DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997              TAG: 9704090454

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Military 

SOURCE: BY JACEY ECKHART 

                                            LENGTH:   67 lines

FAMILY LONGS TO HAVE SAILOR BE MORE THAN LINE IN SAND

Two college girls on the breach peeled off their spring break T-shirts to reveal gingham bikinis and goosebumps. Sam was impressed. ``Are they going swimming now, Mommy?'' he asked. ``I want to swim.'' I tried to explain to my 3-year-old that even though it was sunny and 70 degrees, it was way too cold to swim.

Knowing I would never budge on the swimming issue, Sam sat down and got started on the business at hand: building a sandcastle for the Spiderman guy in his pocket. We both dug in, but the sand wasn't right for castles. It felt grimy and coarse, like cookie dough rolled too often by dirty hands. Each time we built a mound it flaked and crumbled. Sam frowned, his lower lip jutting.

``Can you draw me a Spid-a-man instead, Mommy?'' he asked. He flopped down in the sand, throwing out his arms and legs in a superhero pose. I dragged a finger through the sand, tracing around his legs and up his side. He squirmed and giggled as I passed his neck. When he rolled away, we drew lines to match Spiderman's costume and added shells for eyes. He loved it. We had to trace three more Sammys in the sand.

``Now you,'' he commanded. I lay down and tried not to think about what could be hatching in the sand beneath my head. Sam drew carefully around my arms and head and shoulders, then decided that drawing was not as much fun as leaping on my stomach and causing me permanent intestinal damage.

When I finally stood up, I noticed that the damp sand had taken perfect impressions of Sam and me, as if we were fossilized. The outlines of our pockets and the seams in our jeans stood out in thin relief. I saw the squish of Sam's elbow, where he'd rolled away, and wavy striations left by his hair.

Even in the sand, my shoulders looked too narrow for my body, and my shoelaces were untied.

Sam looked thoughtfully at the pictures. ``Now,'' he said, ``draw my Daddy very, very big, please.''

I knelt and made a rough outline of Brad reaching out to one of the Sam figures with one arm, waving with the other. I made his chest broad and square and drew a big heart on it.

``See,'' I said, rocking back on my heels, ``Daddy loves you!''

Sam didn't hear. He was already searching for shells that looked like Daddy's eyes and ears.

I stared at our art. The drawing of Brad looked oddly empty next to the realistic impressions of Sam and me. His chest was hugely out of proportion to skinny stick legs. He head was too flat, his arms too long. He looked like a giant cartoon.

And it occurred to me that to Sammy, Brad might be a cartoon, a superhero worthy of having breakfast with Batman at the Halls of Justice - the hero who drives up in his red car to listen attentively to the goings-on at preschool that day, who is never too busy to play with Lego building blocks, who is always good for an extra story. Who doesn't mind keeping you company when you have to go to sleep.

Who is perfect.

I scanned my own impression, of a Mommy hopelessly flawed. Of the Mommy who loses her temper when you spill juice in the living room, who rushes through breakfast, who likes to do laundry more than play outside. There I lay, imperfections and all.

We got ready to leave the beach. Brad has told me that sometimes our division of labor leaves him feeling guilty: He gets to be the fun parent, while I have to be She Who Enforces All Rules.

Someday we'll spread out the parenting duties a little more evenly, and Brad may lose a little of his superhero status. But while he's assigned to a ship, he only has so much time to build a relationship with his children.

And it was clear to me, as Sam and I headed home, that that relationship has to make a deeper impression than a picture in the sand.

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