Beach Day

Yesterday was beautiful outside with nearly perfect weather so we lathered Jackson up with sunscreen and decided to take him to the beach for the first time.  I knew it was going to be messy, with sand in the mouth and everywhere else imaginable, but hey, I'm a pre-k teacher.  I could handle it.  So we go to the beach, put Jack on a towel with a few toys, and let him go at it! At first he was just interested in the toys.

And then they of course go in his mouth.

And with all this playing and excitement, limbs start to flail about and he slowly gets closer and closer to being on the sand and off the towel.

Soon he is completely off the towel, in the sand, and has forgotten about his toys but discovered the sand.

He picks it up, lets it run through his hands, and surprisingly, does not put it in his mouth.  He plays with it for a little while, as happy as can be.

But then he remembers his toy.  Sitting in the sand, wet with drool.

Where does it go?  Directly towards the mouth.

I manage to block the sand covered duck from going in his mouth but I know this is only a silly game because every time I let go of the toy he tries again.  And I will eventually fail.  It will get in there.  But for now, I remove the toy from view and try to get J to play with the sand some more.  He does.  Except he continues with that whole "I'm going to put this in my mouth" thing.

A nice big handful of sand.  Yum.  But it doesn't seem to bother Jackson.  He just keeps playing, bringing the sand to his mouth and rubbing his face.

So we decide to try something new which I knew would just make more of a mess but hey, we're at the beach.  Who cares?!  We head to the water and check that out.  It is pretty and Jack doesn't like that but he is interested in the wet sand.

Through the fussiness and periodic interest in the wet sand we managed to get a happy baby and mama photo!

We then headed back to our towel and played in the dry sand a bit longer.

When we were all dry we dusted off the sand and headed home.  It was a great day at the beach and much needed preparation for our upcoming North Carolina beach trip in a few weeks!