Lately, my cherub has taken more of an interest in drawing.  In fact, he’s even played a few rounds of Draw Something for me.  Oddly, my poor, unsuspecting friend had no idea that Robbie had selected the word “mushroom.”  Sure, he’s always liked to scribble, readily agreeing to draw anything you ask him.  Nemo?  Sure.  Nona and Pops?  He’ll even throw in Barkley for good measure.  Of course, you can never tell one straight line from the other.

Until this weekend.  Robbie grabbed the racing form on Derby Day, sat down on the stairs, and said he was going to draw pumpkins.  And then, much to my amazement, he did.

I didn’t know what to do, so I cried.  I cried for the baby he wasn’t anymore.  For the big boy he so desperately wants to be.  And for all the pride I couldn’t contain in my heart.

I was at my wits’ end last night.  An hour into bedtime, and Robbie was still going strong.  I couldn’t take anymore.  And, before I knew it, the lie was out of my mouth.  After the fifteenth time Robbie asked me “why” he had to go to bed, I snapped and said, “Because it’s dark outside and Santa makes the rules.  Santa’s rules say all little boys have to be asleep when it’s dark outside.”

Robbie’s eyes got huge, and he said, very seriously, “Want a merry Christmas, Mom.  Stay in bed.”  And he did.  Until 2:30 in the morning when he crawled in bed with me.

I’m not proud to admit that I pulled the same stunt this morning when Robbie refused to brush his teeth.  In fact, he had pretty much refused to do anything, evidenced by his arrival at daycare in his Gargamel jammies (not really, they are just green striped pajamas with bats on the front).  He did, however, brush both his top and bottom teeth when I talked to him about Santa’s list, saying, “Want presents at Christmas, Mom.”

Unfortunately, none of this worked tonight.

I rolled over early this morning, prepared to ask Justin to scoot over when I saw it.  The bed bug.  He had crawled in sometime in the middle of the night, dragging his blanket with him and leaving it on the floor.  Not wanting Justin to miss this, I poked him until he woke up.

“When did Rob crawl into bed?  Did I miss him crying?”

Justin muttered back something unintelligible, but I think it was along the lines of, “I don’t know, woman.  Let me sleep.”

Still not one to let Justin continue to sleep, I pressed on.  “Well, is he wet?  Is that why he’s here?”

Justin quickly assessed the situation, determined Robbie was dry, and happily passed him over to me when I asked.  Just a few minutes to cuddle.  Robbie nestled his head in the crook of my neck, flung his arm around me, and snuggled in.

He’s been doing this a lot lately; almost every night, actually.  Usually it’s because he needs new pajamas and sheets, but it doesn’t matter.  I love that he comes into our room and crawls into bed.  But, mostly, I love that he goes to Justin’s side first.  And I wish that we had a king size bed.

Yesterday morning, Justin and I were running around the house trying to get it ready for yet another open house (still looking for that perfect buyer!).  I was in the living room, making sure the furniture was smelling fresh when I heard the crash outside.  I figured our neighbor must have dropped something and looked out our second-floor window.  All I could see was the roof of the first-floor bay window.  And one bright orange ear plug.  And one arm chair patch from our bedroom chair.  This did not look promising.

I yelled to Justin to close the window and keep Robbie away from it and headed outside.  I ran through everything in our room and figured it was probably the remote control.  As I passed our neighbor’s car, I breathed a sigh of relief that the windshield still appeared to be in tact.  Then I saw a flash of turquoise on the other side of the fence.  My Nook cover.  I drew a little closer, already seeing red as I realized what had happened.  My poor Nook, facedown, on the ground next to the cover.  Shattered.

Now, in retrospect, I realize how lucky we are that it was the Nook that went out the window and not Robbie himself.  I could see that happening, him trying to reach something he’s flung out and toppling out the window.  Perhaps this is why I acted so angrily, the sheer panic of what could have happened.  The realization that Robbie could have been seriously injured or worse.

I try to always open the windows from the top to avoid any chance of our family being on the news when the weather gets warm and the windows go up.  Unfortunately, I forgot in our bedroom.  So, please, take a few minutes to check your windows.  After all, I don’t want to see any of you on the evening news, either.

It was brutal.  Even at it’s best, the drive to or from Myrtle Beach is lengthy – around fifteen hours.  Our drive home was, unfortunately, much longer.  We were in the car for eighteen hours.  In the pouring rain.  With a cranky toddler.  Who only slept for an hour.

Initially, it was fine.  Not fun, because the ride home from vacation never stacks up to the ride to vacation.  But we were managing.  Early on, Justin and I discovered the importance of a hot Krispy Kreme donut (how can I possibly eat anything else ever again?).  Robbie lectured on the finer points of coffee.

We listened to Born to Run, and it took everything I had not to tell Justin to pull over and let me run the last 750 miles home.  After all, if the crazy people in the book could do it, so could I.  And it might be better than our drive.

Did I mention the traffic?  We were in a jam for nearly 200 miles.  We saw all of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware in excruciatingly slow detail.  We passed nine car wrecks, one of which had a hole in the windshield.

When we finally pulled up to our house, it was 12:30 Monday morning.  The rain was coming down in torrents.  Our car was packed to the gills, with at least three trips worth of items that actually had to come in that night.  Oh, and our lovely child was wide awake and screaming.

Robbie proceeded to lose his mind for the next half hour.  He started screaming something about “Don’t touch QiQi!  DON’T.  TOOUUCH. ME!”  And after that, he lost us.  He may have actually been speaking in tongues.  And then, just like that, he slid off our bed, went into his room, and fell asleep.  If only we’d known it would be that easy…

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go to sleep so easily.  When I finally did drift off, I had that terrible driving dream.  You know, the one after you’ve been driving in the pouring rain in the dark for hours and are tired and keep trying to shake your head to wake yourself up?  Except you’re not driving; you’re trying to relish the four hours of sleep you need.  Fail.

