Tessa Meets the Beach

There is a blog I read that I have mentioned here before that keeps popping out of my google reader and catching my attention, and in some cases just completely inspiring me. The words and photos of Aura Joon have their own energy and vibe, and the way she presents those words and photos really makes me feel like I'm there, looking into her world and getting a real peek into her life. So when Aura posted pics from a recent East Coast Florida trip she took with her love, I sat in front of my computer safe in the air conditioning and thought, Holy Crap! that looks awesome. I am right here in Florida. Why am I not right there on that beach with MY family instead of sitting here in the house?! What is wrong with me? So I yelled out to Cole: "Let's take the kids to the beach in the morning!" and she said : "Okay!!!!"

We had been debating about when the right time would be to take Tessa Tangerine into the harsh beach sun for the first time. Ghosty little baby skin, she would cook in like 5 minutes. So we dipped her in SPF 1-trillion a few hundred times, packed some food and drink, and took everyone to the beach. We went out to a beach on the East Coast called Playa Linda. It is a natural preserve and nothing around it for miles and miles, there was a time when you could see the Space Shuttles sitting on their launch pads off in the distance from this beach, but now that President Obama squashed the shuttle program into the Stone Age that has just become an ancient story I will tell the kids that will show my age, "Ya know we used to be able to see Space Shuttles from here." and they will be like: "What's a Space Shuttle? That sounds made up." and I will be like: "No, it was real, it would take them like months to get one ready, and it would cost billions of dollars, and if it rained too hard, or a single screw came loose, they would rip the whole thing apart, and spend another billion to make sure that screw was tight again." And they will say: 'That sounds dumb." and I will be like, "yeah, I guess it kind of was."

Both Cole and I reminisced about our obsession with wanting to go to Space Camp when we were kids on the drive through the Cape Canaveral Preserve. I think I would still go to Space Camp. Anyone who reads here ever get to go?

I love this beach, because there is really nothing around for miles, and it feels like isolation and like you're farther away from home. The only drawback is that you can't see your car from the beach, and some asshole stole Cole's iPhone out of the car , and she had just got it, and is now stuck with a 2 year plan, and the only way to get a new phone is to pay the ridiculous full price for the phone, and 5 hundo is way too much to be able to play scrabble with your friends. Thieves :(

So we get there, we are all set up. I am terrified to have my camera near sand and water, but I want a shot of Tessa being hit by her first wave, and we get her out to the water, and sit her down, and the little wave comes rolling in, and she barely blinks, she might have even yawned. She just kind of looked back over her shoulder like, "oh it moves, that's cool... I guess. Have you seen the iPad? It's a revolution!!!"




However, we still had The Littlest Buddy in top form, exploding with smiles and glee over the beach. He was beside himself the entire time we were there. So it was a great payoff to have him so thrilled and happy.



And then we got so paranoid that Tessa was going to burn that we coated her in sun block wax and put her in a shirt, and hovered over her constantly.



The sad aside to all of this was thinking about the oil in the Gulf of Mexico creeping around the other coast of Florida and wondering how bad could it get-- watching Tessa and LB play in the water in kid bliss not knowing that there was even the potential of a black toxic mess that could come along and take away an entire beach, or an entire coast for that matter. I couldn't imagine standing at the beach with the kids, trying to explain to them why they couldn't swim and why everything was such a wreck. It would seem from watching the news the last few years, that kids will have new boogeymen to replace Wolf Man and Dracula, and they will fear Wall Street Bankers, and Oil Men a little more than the old fantasy monsters, because of all of the swearing and heartache that they caused their parents.

Ugh

All the Love in the Universe ~ Me

P.S. It's Cole's birthday today. She is a lady. A young gorgeous lady. Her present this year was all the sunblock we had to buy in order to take Tessa to the beach :)

P.P.S. Cole wanted me to write another note about our beach day, LB pronounces "Beach" like "Bitch" and he wanted her to come down to the water, motioning with his hand to come with him, while shouting "Mama come Bitch." I wonder if anyone heard this exchange and thought we were jerks for letting LB speak to us that way.

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