Is Mom Gonna Die?

We’re into day five of the family reunion.  We have family members from my father-in-law’s side of the family staying in three houses with various gatherings each day.  We’re fortunate enough to be staying at my brother- and sister-in-law’s house, who live in the New Jersey beach town where the reunion is being held.  They’re the hub of most of the activity.   This means the fun comes to us, in large part.

There have been boat and jet ski outings leaving from the dock here with their boat and several jet skis.  My brother-in-law has always loved jet skis and keeps several as well as their boat, moored to the dock on their sound side home.   They live at the end of a channel of houses and the water at their house, known as “the lagoon” is always calm and warm for the that time of the year.

We’ve had dinners at the house here including cookout night and Italian dinner.   We ordered Mexican food one night for those that remained after an outing to the inlet where we went to a sand bar that appears at low tide so the dogs could run around.

Not only do they have the perfect beach gathering house, they also have a Kona Ice franchise for the area.  One evening they brought the Kona truck to their house so we could make our own Konas for dessert.   Today they were doing an event at the ferry about a half-hour from their house.  There was a concert and other vendor trucks would be at the location.   Everyone interested in coming to the concert met over at the ferry bringing blankets and chairs.

We all got in line for more free Kona Ice, my son having four himself.   My daughter, after having two sleepovers with Sydney, her newest best friend, was back at the house for the day.   Both girls had played themselves out and were having unprecedented mid-day naps.   By the time we got to the evening’s event, my daughter had some Kona and fries and then fell asleep on the grass.

This was one of the last times we’d all have Kona Ice—or at least for free—because my sister- and brother-in-law are selling their franchise at the end of the summer, after building the business in the area for many years.

I had two of the smallest sizes, choosing flavors I thought would go well with the sour syrup you could have added to the top for an extra kick.   They changed the formulation of their syrup several years ago to be a combination of cane sugar and stevia, lowering the calorie and total grams of sugar per serving.   I don’t typically have foods with sugar alternatives so when I got in the car and my stomach started hurting—an uncommon experience for my very strong stomach—I suspected it was the stevia.

By the time we got home I was almost nauseated, with my stomach in tight knots.   While I got the bed remade for my daughter to sleep back at the house here, after two days with Sydney, I heard my daughter say to my husband, “is mom gonna die?”

I came into the kitchen and told her I was fine, I just had a stomach ache from what I’d eaten but that I’d be fine in an hour.   I also told my husband I’d figured it out: it wasn’t the small amount of stevia in the syrup, it was the large amount of citric acid I’d ingested from dousing both flavors with the sour shot syrup.

We have two more days of the family reunion before heading home very early on Saturday morning.   The week is going by far too quickly.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had only had Kona Ice for dinner tonight, which is no dinner, so on the way back we stopped at a McDonald’s.   My son uncharacteristically wanted a hamburger.   When he heard we were going to McDonald’s he said, “oh wait, McDonald’s has hamburgers?”  Nana explained that McDonald’s got their start making hamburgers.   My son followed up with, “but now they don’t sell hamburgers?”   We had him look at the menu screen when we got to the drive through, showing pictures of all different types of burgers for sale.   He’s only ever ordered nuggets or strips and apparently has never paid attention to what everyone else has ordered.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Last night was Italian dinner night at the house here.   Thirty or so people were in the house during dinner time—which can be loud, what with all the adults talking in conversations across multiple rooms.   My sister-in-law found me and said my daughter had gone into the formal dining room all by herself for some reason.   When Kelly asked her if she was in there because there were too many people, my daughter said, “definitely too many people.”   Nicole, my niece, went into the dining room and spent time with my daughter, playing a verbal game of hangman, one of my daughter’s favorite games of late.