So, on a daily basis, I’m an OK mom.  Not great.  Not terrible.  Average.  There are a million things on my mind and I don’t always give him the attention that I should.  I don’t take time for the fun stuff.  I get cranky at bedtime.  But on vacation?  Totally different mom.

Every day can be an adventure.  The morning can be full of dangerous animals, which time to pet tortoises.

And sit on alligators.

We can splash around on the beach all afternoon.

And take cheesy pictures.

There’s even a little room at the end of the day to be a pirate.

There is no house to clean and the laundry is only done to get the sand out of the towels.  It’s OK to be lazy in the mornings and go to bed early.  You can laugh all you want and stay up late listing the adventures you want tomorrow to bring.

Today was overcast and, eventually, rainy, ruling out the beach.  Not wanting to sit inside and stare at each other all day, we headed to the aquarium.

And saw fish.  A lot of fish.

We even visited a few dinosaurs.  Once he was finished being terrified of the t-rex who roared in his face, Robbie managed to give him a high five.  He dug through some ancient artifacts, too.

And then, after an hour, we were done.  Robbie had run around the aquarium seven times.  He had stolen the same ray gun from the front of the gift shop fifteen times.  So, to keep ourselves from teaching Robbie to swim with the sharks, we headed out to the boardwalk.

There were some old school rides, and Robbie got to take a spin on the carousel.  Unfortunately, he wouldn’t ride any of the animals.

And a few other rides.

We took a break from being beach bums today and hit the road, headed for John’s Island, South Carolina, to see Justin’s dad.  It was supposed to be a quick two-hour trip.  It wasn’t.  It was three hours.  After a marina-side lunch with my father-in-law and his wife, we headed to Kiawah, where Pat and Becky used to live.  It’s a classy place.  Upscale, even.  Until we got there.

Robbie immediately grew bored with looking at the golf course and reminiscing about Justin’s adventures on Kiawah over college spring breaks (think golf cart mishaps and the like) and decided that he and his (second) lucky bucket needed a trip to the beach.  We happily left Justin and Pat sitting in rocking chairs on the clubhouse porch and headed for the beach.

Perhaps I brought it on myself by asking Robbie if he wanted me to take his shoes off.  Initially he declined.  However, after a few minutes of transferring handfuls of sand to his lucky bucket, he decided that his shoes and socks did, indeed, need to be removed.  Of course, I happily obliged.

That, however, was not the end.  Robbie then insisted that his shirt come off.  I hesitated at this because (bad parent alert here!) Robbie’s shoulders were a little sunburned from yesterday (perhaps due to his inability to realize what a good thing he has with spray sunscreen and failure to stand still).  But, who am I to deny a boy his right to be shirtless on the beach?

This, unfortunately, was not the end either.  He then felt that his shorts should be removed.  And here I drew the line.  This was a classy (albeit empty) beach.  Certainly not the place to be running around in your diaper.  But then I thought about it a little more, amidst screams from my toddler to “take pants off, Mom!”  Maybe a kid in a diaper was just what this place needed.  And, despite his crazier spring break stories, I was pretty sure my husband had never run around the beach in a diaper (although I do hesitate to ask).  So, I took off the kid’s pants.

And then he took off his diaper.  And ran around the beach naked for about thirty seconds before deciding it was time to put his diaper back on and avoid sand in uncomfortable places.  However, Robbie did give his father just enough running around to see his naked behind from 200-yards away.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we keep it classy.

Robbie knew he was headed for an adventure.  Bless his heart, he told us he was ready for it every thirty minutes on the ride to the beach.  You know, just in case we had forgotten.  And our first morning in Myrtle Beach, he was in our room bright and early, ready to go to the beach.  We’ve actually had to convince him the past two mornings that 7:00 is a little too early to put your bathing suit on.

He has had a blast the past two days.  There’s been a lot of playing in the sand.

A little frolicking in the waves – they tickle your feet when they come in.

But, after a few wipeouts, he stuck to building pirate ships.

And filling his lucky bucket with sand.  Incidentally, I have no idea how this became his lucky bucket. It hasn’t brought him any gold and it’s also his only bucket.  But, hey, what ever works.  Who am I to judge?

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds; I’m sure it will be another fabulous ‘venture.

Sometimes, the best trips are the ones you plan at the last minute.  You know, when you just happen to find out that your husband has a business trip scheduled to the beach the same week you’re on spring break?  I’m going to be honest about how this went down.  The conversation was a little something like this:

Me: So, what does your travel look like during spring break? (Did I mention daycare was supposed to be closed, which would leave me with the crazy Manna spawn all by myself?)

Justin: I don’t know.  Let’s check my calendar.  (Pulls out phone).  OK.  Looks like I’m in Saratoga until Saturday night.  Then I’ll be in Myrtle Beach for four days at the end of the week.  (Puts phone away).

Me: (Baffled by his nonchalance).  OK.  So, you’re going to the beach while I’m at home?  Alone?  With the child?  And off from work?

Justin:  Pretty much.

Me:  Listen, I know you’re going for work, but I’m just going to throw this out there.  If you are at the beach, in a beachfront hotel, for four days while I am home with YOUR child and not at work, I am not going to be nice to you.  At all.  So, I think we probably need to reconfigure how this is going to work out.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I finagled a beach vacation during spring break.  Of course, it helped that there just happened to be a ridiculously low-priced oceanfront condo available.  Definitely worth the 15-hour drive.  Especially when this is what we woke up to the next morning.