Nora, Scully, and I spent this past week staying with my cousin and her family. They are among what is now a fast growing list of folks who have housed us during this NEVERENDING move. I am so thankful we are moving close to family! Not only are we looking forward to lots of visits, but they have also made this difficult transition from CA to FL significantly easier.

This past Wednesday, my cousin and I visited Wakulla Springs with our own children (one each) plus two children my cousin keeps during the day. She lives only a few miles down the road and goes there often. With two adults and only four children, we had a great adult to child ratio, especially given the ages: 6, 5, 4, and 3 months old. Easy peasy (ha!). We slow rolled our morning, fixed a picnic lunch, got 3 of the 4 children all dressed for swimming, and loaded up the car with a beach wagon and all the accoutrement one needs with children (really, my cousin loaded the car; I just held the baby. She had some tummy trouble that day, and was extremely unhappy pretty much the whole day). Wakulla Springs are the WORLD’S largest and deepest fresh water spring. That’s right. In the entire world. Despite this claim to fame and their seemingly rising popularity given the sold out nature of the “Jungle Cruise” the day before, when we’d planned to go, Wakulla Springs generally always feels very relaxed and low key and pretty much a “local” place. Fun fact: Several movies have been filmed there, most notable, “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

We arrived to the Springs about 11:30 and secured 1pm riverboat reservations. There used to be glass bottom boats, but those have been out of commission the last few years. Wakulla is also home to a 1930s era, super old school, lodge. My sister LOVES to stay there and generally books two nights every single summer. The rooms are basic, WiFi doesn’t work in any meaningful way, and the things to do are hang out in the deep leather sofas in the lobby while your kids play checkers nearby, eat in the hotel restaurant, sit in the large sun room overlooking a lawn that slopes down to the river, swim in the designated swimming area only (NO ONE MAY SWIM ELSEWHERE…you will find out why later in the post), walk on the trails (I have never done such a thing; do you guys know how many bugs live in FL? If not, I envy your ignorance.), and basically, do nothing. The best vacation, I say.

Since we had 90 minutes before our “Jungle Cruise,” we headed to the the swimming area to eat and splash around for a bit. Now, actually getting to and set up at our spot, roughly 70 yards away from the place where we’d gotten our boat tickets, somehow took almost 30 minutes, involved one bloody knee, one baby who used her lungs quite impressively, one 6 year old who all of sudden lost all ability to help and be the big girl, and 96 degree temperatures with what felt like 300% humidity. We eventually got the children settled and fed, another challenge, and as the older kids went to splash in the shallows, the older woman right next to us leaned over and said, “These are your best days of your life, but you don’t know it.” I just smiled and said, “We do know it. You are right.” And here’s the thing. Both my cousin and I DO know that. We both have miracle babies. Mine will always be an only child. I know full well that a day filled with frustration, irritation, and tears from both of us is also, nevertheless, the only one of that particular day that I’ll get. When that day is over, Nora is one day older, as am I. And those days add up so very, very quickly to a week, a month, a year. And then one day, my 2 year old is a 4 year old. My 4 year old is turning 7.

That well meaning lady was preaching to the choir with my cousin and me…but sometimes it’s nice to hear the reminder. And y’all, I know. I know some of you absolutely detest it when those well meaning, older ladies try to tell you to enjoy the moment. Because it never fails that you hear that on the day when you never got a shower to clean up the baby vomit off you from yesterday, you haven’t washed your hair in…well, who is really counting…you may have eaten sometime last night, but you just don’t remember, and the coffee that is fueling your body is a cup you drank cold because you forgot you poured it…and microwaved it…and then microwaved it again. I get it. I’m a mom of a young one, too. Or at least she was young last week, when she was two. This week she is 6, so I’m pretty sure I’ve entered into some sort of space/time continuum. Here’s the thing to try to remember when you hear those words about enjoying this time: These women are offering you grace for a moment. They are giving you a moment to pause, to breathe, to look at this child who is driving you stark, raving, mad and for just a moment, step outside the absolute drudgery that is the daily grind of raising a Little One and remember that you have a purpose so far beyond what you are living in that trying moment. You are quite literally, raising the Future, and you are shaping it every single day. As my cousin headed down to the water with the other kids, I sat on the blanket with the baby and took that Moment of Grace. Here was this baby who was really having an off day. But as she lay upon the blanket, she looked up at the sky and gave the sweetest, largest smile. I looked up too and opened my eyes to what she was seeing. The sunlight, filtering through and dancing down through the leaves in the tree above us. It was beautiful. A reminder of the absolutely, stunningly beauty of the world around us. Grace for a moment. Then the baby started crying again. Sometimes, a moment is all we get. Grab hold of it!

Well, that was quite a long tangent. For those of you who never read my Italy blog, these tangents occur often. Back to Wakulla. The springs are a constant, 70 degrees – quite cool on a hot, Florida, summer day. The kids splashed around a bit, then we headed to our boat tour. The boat tour is THE thing to do, and you absolutely cannot skip it. Price is low – $8/adult and $5/child. The tours are 45-60 minutes, and you feel like you are entering into a prehistoric time. Once you leave the swimming area, the boat is in an area off limits to all other water craft and visiting. The boat travels down the river lined with cypress tress dripping moss, and the alligator population is QUITE healthy. I didn’t count our sightings, but I’d say maybe 25 or so between on the bank and swimming in the river. The river is home to a number of bird species, but the Anhinga are my favorite. They are huge and mostly black with white tips. They sit upon the trees with their wings outstretched to dry. Our best animal sighting by far were the three manatees that surprised even the ranger on the boat. Manatees migrate into the western part of the Gulf of Mexico during the summer months and head back to Florida for winter, like most of America. Seeing these gently giants is always a favorite of mine.

The boat headed back to the dock, and we’d promised the kids swim time. Just as we got them all lathered up with sunblock, BOOM! Thunder. That kept on coming. Water closed. We headed into the Lodge for an ice cream break to wait out the storm, but the thunder never let up, although we never did get any rain. Sadly, we had to pack the kids up to head home. In my secret heart, I wasn’t THAT sad. Because see the picture of the swimming area? It’s separated from the rest of the spring by those little floats that I had spent my whole life thinking held some sort of net that dropped to the bottom to keep out alligators. Guess what. There is no net. I found this out about 3 years back when my sister and her kids were on their annual trip to the Springs. An alligator wandered into the swimming area, and a lifeguard got into a canoe, rowed over to it and shooed it out with a paddle. I am far too afraid of the answer to ever ask the question on how often that particular event happens.

So this post didn’t turn out to be all that informative about the springs themselves, but here we are. I will end with another Fun Fact. There have been numerous fossils of prehistoric animals found fossilized in the cave at the headwaters of the spring, including several mastodons, a saber toothed tiger, and a giant ground sloth. Floating along on the Jungle Cruise, you can well imagine the landscape filled with these ancient animals.