The Beach

We did have some fun.

My husband, my son and I just went on a little trip to the beach.  We’ve been going to the same beach and staying at the same place every summer for like the past 4 years.  Sometimes, it is really fun.  Other times, my son is not in a good mood, or something happens, and it’s not so fun.  Still we try and go every year.  We will probably go again next year, even though in the past few days, I swore that we would not. 

We left our home early on a Saturday morning.  About an hour into our drive, my son had to go to the bathroom. No. 2.  He is still not totally potty trained so thankfully he was wearing a pull up, because he didn’t make it to the Burger King restroom that we decided to stop at.  When he stepped out of the car, the poo began flowing down his legs like someone turned on a faucet.  My husband and I grabbed the wipes and began wiping as much as we could, but it was everywhere.  Shoes clothes, just all over.  All of the people eating breakfast in the Burger King were facing our direction watching.  I’m sure they were really happy to see this happening to us as they ate their sausage biscuits.  Finally, we decide, ok we’re going in.  This was our plan, We would sneak in the back door and my husband would take him in the men’s room because there are hardly any men here that we can see, they don’t go to the restroom as much as women, they don’t stare and judge as much as women, and they can just handle poo better in general. All of this wasn’t spoken aloud, it was just understood in the moment.  We can kind of read each other’s minds.  My husband went ahead with the boy as I gathered the mountain of wipes in the parking lot to throw in the trash.  I looked up and they were going in the front door.  The back door was locked; so my husband brave man that he is, was going through the front of the restaurant where you had to walk right by every customer that was there eating.  I ran in behind him hoping that there wasn’t a big pile of poo in the middle of the restaurant floor.  I went and to the ladies room to wash my hands.  No soap.  Unbelievable.  Other women came in and out I pretended not to be freaking out.  I walked out of the ladies room, I could hear my son screaming next door in the men’s room.  A few other women came to use the restroom as I stood outside.  Their eyes were as big as saucers as they whispered to each other hearing my son scream.   I couldn’t take it anymore, no one was looking so I ran into the men’s room.  I helped my husband finish up, threw my son’s disgusting shorts in the trash can and finally got to wash my hands with soap.  We left that place as fast as we could.  And we did eventually laugh about it. 

Our 5 hour drive took 7 ½ hours instead due to traffic and several bathroom stops.  My son was whiny and cranky for the whole drive.  By the time we got there, I kind of wanted to drown myself in the ocean.  But, instead, I had a glass of wine.  We swam in the pool, walked on the beach and went to bed. 

The next day, my son decides to start a new thing of screaming “NO, NO NO!’  at the top of his lungs .  He does this every few minutes over and over.  All. Day. Long. He is still doing it now as I type this.  Not as often, but enough to drive you a little crazy.  Mind you we were staying in a condo, kind of like an apartment complex, and he is outside on the patio/balcony yelling NO NO NO!  I’m surprised no one called the police. 

He loved playing in the ocean.  The water was really rough.  It was very windy and the current was really strong.  This made him love it more.  The waves would knock him down and force him under water and he would come up cracking up laughing. It was really cute and that is one of the many things I love about him. The dangerous/exhausting part was that he wanted to go deeper and deeper into the ocean and the current would carry us farther and farther down the beach.  He would not stop moving when I called his name or told him to stop.  Eventually, when we had gone far enough, I would have to drag him out of the water kicking and screaming, carrying him down the beach until he could calm down and walk next to me.  This is really fun while wearing a bikini, with people staring at you. J  I walked past children playing in the sand along the shore with their parents looking on from their lounge chairs, enjoying their drinks.  Jealous, much?  We would then go and swim in the pool, but after about 10 minutes, he would start screaming that his eyes burned and we’d have to get out.

One night, he was so tired he fell asleep at 6:00 in the evening.  We knew we were in for it then.  Sure enough, he woke up at 2 a.m. and never went back to sleep until the following night.  Guess what he was saying in the middle of the night?  NO, NO, NO!

After the countless meltdowns, constant whining and crying from both my son and me, my husband threw out the idea that maybe we should go home a day early.  I hated to give up and leave our vacation early but I gave in and we went home.

My boys on the beach.

Moral of the story is you win some and you lose some.  I know some people don’t want to hear the negative things, but this is reality.  And for everyone, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. We’ve had other vacations where he was wonderful. This was not our best moment, but hopefully we’ll try another trip sometime.  I’m just not planning one anytime soon.