The First Family “Vacation” – Day Two

The second day of our mini family vacation to the coast started out with a bang. I woke up to the sounds of children chattering in their tented off baby jail cells. I heard Lilly saying "Nolan" and Nolan saying something or other. I honestly wasn't paying that much attention, as I was just waking up and it was still way too damn early in the morning to do anything other than sleep.

But then it happened. I heard something that immediately sent shivers down my spine.

"Poop." "Lilly poop."

At first this isn't that scary. Lilly is quite conscious of her bathroom issues, which I think means she's going to start breaking away from diapers soon. That's fine with me. So it's not uncommon at all for Lilly to announce when she's pooping. So at first, we're all good here.

Then the rest of it happened...

"Lilly poop....bed." "Bed....Lilly poop....bed."

This was bad. I had a bad idea about what I would find on the other side of the bedsheet separating me from certain awfulness. I pulled the curtain back and found my sweet flower of a baby girl with her hands down the backside of her diaper which had already stained the bedsheet. Before I could come up with something clever to say, she pulls her hands out and looks at her poo-covered little hands and says again, with a little more fear in her voice, "Lilly poop bed!"

I did what any responsible father would do in this moment. I woke up the wife. "Honey, you've got to help here." I don't even know why I bothered to say "help." I knew all along I was basically just waking my wife up to have her scrape shit off my baby girl at 6:30 in the morning. Fortunately for me, the negotiating power was all mine, as the child had poop on her hands and was about to go all Jackson Pollock on us, right there at the Sandollar Motel and RV Park.

The wife reported back later on (I, of course, stayed in bed and played with the boy who had not crapped all over creation) that the first attempt was to put the girl in the sink. That didn't work. Then the girl went in the bathtub. My wife commented to me that there was a point in all of this where she felt like calling whoever the "real mommie" is in this circumstance who would know what to do. That wife of mine, she's great.

So the day started off fairly potently. The rest of the day was actually fairly nice. We went back to Alice Fayes for breakfast (the door on the right, not the drinking and fighting door on the left), and then I had to go to the Rockport Public Library to study for the bar exam. While that part sorta sucked, it was at least a new experience.

All of this built up to the whole reason we came to Rockport in the first place. Our cousin was getting married. So in the evening, the wife and I along with grandma and grandpa loaded up the kids for the big evening out! They were so cute, I didn't bring my camera, so I can't upload pictures now, but trust me -- they were awesomely cute. You'd never know that Lilly had crapped her bed just 12 hours earlier! Unfortunately for us, the cuteness didn't match their attentiveness at the outdoor wedding ceremony. The wife and I spent our time chasing after the kids as one or the other, or both, ran after birds and seagulls or generally tried to drown themselves in the water fountains.

We did get pictures of the kids during day two -- here are the highlights:

They tried to make the reception happen, but it was a bit of a fail. It was past their bedtime, and Nolan had a bad case of the pushies. For those who might not know, the pushies are when Nolan walks up to other kids and shoves them on their behinds. It's not cool. He thinks it's awesome, but he's wrong.

So we packed the kids up and headed back to put them down. Then we pawned them off with grandma and grandpa and went back to the reception! A good time was had by all.

While the wife and I were standing by the water later that night, she made the comment to me, "you know, this is the first time I've been able to look out at the water and not have to worry about keeping a child from killing themselves in it." It was romantic.

The next morning we packed up and headed out. As I was packing up, I realized that we basically made bird cages for our children. We draped a sheet over their sleeping space so they wouldn't be distracted. Just like you do with a bird. Whatever, don't judge -- just write it down as the next reason why we won't be winning any parenting awards this year.

Nothing eventful on the trip back, it was essentially just the drive down in reverse. Except that we got caught in the Sunday afternoon northbound I-35 traffic between Austin and Waco. I think it says something that people who don't live in Austin come to Austin for their weekends, and nobody ever seems to be returning to Austin after the weekends are over. Gee -- I wonder why that is?

Some closing thoughts about Alice Fayes. We didn't go through "the left door" on this trip. But we've gone there before. The first time we went to Alice Fayes was four years ago for my 30th birthday. We just finished the Texas bar exam (there's a theme here with Rockport and bar exams, apparently). We just sat down in the outside waterfront bar area -- I mean we had just sat down, and we saw a woman wearing a "Playgirl" t-shirt barge through the double doors leading from the entrance, grab another woman who was on the dance floor by her hair, and throw her onto the floor by her hair. This was 100% Jerry Springer fan-tastic. It was at this point that the wife and I knew that Alice Fayes was A-OK with us. We took a picture of this woman and her boyfriend. Then we bought them a round of drinks. I tell this story not to make fun (well, not entirely), but to point out what a great place Alice Fayes is for good wholesome drinking and fighting fun. Probably not the best place for the children, but I don't think they pretend like it is.