View At The Beach

Today, I went to the rocky beach to photograph YoungestBoy while he was on his kindergarten field trip. I purposely arrived a bit late and left a little early because I did not want to be mistaken as a chaperone. I only wanted the pictures. Perhaps this makes me a bad mother. But at least I didn’t moon anyone.

I photographed the children listening (or not listening) as the Beach Ranger talked to them about the moon snail’s appetite for clams and about how the periwinkle snail has a trap door and how you should be gentle with the tiny crabs when you put them back down. I photographed YoungestBoy’s back and his face and his profile and the little group of children as they huddled around studying a sea creature.

Butt (and I do mean butt), there is one picture I did not take that I now regret.

Right in front of me, a chaperone mom squatted down to investigate a tidal pool. Revealed to me in excruciating detail was her tatt00, which I can’t actually describe because I was overly distracted by the border around the tatt00.

Let me just say that stretch marks and a butt crack do not make the most attractive setting for a large blackish green lower-back tatt00.

I can only hope that this permanent artwork is a relic of a younger era, a brief moment of insanity that didn’t anticipate the pudge of motherhood and middle-age. Otherwise, I have to seriously wonder at the sanity of anyone who would draw attention to their butt loaf* cleavage by such a hideous skin mural. (*Term courtesy of my children.)

Please. Mothers of the world. Do not expose your backside while on kindergarten field trips. Even if you have a killer tatt00 on your lower back. Especially if you have a killer tatt00 on your lower back. No one needs to be seeing that.