Photos of our trip, more or less in chronological order…

Because this is the same trip that we take every year, with many other families, the amount of time that we saw our children was in direct proportion to their ages; Seraphina never left my side, whereas I barely recognized Iain by the end of the week, it had been so long.  He, and Elijah to a lesser degree, were absorbed into the pack of roving teens and tweens that I used to hold as babies and chase as toddlers, almost every one of them taller then me now, with these deep, booming voices.  Each June seems to bring up questions of independence and boundaries, a growing experience for us all.  I find myself watching all of these great big boys and girls and wondering if someday we’ll be making this same journey with our grandchildren underfoot and what that would look like as a truly multi-generational event?  Or will they have long lost interest by then, leaving us old folks alone telling stories of them around a campfire, if the tradition even survives at all?  All I know is that it seems like yesterday that I cradled baby Elijah in my arms while planning the first of these trips.

Màiri and I made a mermaid in the sand.  Her favorite book right now is Jane Ray’s Can You Catch a Mermaid?

I was extremely grumpy about going to the beach and not being able to at least bury my feet in the sand or dip my toes in the water. harrumph.  I’m in compression stockings every day now.  Maybe by next year I’ll be able to experiment a bit, but it was just too risky this year…too much at stake, too many people depending on me.  I’m still a bit…fragile?  Come autumn I think I’ll be able to cultivate a kind of cute look, pairing them with dresses.  At the moment though I’m just that nutter walking around in tights on the beach.  It’s astonishing how much of my wardrobe is medically mandated. (grump. grump. grump.)  So…what to wear?  I certainly wasn’t going to be trotting a swimsuit out there.  As it turns out I needn’t have worried.  Blankets and sweaters featured heavily in Seraphina’s first visit to the Atlantic and I seriously doubt that say, all of the dads huddled in pink children’s beach towels would have judged me whatever I wore!  But of course I didn’t know that in advance.  My very vague thoughts ran somewhere along the lines of the stockings and a nursing cami with some sort of easy-to-nurse-in, long-tunic-y, loose-cover-up-type-thingy over top.

The pattern is a slightly altered Color Twist Kimono Top.  Deciding to make something, spur of the moment in the middle of the night, doesn’t exactly leave you with a large selection of fabric possibilities.  This particular jersey, chosen almost exclusively because there happened to be the right amount of fabric, was originally intended for kid pants.  I will say that’s it’s very, very soft; comfy and nice for little people to cuddle up to.  Steve was thoroughly unimpressed with the whole thing.  When I asked him what he thought, he said, and I quote, “eh”.

So I mentioned the rain.  And the motel.  There was also some bowling at the height of a storm.  Read as: knitting, nursing, sipping tea and watching bowling for some of us.  Which had the advantage of hot tea, not to be underestimated, especially on a day when you woke up in a cold puddle, but on the whole I greatly preferred the days of knitting, nursing and watching kids playing in the sand, in the pond, in the ocean.

She built up quite the reputation among the children for her well honed biking skills.  I love watching this girl of mine, so strong and confident in her body and her abilities.  Who am I to tell her what she can’t do? Well, alright, sometimes…but mostly I just watch and am in awe of the grace and ease that she takes for granted.  Such a gift.