Pajama Pants Nation

The first flight went all right. The Toddler of Action had run around the airport like a madman. When we became situated on the airplane, he fell asleep and as I recall (Stephanie might have other recollections) slept most of the flight. Then we landed in Chicago. I had previously made the mistake of saying Chicago’s airport was relatively easy to negotiate. Once again, the gods of transportation deemed me wrong and proved it by making us walk from one weird corner of a terminal to another weird corner of another terminal.

Several years’ back, airlines decided it would be fun to not plan seating until you actually check in for your flight. We discovered this when Northwest airlines seated me in one row, Stephanie in another row, and Stephanie’s mother on another airplane. This time there was more of the same. United (or Ted, as it wishes to be called) had seated us in row 5, row 7, and row 14. Had I been thinking, I would have kept quiet about this. We should have put the Toddler of Action in row 14 and we could move forward to rows 5 and 7. When the flight attendant showed up wondering why we placed our dependant so far away, we could have shown the tickets and said “This is where you put us. Now, we’ve got our seat belts buckled as that little lighted indicator indicates, our seat backs forward, and our trays locked in the upright position. The young one is in your hands now. And please keep him quiet; we’re trying to sleep.” Of course, we didn’t do that. We changed seats. Other than the egregious error of flying on United, we’re responsible parents. Of course, the Toddler of Action cried most of the way–partly because he was restricted to inactive status, but mostly because row 14 had a much better view.

But we landed safely near Myrtle Beach. Those of us who purchased the correct-sized shirts put them on and met our driver near the baggage claim. I have plenty of baggage. (see previous paragraph.) Then we did what, apparently, EVERYONE does in Myrtle Beach: go grocery shopping. We bought way too much of some stuff. (Who knew we’d only have veggie burgers once?) Even though none of us were familiar with the store, we split apart to save time. When we finally found each other (some were in aisle 5, some in aisle 7, and some in aisle 14), we through our lots together and let Stephanie’s brother pay for them.

After we got back to the beach house, we walked the few blocks to the beach. Ah, the beach. I do love the ocean and its waves. It was dark, but you could still see the waves tumbling in over each other. We soon found out that the Toddler of Action was not a Toddler of Seafaring Action. He liked looking at it, but he was a bit nervous of the wave remnants coming toward him. I was surprised because he’s such a big fan of the bathtub. I guess when you’re two feet tall a three foot wave looks like a tsunami. Not many a-tsunami in a bathtub. We’ll forgive him his nervousness.

The next day we went full force to the beach, looking for watery fun. Allow me to begin by admitting I believe that being bald is its own reward. No paying a hair stylist good money to sit and wait to sit and get your hair cut. No brushing hair out of your face. No hat hair (a concern in Minnesota, to be sure). No combs or brushes. No shampoo concerns. The only problem is that you need to wear a hat more often. (I’m not a hat person.)

Turns out, there is another concern. All you folks with a full noggin o’ hair raise your hands. Now, y’all with raised hands, lower them if you’ve ever rubbed sunscreen lotion on your scalp? Hmmm, where’d all the hands go? I actually did both: sunscreen and a hat. But when you’ve got the top down, you need to protect yourself from the sun. Sure, I looked stupid jumping into the ocean with a cowboy hat on. But my brain isn’t all crispy now, so it was worth it.

I get worn out when we take the Toddler OA anywhere. At home we can just watch him. The house is mostly childproof and we know where the danger spots are found. Every once in a while we need to get up to stop him from hurting himself, stop him from damaging something, or, you know, play with him. But when we visit places, the set up isn’t so childproof and we need to constantly be chasing him because he’s magically drawn to the places which could be problems. We need to go home to rest from the vacation. That ain’t right. We could die from such relaxation.

Stephanie’s brother, Matt, knows a thing or two about building sand castles. The Toddler of Destruction knows a thing or two about unbuilding sand castles. But they get along well anyway. I don’t know where Matt learned this. He’s spent almost his entire life landlocked, but he picked it up somewhere. Maybe he learned it at daycare. That’s where the Toddler learned his destructive skills.

We also learned that you need special beach attire. Turns out that it’s not only politicians who flip-flip. My new shoes do, too. Yep, I got some flip flops for the beach. The last time I went to a beach, I about ruined my sandals, so I flip flopped on the opinion on flip flops. However, on this trip I learned how difficult it is to walk in flip flops. If you look at the Issues link on my campaign web site, you’ll see I have no current stance on flip flops. My campaign team is doing research on the topic as we speak.

Sometimes, you need to eat while on vacation. The Ghost Ship is a restaurant near Myrtle Beach. I know this because I saw a banner behind an airplane. They have a few of those constantly flying over the ocean–airplanes dragging advertising banners behind them. They advertise beach stuff and sea food buffets. One also informed me that I didn’t win the previous day’s lottery. Anyone, one (at least one) advertised the Ghost Ship restaurant. So, when we decided to go out to a buffet, we went to Crabby Mike’s. (That doesn’t make sense until you know that more airplanes had Crabby Mike banners.) The projected wait to get into Crabby Mike’s was so long, we decided to go somewhere else. We ended up at the Ghost Ship. It’s easy to spot because it has a ship parked in the parking lot. I know not a lot about maritime law, but it appears you are allowed to park a ship anywhere you want. This one was parked in a handicap parking space. I didn’t see any tickets on the window, so it must be legal. Ghost Ships get all the breaks.

