On day two of The Summer Of I Promise To Be A Less Sucky Mother (last Saturday), The KingofHearts had a rare day off so we took the clan to the beach. Originally, I tried to go to Highland Beach in Maryland because I thought that with it's history, surely there might be some other cool things to do and we might tour a couple of interesting Frederick Douglas sites or something when we got tired of swimming and picking sand out of our swimsuits.

I should have been tipped off by the distinctive lack of web pages about anything in or around the area but we drove there, undeterred. Turns out, not only are there no sites on the historic registry where Frederick Douglas once lived or even slept, but it's also a private community with a private beach for residents only, no parking and not a single business in the immediate area. While I suppose it's possible that we just never found the tourist center (and if that's true I know that the Internet will rise up and correct me) basically the message we got was: we don't want you here.

So we drove up the road a piece to a public beach I knew existed because we'd been to it before.


This photo was taken shortly before the heavens opened and threatened to force us to turn our car into a boat and row back home. The Dormouse and The KnaveofHearts had a great time swimming in the Bay, which, personally, I prefer to the ocean. The waves are less punishing in the Bay when you're under four feet tall and brackish water is way nicer to swim in than salt water. You can actually go in and get wet if you've shaved your legs anytime within the last month without going, "Ooo, ow, ow, ooo, ooo, ow." The downside, however, is that any blisters, sores or mosquito bites will not be magically healed by the end of the day in bay water like they are in the ocean.

This was The Caterpillar's very first time at any water bigger than the hot tub we have on the backyard deck and she was a bit taken by the grandeur and beauty that is the Chesapeake Bay...


...and then proceeded to play in this puddle for the next two hours:


We finally managed to get her to sit for a picture to make it look like she might have actually gotten in the water, so that she could one day tell her children, "See? I wasn't afraid to go into the ocean when I was your age... look here at this picture. Now you try it."


But it was only a slightly larger puddle.


It's okay baby, there'll be other trips to the beach.

"Don't patronize me."