Me and My Shadow

Yesterday spring arrived and Milo spent two hours playing in the sandbox at the Third Street Playground. Midway through his play, which primarily involved raking sand and shoveling dirt into a plastic cup, another kid about his age toddled over and stood next to Milo.

Then he very distinctly gave Milo a look like, okay, what's the plan? What's next?

Milo looked at the kid and then promptly reached into the sand, grabbed a fistful of grains and dropped it gently onto the ground. Here's what we're doing, Milo seemed to say. We're grabbing sand and dropping it like this.

The kid immediately did exactly what Milo had done -- he picked up a handful of sand and dropped it.

All right, Milo seemed to think. Now what we're doing next is this: we're rubbing sand in our hair. Milo took both hands, smeared them in sand and smashed his hands into his hair.

Great idea! thought the other kid, who also reached down and rubbed sand in his hair. Keep those ideas coming! What are we doing next?

Milo then took his little toy rake and began to rake sand. The kid looked around. He didn't have a rake, so he reached for Milo's. Milo quickly turned his back on the kid, grabbed the rake, and began raking somewhere that the kid couldn't get to. I felt bad for the kid, but come on - had he never had an original idea? Sand in the hair is creative and all, but it's no mud pie or sandcastle after all.

Eventually the kid wandered off, presumably to find someone else to copy. Milo didn't note the other kid's departure in any way.

"Rake," he said, showing me his rake. "Dirt."