Beach Days: A Love-Hate Relationship

With two kids under 4, it’s basically actual physical labor to take them to the beach.

First, we have our cool beach cart for all the stuff we bring (so. much. stuff),  but I don’t have to tell you that it ain’t easy holding a squirming 1-year-old in one arm while pushing that heavy fricken cart with the other all while panic yelling to remind your 3-year-old to stop running so far ahead. Because that’s just plain difficult.

Second, that scenario is playing out after a morning of darting around your house packing lunches, dousing babies in sunscreen and swim diapers and pushing big ‘ol toddler heads through rashguards with too-tiny neck holes. And, of course, tossing every beach-related thing we own in the car. Anyone else have a “let’s throw all our stuff in the trunk and we’ll figure it out when we get there” approach to beach trip packing? Yup, that’s us.

Third, there’s the drive to get to the beach.  Which, for us, is about 40 minutes one way from Paso Robles, depending on which beach we pick. The ride only really goes well if the baby sleeps. Because car kids get bored. So then they whine. And moms have to repeat the chorus of “Mommy can’t help you when she’s driving” at least 200 times. Give or take.

Fourth, once you finally get to the beach, there’s the effort of being at the actual beach with kids. Meaning there’s basically no sitting for mom.

But the beach is pretty.

And the kids love it.

And it gets us out of the house.

So we keep going.

And we can usually sneak in a few pretty pictures.

Plus, the last time we went to Cayucos State Beach we saw whales! It was amazing. They were SO CLOSE. We saw them rising out of the water and then splashing back into the sea. And then everyone in the crowd was like “oohhh, ahhh” in unison and it was our own little perfect whale watching world.

Beach trips like that make it us forget all the craziness. Kind of.

Because then there are those OTHER times. Like the time when we went to beautiful Morro Bay but it turned out to be super cloudy and cold. And then we found a dead squirrel petrified in the sand. Like, you know Flattened Banana at Trader Joe’s? It was like that. BUT A SQUIRREL. With scratchy black claws and a no-eyed little face. And my 1 year old ACTUALLY PICKED IT UP with his precious baby hands!! I screamed legit little girl screams, flug that smooshed shell of a rodent across the water and doused his hands in sanitizer in a hot second.

I don’t have a picture of that. #noregrets.

In fact, I was so grossed out that night I couldn’t eat the meat we had at dinner.

Moving on.

So, yeah, that beach trip sucked. Of course, we can’t forget how that trip ended. To cap off the ridiculousness of the day, when it was finally time to go home, my 3-year-old fell on the gravel while she was running back to the car.

And naturally she FLIPPED OUT because she now had an ouchie on her knee which I had to clean sand out of, in the trunk of the car. Which isn’t easy, especially having to use those tiny prepackaged alcohol wipe things in the first aid kit we never open.

Then I had to pee. But the restroom was a trek to get to. And my kid wouldn’t walk. And the other one was crying in his car seat. I briefly entertained the idea of picking them both up and hauling them over to the restrooms in one power mom swoop. But it was really far. And they were sandy and wet. And crying. Which meant they’d be extra-extra hard to hold and my super mom strength would give out midway and we’d be even more of a mess. Somehow.

And  it’s not like you can just leave kids in the car and say, ‘Be good, tiny helpless children, I’ll be right back!”

My second option was to buckle them in the car seats, and drive to the restrooms only to get them out 10 seconds later and really piss them off. But, alas, there weren’t any more parking spots. I really thought of all the options. I did.  So I did what any other desperate mom (who seriously can’t hold in pee for the life of her after birthing babies) would do.

I chose the forbidden third option no one talks about. I peed in their trunk potty.

You know, hover-squatting over a pint-sized plastic seat while simultaneously trying to hide from all the gloriously normal, kid-free people roaming the parking lot and appreciating the nice views of the bay. The ones who *hopefully* were not totally perplexed by the crazy woman squatting in the trunk of her Honda CR-V.  All I can say is, I wish we had splurged on some window tinting. But NOPE. We opted for the crystal clear glass.

And that, my friends, is motherhood.

Plus the cranky drive home, ALL the unpacking, the sandy bathtime wars, the leftover sand ev.eryyyy.where … Yep, beach days — I love them. I hate them.

And you bet I never ate a Flattened Banana again.