Golf balls and iced tea...

Last week, when the demolition of our kitchen began, Husband put Ethan and me on a plane and sent us to stay with my parents on the golf course in South Carolina. It was lovely and relaxing, but it was also the birth place of the latest, and up to this point, most annoying habit my child has ever had. Drink stirring. Apparently, aside from knife-throwing (see previous post), my son has a promising career in bar-tending ahead of him.

It started innocently enough in a little diner. Ethan took an interest in my father's iced tea and the accompanying long-stemmed spoon. One poke at tea with the spoon introduced to Ethan the wonder that is stirring ice. The glee. The wonder. The magic of ice spinning in a glass and clinking along in it's little Ethan-induced whirlpool. Ethan's first spin at playing God in the microcosm of a tea glass. The experience must have burned itself into the very blueprint of his consciousness, because now we cannot sit at a table that has a glass of water, soda, iced tea, ANYTHING, without Ethan insisting on stirring it. And stirring it. And stirring it.

This may actually be a good thing. Aside from the drawback of my hand going entirely numb from holding the icy cold glass (he is too short to leave it on the table and let him stir from that vantage point), it gives the arms some light weight & resistance training (yes, I realize even typing that in as a benefit is pathetic and clarifies just how active I am these days) and, as soda always ends up flat after a few minutes in the StirMaster's presence, Husband and I phasing out soda entirely, in favor or beverages that do not rely on carbonation.

The other obsession that stems from this trip is one for all things golf ball. My father has a giant basket of golf balls in the house and I think a basket full of toddler-fist sized balls is probably as close to heaven as a 17 month old could ever imagine. All those little dimples and the clunky noises when you bang them together. C'mon. And don't even get me started on the neon yellow ones.

So Ethan spent most of his time wandering through the house, arms out, a golf ball in each hand, giggling in glee at the sheer luck of having found this massive basket of fun in Grampy's room. The only way to get him into the car without melting down was to toss a couple of golf balls his way and let him play with them while we buckled him in. The only way to coax him to go someplace he didn't necessarily want to go was to roll a golf ball in that direction in the hopes that he'd chase after it. After years of scoffing at golf, I am beginning to see it's usefulness.

So here are some pictures from our trip. I am also throwing in one or two of Ethan with his little South Carolina pumpkin. There have been and will be many more encounters with the big orange gourds (it's a fruit, right? not a vegetable? I'm a dork), but this was the season's first and came shortly after the iced tea stirring incident.

Hmmm. What to do with this awesome golf ball I stole from Grampy?

Ethan's version of multi-tasking: stirring iced-tea while holding a golf ball. And you thought patting your head & rubbing your tummy was clever.

Please note the blurring speed with which my son stirs the tea. If ice stirring is an Olympic sport by 2020, he is a shoe-in. No performance enhancing drugs here, thank you very much. That's all Ethan. AND he's still got the golf ball; that definitely raises the level of difficulty.

Check out the contemplative look of a 17-month old. It begs the question, "What would happen if I dropped this golf ball IN the tea?"

"See, Grampy--if I drop the golf ball in the tea, it makes stirring it much more challenging. Oh, you were done drinking that, right? My bad."

Nothing like pumpkin picking in 90 degree weather. Did someone say, "global warming"?

Ethan is distracted by a truck barreling by on the street. If this picture came with sound, you would hear an accompanying, "vroom vroom" which means car, truck, bus, stroller--really, anything that *goes*, in Ethanese.

His Royal Cuteness, if I do say so myself.

The golf resort's answer to Chuck E. Cheese's ball-pit. Complete with cheese and fruit plate, upon request.
Where was that bright yellow one? That's the tastiest.

Gators don't like golf balls, do they? No. But they love baby.