Life’s a Beach Walk

My sister recently phoned me from her recent beach vacation.  She declared that she and her husband had decided to “just pass on the whole kid thing”.  Poor girl, she was speaking in hushed tones and sounded slightly traumatized.  As it turns out, earlier that afternoon, they had witnessed a family with young kids try to make their way from the boardwalk to the water.  If you’ve ever been in this situation, you get why this can indeed be a trauma-inducing experience.  Any couples on the fence about procreating may very well decide to seal up the womb, at least for a while, after witnessing such a scene.

Source: Microsoft Office ClipArt This dude is definitely waxing victorious after making his way down to the water with all this “necessary gear”

In general, almost everyone in the family ends up in tears (perhaps not Daddy, who elects to bottle up the crying and rather opts for stiff whiskey upon return home from the beach jaunt).  Definitely everyone throws a temper-tantrum.  A least one.  Usually several.  Many dropped lawn chairs, sweating water bottles covered with sand, and sand-burned feet into the whole process, it is not unusual for at least one person to flop down in the sand, start screaming and refuse to progress any further.  This is not always Mommy.

The colossal commotion of noise and activity is surely alarming to fellow beach-goers.  I would feel for them if I wasn’t busy cursing my lack of the 16 arms required to successfully navigate the stretch of sand.  Water, oh water, will we ever reach you and be able to set up shop??  And let’s be honest, once you “land”, it’s not any picnic either.  Gone are the days of blissful leisurely sunbathing when you’ve got a baby and toddler in tow, but this post isn’t focusing on that.  Today, we’re just talking about the sheer chaotic effort required to get to the water.  Which will obviously be followed 2.3 seconds later by the laborious trek to get back to the boardwalk after someone decides they need to go to the bathroom, no?

Beach on, my friends.  Consider throwing some sand down on your kitchen floor and calling it day.  The clean-up will be a beast, but the convenience may in fact override the travel effort of actually getting to the beach.

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Meredith

Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.

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