We are at the beach in Bay Head NJ, staying with Tom’s sister. It is a very rich neighborhood. Think preppy patch shorts or ones with whales on them. Another world from Brooklyn. Like Fire Island there are a lot of bikes, and people leave them parked up by the beach entrance, not locked. This is all very civil. Everyone knows everyone at the beach and knows who is a renter and an owner.

The babies have watched Sesame Street and ate yogurt while in their bouncers, a moving target to feed so their face is always decorated. We are going to the beach after their naps, it is a few blocks away. We have learned a lot since our first trip to the beach with them. We drve to Reis Park in Brooklyn, it is next to Rockaway Beach. It is part of Gateway Natl’ Park, and voted the worst park in the United States. There are no facilities and it isn’t the cleanest. We got to the beach with babies and towels but no cover. So Tom decided to dig a hole, and make 2 piles of sand on either side, and drape a towel over it. It was so sunny and hot, the babies were crying and the sand was sticking to their sunscreen. A woman came over who was admiring the babies, she had a teenage daughter with her, so we figured she was a Mom too and out of despiration (I was nursing Marlowe to try and calm her)  and Tom handed Jack to her while he dug. The woman smiled and we could see a couple of gold teeth and she said that she was drunk. Tom put Jack in the trench (on a towel) and tried to get the other towel to drape over him, but using his flip-flop as a shovel, ended up getting sand all over him. Then we noticed a very, very disgusting smell. It smelled like sess. As if the port-a-john company had come to the beach and unloaded all of their stalls into the sand. We realized the smell was coming up from the sand in which Tom had just dug, the sand Jack was lying in. We were so freaked out, that we packed up everything and left, drove home and jumped in the shower with the babies. That was a lovely Brooklyn parenting moment. Tom refuses to call that the babies first trip to the beach.

Now we go prepared with a tent for them and an umbrella. And we do sunscreen before hitting the sand. We have it down to a science. When I was young, I would go to Island Beach State Park in Jersey with my parents. I remember my father with his white-white legs, and black socks up to his knees and his sandals on…with the green metal coleman cooler that must have weighed 80lbs. For a beach umbrella he took the giant one from our picnic table, the one with the fringe on it, and had to dig a hole to China to get it to stand up in the wind. Gone are the days whn you covered yourself in baby oil, we had an ozone layer then maybe), and the Seaside Hights boardwalk game where I won U2’s War record on the betting wheel. Those are better childhood memories than being handed to a crazy drunk lady and then put in a hole of sess.

This will be one of the last trips to the beach before summer is over. We want to visit Coney Island too, before they replace it with a Hollywood parity of itself. But we don’t go there for the beach. We go there for the Brooklyn flavor if it. For the corn on the cob slathered in payo and sprinkled with paprika, or the mangos on a stick sold by the Mexican families. For the greasy fries and Corona in a plastic cup on the boardwalk…or Dino’s wonderwheel, and the scrambler…. for $5 tickets to a Cyclones game where the breeze blows in from the ocean and where 3 guys dress as hot dogs have a race between an innings…for the teenage boys jumping in the ocean in their underwear because they can’t afford a bathing suit….for the weathered man walking back and forth with a metal detector all day…for the amazing aquarium and their sea horse exhibit…for the sounds of the Cyclone and screams of the passengers in the background all the time…for the Puerto Rican Girls holding their giant stuffed animals their boyfrind must have spent a fortune to win…to the crowd gathered around the boys breakdancing for change….

But here in NJ, I can’t complain. The ocean is beautiful, no matter what else is around it. And I am fortunate to be here although I miss my older daughter terribly. We are here for Tom’s father’s retirement party tonight. A 3 hour cruise on a paddle boat. He was a harbor pilot as well, and there are many generations of pilots being honored. I am a little stressed to leave the twins with the babysitters (we need two), but they will live. The worst that could happen is they cry the whole time and are given more bottles than I would want. Its hard to let go. But I have been going and going with them for days and need a break too. They are both sitting up now which makes it a little easier.

So off we go to pack up for the beach. We will put babies in snugglies on our front, beach chairs on our backs, umbrellas and beach bags in hand.

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