Florida

Annie and I just spent 4 glorious days in Fort Myers Beach, Florida with my parents. The trip was a first in many ways (Annie's first time flying, my first time vacationing with my parents since being married, Annie's first experience with the ocean, our first time sharing a bedroom) and it was nearly perfect in every sense of the word.

We woke her up bright and early (5:10 a.m.) on Thursday morning to leave for the airport. The minute I touched her cheek, she started climbing out of bed to get dressed. On the way to the airport, she was making strange, fake-whimpering sounds. I asked her what was wrong. "I'm crying in a happy way, Mommy."

The flights were easy and Annie was a champ, charming grandmothers left and right and singing to herself throughout. She loved looking down at the clouds ("It looks like snow!") and the fact that she got to drink her own can of Sprite. (This resulted in three trips to the airplane lavatory . . .)

We changed into bathing suits and walked to the beach the minute we got to the condo. Watching her run down the shore, laughing, splashing in the waves, holding my parents hands: all I could think was, I'm so glad I can give these memories to them. I'm as guilty as anyone of functioning as though my parents will be around for a long, long time. I know they'll be gone someday, of course, but in my mind that "day" is always 20 or 30 years in the future. Then, things happen to the parents of my friends, and I realize that this moment is all we have. Seeing the joy that Annie's presence brought to my mom and dad made all the planning and packing worthwhile.

It was so refreshing to be somewhere away for a few days - I didn't check e-mail, look at the computer, talk much on the phone, watch news, read papers, or really think about anything at all except what we should eat and when we should re-apply sunscreen. Even though 95% of my time was spent with Annie at my side (and I loved that I could give her lots of one-on-one attention), the time away was relaxing for me, too. One afternoon, my parents stayed inside while Annie napped and I read a magazine on the beach for a couple hours; another time, I went for a long walk with my feet in the waves and just thought about all the things I have to be grateful for.

Things we did: got ice cream, played in the ocean every day, found tons of shells, built sandcastles, went to the zoo, went out for dinner but ate all other meals on the deck looking at the ocean, played Memory and Go Fish, swam in the pool, watched the sunset every night, grilled cheeseburgers and cooked corn on the cob, missed "my Daddy and my Jemma," drank cherry Slurpees on the beach, watched the pelicans and dolphins, laughed at each other, took pictures.

Every morning, Annie woke me up between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. by squirming up into the twin bed I occupied next to hers.

"Hi, Pippi," I'd say. "What do you want to do today?" She'd announce something - swim, eat an English muffin, get ice cream, go for a walk, look for shells. And the best part of the trip, in my opinion, was that I could say, every single time, "Okay, we can do that."