Beachcombing

Ella has a special outfit, a yellow short-sleeved top and blue jeans, with a purple sweatshirt tied around her waist, that makes her feel very grown up and sophisticated indeed.  She packed that outfit for our trip, and yesterday she put it on first thing. But then Ella quickly changed it when she heard that we were swimming later in the day.  Because she had plans to wear that outfit the whole day through, while in the kids camp, in the company of her peers.

Today she wore her outfit again, down to the sweatshirt, in spite of the 85-degree weather predictions.  And after breakfast, at 9:00, she dragged me down to the kids club desk, only to be turned away for another hour, when the counselors would arrive.

But she made me promise to check her in at 10:00 on the nose.

I did, and she alone, because Alex and Joey still think that Mom and Dad are more fun than a bunch of teenagers. Every time I checked in on her, before lunch and after, and then again at 3:00, she waved me away blithely.  She was watching a movie. She was doing arts and crafts. She was in the thick of a board game with one of the counselors.

So much for Ella.

That left the rest of us to head down to the water just as soon as we could muster, which, when you're wrangling three little boys and a wee baby, ends up being about 10:30.  We made plans to walk down the coastline to the next hotel, where there's a little cove with a sand and pebble shore.  Unfortunately, most of the cove is taken up with lounge chairs and umbrellas, and these were choc-a-bloc with fellow tourists, leaving only the tiniest bit of beach for the kids to play on, but it was infinitely better than the jagged rocks we tried yesterday, especially as far as the kids were concerned.  Joey spent almost the entire time on the beach with Dennis, pretending to swim in the water.

Alex, however, still hasn't gotten used to the taste of salt water, so he hugged the shoreline, especially when he found that the pebbly shore was riddled with sea glass. And so he spent most of his time with his nose to the sand, fingers raking the ground, eventually emerging with a fistful of pretty glass and a 5-Kuna coin (equivalent to a dollar in today's economy) besides.  "Ella would love this," he said, a little wistfully.

Poor Kael has similar reservations about the water, although he did finally deign to get his feet ever so slightly wet, although he had a firm grip Brie's ponytail the whole time, insurance against being tossed into the waves, I suppose.  Dennis and I eventually took the whole pile of the kids on our laps, so that Brie and Geoff could finally actually swim together for a little while.

Peeking in on the kids: Alex, playing some sort
of homemade twister game

We went up the shore in the opposite direction for lunch, to one of the resort-owned restaurants, with only outdoor seating, facing that spectacular view.  I charged Dennis with ordering, and he did so blindly, selecting something that seemed as though it might actually be authentically Croatian.  It turned out to be a plate of tiny, mildly spicy sausages, Cevapcici, that I thought were delicious.  And apparently they're quite popular: there was a tureen of them at dinner tonight, and the line for them was constant, with most people ladling a dozen or more on their plates.

Alex, after our quiet lunch, had wa-a-ay to much energy, and he brightened at the idea of joining Ella in the day camp, so I dropped him off.  Joey, conversely, was looking pretty sleepy, so I found a shady spot on the terrace, ordered some coffee, and made a little bassinet for Joey out of the chairs.

Joey almost slept, but then revived, so Dennis took him back, where both boys took a nap.  I reveled in the quiet of the room for a while, reading and really feeling like I was on vacation, before going down to collect the kids.


And this time Ella was more than ready to go.  She seemed kind of grouchy when I picked her up, which I chalked down to fatigue, until she admitted that she hadn't eaten anything at lunch. "Mom, there wasn't a single identifiable thing in any of those dishes!"

After a few cereal bars and a couple stories for the both of them, all was bright and sunny again, and after Alex proudly displayed his sea glass collection, Ella was convinced that it might be worth shucking her special outfit, for the sake of treasure hunting.

And that was a particularly wonderful part of the day, watching my two little blond heads bent over the sand, with Ella taking periodic sojourns out into the water.  At one point she floated past me, kicking rapidly, chortling "I never thought I'd swim in an ocean!"

Ella and her treasure

And, at another point, she came running to me, unable to breathe from her excitement. "Mom! I think...I think...I think I found a pearl!"  And indeed she had, it turned out.  A cultured one, with a hole for an earring post or a necklace loop, but a pearl nonetheless.  She couldn't stop talking about it, while Alex, regarding her jealously, redoubled his search efforts, finally, begging, in desperation "Mom? Will you help me find a pearl, too?"

Dennis and Joey joined us briefly after their naps, and then spent the last 90 minutes before dinner on the playground. But Ella and Alex begged to spend every last available minute at the beach, with Ella still crooning over her pearl on the walk home.

The only seashells that the kids could find

The kids at dinner

I was wanting the kids, but Ella especially, to get some extra sleep tonight, so we tried to get them to bed right after dinner. But Alex, and then Joey, begged me to take him down to the shore, just for a minute, remembering the fun of our crab hunt yesterday. Although Alex gave up quickly, needing to make an emergency bathroom leaving me and Joey in his wake. Trying to catch up, I cut my foot on a rock (but did not drop Joe) and so limped back to the hotel, where Alex was nowhere to be found.

Mugging for a picture, too

Collecting pine cones on the seaside

Since I was dripping blood at this point, it seemed best to go back to the room and let Dennis search instead, and he took off, running first to the beach and then across the grounds.  But a very cross Alex made it back, first: "Mom, why didn't you find me.  I was holding the door open for you, and a million strangers went through it, but you never came." Alex is a firm believer in the importance of holding open a door for loved ones.  This morning, when I caught the door for him, he smiled sweetly and told me "Oh, thank you, Mom. That was so very kind of you." He belongs to a different era.

So there was that excitement, and then probably also the ice cream at dinner was a factor, but it took us ages to get Ella and Alex to sleep.  Joey we just about gave up on: at one point, while he was laying on our bed, thrashing quietly, Dennis and I slipped out to the deck to listen to the music from the evening's entertainment, a ballroom dance presentation.

But then an indignant Joey appeared in the window.  He wanted to join us, but succeeded in locking us out on the deck, instead.  He clearly thought that we were the ones keeping him out, however, and his face crumpled, and he very nearly collapsed in disappointment. And the windows are very thick: I don't think he could hear our pleas or instructions at all. Finally, when he saw me violently rattle the door, it occurred to him what our situation might be. He lifted the latch.

After all that fun, I decided bedtime probably just wasn't in the near future, and so I decided it was Joey's turn to accompany me to an evening show.  It was so fun watching with Joey.  He was very quiet, but his face was all smiles.  His only comment was after the tango: I don't know if it was the severe expressions or the black outfits, but he turned to me and said, a thrilled grin, "Mom, those BAD guys!"

He finally ran out of energy during the quick step and asked to go to bed, but when he got home, he paused long enough to tell Dennis "Daddy, I LOVED it."