Sand-er

On Saturday, Xander made his first trip to the beach -- Easton's Beach in Newport to be exact. Xander had made a seafaring trip before, but he had not yet been to the beach. In short, he loved it.

Mom and dad met their friends Nicole and Mike, and Xander's good friend Jonah there on Saturday morning. Mom, dad and Xan got there first, and learned quickly that it would be a good day on the beach. After renting an umbrella, they plopped Xan down on the sand so they could set up the umbrella and their various other beach belongings, and before they gear was out of their hands, Xander had taken off like a bat out of hell for the water. He got about two-thirds of the way there before he realized no one was following him, and he stopped and came back, with a big grin painted on his mug. From there, he played in the sand and waited patiently for his turn in the water.

That came about an hour and a half into the day, as both dad's took their boys into the surf. After splashing for a few minutes, Jonah and Mike headed back to the beach, while Xan and dad stayed out in the water. Easton's Beach is rated as a very kid-friendly beach, and one of the reasons is that the land at the edge of the water does not slope at all. In fact, dad could walk a good hundred yards out into the ocean before getting chest-deep. So, out Xan and dad ventured. They splashed in the waves, and dad explained some of the things that were around them, such as the copious amounts of red seaweed populating the beach. Once they were out far enough that they could see waves forming, dad would point out each incoming wave to Xander.

At first, it didn't seem like Xander liked this too much, as he kept methodically pointing back to the ocean. But just as dad was about to take him back to land, he noticed that Xander was smiling and laughing. Watching closer, he realized that Xander was not pointing at the land, but in fact was pointing at the waves as they passed by the pair and crashed their way towards land. So they stood in the ocean, tracking waves for a few more minutes before heading back in.

In or out of the water, Xander was having a grand old time. He started to get sleepy, but unlike Jonah, he refused to take a nap. Dad even took him on a long beach walk, but there was simply no sleep in the forecast. Xander has always loved sandboxes, and the beach is a giant sandbox, so he was enthralled.

After lunch at the snack bar, the group headed over to the beach's exploration center, which was essentially a low-grade aquarium. There were tanks with turtles, jellyfish, a blue lobster and other assorted aquatic creatures, but what Xander and Jonah really liked was the story time area, which was filled with books and stuffed animals. The pair got nearly hysterical laughing and playing with the stuffed animals. Xander would pick up a stuffed squid, dolphin or fish and hand it to Jonah, who would give it to his mom or toss it on the ground or give it back to Xander. They carried on with this little game for nearly 10 minutes before finally losing steam.

At that point, Xander was finally gearing down for a nap, so mom, dad and Xan took leave of Nicole, Mike and Jonah, and headed home. Xander slept nearly the entire way back -- he woke up in Providence when mom stopped to get her favorite pizza at Antonio's on Thayer St. -- but he was so worn out from the beach that he not only slept in the car, but slept through the night for the first time in a week. He is a beach bum in the making, a real...Sand-er.