What Next!?!

Our trip to the Shorehouse this year became more like the Griswold family vacation than our usual relaxing experience.

• Saturday, 10:08 a.m.: we are in the car and on our way!
• Saturday, 12:10 p.m.: We return with our to-go order at BK and discover Jezzy has eaten Hayes’s chocolate chip cookie.
• Saturday, 2:43 p.m.: At rest stop in WV Jezzy regurgitates said cookie.
• Saturday, 6:01 p.m.: Stop at Wendy’s to get dinner
• Saturday, 6:44 p.m. Leave Wendy’s with TO GO order! Ridiculous!
• Saturday, 10:12 p.m.: We arrive at the Shore house – everyone but Mom is in bed.
• Sunday, 7:06 a.m.: Granddaddy wakes up with his eye crusted shut; a result of Carter poking him in the eye.
• Sunday, 11:49 a.m.: Dawn & Reese twist hammock-swing to the breaking point and crash to the ground. Reese is scared but unharmed; Dawn will probably be sore for the better part of the week.
• Sunday 6:37 p.m.: Hayes nearly drowns.

Richard and Hayes were on their second bike ride of the day. Grandmom and I were enjoying a pleasant conversation on the porch when I heard Hayes wailing and saw Richard coming down the street with Hayes in his arms. I figured he’d fallen off his bike and we had a skinned knee to doctor up. Well, I was half right.

While at the wharf, Hayes had toppled off his bike and into 7 feet of water. Fortunately, even though there was no sound, Richard turned around and saw the bike down on the pavement and Hayes’s bike helmet floating in the water; it was still on his head. He dove in and was able to push Hayes up out of the water and by some miracle onto the pavement again. After all the water had been spewed from his mouth, Hayes (understandably) could not stop crying and was like a barnacle pasted onto his daddy. In fact, from that moment, through the shower, and until he fell asleep, he would not let go of Daddy’s neck. He kept wailing that he wanted to go home, and he never wanted to be near that water again. He fell asleep in Richard’s arms shortly there after. It took both of us a much longer time to relax and fall asleep. To tell the truth, I was up several times in the night checking that both Hayes and Jezzy were still breathing. It’s so hard to watch such raw emotion.

• Monday, 11:44: we take the car ferry from St. Michaels to Oxford. Hayes opts to stay in the car, but is not at all upset by being on the water.
• Monday, 12:02 p.m.: we eat the best ice cream I think I have ever had. If you are ever in Oxford, you can find the delicacy at the Highland Creamery. Worth every penny.
• Monday, 5:13 p.m.: Granddaddy and Richard take Hayes down to the wharf; he protests, but once he realizes they don’t have to get out of the car, he is fine.
• Monday, 7:26 p.m.: Richard is helping Hayes eat crab claws; a shell goes right through his thumb! Luckily, he doesn’t need stitches.

The whole thing makes me want to wrap my family in bubble wrap and get the hell out of Dodge! They say bad things happen in threes and we are down to Grandmom, Jezzy, and me on the un-injured list.

It does, however, look like Hayes learned a very important lesson about respecting the water. I hope he’s not going to be so afraid that next year he won’t go out on the water, but I think we’ll be feeling good this year if we can just walk down to the wharf without feeling panicked. I don’t expect he’ll be crabbing with Granddaddy this trip.