See how happy Annalie is in the above photo? She’s excited because she’s about to get her very own balloon animal, at long last.

A couple of years ago, we were at Spaghetti Works, one of our favorite restaurants in Omaha, and there was a balloon lady there. Annalie saw her while we were waiting to be seated, and asked if she would come to our table. We told her that she probably would, and that she could get a balloon animal if she did. Annalie spent that whole meal waiting and waiting for the balloon lady to come around. We finally asked about her, and were told that she had to leave. Annalie was heartbroken. We assured her that the next time we were there, if the balloon lady was back, we’d be sure to ask her to stop at our table. Since then, we’ve been to that same restaurant a half-dozen times but the balloon lady has never been back.

So when the balloon man stopped at our table as we were having lunch with friends in San Diego yesterday and asked if anyone would like a balloon, I watched Annalie’s eyes light up and knew I had to say yes. She chose a zebra, and all the kids watched with fascination as a zebra with a blue mane and stripes was deftly fashioned out of several long, thin balloons and a few strokes of black Sharpie. Annalie declared her balloon zebra was named Coyote, and that she loved him and would keep him forever.

“Remember that he’s made out of balloons, and balloons tend to pop after a while,” I cautioned her. “Enjoy him and have fun playing with him while he lasts, but know that he won’t last forever.”

Annalie looked stricken for a moment and said, “But I don’t want him to pop! I love him, and I’ll take him everywhere and take really good care of him!” I told her that I knew she’d be a good mother to her balloon zebra, but I just wanted her to keep in mind that balloons don’t last, so she wouldn’t be too sad when he was gone.

Before the meal was even over, one of the balloons that made up his hind legs popped. The balloon guy happened to be passing by when it happened, and he quickly repaired the damage with another balloon, cheerfully waving off my attempt to tip him for the repair.

After lunch, we set off towards the park so the kids could run around. We’d been walking maybe five minutes when Annalie tried to hand Coyote to me, saying she was tired of carrying him. I told her that she could carry him a while longer. She shrugged and walked on ahead of me.

Five or ten minutes later, Annalie decided she was really tired of carrying Coyote. She gave him to her friend E, who carried him for a minute before deciding he didn’t really want a balloon zebra. Next Annalie tried giving the zebra to E’s sister M, who politely declined. Bug didn’t want the balloon animal either. Noah wanted him, but with the enthusiasm for life that is typical of two-year-olds, he probably would have popped the balloons within a few minutes, so his mom said no thank you for him. Annalie pressed Coyote on me again, and since I had a shopping bag by that time, I took him and placed him in the bag with my purchases.

Later, on the 90-minute drive from San Diego back to Brenda’s house, Annalie spent a half-hour or so carefully untwisting the balloons until she had a long white snake marked with black stripes and a deflated blue balloon. Then she lost interest and abandoned the whole thing in the backseat of the car, where it slowly deflated overnight.

RIP, Coyote. You were loved briefly but fiercely, and you entertained my daughter well.

Photos taken at Old Cape Henry Lighthouse in Virginia Beach.

After a busy day full of teaching dottery class and attending birthday parties, we hopped in the minivan and drove to Delaware, to the beach-town cottage where Anna and her family had just arrived the day before. We got there late, but Anna was kind enough to stay up and let us in before stumbling off to bed. We followed her example and went right to sleep, expecting all the kids to be up bright and early the next morning.

All three kids were kind enough to sleep in the next morning, not getting us up till after 7am. We ate cereal and pastries for breakfast and drank our coffee in a leisurely fashion while the kids played. Then we suited up and sunblocked everyone and headed for the beach!

It was so much fun! Since Annalie has lost her fear of the ocean, she loves the beach. And with so many adults there, she was able to play in the water as much as she wanted, only taking occasional breaks to play in the sand or have a drink. She had an enthusiastic water buddy in Anna’s son, J. They had a blast chasing the waves and each other around the beach.

But the best water buddy of all for Annalie was Troy. Dads are great when it comes to big waves that threaten to knock you down. They either grab your hand and haul you up quickly, sputtering and wiping salt from your eyes, or they just pick you up and swing you above the wave! Annalie loved doing both. I was kind of amazed at how many times she was knocked onto her knees or butt by a wave, yet came up laughing.

After a few hours in the sun and water, we were all hungry. Anna’s husband M and Troy, with Apple* tagging along, walked to a nearby pizza place and came back with some delicious pizzas that we devoured and two huge insulated jugs of soda plastered with the restaurant logo. Those cups kept tripping me out, because to me the logo seemed similar to an old logo for my favorite hometown pizza place. I’d see them out of the corner of my eye and be startled for a second before realizing it was a different logo entirely. Funny how that can happen.

*In case you’re wondering, Apple is not Anna’s daughter’s real name. It’s her blog name.

After lunch the kids went back in the water with the dads for a little while, but soon we were all ready to go home and cool off. So we packed up and made the short walk back to the cottage, where we enjoyed using the outdoor shower.

After everyone was cleaned up, M and Apple laid down for a nap. We got the big kids set up for some quiet time watching movies with the portable DVD player in the bedroom. Troy found something to watch on TV. And Anna and I decided, naturally, to go paint some pottery.

There happens to be a cool little craft studio on the main street of Anna’s beach town, and she’d been walking by and peeking in the windows for years, but had never gone inside. So we changed that! Anna had never painted pottery before, but she’d been painting houses for years, thanks to working for her dad, so she was a natural at pottery-painting.

I dotteried two little things, a star magnet for Melissa and a green bowl for Sonja. I was happy to find two little things to paint, because this particular place had a per-hour studio fee. I understood why—they’re on the beach, they probably have lots of tourists as customers and need to keep things flowing; and they guarantee your pieces will be fired by the next day, which of course means the fee will be higher than usual—but I still didn’t want to have to pay for more than an hour of painting! Also, we didn’t want to be gone all afternoon and leave Troy and M outnumbered by tired and hungry kids. So we painted, chatted, laughed, and walked back home.

On the way home from the craft studio, something funny happened: I was spotted in the wild by a blog reader! I didn’t know about it till we were back at home and she left a comment on a blog post. She wasn’t entirely sure it was me because Annalie wasn’t with me, I was in the wrong town, and she was a bit shy of saying hello to a total stranger. I emailed back in reply to her comment, saying I completely understood why she hadn’t said anything to me, but that I wished she had, that it would have been a hoot to have a blog reader recognize me on the street. I asked where she had seen me, exactly, and she emailed me back to tell me that she saw me on this street at that time by such-and-such building, and as it happened I remembered seeing her too! Crazy! For future reference, if any of you normal, friendly, non-stalker blog readers happen to pass me somewhere on the street, please feel free to stop me and say hello. I promise I don’t bite and I’ll even say hello back.

Photo by i am BeachMama

After our unknowing encounter with Miss Virginia, Anna and I continued home where we found hungry people waiting for us. We walked to a fun Italian place, where Annalie and J made good use of the play-dough I keep stashed in my purse for entertaining bored kids at restaurants while we’re waiting for food. Some of the TVs in the restaurant were showing an episode of Amen, which amused me greatly. I had completely forgotten about that late-80s show, both that it existed and that I ever watched it. But even without being able to hear the sound, I could hear the theme song in my head as the credits played.

We ate the delicious food, we walked back to the cottage, we packed up, we hugged our hosts good-bye and thanked them profusely for letting us crash their beach vacation. Then we headed home after a long, delightful weekend so we could start doing laundry and packing for our trip to Omaha later that week. We just don’t know how to stay in one place, do we?