Yesterday was rainy and today was sunny, so we decided to beach it up today. We gathered up all of our toys and got the kids dressed in their swim stuff. We decided last minute to drive to the beach. It was such a short walk, but after the hamper full f beach stuff fell off the double stroller and spilled all of its contents, we changed our tune.
So I’m not going to sugarcoat. Today has been an incredibly difficult day, and I don’t care to go into detail about it, since this is our one and only holiday this year, and I’m hoping to remember the positives more than the negatives. But Dekker wouldn’t be on the sand, in the water, in our arms, or really he just wouldn’t have any of anything. So he sat and sulked on the blanket with Rowan in his car seat, while the rest of us had a lot of fun! I took a quick dip in the lake before Laela was brave enough to play in the sand. She had walked in it just fine but it took a bit of convincing to get her to really get into it.
We had purchased a huge sandcastle bucket at Dollarama, so Brady and I made a few runs back and forth to the water to get a really good patch of wet sand going. I can’t remember the last time I really dug in the sand but MAN was it fun!! No word of a lie, I had a blast. Brady and I dumped out bucket after bucket, making castle after castle, and Laela would take her shovel and scoop the tops off into her pink sparkly pail. (Just for the record, no, we don’t force her to be pink and girlie and like dolls and princesses. But she loves it all. She will get filthy on the beach, but she’ll do it with her pink pail in her floppy sun hat.) We pulled out snacks for lunch, but somehow, even after there was food, everything sort of crashed and burned. I didn’t know moods could get worse than they already were. So we packed up and hauled the kids back to our place. Dekker was crying, because he hadn’t really ever stopped, Laela was crying because she was sad to leave, and Rowan was crying because he was so overstimulated that he couldn’t drink his bottle. And let’s be honest, I was almost in tears, mourning my afternoon spent at the beach that I wanted so badly.
We put everyone down for naps, including ourselves, and we all felt relatively refreshed. We went out for supper, and we came out the other side, so thats an improvement. We fed Rowan back at our place, and decided to give one last wander around before we came in for the night. We grabbed a few of those rectangular wafer cookie things and two bubble swords before venturing out one last time.
Dekker chose the wooden dock to go run down. It was SO windy and the wind was biting, so we all huddled at the end together and ate our cookies. Within a minute or two, we were leaving the dock. As has been the theme this trip, Dekker and I started to move quicker, with the goal of beating out Brady and his double stroller full of children. He’s been gently letting Dekker win each and every time. But tonight, he gave her, and outran us. As it was happening, I realized in my head that Dekker hasn’t lost very many times in his life, and I wondered if we’d have to have a talk about being a sore loser, or how it would all end up. But at the end, Dekker was laughing and, completely out of breath, he shouted “That was awesome, Daddy! Give me a high five!” I was thrilled to see him handle it so well! I’m sure it will change with time, and with competition with different people – friends, siblings, older or younger kids – but this one was a win for sure.
Getting the kids to bed was sad. We came into this trip kind of throwing the schedule out the window, because frankly, we didn’t want to be holed up by 7:30 either!! They still have been in bed around that time each night, but the lack of routine is seeming to be killing these kids. We put them to bed wailing at 7:00 tonight. And now, we’re happy to be holed up. We’re tired. Its been a long day.
Tomorrow is the day we head home. While today was a challenge, I’m still sad to leave. I love it here. I always have. I hope one day all of my kids love it too.