Days on the Beach – Kid Style!

We had another beautiful morning on the beach. This time we braved taking the entire clan down onto the sand. Thankfully we had plenty of shade from the pop-up tent as well as an umbrella. Lucy had a quick feed, and like magic, she fell fast asleep. Now there are very few places that I love sleeping more than on the warm sand, so I could imagine how comfy she was with the gentlest breeze coming off the water.

Fred and Maddy took off on their boogie boards, with such two completely different styles. Maddy watches and waits carefully for the perfect wave, sees it coming, and then proceeds to flop on top of her board, sink to the sand, and then expects the wave to magically pick her up and blissfully push her to the shore. Unfortunately, as those of you who understand body surfing know, this process just sees the wave pick her up, roll her around a couple of times, and spit her out the other side. The funniest thing is that she flails her arms and legs about like an upside down crab, giggling madly. Then she hops up, and heads back out to do it all again!

Little Fred, on the other hand, has a surfer’s eye and co-ordination. He can watch the sets roll in, pick his perfect wave, set himself up for launching with precision timing, then jumps on top of the wave with perfect balance for a Kelly Slater style delivery to the shore.

Katie took a little bit of warming up this morning. At first she was quite content, to play peacefully in the sand, building castles and making ice-creams with her buckets and spades. But eventually she came down to dip her toes in the water and start splashing around. Slowly but surely, I saw the little Katie-fire start to ignite. It began with a little jump over one wave, and then a few splish-sploshes as she ran back up the beach with the waves chasing her. And then suddenly, there she is, singing “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” at the top of her lungs, with her hands on her hips, and twisting her gorgeous little bottom side to side in rhythm with her song.  Later at lunch, she told us that this had been her favourite part of the holiday so far!

We are feeling so very lucky to see our little family experiencing such unbridled passion and joy.