Charleston Day 3: Saturday

On Saturday morning, we took a trolley down to the South Carolina Aquarium. 

The aquarium is a lovely one and we were practically the only people in the place on that weekend morning!

I really enjoyed seeing a bald eagle up close, Liberty being a rescue from losing half a wing in the wild.

The albino alligator was also fascinating to me. I had been wondering how the removal of an alligator from the wild was ever tolerated these days when I read that an albino alligator is considered to be unable to survive in the wild, both because alligators depend on camouflage for survival and because they need to warm up in the sun (whereas an albino creature will become sunburned!). So, when this albino baby gator was found in the wild, it was promptly rescued and placed into captivity.

See, Mary could move her injured right arm, but virtually never did because of the pain.

On our way back to the hotel room, we strolled through a vibrant farmers' market in Marion Square outside our hotel. The kids even got to ride ponies!

We had a much-needed cool-down and food fuel-up in the hotel room. Then Grampa Neil, Chris, and John visited the U.S.S. Yorktown, an aircraft carrier.

  

I hear that the visit was extremely cool and well worth it, but there are no photographs because a certain camera was forgotten back at the van.

My afternoon was hardly the rest I had quite hoped it would be. I managed to get Margaret down for a much-overdue nap, but then Mary (whose Quiet Time never resulted in sleep) began tantruming again. It is so obvious when this girl is overtired because she then transforms from her charming, bubbly self to her monstrously out-of-control self. By the time Mary was quieted down, I lay horizontal for five minutes, which was just long enough to start to feel like I could take some quiet breaths when Margaret woke from her nap. So, we set about doing laundry instead because if Mama can't rest, she might as well be productive! I am very grateful that this hotel has a guest laundry room, but it was a bit laborious loading up the girls in the stroller back and forth with our bags of laundry every so many minutes.

As of Day 3, I am decidedly understanding why families rent houses or condos. Before, I was focusing on the fact that a rental house costs money while we stay in hotels for free, using Chris' travel points (from his business travel). Also, I wanted to go on a vacation. Staying in a house isn't a vacation for a mama! I'd have to haul in supplies, go grocery shopping, do laundry, cook most of the meals, and clean up as we left. That didn't sound very different than my normal life to me. But now it is really sinking into my mind that the idea of a vacation as "not doing work" is pretty much gone for these decades. I got to laze about and let others plan and arrange my vacation days when I was a carefree, self-centered teenager and I hope to do it again with my husband when our children are grown, but I don't really foresee doing it during these years. I may not be cooking on this vacation, but herding the children through restaurant meals three times a day is work, costs an arm and a leg, and probably takes just as long as cooking. Trying to get them to nap (which they won't) and then dealing with the exhausted consequences is work. The examples are many, so suffice to say that I am seeing now why vacations begin to look very different as families grow in size.

Speaking of families growing in size, being here in Charleston--out of the bubble in which I live--I am experiencing stares at having a "big" (hardly!) family. As I walk through the hotel, I literally see people (grown adults!) point at us and make comments to each other. I have had some strangers walk up to me to comment on our family size, and I am grateful that they have been polite so far (even if I can tell they are picking their jaws up off the floor). It is so hard for me to understand because I live in a microcosmic world in which my serious Catholic friends are having families of 8, 10, 12 . . . one friendly acquaintance is pregnant with #15. And my children who are two to two-and-a-half years apart are positively "widely" spaced compared to every 18 months or even Irish twins. So, I don't see pregnant-with-number-four-in-six-years as freakish at all, but apparently our Culture of Death does.

Back to our vacation . . . the gentlemen straggled in grinning and hot from their visit to the aircraft carrier. The children now each have sailor hats, which helped slightly with Mary's weeping when she realized John had been taken somewhere without her whereas previously she had felt like the belle of the ball to have been my Big Special Helper at Doing Laundry. We tried to explain that there was a great amount of climbing "stairs" (ladders!) for which she would have needed two good arms, and she was still walking around like a bird with a broken wing.

We rallied one last time to go to dinner, this time choosing a diner we saw on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives" instead of any local restaurant in historic downtown. They may advertise as being friendly to family tourism, but I just don't feel comfortable with my children around white linen, tinkling glasses, and exotic local flavors, no matter how nice the wait staff tries to be. Having French toast at a greasy diner tonight followed by 79-cent drive-through dessert ice cream was a much better fit!