Kids On The Beach

I needed my Kid Fix. It has been two and a half months since I kissed those little boys good-bye last January and made my way to Arizona, and I was getting lonely for them. So Bill bought me a plane ticket the day after Easter and I flew home to see them. Turns out, they sorta needed a Grandma Fix too, so it worked out fine. They were off from school the week after Easter and the weather was lovely, high Sixties - low Seventies, not as warm as the desert maybe, but perfectly Playable Weather. So we played. Big Time!

Pam's grand kids were visiting too and there were neighbors out of school as well, so most days, it wasn't just Grandma and her two grandsons on the beach, but a whole slew of kids eager to tramp the beach and get sand between the toes or waves splashing up on pant legs. I emptied more sand out of Sage's shoes last week! He must have carried in a shoe box full or more from the walks on the beach.

Plus, there were puppies. Kerry has a new baby Aussie cattle dog, a red one, born last December she's named Maggie. For three months old, she proved quite resilient in keeping up with the kids on their romps through the sand dunes. Haley and Garrett's nine month old chocolate Lab, Maco, is fat and sassy and must weigh close to eighty pounds by now. Chuy will find his old 'chew buddy' to be more than he can handle when he returns this summer. (Yes, Chuy had to stay in the desert with Bill. The boys were delighted to see me but said the visit would have been better with Chuy there too.)

Charlie and Sage got to have a Sleep Over with me too. So that first night, Daddy had to bring us a box of Macaroni and Cheese to fix for dinner. My pantry was bare. What is the allure of mac and cheese with the grammer school crowd? When Charlie proudly crowed to Pam's grand kids that HE was having mac and cheese for dinner, the two of them groaned and said, "Oh you're so lucky! I wish we could have mac and cheese for dinner!" Boppy and I could probably survive very nicely all year long without ever eating that stuff, but Charlie and Sage would gladly swill it every night. I did make them eat salad too. Just because I'm Grandma. (And they ate it, because I'm Grandma.) But the next night, when I put a salad on the table with their pizza, Sage said, "Grandma! You served salad last night!" "Yes, Sage! And I'm serving it again tonight!" (Now, if that had been mac and cheese.... hmmm...)

And the next morning, of course, we had to have pancakes. They just adore pancakes. And then Thursday morning when they came tearing in at nine AM, we made cinnamon toast. Cinnamon toast is one of those childhood treats that just taste better a) if you're between five and nine years old or b) you eat it with a child between five and nine years old. So we did. And it was.

We made cupcakes. My friend, DeLores sent the boys a jar of fish shaped sprinkles. There were dolphin, sea turtles, sharks and tropical fish, in all array of colors. The sharks were even gray colored. So one afternoon we made and frosted cupcakes, and then they parceled out the sprinkles. It's still funny to me, but when it comes to eating the treats they've artfully decorated, the boys inevitably choose the ones with no sprinkles or the very least sprinkles. Yes, they love to use them, they just don't like to eat them. So Grandma gets the ones with the most sprinkles!

A few memorable funnies: Walking through the sand dunes, Sage finds a treasure. "What's this, Grandma?" "It's a bone, Sage." I peered at it closer. "It looks like a back bone to me." He turned the vertebrae over in this hand. "And this other side is the front bone?" he asked.

Charlie was waiting for an answer from his dad who had to confirm it with Mommy. "I don't know the answer yet, Mackey. Because Daddy hasn't got to conversate with Mommy yet." (That conversatin' is heavy stuff!)

Okay, so now I'm home and replete with photos and pictures the kids had to draw for Chuy before I left. Charlie made a video using Sage as his Star Actor too. It was a good trip, though a short one. But at least the kids know Mackey still loves them. And it will only be two more months before I'll be back to the beach for the summer with them.