Bring on the Beach. Bring on the Books.

Florida summer for us is all beaches and books (and setting up the house still but that kills the alliteration--and you don't really want to hear about assembling bookshelves and falling curtain rods, anyway).

Here's the thing about taking five kids to the beach: it takes a solid half an hour just to get everyone's sunscreen on. However, it has proved to be, in the words of my husband, "Not as stressful as we think it will be but also not as restful as we hope it will be," which I thought was a remarkably elegant turn of phrase. Unrelated side note: he also told me the other day that "If we make the hard choices now then life is pretty easy, but if we make the easy choices now then life ends up pretty hard," which was rather annoyingly on point when it comes to many things (especially my inability to correctly hang curtains). But back to the beach...

Beach time with all five kids is pretty exciting. Naturally, we bring home at least two pounds of sand per trip per child (do the math) and enough sea shells to start our own marine museum, but for an hour (or two), everyone is happy--including me. Sure, Twinkle tries to drown herself at least a handful of times, but for the most part, it's surprisingly relaxing. Sure, the twins get in trouble for trying to throw sand. Sure, the Bigs try to race hermit crabs. Sure, the twins try to bring hermit crabs home after taking them for walks on the beach. Sure, the Littles is determined to see how far out he can go on his own and how far he can let the current carry him before the Man and I start freaking out. Sure, Bee tries to make sand angels (which will inevitably get sand in crevices of her body she didn't even know existed). Sure, the Man and I will relax to the soothing sound of children saying, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Dad! Dad! Look at this! Look at that! Mom! Dad!" But: it's all worth it because of Momentary Happiness. And because the water makes my heart smile (which is an anatomically incorrect metaphor).

Beach time aside, the majority of our summer (so far) is being spent reading books together out loud. Before we got in our household goods, we would curl up on our bed and I'd read to the kids while Twinkle napped or after she was in bed for the night. Now we split our time between the living room and the back porch, although today we took a walk down the beach and read half a chapter of Prince Caspian while sitting at the edge of a pier eating pretzels. I tried to concentrate on the book while internally freaking out that one of the twins was going to fall off the end of the pier and I would have to jump in and save them with Twinkle still strapped in the Ergo. Normally though, book reading is accompanied by Mommy snuggles or coloring books or playing with Mommy's hair. Today the kids put an entire basket of bows in my hair. I felt like the Beast after his makeover. I probably looked like the beast after his makeover (clarification that we're talking about the part when he gets bows put all in his mane, not the part when he has lasers coming out of his fingernails).

Anyway, the important part is that we've been plowing through The Chronicles of Narnia since late May. The Horse and His Boy was extremely helpful in teaching my children phrases such as, "Oh my mother and oh the delight of my eyes" and "To hear is to obey." Littles keeps reading ahead and then offering his siblings spoilers and being taken up on his offers because evidently my kids can't stand the suspense. But my favorite part has been the adoration of the kids for Aslan and the depth of theology with which Lewis writes. On the lighter side, we're also reading the My Father's Dragon series again. I read it to the big boys when the twins were babies but thought it was time for a reread now that Bruiser is reaching the height of his dragon obsession (he has asked for another dragon costume that actually breathes fire for Halloween this year). And for my darling daughter, we are reading Ballet Shoes for the first time. And the boys are hanging in there with her just fine because manly men should be well rounded.

Book porch view of our armadillo family

And that, right there, is our summer. Give or take a few bear sightings, a family of armadillos, chasing the escapee dog down the beach in the rain with newly met neighbors, waiting for the new family pictures to arrive in the mail, putting together new chairs, putting together new bookshelves, putting together new living room furniture, hanging curtains, rehanging curtains, re-rehanging curtains, hanging pictures, waiting to hang pictures, checking the mail again to see if those new prints have arrived, etc., etc., etc. but mostly the beach and the books, which, in my humble opinion, is a pretty phenomenal way to spend a summer.