"I can hear it! I can really hear the ocean!" my 5-year-old granddaughter exclaimed, holding the seashell to her ear. Her eyes were wide with delight at this discovery. She had been holding the small shell that had formerly held a hermit crab and had found that fascinating enough. Then I told her to listen, and she was in wonder.
"How does the ocean get in there, Mimi?" she marveled.
"Well, you have to use your imagination a little," I told her, "but God made it so the air passing through it sounds like ocean waves." Actually, it was almost an indiscernable whisper to me, but with Anne-Marie's sensitive ears, she heard it plainly.
The next day, I heard a small voice say several times from the back seat, "The ocean is sure quiet today." She had the shell to her ear, but evidently it wasn't coming through loud and clear. Probably the traffic, I thought.
What a wonderful trip to the beach we had had with her cousins. She had frolicked in the waves, rode over them in a kayak with Uncle Greg, and played in the sand. At one point, the unmistakable musical tones of an ice cream truck drew everyone from the water like a magnet.
The ferry boat ride, the pelicans, running up and down the stairs of the beautiful beach house, and the hermit crabs poking their pointy claws out of sea shells would make indelible memories. When Maddie, 3, saw a black lighthouse in the distance, she exclaimed, "The Eiffel Tower!" They had just returned from France, but it couldn't have been more fun than their day at the beach! They had only to listen to the sea shells to remind them.
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