Taking Forgranted What We Longed For

When we lived in Connecticut twenty years ago, our family would vacation in the Keys for five weeks each year in February and March. We so looked forward to it -- we would talk about the restaurants we liked, what we would do, how much we enjoyed the water and sand and sun.

It almost seemed that the eleven months were spent waiting for the time in Florida. Finally, we decided to move to Florida, our dream vacation spot in the sun. And got jobs - and forgot about the fun in the sun.

Now I live within sight of the beach. If I walk one block, I am in a glorious palm arboretum, with lush lawns, tennis courts and Olympic sized swimming pools. If I walk through the park, I am at the beach.

How often to I go?
Eleven months of the year I would long to lay in the sun and sand.
Now I can walk two short blocks, and do I?

Sometimes when we get what we want -- we no longer treat it as special.
Isn't this true with so many things in life?

All of that was a long way to say: today Ms Maddie Sue had that wild eyed gazelle look as though she needed to romp in the wilds of her world.

Now let me confess, I have never seen a gazelle, much less a wild eyed one, but she gets this look that I would imagine a gazelle would get just before a crazed and crazy gallop through the wilds.

So I saddled up the "littles" - Lex and Maddie -- and off we went to the beach.
The walk through the park's lawn took a long time because one of Maddie's favorite things is to roll on her back in the grass and just wiggle this way and that. It is so cool that I will re-post a video clip of her delightfully delicious wiggle above. Lex just sits and waits for her to finish.

Once they got to the sand, the both looked feral and wanted to race. Oh how I wish I could let them go. But I chose to let them run circles around me -- like we would do when we were kids with those little airplanes on a tether - round and round.

Our joy was interrupted by some little yappy dog in a sun visor growling from a pink baby carriage. Oy! Probably jealous of all the fun we were having. (FYI -- it is a "no dog" beach -- but what the heck -- it is good to get your paws sandy sometimes.)

Note to self: why not take the "littles" there with my morning coffee each day - heck we walk around the block, why not two blocks to the beach?