Sunday Snapshot

By the thousands of emails* I've been getting I can tell that Sunday Snapshots have been greatly missed so a snapshot of one day from our week is offered for you this Sunday night...  (because that is all I can do after the bedtime routine fell in a stinking heap tonight).

"It's all in the Genes"

Why, yes, we do make cute kids around here.

I dragged the boys to the beach for a few (4) hours on Friday.  Aunty Em was getting her hair cut at about 2pm so in the interest of working on my list I thought we would meet her for an icecream lunch before her haircut.

It is at this point in the conversation that I will point out that it's mid-winter here, and we were going to the beach for icecream!

It was lovely weather, PERFECT beach weather.  Crazy southern folk would probably even have gone for a swim but not us, way too cold for us tropical frogs!

Anyway, once I started thinking about heading down for icecream I figured since it's holidays I might as well take the kids for a play for the morning.  So after Monkey's nap we took off and had a great morning.  The boys took two army men and a plastic tree each and dug trenches in the sand and played wars or something.  Dragon buried his men at one point and they were never able to be found again.  Lion kept his but as we were finishing up on the beach and heading for a playground he was washing one in the ocean and let it go.  It was whisked away by the tide and he wasn't able to catch it.  I agreed with him that it was sad but I wasn't in on his plan to come back that night and walk the ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE STRAND to see if it had been washed back up.  He eventually gave in to my offer of going down just before we leave to check where it washed away.

This was how Monkey would concede to experience the sand.  Well, like this up on his tippy toes and fingers or standing holding on to my legs like in the top photo.  I guess he just didn't wan to get that cute Dalmatian nappy dirty.  Although, every now and then he'd look at me in disgust with sand on his hands as if pleading with me to do something about them.  I just dusted them off and he went back to grabbing handfuls of sand to eat.  I have never had a kid that just wanted to eat sand, its gross and inevitably ends up in sandy puke all over me.

Dragon had to come running over to us every now and then to remind us that he loves us or to remind Monkey that Dragon loves to annoy him or to accidentally flick sand all over us...  He was having a great time.

Eventually we wandered down to find some public loos.  I decided I couldn't wait until icecream time to eat so I started talking lunch thinking I'd grab a scoop of chips for us to share but Lion told me there was a man down the end with a caravan that sells stuff.  Turns out it was a hotdog guy with a cart... probably the only hotdog guy in our town.  I got one plain one for the boys to share and one for myself and tried to turn off that little voice in my head whispering screaming FOOD POISONING FOOD POISONING FOOD POISONING!  Oh, and the little voice telling me that it's just wrong to have a naked hotdog... seriously, I like my hotdogs to have skin on them!  He was marketing them very much "American Style" all with names of US or Canadian cities, American flags here and there, so is this the way you guys do hotdogs? Skinless?  Naked?

Anyway, the boys did like theirs! (mine was yummy too, I enjoyed it more retrospectively when I decided sufficient time had passed for me to be safe from food poisoning).

Eventually after another play in the park we headed back to meet Aunty Em and get some icecream (I had caramel swirlysomething and vanilla) and then popped back down to the beach for Lion to check for his army man... IT WAS THERE!  Yes, it really was!  After I spent the morning preparing him to never see that army man again it had washed back up and nearly 4 hours later it was sitting there waiting for him.  Dragons were gone for good.

On the way home we Dragon whispered "I love my Aunty Em" "Yes, Dragon, I love your Aunty Em too" "No, Mum, I love my Aunty Em" he whispers again "Yes, sweetie I know you do" Louder this time... "NO, Mum, I love my ARMY MAN, I'm SAD that he is LOST".  Okay, not the touching moment I thought we were having.

*okay, lets call that creative licence, it may not be thousands... or any at all... but I know you have missed it.