VERY COLORFUL SPRINKLES PLEASE, LADY!”  (Malyn, obvs.)

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Evidence my kids live a pampered life:

In preparation for this trip, I bought my first GPS unit.  I typically count on Bryan to handle all of the mapping and navigational responsibilities during our travel and with good reason…that man is the world’s most reliable Human GPS unit.  Unlike me, he has a built in navigational compass/sense of direction that is always able to decipher where we are and which street we need to take to get to our destination.  We can travel somewhere–anywhere, really–and he can get us where we need to go using nothing but The Force, I suppose.  I, on the other hand, think that the direction I am going is North, the direction behind me is South, right is east and left is west.  I was very proud of myself while down in Florida that I found the beach all by myself when I went to watch the sunrise.  It only took me a few minutes of puzzling before I figured out that I should head in the direction of the lightening sky.

Aaaanyway, I figured that I didn’t want to be tethered to a map or a relative in finding my way around so I sucked it up and bought the stupid thing.  I like it.  It has fancy voice-recognition that sometimes actually works!  I was using it even though I was following my cousin as we traveled the hour or so ride to St. Augustine.  I was doing so because I like that it tells me whether or not I am traveling over the speed limit (duh, YES, but I like to know By How Much).  Drew, growing bored asked, “Hey Mom, When is that thing going to say, ‘Arriving at destination?’”  The new, “Are we there yet?”, I suppose.

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Evidence that you never *really* know someone–even family members:

My 20-something cousin, Andrew has always been a wee bit dramatic.  He’s the quintessential gamer and has been known to squee the impending release of a new system or game and, when given permission, will launch into a complicated and impassioned description of the story lines of his favorite games.  He’s brilliant.  He’s hilarious and my kids kept asking if “that Silly Guy” would be joining us on any adventure we were slated to begin.  He’s very creative and young-at-heart and as such, lives the life of a mad artist…drifting between interesting ventures, partaking in any creative endeavor which strikes his fancy, etc.  Also as such, he’s pretty much unemployed and living with his Mom.  I used to think that his true talent lay in impersonating dogs (he does an AMAZING dog bark which has hilariously scared the Bejesus out of every young-ish child in our family) but I learned that he truly is a many-layered onion.  I watched a crappy, one-step-above-home-video DVD of his performance in his local, community theater’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which I, admittedly, had never seen and have still not seen most of).  I saw a side of him that I had never seen.  He came on stage and as the music started, he belted out his first song and I was amazed.  That boy can SING.  I am fairly musically inclined and everyone in my family and in my husband’s family sings and plays an instrument so I am not an unlearned musician…I can pinpoint good pitch, sound and voice control.  I…well…it was so shocking to hear my cousin’s voice–so good and so surprising that it brought tears to my eyes.

Well, I suppose I must also admit that in one of the following scenes, he emerged wearing a skin-tight unitard and that, too, brought tears to my eyes.  But in a completely different way.

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Evidence that my husband, despite his assertion that he’s a loner, is really just a sucker for his little family:

Bryan said that we aren’t doing that again.  He’s just gonna have to go with us…to Florida…to visit my family…and be hot and sticky and ocean-y.  He missed us too much.

Awwwwwww.

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Evidence that my SIL really, really loves me and trusts me:

Isn’t she lovely?  This is, obviously, not the sort of shot that I will do with merely anyone or in just any situation but Alexis is one of the rare few who can pull it off and look lovely, classic and classy.  Obviously, this one will probably not be going on facebook.

During this photo shoot, which also included my brother and my niece (2 years) everyone mostly stayed clothed although I did happen to catch this moment…

and, unfortunately, this one as well…

I see boudoir shots in my future–although I am not sure there’s enough money in the world to see my little brother showing his ass and making kissy faces at the camera.  Alexis didn’t actually see us doing this (she was putting Brooklyn down for a nap) so I hope she likes this shot of her…er…sexy (?) husband.  Although we were laughing so hard, she probably suspected something.

