The UniBartonHauer's spent a week snacking and sitting around in Florida. Bradenton to be precise, though tiny trips to Tampa, St. Pete, and Anna Maria act as the industrious highlights of the vacation. On a family trip where we are all staying the same house, my favorite thing is always the same: watching everyone experience the trip differently given the assorted obstacles and scenarios presented. Our time in Florida was a textbook example of each family member's preferences mushed up against accommodating our newest additions; and by those I mean Nick and Liv.
For Ellen, a trip is a time to participate in something luxurious and then lay down. For Lee, relaxation is the ticket. He just needs a fishing rod and some music. Mom wants to trinket shop. Brett chooses to seek out newness, whether is a new dish to taste or a physical feat to overcome. I prefer a mixture of Lee's serenity pool and Brett's experience seeking, and Dad is most inclined to go with the flow until he gets bored. Once bored, he's quite pleased to do some reading.
So here we all are, in one house for a full week, each seeking something slightly different. Historically, we maneuver a easy vacation dance with one of two people claiming intentions for the day and the rest latching on to whichever (or neither) seems most aligned with moods, priorities, and hungriness factors. So Mom's desire to "hit the shops" on Anna Maria Island lined up nicely with my desire to see the beautiful scenery there and Ellen's fondness for expensive locations. So us girls spent a morning there popping in and out of the overpriced stores inside of the charming, colorful buildings.
But on this trip, for the first time since both were mobile, Nick and Liv joined in on the fun. And it was fun. They were chatty and excitable. Each morning they would wake up early and commence the chattering for the day. Despite having an ample-sized living room just off the kitchen, the morning routine was for the eight of us to crowd around a small coffee table in a tiny space between the kitchen and the back door. The kids would bring their briefcases of Hot Wheels into the little space and insist on using two of the six chairs for display purposes. So we'd be leaning on walls, rotating who sat down, and otherwise just standing there because it never really occurred to us to inconvenience the children instead. I found the morning cluster ritual very funny until about the fourth day when I woke up and realized I didn't want to go squeeze into that space anymore. Additionally, the chairs were on swivels, so Liv would make me seasick every morning, swirling her chair which would bump mine and send me rotating slightly this way or that. Or she would sit and my lap to chatter about things but she doesn't sit still, so every flailing limb or enthusiastic gesture would twirl the chair just enough for a person's equilibrium to doubt their stability. The trouble was that she is so precious and this moment in time so fleeting that you don't want her to not sit in your lap and talk about her dream to be a mermaid, so you sit, feeling a little pukey, and remind yourself that this is the good stuff.
But then day four hit and I chose not to sit down.
Nick is still but a little tike so sensitivities are quite high. He is understandably not interested in doing things like getting water or looking for Dad by himself, so escort services were required from anyone within earshot. His main driver each day though, is to do as Livvy does. Does Liv want to swim? Then Nick wants to swim. Does Liv not want to taste watermelon? Then Nick does not want to taste watermelon. Did Liv pull her arm out of her sleeve? Nick will pull his arm out of his sleeve too. My favorite part about this is that Nick is in a stage (4 years long stage) of not wanting to wear pants. So he winds up performing fairly effeminate movements in a speedo, making him frequently look like a tiny gay man with a potbelly.
Brett and I enjoyed our time in our own little bubble. He did have to work a few hours each day, so I would entertain or hide from the children, chat with mom, or do some light reading. When he was free, we'd go into Tampa for lunch, or search out authentic Floridian ice cream, or find a place that makes coffee the way he likes it. We did have grey weather with dumping rain for most of the trip, but the last two or three days we had enough sun for splashing around in the pool with the kids. We are proud to have earned top regards from the kids. ("Uncle Bretty is so tall." "Aunt Lue is silly.")
Mom and Dad did more childcare than we did but also managed to go for a date night or two, read books and magazines, and help orchestrate the Shanghai tournaments. They took the lot of us bowling on one of those rainy days which was met with great success. Liv especially enjoyed it and Lee bowled strike after strike. Nick was entertained at first but quickly lost interest so Ellen took him over to the arcade - a choice that proved to be a fatal mistake. Meanwhile Dad mistook Brett's real shoes for his bowling shoes and then howled with delight by his mistake. I had selected a particularly greasy bowling ball which made my hands sweat right from the get-go and I never recovered. The place was a little sticky and we all sat with our hands in upward turned claws when it wasn't our turn. Then we received complimentary cookies which promptly caused half of us to disregard our germ concerns and dig right in. When it was time to go, Ellen and Nick came back from the arcade with a little capsule toy from a vending machine. It was a little rubber bear in a plastic bubble with a pink lid, Liv's favorite color. Livvy's eyes glittered with interest, so they gave her fifty cents to go get her own. Well, she got the same little rubber bear but the lid to the plastic bubble was red.
