Seashells, sand, Pirate’s Booty, and one melting down me

So today I took my kids to a local beach. Me. Myself. All four of them. Three girls and one Boy. See?

Do you see G in that picture? No, you do not, because he was not there. He started work today, but the kids did not start school, and Babysitter Allison gave me some lame blather about “class” and “nursing school,” and I knew full well that if we stayed home all day nothing (and I do mean nothing) good was going to happen, so I decided to make some plans, and I decided to take them all to the beach. Including the one who does not walk and who screams his lungs into shattered glass (that doesn’t make sense, does it) when he doesn’t get what he wants. Such as Pirate’s Booty. Lots and lots of Pirate’s Booty. You know that stuff? Puffed corn with real aged cheddar, or whatever it is? So I brought it with us, along with about four million other snacks, and Pirate’s Booty and red grapes bitten in half by me is pretty much what the Boy ate for lunch today, along with sips of warm water from his sippy cup.

Ok, so that’s (minus sippy cup, plus water bottles) pretty much what the rest of us had for lunch today as well, though no one else’s grapes were pre-bitten, and R and RS at least had yogurt too, and R had an apple, and come to think of it, I’m not sure YS had anything at all, because why should today be different? She doesn’t eat, see. She does read, however, and today was no exception.

Guess why I whited out her arms and legs. Go on, guess. It’s NOT because I’m some lunatic rebbetzin who doesn’t think it’s “appropriate” for people to see an almost-7-year-old in a bathing suit. I did take her to a public beach, you know. So go on, guess why her arms and legs are whited out. (You won’t guess.)

Can’t guess?

It’s because she saw me downloading the pictures from my email, and she said the following: “Are you going to put those on your blog?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t think you should,” she told me. “I’m not comfortable being on your blog in my bathing suit.”

Ahem.

(This is also why I lightly whited out her arms and legs in the other picture, above.)

I had nothing to do with this, people. Not explicitly, anyway. Although the truth is I’m sort of glad she said it, because it allows me to white out her arms and legs while claiming that I’m not some lunatic rebbetzin who doesn’t think it’s appropriate for people to see an almost-7-year-old in a bathing suit. Heh.

Anyway, she brought her book (The Secret Garden), and at first it remained in the green reusable grocery bag while the girls splashed and swam and hunted for seashells. They found a lot of them, too. Way too many, in fact. There are a lot of really disgusting seashells and seashell fragments in my house right now, and I’m not real thrilled. See, my personal opinion regarding things that used to belong to animals is that if they’re going to be in my house, they shouldn’t look too much like they did when they belonged to the animals. But these seashells do. They don’t look like pretty little ocean souvenirs. They look more like ocean warts. Or roadkill. Some of them look like some sort of slithery creature is going to come oozing out at any minute, and almost all of them have a bunch of disgusting little dead barnacles stuck to them. Ick. At least I hope they’re dead. Barnacles can’t move, can they? They aren’t going to come slithering up my stairs and into my bed tonight while I’m sleeping, are they?

Shudder. I think I might have to arrange for those bags of seashells to have an unfortunate “accident.”

Anyway, while the girls were splashing and hunting for bits of shriveled up ocean crust, I dipped the Boy’s feet in and out of the water while he alternately screamed in protest and demanded that I do it again. He refused to really go in the water the entire time, which was a shame, though he did remain on my lap picking up pebbles and flinging them, even when the tide came in and we both started getting wet.

So when they were done with the seashells, YS decided the water was too cold, so she spread out and read for a while, until the sun was bothering her too much, at which point she announced that she was bored and wanted to go home. So we negotiated for a bit, and then I told the other girls, who were still in the water, thusly:

that they had ten minutes and then we’d go home, and then I suggested to YS that she go back in the water one more time before we left. So she did, and guess what? We ended up staying for another hour and a half. Yay!  So it was a great day all around, even though I think I’m going to be cleaning sand out of everyone’s ears for at least two weeks, and even though I managed to get sunburned in some random patches of the area where my shoulders meet my neck. (Not on my collarbone, however. It was, of course, covered.)

Speaking of sunburn, I’ve learned a number of things. One is that you should slather sunscreen on your kids yourself, because if you trust them to do it, at least one of them (YS) is going to end up with a spectacular white bathing suit impression on her back, the rest of which has turned a deep, burning red. Heh. She’s going to be in pain for days.  R also got sunburned, though very slightly, and it actually looks more like tan. RS was spared, probably because, as seen above, she opted to swim in one of those new-fangled swimming shirts. I ought to get me one of those.

