Splish Splash

Last week we went to the beach again.  This time I was a little more prepared.  I had better toys.  I brought more blankets to help with feeding.  And I had my big beach umbrella.  And it really made the day much nicer than the first time we were there.

When we first arrived, they boys played with their toys on the blanket.  They are just on the verge of crawling, so I can still sit on the side and sort of watch them play without worrying they'll skitter away from me.  Actually, this might have been our last time at the beach alone...

After playing on the blanket for a bit, I brought them into the water.  Of course we were the talk of the beach.  People watched my every move and every time I looked up, someone was staring.  But you know what?  I don't care anymore.  What they could see was that my boys were have a ball.  An absolute ball.  Jack like sitting in his chair more than sitting in the water.  He loves kicking his little feet around and leaning over to scoop up the soft sand.  I had to stay on top of that because he also really love eating!  Bobby on the other hand love sitting between my legs with his little butt in the water.  He smacked his little hands on the water repeatedly and squealed with delight when the water would land on his face.

Afterward, we went back to the blanket and had some lunch.  I still can't get them to nap there, though, so we packed up and trudged home.  And I mean trudged.  Pushing a double stroller on the sand is HARD WORK!

 

While this last beach day was more of a success than the first day, it was really tiring.  It seems that the more fun my boys have during the day, the more tired I am at night!  Needless to say, our days at the beach might be over for the year...But just because my fun at the beach is over, it doesn't mean that I can't try to recreate the fun for the boys.

Enter the plastic storage bin.  Monday is typically a bath day, and I bathe them individually in a collapsible baby tub.  There's no play time.  It's just wash, wash, wash and dry, dry, dry, repeat.  But today was different.  About 30 minutes before bath time, I filled the bin up with water from the hose so that it would have time to warm up.  (Turns out it was already warm from the sun...but anyway.)  Then I plopped the boys into the warm water with a few toys and sat back (not really) and watched them play.  It was, to say the least, comical.  They had a blast!  For the most part they can sit up on their own (Bobby has a little trouble, but the close quarters and his big brother helped!) so they just sat in the water and splashed.

...until I surprised them with soap and started washing their hair.  But they didn't mind much because they still got to play.  They didn't even mind when I poured a whole mug full of water over their heads.  They just let it roll off their faces and kept on playing!

I'm pretty sure this is how we'll do bath time from now on.  At least until it starts getting cold.  Then maybe we'll recreate this fun inside, on our bathroom floor.  (We don't have a bathtub on the boat.)

Splish splash!