The Sandbox at Cobble Hill Park, Cobble Hill Brooklyn

       It was 8:30 in the morning.  We were up and out with the Tess and Gigi in the stroller.  On our way outside we saw our new neighbor next door, a woman who seemed to be in her early forties with two girls, 3 and 5.  Monica was going into her three story brownstone they'd just purchased for 2.5 million or more. That was the asking price in the winter.  It didn't sell then, but in the spring. We said our hellos as she was taking her mother and the girls inside to check out the house.
     Monica is in investment, and  it was new buyer's excitement.  The house is an old Brownstone, three floors, the bottom floor I always have called a "basement" because the front windows are usually at ground level.  It's in the opposite side of the house, in the garden area that you have the full height of the room at the yard level.   The front of these brownstones is often four or five steps down from the street.  This brownstone they will use the "basement" as the kitchen, and dining or play room.  The main floor was two drawing rooms originally. And then the top floor is bedrooms.  It's the main floor that today many families don't know what to do with because if you eat in the "basement", what do you do on the first floor?  But Brownstones are the main single building in the better areas of Brooklyn. So everybody tries to figure out how to make the most of the space. 
     We waved goodbye and made our way towards the sandbox in Cobble Hill park.  It is a very small park, about a half a block long.    It was 8:30 in the morning and we were the first in the sandbox.  Jordan took out their buckets and two shovels and they sat down in the sand.  A few minutes later three young women in their thirties showed up with a girl 15 months and a boy 14 months.  They brought their own bucket and play tools.  "Sandbox" etiquette is something I mentioned.  Like Tess might be sitting there playing with her shovel or some other beach toy that's getting passed around and another "baby" or "young child" will come over and try to take the shovel out of their hand.  Do you let them take it, or do you say "it's Gigi's?"  What about other left over toys in the sandbox?
      We were talking about this when one of the mothers said, "there should be a blog on this!"  Well, here it is-the sandbox in Cobble Hill park, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY.