Vacation

First of all, I apologize for the lack of updates lately. I also recognize this is not my first such apology. I am going to get back to the roughly once-a-week update schedule that I maintained in the beginning. It's not lack of material but lack of time, but since this is a prime vehicle for communicating news about John, I will make a better effort. --Eric

We recently returned from a week at the beach. Pictures will be posted in a couple of days.

This was the first time we took John on any significant trip or vacation, aside from a trip to Florida when he was an infant. We weren't sure how John would handle the change in routing plus change in sleeping quarters plus change in eating location, etc. The short version is that he did great, although he got overwhelmed. In total, it's been an extremely busy last 2 weeks, and he's done far better than we expected.

He was nervous about the water, but quickly warmed up to it. If you've been to a beach and seen sandpipers in action, well, you have a good idea of how John did. He dashed in and out of the waves, growing ever more fearless. On day 3, we got him out into waist-deep water, and he had a blast riding the waves (or, more precisely, letting the waves crash into him). A few times, he got his face wet too, and while this clearly affected him, he usually was able to just wipe the water away with his hand and resume playing. That, all by itself, was amazing to see.

We built lots of sand castles and sand pits and such. We brought his Tonka trucks with us, and had massive digging and dumping activities. Of course, this being John, the digging and dumping often happened concurrently, such that he would dig with the front end loader, empty the bucket into the dump truck, and then dump the sand back into the hole he had just created. Fun to watch.

We saw a new side of John, too. When he would get tired (and this was often), he seemed to be trying to keep himself awake. Usually, he did this by talking. Nonstop. About anything. His default was to ask questions over and over, but he would also rehash jokes and previous conversations. It was as if he didn't want to miss any fun, and so didn't want to sleep. He was not 100% successful, though, as you'll see from the pics we post in a couple of days.