1: Breakfast on Snail Mountain with friends.

2: Annalie and I made cinnamon-swirl bread the other day. We had some for a snack this morning.

3: I walked past Annalie’s room and saw her curled up on the chair, looking at a book. I love the look on her face, like she’s just read something particularly interesting.

4: She was in the middle of putting her sandals on when I asked her to go stand on the beach so I could take a picture. She didn’t bother to put the other one on.

5: Stained glass? Or melted gummi bears? My mom sent Annalie a little care package which included a bag of Target-brand gummi bears (With Real Fruit Juice!). Apparently, they couldn’t take the summer heat.

6: My coffee and Annalie’s juice in the train dining car this morning. (Resusable coffee-cup sleeve from Anna’s Etsy shop, Life is Good…At the Beach)

I’m taking photos life’s small moments this month for my photoset 30 tiny moments hath September and for the 30 tiny moments group on Flickr.

After an unexpectedly busy weekend (more about that in a bit), we did almost nothing today. I am fighting a summer cold, so sitting around on the couch, watching TV, reading books, drawing with markers were all fine by me. I did think we should leave the house at some point today, though. I asked Annalie a few times if she wanted to go play outside, or go to the coffee shop in our neighborhood with the kids’ play area, but she was happy to stay home. Then I suggested ice cream for dinner, and she thought that was a great idea, so we headed to the Green Mall.

Annalie loves going to the Green Mall. Like many malls in Southern California, it’s open-air. There are raised islands all along the center, planted with flowers or trees or just plain grass, and there are two large tiled fountains at one end. It’s almost like being at the park—a park with a movie theater, a food court, and Macy’s. Annalie loves to walk along the islands’ low walls, and today I remembered to bring pennies to throw in the fountains (the change is gathered and donated to an organization that improves the playgrounds in local parks), so she was having a fabulous time.

After we walked around for a while and tossed all the coins into the fountains, Annalie told me that before we had ice cream, “we should probably eat some healthy food, because you should have healthy food before you have ice cream!” I had to laugh. Here I was offering my kid ice cream for dinner and she was telling me she wanted healthy food?! I reminded her that we had eaten a late-afternoon snack of crackers and cheese and apples, and that the ice cream was really just a delayed dessert. We went to Cold Stone Creamery and she chose a Berry Trinity smoothie, probably one of the healthiest things there. I got a peanut butter & chocolate shake. They were both delicious.

Are you wondering what we did all weekend that made us want to sit at home all day on Monday and then have ice cream for dinner? First, we met another internet person, Sonja from the 7 Days Flickr group and girl with greencard.

I know, I know, it seems like all I do anymore is meet up with internet friends! But you know, when I move to a new town it usually takes me months to make new friends, and thanks to the internet when I moved this time I already knew a half-dozen people around here! Some of them I have not met in person yet, but I am looking forward to doing so. Because I’ve yet to have a bad internet meet-up.

Wait, he was smiling a second before Sonja took that photo, I swear!

We drove up to meet Sonja and her husband and their brand-new baby Noah at their beach hideaway, and other than Noah being a bit fussy and Annalie being wary around Sonja’s husband at first, it was great! We walked to a park near the beach and found a shady place to park the stroller while Annalie ran right over to the playground and began digging in the sand. Sonja and I chatted while she nursed Noah, changed his diaper, nursed him again, tried to get him to sleep, etc. I was very impressed by how calm Sonja stayed throughout, much calmer than I would have been at the same point in Annalie’s newborn days. Though I don’t have quite the same baby-whispering abilities my mom has, I was able to hold Noah for a little while so Sonja could play with my Nikon.

We ended our get-together with lunch at a local burger place. Sonja had claimed their burgers were almost as good as In-N-Out’s, and I have to agree—they were very tasty. And after all his fussing and nursing at the park, Noah was so worn out he slept straight through lunch so his mom and dad could both eat without worrying about dripping ketchup on his head. Wasn’t that sweet of him?

We were saying our good-byes in the parking lot when we realized we had not taken any photos of me and Sonja together, and as Sonja said, if we don’t get a photo it’s like it didn’t happen! Good thing we remembered.

We were not that far from Brenda’s town, and it seemed silly to be that close and not at least call. I called and was told to come on up. I originally had vague plans to be there long enough for dinner, and we ended up leaving at 11 the next morning! In between, we tagged along to the last hour of a 2-year-old’s birthday party, but at least I knew the birthday boy and his mom, so that didn’t feel as awkward as it otherwise might have. We also went to the grocery store, as is our tradition, and I made mashed potatoes while Brenda made the rest of dinner. Due to the party and the grocery run, dinner was rather late, and Brenda’s husband Toby kindly invited us to stay so we wouldn’t have to drive home at night. So we borrowed pajamas and had an impromptu slumber party. After the kids were asleep Brenda and I watched three-fourths of Amelie. In the morning we got doughnuts and lattes and walked to the beach for breakfast.

Photo by secret agent josephine on Flickr

Not a bad way to spend a morning, even if I was wearing the same clothes as the day before.

For more photos of our busy weekend, see my Flickr photostream.

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.