We went to the beach yesterday.  A good friend of mine rented a house right on the beach in Ocean City and invited us to come out for the day.  I immediately accepted for a number of reasons.  One, because taking a tired, cranky, one year old to the beach, without a house nearby, simply means that you spend the entire time trying to persuade him not to eat sand and worrying about whether the screaming will wake the couple tanning next to you.

Secondly, while I am not above driving the three hours back home with sand stuck unceremoniously to my nether regions, it is not my favorite activity.  And the chance to put Micah down for a nap and take a shower pre-departure is a luxury worth taking advantage of whenever offered.

I was especially glad to go because I hadn’t had a chance to take the kids to the beach yet this year.  Like all normal children, they love the beach.  There is something endlessly entertaining about sand.  I can’t quite say what it is.  They would surely get bored if I told them to go play in some dirt in the back yard, but tell them that they can run around in a 50 square foot patch of sand and you’ve got a day full of fun.

Neither of my miniature children was quite up to getting in the water.  The waves were pretty rough.  But Audra spent a delightful couple of hours with my friend’s kids running into the surf, capturing sand fleas, crabs and other ocean vermin, and then imprisoning them in plastic buckets.  This, in fact, was her primary entertainment for the day until my buddy’s wife jokingly said that if she caught a seagull, they would buy her an ice cream cone.  My 5 year old then spent, literally, the next 2 hours running around with a net trying to sneak up on the birds.  True to form, she even managed to corral a local 20 year old into helping her.  I would look over and there’s my daughter taking those Scooby doo sneaking steps while some girl in a bikini, who I’m sure had planned on spending the day tanning, was bent over trying to entice the birds closer with goldfish crackers.

Needless to say, despite some extraordinary tenacity, Audra never did capture a seagull.  But we bought her an ice cream anyway.  Sometimes you need to reward the effort. 

My 3 year old son was a little freaked out by the water and how it would, seemingly without warning, get closer and then retreat and then, when you least expected it, rush up and soak your feet.  What is that about?

So he spent most of the day rolling around coating himself in the sand until he resembled nothing more than a giant blonde snickerdoodle.  He built castles and jumped off sand dunes and ran willy nilly to his hearts content, stopping only occasionally for peanut butter crackers and water.  The life of a three year old isn’t too bad.

Aside from spreading some joy and happiness amongst my children, the other reason I was anxious to come out to the beach was for those three Mississippi teenagers in the basement.  Two of them had been to the beach before when they came out to visit a couple of summer’s ago.  The third had never even seen the beach except for that one week a year when 106 and Park broadcasts live from Spring Break.  So I was looking forward to sharing an experience.  A chance to see the Atlantic Ocean, jump through waves and feel the sand betwixt their toes.

They were having nothing of it.

After several hours, I was able to talk Jessie, who had gone body surfing with me a couple of years ago, to come out and try it again.   To be fair, the water was a lot colder than I remember it being, but Jessie jumped in and, although he took a couple of waves in the face, did ride some others in and seemed to have a good time.

Felecia, who had never seen the ocean, was very skeptical of the whole enterprise.  We had gotten her a bathing suit the day before, but it never emerged from the bag.  She spent a little while sitting in a beach chair, but, in general, decided that this whole sand and ocean thing was too cold and scary to mess with.

Aloysius, who had also gone body surfing with me a couple of years ago, walked out to the edge of the dune, looked out at the water and then immediately turned around, went inside and watched a Colts game from ’06.

I, of course, tried to tempt, cajole, beg and shame them into abandoning BET reruns and coming outside on a perfect cloudless 80 degree day at the beach, but apparently sand and salt water can not compete with the antics of the Fresh Prince.  (Oh Carlton, can’t you ever lighten up?)

Their refusal to do any marrow sucking did have one upside – free babysitting.  I had expected to spend a good chunk of the day watching Micah crawl around the living room and merely listening to the waves crash against the shore.  Luckily, I had three sullen teenagers hermetically sealed inside a house, freeing me to play with my older kids, ride some waves and generally bask in what was a darned near perfect day.  I think everyone should get some sullen teenagers.  They’re great!

 Aloysius and Felecia enjoying the beach