My brother and I were the only kids on the block with a sandbox like that. One summer my brother decided to dig a hole to China. Several of the neighborhood kids took their turns digging. I made a huge mud pie bakery that summer and also did a bit of digging. I remember our imaginations running wild with the idea of digging straight through the Earth.
Finally, one day in late August my dad came through the yard and casually said, "Last week of digging. I am filling in the hole next weekend." Funny how I remember that.
Anyway, what do you do when you know you won't make it to China in just a week? Why you turn your hole into a "hot tub." Above you see the beginning stages of the "hot tub." We invited our friends and they came over one afternoon for a soak. It was anything but hot, but it was pretty deep. The hole was pretty wide around the top, but all our feet jammed together at the narrow bottom. Sitting chest deep in cold, muddy water seemed like a fitting way to end the "summer of the hole."
Flash forward nearly twenty years, I casually mentioned growing up in Brighton, NY on an infertility chat room and low and behold, one of the gals happens to be married to one of our former neighbors! It really is a small world.
When we reconnected one of the many memories Steve shared was digging the hole. He couldn't believe our parents let us just dig a giant hole in the backyard. So, I asked my mother about it and her response was something like this, "Why not? It kept you busy! Daddy was able to fill it back in."
While looking for the hole picture, I found this one of the Little cousins in our grandfather's gravel driveway. Does anyone still have a gravel driveway? It was wonderful. We spent hours playing there.
Have a great week!
9 comments:
That is so incredibly awesome! What a perfect way to spend hot summer days. My brother and I had a pond in the yard when we were kids, and we adored it. It was muddy and filled with snakes and snapping turtles and leeches. The snakes and turtles stayed on the ends, and we swam in the middle. Got lots of leeches though. Your hot tub filled with muddy water reminds me of our pond.
By the way, we also have a gravel driveway. We have a concrete one in front of our garage, but there's a second driveway leading to the backyard, and it's filled with pea gravel. Our son loves to take his shovel and pail out there and do lots of scooping and dumping.
That is soo great! I can remember doing things like that growing up and now that I am a parent myself I don't see how my mom allowed it all. She was amazing! I have a hard time letting my kids outside without getting nervous of the mess they'll bring back inside with them. I guess I just need to relax and let it go.
I love your mom. :-)
(I am also "guilty" of letting Jack do plenty of insane things because it keeps him busy. Ha.)
what fun parents you have! good memories- thanks for sharing. ;) and oh yes- my gramps had a gravel driveway as well :)
It is too bad that kids can't do that today...we had something special that we could do that and it entertained us.
That's a great story! I think kids today are missing out on a lot of the fun we had as kids but my husband and I are going to try out best to let our future kids be kids.
Awesome! My kids take the hose and fill our MASSIVE (as in 8 ft by 20ft)sandbox full of water. The other moms think Im nuts- it keep sthem busy for hours, and they hose down afterwards, lol. Seriusly- theya re only kids once! :-)
Great story! Im sure my kids would enjoy it, I dont think their dad would let them!
What fun memories! My boys LOVE to play in the dirt, however we haven't let them dig a major hole in the yard yet. Yes, we do have a gravel driveway. :)
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