On today's menu.....Sand served with a side of sand

Sticky Baby strikes again (!) and redefines the idiom 'to bury one's head in the sand'.

Today was our first expedition to the beach this summer. And I use the word 'expedition' very lightly...Open front door, cross road, walk 40 metres, cross another street and VOILA! Sticky Baby on PapaDada's hip (more on this in a future blog), camera and beach bag on my shoulder. That's all we took. Quite impressive really, considering we usually resemble pack horses for the smallest of outings.

Cut to beach...

Sticky Baby is mesmerised by the sight and sound of the water, the texture of the sand, the grandeur of it all. We take a ga-zillion photos while he miraculously sits so still. Quick as a flash, Sticky Baby breaks his stillness, lunges for a handful of gritty, damp sand and stuffs it into his mouth. We knew it was going to happen. In fact, we were warned by a lovely friend of mine, Tan Artiste, that he would do this but then immediately spit it back out and NEVER DO IT AGAIN! So there we were, PapaDada and I, waiting for the look of horror and the sand sputtering. We could have waited an eternity. Sticky Baby, short of licking his tiny lips and cooing 'yuuumm', lunged yet again and ingested a 2nd handful of sand. No look of horror. No sputtering. Just a sand goatee. And a very happy Sticky Baby, with a smorgasbord of sand-candy right in front of him. He tried again and again, succeeded a few more times by swatting his pesky parents away (see 2nd photo - aggravated by our feeble attempts to restrain him), but we finally won by packing everything up and heading home. Maybe I'll consider feeding him like a champion competitive eater before future beach trips. We are awaiting gritty poohs in the very near future..