Dryer bowling and the sandbox

Royce and I had some fun this afternoon after Millie Anne went down for her nap. We brought home a dryer from Ohio this past weekend. We decided to attempt to unload the dryer from the van and bring it into the house just the two of us. I pulled the van around to the condo complex parking lot behind our house and Royce cleared the deck for the momentious entrance. Well, as Royce eased the dryer out of the van, it became abundantly clear that I was going to have trouble lifting it. Both of us were having trouble finding good places to grab a hold of the dryer. Reminiscent of a Friends episode, we started out by "pivot"-ing the dryer through the grass (tearing out large chunks of turf with the little feet on the dryer. Then I noticed that the condo lawn care people had just planted new grass on the edge of the condo complex's lot. We couldn't keep up the "pivot"-ing technique and avoid ripping up their work. Another attempt at lifting the dryer failed, so we had to come up with a creative idea. And thus the new sport of dryer bowling was born. We began to flip the dryer end over end through the "lane" of bushes and onto our back porch. For that perfect strike, we strategically placed two boards heading up from the porch and in through the sliding glass door. We bowled a perfect game... I just wish there had been someone to take a picture, it would have been hysterical!
This summer we got Millie Anne a red ladybug sandbox through the generosity of her grandparents. When we attempted to get her to play in it, she just cried and shyed away. She would laugh as long as the ladybug's lid was closed, but would back away as soon as we tried to coax her into playing with the sand. This evening all that changed. With a newly acquired bucket and shovel set, we headed out once more to see if Millie would take to the sandbox. I started out gradually, by getting her to laugh at the funny ladybug on the porch. Then I opened the lid slowly and began to show her how to use the shovel to play with the sand. I demonstrated how to use the shovel to put sand in the bucket. She watched for a little while and I handed her the other shovel. She circled nearer and nearer to the sandbox, and when I squatted on the opposite side of the box from her, she gingerly squatted down and picked up some sand. She ran the sand through her fingers, buried her hands in the sand and felt its texture over and over again. She sprinkled some sand into the bucket and then dumped out the sand. By far, her favorite thing to do was pick up the sand and watch it fall. We'll have to work on keeping the sand in the sandbox, but we sure had a blast! When she was done, we headed upstairs for a much needed bath. Nothing like getting good and clean after getting good and dirty (or is that sandy?).