To Tobay......or To Bay? The Beach!

I live on Long Island, and being from here you encounter many off named towns and such.  I live in Massapequa Park.....can you say that,  a village inside the Town of Oyster Bay.    Its a native American Group I'm told. We rent, I could never afford to buy here, but honestly, I would stay in this apartment forever if It meant I could stay in Massapequa Park.  In regards to the funny names, I live a few towns over west is Wantagh and to the east Copaige , Setauket, Ronkonkoma and some other names you can only pronounce correctly if you live here.  Which brings me to Tobay.

Tobay is a small beach directly south of our house, which takes forever to get to because you have to drive west, then south and then east because that is the only route.  It has 2 restaurants a spray park, access to both the bay and the Atlantic Ocean and tons of Little fish and crabs for kids to collect.   Its actually about a Mile from Gilgo beach.....you know the one where they found 10 dead bodies, mostly prostitutes.....splendid.  Hasn't seemed to effect anything, still don't know who killed them all.  I asked my husband this morning if he thinks Tobay got the name because someone messed up a sign and it meant to say "TO Bay".....considering its a BAY beach this can be the only answer.  I don't think there was a native American tribe called the TOBAYS. 

We got to Tobay Beach at 9:30 am, tide was out beach was empty....PERFECT!  We had brunch, which was basically just wraps from 7-11 and the kids got ready to run around.  Now this time last year my son was still scared of sand and not big into water.  He would tip toe on the sand and either cry or whine the entire time.  He would only sit in the water if he was on top of me........pardon my physical appearance in this picture I was about 7 months pregnant :)  But yea, he would sit on me like that and make me dig, make me do everything.

 

Fast Forward a year and my child is dumping sand on his own head.....as well as his sisters.  He is also running full force into the bay.  Today he went out so far that i had to get my husband in the water to go get him because he wouldn't listen to us and get his butt back to shallower water.  I mean honestly the water does not get very deep but i had visions of him tripping.  I can only think that making him touch weird things and making him walk on sand and grass etc. payed off.  At the time it seemed harsh to make him uncomfortable, but to see how happy he is now, its all worth it.