The Sandbox

Now that Tex has more/less (sometimes less) eating sand, we spend many mornings and afternoons at the many parks around our home. Here in California, most parks are filled with white sand -- its like being at the beach! The Texas parks usually had a mulchy-type of bark filling which I thought could easily give you splinters and really didn't provide a soft landing. The few Boston-area parks we visited also had bark.

I love the sand. The entire park is one giant sandbox and many children leave their shoes behind as they race around and climb on the equipment. We haven't found any nasty surprises hidden in the sand outside of discarded bandaids and the occasional piece of unidentifiable plastic.

Peanut and Tex both have a good time digging, shoveling and rolling around in the sand. Most of the area parks are known to us by the animals that live there - Camel Park, Whale Park, Shark Park.

I do find it strange that many people bring their dogs to the parks and then let their young children take the leash and run the animals in the sand. Or force them up the equipment and down the slides. It worries me since you never know how dogs may react to the rowdy children and perhaps their younger owners can't control them. Maybe its just me - I'm not a big dog person.

At most parks there is always at least one little child who I think of as the California Wildchild. Its always a girl, barefoot, very tanned with long tussled hair and often in a cotton sundress - no matter what the weather. A parent is not easy to identify as the child races around freely, taking an uncommon approach to climbing, swinging or what else she's doing.