Beach Boys

Joseph has been having a rather trying few weeks, and the stress has slowly been taking its toll on his ability to enjoy life. We both agreed that an intervention of sorts was in order, and consequently headed off to the beach a few days ago on a spur-of-the-moment conviction that the best way to ward off the blues is to wade into them ankle-first.

Because the decision came late in the afternoon, we decided against the hours-long commute to the coastal beaches in favor of the half-hour jaunt to Lake Jordan, a state park that came highly recommended by some friends. We were not disappointed – the beach was clean, the water was cool but not cold, and the crowds were not at all bad (one of the advantages of heading to the beach late in the day, I suppose).

Although Edward has been “swimming” before, when some neighbors invited us to their apartment complex swimming pool to celebrate the 4th of July, this was his first time encountering a beach. Edward was not at all impressed by the pool – he was more traumatized by it than anything else – but he loved the beach. He enjoyed running around on the sand destroying abandoned sand castles, flirting with the attention of smiling strangers, and splashing in the water with Daddy. The lake water, he soon discovered, was far tastier than the chlorinated pool water (and, I sincerely pray, much cleaner and safer to drink… right?), and he greatly enjoyed the feel of wet sand in his mouth (much to my dismay).

Joseph took off for a bit to swim “laps” in the deeper waters while Edward and I worked on building a sand castle with the sand toys he got for Easter. We didn’t get much done, since Edward enjoyed removing sand from the buckets and molds about as fast as I could put sand into them, but we had fun anyway. A couple of young girls decided (apparently on a whim) to help us out by taking over the project, which was rather presumptuous of them, but they were friendly and meticulous about cleaning and replacing all the buckets, molds, and shovels when they were done – and quite patient with Edward’s destructive shenanigans. Such patience was the least they could do, considering the fact that they were, after all, playing with his toys.

Appropriating a plastic cup from the ruins of a sand castle abandoned by some industrious architect, Edward soon set to work filling it and emptying it. He was rather upset that I consistently prevented him from “drinking” the sand from the cup, but he eventually gave up on that and instead used the cup to bail out the water from the lake. Unfortunately, we had to go before he managed to bail out all the water, but there’s always next time.

Judging by the smiles of my two beach boys at the end of our day, I’d say the trip was a success.