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I developed a headache in the middle of the night–one that first showed up in my dreams (dreaming I had a headache with an accompanying eraser up my nose–don’t ask) and it woke me up enough to realize that I had an actual headache (no eraser though so, WHEW) but not enough to motivate me to take anything for it so when I finally, actually woke up for the day, I had a pounding headache.  I had to wait for coffee to take Tylenol (What?  I can’t take medicine on an empty stomach).  And I had to intensely concentrate through the pounding in my head on making the coffee somewhat able to be imbibed.  After I made it through the logic nightmare, I tried to remain as still as possible until the effects of sweet, sweet pain management took affect.

During and after that, I was bothered and thinking of the BAZILLION things I need to do today as I spent yesterday simultaneously putsying around my Mom’s house helping her with a project, relishing the fact that Mom was Dealing With The Children and judiciously and graciously ignoring the fact that they were being plied with sweets, candy, gum and The Glowing Box of Brain Rot (also known, in most of the world, as Television).  I have a to-do list a mile long.  I haven’t even started on two photo shoots I need to edit.  I have an extensive questionnaire to fill out about Drew’s developmental milestones (At what age did your child start using pronouns?  And I’m like, ‘WHAT IS A PRONOUN, AGAIN?’) that I have been putting off finishing up as I needed to FIND and consult the calendar where I wrote down such things.  Of COURSE it was not located where it SHOULD have been and I had been periodically searching for it over the past few days with mounting frustration.  I have overdue library books that need to be returned, a trip to plan for, a house to clean, a few knick-knacky little things to take care of the nature of which I ABHOR doing (consulting the company who sold me my lighting set about the fact that one of the bulbs appears to be NO LONGER WORKING), etc, etc.  And as I was thinking these things through while preparing oatmeal and trying to IGNORE THE HEADACHE when my husband informs me that his parents’ 13 year old dog had to be put down yesterday.

…(!)…

He had, evidently, forgotten to TELL ME THIS.

Now, while the fact that I am no animal lover is well-known, documented and sneered at, (I KNOW, PEOPLE!  I KNOW I SUCK!) I do actually have a heart (be it two sizes too small or whatev).  This dog meant A LOT to my inlaws.  She helped get them through So Many Difficult times.  I even wrote about her.

She has been a part of our family for 12 or 13 years now, since she was a cute, wee puppy.  She’s been in declining health lately…laying around a lot more and her limp has become more pronounced.  But she would still get frisky and run around after the kids.  And GOOD LORD, she KNEW when it was time to eat.  She would come directly up to my FIL, stand there looking at him impatiently and if he didn’t get up and feed her, she would sort of jump (although toward the end, her jumps were tiny front-paws-only hops) and bark once or twice.  Obviously, she *always* got fed on time.  She also tolerated our The Dog.  Our The Dog would see Nestle coming and make a bee line directly for her and Nestle, with the air of resigned tolerance, would stand her ground while The Dog jumped repeatedly OVER her back.  Back and forth, over and over again, our The Dog dashing madly to gain the traction and momentum to make it over the poor, aged dog’s back.  Eventually, Nestle would tire of the game and resoundingly nip The Dog who, like an attention-starved middle child would play bow, yelp, paw and generally wear Nestle the hell out until she either chased her or laid down.

As a lab, she was prone to getting fatty tumors and every few months, my FIL would take her to get the bigger ones cut off.  She’d come home shaved and sore but better for having the masses removed.  This last mass was evidently lodged in her nasal passage causing excessive bleeding and making it too hard for her to breathe.  I guess they just decided it was too much for her to handle this time.

So now we have to tell the kids.  And they are going to be devastated.  Nestle has been a fixture in their lives.  They have never known her to not be lounging around on the rug in front of the couch while they watch Saturday morning cartoons at their grandparents’ house.  She’s always been sitting there, waiting for them to show up and climb all over her with the kind of patient gentleness and love only an old family dog is capable of.