Quicksand

Is quicksand one word?   I'm not getting little red squiggles under it after I've typed, so I'm going with it.   Today was one of those "scream and then find the yes" days.    That's not a real name for a day, but it's the bad followed by good parenting process I'm working through as I am continually educated by my children.

It was a nice day after school so when we got home, we all piled out into the front yard and each did our own things.  I was working on school things, cutting up burlap for the auction (don't ask, it's a mess but I signed up for it.)   My husband was playing basketball with himself and my children were playing with toys, scooters, chalk and other safe childhood things like carrying around and dropping a huge rock on the pavement without shoes on.   (That would be my daughter—who still has all ten toes thankfully.)

Things got quiet and I got a lot of work done.   Then I realized, "things are quiet..."  I went around to the back yard to find my son naked, which was no surprise to me, holding the hose.    That's when I screamed, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"   He had pulled it across the yard to the play structure and was flooding the sand box—the sand box I'd been trying to get dry for almost a month now.   The sand had just gotten nice and dry and we'd been having fun doing things with it, only now it was a swampy sand pit.

My son stopped when I screamed and looked like he was in trouble (he was.)   And that's when I thought about it.    It's their sand box and if they want it sloppy and messy, then they can darn well play with wet sand.   I told him I had yelled but I'd thought about it and if that's what they wanted, then I was okay with a quicksand pool in our back yard.

We sprayed more water and they got filthy covered in sand.    Then they wanted to come in because they were cold.   Imagine my surprise when they didn't want to be sprayed off.   Imagine their dismay when I explained how we had to get the sand clumps out of their hair.  

We made it in eventually and hot showers were had by all.   They did have a good time, but I'm not sure they'll make quicksand again any time soon.

The Big Boy Update:  My son remembers things very clearly.   He wanted a lego the other day that was a space ship.   It was, "this big" he said as he showed me with his hands.   I went into the storage/attic area he's not allowed in and looked for the one he wanted.   I didn't find it, but I have total confidence that there was a specific one he wanted and I am even more confident my husband would also have known and been able to get it for I'm in a minute.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  While we were all outside this afternoon my daughter came running over with her hands cupped saying, "mom, look what I found!"  She carefully opened her hands and showed me a tiny black ant.   She treated it carefully and watched as it crawled over and around her hands.