It's a rough job, but somebody had to do it

It’s been a rough week at the beach, but somebody had to do it. The kids had swimming lessons this week, so I was at the beach four hours a day, five days in a row. It was beautiful, warm and sunny. The perfect summer beach weather. After taking stock, I now have:
One empty bottle of sunscreen
Three inches of sand in my mini-van, sand in my hair and in various creases
Piles of laundry waiting for my attention
One weeks worth of take out container taking up space in my garbage can
A sunburned nose, shoulders, and back
A completely read book
A mellow and refreshed feeling
Kids that are better swimmers
A weeks worth of e-mail to check
A nice tan
New ideas for my blog

This is what I’ve learned this week:
My mini-van will hold 20 pounds of beach sand
Kids can eat $35.00 worth of snacks daily when playing at the beach
My kids are deaf to me calling them when it’s time to leave
Using regular diapers at the beach is a bad idea, they can hold a kids weight in lake water
Don’t say, “don’t make me come and get you.” Unless you are willing to go into the water and get them, the kids know a bluff when they hear one
I need a bigger bathing suit (mine must have shrunk since last year)
A toddler can take a power nap in the car and feel refreshed in ten minutes, a mom needs fourteen hours of sleep to feel that rested
Sunscreen burns and then blurs your vision when you get it into your eyes
A full “little swimmer diaper” will hold two cups of fluid while in a car seat, only to dump it’s contents on your sofa
You can take a crabby kid to the beach and you’ll magically get a happy kid, you take a crabby mom to the beach and you’ll magically have a hot, tired, and still crabby mom
It’s impossible to suck in your stomach while yelling at your kids
I will never again buy the kids ice cream to eat on the way home from the beach, the kids were sandy and sticky when we got home
The bottoms of your feet and your eye lids can get sunburned too
My four year old daughter already likes Life Guards (she convinced one young man to play catch with her)
Everyone knows you’re peeing in the lake if your eyes glaze over and you say, “ahh” (you’re not fooling anyone, we know why you are out there)
Kids splashing adults isn’t a good way to get them used to the cold lake water
You can get into trouble for dunking some else’s kids