*You’re okay,* I said in my head.  *Just a little dehydrated, you aren’t that bad off yet.* The nausea spun around in my stomach, like a wave coming and going.  The sand in the dunes was hot on my feet, but not burning like in the summer.  Little footprints, big footprints, and dog prints were following us.  Slowly, slowly, slowly toward civilization again.  

There are so many ways to be ill.  Seawater up the nose.  Sandspur in the toes.  Salt in a wound.  A mouth parched.  A toddler’s pinch.  A shoulder jerked out of whack by an overzealous dog on the trail of a good sniff… 

![IMG_20181018_141637.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRZcNk8ukgrdBDNd3LTrtbcGFNLyCJFTNArQGKeznzA1G/IMG_20181018_141637.jpg)

This morning we were down the road, over the dunes, across the beach, dog and children in tow.  Old Man Dog enjoys spending his entire beach trip trying to decide on the ideal place to poop.  You can see him turning it over in his head: *No, too close to the other dog poop—unoriginal.  No, too smelly of fish – no one would appreciate it properly.  No, too off to the side—no dog would notice it.  No, too close to the water—it might get washed away.*  He starts to squat; changes his mind.  Jerk to the left, jerk to the right.  “You’re okay dog, just poop,” I say.  Instead, there is a sprinkle of urine here, sprinkle of urine there.

![IMG_20181018_154255.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYxpLBfMtidpduS2qzT7zYxVwYgbR2hqVM2MbMAE4HQo2/IMG_20181018_154255.jpg)

We hit the water.  (Old Man Dog was forced to give up the search for the time being.) The boy sailed his boat on the gentle waves of a low-tide morning.  Coming and going.  Then came the complaints.  “My leg hurts.” The scratch on the boy’s leg was newly filled with salt water.  Then toddler tears, “Water in my eye!”  The salt was already drying in my hair, stiffening it up to be held firmly in a ponytail.  “You’re okay.  You’re all okay.  It will pass.”

![IMG_20181018_154344.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSNEJCS32XNGQGrHSUJAdzo7F9TxWJA1KZu2JSSy6Soqc/IMG_20181018_154344.jpg)

Then the hike down the beach, slowly, slowly, slowly, with Old Man on the search again, the tot trotting adorably but inching along like a crab, the boy stopping every few feet to pick up a foreign object of ocean origins.  I felt like I was traveling across the state by covered wagon—slowly, slowly, slowly, with almost all of my precious things with me. We made it to the park.  Everyone was rehydrated, except me.  I forgot.  It is a strange phenomenon of motherhood—mothers actually *forget* to take care of themselves.  I wonder how many women get cancer in their fifties, having *forgotten* to take care of themselves while spending twenty years raising children.  In retrospect I’m sure those mothers would make an effort to *remember*, but still would choose to be mothers. 

![IMG_20181018_154500.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmPhY52cci5quxcdYiq9CV7auFSk516kVMDCiW1dYTDma7/IMG_20181018_154500.jpg)

There was play, there was happiness, there was wild antics, and then we left to trudge back.  We left, and we left the boy’s boat too.  We were halfway across the state in our covered wagon, my skin baking in the noontime sun, trudging slowly, slowly, slowly when—

“Mom!  Where’s my boat?” There were tears of genuine five-year-old distress.  

“You’re okay.  We’ll get the boat.”  *Giddy up, oxen!  Let’s turn this wagon around!*  Slowly, slowly, slowly…

It was kismet for meeting the greatest litter of my life.  We wondered across a stock pile of plastic McDonald’s sundae cups, lids, and spoons in the sand, begging to be put in the proper receptacle.  It seemed an entire family of litter bugs abandoned them for someone to pick up well after they had turned to a rancid smell.  They also left a wilted sunflower, like some sort of consolation prize for the good Samaritan that cleaned it up.  For the children, the flower was a good distraction that made everything okay.  

![IMG_20181018_154422.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmboEazt3CJngPaUmg2pVZzcHYtdU6Tqm3MqfUfgRBquTH/IMG_20181018_154422.jpg)

We found the boat.  And somehow or another, at a snail’s pace, we made it back across the beach, and onto the dunes, back where we started, kids and dog in tow along with a slew of rancid plastic cups.

*You’re okay,* I said in my head.  *Just a little dehydrated, you aren’t that bad off yet.*