“Hellooooooo,” she's worked out just
the right amount of sarcasm to put into that one word. “You
promised to take me snorkeling this morning.”
She was right and I remembered the
promise as soon as I had opened my eyes. But hope springs eternal.
“It's still early, the fish aren't awake.”
“I am. You promised.”
“Ok, go put your swimsuit on. I'll
be ready in a minute.” This got me a few seconds to wake up.
We'd made our annual pilgrimage to St
Croix. My early wake up call was because her promised night snorkel
had been canceled due to rough waves. According to her (See, daddy,
they aren't taller than me. I'll just swim really fast) this was a
gross miscarriage of justice. So, we rescheduled for first thing in
the morning.
My daughter and I have a similar
approach to the morning. While she wakes up cheerful and full of
energy and I just wake up... we are both ready to go as soon as
we're up. My wife needs breakfast, three cups of coffee and a
demilitarized zone for a couple of hours.. So, we were swim suited,
and I grabbed the fins and snorkels. Then went back in for towels.
“Helloooooooo. I need my wet suit.”
That was another trip back in and we
were finally ready to go. On the way to the beach, we had to pick a
piece of grass, because she is now a farmer (I have no idea when this
happened, but apparently all farmers chew a piece of grass.), we
talked to three hermit crabs and told them which way to the ocean
(because they were so short, they obviously had no idea which way to
go.) and my daughter found The Cutest Snails. (She wanted to take
them home for pets.) We were finally ready to snorkel. Her fins
were strapped securely to her feet and her mask was on. We kicked
off to swim the 100 yards to the artificial reef. My daughter was
right, if she swam really fast, she skipped right over the waves.
That meant I either had to pull her fast or she would climb on my
back and kick me to swim faster. (In truth, it was more like 90
yards because I could just see the tires coming into view when she
pulled up.)
“I have a rash on my arm,” came out
more as, “I ave a ash on y rm.” as waves kept bouncing her up and
down.
“Do you want to go back?”
“Es. It urts bad!”
Swimming in with the waves was much
easier. You just wait until they crest and kick. We made it back in
record time because of the medical emergency. As we sat on the steps
and peeled down her wet suit, she bravely showed me the two spots on
her arm. I don't think we'll have to amputate.
“Where are the snails? I told them
we'd be back.”
On the way back to the room, we
gathered more grass to chew on, saw a couple more hermit crabs and
stopped to pet a dog.
Once in the room, we took care of her
mortal wounds and settled her down to a breakfast of cheetos,
tortilla chips and salsa and an apple.
I made a mistake and changed out of my
wet swim suit and came back to a very very indignant girl.
“Where's my tooth!”
“In your mouth?”
“No, the one I lost yesterday! I
looked under my pillow and the tooth fairy didn't come. Mommy didn't
put it under my pillow!”
(Truth be told, I did remember she lost
another tooth. But she's lost close to 300 of them over the past
couple of months they all blur together.) “Let me check,” I also
checked and had a couple of dollars in my pocket. Now, I knew my
daughter had done a thorough check. Just putting the money under her
pillow would never work. “Did you check under the sheet?”
“Helloooooo, the tooth fairy puts
money under your pillow!”
“Helloooooo, (two can play at this
game) this not your normal bed. Maybe the tooth fairy was confused?”
“Oh...”
Sure enough, tucked just under the
corner of the bottom sheet was her money from the tooth fairy.
“Yeah! Now I can pay mommy back!”
“What do you have to pay mommy back
for?” If there was a chance, I wanted in on that action.
“When I accidentally make a mess.”
With my daughter, it's more
accidentally not make a mess, so I knew my wife was going to come
into a large amount of money soon.
I checked my watch and we'd already had
a full morning and it wasn't even 7:15. Welcome to paradise. At least I'll get an early start on my sun burn...
No comments:
Post a Comment