Water water everywhere

For many years B.A. (before Ashton), Jason and I frequently passed by the Beaver Brook Reservation Spray Deck just down the road. It's a combination playground/picnic area/cool off zone for all the annoying kids within a 5 mile radius. They run around shrieking and screaming. They get hopped up on the sugar from the popsicles their parents buy them at the ice cream truck. They spray totally innocent bystanders with Spongebob water guns. And then they wail when their exhausted moms and dads drag them out by their sticky, damp little hands. In general, a non-parent's worst nightmare. It looks like this:

Kudos to the ones that know they're in for a long afternoon and bring their own chairs. Anyway, this past Sunday, for the first time ever...we joined them. It was a beautiful day, we packed our lunch, and Grandma, Grandpa, Jason, Ashton and I took a walk down there to check it out. Ashton's expression as we arrived on scene:

As you can clearly see, he's spellbound by the little girls in their ruffly bathing suits. When he came to his senses, he was a bit cross with me for making him wear such a dopey sunhat. I wanted to tell him he had bigger problems (hellooo, shrinkage) but didn't want to discourage him from going in the water in case he hadn't thought of that.

With Dad's help, getting the lay of the land:

He didn't actually look that relieved when we told him there were no sharks.

But, in he went. Talk about putting Shrimps class to good use! That water must have been nearly a quarter of an inch deep ;)

He had me take a few headshots just in case Baywatch calls:

Why would he waste such rugged good looks on eTrade?

After that, it was total amateur hour. On my part, not his. First of all, I didn't think he'd get that wet. I honestly anticipated dipping his toes in and that's it, which is why he had a tshirt on and not a rash guard, and a standard diaper vs. a swimmie. He didn't have proper sunscreen, and I had to dry him off in a baby blanket because I hadn't brought a real towel.

I'm smiling because I hadn't figured out what Ashton already knew: horror upon horrors, I didn't have a change of clothes for him! I did have a dry diaper so that's basically all he wore home. He's like, "Great, thanks Mom."

I bought him a Bomb Pop from the ice cream truck to try and make amends for my lack of foresight. No dice. He was still in his skivvies saying goodbye to Grandma thirty minutes later.

Ashton barely spoke to me the rest of the day. I'll never live this down. Looks like I'm going to have to take notes from the other parents at the spray deck. Perhaps a Spongebob water gun is in my future after all. Whoever said bribery will get you nowhere, we'll see about that!