Phoebe at 6 months

Phoebe had her 6 month well-child check today, where it was pronounced that she's doing well. She's gained 3 lbs. since her last visit!! She's now 17 lbs. 8 oz, which is about how much Rachel weighed at her 6 month check up. For some reason Phoebe feels ginormous, but she's not really. Here's where she fits in amongst her siblings:

Rachel: 17 lbs. 8 oz.
Miriam: 16 lbs. even
Benjamin: 14 lbs. 13 oz.
Zoë: 16 lbs 13.8 oz
Alexander: 17 lbs. 1 oz.
Phoebe: 17 lbs. 8 oz.

Phoebe quite enjoys eating. She's currently eating the information sheets for the vaccines that she just got—that the clinic simply expected that she would get. And I'm all for that. No one needs (checks chewed up notes) polio, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type B, or pneumococcal diseases! I just wish that if we're being forced to "live with" COVID in this "new normal" (or is it that we've gone "back to normal"?) that the COVID vaccine would be as easy to get. But our pediatrician's office is no longer carrying it so we have to go to the Covid Vaccine Store (the CVS). 

Anyway, Phoebe is happy and healthy and nothing exciting really happened at her visit. 

She's a baby who enjoys her sleep, so as we approached her two-hour window of being awake and found ourselves still waiting for the nurse to come in with her green plastic tray of needles (and oral drops), Phoebe fell asleep, despite my best efforts tp keep her awake a little while longer. 

It was a pretty rude awakening to be roused for that! 

The nurse decided to do the drops first and Phoebe wasn't quite awake when she was offered the tube. Having fallen asleep without nursing (though not for lack of trying to convince me to nurse her), she was rather eager to suck anything that entered her mouth...but her eyes flew open with suspicion when she realized it was a vial being put in her mouth rather than warm, yummy milk. Still, the contents of the vial were evidently not vile because she greedily slurped her vaccine down without spilling a drop.

She was less enthusiastic about the needles. 

But she survived (most children do) and took a three-hour stress nap this afternoon (punctuated by a couple of brief nursing sessions). 

Let's see. She was 26 inches tall and her head is 16.63 inches around. She's growing well and meeting all her milestones so...we'll just keep keeping on. 

Saying goodbye to the beach (May 12)

Since we couldn't find beach access at Mitchelville, we headed back to Singleton Beach so we could bid the ocean farewell from there. We managed to catch the boardwalk shuttle both ways this time, which was nice because it was windy and rainy.

Here's a few family shots on the beach (we have a tradition of taking one of these each beach visit):

Mitchelville (May 12)

Our last touristy stop of the day was Mitchellville, the location of " the first self-governed town of formerly enslaved people." Little remains of the actual structures, but there's a lovely little replica village that we wandered through.

Coastal Discovery Museum (May 12)

The Coastal Discovery Museum in Hilton Head was really quite neat! They had a few indoor exhibits (which we didn't spend much time at) and several outdoor exhibits as well. 

The lady who greeted us at the welcome center was, very clearly, from New Jersey. A surprising number of people we ran into on this trip seemed to be from that area. Anyway, she told us about the art exhibit and how to get to the walking paths and insisted we visit the "Kids' Own Room."

She said this several times:"Your little ones will just love the Kids' Own Room! You gotta stop by the Kids' Own Room!"

Imagine my surprise when we were finally able to peel ourselves away from the desk (she was chatty) and followed her directions to the Kids' Own Room, only to find it clearly labeled "Kid Zone." 

That made a lot more sense. I think I wouldn't have been so confused if she hadn't kept tacking "room" on the end of things. Anyway, the Kid Zone (room) was rather delightful. 

We got to see horseshoe exoskeletons in varying stages of development:

I took my kids to the pool yesterday

 I took my kids to the pool yesterday. 

They were all surprisingly cooperative as I ran stroke clinics and made them swim laps and tread water and things like that. We also worked on our stride entry, a method of entering the pool from the side while keeping your head above water so you can keep your eyes on the victim.

"Wait...there's a victim?!" Rachel gasped.

"Yeah, like....a drowning victim."

"Well, that really raises the stakes!"

I suppose it does. 

We practiced entering the water with a stride entry and a pool noodle (which isn't really a life-saving device, but we didn't want to get out the pool's rescue rings since they're only for true emergencies) to rescue each other while we took turns pretending to drown. We practiced our surface dives. 

We practiced a lot of things. And then Phoebe woke up from her poolside nap and began commanding my attention.

Happy 7th birthday to Zoë

 It's true! It's true! We have a seven-year-old on our hands and she's wonderful!

Here's Zoë standing in front of our new birthday tree(s):

Zoë's non-party

"I found my invitation to Zoë's birthday party," our little neighbour told me when I stepped out on to the porch to look a worm Alexander had found. It had been uprooted and drawn to the surface by the drizzly—at times downright downpour-ish—weather.

It was a quizzical-looking thing, with a distinctive hammerhead. Knowing it's invasive, I went back inside to get some salt. While I was gone, Alexander and the neighbour chopped the worm in half, which is cool because they reproduce via asexual fragmentation so now we essentially had two hammerhead worms on our hands. No matter. I scooped it into a plastic baggie and added some salt. Poor dear(s). 

"I found my invitation to Zoë's birthday party," our little neighbour repeated, waving a rather soggy, rather empty piece of paper in my face. 

"You must be mistaken," I told her. "I haven't planned a party for Zoë this year."

We'd considered baking cupcakes and setting up a table in the cul-de-sac for neighbours to stop by and grab and somehow convince Zoë that that is a party. But...it was raining...so we didn't. 

"Don't you love her?"

"Oh, I love her immensely. I just didn't plan a birthday party for her."

Our neighbour, an only child, considered the mathematics of this.

"But I have this invitation..." she insisted.

Stoney-Baynard Plantation Ruins (May 12)

This was an interesting, but very quick, stop that we probably won't be repeating. We found it touted as the "creepiest hike in your state," so naturally Rachel wanted to visit it. Supposedly the ruins are haunted by Baynard (who won the estate in a poker game), himself. But we didn't see any ghosts and the hike was more like a walk (and not even a long walk, at that). It was interesting to see the tabby block ruins and read about the history of the place, but we really only spent a few minutes there (which was especially disappointing because although the site itself is on the list of national historic sites, it's only accessible by a private road and there's a $9 toll per vehicle, which we did not know about beforehand—and it had to be paid in cash). 

So, anyway, it was neat...but not $18 (tolls for two cars) neat.

Here's everyone reading a plaque in front of the big house:

Sunset on the beach (May 11)

I literally don't understand the order these pictures uploaded in. They are all completely out of order. Suffice it to say, we headed down to the beach for a sunset stroll on May 11, knowing it would really be our last chance to do so (we had storms in the forecast for May 12, our last "play day").

I'm going to try to put things in order the best I can.

Here's Zoë and Andrew strolling down the boardwalk together:

Beach Day 2 (May 11)

Our second sunny day at the beach was much the same as the first, except that we made better use of the shuttle and Andrew only had one meeting in the morning so he was able to join us a lot sooner.

This day really turned into our sand castle day. I think we were all still a little worn out (and sunburned) from playing so hard the day before, though we did eventually get in and do a lot of swimming and boogie boarding. Even Grandpa tried his hand at boogie boarding!

Here's Zoë dancing on the sand: