Picket Fence Post

We’re still trying to shake off that vacation feel and jump back into our regular, everyday life . . . but we’re not doing so well. The reason: The Boys’ first season of Pop Warner football started last night with equipment pickup. They just had their first practices (which lasted approximately 47 hours and run for 49 consecutive days, while $98,000 worth of new equipment put a huge crimp in my credit card and The Spouse and I look forward to months of making the 20-minute each way trips to drop them off and pick them up from their bazillion practices. So I’m gearing up for a long, grumpy season of hauling boys and their smelly equipment around . . . but I digress. I promised Cape tales in this blog entry. Here are the highlights:

Lucky Number Seven

We celebrated the 7th birthday of The Youngest Boy during our summer holiday by playing a rousing round of mini-golf (thank God no one won a free second round on the 18th hole) at one of the Cape’s 118 mini-golf establishments. The one we went to has a farm theme . . . because when you think Cape, you automatically think farm. The birthday boy not only miraculously got two holes-in-ones (miraculous given that he viciously pounded the golf ball on numerous occasions sending the white sphere of death sailing through the air), but we also allowed him and his siblings to waste much of our hard-earned cash in the arcade afterwards. Who knew that the most fun was to be had NOT in playing the games, but in cashing in tickets ”earned” by playing the games to get a prize worth 17 cents? (For the record, all the kids selected from the prize area some form of plastic weaponry and plastic rings guaranteed to cut off their circulation.) After mini-golf, plastic guns and birthday pizza, the birthday kid also got to go to the beach and later enjoyed a chocolate Hulk birthday cake. Plus presents.

Gettin’ Crabby with It

No matter how many times they witness the scurrying of the teeny crabs that live along the shores of Cape Cod Bay, my kids never fail to be awed as they seek out the little telltale air holes and use plastic shovels in an attempt to unearth the crustaceans and watch them dash back to the water or dig back into the sand. They also continue to get a ghoulish kick out of finding the corpses of horseshoe crabs and other deceased sea creatures, and pester us about taking them home. (Yes, I caved. There are three, dried, dead horseshoe crabs on my deck as I write this.)

Salty Language by the Seashore

Sometimes I forget that all my kids can read. Like when we were walking by and through shops in Provincetown where, even in stores selling cute things for kids like baby booties and plastic plates bearing the faces of innocent, cartoonish monkeys, there was also a wide variety of eye-opening items bearing all manner of language and visual effects lurking around the corner. Made for fun explanations, such as why someone would want to buy a postcard bearing a close-up of a woman’s rear-end in a thong, or why obscene things were written next to an image of the president. Fun times.

Late Night Family Dining

What’s a family vacation without an ill-advised dinner out at a fine dining establishment by the water well past the kids’ bedtimes? And when the kids in question are ages 1, 4, 7, almost 10 and almost 10, there’s bound to be loads of fun.

While dining out with my brother, his wife, their young children and my parents (all of whom were also vacationing in the same town), we counted ourselves lucky that no one: Threw up all over the table, knocked over anything heavy or extraordinarily messy, kicked a waiter in the shins or ran out the front door into on-coming traffic.

In past years when we’ve attempted to have a big family meal out with wee ones while at the Cape, we’ve had children dabble in pyrotechnics by attempting to light the restaurant on fire by playing with candles on our table, necessitated that various adults leave the table to provide loud children with tours of the outside of the restaurant, and eaten delectable seafood cuisine in our car from Styrofoam take-out boxes with purloined restaurant flatware because the kids were behaving in ways unfit for human companionship, or at least in a restaurant at which you have to pay for your meal.

This year we counted ourselves fortunate for only having to give all the children tours of the exterior of the building when they could no longer stand being in a restaurant, and grab the toddler before he crashed into the legs of an elderly couple who had the luck of sitting at the table next to us.

One of My New Favorite Things 

While I’m not much of a shopping kind of gal, I did happen upon something during our last day at the Cape that is destined to become one of my favorite things. No, it wasn’t the boatloads of candy we purchased from downtown Wellfleet or the salt water taffy from the store in Provincetown, though The Spouse seemed to enjoy the Razzles he bought. Nor did that favorite thing include the spices or small kitchen items I found at the Atlantic Spice Company on the one morning when The Spouse took our perpetually grumbling trio for a ride on the local bike trail (though I am fond of the “starter” chop sticks I picked up for the kids).

My new favorite thing is a tote bag made from recycled newspaper like the ones from this web site. The one I bought featured a story I’d read in the New York Times in April purporting to predict for whom you’d cast your ballot for president based on the kind of food you eat. While I thought the conclusions of the article were silly, the product combined my very favorite things – newspapers and politics – and made them positively fashionable.

Now, if I can only figure out a way to fashion those horseshoe crab carcasses off of the deck without causing a ruckus, I’ll be a happy woman.

Image credit: Wellfleet Chamber of Commerce/Dick Nicholson.