The Florida Trip, Part One: Saturday and Sunday

SATURDAY

On Saturday, the 23rd of June, Marcus, Pookie, and I flew to Jacksonville, Florida for a Morgan family reunion at the beach. Why Jacksonville? Because that’s where my siblings and I grew up, and once every few years my parents rent a condo at the beach and some of us get together for a week. Not everybody can do it every time, but this year it was the whole fam damily! My parents, all four of their kids, and all five of the grandkids were together for a whole week. Since all of Emrick’s cousins on my side live on the other side of the country, he had only met one of them (Nick) before this trip. This was the first big get-together since Emrick was born.

So we were pretty excited at the proposition of a sunny week at the beach and spending time with folks that we don’t get to see too often. Less exciting, however, was the proposition of flying across the country via a connecting flight in Dallas with a sometimes restless 21-month-old who had never been on an airplane before. We weren’t sure how Pookie would handle it, but we figured our best bet was to make the experience seem as familiar to him as possible. First, he got his own airplane seat, which wasn’t required because airlines allow children under two to travel for free as a “lap child.” But there was no way in the world that Emrick was going to patiently sit on anyone’s lap for two two-hour flights. The idea is utterly preposterous, in fact. So we opted to get him his own ticket/seat. The second thing we decided to do was to bring along his car seat and strap that into his airplane seat. He’s used to the car seat and knows that when he is in it, he must stay there. So that’s what we did and overall, he handled it very well.

Emrick, looking like he is about to take a nap but never actually doing so for the entire day of travel.

SUNDAY

We didn’t get to the condo until after 1 AM Saturday night, so it was Sunday before we saw most of the family. Marcus and I were beat, but somehow a few of the others were up for a song and dance. Literally!

Chris and Samantha reprise the family-famous rendition of Ballroom Blitz, a la the circa1978 Morgan home movie.

In addition to all my siblings, nieces and nephews, I also got to see my Aunt Janet (sitting) whom I hadn’t seen in many years, and her husband Steve. They drove up from the Tampa area to see everybody. It really was a family reunion!

Janet helps Pookie get his flash cards back into their holder, while my dad looks on. She also brought Emrick a darling book called Who Stole the Moon? Emrick has asked to read it every day since we got back. It’s really cute. I’ll take a picture when I get a chance.

Emrick tries to fit his new, plastic pig into his flash card holder, but it isn’t working.

Now, here’s the deal with Pookie. He’s a shy kid at first. He doesn’t mind being around strangers, just as long as they at least sort of ignore him! He wants to scope you out for a while before he feels sure that you’re safe. Until then, you can expect any overtures you make to be met with shunning, suspicion or tears. That’s his way. So while everyone was eager to get to know our little Emrick, he didn’t necessarily reciprocate. By the end of the week, of course, he was squealing and laughing and running and playing with every one, but on Sunday, the first day, he was definitely timid. On that first day, he had this suspicious side-glance going on at least half the time. It was funny and adorable. Here’s Emrick doing the side-glance even in response to Kelly’s kind approach:

Emrick minds his own cookie and hopes the stranger will give up on him!

Indeed, on Sunday there was lots of music, flash cards, cookies, and side-glancing. Why? Because outside of our beachfront condo, the view looked like this:

Wah, Wah. Luckily, it was still fairly warm, despite the rain, so dinner was enjoyed outside on the balcony. The view directly in the background here is the view to the north, so no beach there.

But the view from the east side of the balcony was this:

A gray and gloomy ocean, but hey! Still an ocean.

Right?

Stay tuned for for the next installment to find out if the weather perked up!