The secret cracked. Where did that sand come from?

One of my favorite comedians, Louis CK, has this joke in the skit "boys and girls" His sister in law has just poured herself a drink after a really hair frazzling day with her kids.  Her young son, 4 years old, comes running in and plops a handful of sand right into her drink.   Louis said he had no idea where the kid got the sand, they live in the city, he doesn`t have sand in his house.  I love imagining this scene where the kid just plops this unknown sourced sand into her drink which his Mother really needs. 

Source cracked.

I was cleaning up this morning, my day with the kids.  I was putting winter coats away into storage.  I was checking the pockets to take out all the used Kleenex, old wrappers, plastic spoons, little dinosaur pictures... the list goes on. I stick my hand into this nice, bright pink heavy jacket of my older girl, now over 5 at this writing, and grab, a handful of gravel.  Little stones.  Ohhhhhhhh, OK.   I get it, of course.

When my older girl was two to three she loved going to the railroad station and then a nearby park with a playground.  She loved watching the trains come in and go out, but she also would look carefully over the stones on the railroad tracks, and then pick some up on a quieter track I would let her go to.  She would hand me the best specimens and I would have to keep them in my pocket.  Then we would go to the park.  At this playground they used pebbles instead of sand in some places.  She would take handful after handful of small stones and push them under this metal grid like playing post center, pushing letters under a glass to a post person.  Again she would study the stones and hand me the best small ones which had no trouble going into these little pinholes and under the grid at her "postal office".  "Daddy, keep these".   Because I am a natural sentimental hoarder, you know those people that can`t throw out old socks or hol(e)y t shirts because they have "memories", I of course pocketed the stones.  Also because I knew the moment after I dumped them, she would ask me for them and if I didn't have them she would have a tantrum.  So in every coat, in multiple pockets, I have several little pebble collections myself.  While she was under four she used to always ask me for the stones back when we got to her postal office.  And I always had them.  These were the special small ones which fit through all the holes.

In the summer it was acorns.  "Daddy, keep this one".  

I was at this higher class, fancy schmancy dinner party during that year when my daughter was 3 or more.  I don`t know how I got invited to that one!  I was wearing a decent, nice, black shirt which I didn`t wear that much, so, got some use out of it. I`m talking to someone at the dinner table and she asks me for my contact, so I pull my jot book out of my back pocket and some small stones drop on the floor from my pocket.  But I don`t know what fell so I lean over from my chair and three acorns drop out of my breast pocket onto my contacts lap on her dress.  Oh.  She smiles, three nuts is kind of a symbol.  She picks them up and is about to put them in her little pocketbook when I say, "oh, um, do you think I could have those back?  I really need those." "Thanks".  Her facial contortions turned stone cold.  She didn`t talk to me anymore after that.  Well, I really did need those acorns to avoid a tantrum.   Besides those had special sentimental value to me.

I had to bring my daughter`s outdoor sneakers home from pre school last week to have for our trip to the woods on the weekend.  I`m about to put one in her little backpack when some sand spills out.  So I tilt it down and like a shovel full of sand pours out onto the coat room floor.  I mean this was more than just getting sand in your shoe from playing in the sandbox.  I am careful with the other sneaker and go out side and just tilt it a bit so it stays in the sneaker.  The sand in the shoe could fill a big teacup.
"My little girl?  What were you doing that you have shovels full of sand in your sneakers?"
"Daddy, I was digging with them in the sandbox."
Uhhhhh, Ummmm? Oh.  Makes sense.     

   After that roundabout, the short of it is that Louis CK has some pretty good jokes about being a parent.  But I am a (way) better father than he is.  I know where his nephew got that sand to dump into his Mother`s drink.  He had it all along in his pocket or even his shoe.  In fact go right now to look into your children's` winter coat pockets.  I know what`s there.  

I cried the day I lost the best, little, special pebble which went through all the slots at my daughter`s post office. But I dumped the pocketful of stones from her winter coat today into the garbage.   Her little sister will get that coat hand me down in two years and it should be a clean slate for her.