Favorite Memories of Cape Cod

One day left on Cape Cod, and I'm happy to say we'll be taking many happy memories back with us. Most of the people I've met here seem to be "regulars," coming back season after season. And I can understand why. This place has a way of getting under your skin - in a good way. I hope to be back soon - with Peter next time. Until then, here's just a few of my favorite memories to tide me over til the next visit. Seeing a humpback whale dive into the water, it's enormous tail arcing gracefully before disappearing beneath the water. Hearing Lily go "wheee" on the slide at the playground.




Grilled swordfish, lobster rolls, fried scallops, clam chowder. And whoopie pies.







Hearing Lily sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame at the Chatham A's home games.







Looking up a the enormous sand dunes from Cahoon Hollow Beach in Wellfleet.







Hearing Lily say "I want to do that again!" moments after completing the Pirate's Adventure boat ride in Hyannis.







Watching the seals play off the Chatham fish pier.







Hearing Lily ask "Mommy, will you build a sand castle with me?" at Oyster Pond Beach.







Picknicking and dancing on the blanket at the Chatham band concerts on Friday nights.







Hearing Lily say "I won!" after a game of Go Fish, Old Maid, or the newly acquired Ladybug game.







Playing paddle ball, tag, hide & seek and tumbling in the lawn.







Hearing Lily say, "Good Mommy, you listen very well" after she leads a game of Simon Says.







The graceful, genteel mansions of Newport, Rhode Island.







Hearing Lily cackle with glee when the ferry to Nantucket pounded over the (very) choppy Atlantic Ocean.







Riding bikes on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.







Hearing Lily cackle and go "Eeeee!" after dipping her toes into the crashing surf at Lighthouse Beach.







The panoramic water view outside the window at the carriage house.







Hearing Lily say "That was fun!" after getting off the pony carriage ride at the Green Animals children's party.







Chipmunks.







Hearing Lily say, "Ice cream, ice cream" when the ice cream truck arrived at the beach.







The sound of screen doors slamming.







Hearing Lily say "You finish this part" (referring to her melting ice cream so she could indulge in the cone.





Putt-putt golf





Hearing Lily say, "Will you help me find a friend?" at the beach and playground.






Watching all sorts of wonderful Disney/kids movies, incuding "The Aristocats", "Madeleine," "Eloise," "Benji" "Lilo and Stitch," "The Muppet Movie" and "Air Bud." There was of course, one forgettable movie at the theater - "Kung Fu Panda." Of course she loved it.



Seeing the impressive marionette performance of Hansel and Gretel.





Hearing Lily say, "I love you, always and forever."

OK, this has nothing to do with Lily...

There's a street in Chatham called Cross St. And there's a street veering off of it named Criss Cross. I just thought that was cute.

Cape Care Free

Lily and I might be 2,000 miles away from home, leaving all the cares of work and bills, school and bedtimes behind us. But all this togetherness is having a not unexpected but definitely unintended effect. She's getting tired and subsequently testy. My patience is wearing thin and my voice speaking too many "nos" and "stops". Yet it's nice to know that at her age, there's no discipline Mom can dole out that a long ride in the big blue swing at the playground won't cure. I'm always her best friend again after one of those marathon pushing sessions. And I have the growing collection of dying dandelions and hydrangea flowers in my purse - the ones that Lily picks for me daily - to prove it. And we're back to not having a care in the world. Or at least not in Cape Cod.

A Star is (Almost) Born

Ever since Lily has been born, I've been queried as to whether I'd ever considered signing her up for modeling and heard second-hand comments to the same effect. Well, yesterday, Lily was discovered.

Yes, no other than the world renown modeling firm Landscape Structures asked Lily to model for their photography shoot yesterday.

At the Chatham playground.

Along with 25 or so other kids who just happened to be playing there at the time.

For their 2009 catalog.

So I dutifully read the release form - "authorize Landscape Structures to use all imagery and release from liability...yada...yada...yada" - and affixed my signature.

And then 5 minutes into the shoot, Lily (who has spent upwards of 2 hours at this playground on a single visit) decided she wanted to leave.

Oh well, I guess Hollywood will just have to wait.

4 going on 14

So this morning Lily waltzes into my bedroom - ok, stomps is more like it - buck nekkid, raises her arm and announces "I'm getting older." Still awakening, I manage to mumble a "Sure, you're getting older. What makes you think so?" And she replies, "I'm getting hairs under my arms." I peer, see nothing, and she quickly qualifies her statement, "Little ones." I ask her where she heard that, and then she said that Pete has hair under his arms, and he told her it was because he was older. Funny for a day.





In other news, we ventured to Newport Rhode Island yesterday to absorb some of the Gilded Age glamour. It was very grand, genteel and gracious, I must say. And just outside of town they had this lovely topiary garden where the topiaries were in the shape of animals. It's called Green Animals, in fact.

We were fortunate they were having an annual "Children's Party" that very day, complete with jugglers, magician, vaudeville-type act, dog show, puppet band, brass band, balloon animals, and pony rides. All in this beautiful setting - large white farmhouse with wraparound porch on a huge lawn overlooking some body of water. And the gardens of course.

All in all, a nice way to spend a day.

Top 5 Things I've Learned in Cape Cod

1) Moon jellyfish don't sting like ordinary jellyfish, so they're not so threatening.

2) Moon jellyfish do however, look like a big disgusting booger.

3) Despite their name, razor clams are not threatening and apparently are good in garlic sauce.

4) Seals come in a spotted variety. We saw one and can verify.

5) Argyle sweaters are alive and well in New England. Unfortunately.

What a "Bah-gan!"

