Friday was, as you might imagine, a rather slow day at work. Most folk had taken the day off, given its proximity to Independence Day.

So after I’d wrapped up what I needed accomplish for the day, I spent the afternoon outside with Daphne (with my phone nearby, just in case). She’d just gotten some new reusable magnetic water balloons (thanks Mom!), which are indisputable evidence of the amazing age of technological marvels that we currently live in.

We spent hours outside filling and popping these things, over and over and over.

This allowed Jen to take a break and work on her writing for a bit, while Daphne had a great time playing outside with Dad.

The rest of the evening was spent in relatively quiet repose at home.

On Saturday we formulated a plan to finally start working on The 9 Best Maple Creemees of Vermont list. I mean, we’re already a week into July and we’ve had but one (decidedly mediocre) creemee from April’s Maple.

We hopped into the car and made our way toward Bragg Farm, the first creemee spot on the list. And we’d nearly made it past St. Johnsbury on before Daphne completely and inexplicably went into nuclear meltdown.
Now she does occasionally get irritated for a minute or two in the car; that isn’t an uncommon occurrence. But normally we just ask her what’s going on with her, or we remind her of what we’re doing/where we’re going, and she calms right down. But this time no amount of “hey, easy kiddo… we’re on our way to get some ice cream!” could convince her to stop violently slamming herself against the car seat while hitting herself on the head and neck.

After about 10 consistent minutes of this, at 70mph on the freeway, we decided we’d heard enough. The joy of this mini-adventure had been completely drained and the horrors of the weekend before began to echo in our minds… So we turned around and went back home, which is where we stayed the rest of the day.

Playing with the water balloons again was the only ambition we could muster.

On Sunday, we felt like we could all use a little movement after being at home the day before, so we decided to go to one of our usual spots, the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail. That way Jen and I would get to walk for a couple miles, and Daphne would get to play and stomp in the tunnels.

As we were getting ready to leave, our neighbor called and asked if we wanted to join them at a beach in Island Pond. A quick costume change later and we were on our way to spend the day swimming instead of hiking.
So goes summer in Vermont.

Our wires did get a bit crossed at the outset, though, and we ended up driving to the wrong beach… One I less-than-affectionately dubbed, “Goose Turd Point.”

We set up our bench and cooler but it wasn’t long before the whole thing became too unpleasant to bear. The waterline was covered in sharp, foot-stabbing rocks…

And the flies, all hopped up on goose dung, were swarming like the Luftwaffe, attempting to rebuff our incursion into their beach. Scatological avoidance being the better part of valor, we hastily retreated from Goose Turd Point and left its tainted shores to the devilry of the Fly Reich.

Instead, we drove over to Brighton State Park, located directly across the pond.

That’s Goose Turd Point there on the right…

It’s unclear if that boat speeding toward us was, in actuality, a ship of insectile war…

And me without my Eliminator bucket.

Anyway, Brighton State Park was immediately deemed to be a MASA, or Mom Approved Swim Area.

And we spent 4 lovely hours there swimming, having lunch, and generally having a great time.

During our earlier circuit around Goose Turd Point, we happened across a lovely little deli that looked like it’d be a nice place to pick up dinner. So we stopped in on our way home.

As it turned out, Sunday was the opening day for The Yellow Deli in Island Pond. And I can say that it’s an absolutely lovely little store/restaurant, staffed by some very kindly people.

Their sandwiches and chips were great…

And Daphne utterly destroyed the hot dog we got for her, which is a rarity. As such, I’m quite certain we’ll be back to The Yellow Deli whenever we’re in the vicinity of Island Pond.

Oh, her iPad is there in that picture.
About that…

Roughly 15 minutes after I took this, we told Daphne that a shower was in her immediate future since she’d spent the entire day in the lake, a portion of which was in close proximity to waterfowl foulness. (She’d also had another accident on the way home, despite us repeatedly asking if she needed to use the potty at the deli.)

It was clear she did not appreciate that suggestion, and bit down hard on the blue iPad case.

**crack**

I quickly snatched it away and found…

That dense shatter point at the very bottom was under the blue foam case, but she bit it hard enough to spider crack all that glass.

And so we were forced to erase the data and dispose of our second iPad in just a week.

The night ended in anger, frustration, and tears for everyone involved. Made all the more painful because it was such a precipitous drop from the earlier joy of swimming and playing in the lake together.

I honestly don’t know if we’re going to replace this device…at least not straight away. Jen and I both agree that Daphne needs to understand there are consequences to her actions. And if we keep buying new iPads to replace each one she destroys, there’s no instructional causality.

So, for now, we’re leaving her empty iPad case around as a reminder. That way when she taps “Music. iPad.” into her talker, we can use it as a concrete teaching aid to illustrate that she no longer has an iPad because she got angry and broke her last one…by biting it.

Maybe that will help us teach her. Maybe not. It’s difficult to determine what concepts Daphne does or doesn’t grasp… Regardless, she’s now taking some involuntary time away from YouTube Kids. Which, in the grand scheme, is probably not a bad thing.

See you tomorrow.

j.s.