muckity mucking around

we went to the beach on tuesday, and a delight and a half it was.

with young children, there is something to be said for knowing what you're going to do tomorrow.  partly so you can get the necessary mountain of stuff ready ahead of time, and also it doesn't hurt to know that if all hell breaks loose right about know (it isn't, currently) then there's tomorrow and possibly very exciting (non-grocery shopping) plans to look forward to.  i'm a somewhat seat-of-the-pants person by nature, so this planning aspect has taken some getting used to!

a few weeks ago i had a great email from a really nice local woman who needed to buy a couple of my gnomes.  i felt badly charging her the zillion dollars canada post requires to ship something twelve kilometres and offered to drop them off.  great - vancouver city hall area, we made plans and i made plans around those plans.  although not a planner per se, i am a puzzle-minded person and there's something about slotting times and places together that appeals to that part of my brain.  give me a toddler, a complicated flight schedule, a time difference, naps to factor and a limited amount of space in which to pack clothing and apparatuses and i will be happy to work away on how to fit it together.  so this was easy, drop something off and do something else nearby - not even a challenge!  since this person's house was near my sil/pal jasmine, i figured that we could do our usual weeklyish get-together that day.  and to make matters more fun and only a wee bit complicated, why not meet at the beach?

of course in the long run the woman changed plans and wanted me to drop off the gnomes at some school in godforsaken burnaby, a school with no parking and no signage.  it made the plans for the day less logical, but the beach trip made up for the burnaby part.

we went to locarno beach, or what i used to think was jericho/spanish banks.  all these are separate places along the same general area, but the precise details make a difference when you are phoneless and are making arrangements to meet up in wide open areas.  yes, i lost another phone. technically i think it's only the second time i've lost a phone in two years, but it feels like a lot, especially factoring in all the other times when i only thought i lost the phone.

anyway, we met up, spread out a blanket, ate some food before sand got in all of it (mysterious/toddler forces), chatted for eleven seconds between toddlers and babies needing various things.  the tide was out and cole and i had the best time wandering, playing and exploring out on the wet sand.  we called it the "muckity muck" and although he was a little leery to cross the seaweed divide the first time (moooommy - carry me!) he loved it.  as soon as his feet touched the soft, soft wet sand he exclaimed that it "feels like finger paints!" and he was off.  we mushed over sandbars, picked up shells, went to the water's edge and watched the other big kids.  we filled a pail with things that he calls his "treasures" - stuff like wads of mud and seaweed, shells and crab leg parts.  i changed his pants on the sand and we rolled on home eventually, talking about the fun we'd had...

soon though, we'll make plans for another tomorrow to go back to the muckity muck - perhaps on a day when we can take off our sweaters.