Ajay and I carpooled to the peninsula with Bree and her kids a couple of days ago.
They are the best company to go with, I must say.
Thanks for driving, Bree!
This was our first time going to the beach since he was a little baby (that was with Bree and kids too).
A brand new place.
He didn't really know what to expect with what I had told him about there being lots of sand for digging and lots of water for splashing.
His first sense of what all of that was came with climbing the sand hill that takes you to the actual beach area.
He was wearing his "rocker panel" shoes, aka water shoes, formerly known as "rock crawler shoes."
He told me the ground was mushy and we kept climbing up until we passed the tree line.
When we reached the summit, he saw the world open up to a size he didn't know existed.
His eyes moved slowly from the lake to the endless, sandy trail.
"Ajay want to have jeeps," he announced.
He was ready to dig in and set up shop right there in the beach entrance.
It only took a tiny bit of coaxing to get him to see we were going to get closer to the water.
And when we finally got there, he just took it in.
(Ajay with Evan's sword)
As much as a 2 year old can take into himself he soaked in deeply:
the vast blue of the sky and the lake,
the sound of the powerful water,
the lack of trees,
that new awesome material called sand.
Then he sat down and made himself right at home.
He was in sand dune heaven.
He was "brrrrrming" all morning, like he usually does.
I did notice him spending much more time looking around and making sense of all of it.
His world just got a little bit bigger.
And I got to watch him experience it.
It makes me appreciate the little things like tire tracks in the sand, the speckled-feathered seagulls, and even the expansiveness of the lake.
I get to revert to childhood and try to sense all of this newness the way he does.
Bree was right.
Having kids changes everything!
