Dada Goes to the Beach!

And it was fun! We went with a group of families and stayed in two houses right on the beach in Surfside Beach, Texas, which is near Freeport, which itself is near Galveston. Not exactly the most pristine beaches, as indicated by the sticker on the back door of our beach house (on stilts, which meant it swayed a bit, kind of relaxing once you got used to it) reminding us to clean tar off our feet if necessary. Luckily, not necessary this weekend.

Anyway, if you want to see some pictures you can got to the Kodakgaller album: Dada's First Beach Trip. We didn't take a lot of pictures because we were too busy looking after Dada and, in Eliot's case, being Mr. Cool Guy Surf Instructer with some of the other parents. We've confirmed the What Goes In, Comes Out rule vis-a-vis sand; let's just say, that child ate a LOT of sand. A castle's worth. We also strolled on the beach with Dada, who learned to enjoy feeling the waves on her little toes.

We stopped in and visited Po Po on the way home from the beach, along with some of her friends who all agreed that Dada's exceedingly cute and destined for great things. Dada also got to meet her Uncle Tommy, who was especially interesting for making eye contact and smiling a lot but NOT doing a lot of cooing and stuff, a notable difference from the other new people at the time.

Dada has also learned to plant enthusiastic, wet, smacky kisses on us, which is, of course, endearing. Less endearing, she's learned how to get through the dog door; but don't panic! Because, as many of you know, we have two dog doors, one from the kitchen into the laundry room and the other from the laundry room to the outside. She only went into the laundry room, not outside. Also, the kitchen is ordinarily gated off--so she won't be scooting outside whenever the spirit moves her. Oh, and the backyard is fenced, so she wouldn't make it out into traffic, in the event of a huge supervisiory failure.

For the record: she was under her father's supervision when she made this discovery.

Future plans include going back to Po Po's for Mothers' Day--as a new mother, I'm looking forward to being fussed over while doing a bit of fussing over my own mom.

House update: time to pick appliances, so they can finalize the kitchen plans and so that, months from now, they don't have to rearrange the kitchen in a day when I say, oh, I want a gigantic Viking range, didn't I mention that?