Beach Babe

Mom and I took Natalie to the beach for the 4th and despite a few minor mishaps, she had a blast. She was hard work on the beach, though. She's not one of those kids that sits and plays in the sand. No, she's more of the run-at-full-speed-for-hours-with-no-breaks-for-mommy kind of kid. This mom-to-be got plenty of exercise chasing after her. Her energy is high and her fear is low. She ran into the waves head first, which terrified me. But even more terrifying is her friendly and inquisitive nature. She knows no stranger. Sometimes she would get so far ahead of me I would panic. Running at full speed, someone still could have grabbed her and I would have had a chase on my hands. I did the best I could, though, and we made it!

I was so worried about her fragile skin getting assaulted by the sun (it was her first sunny summer beach day) that I constantly reapplied sunscreen to her little body... even her scalp. Parenting fail. When we rinsed off at the end of the day all that sunscreen trickled down into her eyes causing her terrible pain. She looked like someone had punched her, it was awful. I ended up causing her more grief than a sunburn would have... Poor baby.

The best part of the whole trip was the first night. Natalie slept in her crib in the second bedroom and my plan was to sneak in there well after she was asleep to sleep in my bed. All was well until 3:30 in the morning. I got made. I stayed in bed hoping she'd give up, but eventually I caved and put her bed with me. I was thinking it was so late and we were both so tired that she would sleep. Wrong. Being in bed with Mommy is like the coolest thing in the whole wide world. Her nighttime rambles went a little something like this "Nanayee ni-ni. Mommy ni-ni, pretty pretty pretty toes, mommy's toes, cover up, cover up Nanayee, see pretty toes, Iwene go away, hush doggy, O-shun? Nanayee O-shun?" This went on and on and on. Complete with fake snores and pretend sleeping. I was doing pretty good at ignoring her and pretending to sleep in hopes she would settle down until she did the funniest thing ever. Natalie passed gas (loudly, I might add) and said "Bless you, Nanayee". I lost it at that point, put her in her crib and laughed hysterically all the way to the couch.