Here in the sand, nothing goes as planned

Although this picture makes it look easy and fun, my little guy had to be big enough and strong enough to get in and out of our own turtle sandbox on his own. Ours is harder, because it's purple not green. Well okay, it's a bit bigger. And "Sand not included" is in fact a big warning."

We had about half a bag of sand from our previous failed attempt at sandbox before my son was born. The failure involved no cover and cats. The reader can guess why.

This weekend, we put sand in the purple turtle sandbox. Both my kids immediately climbed inside and started playing. Never mind they kept scraping the bottom of the sandbox. We had a hard time persuading them to leave to get more sand. No sand in the two stores we went to.

Over the next two days, I called several stores. "Not the right season" they tell me. Why do stores around here act like the bay area has seasons?

Finally after waiting on hold for 10 minutes, Home Despot says "We have play sand. Lots of it." as every store should have sand. Of course they should. I call my husband and tell him. He says "it's not exactly on my way home." I tell him my travails. So he buys two bags of sand and puts it in the sandbox.

We have more sand, and it now covers the entire bottom, but it's still not quite enough sand for true digging. My daughter shows little interest in deep digging. She's all about making me "ice cream." For my son and his big plastic digger, it's only a matter of time before he's scraping the bottom again.

It's a strange metaphor for my life. Getting more sand seems like it should be so easy, but it becomes strangely hard. However, my kids seem satisfied with whatever sand we already have. Both kids play in the sandbox every day.