Another thing I’ve learned is that you must never leave your house without cash. This brings us to the meltdown.

See, what happened was, I’d looked on the county website the night before, and I thought this magical thing called a “Park Pass” was all we were going to need to get in to the beach. I could buy one at the park office, which of course will take credit cards, right? So what did it matter that I had no cash, except for the huge handful of quarters a vending machine at Hershey Park gave G because he hadn’t made his selection in time? I didn’t need cash. Right?

Wrong. First of all, one had to pay to park one’s car (duh – don’t know what I was thinking), and the friendly teenager in the booth outside the parking lot did not take credit cards. I asked if there was an ATM, but just as he was shaking his head, I realized that it didn’t matter, because I have no ATM card. My old one belonged to an account at a bank that no longer exists, though the account does, but in spite of the new bank’s assurances that the old card would still work, it doesn’t, and I have yet to receive my new one. So I had no cash, and no ATM card, and I was in the midst of trying to figure out what to do, when I remembered: I have a wallet full of quarters! So I counted out 16 quarters and gave them to the friendly teenager, and then I parked my car. Phew. Disaster averted. Right?

Wrong. After walking aaaallllllllll the way across the parking lot in search of the park office where we could buy the park pass (the park office had looked a lot closer when we parked the car), we were told by yet another friendly teenager that the park office does not take credit cards, and guess what? I did not have 200 more quarters in my purse. I considered melting down right then, when the friendly teenager told me that – praise the Lord! - they do take checks. Now mind you, the particular checkbook I had with me belonged to – you guessed it – that bank that no longer exists. Unlike the ATM card, however, the checks still do work. I was a bit worried the friendly teenager would notice the bank name and give me problems, but he didn’t. Phew. Disaster averted.

Incidentally, as an aside, lately I’ve been observing a strange dynamic, from myself I mean, when I encounter teenagers. I’m instinctively comfortable with teenagers, on account of having worked closely with them for so many years – or so I thought. Lately it seems that my automatically feeling at home with them has begun to change, probably because I haven’t taught for over a year. So I find myself in this odd position of almost feeling instinctively comfortable with teenagers, and yet, for literally the first time since I was a teenager myself, feeling like they’re a completely different being from me. Which of course they are. This is not new. But feeling it is new, at least like this.

Anyway. They took checks, and I got my park pass, complete with a dorky picture of me in my denim cap, and that problem was solved, and the girls and I walked aaaaaaallllll the way back across the parking lot, happily discussing that NOW we were going to get to go to the BEACH!! Hooray!! Right?

Wrong. See, it turns out that even with a park pass, one still has to pay admission to get to the beach, and guess what? The admission window does not take credit cards, and it also does not take checks.

I should throw in that there’s a huge concession area at this beach, which also does not take credit cards and does not take checks, and we discovered this concession area on the way from the parking lot to the beach, and it was hot outside, and the concession area had freezing cold bottles of water, AND it had kosher ice cream bars. By the time we were approaching the beach area after having walked in the hot sun aaaaaallllll the way to the office and aaaaaaallllll the way back, the girls were quite excited by the prospect of ice cream and freezing cold water, as opposed to the no-longer-very-freezing water we’d brought with us, which wasn’t enough anyway, because I’d planned to buy more on the way there, but I forgot. So we’d already done a lot of walking in the heat, and already been disappointed about the ice cream and the freezing water, but none of that was such a big deal, because – as I kept telling them as we approached – now we are going to the BEACH!!

(P.S.: My kids have never been to a real beach before. Today was the first time, and I was really pushing the hype, especially after all the walking and the cash-only-concession letdown. And guess what? It was working.)

So there we were, in full view of the beach, 45 minutes or so after we first got to the park, the thought of going to the beach being the only thing keeping my girls from being sad about the other stuff, and I needed 13 lousy dollars in order to get in. And I didn’t have it. Not even in quarters. I could not begin to imagine telling the girls we had to turn around. I could not begin to imagine piling them into the car so we could drive all the way home - no ATM card, remember - and then come all the way back (not that I necessarily had $13 at home either, but I knew I could probably find it).

So – I decided to melt down instead. And you know what? They took my check. I hope the new bank doesn’t suddenly decide to stop letting those old checks work. I’d hate to arrive back at that park and see my face on a big “WATCH OUT FOR THIS WOMAN” poster.

So that was our day, and it was amazing. And I’m not using the word “amazing” because I’m trying to recapture my inner teenager, either. It really was an amazing day, and I didn’t even have to push the hype too much to get the girls to agree.

Tags: Kids