On the Beach
When the weather's good here you can't beat a day at the beach. Having checked out the forecast even before our arrival we knew we had one or two good beach days at best. We decided to take full advantage of Tuesday. The kids never begrudge a full day in the surf and on the sand! A day on the beach is just that -- an entire day (which starts before lunch and ends sometime just before the dinner hour, depending on what the dinner hour may be!
The nice thing about the beach (especially with 13 kids between the ages of 11 and 2) is that no one misbehaves! No one is too loud (unless the baby is napping and then you can shoo them away)... no one is jumping on furniture or screaming or running amok! And if they are who cares? No one complains about boredom... no one makes a mess or spills milk on the floor. No one leaves crumbs all over the place. And, instead of saying "go wash your hands" which will most likely be met with a series of ugly whines, you can say "go rinse off in the water" which, for some reason never goes unprotested. The best thing about the beach is never once having to say get off the computer/TV/Nintendo!
Christopher who claims, as of late, to never have anything to do but watch TV... who claims his toys are boring as are books and anything we suggest is met with a shrug, a grunt and a "I don't want to!"
On the beach they play baseball, superheroes, war. They eat lunch and snack and surf and dig for crabs and shells and make up all sorts of new games and things to do. Even when they are not doing anything they are delightfully busy and never complaining of boredom.
The only thing the kids ever protest is leaving the beach. There is safety in numbers so when one family starts to pack it in the rest of us follow suit. Gathering our stuff at the end of the day is a major undertaking as it is. So when we decide to start cleaning up this is like giving the kids a 30 minute warning!
There are 15 boogie boards, about 16 beach chairs, 8 umbrellas, towels galore, toys, toys, toys and more toys.... wind screens, sunscreen (15, 20, 30, 35, 45, 50 spf) sweatshirts, sweat pants, flip flops, change of clothes, mega coolers that were once filled to the brim and are empty by day's end, water bottles, plastic cups... paperback novels, magazines, etc that all need to be claimed and collected.
Then the haul and mass exodus off the beach. We are a sight all 27 of us! But we have fun and this is what a day on the beach is for us... this is what Maine is all about for us... a day on the beach!