A Day at the Lake

This is the first post about our little vacation to Ottawa and Halifax. These are all out of order, and quite incomplete...

In Nova Scotia, we took advantage of a lovely, unseasonably warm day (ok, the whole vacation was "unseasonably warm" -- that is, freaking hot and sticky) to go down to the lake.

This is the lake that my grandparents and Aunt Chook have lived on forever, in which I'd spent so much time splashing, catching minnows, being sent in with a bar of soap... So I was very excited to bring Vaughn down to the water for a little dip.

It started well; we put him in nice shallow water, which was delightful and warm, and he splashed a bit and looked around. (Possible caption: "Take the picture! These legs aren't getting any whiter!") (Note to self: if you're going to wear shorts for the first time in August, expect to look a wee bit unbalanced in the tan department.)

Vaughn's (insert relation here -- we spent quite a bit of time debating the label for my cousin's kids: second cousins? Cousins-once-removed? Too complicated) new friends (Ronnie, Kevin, Madeline and Sean, seen in the photo at the top) thought it might be fun to bury him in the sand. As you can tell, everybody thought it was a great idea. Ok, except maybe Vaughn.

When I pulled him out, he was quite dirty, so I stood him in some deeper water to wash him off. He showed off some of his frog kicking, too! He was pretty content, but suddenly...

I noticed a little thing on his ribcage. THERE WAS A LEECH ON MY BABY!!!

Calmly, and without fuss (ha ha!), I lifted him out of the water, saying in a pleasant voice, "THERE'S A LEECH ON MY BABY!!!"

Luckily, Alison, aka WonderWoman, knew what to do. Apparently, you just wait till it lifts its head to move, then pick it off, no problem. She did this easily, and Robin (the leech) was then buried in the sand by the cousin-type people.

Phew.

Here we are with my hero, after the ordeal.

Vaughn actually didn't notice a thing. I'm ok, though.