Vacation Notebook Leftovers

On the way to school today, M. and C. were talking about their ages. M. first said, “C.. How weird is it that next year I’ll be 10 and you’ll be eight?”

C.’s eyes gleamed as she considered it. “Wow, that will be weird. It’s like we’re skipping a year!”

Sometimes I love the way she thinks.

The conversation continued for awhile before C. dropped this nugget.

“M.. When I turn seven, I’m going to be on your tail!”

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw her grinning mischievously. I think she just meant that for two-plus months she will be seven and M. will still be eight, so it will sound like they’re closer in age than they really are. Still, made me laugh.

That made me remember I have a couple things still written down from Spring Break I have not shared.


M. isn’t afraid of talking to anyone who will listen to her. One day at the pool she started talking to a boy that was five or six. Soon he was following her around, and eventually he trailed all three girls. Each time they would disappear to another pool, the restroom, etc. he would walk over to me and ask, “Where are the other sisters at?” He could never master their names so just referred to them as “the other sisters” all day.


Later L. found a boy about her age and they played together for awhile. Once when I swam by to check on them, the boy came right up to me and asked, “Have we met yet?”

I laughed and said, “I don’t think so. I’m L.’s dad.”

“OK,” he responded, “now we have,” and swam back to her.

Later L. was climbing on my shoulders and making me swim around as her motorcycle. The boy latched on to me at one point and I heard a mom yelling down that he needed to stop it. I glanced over and saw that his mom was one of the few younger moms at the pool, and filled out her bikini rather nicely.

“Oh, it’s ok,” I said to her. “He’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

The “How you doin’?’ was not said but clearly implied.


M. and C. both have Ninetendo DSes while L. is still rocking the Leapster. L. does like to play on the DS when one of her sisters give her a chance, though. One night she was hankering to play Scooby Doo and found an interesting way to get permission.

“C.?!” she said. “Do you want to play on my Leapster?”

“Sure.”

L. handed her Leapster over and stood silent for a moment. Finally she asked, “OK, now where is your DS?”


Finally, I’ve documented before how L. has some serious Tomboy tendencies. The love of Spiderman and tools and the preference for hanging out with boys at school. Right before we left town she told me that T. in her class liked to follow her around. At Dad’s Night, as soon as we walked into the classroom, T. came over and started trailing L. with a goofy grin on his face. If they were 14 and not 4, you would think he was head over heels about L..

On our drive to Florida S. asked L. about having so many boy friends at school.

“All the boys love you, L., don’t they?”

L. paused for a second, thought about it, and finally said, “Wellllll, not all the boys love me.”

Just most of them.