Patience, Poopy Diapers and Trips to the Beach

So I took the kids to the beach today. I know it sounds ridiculous but it's too freaking hot to go to the beach. Yeah, that does sound kind of retarded. But that's because you guys probably DRIVE to the beach and get to lie around on a clean sand and NOT have to decide whether to plop down in the sand near the tracks of the rented 4-wheelers that these idiot tourists rent for their NINE YEAR OLDS to drive up and down the coastline or next to the family on vacation from Cairo who whip their baby's poopy diaper off and toss absently over their shoulder landing with a splat on your germophobic son's flip-flop! (And yeah, I know that the date on the photo above is wrong but that's because I couldn't get any good shots today with all the tourists in the way. But those are my kids last month at the same beach.)

I'm not a patient person by nature. Being a parent has sort of forced patience upon me. I have learned to ignore the disrespectful stares and rude remarks of people who don't know or care to understand dealing with an autistic child who has had too much change or sensory overload in public. I can hold my tongue and keep my hands to myself when dealing with multiple levels of stupid even though it is taking every fiber of my being to not stab repeatedly with whatever object is handy. And I've yet to act upon my fantasies of driving my kids out to the desert and dumping them there with a 2-liter bottle of water and a road map when they are fighting and tattling to the point that my blood pressure is within the optimal range for a full blown stroke. I've come a long way.

But the heat and humidity of Alexandria mixed with the morons that visit it in the summer and trash our beaches and then have the audacity to criticize how filthy they are, is sometimes more than I can handle.

But I finally gave in after five days of whining, crying, deal-making and cajoling by my kids. Ismail, Randa, Samiya and Aiman swam and played and watched an old man get rescued from drowning in 4 feet of water(?) while Mohamed drew new stories in his comic book and I talked to him with both eyes staring out at the sea counting to four repeatedly. After an hour and a half, I noticed the sun starting to set and I called them in, handed out sweatshirts, dumped out baby powder to rub on their feet to get the sand off and then we packed it up and headed home. I'm just excited that I've got two of the five knocked out asleep on the couch!

Maybe we'll bring a large trash bag next time and be good citizens and hope that the Cairenes learn from our example.