How was your weekend?
Ours was divine, minus the oh say, 16 hours of sleep we missed out on.
Thanks Jude! Amen for coffee.
Noah had his karate grading early Sunday morning. And he did very well despite my early morning fears that he would fall asleep mid machine gun kick. He impressed us and the judges too. He won most outstanding performance. Twice.
Eep, mummy gloat.
To celebrate, we all went to the beach. And when I say beach, I'm talking about some gritty sand and dirty water by the bay. There are no waves. The sand does not squeek. The shells are all shattered. And in the distance you can see a giant cargo ship dumping all sorts of toxins in the water.
Welcome to Melbourne. We have it all, except a beach. We do have latte sipping on the sand though. That's a Melbourne thing right? A coffee cart at the beach? Only Melbourne, right?
Once upon a time, the beach was a place to relax. Read a book, catch a tan and eat hot chips whilst partaking in some people spotting.
And then we had kids. And that all became a distant memory. Distant. Distant. Memory.
Although, I did take my book. The five people you meet in heaven. Optimism right there. Who was I kidding?!?
There was no reading. Instead, Ill tell you what did happen.
We had a spot of lunch on the beach. Some overly packaged bakery delights plus a can of coca cola {pure class here boys and girls}. Whilst sipping from that cool cola, Jude face planted the sand. He cried and demanded boob. Previous experience had taught me breastfeeding on the beach is no fun.
The sand, the boob exposure, the fiddly hats, the slippery sun screen, the twisted bather top and the bloody sun. Not my idea of fun. So, we struggled through it together and once the boob was tucked away again, Noah decided he wanted to go for a splash. So off the boys went into the water, whilst I took some happy snaps.
After 5 minutes of splashing, Noah got ridiculoudly wet and decided he was too cold. Swimming was over and Jude cried. The boob came out again and I fed him some more. And then a huge gust of wind whipped along the shore. And you all know how much I hate wind. And with the wind went our overly packaged bakery scraps.
Tumbling across the sand and into the sea. I could see people shaking their heads, my head was shaking too but I had my boob out. What was I to do? Brad was nowhere in sight.
I had no choice but to run after the littered goods. I had brain images of dolphins choking on MY bakery pie and turtles tangled in MY cheesecake glad wrap and seals sipping on MY cola. And it was all going to be MY fault. Me, the litter bug.
It was too much.
I whipped the baby off the boob and made my dash. By this time, the litter was knee deep so I plunged into the seawater, denim jeans and all. I dived forward and retrieved the litter and made my way back up the beach. The beach spectators started to cheer. A lady congratulated me:
"Well done love."
Beach hero, is me. I sat back down feeling proud of MY efforts. How many sea animals had I just saved? And then I looked down. My boob was half hanging out of my top. And my baby tummy was out for all to see. What a sight it must have been. Me with my boob and tummy chasing MY litter...!
Brad returned back from the toilets with Noah and I said its time to go.
And that was our beach visit.
Boob and all.
Love Jo xxx
Do you love the beach? What tips do you have for surviving the beach with little ones?