A tradition inspired by the toughest of times

My grandmother passed away last week and the entire family travelled home to Northern California to say goodbye. It was truly wonderful to see everyone, but it is unfortunate that it took such a tragedy to get the Solomon diaspora together.  I don’t believe we’ve had all 6 cousins together in one place before – and it was nice to hang out just us “kids” for the first time.  We had a family reunion in Santa Monica while I was in college, but as the cousins have 18 year age spread, I don’t believe my youngest cousin Russell was born when we all gathered.   We spent our days in the Bay Area together reminiscing about my grandmother and the 62 years of marriage she and my grandfather shared, and I realized that it was a shame to save such an outpouring of love and story-telling for after a loved one died. 

My family tries to have a weekly “special” dinner.  We often do this on Shabbat, and gather our family (and very often friends as well) for a sit-down, traditional dinner.  Our kids are young, and we created this tradition with the intent to make sure that we sit down as a family for at least one uninterrupted meal together as our lives grow even more hectic.  I want to add to this tradition, and also include the story-telling, complimenting, and story-telling that was shared at my grandmother’s funeral and Shiva. While it is a lovely thing for a family to gather to offer comfort and celebrate a life that has passed, I want to instill in my family a tradition of celebrating one another in all stages of living.

Beach photo session

The family spent the weekend at the beach last week.  As frequent Quality Time Mom readers already know, our boys wake up between 6 and 6:30.  We actually look forward to our kids’ internal clocks announcing dawn when we want to have a beach photo session.  The morning light is absolutely amazing.  We took advantage of a recent Children’s Place clothing sale to outfit our boys in complementary white and blue shirts (so the photos would look “intentional” without being too matchy-matchy).  We often buy white shirts for our frequent beach photo shoots, and this time Elijah was the recipient of the mostly white polo shirt.  The early light reflects beautifully off white apparel and gives the wearer a clean glow. 

We packed Zach, Elijah and their cousin Madelyn up in the wagon and walked the ¼ mile to the beach.  Mom brought a beach pail to collect treasures for a future art project, her coffee and the kids’ water bottle and we were set! 

Mike got some amazing shots with the kids walking up and down stairs.  He took these shots running backwards in front of the kids as they stormed the beach.  Somehow, our little one took the lead and these shots turned out best, because when Elijah tailed the big kids, he got lost in the pictures.

Here they come! Mike is running backwards in front of the kids for this shot.

The little one looks even smaller in the back.  But I like the composition of this shot Mike took.

Rather than pay $100+ for a professional shoot, we took advantage of our early rising to start off our day in the most amazing way.  These pictures are going to go on display in our apartment so we can have a little bit of summer all year ‘round.

Some of my other favorite shots from our beach shoot

Mom was there prepping for a future craft project (collecting treasures), with a back-up camera, and with her coffee (hey - we got up and out at 6 am!)

Swimming with a 4-year-old in the Bay

I’ve written a number of blog posts about my family’s time at the beach.  This weekend, I took Zach out for his first solo Bay Swim.  The playground is amazing.  There is a kiddie pool that is under 2 feet deep, staffed with a life guard and complete with bath toys swirling around in the water.  Zach and I headed for the Bay – and again, the playground does this in style.  There are wide steps with handrails leading down into the water.  There are 2 life guards, life vests in a variety of sizes, and assorted swimming “noodle” floats.  The life guarded area is blocked off and culminates in a float about 10 yards away with 2 ladders for easy access.

We found a life vest for Zach, armed him with a swimming noodle, and he was off!  The dual floatation support gave Zach the confidence to go back and forth from the stairs to the float a number of times.    He loved bouncing in the small waves that came our way in the wake of the speedboats.  We lay on the float and bounced on the water as the boats would go by.  Zach learned to close his mouth when the waves came (the hard way, after getting a face-full of splash!) and didn’t let the surprise scare him. 

We’re going back next week and will definitely head to the bay again for some one on one time.