Over the summer, I was finally free to meet up with my full-time mom friends and their little ones. Playdates! Parks! Coffee! Kids playing and wearing themselves out! It was everything I hoped it would be.
One day, my friend Brandi and I were talking about how we'd really like to go to the beach but our husbands didn't seem to be motivated at all. They'd grumble about a day trip because it's a lot to pack into a single day and they wanted to stay longer. They'd grumble about a longer trip because it requires more money. So it dawned on us that we should just go. We were fine with day trippin'. And so, day trip we did. Evelyn got to play hooky from school, I took a break from the spirit-crushing dissertation, and we headed to the seaside.
Our first stop was the Ft. Fisher Aquarium. It's a small aquarium and after being cooped up in the car for a couple hours, Evelyn pretty much wanted to run or "ribbit hop" through the whole place. Brandi and I tried to see what we could and tried to get the kids to slow down enough to enjoy some of it. We were occasionally successful.
I had really been talking up the excitement that awaited us at the end of our aquarium visit - petting baby sharks! But when we got to the baby shark tank, we found all of the sharks huddled in the center of the tank, at the bottom, well out of reach for the shorties and pretty much out of reach for the adults as well. I guess if I were a shark in a petting tank, I'd probably do the same thing.
So, off to the beach we went.
And what did Evelyn think? Well, she repeatedly tried to scoop up the water in her hands. She said that she wanted to take the ocean home with us. When it was time to go, she bolted at top speed away from me and straight back into the water.
It's a little scary to have such a water-lover on my hands. She wanted to go way out into the ocean. She wanted the waves to hit her (and when they did, and they knocked her down, she jumped up and laughed and said "MORE!"). When we took breaks to get a drink and play in the sand, she kept asking if we could get back in the ocean.
It was pretty awesome, though. The surf was pretty gentle and we walked out a little bit past where the waves were breaking, so we could see the nice rolling waves. We saw schools of little fish swimming through the waves when they'd rise up and go past us.
We played in the sand forever.
Finally, we convinced the kids that it was time to get in the car so we could grab some seafood in Kure on the way home. Brandi and I managed to eat a few bites while wrestling the squirmy, over-tired, loud toddlers. And we packed up for the ride home.
I'm hoping that next year we can spend a little bit more time at the beach! I'm also more convinced every day that Evelyn needs some for-real swim lessons - if only to give her mom a little peace of mind.
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