A germ-a-phobe I am not. I interpret the 5-second rule about eating dropped food quite liberally - somewhere along the lines of 20 seconds (about the time it takes before the dogs manage to find said dropped food and clean it up.) And admittedly I bestow a lot more kisses on mild cuts than Neosporin.

But there's just something about the idea of wearing used shoes that I find...ah....disagreeable. So of course the first thing Lily's eyes spied at Chatham's First Congregational Church yard sale this morning was a pair of sea blue sparkly sequined slipper sandals. I'm not all that fond of yard sales, but we were passing by en route to downtown and the sandals just gleamed and glimmered away, too irresistible for her 4-year old girly eyes.

I inspected said shoes, and they did indeed seem to have a layer of that ubiquitous sand embedded in the sole. But they weren’t otherwise obviously filthy or rank. Not that my nose ventured too close to them to really tell. So I shelled out the quarter and Lily promptly abandoned her beloved flip-flops to don these instead.

Yuck.

On the other hand, my eyes happened to land on an 8x8” baking pan, perfect for the brownie mix I had purchased before realizing my rental unit didn’t come equipped with all my beloved baking supplies. Now I realize that some people might find the idea of used cookware far more objectionable than used attire, but in my mind, it was a find. And at 10 cents, what a “bah-gan!”. I’ve heard New Englanders are renowned for their thriftiness, and I think I would have done them proud.

Gotta go now - there goes the timer on the brownies.

Yum.

Sand Sand Everywhere

As I sit here to type, grains of sand start to dot the black keys of my computer. Will the beast be able to handle it, I wonder? Yes, we have arrived in Cape Cod; we have already paid three diferent visits to the beach, and sand is EVERYWHERE. Yes, even there.

So far, Chatham is exactly what I had hoped it would be. Small town Americana, replete with charming grey shingled houses with star-spangled bunting, seashore views, the Cape Cod baseball league and locally owned businesses galore. I am proud to say I have yet to see either a McDonald's or a Starbucks thus far, although they do like their Dunkin Donuts here.

The carriage house rental is impossibly cute. It's located over a garage adjacent to one of those grey shingled homes, complete with windmill. http://www.pineacresrealty.com/index.cfm?page=12&RefNo=4757. Inside, it's light, bright and airy. Blue and white nautical theme with a panoramic window view of Oyster Pond, a sheltered beach that's great for kids.

Don't get me wrong. It's not quite paradise. I've already lost one set of rental keys, and in my eagerness to soak up all Chatham has to offer, I may have tired Lily out already. Because she had one of her all-time Top 5 tantrums this morning at the playground. For no reason whatsoever. The kind of tantrum where other parents smile sympathetically and complete strangers tell you, "We've all been there." THAT kind of tantrum. Somehow I managed to return her to the impossibly cute carriage house and get her to take a nap, which seemed to resolve the issues. Note to self: Strive for daily nap.

And I miss my new husband (Happy 1-month anniversary to us today!) more than I ever thought I would. I guess I've gotten kind of used to having him around and the fun Lily and I are having does not compensate for him not being here.

But alas, there is fun to be had. So much of what Lily is experiencing is brand new to her - the kind of experience you simply can't find in Austin. Things like seeing chipmunks, sea gulls (which she calls eagles) and salt water (which she mistakenly referred to as sugar water!).

All in all, so far, so good. More to come.

I'm Back!!!

I know you all (all 6 faithful readers) had probably given up by now, certain that my fingers would never again grace a computer to add to this blog page, but really I was just sort of busy with other things - like a wedding and a honeymoon. But I'm back, with a full 56 days remaining before I need to return to work, and so I anticipate filling this blog with lotso' entries between now and then. Not to mention catching up on all my friends blogs (Maria and Susie especially) that I've been missing out on.



So here's the obligatory words on the wedding and honeymoon. They were wonderful and amazing and oh so memorable - just everything you hope a wedding and a honeymoon should be. We're already contemplating retirement options on Kauai. Loads of pictures of all wedding festivities and Kauai gorgeousness on Snapfish. If I haven't already sent you the links and you're interested, let me know. (There's too many links to post into this blog here, but I have attached one of my favorite wedding snaps)

I could reminiesce for lines upon lines of text about the wedding, but lest I forget, this blog is supposed to be more about Lily, so let me get back to her. Suffice to say now that Peter is officially and legally a member of the family (even though he's unofficially been part of the family 4EVR), expect him to make more appearances in the blog.

So now to the matter at hand - the Cape Cod summer. A.K.A. Cathy's sabbatical summer. A.K.A. the summer by the seashore. A.K.A. the summer where Mom really hopes to bottle some wonderful memories like you read about in Wondertime magazine or in perfect parenting stories. Memories about simple pleasures like building sand castles, catching fireflies, watching bubbles waft away in the wind, scavenging for seashells, splashing in the ocean surf, wiping sidewalk chalk dust off our legs, listening to Friday night band concerts, and doing somersaults on the lawn. This is the summer when bedtime is governed more by the light of day and less by the clock.This is the summer where she can learn to revel in all her senses - the sights and sounds and smells and feel and even taste of the seashore - and hopefully appreciate what nature is all about. This is the summer about having completely uninterrupted time with Mom. Or mostly uninterrupted. There will still be cooking and the occasional laundry to take care of, but that pesky thing called work won't get in the way. This is the summer where she can just be a kid.

It might be the only summer we can do this. 8-week vacations from work come along once in a lifetime, and (fingers crossed) Lily might have a sibling to share summers and parents with in the future. So I'm hoping this summer is sticky. Real sticky. Rest of her life sticky. Like all the ice cream and fudge we'll also eat this summer.