No Fun Beach Trip

I'm calling shenanigans on beach trips.  The beach, a place I dearly love, is no longer any fun.

It first happened in California, when I was visiting on maternity leave with Lani and Ro.  My sister was also in town with her son.  We decided to go to the beach.  It took us nearly two hours to actually leave.  Stuff had to be packed, diapers had to be changed, more stuff (that we previously forgot) had to be packed, another diaper change, then whoops, everyone was hungry because it's lunch time, so we ate, followed by yet more packing, more diaper changing, and then everyone was crying and we realized that the car doors won't close all the way with 3 carseats in the back, but we'd spent half our day getting to the beach, we couldn't stop.  We finally left, turned back at the last minute to grab suscreen.

We arrive at the beach.  It is hot.  We are each schlepping 40 pounds of supplies and three children across a vast desert.  We sweat and squint into the sun.  We brought two large umbrellas, and none of them work.  We attempt to put sunscreen on our boys as they roll around in the sand.  We drop the watermelon, it is wasted. We are stranded without any of the comforts and conveniences that we rely on to deal with our children. Ilan cries while I try to make shade for him.  Zachary will not stop filling a little boy's hole with sand.  Roan, as always, pretends to be a very loud train.  Erica and I exchange a look.  The look says, "can we go home now?"

When we leave, we experience a classic beach conundrum, unexplained by logic or science.  Our stuff will not fit back into our bags.  It has, somehow, during our time at the beach, gotten bigger.  Much bigger. Or our bags have gotten smaller. Everything is heavy with sand.  

Here is Roan during the terrible no fun ABYC beach trip of March 2012. 

Because I am a masochist with a terrible short term memory I truly love the beach, we went back last weekend, this time to the Rockaways in Queens.  I was thinking that surely, with my husband along to create an equal adult / child ratio, the beach would be fun again.  

Here is what I love about the beach: swimming in the ocean, floating on my back far from shore, laying in the sun, playing smash-ball, eating cold watermelon, running into the water as fast as I can, the feeling of a powerful wave crashing over me while I'm safe underwater, my fingers dug in the sand, making drip castles, salt on my skin on the drive home, salt in my hair, the resulting tan.

Did I experience any of this at the beach with my two children?  No.  The most achievable thing is probably the watermelon, but you only have two arms and when it comes down to watermelon or sand toys you suck it up and leave the watermelon at home.

Here is our Rockaway beach experience: we get in the car, the battery is dead.  Some neighbors give us a jump, Ro plays with their kids, we hang out with the neighbors.  Finally, we leave for the beach an hour and a half after we intended to.  Our schedule is thrown off - Ilan does not nap in the car, we can not find parking, the beach is crowded with people with stereos and terrible taste in music.  We set up camp: umbrella, blanket, chair, towel, food and water, within seconds everything is covered in sand.  The baby has sand in all his crevices, there is sand on our pizza, we are helpless to clean it, because we have so much sand on our hands.  When everything is somewhat de-sanded we lay back, exhale, and relax.  And that's when Roan says he has to go poop.

You know what? All the hassle would be worth it if our kids had some fun. I would settle for these new hard work beach trips if I felt like I was passing the torch, enabling my children to love the beach as I always did. But last week, they whined and moaned and Roan got sun stroke. Nobody had any fun.

In this photo Ilan sits in Jay's chair while Jay accompanies Roan to the baking hot public restroom and waits for Roan to poop, during the no fun Rockaway beach trip of June 2012.

Summer Haircut

San Antone

Caught Reading

6 Months

Ilan,

Today you are exactly six months old.  You are sitting up on your own for long stretches, but you eventually will tip over.  You've started sticking your tongue out all the time.  You are very social.  You love to eat mashed up foods and never make terrible faces when I give you a new flavor - you eat everything I put in your mouth with relish.  You want to eat everything that your family is eating, and get frustrated when we won't share.

Here you are in San Antonio, sitting pretty.  Happy half year, Lani Lou.

Father's Day

Dear Jay,

I went all out for your first father's day.  Roan was 7 months old and I dragged him around to all the places we went when we were first dating and took pictures.  Then I made a photo book, and told the story of our courtship, accompanied by photos of our extremely chubby son eating baby food at Gramercy Tavern, throwing popcorn at the Angelika, chewing the menu at Frank's, sitting in your old chair at Curtis Brown.

I'm not going to top that this year, or even come close.  I am tired.  We are so, so tired. I pulled out that photo book, and looked at the introduction I wrote you.  I said, "I always knew you would be good at this, but I never dreamed you'd be this good."  And you've only gotten better.

I could point out a million reasons, but there is one that immediately comes to mind - YOU POTTY TRAINED ROAN.  God bless you my husband.  If you do nothing else... I think you could just sit back now and rest on your parenting laurels.  But you won't.

Look at these boys, how much they love you.  And so do I.  Happy Father's Day.

Hand-Me-Downs

Jay's parents recently moved into a smaller home, and didn't have room for all of their furniture.  We totally scored!  They were kind enough to ship us a bedroom set, a buffet, and a 500 pound piano that's been in Jay's family for three generations.

Before everything arrived, I was most excited about the new bed.  For years we've slept in a bed that once belonged to Jay's old roommate, and it creaked and groaned every time we made the slightest move.  Getting in and out of bed made such a fuss that Ilan, who sleeps in our room, would often stir and wake.  

The new bed is incredible, and it's so nice to have a matching dresser and and end tables.  It's almost as if we are real grown ups now. But I am most happy with the piano.  It was initially slated for our basement,  but the movers couldn't get it down the stairs.  Now it sits in our kitchen / dining room, dominating the space.  It came with a ton of sheet music, so we are learning to play everything from children's folk songs to Billy Joel to the Beatles.  Jay and I do a moving Heart and Soul duet. Roan does scales and calls out the name of each note. Even Ilan takes pleasure in pounding the keys.  How is it that Jay's two older siblings passed on the opportunity to own this?

Also great about the piano: we have now become those people who put framed portraits on it.

I have a thing for hand-me-downs.  My engagement ring belonged to Jay's maternal Grandmother.  My wedding ring was my Grandma Em's wedding ring.   Though I rarely think about it anymore, I love having this little bit of history on my finger.  It makes me happy to repurpose things.

In addition to the large furniture items, the Lyons also sent us small pieces of memorabilia, like photos from Jay's childhood, and this poster they had made from one of our wedding photos:

This last photo is for my mother-in-law.  Barbara, I want you to know that we are making good use of all those napkins you saved from Jay's barmitzvah.  From 1989.  We are using them for special occasions, like Shabbat.