"You're not a wave, you're a part of the ocean."

Despite everyone’s fears, I decided to boldly go on vacation to the beach regardless of my very pregnant state. I am happy to inform you all that I have returned from New Jersey more pregnant than when I got there. The heartburn is incredible, I am always short of breath, and if this child does not emerge soon I will be increasingly cranky.

And by the way, have you ever tried to body surf with an eight-month pregnant belly and a maternity suit? You wind up looking and feeling like an indecently attired beached whale. The ocean swimming part of this vacation consisted – after my first vain attempts at riding waves in my normal fashion – of wading around collecting shells for Simon to put on his sand structures. The only down side of this was when he decided to decorate the beach umbrella dyke with shells and then the umbrella blew over and Dan had to stamp the umbrella back into the dyke. Ouch.

We rented the same beach house that we stayed in last year. Two blocks from the beach, a lovely deck on the back, a short walk to the Wawa for the newspaper and some soft pretzels (breakfast of Philly champions) in the morning. The beach itself at 100th Street is nice and wide and has a sandbar about twenty yards out that keeps the waves fairly gentle.

The only problem this year – the Catholic church across the street was scheduled to finish construction on its parish community hall in March (we spoke to the head priest last year before booking for this year.) We figured, even with delays, that we were safe as there was an almost-six-month cushion. When we pulled up to the house and noted the dumpsters and buckets of mortar and front-loader parked in the parking lot, my heart sunk. Dan and I are both incredibly noise-sensitive anyway, and we both just tensed. We had a lovely weekend and spent a lot of it telling each other that it might not be too bad, etc. I was walking back from the beach seven a.m., Monday morning – the front loader was pushing the dumpster across the parking lot and the whine of electric drills had already begun. We spent Monday morning trying to convince ourselves it wasn’t too bad. Who were we kidding? It was awful and loud and intrusive and perfectly poised to ruin our peaceful vacation.

My little brother pointed out that the real state trend at the shore is to buy a perfectly nice little house for, say, a million bucks and then rip it down to build some monstrosity right out to the property lines, which you may then, if you wish, sell for three million bucks. Building these houses is an incredibly lucrative way to make a living at the shore, and the contractors are pretty much kept busy year-round. So a modest half-a-mil church project probably just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list. Hence the delay.

Enter our heroes – my little brother’s in-laws. I may have mentioned them before – Dan and I adore them, they are wonderful, wonderful people who are generous and thoughtful and kind and deserve all the good things in life they have. They are my model for a successful marriage, and for successful parenting. (In addition to my delightful and lovely sister-in-law, they have three other girls and a boy, all of whom clearly love and respect their parents.) Last summer they bought a house in Stone Harbor, where they have been vacationing for years. It is a block from the beach and it’s huge because they have a large family. We were lucky enough to be able to coordinate with my brother and his wife so that we got to see them all weekend the first weekend. I got to meet my new nephew who looks JUST LIKE my little brother, which is just freaky. And my sister-in-law and her mom offered us the keys to their house, so we would have someplace quiet to stay. The house we rent is cozy and shabby and comfortable. I don’t worry about the boys coloring on the walls or dropping food on the carpets; it can all be scrubbed down. The Smiths’ house is gorgeous, like something out of House Beautiful. (Not that they are fussy *at all* but *Dan and I* spent a good portion of time vacuuming up sand and admonishing the boys to not color anywhere but on paper, on the table.)

So we packed everything up and moved two blocks up and thirteen blocks over, to a palatial resort home. It was a very nice week, in a house that is bigger and nicer than our real house. It was mostly quiet on that end of town, and we could see and hear the ocean from the upper deck. Other than Jude’s rampant diaper rash/yeast infection exacerbated by his penchant for eating sand, and the fact that by the end of the week I had packed and unpacked our stuff something like eight times (more on that later), it was a peaceful and playful week. We took the boys to the beach to swim and jump waves and build sand castles; we did a little shopping for salt water taffy and things like that; we got homemade ice cream at Springer’s which was open this week this year – I was hoping for their coconut-pineapple bisque ice cream but the Almond Joy flavor I had to settle for was delicious as well.

By the end of the week, the boys had discovered the joy of sitting in the tide and letting the waves smack them in the face – I am sure they *still* have sand in their ears. We have boxes full of chunks and bits of clam shells, and some sunburn on all of us. I have a fetching new sunhat – bright yellow, bucket-style with navy trim and a zippered pocket on the brim - you can’t be too choosy when you’re shopping in the last week of the season.

So – why all the unpacking/packing, you may ask? Well, the youngest host child was coming to the shore with ten of his friends Friday evening, and we had no desire to inflict ourselves on him, or his friends on ourselves. So we packed up, cleaned up, and headed out. In some incredible and unusual stroke of good luck, we got a hotel room in Lancaster, a few miles from Strasburg, where Thomas the Tank Engine was doing one of thrice-yearly weeklong stints hosting what really wound up being a very surreal convention for four-year-olds. When we checked in, we were worried about our boys disturbing other hotel guests. Dan’s exact words were, “We are someone’s worst nightmare.” However, MY boys were asleep by nine, and considerably better behaved than roughly 75% of the rest of the little conventioneers. Of course it helped that we didn’t breathe word one about Thomas until we had tickets in hand and were on our way to the train station.

The Thomas event was my idea of hell. Screaming children, fat sweaty parents, crowds, port-a-potties – and good lord was it hot. But I had a good time watching my boys be delighted. We rode Thomas, and we rode Douglas (who is one of the big black twin engines, I was reliably informed), and ate some lunch. (I actually really enjoyed the train ride parts. Very peaceful. I could’ve gone to sleep.) Then we went and took pictures with Thomas. Dan told the boys that Sir Topham Hatt had had to go back to the main branch line to deal with some troublesome trucks, and Simon had several helpful suggestions to make; it saved us from the hour-long line to meet said Hatt. (I know, we are rotten, ROTTEN parents.) Then we bought Jude Annie and Clarabelle, and Si picked Gordon and we skedaddled. (I did do some minor Xmas shopping – T-shirts and Colorforms)

So we wound up back here last night, after one last diner stop for dinner (where I had some incredible coconut cream pie). And today we did laundry and de-sanded and bathed and unpacked and grocery-shopped, and all those lovely vacation’s end tasks that make you sad. My boys set to work constructing a giant train set/village complete with volcano and circus to run their new engines around in.

So that’s the non-thinking rundown. I will post again later with important or off-topic bits, and whatever else pops to mind. I did do some reading, and the boys did and said some hilarious stuff, and Dan and I had several philosophical discussions, all of which I am eager to share. But now – I must sleep while I still can. Three Tums, a Tylenol, and prenatal vitamin, and I am off to Dreamland.