Wilmington Weekend Update #8

Wilmington Weekend Update #8

If the cobbler’s children have no shoes then the pediatrician’s kids must get sick. So it was that Julian awoke at 2:30 AM Tuesday with a fever of 101.8 degrees (rectal). He’s appreciating having his temperature taken this way less and less, and I’m starting to think we should donate our old mercury thermometer to the Smithsonian and buy a digital replacement. After all, if you can get an accurate rectal temperature in ten seconds, it seems cruel to wait 36 times that long, even if that’s what we had to endure as children.

Margaret and I both had to work Tuesday. I was going to cancel my day, but it’s remarkable what a little ibuprofen will do, and by daycare time Julian was as perky as a Pekinese. So I dropped him off and skulked back to the office where I resumed calling every baby sitter I had ever heard of. Ibuprofen, after all, lasts about six hours. The clock was ticking.

Finally Haley, Julian’s former daycare teacher, answered the call. She got him around 2:30 PM and by 3:15 she was on the phone wondering if he could have some Tylenol. Whew! By Thursday I figured he was well (no fever overnight, happy at breakfast). So I was surprised when I got the page from daycare an hour after drop-off: a fever of 102. At least I had the day off. Julian was a happy camper by the time I arrived, and he made a good little helper as we dashed from bank to cleaners to Home Depot and back (you knew Home Depot was going to come up – more later). Friday Haley returned (once daycare boots you you’re banished for twenty-four hours) so Margaret and I could frantically tap away at our computers, finishing office work and writing an article before our beach trip.

Friday was also the Day Of Haircuts. Jonathan did great with Sellers, Abby looked super after Hannah neatened up six months of growth, and Margaret went for her two-hour cut-and-color with Becky, a ritual so long and expensive she puts it off until people won’t look her in the eye – they’re distracted by her roots. Then it was time to take Julian (no longer febrile) to Fantasy Hairland, the only salon in Wilmington where he’s still allowed.

Michele there remembered him and ushered us to the Back Room, a broom closet which would muffle his screams. Julian is convinced his hair has nerves, and he responds to the word “haircut” as though you’d suggested trimming his fingers. Suffice to say Michele earned her tip, though not by the quality of her work. The choppy bowl on his head wasn’t what you’d call a style, and it didn’t look any better after a shower to wash off the hair plastered to his face by sweat and tears. But it was shorter, which is critical when your noggin is the size of a goodly cantaloupe (okay, a very cute cantaloupe). We’re considering bribing Jonathan to open Bangz Hair Salon early so he can do his masterful work before other customers are around to be annoyed.

Home Depot managed to consume even more time than usual this week thanks to spotty locksmithing. See, now that we have new paint on the house, the old shiny brass doorknobs just won’t do. So we had to get new ones and noooooo, the ones in stock aren’t right; we had to have special doorknobs! These arrived just as our carpenter was leaving town. As he sped away from our house I was distraught to find none of my keys worked the new lock on the front door. Here the story becomes tedious; let’s just say it took several trips, many phone calls, and much standing around watching keys being ground before I could get in more than one door of the house.

We also had new lamps (yes, special lamps) to put up. Jeff next door took pity on me as I cursed and sweated trying to juggle a lantern and pair of needle-nosed pliers, so he lent me his experience (and height) to pop the lights up before dinner. And HERE is what we’ve done:



I promise these are the last house pictures we’ll send for a very long time. We were hoping to put on some shutters, but it’s becoming clear unless I take a second job they’re going to have to wait.

And that is how we hit Friday night completely unprepared to leave for Pawley’s Island Saturday morning. Diane and Aunt Liz cooked up a pirate theme for the kids, and we volunteered to procure a real treasure chest to bury as the culmination of a week-long scavenger hunt. We started with a plywood box from Michael’s Crafts, some paint and some hardware. I made it my job to transform this stuff into a trunk Blackbeard might mistake for his own. You’ll see the result next week, but when I take that second job to pay for the shutters, I think I’d better look for something other than carpentry.

The kids were hyped up Friday night anticipating our trip. Abby and Sellers, despite being sent to bed at 8:30 PM and medicated with Atarax, were awake three more hours. Saturday morning found them in a mood so foul even Krispy Kremes couldn’t fix it. Starting at 6:00 AM I figured we’d leave for Pawley’s by nine. We just had to do some laundry, drop off dry-cleaning, pick up some coffee, get the cat to the vet, select our clothes, pay bills, run the dishwasher, roll up the hose, take out the trash, gather the DVD’s, collect all the chargers, grab the cameras and cell phones, answer some emails, clean out the fridge, make the beds, iron some clothes, feed/bathe/dress and feed again the children, pack, and load the car. At least we had cranky, underslept children to help. Margaret, always the pessimist, said I was on crack if I thought we were getting out by nine. So at 1:00 PM I took a last toke off my crack pipe and we pulled out. This is how we looked as the minivan idled in the driveway:


Every so often a patient’s grandmother asks me why we don’t use laudanum any more. The answer, of course, is now we have in-car DVD players. With the help of Spongebob and Ferris Beuler we made it to South Carolina with little trouble. Our plan was to stop at the Myrtle Beach Costco on the way and stock up on enough stuff to maintain six adults and five children for several days (that’s the only size they sell). Due to some confusion involving 501 Bypass/501, and North Myrtle Beach/Myrtle Beach we drove in circles before calling Costco for directions. The kids were so hungry by that point (doughnuts don’t last long in your tummy, even if they linger forever on your thighs) that we fed them from a family-sized box of Cheezits as we navigated the warehouse.

From there it was a short trip to Pawley’s. The weather is supposed to be great, but should we have a spot of rain Myrtle Beach offers the Dixie Stampede, Medieval Times, Ripley’s Aquarium, a Tanger Factory Outlet, Le Grande Cirque, and any number of attractions not suitable for children or anyone else who’s not a Marine. And not to go off on a tangent, but Myrtle Beach has got to be the golf and miniature golf capital of the world. It would appear South Carolina law forbids water-colored water on a miniature golf course. You can dye it red, green, or Tidy Bowl blue, it just can’t be clear. You can play miniature golf here under dinosaurs, volcanoes, and crashing airplanes and still miss the gorillas and race cars. And if you outgrow miniature golf there are like 10,000 holes of normal-sized golf just off the highway (501 or 501 bypass, I’m still not sure). Never having played I can only assume golf is, hands-down, the single funnest activity EVER, like sex but it lasts longer and costs more and you wear spikier shoes. Fortunately for me, I have neither time nor money to find out (see house pictures above).

So we rolled in to beach house around 5:30 and hauled all our booty upstairs. We rendezvoused with Francis, Diane, Liz, Mike, Bailey, and Norah on the beach just in time for sunset. The kids dashed around in the sand, and Abby found a tidal pool with sea anemones that tugged gently at her fingers when she poked them. Francis went out for pizza and a few normal-sized groceries, and we settled in for dinner, wine, and TV (Nickelodeon for the kids, The Office for the grownups). Everyone slept well with the sounds of the ocean out our windows.







I’m pretty sure this is as big a file as my email will allow, so I’ll stop here and pick up with Sunday next time. Have a great week! We already are.

David