Pirates!

Today was the last night the "pirate ships" were going to be in the Brownsville Marina. On a whim, Joe and I decided to take the boys down after dinner. We started by telling them about it. "Do you want to go?" we asked. "No! I don't want to see pirates!" Nathan screamed, and started the signs of an upcoming anxiety attack. I pulled him aside and said, "Nate, let me tell you a secret. The pirates aren't real." He felt much better about it and agreed to go. We got to the marina and park, and realized you can't really see the ships unless you walk down to them across a series of floating docks and bridges. The big boys were busy looking at the water, and the whole time I was fighting off my own anxiety attack. (If you didn't know, I'm hydrophobic.) We made it to the pirate ships in one piece after about 10 minutes of walking and they were closed for the evening. On the second boat, a guy came out, though not in costume (thank God). He asked us if we had any questions so Joe and I pulled some out of nowhere to avoid the awkwardness. One minute into our conversation, blood curdling scream. Nathan starts jumping around screaming and not taking any breaths. Now we are in full melt down mode. "It stinged me! It stinged me! Owww! It was a bee!..." Mind you we're in the middle of the inlet. Very low possibility of a bee being that far out. Joe tried to continue his conversation while I tried to quiet Nathan, and neither of us were successful. We finally accepted defeat and walked back down the path we came from with a screaming 6 year old holding his finger, a whole 90 seconds after we got there. Nathan would periodically stop, so at one point Joe ran his toe into the back of Nathan's sneaker... Ow! You broke my toe!! from Joe. Alex was just doing his thing, bobble head and all, and Drew as usual had no situational awareness of the water all around. Joe also had Matt up on his shoulders, who, not soon after pooed in his diaper while up there. When we got in the car and everyone was strapped in. I started to drive, but could barely see. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

Since we've had Alex, nothing has been easy. For us to go anywhere, it's a HUGE ordeal. There's always someone crying, someone pooping, afraid of something. It never ends, and I figure I'll take the phrase, "you'll laugh about it someday" and go ahead and laugh today. It's chaos, it crazy and frustrating... and I love it!