Bradford Beach

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take Jonah to one of the beaches here in town to help distract us from the fact that Ben was away on a business trip. I'd never really been to the beach here myself (other than biking or walking by on the street), and we had some beautiful weather, so I figured it would be a nice diversion. Given Jonah's distaste for the water at Cape Cod last summer, I wasn't really certain how he would handle the trip, so I was prepared for anything.

We arrived mid-morning and started by putting out the towel and playing in the sand. Jonah didn’t want anything to do with the water initially, though he did take some interest when I told him we would need some water if he wanted to build the “castle” he was talking about (I'm not quite sure where he learned the notion of a sand castle!). So we carried some buckets of water back and forth to wet some sand to put into the bucket to make a castle (it sure was a good thing I remembered some of these types of toys!), and each time we went to get water, we walked out into it a bit, at least getting our toes wet. His engineering skills require a bit of refinement, however, as he didn't understand that the dry sand wasn't going to be a particularly good building material, and he was more of a destroyer than a builder.

Pouring sand in the sieve to see what we could find.

Look at me!

After playing in the sand for a while, we took some time to read a few books that I’d brought along (I knew he would enjoy simply sitting outside and reading some of his favorite books), and then we spent some time simply people watching. We had the opportunity to watch kayaks and canoes put into the water and we saw some sailboats further out. There were also plenty of people running by and birds and ducks to watch on the water and in the sand. 

After  a bit we walked back down to the water and Jonah showed some interest in getting wet. I asked if he wanted to put on his swim trunks and he said yes. While changing him, he asked about a swim diaper, which I had planned to skip, thinking it unlikely he was actually going to go into the water far enough to warrant the special diaper. Needless to say, I didn't skip the swim diaper after he asked.

We went back out to the water and he enjoyed walking into it, especially the drop off below the water where the ground changed from sand to stone – far enough in that it was good to have the swim diaper on! We walked up and down the beach and talked to various people – he was fascinated by the hole one family had dug at the edge of the water so that it filled every time the waves came in - and we walked into and out of the water for a while.

Testing the water.

Making my "mark" in the sand.

Eventually, I showed Jonah how we could write in the sand and the waves would erase things, and he started "writing" in the sand too. He constantly asked me to write the letter “W," which seems to be his favorite letter for some reason.

All in all, it was a fun and exciting morning. I'm sure we'll go back on another nice day. It was nice to see that he's grown a bit more comfortable with the water and waves. Ben and I had been talking about the possibility of taking Jonah out in a canoe on the river downtown and Jonah definitely expressed interest in the canoes that we saw this day. Time for an adventure of another kind!