Hermit Crabs, Outer Space, and Peedles

We just got back from Long Beach Island (aka the Jersey shore) and it was heaven. I have decided that it is my substitute for not being able to get to Navarre beach (on the Florida panhandle, literally favorite place on earth)now that I live up in Yankee country. It is so easy to get to and look at the beach:
We had such a great time. We went with another family - they also have a four year old son (same as my oldest) and a 14 month son (6 months younger than my youngest) and the kids had a grand time. One day, the older boys went out with their Daddies and came home with hermit crabs! First, my son named his Dan DeLauné Crab, then quickly changed it to Momma Daddy Crab. I would like to meet another hermit crab that has three names. The other little boy named his Ouchie Crab which I thought was very smart, albeit a bit pre-destiny of him. The next day, we went to visit the shop that the crabs came from. The guy who ran it was the embodiment of every Grateful Dead song ever sung, in the best possible way. Startling eyes, once you could see them, and rather shy - like a hermit crab, actually. But very sweet. My husband told me that when they were driving home with the crabs, our son was holding the little home (okay, yes, cage) in his lap, and said, "Momma is never gonna believe this!" and then he said very seriously, "This is a really special day." Okay, I would have let him have ten hermit crabs to hear him say that. And Momma Daddy Crab has proved to be a good pet. I know, it's only a hermit crab, they don't do much. But still. It's a good toe in the water for us in the realm of pets. When our youngest first saw the crab, he looked at Dan and me, pointed to the crab, then pointed to his opened mouth, and said, "Um, um um!" And we said, a bit horrified, "No, we don't eat the crab!" For the rest of the week, he would walk up to the crab's house (which was up on the mantel so he couldn't get to it), point to the crab, then point to his open mouth, and say, "Nooooooo." We were happy he understood, but the frequency with which he did this was a bit disconcerting. One could only think of Shakespeare- "Me thinks thou doth protest too much." So if the crab goes missing, I'm afraid we might know where to find him - or his remains.
That night in the bath, the two oldest boys were bathing together, and my son got brave and ducked his head under water with his eyes closed. The other little boy asked him, "What can't you see?" to which my son replied, "Outer space."

There was a wonderful pine tree in the back of the house, right near the deck where we had lunch every day. Our friends taught my youngest how to say pine needle, but in his haste of speaking - or just realizing that an improvement could be made - he rechristened them, "peedles." Then spent the rest of the lunches picking up peedles.
The older boys discovered a cache of sewing thread in a cabinet, unused for God knows how many years. (I grew up trying, and failing, to sew. I made a horrendous bright green - what was I thinking - wrap skirt, God save me, a pattern I picked because I wouldn't have to deal with a zipper, though I forgot about button holes, but even Momma wouldn't do button holes, and paid a woman to do hers, so I knew I could get off easy with those, but anyway. Momma kept asking me for months why I wouldn't wear that pretty skirt I made, and, of course, in the South it is hot all year long, so I didn't even have cold weather to blame for not being able to wear it, but anyway.) The boys proceeded to basically thread the house. The threads, it was explained to us, were electrical lines, and their work was quite intricate, not to mention extensive, and we started to feel that we were living with a couple of arachnids. Each boy also brought his own roll of bright blue painters' tape - yes, they get along like a house afire - so what with the thread and the tape, things were pretty battened down. We tried to get it all up before we left, but we could only imagine what the next renters thought when they found remnants of tape on the four poster bed, and thread from the banisters. But as long as there weren't peedles in the beds, I'm sure they were fine.
xo