"Beach, Beach, Beach"

Those are the words I chanted to Liam everyday as we walked down to the beach on our recent vacation, and for whatever reason he got the biggest kick out of it. He would just squeal and smile every time. SO CUTE.

This past weekend we took our first ever beach trip to Hilton Head as a family. I grew up going to Hilton Head and to this day, my family still tries to go every summer. For obvious reasons, this year's trip didn't happen as we had a 1 month old at the time, so needless to say I was ecstatic to finally go! Waiting until the end of September was perfect. Liam is almost 6 months (1 week!), the weather was never too hot, and the crowds are non-existent.

Day 1: I think in my excitement I rushed Liam into it too quickly. The second we got down to the beach I walked (or maybe ran) to the tide pool and sat him down in it, sure that he would love it. Well, immediately he started bawling. Ok, not so much. My next thought was that surely he would love the ocean....so, after throwing him into the tide pool I again ran to the ocean where the waves were huge, the noise was loud and the breeze was heavy. How could he not like it, right?! Again he started bawling and clinging to me for dear life :( After both traumatizing events, I wised up and decided that a relaxing nap on the beach might be more his speed. He proceeded to take a 2 hour nap so mom and dad could enjoy their naptime as well.

Day 2: Today I was wiser. I eased into the beach, the tide pool and the pool and low and behold, he loved it! (At this point I'm overly excited because I was getting really worried that my boy was not going to like the beach which was going to cause major problems). He sat in the tide pool and splashed all around. He put his feet in the ocean and grinned. Lastly he had the BEST time in the pool. He kicked, splashed, sat in his new float, laughed and did not want to get out.

The rest of the trip was fabulous. We only had one evening of crankiness. Every other night he was happy and busy busy busy as usual. All in all it was a fabulous trip and it got me VERY excited for next summer when he will be running all over that beach.