Yesterday we went to the beach for little L’s first visit.  Oh, she was out of her mind with fright.  The waves!  The roar!  The sand that moved eerily under her feet!  The sand that stuck to her skin!  Oh, please clean it off now!

But somehow she managed, and she began to play with the empty water bottles that Papa had brought to the beach.  She dug her toes down and said, “Where’d they go?”  We’d flip our palms up and repeat, “Where’d your toes go?”  Then she’d wiggle them up and say, “There they are!”  We played this over and over–first covering her toes, then Papa’s, then Worthy’s, then mine.  She settled in finally, on her own mound of sand, but still didn’t want to have anything to do with the waves, even though Auntie Worthy showed her how to run down to the waves, then away from the waves.  I guess the beach is an acquired taste.

Today, we stayed at the villa and lounged around–oh, other than the time that Worthy turned on her techno dance music, and Liliana had a heyday dancing to it.  Seriously, the girl’s got rhythm, and it’s a crackup to watch.

Liliana wants to wear a combination of the very few “pretty” things we brought along, so she’ll mix her flowered sun hat and Dora the Explorer sunglasses and her beach dress cover-up and her sequined cherry shoes and strut around like an English school boy–at least that’s what we think she looks like, because of her short hair and her confident walk (and the way she holds her clasped hands behind her back while she’s watching something any of us are doing).  She’s what Worthy calls a “hot mess.”  She thinks she’s hot, but she’s a mess.

I love my little hot mess.