Pooping sand!

June 5, 2008

Subject: Pooping Sand

I write a lot about my process and the heaviness of it. The joy in my life has been sometimes wayward in these writings but let me assure you, my life is joy-filled. In this process it sometimes takes a back burner and has only a vague presence to my eye but it is always there. Our children embody joy in so many ways and being in their presence always drives that reality home.

Yesterday (June 4, 2008-happy birthday Jimmy!)) I was watching Reo and Rianna play in the sand pile playground we have in our backyard. Reo was playing with a shovel running up and down the lawn slaying dinosaurs and demons. Rianna was barefoot holding a small beach sand shovel in one hand and a small rake in the other. Aria and I were sitting in my swing underneath a tree near the playground. This tree, although slowly dying, is quite magical. Much of the bark in the middle portion of her trunk has peeled away revealing how she has grown intricately twisted. There are large gaps in her twists and turns where starling have made their nests and raised their young. It is a tree full of life and my two-seater swing rests on one of her large limbs. There I sit gently swinging and swaying watching the kids play. Aria was not feeling up to playing and preferred to sit close and quiet.

Reo and Rianna were brimming with delight and their screams and shouts were testament to their happiness. Reo was fierce and courageous in his roars and grunts. Fighting demons and dinosaurs is a hefty business. Rianna, in contrast, was hardly angelic, but her shouts and squeals came with twirling dances and showers of sand tossed in the air.

My mind was wandering to earlier in the day when I had changed her diaper and it was full of sandy poop. I was mildly horrified to think that she had eaten enough sand to have it appear in her poop. Her bum was so grainy and sticky that I put her in the bathtub for a soaking rather than using scores of wipes. As I sat swinging with Aria on my lap, I watched Rianna wondering, "She isn't actually sitting there eating the sand is she?" I knew her mouth had been covered in sand, but I imagined sandy hands rubbing her mouth giving her the taste of sand. I couldn't imagine her deliberately eating it. I watched her dig her shovel into the sand and fling it into the air screaming at the confetti of sand that followed. To my amazement, I watched her sit down and shove fistfuls of sand into her mouth. I couldn't believe my eyes! I watched one hand empty into her mouth and then the other before I shouted, "YUCK!!!" She looked at me startled and smiled this blackened sandy grin while her tongue and lips started to spit and drool the whole mess out. She was thrilled and I realized that my baby daughter is eating and pooping sand. Will the wonders of this life never cease?! ~j