Arby, Nitch 'n Late: When Vata leads

I am a Vata personality. In ayurveda there are three doshas (or energies) that govern the body. Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. I am a vata-- impulsive, spontaneous. Either I'm a vata dominant with kapha/pitta qualities, or I'm a pitta with a serious vata imbalance. Either way, right now I have a lot of vata running through me.

Last monday we were going out for groceries, and somehow we ended up at the beach :) I tend to do that--- head out toward one destination and then decide upon a different one. Or I'll just decide that today looks like a great day to go do _________, and we go and do.

Lauren far left, Kate in middle, Nicholas squatting near the shadows of the rocks.

It was kind of awesome. Sometimes these vata impulses turn out horribly, terribly wrong. (I was going to put down an example, but I can't remember a single one. I KNOW they happened...I remember the feeling of, "What was I thinking?!?" as I listen to three screaming, starving, tired children in the back of my van. But I can't remember any details! Perhaps that's why I keep doing it.) Thankfully, this one was actually pretty fun.

The kids LOVED running around the loooooong stretches of beach, climbing on the rocks, eating sand, feeling the sand squish between their toes and fingers, and making friends.

Oh, and running around naked. Did I forget to mention that?

He started out fully clothed:

But then the pants came off:

And finally the underwear. There were other people on the beach, but they were so few and far between, I figured a naked three year old would probably go unnoticed. That picture of him is actually him peeing into the ocean, I think. All of a sudden he said, "I gotta go!" and ran toward the ocean, freeing his bladder along the way. I gotta say, running around pant-less all the time would be really nice as a preschool boy. No more toilet struggles, just go when you want to. I guess that's why dogs don't wear pants.

The only problem to going pant-less was when two other grade school aged girls (I'm guessing K or 1st grade) started climbing on the rocks. He immediately ran over, excitedly, and said, "HI! Hi, guys! Hi, friends! Mom, look at my friends!" They started pointing and giggling, and saying, "He doesn't have any pants on!" So the next time he came down to tell me about his new friends, I told him we needed to put his underwear back on. After that, they continued to point and laugh and say, "He's wearing UNDERWEAR!!" But Nicholas seemed oblivious to the fact that they were teasing him, and pretty soon they stopped. Then their brothers came over, and they started in again, "Hey guys! GUYS!! Guess what! He's wearing UNDERWEAR!" The boys looked over at Nicholas, shrugged their shoulders and said, "Hey, I think that's a cave!" And then all the boys, Nicholas included ran toward a little hole in the rocks while the girls still stood there laughing and teasing.

It made me smile. Oh the differences between boys and girls. :) I was a little worried when they first started in on him that Nicholas would get sad or start crying (he's really quite sensitive to stuff like that). But he couldn't really get why it was such a big deal to them--- he was impatient, if anything, that they wouldn't stop talking about his underwear when there were so many cool rocks around. He kept trying to show them, "Hey guys, look at this!!" But they just wanted to giggle and point.

The girls loved the sand, but I could NOT stop Kate from eating it. Not just tasting it (like Lauren did), but full on eating it. By the handful, in the mouth, down the gullet. I let her eat it at first thinking that after a few handfuls she'd learn that it wasn't delicious and stop on her own. Pretty soon she was shoving down her fourth or fifth handful, and I started to get nervous that it would mess up her insides, or clog her intestines, or cause her to get dehydrated or something. Is it possible for toddlers to suffer from Pica?! So I spent the rest of the time trying to keep her from downing any more sand. Stinker. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I can't remember which one was tasting and which one was eating it by the handful. I'm getting mixed memories. Maybe they were both eating it?

OH wait... it just runs in the family.