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Monday, July 16, 2007
Yum - sand!
It’s right here on my computer screen - a cute picture of my daughter from our first family vacation to the beach. And there it is all over her face - sand.
It was bright yellow and much bigger than a spoon. But I guess her shovel looked like what we use to give her oatmeal or spaghetti. So, while I wandered away from the safe confines of her beach blanket, she managed to get a mouthful of beach. And we have the pictures to prove it.
So, being the concerned first-time father, I went online to find out about this baby delicacy. And it sounds like many children think the beach is for more than sand castles and games. Evidently, some children make a habit of it. My daughter didn’t enjoy the beach enough to have more than the one sitting at the beach buffet.
Reading what some people had to say about eating sand was enlightening though. Some parents say children eat sand because it feels good on their gums and tastes salty. Others believe their children do it to got a rise out of mom and dad. And some went so far to say that since they couldn’t keep their child from eating sand, they monitored the quality of the sand they ate. I can almost see the sanitation grades now on the beach - this beach contains grade 98 sand.
It sounds like most parents say there are only two ways to keep a child from eating sand - never go to the beach or keep their mouth full of something else so they don’t think about the sand. Maybe next time, we will take several pounds of her favorite snack to keep her from the powdery beach treat.
With one of those magic birthdays quickly approaching for me (no, I am not going to tell you which one), I started to think about going to the beach as a child. Maybe it is my ever-increasing age, but I can’t recall a time when I didn’t like the sand and the ocean. I don’t recall being scared of the water, and I certainly don’t remember eating sand. And I will flatly deny ever doing it should it come up in conversation among my family.
So, the next time we load up and head to the beach, we will see what is on the menu. Maybe it will be seafood or maybe it will be grade A, top choice beach sand. I guess the decision might just be up to my daughter.
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