Charleston Day 2: Friday

Inexplicably, the baby woke at 5:30 after such a rough night, and I still don't know how to keep an 18-month-old quiet so both other kids soon woke. Then began the trick of trying to keep everyone quiet so as not to wake our neighbors! (Increasingly seeing the wisdom of a rental house!)

After breakfast, we headed to Edisto Bay for the kids' first opportunity to see the real ocean. Wow! We bought sandwiches and chips for lunch at the state park. [This funky picture needs fixing.]

Then we marched over the sand dunes to play at the beach. The kids had an absolutely fabulous time. It was a joy for me to watch them and reminded me of annual vacations with my dad to Cape Cod.

We chuckled when another family came to the beach whom we recognized as Certainly They Must Be Homeschoolers: six children within about a ten-year age span whose mother was wearing a denim skirt as long as my khaki one! At least we can laugh at ourselves, right?

Poor Mary was still in great pain from the internal bruises from falling out of the tree. It is unmistakably obvious when her medication has worn off because she begins weeping in pain. Even with the meds, she was moving gingerly and mostly leaving her sore arm limp by her side. As it was, I miscalculated our plan of the day, so left the medication back at the hotel room because I thought we'd be back by the time it was due. Well, no, we were just leaving Edisto when Mary's meds ran out and she cried for about the half hour it took us to get to a store to buy new meds and then a bit longer until they took effect. That was so pathetic and sad to witness!

We drove back to Charleston, during which time Mary unfortunately did not nap despite still very much needing naps at age three, and washed off the loads of sand in the warm bath. 

Then it was off to dinner where Mary's fatigue caught up with her even though it was only five o'clock. The uncontrollable weeping began when she ran out into oncoming city traffic and Daddy caught her, thereby saving her life and simultaneously causing what was apparently Great Offense to her, as Mary then screamed and wept for, what?, twenty minutes?

We sat with weeping Mary in the restaurant debating whether Daddy would simply take her back to the hotel. By a narrow margin, she calmed down enough to stay for dinner, but we experienced various other weeping dramas, such as when she spilled her water. Ultimately, Daddy left to take Mary back to the hotel immediately after dinner so Grampa Neil and I could take John and Margaret through a stroll downtown.

Daddy had the great spontaneous idea to hire a pedicab (rickshaw) to give Mary and him a ride through the historic area and back to the hotel . . . and John witnessed them getting aboard. Thus John seriously dampened what would have been an enjoyable walk by spending the entire time pouting, punctuated by frequent complaints and occasional tears. When we got back to the hotel, Daddy was extremely kind to take John right back out for his own pedicab ride, thus putting both big kids on Cloud 9.