Maine

We have spent the past week in Maine at the beach. I have been spending a summer week or two in Maine since I was born as did my father when he was a child. His family would pack up their car and make the 5 hour trek on a single lane road to an island at Robinhood Point. There they would spend the entire summer and my father would roam the island by himself (he was around 5 or 6 at the time)! Since the boys turned three in June, I figured this would be the start of them really remembering things from their childhood and I wanted to share my summertime memories with them. Like walking down the beach to the jette in search of little crabs to trap in a sand pail. Or going to the Scoop Deck for ice cream as we ran for the door to escape all the mosquitoes. And visiting the York Wild Animal Farm (which seemed larger and much more exotic to me then than it does now).

The weather could have been better but the boys didn't mind. As long as it wasn't raining, they wanted to be at the beach "kicking the waves" as Aidan says.

And Gavin spent the whole week snubbing me and being a total Daddy's boy. One day we went to our favorite fish store to get take out. We had called ahead so we figured I could just hop out and get our order so we wouldn't have to take the kids out of their carseats, etc. Well, the order wasn't quite ready and when I came out the door, I could hear Gavin screeching from the car. I asked Sean what the heck was wrong with him and he said "He told me to leave you at the fish store and just drive back to the beach house." This became the theme of the week as he wanted to leave me everywhere we went from then on. Gee, thanks Gavin. Also, on the beach I could not get a decent picture of him because he refused to look at me. And when he did look at me, I got the 'What are you doing here' look.

This was Ciara's first Maine vacation and she couldn't have loved it more. I remember when the boys were her age on their first vacation. They touched the sand with their hands and immediately pulled them back, a look of disgust on their face. "You expect me to sit on this?" it seemed to say. Not Ciara. She had just started really toddling a few days before we left and as soon as you put her down on the sand and she got her footing, she was off for the water's edge.As I mentioned, the weather was not the best. When the sun is out in Maine, it is absolutely beautiful. Sun shimmering on the water, gentle ocean breezes and warm sand between your toes. But if it is overcast and rainy, it is the dreariest place on earth. Cold, damp, raw. But, again, the kids didn't mind and even ran through the water one day, sweatshirts and all.

As much as the boys loved the beach, they loved having their cousins downstairs just as much. Every morning, they were chomping at the bit to go down and see them. But usually before we got the chance to get them dressed and go down, my niece and nephew were already knocking on our door eager to see the boys and Ciara. My niece is at the age where she just loves babies and she couldn't get enough of Ciara. It was great having playmates there for the boys and they all loved spending timeon the beach together.

As we pulled out of the driveway of the cottage, Gavin was wailing about wanting to stay at "the beach house". He cried a good 30 minutes and finally fell asleep for the rest of the ride home. Aidan, on the other hand, liked his vacation well enough but was ready to go home to his own stuff and veg out on his favorite chair.

I wonder what next year will bring...