In our last blog post, we installed the first two ports, and I had my cute little helper with me. When I was installing the ports in the front of the coach house, McKinlee (Swab) was with me all day, almost 5 hours on the boat and she just played and had a great time the whole day.
I was so impressed with how thoroughly she entertained herself. Usually, the standing rule on the boat is if you are on the deck you must have on a life jacket. But, I bent the rules this time because of the elaborate tent structure over the entire boat. It is hard to get on and off anywhere other than the one opening in the tarp, and I was able to lash that closed while she was on deck. At one point she was playing with a Mardi Gras necklace that she pretended was a snake. Then she played with the small spacers that I was using for the glass. They were wolves at one point, birds at another, she counted them, stacked them, slid them around and pretended each one was an airplane and flew them around.
Swab and I have a standing date day every Saturday or Sunday. We get up early in the morning, and we go to Starbucks. I get my coffee, and she gets her cake pop or croissant and milk. Sometimes we bring a book and read, sometimes we play with some of her toys, but we spend an hour or so just hanging out. It is a long story, but I feel so strongly that she needs to see how a man treats a woman, Period. Even if it is grandpa and baby, I want her to see kindness, love, and respect and through the example, I hope she learns to never accept less in her life from any man or person. (OK, stepping off my soapbox).
When we got down on the boat, we had just come from our date at Starbucks, and I was recording the intro to last weeks video when she was with me on the boat. Right in the middle of the discussion, she started laughing and pointing to the deck to what she thought was a piece of cheese sitting on the boat. The reason I thought this was so funny is that the day before I was down on the boat with Deb and she also asked me why there was a slice of cheese sitting on the deck of the boat. It wasn’t cheese; it was a small plastic spreader used for smoothing fiberglass or fairing compound in small areas. It did, however, have that yellow/orange color of a single slice of cheese that had been sitting out. You must watch the video because I show her saying it, and then overlay it with Deb asking the same thing almost the same way the day before.
After a great day at the yard, we decided to get dinner together with just the 2 of us. Swab often will ask me if we can go get “Sushi noodles.” The sushi place we like to go to by us will bring a bowl of noodles for the little one when they bring the miso soup with each meal. She will use chopsticks (held together with a rubber band) and raise the noodles over her head and put them down into her mouth. Today she decided to get “fat” noodles, so I ordered her the Udon. They were huge, and it was so funny to watch her eat these over her head.
All in all, we had a great day. Tomorrow I will head back to the boat and work on some more ports. I think I can make faster progress without my little 4-year-old helper even though I enjoyed my day with her.