The Beach, Shark Teeth and Reading in Bed

My friend's mom died today...cancer...an easy peaceful death. She had a good life. Yet, my mother-in-law, who is much older, still lingers, hanging on with the horrid Alzheimers that takes away all dignity and life's memories. So.....rather than dwell on loss and regret, I take my boys to the beach. We packed the car full of beach toys and snacks. Along the way, I practice this week's spelling word list with my kiddo. I figure that we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

The boys played in the sand, let the waves wash over them and looked for shells. I started a new book and read while keeping an eye on the kiddos. It was a lovely few hours listening to the wind, watching the waves and letting the kiddos get tired!

We noticed a bunch of little dead fish and other fishheads that had floated to the beach. One was a little shark head and, of course, my second-grader made a beeline to it to check it out. Of course we looked it over and examined the rows of teeth!

The boys had a wonderful time and got along really well together. Because we were so tired, we got home, took our showers/baths, ate a little and went to bed (well, the kids did, I stayed up and watched mindless tv.) The car is still packed with beach stuff and I will unpack tomorrow.



















I checked on my 'lil one about an hour after the kiddos had gone to bed. Apparently, he got a surge of energy before passing out. I can see that he 'read' lots of books and then arranged them in rows on the floor. He has always loved books and looking at them, even as a baby. I can always tell which ones he's looked at (there's a huge bookshelf on the other side of the room with many shelves of books so there is an ample supply in there. Since he's the fourth kid, the accumulated books over the years end up on the shelves in his room. He's going to be really tired tomorrow!