Fly By Night Sandbox
May 23, 2012 
Weekend before last, Mr. Blue Eyes commented that we need a sandbox, and before I knew it, he asked his dad if he would go pick up a load of sand for us at the local gravel pit, which he graciously did. That same evening, we scavenged some lumber from the shed that blew down last year, thinking we would use it for the sandbox. However, upon close inspection, we found that it was warped and just pretty shoddy looking, so at about 7:30 p.m., Mr. Blue Eyes and the kids quickly shoveled the sand out of our pick-up box...
...and by 7:45 p.m., we headed into town to pick up some landscape timbers from the store that was closing at 8 p.m..
Yes, Little Blue Eyes is playing with a logging chain. Don't your kids play with logging chains?
By the time we got back home, I was ready to go slip into my p.j.'s, curl up with a good magazine and sip some chamomile tea before sneaking off to sleepy land. Mr. Blue Eyes, God love him, was determined to get the sandbox pounded out, so I found myself instead lining up the timbers in an orderly fashion, and having a hammer swung with force uncomfortably close to my person.
Tea. Hammer pounding.
Tomayto. Tomahhhto.
Truth be told, I was pretty excited to get it done too. The landscape timbers were 8' long, so we just decided to make the box 8'x8', which made it go pretty quickly. I have come to the conclusion, in case anyone wants to know, that most sandboxes are made way too small. At 8'x8', ours can fit four or five kids pretty comfortably, and in my opinion, kids need room to play, scoop and dig, man! We chose a nice shady spot next to our swing set, and at some point we will probably fashion some sort of cover for it, to keep our cats (who we are still transitioning into being 'outdoor girls') from using it as their litter box.
Miss Peaches had fun working on the project, and played in the sandbox a bit, but overall it didn't hold her attention for long.
Little Blue Eyes, on the other hand, was completely enthralled and I'm fairly sure he'll spend most of the summer in that thing. Little boys (and big boys, for that matter) and dirt... It's like moths to a flame.
Mr. Blue Eyes, Slice of Life, The Kids
Reader Comments (3)
the sand box looks great! i was just commenting at our home, that our sandbox has gotten weedy. one should never have to "weed" the sandbox! i may have to rent some little boys to play in ours. my girls love to swing, and sometimes will drag out the garden hose to make pies and cakes in the sandbox, but they just don't play with the trucks and such like my boys did when they were little.
Lucky kids to have such a determined daddy!
Looks like some summer fun.
Laura, this will be one of your best "investments" I cannot even count the hrs the boys spent in ours... I agree a large sandbox is the best... needs to be large enough to hold the roads that get built!