Recently it was 100 degrees here. In Southern California that means one of several things: A)those aren’t fireworks in the night sky, it’s a wildfire; B)an earthquake has cracked open the ground under your feet and you’re plummeting towards the earth’s core like Gandalf; C)there’s a Santa Ana wind blowing dry heat out of the desert. This time it was option C, so we hung out in the pool until our fingers got pruney, then headed to the beach.
Surprise! It was 75 and overcast at the beach. Which was actually quite welcome, and Toddler Harbat got to work getting sand on every. Single. Piece. Of food. At one point she dipped her applesauce-coated spoon into the sand, pulling it out looking like a cinnamon-sugar lollipop.
“Go ahead, eat it. You’ll see why you don’t eat sand.”
Busted, Babbo! She ate it, sand and all, then went back for more. I guess sand is good roughage.
Toddler Harbat has reached the age where she can sit still for something she really wants. Which, it turned out, was to be buried alive. But in the shape of a mermaid! Whee!
Ariel's got nothing on this cutie-pie
Of course the best part of building something in the sand is destroying it—those muscled bullies have it right when they kick down Nerdy Nerdlington’s sand castle. Sand construction is your chance to play God, building too close to a flood plain, sending catastrophic winds and giant feet at your fragile turrets. For my part, I played water boy, getting countless buckets of water for TH so she could pour them in the sand and…what exactly? Why, ask for more water of course!
Then I came across this, someone’s gesture of love washed up on shore.
On one of my water-fetching missions I saw a teenage girl pick it up and give it to her mother. Love, transferred.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Awwwww! This whole post is just full of “awwwwww.” 🙂
I agree. By writing about the rose, you have once again transferred the love, because now, I kinda love that.