PICNIC AT HE BEACH

I woke up yesterday to another warm, sunny ski! Andrew was complaining about being bored five minutes after his feet hit the floor. My step daughter (who is 10) was staying the weekend with us and she was also whining about nothing to do before I could even get breakfast fixed. I had all intentions on spending the day sewing and working on the "Georgi" collection, but soon decided that it would be a shame to be cooped up in the house all day when it was so beautiful outside! After giving it some thought, I decided that it would be a perfect day for the beach!It was really a little too cool to do any swimming, but nice enough to pack a picnic lunch and let the kids play in the sand and maybe wiggle their toes in the surf for a while. Of course it didn't take much to convince Andrew and Jami-Marie into agreeing with me. You would have thought that I just offered to take them to Disney World! They were so excited about the idea of going to the beach that it took them all of about 30 seconds to strip down out of their p.j.'s and pull everything in their way out of the linen closet for beach towels, sunscreen,and the beach bag. Andrew had his swimsuit pulled on before the words "we are NOT swimming" got out of my mouth! I decided to go ahead and let him wear it, as it wasn't any different REALLY than wearing a pair of shorts. Scrambling through the frig, I pulled out apples, oranges, chicken salad (that I had made the night before), and some deli ham. I knew the kids would'nt eat the chicken salad, so made a sandwich with that for myself. I figured I was safe making them each one using the ham. Andrew, in an attempt to hurry things along, pulled some juice boxes and crackers out from the pantry and grabbed a few bananas off the counter. There, we're all done Mimi, he said! Looks good to me I replied as I slathered some mayo on the slices of bread.

Uh oh Mimi! You know what, Andrew asked? No, what?, I asked back. We didn't call and invite Hailee (my 4 year old grandaughter) to go with us, he said. You know, your right, I replied. Let's give her a call and see if she's up for the trip! Andrew grabbed the phone and quickly began dialing his aunt Stephanie's phone number. You guessed it, it took about 5 seconds to talk her into it. Okay, I can do this I thought to myself! No problem! It's only 3 kids. How hard can it be? Well, before we got the phone hung up good, my sister was calling. Whatcha doin?, she asked. Funny you should ask, I said. I was just thinking that it would be a great day for the beach. Andrew and I are packing some lunch, Jami-Marie is packing the towels, and I just got off the telephone with Hailee, who is also now getting ready. Wanna go with us? Well, I would love to, but I have sooo much work to do online today for my class next week (she teaches online classes for a University), but Skylar ( her 14 yr. old son, and my nephew) would probably love to go! All of a sudden I felt like I needed a prozac! In a matter of about ten minutes, a nice little trip to the beach for the day with two kids turned suddenly into a forthcoming stressful trip to the beach with FOUR kids and just ONE me. All I could imagine was a lot of "she's touching me, make her stop touching me" going on in the car. Trying to convince myself that it really wouldn't be that bad, after all, I made a couple more sandwiches, threw a few more drinks into the cooler and packed the car with kids, food, towels, sunscreen and sand toys. It's ONLY a thirty minute trip, I thought. What could possibly happen?

Off we went! Smooth sailing all the way there! No fights, no squabbles, no whining. Wow! It was too good to be true, but yet, there it was, right in front of me, a car load of kids ranging in age from 4 to 14 with NO problems for a whole 30 minutes!
The beach was PACKED! I guess everyone else had the same idea and no sooner did I have the cooler sat down and my chair unfolded, than I look up and where is Andrew? IN the ocean! Not wading, not just wiggling his toes in the surf, but IN the ocean, head and all! OMG! I couldn't believe it (really, I could)! I sent Skylar down to fish his nephew out of the freezing water as I grabbed a towel to dry him off! It's GREAT Mimi! The water's great! Andrew was yelling! It's not cold at all! Come on in Mimi, it's really great! You said it was gonna be cold! Just when Skylar had a good hold of him, Hailee decide to challenge that fact! And she did NOT have a swimsuit on! Meanwhile, Jami Marie had plopped down in the sand and was complaining loudly that she was STARVING and was relentless with the whining about needing a sandwich! What have I done? Yeah, the trip over here was good, but what about now? What about the fact that we have been here less than five minutes and I have two kids that are soaking wet, and one that is thinking she will die of starvation in the next two minutes if she doesn't eat.

Okay! take a deep breath, I told myself! I handed the two little ones each a towel, Jami Marie a sandwich, Skylar the sunscreen (with instructions on slathering it on all the kids), and I sat down in my chair, pulled a book from the beach bag, slapped a hat on my head, and said to them " swim all you want, play in the sand all you want, eat all the food you want, just PLEASE leave me in peace for twenty minutes"! Remarkably, everything went a lot smoother after that. Andrew decided the water WAS too cold after all, Jami-Marie was finally full, and Skylar and Hailee were, believe it or not building a sand castle IN PEACE just a few feet away!

The two little ones slept the whole trip home and the older two played video games!
Will we do this again next weekend? Probably NOT!