Sand Before Time: Part II

After the bee we spent more time goofing around in the sand. One of Kiernan's favorite things to do at the beach is to play "the restaurant game". It's a weird little game we came up with last year. He recalled it from last year and requested it this year when we came to the beach again. It's a pretty dopey game, but he loves it. Basically the game involves digging a deep hole. I am in the hole, continuing to dig it out. He approaches the hole, clearly intending to jump into the hole on top of me.

I protest, putting on my best maitre'd voice. "I'm sorry sir. Do you have a reservation?"

He pounces on me. I determine he did not, indeed, have a reservation, and I demand he leave. He laughs at me and I throw him out of the hole, bellowing, "Get out! And stay out!"

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

A couple of things.

1. How exactly this game came about I cannot tell you.
2. Kiernan wants to play it constantly once the hole is dug.
3. If I don't throw him out of the hole, he demands I throw him out of the hole. He finds this hilarious.
4. Last year this was easier.

After the bee sting we played this for awhile longer until I found a rock buried at the bottom of the hole. We excavated it, and this shifted Kiernan's focus. At last! Suddenly he wanted to dig rocks.

We did this for awhile, and it was pretty cool. The above pictures are him tunneling for more rocks.

After we dug out about a dozen large rocks I was pretty much ready to hit the road. We'd been at the beach for about five hours by this time, and I figured it was time to go. It was at this point that Kiernan decided to make some new friends.

Let me just say that I am very proud of how my son makes friends. He is much better than I am socially. I just don't always appreciate his timing.

Next to us on the beach was a family with four kids. These kids had shown a great deal of interest in our super cool deep hole, and Kiernan invited them over to play in it. They had tried to dig their own hole, but they clearly found it inferior for as soon as Kiernan invited them over they began jumping in our hole with abandon. Much to their parents' chagrin.

They all spent some time pouncing into our hole in the sand--I relocated myself to our blanket for my first real break of the day. At one point the oldest, a boy named Aidan, asked if Kiernan and I would help them make their hole as deep as ours. I demurred, figuring if their dad wasn't going to help them out (he was mainly interested in surfing), I wasn't going to show him up. Kiernan--once again besting me socially--grabbed our shovels and ran over to join them at their hole.

What followed was about an hour more of play, and he was in heaven. They dug the hole for awhile and then they all headed down to the surf to play run-away-from-the-waves-and-shriek. All day I'd been trying to get Kiernan interested in the water to no avail. But one six-year-old boy suggests the same thing and he does not hesitate for a moment.

Beautiful.

They all played in the water until the adults had had enough. We all packed up and headed back to our cars.

On the way home, driving through Topanga Canyon, Kiernan was uncharacteristically silent. As we got close to home, he revealed why. Aidan.

This has happened quite a bit lately. Kiernan will meet a kid. Immediately bond with him. Then, as they have to part ways, say because they have met in an airport and are taking different flights, he will just break down because this kid also loves dinosaurs and he will never meet another kid like this in his life.

By the time we got home Kiernan was flat out sobbing. "Aidan! Aidan!" It was amazing. An ending worthy of Shakespeare. Or, at least Rocky.