I do enjoy the ocean, though. The waves rolling over the other waves. Water as far as the eye can see. One evening, as the tide was coming in, waves crashing upon one another, I saw the large moon just over the horizon. It struck me that the moon, causer of tides, was behind all of this. It was almost as if the moon was standing there, directing the waves to rise and crash down on the shore.

Earlier in the day, I had a different thought. You see, the tide goes out during the day so that during the afternoon the tide is at its lowest. Then it rises over the night, producing, I assume, the big waves. So the escaping waves are when the most people are in the water. The fun big waves are when no one is there. Intelligent design, my foot. It might be for the best, though. Some of us land lubbers don’t belong out there when there is a lot of water on the beach.

Speaking of not belonging out there, I went jet skiing for the first time. Matt had this notion that it would be fun to race around on a jet ski and asked if I wanted to go. I said, of course, no. Then Stephanie peer-pressured me into going. That was fun and no one important drowned. That’s what those in the business call a twofer. We did almost tip the thing over. That would have cost us four-hundred dollars. Sure, they tell us not to drink while boating and it’s the watercraft that is tipsy. What gives?

As always on our trip, we get bored with having fun and pull out the video games. This time, micromachines 4 or something. Pretty cool game. The courses are a hoot. They took household objects and generated them from a micromachine’s eye view. I never actually played, but it looked fun.

The Toddler of Action found a new pastime: Thomas the Train Engine or whatever he’s called. Someone (I won’t mention any names because I don’t know who) brought along a Thomas DVD. The Toddler saw a train on the cover–he loves trains–and demanded to see it. So he did. Several times. When we got home, we purchased a Thomas DVD. He demands to see it all the time. Except he doesn’t actually watch it. It’s more background noise for him. We find it annoying. The story teller is George Carlin. It might be that The Toddler is soothed by Carlin’s velvety voice. So, here’s my plan. Buy a George Carlin DVD or two. When Toddler of Viewing wants to “watch” Thomas, we just put a George Carlin DVD in. He’s soothed by the voice, we’re more entertained, and everyone’s happy. Especially, George Carlin. I see absolutely no problem with this plan whatsoever.

Stephanie does see a problem, so we’re not doing it. Rats!

On the last day, we played Trivial Pursuit. If you want to play the ‘90s edition of Trivial Pursuit, watch Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks. Oh, and refresh yourself on Dan Quayle quotes. One of George H. W. Bush’s parenting mistakes was having Quayle mentor George “Dubya” Bush. Luckily, he didn’t let Quayle near Jeb. “Fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me twice . . . we won’t get fooled again.”

Then we went home. The flights were pretty much the same on the way home as they were on the way to vacation. On the first flight, we had the Toddler of Sleep. On the second flight, we had the Toddler of Tears. In between, he ran around O’Hare airport like crazy. Surprisingly, though, the travelers were very patient with him. Most places that aren’t influenced by airline stupidity, people are very patient. How people in airports leave with functional mental activity is beyond me.

Oh, and uniTed forgot to load my suitcase on the airplane.

And that’s our trip. So, if you see us, ask us about the trip. And ask the Toddler of Action, too.

He’s the one seven rows behind us.

 

 

© 2006, Mark Wentz

Actually, we don’t move on. We stay. I heard a song from the late 50s or early 60s in the grocery store the other day. It dawned on me that, while this music predates me and seems tame and, possibly, traditional to me, it may remind people of Steph’s mother’s age of their youth and bring back fond memories, and people in Steph’s grandfather’s generation probably called it something like “that crazy noise the kids listen to these days.” We all live in different worlds, but they intersect. That’s what I believe. And we move on.

So, we drove down to Springfield, Illinois. That’s 467.27 miles. Actually, it’s only 320 miles as the crow flies, but we took a car. (What was Eisenhower thinking when he designed those interstate highways?)

When you’re married and are looking at a 7 hour drive ahead of you, you’re thinking “Man! How are we going to survive a 7 hour drive?” When you’re married and have an 18-month-old and are looking at a 7 hour drive ahead of you, you’re thinking “Man! How are we going to survive a 9 hour drive with an 18-month-old screaming in the back?” Having a child really does change your outlook on life, I guess. And here’s more. One of the tricks is to stop and let the Toddler of Action (TM) run himself tired. Then throw him in the car, take off, and hope he sleeps. (Of course, WE’RE the ones who end up most tired after these stops. Just God’s way of saying “Don’t have kids!”)

