Paul went to Florida for work. He was in Tampa Mon - Wed. I was supposed to fly to Miami on Wednesday for work myself, so we decided it would be simpler (and more fun) for me to take Scarlett down with me and have him meet us there. I was supposed to stay at a resort that had a big pool, so we thought it would be fun. While Paul was gone, Scarlett and I spent most of our time getting ready for the trip. We packed, bought a few toys for the plane, and did a lot of talking about how she was going to be a good girl on the way down there. She actually was. She had a blast at the airport. Being the Type A cautious one that I am, we had about 2 1/2 hours to wait before the plane boarded. Scarlett ran around, climbed the chairs, made friends, and even stuffed herself in the little box they have to make sure your carry on is small enough. Luckily she would fit in the overhead compartment in a pinch... :) One of her funniest moments was when she found a young woman with very fancy stilleto shoes and ran up to her and said "SHOES!!". The woman started laughing and saying she liked Scarlett's shoes too. Scarlett then capitalized on her opening and asked her for her McDonald's french fries. She let Scarlett reach in and grab one herself and she came back with an entire handful. Sigh. That's my girl! Flatter her with a shoe compliment and then steal her food. She also had the woman in the row behind us on the plane offering her lollipops. Mommy had to nix that one though...
Once we got there Scarlett and I took the super shuttle to the hotel, which as it turned out was sort of in the middle of no where. It was right on some well known golf course but otherwise there was nothing to do other than the pool. We met up with Paul and headed to the main building for some dinner. At that point Scarlett was VERY hungry and VERY tired. All-in-all, she was very cranky. Of course, that meant I was bound to run into my boss and all my colleagues from the meeting I was there for. Not quite the impression I wanted her to make, but oh well.
The next day I headed off to work while Paul and Scarlett had a fun filled day at the pool. I have to admit that I was pretty jealous, but I wasn't about to complain since I would much rather have them there so that I could at least see them in the evenings. The next day I finished before lunch, so we headed to the pool and I got to enjoy some of the fun Paul had been having. It's funny because Scarlett has always loved the water, but from one time to the next at the pool it's like she grows leaps and bounds. While we were in Miami she started jumping off the side of the pool (standing rather than sitting and plopping in like she had been doing) and doing a doggy-paddle type movement with her body. It didn't take her long to get confident with her new abilities -- so confident in fact that she decided she could swim on her own. We used to be able to swim on our backs and she'd hang on to our necks and go for a ride. Starting in Miami, she would ride for a few second and then jump off of us into the open water! She's crazy. In any case, it all means you have to keep a very close eye on her because she doesn't understand the concept of drowning yet but also hasn't mastered floating... If she could just learned to float with her upper body (she knows how with her legs) then she really could swim by herself, but she tires out pretty quickly. I will say however that we spent hours in the pool with her and we still had to drag her away crying and screaming. I think she would have stayed at the pool all night. That girl just loves to swim.
We headed out the next day and despite having a little trouble with the Miami cab company, we didn't really have any issues on the plan ride back. It wasn't a full flight so we had a whole row to ourselves and Paul even got her to sleep for a little while. After we got back, we drove up to Columbia, MD for Wine in the Woods. We got there pretty late and missed most of the wine, but we visited with Bonnie, Mike and their friends for a little while before grabbing dinner and going to our hotel. We had decided to stay in Maryland for the night because Dave was participating in his first triathalon the next morning so we needed to be there at 7:30 AM. Considering Scarlett doesn't even wake up until 8:30, that's an early morning for us! We also got a bunch of poster board and markers so that we could make some signs to support Dave, but we never got to use them too much.
Needless to say, Dave finished the race and it was a very emotional day for everyone involved. It's sort of mind blowing that in less than a year he went from finding out he had Leukemia to participating in a triathalon and probably being healthier than he was before the diagnosis. We are all VERY proud of him and Scarlett loves her Uncle Dave. He's already signed up for another one...
The top few pictures on this post are of Scarlett at the playground at Glebe Road Elementary School. It's very close to our house and would be Scarlett's school if we still live here when she's of that age. We love the playground because it's big and not overly crowded. That night it was just Scarlett and a family of 4 or 5 kids. The other kids ranged in age from 1 to about 13 or 14. Scarlett made friends with a 4 year old girl who wanted to carry her around the playground. I was a little nervous at first since Scarlett is pretty lanky and over 20 pounds. I followed them around making sure she didn't drop her and trying to stay close by in case Scarlett got nervous. It soon because clear that Scarlett had no interest in me being there at all. Any time the girl put her down, Scarlett thrust her arms out toward her again asking to be picked up. It was funny because she got very quiet and wasn't talking at all (almost a submissive thing) but was very clingy with the bigger kids and quite happy to be treated like an over-sized doll. The funniest thing was that then the girl's older brother wanted to carry her around too and they started fighting over who got to carry her and for how long. I thought she might be put off by the boy because he was pretty rambunctious, but she didn't bat an eye. Same thing... if he put her down, she asked to be picked up again. She really loves older kids. She started crying when we finally said it was time to go. Hopefully we'll see them again there soon!
LOL that's so funny about the kids wanting to carry Scarlett all over the playground. I've found that with my younger cousins as well, where I have to constantly tell them that he weighs almost what they weigh. Kids.. never listen. haha
ReplyDeleteAnd what's with people offering kids candy? These are obviously people who never had kids. And if they did, then they must have something against you, you know!