Good times and Bad in The Mexico House...The Candy? Even in the Candy?...

   We were sitting  on the beach, as is our want these days and Izzy was sitting with her Opa and having at the snack bag.
      Opa: "Izzy, can I have some of your chocolate bar?"
      Izzy: "It's all gone."
      Opa: "Whaaaat, you ate it all? before you gave me some?"
      Izzy: "Sometimes I eat like a pig, you know."
      Opa: "What, like a pig? Really?"
      Izzy: "Yep. I look pretty but I don't always eat pretty."


      It is February and it is cold at home and we are in Mexico seeking the respite of the sun and the warmth of family and the sting of the new age Margarita. There are few...almost no other things that cement us a family unit like a trip to the Mexico house. I think because there is such a familiarity here. Such a sense of sameness and predictability.
    For example, Mrs. Narrator will always fret and strut and flitter about while getting all of us ready, completely convinced that she has forgotten something. Knowing full well that she has not. At some point she will explode in frustration, usually in a panic over directions to the airport and always at me. It always happens. If it didn't I might actually worry that something was wrong. For my part, I will keep my head down and carry the luggage. Nobody wants a vacation where Dad does the packing.
      But we got here, in spite of the worst depressurization I have felt since I was a kid. There was food waiting for us and Wi-Fi and strong drink and the warmth that only grandparents can provide. We settled in, as we always do. We do not own it but it very much ours, it is the Mexico house. 
      There is something different this year, several different things. We are traveling with two very different children, The Boy is nearly a teen  and Isobel is both whiny and apathetic...is that a girl thing? Is that normal for her age? I feel like it isn't..or at least it shouldn't be. At any rate we're here Secondly, I am here for one week rather than the traditional fortnight visit. I am trying not to think about it but it's hanging over me like a kind of dark cloud. It will be hard to leave, even harder  I think on Izzy, seeing me go...And I think I've found it all of a sudden whilst trying to find the point of this weeks column...
      All the other times we have come to the Mexico house, the kids have needed me...us for everything. "Mummy take  me to the pool, Daddy, I want lunch from the snack bar. Daddy can we go to the souvenir village, Mummy can we go into town tonight?" But there has been very little of that this trip.
      The kids are getting older, more independent. Exploring more and needing us less. I envy people who had their children (planned or  not) at a younger age. Never looked into the face of their children and saw their own mortality. OK maybe that is a little maudlin, I mean I'm not Steve Martin or anything. Having my first child at 67 knowing full well I will never see that child grow up. Parents are supposed to die before their children yes, but before their 20th birthday?
      Wait now, I am wandering away from the point here...was there a point? Kinda and kinda not. That's the Mexico house. Manana....It can wait til tomorrow.
     The times are good here but they never get to last...I don't want it to seem as though we are sad and downtrodden, we are not. We are warm and happy and sun burnt (so much so that a certain little girl had to get aloe vera in the middle of the night) and all the other things that we should be at the Mexico house. Isobel can touch bottom in the grown-up pool, The Boy is making jokes about me being drunk on New Age Margaritas and I am totally OK with that. (in fact I laughed my ass of at one of the jokes so- good on The Boy) and Mrs. Narrator isn't shouting...we're all growing up, whether we realize it or not...viva The Mexico House

      My kid is just that...my kid and as such, she has a sweet tooth. As it turns out it is also an international sweet tooth. As such she thought it a great idea to great candy from a Walmart in the middle of Mexico. OK, I have to side with her on this one. It is candy and it is Walmart. Two institutions that you have to take for granted as far as being safe for consumption, even n Ol'Mexico...not so.
     She came home from grocery shopping with the Mexican Walmart equivalent of a 'Juicy Drop Pop' Lick 'em Sticks is what I think they called them in the days when dinosaurs roamed fee and Mrs.Narrator and I were young. At any rate it was labelled watermelon.
     "Daddy, can you open this for me?" she asked.
     "Sure,Pick." I said."
     I used a knife to peel back the plastic and pulled out the lick 'em stick. I figured I'd give it a bit of a sniff to investigate the Mexican take on watermelon.
     OK, so you know that smell when you throw up after the ninth post spaghetti dinner beer?
     Izzy stuck the lick 'em stick deep into the crimson powder and took a gigantic lick. The look on her face said it tasted as bad as it smelled.
    "Well?" I asked."
     "Mexico should stick to ham and leave the candy to us." she said.