Beach

1-19-09

It was gorgeous out over this past weekend and it seemed like the best thing to do with the boys was to take them down to the beach. I mean really, how often can you say you went to the beach in January? We went Saturday and the kids had so much fun, we decided to go back on Sunday.

There was a larger crowd Sunday, but it was still the same kinds of people, families with multiple kids all enjoying the surf, sand and sun. We set up camp and Bobby and Ken ran down to the water. Dax and I joined them after some sandcastle building.

Dax was a bit unsure of the water, despite his excitement of letting the water wash over his toes. I watched him like a hawk, myself being a bit nervous about the ocean which had already instilled a fear in me years before. You hear all the horror stories, kids getting washed into the riptide. I was not going to let this happen, so my focus was 100% on Dax.

It was at this time that a child no more than 7 started milling around at my feet. I have become more and more accustomed to kids all gravitating towards my kids. I don’t think that it is just my children, either. It seems like kids all just want to be around other kids having fun. But this kid was different.

He watched Dax closely; often trying to communicate with him and at one point, I was almost sure he considered holding Dax’s hand. I can assure you, my son would not have tolerated this. Either way, it was a curious thing to watch. Dax and I continued to play in the surf, despite this young stalker.

It was at this point that this young man in Sponge Bob swim trunks tried to engage me in conversation. I told Dax at one point to be careful of this one wave. Our admirer then tried to tell me some ocean trivia. He took this tactic a few times before at one point he asked me if Dax would play sandcastles with him. I explained that Dax probably would not want to as he was already pretty happy in the water. He looked defeated, but he did not let up.

I continued to play with my child while this other child stayed close. At one point, I held onto Dax’s hand, bracing for a series of larger waves. Before I knew what had happened, I had another small hand in mine and I looked down to find Sponge Bob at my side, seemingly content to have this connection.

I would like to say that I am just that cool of a mom that other kids come running to me. I know this is not the case. This poor boy was not in need of me, he was in need of a parent who wanted to play with him. I would imagine if I were lonely, I too would go towards families that looked like they truly enjoyed being a family. I looked around at one point to find some kind of relative for him, but honestly, it was hard to say who he was with.

After he determined that we were not a suitable surrogate family, he moved on to other families. I saw him insert himself into a sandcastle building adventure with another boy and his father, both looking equally confused by their new contractor. I saw him playing with a handful of other children, all with parents near by, and sometimes I didn’t see him interacting with just the other kids, but with the parents.

Sure, you could make the argument that he was just a friendly kid. I didn’t get this impression. There was a sadness about him that made him seem almost lost. You wondered if perhaps his parents did this often. Drop off their kid at the beach since it costs nothing, and then go on with their lives as if he didn’t exist. I have zero frame of reference when it comes to this. I have a hard enough time taking the boys to daycare, let alone just abandoning my child some place that could be dangerous. It seems more and more common, though.

Of course there will be kids that want to be away from their mother’s watchful eyes. I would imagine my own Mama Bear style of parenting will grow tiresome for my two cubs who undoubtedly will want to explore outside the cave without me in tow. But I would like to think they would want this free time because they do spent a lot of quality time with me. I would hate to think that I would ever kick my kids out just so that I wouldn’t have to spend time with them.

It seems like this is almost the norm, though. How often have I gone to Target, only to be stopped by someone complimenting me for, as they put it, “having fun with my boys.” They marvel at me when I will talk with both of them as we wander the aisles. They have told me that most people just seem to drag their kid from place to place, with no sense that they are happy to have reproduced at all. How sad for these parents to not see the absolute joy in what they have brought into this world.

I am not saying that I am mom of the year by any stretch. I know I have an unusual pride in my kids since it took me longer to conceive them despite my lifelong desire to be a mommy. Maybe this has given me the appreciation that other moms who can get knocked up just by thinking about it. But shouldn’t this genuine affection be the norm, not the exception?

So many moms today tell the tale of how they were instantly, deeply in love the second that ball of goo shot out of their body. They were connected by more than just the umbilical cord and they would always love them the same way. How does this turn into parents looking miserable every time they are with their children? How does this evolve into parents not wanting to spend time whenever they can with their offspring? How does this become a little boy wandering the beach hoping someone, just someone, will offer him up a little bit of attention?

I have no answers to these questions. I suppose the only thing I can do is try to be as kind as possible to these kinds of kids that will come in and out of my life, if only for a few minutes in the sand. Hopefully I am not the only one he encounters.