day at the beach

for our outing today, we went to the beach. the conditions were not ideal; it was high tide and overcast. it sounded fun though, so i put sully in pants and a fleece jacket and we were off!

when we got there, i made sure to roll up sully's (and my) pant legs. nobody wants wet pants! i filled the front pocket up my hoodie with the camera, my phone and the car keys. with sullivan on my hip i headed to the sand. sully was squirmy and eager to check out all the fun stuff on the ground, so i put him down and dug into my pocket for the camera. i fiddled with it, trying to decide if the 'beach' setting would be better than 'kids and pets,' or maybe something different since it was so overcast? i looked up from the camera to see sullivan toddling like a little penguin towards the water. he was pretty far down the sand, and as i walked toward him the water came up the beach and swirled around his calves. he wavered a little and then...fell on his butt.

we had been out of the car for, literally 30 seconds.

i scooped him up just in time for the second wave of water to get me up to my calves. lovely!

i squeezed the extra water out of his pants and set him back down, pointing him away from the water. he quickly found some rocks to bang together. since he was having fun and didn't seem freezing, i thought we might as well stay for a little while.

he ended up having a lot of fun. i let him do whatever he wanted, even when that meant laying on his belly and scooting backward like an inchworm down the sand. he was pretty good about not putting sand in his mouth, so that was good. i'm hoping we're moving past the put-everything-in-my-mouth stage. he did try and gnaw on a rock, but since it wasn't a handful of sand i didn't mind.

here are some pictures and some video of our beach adventure:

sully was a sandy DISASTER when we got back to the car. i brought a change of clothes and the diaper bag, but i didn't have a towel, which really would have come in handy. he was also getting tired and kept trying to rub his eyes with his sandy paws. it took me at least 20 minutes to de-sand him in the parking lot, and he ended up going home in just a diaper in his carseat. we had a lot of fun though, so we will definitely be going back soon. i'll just be a little more prepared next time!