Now, I’ve been a vegetarian on a trial basis for about 9 years now. Even before that, I avoided McDonalds like the plague. BUT, I knew that McDonalds restaurants had playgrounds. Little did I know, only SOME had playgrounds. We stopped at one just this side of Madison, Wisconsin (in Windsor) hoping to find a playground. There was no playground to be found. So we drove a bit down the road and stopped at another one. This one had no playground either. But the Hardees did have a playground. So we stopped and ate, sort of. They had nothing vegetarian. We thought they’d at least have a salad, but no. Not gonna happen. So after we sort of ate, I took the Toddler of Action to the playground area. He wasn’t really interested in playing. ARRRGGHHH. So I shoved him down the slide a couple times and threw him in the car and tried to get out of the Madison area. (If you’ve ever tried to maneuver around Madison, you’re probably still trying so I’ll keep this short to save your laptop battery.)

In other places, we noticed other strange things. Black boxes over the highway. I presumed these marquee things were to inform us of potential hazards ahead. Nope. They alternated between “Wear your seat belt; click it or ticket” and “start seeing motorcycles.” Of course, in trying to read that stupid sign, I ran over two motorcycles. BUT, I saw the motorcycles in my rear view mirror, so I’m starting to see them. Anyway, if the highway ever crashes, they can check the black box for the pre-crash data and know that, prior to the crash, millions of drivers were distracted to be told the obvious.

Another strange thing I saw had to do with a stop sign. You know, those things they made big, octagon, and red so you can’t miss them. Well, I saw some with a red flag sticking out of one of the sides. I guess so you can miss them. There’s one in Rochester that has flashing lights bordering it. Pretty soon they’ll have little bumper stickers for motorcycles reading “Start seeing stop signs.” I guess the world gets so hectic and so visually busy that you stop noticing the obvious, so you need something more obvious to point out the obvious. Of course, that would continue the snowball effect, so you’d need something to point out the thing pointing out the obvious.

So, after several stops for wearing the youngster out, we made it to the hotel. And locked the keys in the car. That’s a hoot. Years ago, I would have freaked out about that. I just laughed to myself. First, I’m older, wiser, and know not to let life’s easily solve-ables get me down. Second, in this situation, you’re dancing up and down for joy that it didn’t happen at one of those rest stops along the way. It’s difficult to explain your location to a tow truck operator when you don’t know where you are, even if you can figure which tow truck operator to call.

One of the things we did on this trip was go to the Springfield Zoo. It’s not actually called the Springfield Zoo, though, so don’t try to find it under that name. I don’t remember the name of it but it has critters and a gift shop so it must be a zoo. If you pay a bit more, you get this key card which you plug into these box things by each cage. Then the little speaker tells you more information than is given in those little paragraph things posted by the cage. We didn’t pay more. Good thing, too. The Toddler of Action is a dancer; not a learner. When you go up to those little boxes and, without the key, hit the button, it plays a little song telling you how great it is to rent a key to learn more about the animals. The Toddler of Action loved it. While we’re watching the cougar sleep, the Toddler’s dancing up a storm to a commercial.

He did like some of the animals, though. The otters. The monkeys. The horse. The plastic turtle kids can climb in the little in-zoo playground. What is that about? They have a playground IN the zoo! Of course, that was the Toddler’s favorite spot in the zoo. (Yes, he liked it more than he liked to music boxes.) In the end, we paid good money to, at least partially, play in a third rate playground when we could have gone to a better city park playground for free.

So after the Toddler was finished dancing and playing in the ground and we were done pretending we cared that he was looking at the animals in the zoo, we went back to the hotel.

And saw some news. Here’s some of what happened while we were gone.
1) Those cowards in St. Paul gave a billionaire hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of a baseball stadium. No word yet on increased funding for K-12, higher ed, health care, or renewable fuels. I won’t hold my breath.
2) Barbaro was injured. That brings up one of the big bothers of horse racing. No one seems to care unless it’s some kind of arbitrary history in the making. For most people, the concern is totally phony. For 11 months of the year, few care about horse racing. Then we have the Kentucky Derby. After the Derby, the world is abuzz with talk of the “next triple crown winner.” Until the next race. The Derby winner loses and horse racing is ignored until the next year. Don’t believe me? Answer these three questions:
1) Who won the race in which Barbaro was injured?
2) What was the name of the race?
3) What is the name of third race of the triple crown?

If you can answer all three of those without looking it up, I owe you an apology.

I assume that some non-sports-related news happened, but I only read the sports section so I couldn’t tell you what it was.

During the Springfield stay, we took the Toddler of Action into the pool. Golly, that water is cold. But he enjoyed bouncing up and down in it and watching dear ol’ dad nearly drown, so all were happy with the pool. If only any of us could swim.

Well, every vacation needs a happy ending.

So, we drove home, cursing at the McDonalds signs, looking for rest stops with playgrounds, and double-checking the location of my keys when I locked the car doors. Oh, yeah, and starting to see motorcycles.

Oh yeah, and somewhere in there we went to a birthday party.

 

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.

 

© 2006, Mark Wentz