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Happy Independence Day! Pass me the barbecue and stay away from the beach (and off the roads)! You could not offer me any outrageous amount of money to go to the beach today. It will be a complete ZOO there. Which is why Tater Tot and I went yesterday instead of today. And why The Daddy will go with us tomorrow. But today is strictly a patio and other-people’s-barbecues kind of day for us. And the other people’s barbecues aren’t that far away. It’s just not that safe to be on the roads on a day like today when people like to drink lots of beer at barbecues and the beach (there are lots of creative ways to hide it from the lifeguards and law enforcement) and drive home. Anyway, enough Safety Mommy.

Yesterday Tater Tot and I went to the beach. Oh Good Lord this girl likes the ocean! I don’t know why but we hadn’t really gone to the beach since last summer when she was too young to really like the water. But this time she loved it! This is a good sign for me since I love to surf. Hopefully she will love it as much as I do. Otherwise we’re in for some looong summers. We started out our trip with me having to load the Radio Flyer ATW (All-Terrain Wagon) Cargo Wagon in the back of the truck. It wasn’t as heavy as I thought it would be but then I had to figure out how to keep it from rolling back and forth in the back of the truck as we drove down to the beach. Bungie cords! My first configuration didn’t work out so well and it was drifting back and forth all the way to the beach. Luckily we don’t live that far. Tater Tot loved riding in it down the beach and everyone noticed The Princess riding in her carriage. I have to admit, she looked pretty darned cute. It was pretty crowded but we managed to find a little spot just big enough for me to set up the umbrella, which ended up being totally irrelevant once she figured out she could walk down to the water and that it wasn’t freezing. She did sit in the wagon for about 10 minutes just watching the water with a big goofy grin on her face first, though. Didn’t want to sit on the towel or in the sand, just in the wagon. Classic.

When I took her down to the water, she did not want to leave. I tried a couple of times and she kicked, screamed, and went boneless until I took her back. Or, once or twice, she sat down and played like she was going to play with the sand toys for a second then scrambled up and bolted back down to the water. Psych! So I finally figured out that if I sat on my feet holding her up in front of me while the tidal surges splashed over us my lower back wouldn’t rebel too much and we did that for about a half hour. Of course there was sand places there should never be sand when we got through and I had about a pound and a half of it in my bikini bottoms but she had a blast so who am I to complain?! I was completely surprised that this little girl who didn’t like her swim lessons had no problem with ocean water rushing at her and pushing her around! She had a great time and so did I because I checked my expectations at the door. I knew that this would be her trip to the beach and we would do what she wanted and not what I wanted. No lounging lazily on the sand soaking up the warmth of the sun. No reading novels or magazines or sleeping. Just laughing and playing and splashing with my little girl. What a great way to spend my day…