Motherhood-A Day At the Beach

Little did I know just how much “going to the beach” would change once I became a mother.

Let me break it into the before and after Motherhood scenario.

Before: I would go to the beach with a chair, a towel, a small cooler, and a tote with my day’s supplies.

After: I would go to the beach with a chair, four towels, a cooler on wheels, a large tote with our day’s supplies, a tote with the dry food, a tote with the sand toys, and of course the various floating apparatuses.
It wasn’t only what I took to the beach that becoming a mother changed. Oh no, it was the way I experienced the beach that changed!

Before: I would set up the chair, lay out the towel, put on the sunscreen and settle in to soak in the sun’s rays. I would enjoy reading a good book, or closing my eyes and listening to the sound of the waves as they crashed upon the shore. I would smell the salty air as the sea gulls cried their sing song language and the sound of children, (other people’s children), wafted softly in the distance.

After: I would set up the chair, try to keep the other towels from getting sand on them as they would be needed later to dry off with, re-applied sunscreen to faces (we had already spent 30 minutes at home putting sunscreen on wiggling little bodies), reviewed the boundary lines determined by my chair and some other colorful beach umbrella a few feet down the beach, dispersed the sand toys or floating devices and watched as the children scattered within the “safe zone”.

There was no reading, no closing of the eyes. I was on guard, on watch.

Though I did not read a book, I watched my children laugh, and build castles in the sand. If I heard the sea gulls cry, it was in the background to my children’s voices as they called out, “Momma, look at me,” as they rode the cresting waves. And once we were all back in the car safe and sound, with sandy little bodies tired and spent. I would close my eyes; smell the salty air and say, “thank you Lord for the blessing of this day.”