California and BIG Waves

Lola on her new slide

We have been quite busy the past two months. Lola is changing and learning new things and amazing (and entertaining) us daily! October was filled with travel experiences!  Our neighbor brought us their slide/fort that their kids have outgrown. Lola is big on the slide! She loves going down the slide, her only challenge is getting to the top! I can see we will be growing with this toy! Lola got a "big girl" car seat and she absolutely loves being able to look forward rather than always laying down.

holding on to Momma for dear life

OK, maybe this isn't so bad

Her first big experience in the new car seat was a trip to California with Gamma and Honey.  We took a weekend and drove down to Escondido to see the sights. The big adventure on that trip was our trip to the beach. Back in June we took Lola to the beach and she wasn't very fond of it, so we were expecting some resistance. She wouldn't let go of me for the first few minutes, but slowly warmed up to the idea of the sand and cautiously wandered to where Daddy was standing. She was focused on something that held her attention and Rodney was making sure she didn't take off over the edge of the sand "cliff" (there was an eroded edge of the sand with about a foot drop to where the waves were splashing up.) We were all focused on her and enjoying the new experience, when out of nowhere a wave came up over the "cliff."  It happened really quickly. Rodney's back was to the wave, but Lola got it full in the face. The wave took her out. Down. Flattened her. And her bad mother saw it coming! Unfortunately, my first thought when I saw the wave coming in further than any other had come, was, "ohh, I don't want to get my feet wet, that water's cold!" And I jumped back a few steps. My SECOND thought was, "OH! Lola's right in the path of destruction!" But by the time that thought hit, Rodney was soaked from the knees down and Lola was soaked

and covered in sand from head to toe! And hysterical.                   

You will NEVER get me here again!

She HATES water in her face. And it LITERALLY scared the poop out of her! A nice family was right there and handed us a towel and offered that every kid on that beach had been similarly taken out by a wave at some point that day. We headed to the car to get a diaper and something warm and headed to the bathroom. Note: beach bathrooms aren't equipped with changing facilities. So I changed her on the wall outside the bathroom. Honey came to the rescue. Another comment on my mother hood...I don't travel with a change of clothes. So we had NOTHING to change her into. I was wearing two T-shirts, so had planned on putting one of them on her. But before I could do anything, Honey had taken his shirt off and was giving it to Lola. Which was so sweet, but here was my dad with NO shirt on at the beach. He fit right in! She got a kick out of it (once she had slept a bit and we were back in the condo!) It took 3 baths to get all the sand out of her hair!

It's not so bad in Honey's shirt