#someday the creator will need to explain to god how a shark can have a clinic that treats a bald eagle a giraffe and a T rex

[numinous-queer]

Family Vacation Accomplished!!

We made it to the coast with dog and toddler in tow! This was an exercise in hope, since Nacho is not always a polite car passenger, as he is obsessed with my wife and grows despondent when she has to keep her eyes forward on the road and gets real chatty about it. Luckily it seems like the dog and toddler canceled each other out by entertaining one another, so thank goodness for that! We’d also never had quite such a long car ride with kiddo before, and were so grateful that Sola was interested in looking around at the forest and running through every single song she knows, from Baby Shark to her ABCs. When we go again in warm weather I think we’ll do my childhood traditional stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory for ice cream  to break up the drive, but we couldn’t do it this time with a dog there. Other summer things to look forward to at the beach: playing in the warm sand and making sand castles, burying Sola in the sand (or offering to let her bury us), tidepooling, and having a picnic in the sun! We may not know what her case holds but we have a grim certainty (echoed by her case worker) that there’s no way she’ll achieve permanency in either direction by summer, so we’ll get to have our time in the sun together. Next time we’ll go for more than a single day and night... this was our experiment to show kiddo that we can stay somewhere new and it doesn’t mean we lost our housing. She was really really really anxious at night and barely slept, so that might be a lesson in feeling secure that takes a while to sink in.

We got SO LUCKY with the weather and got a rain break right in the middle of the day and the golden hour, so kiddo got to run to her heart’s content! There were lots of excited “SOLA’S TURN... FAST CHEETAH!” followed by an insane serpentine dash over the dunes. Right after this photo was taken she took a sharp right turn, ran directly into the ocean, and sat down. She got soaked up to her armpits, but was such a trooper about getting wet in the January Pacific ocean(!) that it didn’t stop her from running right into the waves later, decimating our dry clothes and diaper supply in under 30 minutes. 😂 

All in all, we had an amazing first trip to the coast. I hope with everything I have that it will be the first of many, and we will have the time to create years of memories and traditions together.