“Let’s play outside.”  ‘Little man’ says.

“Okay, put your shoes on and we’ll go outside.” I answer. “What do you want to do outside?”

“Golf.” he replies with no hesitation.

I have my shoes on already and help my grandson put on his crocks. The first order of business is to retrieve his golf clubs from the garage.

Michael (Little man) puts on his golf glove, points to a little basket with ‘golf balls’ and then hands me a golf bag and says “These are for you.” Picking up the other small golf bag, he attempts to put his arms through the straps to carry the bag. I help him with the bag and he announces that we are ready to go golfing. “Don’t forget the balls GiGi.”

The required equipment for this venture in hand, we head for the ‘golfing’ area of the yard. At this point I realize that the ‘golf balls’, though they look just like real golf balls, are really ‘foam’ balls. I’ll admit it, I was a tad worried about hitting ‘real’ golf balls with a 3 year old.

Michael dumps the balls on the ground and begins to hit the balls. “GiGi, here is your club. You need to golf too.” he instructs me. I take the club and hit a couple of balls.

We don’t have an automatic ball return so we go around the area picking up the balls so that we can golf some more. There is a slight problem with Kiki the dog. She likes to run after the balls and chew on them. Round two of golfing begins. Michael hits all the balls and we repeat the process again.

I want to be in the shade and suggest that we take a break from golf and try the swing. Little man is agreeable. We put the balls and golf bags out of Kiki’s reach and I push him on the swing. It is slightly cooler in the shade. Michael spies his sandbox and choses that as his next outdoor activity. This kid never stops! Off the swings and into the sandbox he goes.

Personally, I never understood the draw of a sandbox. Sand gets everywhere, it’s messy and who wants to sit and play with sand in your shorts? Michael does, that’s for sure. He pushes, shoves, scoops and pours sand from one area to another. He makes starfish, cones, squares and uses a dump truck too. There is a contraption with a sifter on the top. Under the sifter is a funnel. The funnel directs the sand onto paddles that rotate and drop the sand onto another set of paddles and finally, back into the sand.

Michael scoops the sand into a pitcher and pours the sand into the funnel. Unfortunately, it clumps and stops flowing. I show him how to use the handle of the shovel to help move the sand around so that it will flow. He keeps pouring the sand through the funnel over and over. The sand never ends up in the same place twice. It is rather interesting to watch. He builds a few more towers of sand.

It is getting way to hot for me so I say “Lets go inside for a juice or some water.”

Michael isn’t ready to give up on the outside play. “Four more minutes” he says.

Four more minutes is the standard reply when he wants a little more time. I tell him that I will set a timer for five more minutes. When the timer rings, we will need to put the golf bags and balls away before we go inside. “Okay GiGi” the little tyke says.

The timer blessedly rings after five minutes. Michael looks up at me with sad eyes. I know whats coming. “Do you want four more minutes?” I ask him.

Smiling he says “Please GiGi.”

“Okay. 4 more minutes and that’s it. We go inside.”

He is a happy with the extra four minutes (okay so I set the timer for 6 more minutes). When the timer rings this time, he gets up out of the sandbox. “Lets get some juice GiGi.” We put the golf equipment away and head indoors to cool off. Golf, swings and sandboxes, that’s the life.