The Sandtraps

Sand in their hair,

Sand in their toes.
Sand in their cracks,

Sand up their nose.

I decided that the kids and I needed a super field trip, so I decided to take them all to the beach for the day. The weather was GORGEOUS, and as much as I was hauling and chasing, I never even got hot! It was interesting to see Bridger's reaction to it all. I brought his booster to support him upright and give my arms a rest when we were under our cabana. I first put him down in it so I could lube up all the others with sunscreen and he became completely disturbed. Being a little hypersensitive to texture, he didn't want his feet to touch the sand, so he stuck his feet straight out so they wouldn't come into contact with it. Then, after Lance took his turn with the sunscreen bottle, he decided to "help" Bridger like the sand by piling it onto the seat tray. Oh dear, super distress. Now he had to stick his hands straight out too so they wouldn't touch it either. We were all cracking up!

Little Bear with his "distressed limbs"

I didn't want to cause him too much trauma so early in the day, so we aborted the sand and went down to the water with the others. Because of his visual challenges, he has compensated with super acute hearing. I walked up to the ocean just as the first big wave came crashing. He just about launched out of my arms. He immediately put his arms in his signature "distress mode" over his ears, and there they remained for many hours. Near the end of the day he finally put his arms down and listened to the calming(?) sounds of the ocean.

Still distressed

*side note*
pictured above and below is one of my most favorite things, my waterproof baby carrier. LOVE IT! I wish I had discovered it babies ago.

What Bear loved the most was the "Sandy Sea Monster" (Sadie) running back and forth from the ocean giving him hugs and doing silly sand dances. Sadie, hands down, won the sand trap contest - the gist of the trap contest being: who can have the most sand trapped in/on their body at one time. Amazingly enough, she had the contest in the bag within about 10 minutes of even getting on the beach.

Sadie: "Momma, which hand has the sand in it?"

Me: "Hmm," I thought, "is there really a wrong answer in this game?"

Lance loved to "wipe-out" and it is a relief now that he finally has the ability to find his footing again after he wipes out. His first fight with a large wave cost him one of his aqua socks. There was quite a bit of sadness over that, until I showed him the hundreds of bare feet that were all around us, and then he realized that maybe he could go on.

Midway through the day we went back to the car to regroup, de-sand, have some lunch and tube-feed Bear. Then we headed back to our prime ocean spot for a few more hours of fun in the sun. After we finished at the beach, we de-sanded (again), put Bear in his stroller and cruised the boardwalk where we got sprinkle ice cream cones which dripped all over the kids as they thoroughly enjoyed each bite. The critics review of the day. . .

A definite two-thumbs up!