No! That's Not the Point I Was Trying to Make

We had a fun but extremely tiring day today. We went to the beach to see ME and her brood. She has a really nice condo on the beach with multiple bathrooms, which makes it Shangri-La for MJ. LMJ had a bit of a rough moment that I wound up taking the worst of. As she approaches two my wisdom is plummeting in her esteem. It was very windy and a little bit chilly on the beach, so we eased into the ocean. I wasn’t really pumped this morning about the beach, so in my negativity I didn’t dress properly. I dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers with socks. No big deal I took off my shoes and I had no plans of going swimming. I wound up walking LMJ down to the water to get our feet wet when she decided that she didn’t need to hold my hand. I gave her an inch, she took a mile, and in the infinite perfection that is the universe, Mother Nature knocked my baby girl on her ass. We were in maybe six inches of water, and I was less than a foot away from her, so she wasn’t in danger of being swept away. However, it did give LMJ the second big fright of the morning. The first was when she was in our study and the printer started. It scared her so badly she started to scream, which scared us until we figured what had happened. Then it became funny. LMJ didn’t think it was funny. After the Atlantic said, “Listen to your father!” in its domineering voice I picked up my frightened little girl, who was cold and wet, which meant I was now cold and wet. She was in a swimsuit, however. I was just shivering. She cried a bit. She had some animal crackers, and then she was back at it. She filed the fact that the ocean could knock her over in the back of her mind and went on running around and scaring the crap out of me for another forty-five minutes. She completely missed the lesson she was supposed to learn, which was that she should listen to her daddy when he tells her stuff. She never seems to get that message. I don’t know if I should stop expecting her to learn it, or if I should start carrying flip charts so I can better diagram it.