Beach Baby

Will started at a new preschool. Five days a week, three hours a day. So far he's loving it. But Evie? So far Evie has not been loving it. She misses her partner in crime. As we drive away she starts shouting, "BUDDY! BUDDY! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" So that's been fun. At Will's old preschool, which was only two hours long and twice a week, Evie and I took long jog/walks and went to a nearby playground, then often picked things up at Target or the grocery store. But Evie will not be contained for such a long period of time for so many days a week, so I'm coming up with new things for us to do.

Yesterday we went to the beach.

Evie loves the ocean. My original plan was to go for a walk on the paved, non-sandy path, then to the playground. Evie saw the ocean and immediately started jumping up and down, screaming, "Ocean! Ocean! It's the ocean, Mommy!" I attempted to say, "Let's just walk to the playground today," but Evie would have none of it. She bolted to the sand. I took our shoes off and we headed to the water.

Do you want to have an awesome Evie-style experience at the ocean? This is what you need to do. 1) Go to the waterline. 2) Pick up a handful of glumpy sand in each fist. 3) Scream the following words at the ocean: "Come here ocean! I'm gonna get you!" 4) When a wave touches your feet, fling the sand at it in anger.

There was a nice covering of marine layer clouds when we got there, so I wasn't as concerned about not having sunblock with us at first. But then the marine layer burned off. Evie and I have the same very British skin - we get some freckles, but mostly we burn. No tanning here. We left after the sun had been out for about ten minutes (though we'd been at the beach for an hour). Evie only cried a little bit when I carried her away from the water and only tried to escape me to run back to the ocean twice on our walk back to the car. (This is significantly better than her reaction when we tried to leave the ocean on a visit to Newport, OR. That involved a tantrum and Lorne carrying her all the way up over the sand dunes to the parking lot. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! VEEVEE OCEAN! NOOOOOOOOOOO!")

Today when we got in the car after dropping Will off she said, "Okay, Veevee ocean now?" We had some errands to run, so I told her not today, but we would again soon. Then she started shouting, "BUDDY! BUDDY! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"