Let's Go Fly a Kite

Jax received a kite a few weeks back from Grandfather. Since it arrived on our doorstep, he has been asking to go fly it. Well, the only time we really have a breeze here at the house is when there's a storm coming, not really the ideal time to go fly a kite. So I've been telling Jax that we need to go to the beach to fly the kite, but I've been really hesitant to take Baylor to the beach because of the extreme summer heat. He gets overheated so easily. I just wanted to wait for the temps to drop a little before taking him on a beach outing.

Yesterday, we finally had a nice afternoon with decent temps and a clear skies. So we packed up and headed to the beach. Everyone was excited about the outing...until we actually arrived. That's when things went downhill...quickly. Baylor had fallen asleep on the ride there so we decided to just carry him down to the beach in his carseat rather than wake him up. Anh grabbed the baby. I grabbed the gear, and Jax carried his kite. We had taken maybe 5 steps on the sand when I heard Anh say, "Oh, no!" I turned to see what was wrong. Baylor was covered in sand. Our walking or the breeze had kicked sand up onto him. It was everywhere.

At first glance, we thought it was kind of funny. He was covered with sand. Seriously, we might as well have just rolled him around in the sand that's how coated he was. We started to laugh, but then I realized that it was all around his eyes which immediately led to panic at the thought that he'd wake up, open his eyes, and then the grains of sand would actually get into his eyes and cause some kind of lasting damage. Not sure whether this was a rational thought, but it's what crept into my mind and then created all kinds of terrible images.

I started trying to gently wipe away the sand with the corner of a beach towel, but I wasn't having much luck. We didn't have any fresh water, just flavored bottled water and formula. So I doused him with flavored water and that didn't work either. The only thing I accomplished was actually waking him up which then made us panic even more that he'd get sand in his eyes.

Baylor started crying, probably because I had just doused him with flavored water, but in my mind it was because his eyes were being scratched by the grains of sand. We spotted the shower by the beach access ramp and ran over to rinse him off. Let's just say he wasn't happy to be stripped and then placed under the high pressure, cold shower. Poor baby was absolutely wailing, but as soon as we wrapped him in the warm, dry beach towel, he was happy again.

So with that drama behind us, we made a second attempt to have some fun at the beach. We made our way back on to the sand, carefully shielding Baylor this time from the sand kicked up by our walking and the wind. I sat down with the baby, and Anh helped Jax unpack his kite. Luckily, it didn't require assembly, just unraveling. In a matter of seconds, Jax was flying his kite, and within a few more seconds, it was a tangled mess. Yeah! Fifteen seconds of fun equaled 20 minutes of untangling knots in the line and tail of the kite. Finally, the kite was ready to fly again, but by that point, Jax had moved on to wanting to swim.

After all his effort to untangle the mess, Anh insisted that Jax fly the kite at least one more time. Jax ran over and flew the kite a second time. Now more experienced, he managed not to tangle the line. He seemed to enjoy watching it fly high into the sky, but what he liked even more was having Anh fly the kite low while he chased the tail. Even that grew boring after a while though.

By that point, the sun was setting. Jax wanted to play in the surf, but I told him not to go too deep because it was getting dark, and that's when sharks get confused. As soon as I said it, I thought, "Oops, probably shouldn't have said that." Jax seemed unfazed. He just took off running for the water. As they stood in the shallow surf, Anh noticed Jax scanning the water. He asked Jax what he was doing, and Jax replied, "I'm looking for sharks!" At least he wasn't scared, just aware.

Baylor and I just sat on a towel and watched all the families enjoying the last minutes of their day at the beach. It was nice. Anh and Jax had waded out a little farther into the waves. As I watched them playing, Jax lost his footing when he was smacked by a larger wave. He fell and got a mouth full of saltwater. After coughing up a lung, he turned to Anh and said, "Daddy, I can't swim." Anh just laughed at his matter-of-fact tone, and told him, "Don't worry, buddy. We'll work on that."

What started off rather rocky, ended up being a pretty nice family outing. I have zero pictures to show for it though, and that was actually what I was most looking forward to. Oh well, we live here. I'll have other opportunities.