The beach, 2008 version

Greetings from Holden Beach, NC!

We made it safely here on Saturday afternoon, after spending a wonderful first-half-of-the-weekend with our friends Alethea and Glenn and their son Graham in Chapel Hill, NC. I promise to post pictures of the boys together when I finally dig up the cable that will connect the digial camera to the laptop. They were adorable together, though, just in case you were dying of curiosity.

Anyway, we're here, and it's been great so far. William sighed deeply en route on Saturday afternoon and said, "I miss my people. I miss my Leland," referring to his buddy Leland (see previous post). David and I tried not to fall out of the car, laughing. The melancholy doesn't seem to have inhibited William too much since he got here, though. Whew. Yes, we do miss the regular beach crowd, particularly William's grandparents, but we're surviving so far.

We did have one big uh-oh moment on Saturday evening when we took William down to the beach for the first time. William agreeably toddled down the wooden boardwalk and down the stairs to the sand....only to pull up short. Oh God. Was William going to be the torch-bearer of a dubious Wyckoff tradition: being afraid of the sand? David was afraid of the sand at age two. Was this yet another example of dominant genes? Please, no, I prayed. No amount of convincing and persuading or, er, threatening, could talk him off that last wooden step. Finally, I gave in and picked him up, all 32 pounds of him, and lugged him over the soft piles of sand to the firmer packed-down sand. I plunked him down, and held my breath. Luckily, after a few grouchy seconds, he didn't seem to mind. He quickly realized that there was a beach full of shells to examine, and the shells won out.

Ever since then, he's been mostly fine walking on the firmer sand, but he still wants to be carried over the softer dunes. Sigh. He also gets very very upset when David walks down to stick his feet in the shallow water. Imagine a small boy turning bright red and jumping up and down on the sand, with angry tears pouring down his face. That's what happens every time one of us dares to get near the waves, especially William's beloved Daddy. I guess William worries David, the orignal Mr. Measured and Cautious, will get carried away, wading there in the ankle-deep water, ane he'll get dramatically swept out to sea. Poor William. David finally tricked him, in a kind, caring, measured and cautious way of course, to wading in a fine stream of water this evening. After William realized the shallow water wasn't so scary, he began to enjoy himself. In a wild, water-splashing, sand-flinging manner. Yeah. The wet, sandy clothes he was wearing are now drying out on the patio as I type this.

But seriously, we've had fun. We've collected pocketfuls of shells and we've watched people fly kites. We went to the nearby aquarium when it rained today, and we played Candy Land when we got home. We have four more full days, too. I'm looking forward to walking down the beach to get ice cream cones tomorrow after dinner...