Lessons Learned: Thoughts on Sand & Water Tables

I caved. I've gone NINE years without a sandbox. And then, a few weeks ago while in Charlotte, my BFF, Mandie, convinced me I needed a sand/water table. I pushed back saying that they always looked like muddy, dirty messes...

"Just put sand in it," she said.

"Don't add any water," she said.

"It'll stay clean that way," she said.

"My girls play in it for hours," she said.

Hours of outdoor entertainment so I could feel less guilty about my time on the computer sounded like a good deal to me... and no mess? I could probably get on board. Just don't add the water to the sand and water table. Brilliant. I could handle that.

To Amazon Prime I went. Two days later, I had a brand new sand and water table delivered to my door. Just in time for my nephew's visit, too! Woot woot!

Olly and Hank LOVED it. Chuck rather liked it too. They played and played... pushing cars through it, filling tiny buckets and dumping them into "mountains", and burying their hands.

And then it happened. Exactly what I knew would happen. The tiny buckets of sand started being dumped on the porch. And then down over the deck. And then it became VERY funny when we told them no and they did it more sneakily (which, then, we found hilarious - stinkers). And then it started tracking inside the house on the bottoms of little feet...

I'm not a total neat freak so everything seemed alright at this point. A round of sweeping was well worth their happiness. We were outside after all. And they're boys. Boys need messes.

"I'm a good mom," I told myself. "If cleaning up is all I have to do, then let them make a little bit of a mess. No worries here." Can't you just hear all the other mom voices in my head giving me a golf clap for this thought?? Awesome mom dot com right here, y'all.

And then...

"Can we please have water too?" Charlie begged. "We won't make a mess. I promise."

Liar.

So I added water. Because they're cute. And it couldn't be that messy, right? Maybe a little muddy in the water side, I figured. Mandie is usually right about stuff but she can't ALWAYS be right. Maybe my kids would just keep the sand and the water sides separate...? And they're really cute. Caving was kind of my thing with this stupid sand & water table already. It was a theme. And I'm a good mom with my own cheering section in my head for times just like this when I let go of things... I had to go all in.

Y'all...

I'm.an.Idiot.and.a.Sucker.

Sand Mud was everywhere. Faces. Hands. Clothes. Deck. Ground. And when Henry took a handful and threw it in the house... they were D-O-N-E.

Lesson learned. Never add water to the sand & water table. Mandie is always right.