Amelia likes to be clean.  She never wants to have dirt on her hands or feet, and having food drop in her lap or water spilled on her shoe upsets her tremendously.  When we went to the beach back in April, she refused to walk on the sand, or even to touch it.  So then why is it that yesterday, as we were laying some brick pavers in our back yard, she was practically rolling in the dirt?  We had a couple of buckets of earth out there that we were planning to relocate, and this is what she discovered first.  She put a tentative hand into one, felt the dirt and pebbles, then scooped out a handful and flung it across the yard.  That got the ball rolling: from that point forward we couldn't keep her away from it.  She was diving into the dirt buckets with both hands.  We gave her a plastic shovel and she happily dug around with that.  She plopped down on the bare ground and started digging in with her hands.  I think I'm going to have to throw away the clothes she was wearing.  : )

I guess I have to stop telling people about how clean she likes to be.