Sand, Sand EVERYWHERE!

Last Sunday we took Tommy to the beach for a few hours...while he's been up there before, this was the first time we really did the whole beach thing...with sand toys, chairs, umbrella, ginormous blanket to claim as much space as possible, cooler, towels, etc.  I am happy to say, it was a successful trip, other than John forgot to bring me back a frozen milkyway from the snack stand...even after HE ASKED ME if I wanted anything...

While I have been known to hit the beach as early as possible and stay as late as possible, I know with a toddler that isn't likely to happen very often.  It's just too long of a day.  Even for me, I've noticed lately, I might only stay 5-6 hours instead of the 7-8 hours from back in my heyday.  My plan was to get Tommy to take a nice long nap (yeah, right), watch TEAM USA in the Women's World Cup, and get to the beach around 3ish.  Well...the beach gods must have been smiling down on me, because that's exactly how it happened.  Except that while Tommy napped and the soccer game was on, we had to empty out our entire fridge, throw some food out, bring what we could salvage to the basement fridge, and clean out the fridge coils and do some defrosting.  Apparently John and I thought we had a "super-fridge" that never needed to be cleaned out, and after 4 years, it was prett angry with us about that and wasn't staying cold throughout.  Some shelves were, but others weren't.  Fortunately, everything is FINE with the fridge, and the good thing is that we tossed a lot of stuff we didn't even know was in it!

And bless our sweet T, he napped for 2.5 hours!  He woke up sometime during the extra time of the soccer game, so he got to witness Mommy going a little psycho when the U.S. scored the goal in injury time to tie Brazil and force penalty kicks.  And yeah, I was probably more nuts when we won the game. 

But after the game, we were off to the beach.  I don't know why John and I thought it was a good idea to bring magazines and books...I mean, really?

Tommy looking out at the waves

Looking cool with the cap on backwards

I was impressed he knew what to do with the sand toys, since we never used them...til I realized this week they have a sandbox at daycare with sandtoys...duh!

Someone stole Mommy's chair...apparently I need to get him his own beach chair!

Filling the bucket

Sand all over the face

Not sure what he's eating, but it's covered with sand



Only laughing is allowed at the beach!



Just after throwing the ball to Daddy

Kicking the ball to Daddy

Closest he came to going in the water...jumping in a puddle

While Tommy did not venture into the ocean, he did come close because the water came up a few times and he would run away from it, yelling like he was afraid, but it was so obviously exaggerated.  He's quite the actor, you know?

As for his Beach Bum status, well, if I'm giving out starfish on a scale of 0-10, 10 being total beach bum, he's probably a 4 or 5.  He enjoyed our time there (2 hours total), he allowed us to put him under the shower with some protest, but only because the water was REALLY cold, and he never cried.  I did change him in the back of the car and when we got home, decided to take him in the shower with me...that's where the melt down happened for both of us.  I figured it would be easier to do a shower to get the sand to fall off his body rather than to have him sit in it in the tub.  Ha.  He would not let go of me so I could have him stand up in the shower.  He HATED it.  Definitely was not too hot or too cold (it was too cold for me, as I like hot showers), I just think it scared him.  I know I did not get all the sand out of the many crevices on the body or his hair.  I did the best I could and apologized to his teacher the next day when I dropped off.  As for me, I never even got to wash my hair until the next morning.  But I did go back for a mommy beach day on Friday this week, spending 5 hours reading, riding the waves in, and relaxing.  But I do look forward to taking the Tomster back to get his beach bum status upgraded!