Eureka! We made it to the beach!

You're not supposed to tell your 3-year-old son about a vacation six months out, but when three of his cousins are talking about it in January, you're stuck.

It got to the point where every time we saw Julia, Gregory, Mary, and Paul, Louis wanted to know why we weren't at the beach. And I didn't really have a good explanation. The summer days got hotter and hotter and finally we loaded the van with 25 times the stuff we will be bringing to China, and we were on our way.

After all the build-up, was our boy disappointed?

Not Louis. He laughed at the waves. He slid his fingers through the sand. He designed enormous tasks for himself.

And he slipped easily into his role as member of the gang.

Throughout the week, they became the SuperCousins, the mice, the pirates, and the cast of the most haphazard version of "Rapunzel" you can imagine.

They ran.

They walked.

They shared--sometimes.

They joked around.

They...uh...did yoga (we think).

They buried one another in the sand.

They posed for pictures.

 

And then sometimes they (well, mainly our son) didn't.

Can you tell that Louis was not always in a picture-taking mood? But really, who could blame him?

There were locomotives to meet...

...lots to see on the boardwalk...

...games to play...

...and play again...

...prizes to win...

...naps to try to skip...

...french fries to nibble...

...shopping to do...

...ride tickets to burn...

...and ice cream to eat.

Through it all, "the cousins" were there. And, on the rare occasions when we took Louis somewhere without them, he kept asking about them.

He just loves hanging with the other kids. (Here I told him Mary was giving a bigger smile than he was. Think he has a competitive streak?)

Oh, yes. That's our boy.

The house we rented this summer had the perfect cousins' room with five twin beds, side by side. We didn't let Louis sleep there this year, but next year he will almost definitely be ready.

Don't think he'll get any sleep there? Just see how well he and Mary are sleeping here.

Yeah, they didn't fool me either.

As an added bonus, Aunt Treasa joined us for almost the whole week. She rode the ferris wheel with Paul.

She played "Puff the Magic Dragon" on her guitar for Louis.

 She even let him help.

And he requested a song or two himself.

Aunt Treasa helped Louis and Mary make my birthday cake.

(It looks a bit easier to coordinate in the photos than it did negotiating in person.)

 

And we managed to make a "zoo cake" Louis found in a cookbook a few months ago and has been wanting ever since.

(Don't bother counting the candles.)

It was my first tiara, hand-selected by my niece Julia, who has an eye for that kind of thing. You can't tell from the photos, but it has flashing lights on it.

Louis even gave it a try.

We had steamed crabs for my birthday dinner. Then Aunt Treasa and I stayed up late into the night picking leftover crabs so we could make some terrific crab cakes.

 

It was our boy's first steamed crab experience. He loves crab soup and never says no to a bite of crab cake, so I wasn't surprised when he climbed up next to me to see the crabs.

"Mama, they are plastic?" he asked.

"No, they are real," I said. I showed him how to find crab meat inside, and he ate some happily. Then he tried to do it himself, but got frustrated when I stopped him from eating some non-meat and went back to play with his cousins.

Still, I know soon enough he'll be picking his own crabs. Louis is never discouraged for long. And he surely loves his food--maybe even more than he loves the beach.

But Louis is definitely a beach boy.

He loved jumping into the waves.

He liked sitting on the beach waiting for the water to splash over him.

He enjoyed having his Mama and Baba with him all the time.

And he thought the sand, the water, the sun, the whole experience was fantastic.

And, I have to admit, it was.

Then, as if we hadn't had enough fun on our beach vacation, on our last evening there I checked my email to discover our Travel Approval for Michael had arrived!

We looked even more stunned than Gregory, Julia, and Mary are pretending to be here.

Of course, we may not have looked as stunned as the folks at the beach post office the day our son walked in wearing red mittens on one of the hottest summer days on record. Only the most astute of them could have realized that they were his crab claws.

Red mittens in July? Yes, that's how we work around here. If Louis thinks it's fun, I'm betting his little brother will want to try them, too. And we're already counting down to the next beach trip.

But right now we have another trip on our minds. And we're packing our sunscreen--though maybe we'll leave the mittens at home.