When I tell you all hell broke loose...
Liv is the most cheerful, positive, sweet little person. She rarely cries. So we were shocked that this child had to be carried out of the bowling alley, and the uncontrollable sobbing over the red lid lasted the entire drive home and up the stairs into the house where it turned into a hiccupy cry, and thirty minutes after that, a perpetual pouty lip. This was the point during the trip when I noticed that Ellen and Lee were not having the calm, relaxing trip that the rest of us were. Come to think of it, Lee was spending most nights in the quiet room downstairs. You know, Ellen hasn't suggested anything that would give her time away from the kids... hmm. Are they quietly enduring the utter chaos of tending to children outside of their typical routines?
Turns out, kinda. Yeah. Ellen and Lee are such conscientious parents that they were exerting extra and unnecessary energy making sure that the kids weren't bothering the rest of us. When we realized this, we were quick to tell them to stop that. They aren't bothering us. We like spending time with them. Leave them with us and you two go do something!
They conceded to one measly dinner out together but otherwise stood solidly, taking the lashings that overstimulated children in new environments manage to wield with an intensity reserved for parents alone. They were happy little squirts, but also uprooted from the familiar routines that keep them confidently engaged in things besides Mom and Dad. They did not have their toys and beds and assorted crap - so they felt adrift in a big busy house with extra family members. They hit a tiredness wall somewhere near the end and became easily reduced to tears or whimpering. Ellen and Lee were at wits end, counting down the days to heading home again.
We all took turns cooking dinner and the leftovers amassed with all the necessary kid-food (fruit, yogurt, applesauce, cheese, etc, etc) to create a fridge jam packed full of things that none of us wanted to throw out. On the last night, we had a fridge-clean-out dinner, which resulted in finding coleslaw and baked beans from the night we arrived a week ago, that had been pushed to the deep recesses of the fridge. Dad placed these items on the dinner table as thought it wouldn't be threat to health and safety. When we balked at the idea, he maintained that it was fine and we shouldn't throw it away. Mom discreetly removed the items from the table when Dad left to heat up the nub of a baguette from who knows when.
Brett watched as more and more creepy, old eats made their way to the table; smashed berries the kids had coughed on, one roasted bell pepper from four nights ago, the pale pink ends of watermelon half submerged in their juices, the dregs of a bag of tortilla chips, two broccoli florets. While there was a collective amused distain for the selection, we ate it, because we don't throw food away. Brett, who comes from a family that will chuck half a perfectly good ham just because they've had their fill, gazed at the display and then lifted his eyes to look at me and said simply, "I see where you get it."
I found this as validating as I did amusing because I catch him throwing out perfectly good food at least twice each week and I chastise him every time. "This is perfectly fine. Why would you throw it out?"
"I don't want to eat anymore of it."
"What's that go to do with it? You paid for it."
"So?"
"So you have to eat it."
Trip highlights include:
-Watching both squirts become increasingly proficient swimmers. (Nick can hold his breath for ages. It's awful to watch. He wanted me to drag him to the bottom of the pool so he could sit just down there. "Absolutely not, Nikki!")
-Watching Brett experience the Union family listening to The Sound Of Music soundtrack. (He was not impressed.)
-The whole family went to an enormous crap-focused, broken down flea market where I saw a dozen roosters packed into a tiny cage together and it completely ruined my morning. Everyone thought it was sad, mind you, but I took it the hardest. Dad wholeheartedly supported my thought to buy them all and bring them to a sanctuary. Brett said nothing but stood tensely next to us while I worked out supply and demand for roosters in western Florida. Later, when I admitted that buying them would only boost the industry, Dad became enlivened by my next suggestion of him causing a scene while I set them free.
-Listening to Lee talk in his Brooklyn chain-smokers accent.
-A particularly gruesome Nick meltdown while waiting to eat at a restaurant. This resulted in Lee wordlessly grabbing both children, getting into the car and going home. (Not funny to him or Ellen at the time but a retrospectively hilarious dad-move.) (Ellen and Lee anticipated the meltdown approximately two minutes before it began, while both kids were still happy, giving them enough time to take the kids outside, do some quick strategizing and already have Livvy walking towards the car before Nick broke loose. I was thoroughly impressed.)
-Nick getting excited about fishing with his dad.
I liked the cozy rainstorms and the messy kitchen and the exciting trees that grow down there. As always, I enjoyed the cheap shots from Dad, the one-liners from Brett, and getting even tiny moments to chat with Ellen. On our drive home, Brett foolishly asked Mom about her family history and she talked for so long that it had Dad in stitches. "Oh, and I'll tell you this..." She went on and on and on. Even when we pointed out that she'd been talking for hours, she still had things to say.
Here's a sweet photo of Ellen riding back to the house with us on the night that Lee evacuated the kids from the restaurant in the nick of time.
And then Dad let out a hearty belch.
