Crabs in My Leg

So we took the kiddos to the grandparents’ house this weekend, and we swam and swam and swam.  When it never cools down past 100F–even well into the heart of the evening and night–swimming and staying cool becomes paramount to eating and sleeping and blogging.  My parents live a good five-hour drive away, smack-dab in the middle of the Central Valley of California, and, in spite of growing up there and spending every summer in much the same climate, it’s still tough to go back to once I’ve gotten used to the weather of the Bay Area.  I mean, it’s not like we live on the ocean or in the foggy San Fran climate, but we are in the East Bay, and at least it cools down at night here. 

Sadie is four-and-a-half, Abbie is two-and-a-half, and little Evie, well, seven weeks along now, so swimming is not so much swimming as it is frolicking and playing in the shallow end of the pool.  It usually involves lots and lots of toys.  Abbie is just about as close to learning how to really swim as Sadie is, so it’s so much fun to help them learn.

Anyway.  On the second day we were there, Mama Teeta–Abbie’s current iteration for “Grandma”–was helping Sadie swim and gain confidence in jumping out to her.  All of a sudden, Mama Teeta starting hopping around frantically and shouting out, “Oh, no!  I have a cramp in my leg.  Ouch!”  She did this for a few seconds and then said it was feeling better.

As her mother has often been known to mispronounce the lyrics to Total Eclipse of the Heart–“We’re living in a powder room and giving off sharks”–as well as vehemently and with much inebriation due to a series of butterscotch schnapps drinks insist in front of her New Year’s Eve party guests that the artist of that fabulous song was Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac, so her daughter inherited the same proclivity to mishear others’ words. 

And so, as innocently as imaginable, as Sadie clung to Mama Teeta’s neck, she looked up and asked, “Mama Teeta, are the crabs gone from your leg yet?”  From the mouths of babes…

Oh, and as a tribute to Baby Evie, see that blob of white stuff in the background?  Well, let’s just say that we discovered that breast pads contain the same gel filling that diapers do and swell up ridiculously huge when wet.

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