Kalina by the sea

As a reward for having developed relatively mature sleep patterns and sticking with them long enough for us to feel rested, we recently decided to take Kalina on a beach vacation. Matt also considered it a reward for being smart enough to break free of the endless loop of subjectivity known as grad school, and I'm considering it a reward for raising my child thus far with no childcare whatsoever and earning a good amount of money at the same time while not completely ignoring the cleanliness of my house, the family's nutrition, friends, extended family or even my own well-being. Either way, the mood was celebratory.

We left at naptime to make the drive easier. Up until naptime, we were still remembering things we'd forgotten to pack and taking turns dashing back and forth between the car and the house until we ran out of things to remember, at least temporarily.

Our first stop was a historic site near the coast, which conveniently appeared not long after Kalina had had her nap and her snack and was getting rather bored. The site was an outdoor trail that wandered through the ruins of a town that had been established well before the American Revolution. We all liked it--I'm a history buff, Kalina enjoyed gathering handfuls of acorns and rocks and Matt found several large bugs.

We moved on, and after several mis-stops trying to find dinner, we arrived at the hotel. We couldn't wait for the big "reveal"--the moment when Kalina would see the ocean for the first time.

She spotted it, rather unromantically, through the hotel window as Matt was out unloading the car. Fortunately, she was having too much fun bouncing on the bed to do anything but occasionally stare open-mouthed, silently pointing in awe. And then start bouncing again.

We lost no time in making our way to the shoreline as sunset and bedtime were both approaching. As soon as Kalina saw the beach, she worked on flinging herself out of my arms and into it. I quickly gave in, and my child wallowed in the sand for a good 15 minutes before even looking up.

Then Matt handed her a scoop-shaped shell and off she went, scooping sand in varying degrees of wetness, just to see. Unfortunately, she occasionally scooped it into her mouth, just to taste.

We eventually pulled her away from the sand to introduce her to the waves. Kalina, who had moments before thought life couldn't get any better, no doubt viewed the ocean as one giant bathtub and now wanted nothing more than to wander into it. Daddy wouldn't let her.

And then it was back to the sand before we had to carry the girl kicking and screaming back into the hotel for a bath that that rivaled the beach itself for sandiness.

Illicit yappy dog(s) next door notwithstanding, Kalina settled to sleep fairly well. Matt and I settled into the oceanview balcony, which we greatly preferred to hanging out in the bathroom.

The next day dawned about 45 minutes after Kalina did, so we were all on the beach to see it. It was already warm, so we were already playing. Kalina seemed glad that the ocean was still there.

The girl continued to love digging in the sand with various seashells, as well as periodically handing us handfuls of sand (was she hoping we'd stow it away so she could take the beach home with her?), destroying any sand structures we made and venturing into the water. On this second day of beach adventuring, we had a few new highlights:

First, Kalina discovered seagulls, and the chase was on. However, neither being able to outrun nor outfly these birds, Kalina found the game to be a bit one-sided, even in Daddy's arms at a full sprint. Nevertheless, the girl is persistent: we spent a lot of time trotting after them, much to their annoyance and her sheer joy.

And then there was the ill-timed rainstorm. If the beach wedding we'd been watching develop for the past day had started 20 minutes sooner or later, all would've been fine--as it was, the downpour began as we were happily stomping in the waves and the bride and groom were too far into their vows to stop and begin again in their rain location. We sprinted toward the hotel as the wedding party and guests cheered (were they cheering us on or the drenched/happy couple?), but remained in their places. It was only when we were done changing into dry clothes and watching the storm from our balcony that they filed in. For the next little while we all three watched a little too contentedly as they scrambled to find missing items, hauled the equipment in and laughed at their misfortune--the bride, fortunately, laughing most of all. What fun.

And finally, there was the little crab that a fellow beachwalker found around sunset. We've noticed that everyone is nice to you when you have a cute child, and this woman was kind enough to point out a crab that we otherwise would've missed. We hurried over: Kalina loves such things. Unfortunately, so did Daddy, who reasoned that when you grab animals from behind they can't bite you. He was mistaken, however, and next thing he knew he was flinging it a good 10 feet away, I'd shrieked and Kalina was distressed and crying. She calmed down enough after a few minutes to be able to pick up a sea stick and try to poke it a little, just like Daddy does with anything creepy.

I never caught Kalina eating sand on day two of our trip, in case you were wondering. Was she just getting very sneaky at hiding her bites, or had she gotten enough on the first day?

The next day was cold and cloudy. We endured it long enough to take a nice beach walk and shiver in the indoor pool pretending to have fun before we gave up and watched a zebra show on TV while eying the ocean out the window.

I lost count of how many baths Kalina took during the trip, by the way. I wouldn't have worried so much about a little sand--in fact, I didn't worry--but Kalina loves baths, though, so I could indulge my need to have her clean. I also couldn't, personally, imagine napping well while being sandy.

And, to cap off a pretty perfect trip, Kalina slept until we were 10 minutes from home. We will be doing this again next year. Or in a week.