Beating the cold. Mexico.

We were up at 8:00 AM. Turner gave me ten extra minutes of quiet Mommy-needs-to-adjust-time so that I rally myself to pretend to be chipper this morning. In that ten minutes I listened to Turner nurture La La Bear. He changed her diaper (who knows when she started soiling herself) and had an extensive lecture with her about loving people deeply and showing them affection by saying often "I love you." Who can sleep through that?
While Turner watched a bit of his movie, I did lesson plans and showered. We made it to the beach around 11. Before we left, he asked to take La La Bear to the beach. Poor bear. In a rare quick-thinking moment of parenting, I said she was not old enough. He agreed. "You're right mom. We would have to bring her diapers with us and I don't wanna do that." Super.
Turner and I searched for seashells and loaded his bucket to the brim so he had plenty to throw into the ocean. He threw a few into the water, but his bucket handle broke and that, apparently, stole all the fun of throwing shells into the water. He spent the next hour jumping into the small pools of ocean water left by the retreating tide and climbing the big, black rocks that jut up out of the seashells. Then, Turner made a new friend, and they climbed rocks, splashed in the water and told each other stories. Over lunch he says that he told her about eggs hatching, and she told him about two octupuses (octupi?) who had a party and "in an embrace for cake" "one shooted up" while the other "got sad." I think there is some relevance in this story, but I'm not certain yet what it is. While Turner was distracted on an nearly empty beach, I finished revising my article and read a chapter of Ira Shor. All the while soaking up the warmth of sunshine dressed in all black (yep. That's me. Cold everywhere I go). I did manage to get down to a sweater and my bikini bottoms around 11:30 and get two solid hours of sun attention for my pasty legs.
At 1:30 Turner needs to potty and we rush off toward the Casita. He eats two Peanut Butter sandwiches (with a fork), orange yogurt, macaroni and cheese, and the rest of the Vanilla Wafers. He washes this down with a Capri Sun and some milk. It IS vacation you know. As we are eating our lunch he says, "Mom. You know La La Bear says she is three now."
"How is that possible? We didn't even bake her a birthday cake. You must have a cake to turn a year older." And, yes, I stand by this rule. No cake, no count.
"So what does that mean?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I can tell you one thing. It means if you are sending her to preschool you better get her potty trained."
He throws his hand into the air, dismissing me, "Oh Mom. You know I wouldn't send her to preschool." Somehow I resist the urge to engage the dialogue. I am curious why he wouldn't send her, given that we send him. I wonder what he thinks the benefits are and if I should pull him out of school so he can stay home with me all the time. He smears peanut butter on the table to distract me from my mind-rambling, and I am quickly assured that I am not the stay-at-home-parent type. How do I clean up peanut butter without having to touch, look, or smell it? It is impossible I tell you. Moments later, with him in the shower washing off the beach so we can go "walking around and see what we can see" I begrudgingly clean up what looks like La La Bear's diaper mess.
I must mention our shower. It is called "unique" by the owner. The shower is a stand up shower and the sink just kind of joins in with the shower. Anyway, Turner LOVES it. He stands in there and sings to himself, watching himself in the mirror. He won't let me sit in there with him to chit chat, but his conversation is clearly audible through the half-closed door. He tells fascinating stories, you know. Right now (I started this post after lunch) he is singing about water and feet and then he stops to offer warnings, "You gotta do this so that you can do that." Now he is singing again about the water being hot and he offers a repeating verse: "it sprays on me and makes my feet hot makes my nose hot makes my pee pee hot makes my heart hot makes my arms hot makes my ears hot makes my hair hot, no oh wait, it doesn't make my hair hot." This, I'm sure, because he does not want to wash his hair. No problem, of course, given that we don't have shampoo (the owner spotted us some body soap).
After lunch we walk up to Baja to see a piece of the Arizona game and so Turner can swim. The water is more than cold, but Turner is more than eager so...
He swims around a bit and entertains the gringos who are hoping for the SuperBowl. After he tires of this we searched for coins to play pool only to be disappointed. So, we return to the beach and throw rock after rock after rock, comparing height and depth and sound and splash. We walk way down the beach and traverse the streets on the way back so that I could try to figure out the geography here. We pass a taco shop on the way home and since it was taco time (4-ish) we stopped. We each had a fish taco and found them so tasty we each had another. I tell Turner the story of the Stork David who gave Andy and I a list of demands from baby Turner before he was entrusted in our care, which got us nearly back to our Casita. Almost 'home' a Jeep full of Gringas (is that correct? Anyway, middle aged white women) came barreling down a hill and about took us out. They were probably drunk as they screamed and laughed while rushing through the Alto signs and stirring up all the sand. Turner said, "Wow. They were really happy." I must admit that in our few short trips to Mexico all the drunk and/or obnoxious people I see are white Americans, not Mexicans.
We get back to the familiarity of our courtyard and play soccer. The wife of Troy joins in only to kick both our tails. When I have tired myself out, Turner and I get on the hammock and it is magically transformed into a ship that is tracking Captain Hook. We encounter many, many crocodiles, avoid a seagull collision, and I nearly drown when I am knocked off the side of the ship by a very boisterous captain.
We watch the inauguration concerts and add to our fish tacos some animal crackers and broccoli and apple juice and wheat crackers. We get the PlayDoh out and make a man. Then, Turner makes me a PlayDoh birthday cake while I type the conclusion to my article. While the cake bakes we discuss icing tastes. I am reminded again the legacy of a cook in the kitchen as he distinguishes to me "buttercream icing" as cow's icing and "regular icing" as the kind they use at school to make igloos.