Family Fun

Who’s big idea was this anyway? How can eight adults and four babies fit into a three-bedroom cottage? The location, Narragansett, Rhode Island, may have been perfect for a first annual Memorial Day Family Weekend, but the size was a challenge. Were we motivated enough, flexible and laid back enough, compassionate enough to deal with midnight crying, diaper disposing, and overlapping parenting modes? I guess so, cause we did it.
First of the all the cottage had only one bathroom. “Be gentle on the septic tank,” requested Leah, the person who was renting the place through craigslist.com. Fortunately everyone cooperated by following our little post’em notes on the bathroom wall above toilet and above the sink… “don’t flush if it’s yellow.”t
Secondly, the sleeping arrangement had to be creative. The grandparents volunteered to sacrifice beds for sleeping bags. Our tent, the cottage annex, was set up in the back yard and although we could still hear babies stirring in the middle of the night, a few pieces of Kleenex strategically placed in ears muffled most sounds. The two couples with one child got a bedroom each with room for the Pack and Plays, and the couple with two babies got the smaller bedroom just for the kids. The plan was to have their parents sleep on the sofa bed. But SURPRISE, the sofa bed was sans bed! So the poor parents had to sleep on a couch and a single fold out bed in the living room. After that they sort of played musical beds.
Scheduling naptimes was serendipitous. One thing the babies all had in common was that they were early risers. So by nine o’clock ten month-old Meredith was ready for her nap. Then a little later eight month-old Noa was ready for her morning nap. Rami , 2, and Pablo, 1 1/2, took their naps in the afternoon but sometimes had to be coaxed or taken on walks to the playground before they’d close their little eyes. Meredith and Noa took second naps that would sometime last until five o’clock…or not. There was no guarantee.
Bedtime wasn’t too bad because lots of fresh air puts everyone to sleep. Just ask the grandparents. Unfortunately, little Noa started getting sick the second day and she was just plain uncomfortable when lying down. After all the kids finally went to sleep, the adults could party. This usually lasted about thirty minutes. Except for the first night when we stayed up past midnight because of late arrivals from the New Hampshire and New York groups, we started yawning around ten pm. We did manage to play seven rounds of one game of dominoes the last night.
The other popular game this weekend besides bubble blowing, ball throwing, hammock swinging and diaper changing was bocci ball. Dan and Erica brought their set and almost everyone got into a game. If you’ve played bocci ball you know that you are throwing very hard softball-sized balls. This meant that all toddlers had to be constantly distracted and babies were mostly napping or in their strollers. I looked at Alyson who was smiling hugely. “You’ve always craved this, haven’t you?” I asked her, staring at her goofy grin. “Yeah, just being in the back yard playing games , drinking a beer while the barbeque is smokin’ away is my idea of a great time,” she answered.
And the Weber grill was constantly going. Leo fixed brats the first night. Dan, Nir and Whitey coordinated the cooking of barbequed chicken and veggie kabobs the second night. They had so much chicken that third night we reheated it and fixed potato packets to grill. Our last night Leo did an amazing grill job on a leg of lamb, with a couple of lamb chops thrown in for good measure and another chicken breast for an early dinner before Dan and Erica had to leave for Concord. Our only food disappointment was the take-out from the famous Iggy’s. The chowder was so-so, the clams a little rubbery, and the French fries were dull. Am I a Pacific Northwest Chowder snob now? But the fried fish was great and something called a Quahog (sort of a poor man’s stuffed Geoduk, a large Seattle clam) had mixed reviews. At $2.25 I thought it was the best thing we ordered.
The other weekend game was the “Isn’t it Great!” contest. Everyone made predictions how many times we would hear this famous Leo phrase. Of course, once people entered the contest, they tried to throw it by spouting the phrase enough times to get to their numbers . Synonyms for “great” didn’t count so we heard a lot of “isn’t this special,” “this is super,” “awesome,” “wow, that was a unbelievable poop!”. (The later comment was heard coming from a diaper-changing parent.) In the end, Nir won with Erica coming in a close second. We tried to give bags of trash as the first prize, since there was no trash service, but the winner declined. The runner up got empty beer bottles and cans to take home to recycle.
Was there anything about the first annual family Memorial Day weekend that we would change? Well first of all, everyone voted that there would definitely be a second annual weekend but with some differences. The biggest change would be a larger place with two bathrooms. Fortunately for us this year, four of the twelve people were in diapers!