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“I want noodles,” Ellie said when we got in the line at the snack bar.
“They don’t have noodles, sweetie, but they have hot dogs and hamburgers and cheeseburgers,” I told her, and she didn’t seem pleased.
“What about a grilled cheese?” Alivia said.
“Okay,” Ellie agreed, even though you could tell it wasn’t her first choice.
“Ouce cream,” Grace said, pointing at the picture on the sign.
“We’ll get ice cream after. Let’s have some lunch first, okay?” Alivia said, bouncing Grace in her arms, making Grace giggle.
She was amazing with them. Anytime they fought or whined, she seemed to know exactly what to say to defuse the situation and make the kids happy. Her people-managing skills were on full display.
We took over a picnic table in the shade and I took on the task of getting Ellie to eat her sandwich by cutting it up in smaller pieces that she speared on her fork. Whatever worked.
I kept feeling Alivia watching me, but when I looked up, she would stop.
We got the kids through lunch with promises of ice cream, and we delivered, taking everything back to our spot on the sand.
“Have you ever caught crabs before?” I asked Alex and Tucker.
“No,” they said.
“Well, you can’t leave Castleton without having each caught one crab.”
I looked at Alivia and she smiled as she wiped Grace’s ice-cream covered face and hands.
“Can you show us?” Alex asked.
“Absolutely.”
The six of us headed to the opposite end of the beach, which was studded with seaweed covered rocks and tide pools teaming with ocean life.
The littlest two were entranced by looking for creatures in the tide pools, so Alivia took them while I showed the boys how to look under the curtains of seaweed to find the little green rock crabs that called the nooks and caves of the rocks home.
“I don’t want it to pinch me!” Tucker said, cringing back.
“That’s okay, you don’t have to take the crab from their home. But if you ever need to pick up a crab, you do it like this.” I showed them how to gently pinch the back of the crab between two fingers so that the claws couldn’t get you.
“And look, there are hermit crabs too,” I said. The boys went wild for the hermit crabs, letting them climb all over their hands.
The girls wanted to see them too, so we put hermit crabs on the sand and had little races, which was so fun to watch.
Grace started falling asleep, so we took everyone back to the towels, even though the boys protested.
Ellie curled up next to me and her eyes closed as well, and Alex and Tucker went back to digging a huge hole and racing through the waves.
“I wish I had boogie boards for them, but I completely forgot about it,” Alivia said, stroking Grace’s hair.
“I think they’re having a good time without them,” I said.
“I hope so. I wish I could see them more often,” she said.
“They’re pretty great kids,” I said.
“Thank you for coming with me today. You really didn’t have to do this,” she said.
I glanced down at a sleeping Ellie, thumb in her mouth. “I wanted to. I like spending time with you, no matter what we’re doing,” Oops. That was probably a little too much. I still hadn’t found the right time or way to tell her that I wanted to try having a relationship.
