Now that I've been doing the SAHM for almost a full year, I'm enjoying the fact that we can add amenities to our backyard guilt-free due to all the time we spend at home. This is definitely one of those things I thought to myself pre-children and even early on post-children that I just wouldn't do. I mean why would you want to have your kids play in a sandbox where they can get sand in every nook and cranny so you can later enjoy hours of cleaning them, their clothes, and everywhere they've tracked the sand into. Not to mention, what kind of yucky things could be lurking in the sand. Pretty much, anything that would make children messy, I was vehemently against.
Fast forward to now, things are a little more like this --get things for children that will entertain them and keep them happy for significant, prolonged periods of time in the comfort of my own home so that I may have moments of peace, sanity and contentment. Plus, cleaning sand out of Marcelo's nooks and crannys would still be better than cleaning dirt and small rocks out of his butt crack when he starts playing in the flower beds with his shovel. I needed something better than dirt where I could allow him to dig. I was getting sick of the sound of my own voice constantly yelling, "Marcelo, get OUT of the dirt."
We got lucky with this
KSL classifieds find, a used sandbox that matches our play set with a new cover. After a few days and one long Sunday of annoying sanding, we turned the gray weathered cedar into almost new again. The fact that it had a fitted cover was essential as we did not want any of the afore mentioned yucky things ending up in the sand. After researching how to find safe sand without free crystalline silica dust, Ray was all up in arms for a couple of weeks when he thought I was going to have
clean natural beach sand shipped to me from California. I won't lie, I did consider it momentarily. After all, you can't put a price on the safety of our children, can you. Besides, I couldn't very well sit there basking in the sun full of peace, sanity, and contentment while I subject my children to playing with silica in their lungs and eventual emphysema.
I eventually found some white washed sand at a local query. We screened out some little rocks, dumped it in and sprayed it down to keep it moist and non-dusty. I was quite pleased with it. I've even played in it myself, but only while Godzuki was taking a nap because I didn't want him to knock down my castles. Oh, and the kids love it too. They've been spending quite a lot of time playing in it. Marcelo is still dealing with the sandbox rules: 1) Do not throw sand out of the box, 2) Do not throw sand period. I know rules, rules, there's so many!
Sometimes I feel like I'm going against not only my vow to never allow my kids to do anything messy, but also to not get them anything that was very fun as to prevent them from getting spoiled. So far none of these plans for child rearing are working out very well.
