I admit, I am not the first one to dig my toes into the sand. In fact, I hate dirty feet. More like the feeling of dirty feet. If my feet feel dirty, all of me feels dirty. I just want to take a shower! When I found out my first child was a boy, I knew I had to start preparing myself for dirt ahead. You hear the stories about boys. We all do. Digging in flower pots, eating gravel at the playground, shoveling sand into diapers. Those kind of stories didn’t fit into my pre-mommy life. Somehow, though, starting with the first gleeful splash in the bath tub, my baby boy started changing my mind that a little dirt didn’t have to be a bad thing. A little mess could lead the way into grand adventure. That splash in the bath tub could be a dolphin coming to say hello to us in the ocean. The flower pot full of dirt could be hiding the royal prince’s long lost medal. The gravel at the playground could contain magic that floats us high in the sky. The sand at the beach could be the very sand that the pirate villains abandoned us on after they took off with our ship. How can those little boys dream up such big adventures? And how can a little mess be anything to fight against when I see the commitment to my imaginative boy’s fantasy? I am looking forward to summer days ahead, outside on the shoreline, or inside under the dining room table fort, catching glimpses of my children’s dreams.