You know how this morning, I had the bright idea to extend my good mood by taking Annalie to the beach? Remember on our last trip to the beach how she had a great time, happily wading in the water with me and playing in the sand?

Yeah…that didn’t happen today.

Can you see in the above photo how Annalie’s eyes are kinda red? That’s from all the crying she did.

When we first got to the beach, we set our stuff down and I spread out a towel right where the sand went from dry to wet, so Annalie would be able to build sand castles and fetch pails full of water easily if she wanted to. But the surf was a little bit rougher today, and Annalie was convinced that the water was coming up the beach to get her.

We were at least 25 feet (8m) from the water’s high point, but that did not comfort her. I picked her up to carry her down closer to the water, thinking that if I was holding her she would be okay. I wanted to show her that by the time the water came up high on the beach it was only an inch deep and not scary at all. But once I started walking towards the ocean Annalie frantically told me she didn’t want to go in the water, she wanted to go to the lifeguard stand, she wanted to go home, bawling her eyes out the whole time. She did take some deep breaths and calm down a little while we were at the water’s edge, till a largeish wave came in and the foam hit my ankles, at which point she tried to climb up onto my shoulders and shrieked at me to go back go back GO BACK! I carried her back up to our towel, talking to her about how the tide was not going to come up to our towel for hours and hours, assuring her that even if it did I would NEVER let anything bad happen to her, telling her how proud I was that she was being brave even though she was scared.

But even when we got back to our towel it was clear she was not happy. She tried to play, forlornly scooping sand into her bucket with her shovel, tears leaking out of her eyes. It was so very sad. I showed her how to use her new molding bucket in an effort to cheer her up. I helped her pack wet sand in and flipped it over before removing the bucket to reveal the castle-like tower, which she immediately smashed by jumping on it. That made her laugh, especially when I pretended to be exasperated at the destruction, but she went right back to crying.

I couldn’t take it any more, and it was clear she wasn’t going to be distracted. I told her we could move back to the dry sand. She asked, sniffling, “Can we go all the way up by the lifeguard tower?” I caved and told her of course we could. So we gathered up our things and went to sit in the shade on one side of the unoccupied lifeguard stand, about 60 feet (20m or so) from the water.

I gave Annalie a juicebox right away and that helped her calm down. She went under the lifeguard stand with her bucket and toys, and I showed her how to dig with her shovel past the dry top layer of sand to find the damp sand that was better for packing. She thought that was pretty neat. The sun came out around that time too, and that seemed to cheer her up even more. By the time the lifeguards came around in their truck to tell us that they’d be opening the stand in ten minutes and when they did we’d have to move, she was downright enjoying herself. So we played for a few more minutes, then gathered all our stuff and started the long walk back to the parking lot.

As we walked Annalie did a little skipping step and said, “I had such a good time at the beach today, Mama! Didn’t you?” I shook my head and told her that no, I didn’t really have a good time. “But why?” she asked, surprised. “The sun is shining, and it’s such a lovely day!” (Yes, Annalie really talks like that. My mom says you can tell she’s a kid who spends a lot of time around adults.)

“Annalie, when we first got here you were so upset! You cried and cried, and you were so sad. It makes me sad when you’re sad. So I don’t feel like I had a good time at the beach today.”

Annalie thought about that for a second, then replied, “But I’m happy now! That’s the good thing. I had a great day.” She nodded for emphasis and swung our clasped hands between us.