Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Life is a Beach? (Part 2): The Departure

Yesterday, I detailed our day (okay 93 minutes!) at the beach.  Today, I will tell you about trying to depart the beach with my little divas.  It was quite an experience.

My father and I had decided that we could last until about 11:00.  At 10:15, he looked at me and said, "I think we need to go."  He had a look of exhaustion on his face but insisted that he only wanted to leave because he didn't want the girls to get burnt.  Mind you, I think I created another oil spill in the Atlantic Ocean from all the sunscreen I put on them but I allowed my tired dad to use his concern for their skin as an excuse. 

I turned to my water logged daughters and said, "Okay, time to go home!"  Their response was not one of excitement or even feigned agreement.  This is what I heard, "NOOOOO!  NOOOOO!  WAH!!!!!!!"
I turned to Pa and told him to take Lindsay and I would take Sophie.  I picked her up and she kicked and screamed all the way back to the blanket.  When I set her down to pack up the beach cart, she ran towards the water again.  I ran after her, picked her up as she wailed, and brought her back to the blanket.  You know where this is going, don't you?  Yup!  Back and forth about 20 times.  Finally, she just laid down in the sand with her sister and screamed. 

Once I had packed just about everything I picked Sophie up and told Pa that we were heading to the outdoor showers and to meet us there.  Again, Sophie screamed as if she was being beat.  At this point, it was closing in on triple digit temps and I had had it.  I turned to her and in my best imitation of my mother I gritted my teeth and said, "Knock it off!  Now that is enough, Sophie!"  Didn't really work but made me feel better.

I got Sophie "cleaned up" and I use that phrase loosely because have you ever tried to clean a child up at the beach?  It's a joke!  I got some of the sand off of her in the shower but when I went to change her,  more sand magically appeared.  It was like that old toy with the picture of the bald guy and you have to use the little red pencil and drag the sand to make his beard.  I felt like Sophie had one of those magnetic pencils attached to her and that she was dragging the sand with her.

After about a half hour, Pa and I had cleaned both girls and ourselves up enough to get in the car.   On our drive home, we discussed what we would do differently the next time we went to the beach and what we needed to bring.  I came up with the following items:
  • Valium (bring extra if you are going to be there the whole day)
  • Margarita mix
  • Tequila
  • Shin Guards (these are for when it's time to leave and your child is kicking you)
We're hoping that these items will make our next trip to the beach more enjoyable!  Cheers!

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