Bye bye, kee kee!

I'm going to try to be better about posting kid stories. There are just too many funny things not to remember and unfortunately, so many funny things happen that I can't remember them all. So... the best way to remedy this is write them down! Plus, Jeffrey (and baby sister) will thank me for this one day. (That is, after the day the curse me for writing them down. They'll appreciate them when, one day, they become parents.)

Scott's brother Jeff (Jeffrey's namesake) and Jeff's wife (Adriane) flew in from Illinois to hang with us for a couple of weeks. (Oh, so many great stories from their visit... But I'll just stick to this one for now.) The last Friday they were with us (May 29) we decided to spend the day at the coast. (Side note: I haven't been to the coast since BEFORE I got pregnant with Jeffrey. How sad is that?)

Oh, another side note... This actually is worthy of another post, but suffice it to say at the moment that Diane (Scott's mom) had already thought that would be a good day to go to the beach. When we dropped Jeffrey off on Thursday morning, I mentioned it, and she agreed replying, "Yeah! We were thinking that too, only we want to get an early start!" I said, "How early?" She said, "Well... I was thinking we could leave by 6:00 or so." Yeah, right. 6:00 am doesn't happen when you have babies, I'm just sayin'. I told her, "Well, you guys can go early and we can meet you there later." She replied, "We just want to get there early enough to see seashells." HAHAHAHAA If you're from Oregon or any other coastal region, you'll know why this is hysterical. I'll finish the story at a later date, but that's the best part worthy of a good laugh. (Please understand I'm not making fun. She's from the Midwest, and really isn't familiar with tide charts, Pacific ocean, the fact that we don't really get a lot of "seashells", etc., so wouldn't have known that was funny. But for the rest of us who do know, it's worthy of a good giggle.)

I digress.

After a good hour on the beach (having arrived in Lincoln City around 10:30), we bellied up at a corner table at our favorite restaurant, Kyllos, then took another jaunt down 101 to Salishan shops... and back up to Fogarty Creek for another walk on the beach. (This was Jeffrey's first time seeing the ocean, so we wanted to make sure he got a lot of sand and ocean time!)

If you're not familiar with Fogarty Creek, it's a nice little beach with pretty big waves, and a creek (thus the name) that splits the park and runs into the ocean. Certain times of the year, the creek can get pretty deep and fast, but at this time of year, it runs relatively shallow and slow. As it gets closer to the ocean, you can wade across it. But there are two walking bridges that cross the creek, as well.

We had parked our car, and Jeffrey wanted to bring his little basketball along. So, there he goes, trotting along with his binky ("kee-kee") in his mouth and his basketball ("ba-ball") under his arm. As we began to cross one of the bridges, a thought crossed my mind. It would be SO typical for Jeffrey to chuck his ball in the creek. He loves to throw it at things. So, I bent down and asked him gently, "Honey, can mommy have your ball for a minute?" Without hesitation, he handed over his ball. (He's so good!) Literally seconds later, I hear his binky hit the deck. Uncle Jeff exclaimed, "Oh! There goes his binky!" So, I turned around expecting to pick it off the bridge. No. It landed on the bridge and bounced promptly into the creek, 6 feet below.

Diane and Scott had already crossed the bridge (I think to use the bathrooms), so Adriane, Jeff, Jeffrey and I were left hanging over the railing just watching as Jeffrey's binky starting sailing slowly down the creek and under the bridge. We all ran to the other side and watched as it appeared again... Slowly, slowly floating in the current out to sea.

As we all could do nothing but watch, we hear Jeffrey's little voice, "bye-bye, kee kee!" And he waved eagerly to his binky as it floated by.

But wait! It got stuck on a little pile of floating debris which kept it in place, about 1 foot from the edge of the creek. The valiant Uncle Jeff made his way down the muddy edge, clinging to flimsy tree branches to try to rescue the kee-kee. He very well could have taken a nice spill into the creek himself. (And if this had occurred, the whole thing would have been on video!)

I will post the video soon! Jeff totally took one for the team and made a successful kee-kee recovery! Yea! (After a thorough rinse, it was as good as used!)

Thanks, Uncle Jeff. We applaud your selfless acts of service, all in the name of love.