A New Sand Table

Owen’s Granny and Grandfather gave him an early birthday gift so that he could enjoy it over the next few months:  a sand and water table.  You are supposed to put sand on one side of it and water on the other and let the playing begin.  (We did this, although I had to keep my OCD in check when Owen of course wanted to just dump all the sand into the water side and vice versa, ending up with two sides of muck.)

Here he is enjoying the table (the color of the accompanying umbrella makes it look like our house has a big splotch of mold on it; this is not the case.)

However, the next morning when I opened the cover (which also has a track for cars!), the water from the right had somehow drained into the sand on the left.  I have no idea how this was possible, but nonetheless, the water was mostly gone and the sand was damp.  So I decided to just put sand on the right side too and have both sides be sand—at least for now.  I figure we can always change it back.

Owen likes his sand table very much, and has already had a few meltdowns when I made him come in because the mosquitoes were attacking.  I spend a good amount of time when I am watching him use it telling him to stop dumping the sand out of the box, but it is mostly to no avail:  apparently dumping sand out of a sandbox causes paroxysms of pleasure, mess be damned.

Sand pie anyone?