When you just know.....

Yesterday we went to the beach. I was figuring on a nice relaxing day with lots of fun stuff to do. Meredith had other ideas. She woke up at 5:30 am. My plan was to head to the beach for 9am. We made it out of the house by 9am. I was so proud, but Meredith was already showing signs of needing a nap.

Even still, we made our pit stops & continued on to the beach. What we usually do is load up the stroller with all of our wares, umbrella, bag, cooler, pool, bucket & toys, and we set up camp near the water. I figured Meredith would go down for a nap at the beach like she did last year. I should have known better. All she wanted to do was play with the sand.






We set up shop, filled the pool and played for a little while. We usually put our neat sheet (amazing thing from babie r us), put the pool at one corner, use the 5 gallon bucket to fill the pool with water and then fill the bucket with sand to house the umbrella. When the umbrella is in the bucket we can move the umbrella as needed with the sun. When we pack everything up, anything wet or sandy goes into the bucket and everything else gets packed in the same manner as when we arrived.






I knew Meredith needed a nap when she started ignoring me. She stops listening & starts to get unruly when she's tired. It makes me so frustrated and angry. I hate being ignored.

One of the times Meredith decided to ignore me was by the surf. She took off running laughing & giggling the whole time. It was pretty cute, but still...... Well my poor baby tripped & fell. I picked her up just in time before a wave washed over her face, but she was still pretty stunned. I'm just glad the water didn't wash over her face.



No I wasn't far away from her. Rob took that picture. After that though, she wanted no part of the surf. Rob thinks it's because the water was cold, but I don't think so. I guess we'll see next time we goto the beach whether she's curious about it again. I'm hoping to make it there next weekend if Sean hasn't made his appearance yet.

I decided at 11:30 or so that it was time to try to put Meredith down for a nap. She was not having it one bit. And the more she screamed, the more angry I got. And the more she screamed the more Rob would say "jut let her play." Well of course she's going to keep screaming if there is someone saying she doesn't have to nap. And with every passing minute, I got more & more frustrated by the whole situation. She NEEDED a nap. It wasn't a question of want. She needed it. One woman decided it was a good time for her to bring her daughter over to "make the baby stop crying." I maybe not so politely, maybe?, asked her not to because we were trying to get her to nap. She didn't come over. If you ask me she just wanted her kid to be able to play in the pool. As soon as the pool goes up, I'm always amazed at the amount of children that show up near us. We could have a sliver of sand between us & the next group of people & someone will always try to squeeze in.

I gave up. I took the umbrella down. It didn't make sense for me to be sitting under it. I love the sun. And Meredith's pool wouldn't warm up in the shade. Plus she had no desire to be in the shade. I gave Meredith her peanut butter & jelly sandwich & took out some pickins in the hope that Meredith would finally eat something & drink something.

It's always so interesting how hungry my non-eating child gets as soon as I "ask" her to goto sleep. She knows that that is the one thing that will get her out of sleep because I'm always so concerned about her calorie intake.

One woman said "I guess she was hungry & that's why she was screaming." Um.... yeah.... no lady. My kid was screaming because she's overtired and needs a nap. I'm pretty sure I know when she's hungry and when she's not. 

A note to people out there..... Please remember that most parents of toddlers aren't just fumbling around in the dark. Sometimes we may feel like we are, but we're really not. We know for the most part, when our kids are tired, when they're hungry & when they just need get over themselves because they're testing the boundaries. Making comments a) doesn't help the situation and b) when made to a very tired, very pregnant, very frustrated mother on the beach is more than likely going to get your drowned. 

After that I sat. I wasn't dealing with her cranky nonsense anymore. If she didn't want to sleep, fine. If she didn't want to eat, fine. If she didn't drink, we'd head home. It was hot & she at least needed to drink.

She ran around in the hot sand saying "Hot. Hot. Hot." and would run back onto our beach sheet. She didn't want to go into the pool, but played on the outside until I got in with her. She played in the moist sand & ran from the waves. She sat with daddy & threw sand at him.





And yes..... no beach day is complete without pictures of Sean in mommy's belly. I'll be 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow.









I got into the pool with her & rinsed her off so she could have some more pickins. Apparently as long as I was in the pool with her, she was ok to play in there.

Rob taught Meredith how to fish and she scooped water out of her pool. They built sand castles. At 1:30, having been there for 4 hours, I was hot and done. I needed to get the sand off of me. Blech. I love the beach, but hate the gritty feeling of sand on me. Especially when I can't get into the water to rinse it off.














As soon as we got onto the sidewalk & started to the car (not 1 minute after starting to the car), she fell asleep. She stayed asleep while I put her into her car seat & even made the transition to the house. She slept for 2.5 hours.



It wasn't a bad day. Just not the kind of day I was hoping for. She had fun. Rob had fun. I enjoyed most of my day and the gluttons we are, we're doing it again next weekend.