finding sand in saudi

Last spring, little guy broke his arm. He was sitting on the arm of the couch, lost his balance, and landed on his arm in a way that caused two breaks. After wearing a cast for 6 weeks, everything healed beautifully and he was back to normal (actually he was back to normal with the cast, little kids just keep on going, no matter what obstacles come their way). Anyway, two of my very dear friends went together and bought little guy a sand/water play table. They told me they looked at all the toy stores for sand to go in the table but they were all out of sand. I went soon after and the stores were still out of stock.

Isn't that crazy? Living in Saudi Arabia and not being able to find sand for little guy to play with? Hahaha...I love the irony of it all. I could have gone out to the desert and collected some sand but it would've required some extra steps. I would've had to boil it and then allow it to dry in the sun in order for it to be safe for little guy to play with. Buying a bag of play sand from the toy store is much easier. So a couple of days ago, I FINALLY found sand in Saudi! Yay! It was in stock. Here's a picture of little guy's sand table complete with sand:

This thing has kept him occupied for the past 2 days. It's a great gift idea, Mommy-approved, by me. ;-) Because it's cold here in Riyadh, I don't want little guy playing outside. So, I set up this table indoors for now. I laid a plastic tablecloth underneath to catch sand messes. Later, when the weather changes and it's warm again, we'll take this outside and fill one side with water. Sand play and water play are great activities for kids. I can tell you that little guy LOVES them both! :-)