A day at the beach

If you've read my blog, you know that I've established the fact that my pre-kids, idyllic vision of parenting has not panned out for me. Resignedly, I operate with much-reduced expectations and am much more content. That's why when I saw that Friday would be a hot day, I didn't just come up with a plan willy-nilly and expect it to turn out great. Get the boys into their suits, pack them into the car, head to the pool - that simply would not work. No, I had to plan for all contingencies.

You see, pools, with all their slippery surfaces are not a good choice for my little wild man. At a beach, it would be virtually impossible for Gus to run away from me and crack his head open, so the beach it was. After I tackled gathered the boys for the torture that is sunscreen application, I began to assemble what we would need. Our needs included kick boards for Ben and Paul that I soon would learn they would not be allowed to use at the beach and toys I knew Gus would refuse to play with as soon as he saw some other child's better toys. Notice that I still brought the toys, the better to facilitate my futilely waving the toys in front of Gus while frantically exclaiming, "Don't you want to play with your truck, Gus?" Anyhoo, I picked up my mom, because, please, like I'd attempt this on my own, and we were off to Sunset Beach in Kimberly.

Armed with my realistic expectations, nothing much about the trip surprised me. Gus, fearlessly wading into the water up to his neck? Saw that coming. Gus glomming on to someone else's far-superior Cookie Monster and Big Bird scoopers? Check. At one point, Gus set his sights on two boys' Tonka trucks. That was fine when they weren't around, but when they saw him playing with their stuff, they were not happy. "He can't play with our trucks. Do you know why? Because he's not 5!" they said indignantly. Soon, they were bored of playing with their trucks and went off to the concession stand, but not before threatening me, "Guard our trucks - don't let him touch them!" I took the 5-year-olds seriously. After all, here was my opportunity to wave futilely and exclaim frantically.

I kid, but all in all the trip was pretty successful. Ben and Paul have reached that glorious stage in which they can be fairly independent, and they played really well together and had a marvelous time. And aside from trying to filch other kids' goods, Gus did pretty well, too. I spent the bulk of my time following him as we went down the slide roughly 150 times. It went so well, in fact, that I might even do it again. Just don't expect to catch me at the pool.