Beach baby

Molly's dad had karate camp last weekend just over the bridge from Cape Cod, so Molly and I tagged along for a mini vacation. We got up early Friday morning and went to Craigville Beach right as it opened. I was paranoid about sunburn and put on sunblock over and over again. Molly thought this was funny and kept taking off her hat (I didn't know she could do that!!) and crawling out of the little shady area I made for her with her little zebra tent.

The only thing she didn't like was the water. She cried when I put her toes in (it was quite cold) and then she fussed and wiggled whenever I got her near the water, even just to look, after that.

What she did like were the people. I prefer the beach like when there's hardly anybody out and the sun isn't hot yet. She got fired up later as it got crowded and there were people to flirt with and kids running around and conversations in every direction. At least, thanks to the tent, I could nurse her in the middle of everything without calling much attention to us.

The second day of the trip was a little rougher and I had a bit of a melt-down. I was really tired and frustrated because I had planned a bunch of vacation activities to do silently in the hotel room while she napped. I should have known better than to think she would be taking naps, or even being well rested enough to play independently in the hotel room. Instead she was whiny and overtired all morning. She knocked a (lukewarm decaf) coffee out of my hands and onto the floor. She covered my shirt with greenbeans, leaving me with nothing to wear but dirty clothes from the previous day. (I didn't have a seat to feed her in so I tried to feed her while she sat on the floor -- not the best planning there!) The only way I could get her to nap was to drive around in the car, which meant I couldn't even sleep while she slept. I had to drive and then sit in parking lots. At least I had a few books to pass the time and a beach towel to use as a pillow. Ugh! So that's what vacation is like with a baby.

Fortunately she slept like a hibernating bear after we got home and now my mom is visiting so I've been catching up on sleep. Yay!

Molly is a little goofball lately. She likes climbing over things and she's started using her toys as steps, so I've been letting her play on the real steps a little bit to practice climbing.

She's also making friends wherever we go. She met two little boys at an ice cream stand yesterday who picked up her toy for her when she through it on the ground, asked her name and shook her hand.

She's got some new sounds in her babble, too. She says "Abba" a lot and I think sometimes she calls me Bob. Oh, and we think she's picking up the sign for milk (nursing). It's hard to tell if it's just random or not -- it's just squeezing her hand into a fist and releasing, as if she's milking a cow -- but she's done it a few times when I didn't think she would want to nurse and I latched her on anyway just to strengthen the association, and it turned out she really did want to eat. Very cool.