Sandbox: love it or hate it??

One of the great things about this overpriced and overtaxed house is the playground that was put in by the Younger's (previous owners whose name still graces the front door knock plate thingy). It's a rainbow or something- an expensive, big playground that has provided hours and hours of entertainment. The only improvement that needed to be made was with the sandbox. There was a tiny little sand table in the corner that was way too small and definitely not dirty enough. White sand? Never heard of it.

Curtis, being the amazing and sweet daddy that he is, cleaned out a spot in the playground and built me my DREAM SANDBOX. Actually this is the second one that he has created. It even has the cheap dirty sand that makes me feel so warm inside. The kind that gets dumped on the driveway and you have to move it yourself. That's what I'm talking about.


I love everything about the sandbox... except the sand that ends up in the house. It's so dirty and gritty that even after I sweep it I can still feel it when I walk around in the kitchen. I would usually just wipe it up but getting down to the floor level is no small task for me these days.

So I mostly love the sandbox with just a teeny bit of hate.

Sheldon and Sheldon 2

Curtis found a turtle a few weeks ago while he was mowing the lawn. Ethan named him Sheldon and he became our little pet (because that's all the pet I can handle right now). His box blew over two days later and Sheldon was gone (Curtis and I secretly shared a phew, now we don't have to worry about kids killing a turtle moment).

Lo and behold Sunday the guys went for a bike ride and came home with another Sheldon. He was a little bit smaller with the same markings on his shell, so we set up the box and the pool again and had fun watching Sheldon 2 swim around, eat strawberries, and try to escape. Things kinda went downhill from that point, because Tuesday Eli and Jonah got out of the house without me, and Eli took Sheldon to the sandbox. I had forgotten to take the recycling out, so I ran out of the house as I heard the truck coming down the street. Quickly assessing our garbage level I realized that the recycling couldn't wait another week so I grabbed the can and ran it out to the road (like a 3 mile hike). Little did I know as I was doing that Sheldon 2 was being MAIMED and TORTURED in the sandbox!! Poor Sheldon was squeezed inside his shell so tight, Jonah was carrying him around like a football, and who knows what else happened, because Sheldon 2 would not come out of his shell.

This is getting long, but after awhile I was convinced that Sheldon was dead. His back feet were kind of relaxing but he wouldn't respond to anything else. Ethan had school, and Eli had a birthday party, and I was sitting in the garage sobbing over this dead turtle. It was a emo prego moment. Turns out that Sheldon was playing dead, and he started to revive after awhile. We let him go that day, down by a nice little bog, but his head never really came out of his shell, so I hope that he's ok. Later that day Jonah said "Mom, sowwy for killing Sheldon."

Mansfield Park and beans

Eli is a big fan of chapter books. Even though he can't read yet, he is always dragging around some kind of thick book. Last week he took Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder outside and dropped it in a puddle. He came into the house carrying the book with the cover all torn off and soggy. I was said in my mom is disappointed voice "Eli, now that book is ruined! That makes me sad!" Well then he started to cry and said "It makes me really sad tooooo... (wail)." So of course I felt horrible and told him that it was ok and we would let it dry and tape it up. While it was drying he couldn't go somewhere without another chapter book. So he went into the office and found my copy of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. He carried that thing around for a week, even took it to church, and couldn't go to sleep until he had it in his bed.

Jonah also is going through a little fetish of his own involving beans. He told me on Tuesday that he wanted to have 'buwwitoes' for lunch, with beans. I didn't have time to make 'buwwitoes', and also didn't have any refried beans or black beans around. So I started digging through the pantry and found a can of kidney beans. He was so excited about eating beans that I opened up the can and heated them up for him in the microwave (knowing that he wasn't going to eat plain beans and they were going to end up getting tossed) . But, to my surprise he ate the spoonful that I put in front of him and kept asking for more. He probably ate 3/4 of that can of beans all by his almost 3-year-old self.