Family Gathering 2019
(Maya, Quincy and Tucker.)
Grandpa built our sandbox sixteen years ago. He has refreshed it with new sand now and then but the same shade cloth is overhead and a nice big bamboo blind slides down easily to block the afternoon sun.
There are plenty of buckets and shovels
and trucks and huge, thrifted dinosaurs.
As the children have continued to grow, it can be tricky to put too many in the sandbox at the same time. Children have little respect for other people’s creations. However, three or four kids at a time is just right.
The sandbox is big and square.
There is a steady line at the hose.
Water, poured into sand makes this.
Yes, mud.
I don’t care at all about the mud as long as it stays in the yard at the end of the day. All of the kids are old enough to understand this and to squirt their mud off when they have had enough or when they are starting to get itchy.
I have long maintained that a sandbox, especially with the benefit of water, is very relaxing for children. Under age two, children throw sand in their cousins’ faces. Not so any more. If sand gets into anyone’s eyes, it is truly an accident.
That is what they children tell me.
(Henry)
When the kids are finished playing for the day,
Grandpa puts a blue tarp over the sand.
That is because after dark,
our yard is a thoroughfare for cats
and you know what that means.
This is just a little afterthought about sand boxes.