Sea Isle City, Pt. 2

Today baby was ready for some football and feeling appropriately rambunctious.

She climbed on cushions ...

... and played with toys ...

... and got in quality time with her grandparents, who had to return today to Delaware.

We posed for some pictures -- baby with great-grandparents:

And an intergenerational dad-to-dad-to-dad-to-baby setup:

After the grandparental departure, baby stayed active through the rest of the afternoon, crawling about, accompanying our grilling on a windy porch, dining on a steak bone, and chattily getting ready for bed. Even a quiet reading of children's poetry couldn't soothe.

As the big game began baby went down to sleep. But when the big game ended -- the wrong way, no doubt for want of baby's fiery and awake spirit in support -- I found Summer on the bed with a wide-eyed baby next to her. Now we just need the little one to get back to sleep...

DOUBLE RAINBOW!

After another rough night of sleep, Madeline was nevertheless characteristically chipper this morning. My ongoing efforts to get a picture of her incoming teeth were (kind of) rewarded -- you can almost see the teeth in this picture:

Because she'd borne the brunt of baby's sleeplessness, Summer got to (try to) catch up on sleep while the rest of us ate breakfast. When I returned baby downstairs for a diaper change, Summer got up and took baby out on the first floor deck to take in the ocean.

Meanwhile, I made sure Madeline was decked out in a most excellent combination of striped pants, brightly-colored floral dress, and whale hat.

The hat turned out to be unnecessary; as soon as we began thinking about going outside, it rained. Summer and I wandered out into the damp, gray afternoon for a lunch date and errand, leaving Madeline in her grandparents' and great-grandparents' hands. We came home to a very happy baby.

Happiness explosion!

We all spent the rest of the afternoon playing. We'd set up various configurations of toys ...

... and babyzilla would come after them and knock them down.

As we were winding down after dinner, Summer spotted a rainbow outside. Heading out for a closer look, we realized it was actually a DOUBLE RAINBOW! Not just a double rainbow, but actually a DOUBLE COMPLETE RAINBOW! What does it mean?

And while the front deck afforded optimal rainbow-viewing, the back deck followed up with some just-as-gorgeous sunset-viewing. All told it was quite a lovely evening.

Sea Isle City

Madeline woke up this morning full of happy energy but apparently still in plenty of teething pain.

Once she'd chewed a teether, munched her first bit of scrapple, and taken a little something for the pain, she was ready to enjoy the ocean (from the safe vantage of the deck).

She soon found herself joined by family; grandma offered a thumb to gnaw while great-grandpa looked on.

Next she got to bond with great-grandpa.

And then it was back to mama ...

... which, of course, was great fun too.

The great fun continued inside as Madeline delighted in Jacques the Peacock, a gift from grandma.

Grandpa then joined Madeline on the floor so they could play with his gift to her: a toy piano.

Toys gave way to pat-a-cake; rather than clapping, Madeline bounced along enthusiastically.

And, when the afternoon temperature finally reached its apex in the mid-60s, we went for a walk on the beach. We showed Madeline lots of neat things, especially shells (clam, crab, sand crab, horseshoe crab, oyster, scallop, sea snail) and birds (gulls, oystercatchers, sandpipers).

Eventually, sleepy Madeline nodded off and napped.

She woke up back on the deck, and came inside full of energy again!

She found good outlets for this energy: eating crackers with great-grandma ...

... bouncing along with my dancing, and chewing a spare rib at the dinner table. And then, after a nice, full day, it was bedtime.