Brighton Beach

We've got this board book called "Good Morning New York" kicking around here and on one of the pages they go to Coney Island. This morning Rosie was looking at it and she started talking about going to the beach and kicking in the water (specifically she said "Beach. Kick. Yes."), which seemed kind of remarkable since the last time we went to the beach was on vacation in February. So later on Jason suggested going there -- a fabulous idea since it was one of those Indian summer enjoy-it-while-it-lasts days. We drove out to Brighton Beach. (Coney Island stayed so near yet so far. We could see the Parachute Jump and all the rest just down the boardwalk, we never made it all the way down there.)

It was kind of late in the afternoon so I didn't bother with a bathing suit for her, which in retrospect was kind of silly since 1 1/2 year old + 1 ocean = sandy wet 1 1/2 year old, no matter what time of day it is.

R and J joined by classic eastern seaboard beach-goers: a guy and his metal detector and (too far in the background to really see here) a bathing beauty wearing a hot pink bathing cap.

Much splashing, still looking pretty dry:

We ended the day at Cafe Glechik, a Russian-Ukranian place on Coney Island Ave that has really good dumplings. A New York Times review described the potato ones as being "as light as carbs stuffed into carbs drenched in melted fat can be." Rosie preferred the pickle platter, which had cucumber pickles but also something more exotic: pickled watermelon.