pepe and the beach

we are spending a few lovely days in new castel, at "grandma's house". we came up yesterday, after my boot camp class. we stopped at the outlets and chris and i bought new running and tennis shoes, and pepe got to ride "rollie" and listen to "bob the builder" several times. next, the beach...oh, the lovely beach. the icy water felt so good on my sensitive hip. pepe loved the waves, and we jumped over them for a while, until we both got purple lips. next, pepe started marching the beach until he found this nice family from north carolina, with a 3 y old boy and....lots of diggers, buldozers, excavators.... "hi boy", he started, "what's that?" pointing to the a front loader (this is what pepe does when he wants something, kinda his introductory sentence). "can i use this?". the nice boy named luca shared, and pepe played for a while, and i got to talk to a fellow obsessed runner about..running, and potty training, and toddler (not) eating... then chris came over, and we went in for lunch, and a little thomas and nap for pepe. off to the pool in the afternoon, and chris and i took turns with pepe while the other one swam, chris kinda overwhelmed during his shift cause pepe did not want to wear his diper. we met annie and her husband and pepe peed as he said hi, and they went "good job, hi five" as chris kept looking around ashamed and i was laughing... i took pepe in the kids' pool during my shift and boy we had fun. he was into doing laps - me holding his arms, he kicking with his legs - but morning boot camp and .5 mile swimming got me tired, and so we had to come up with a different plan soon, which we did, as pepe found a ranger car and i did not see anything wrong with letting him "pretend drive it". apparently the lifeguards did, after 20 min of playing though, when chris was almost done with his laps. pepe did not want to leave the car, but i took him to the lifeguard and made him tell pepe that he is not allowed. man, authority instills fear at an early age. from the pool we headed out to meet jim and mike and ilene, old friends of margaret and jims, and chris's role models (i hear from chris) for some greek food (yummy) and some running around and playing catch with an impatient pepe. more thomas and bedtime for pepe, and i must confess i was in bed at 9 and asleep by 9:30. i love sleep!

since we are creatures of habit, we followed the same routine today (sans the shopping). pepe wanted to be naked at the beach and i did not see anything wrong with that - in fact, in romania i was naked at the beach until i started first grade, just like all other kids... pepe followed a couple of kids and their mom around looking for crabs and snails. at some point, he got close to the kids' mom and whispered something (maybe a " i have a penis") and i heard the mom tell him "i don't need to see your penis, and if you want to pee, move along" in a rather sharp voice. i guess not everyone is a fan of european child rearing practices.. pepe and i made tunnels in the sand, ate popcorn with goldfish, played in the water, and laughed a lot. i love to play with pepe, and am so excited that we are starting the active play phase, where we can kick a ball, swim together, run around... well, gotta go back to enjoying vacation...more later