Pica in kids?

Okay, so I faintly remember reading about the term Pica when I was pregnant.  Which for those who may not know what that is means the desire to eat things that aren't actually food.  Like lotion and toilet paper.  I have decided that there is a child form of this.  And Truitt has it.

Every time, without fail, when that kid sits down in the sandbox he will happily take the closest little pail, scoop some dirt and drink it down like kool aid.  Every.single.time.  I don't get it.  It cannot possibly taste good.  But he does it anyway.  Sometimes several times a day.  I am trying to decide if I should be concerned about this.  At least it is not peacock poop like this summer at my parents house.

Maybe when we go into his 15 month appt. I will ask, but I feel like it's such a parenting novice question.  Excuse me doc, do you think my child has some type of problem if he eats dirt all the time?  Truly, I know that every child under the sun has probably eaten dirt at some point in their life time.  But I have never seen a kid who eats dirt like Truitt does.  I make myself feel better about it by thinking about how awesome he is making his immune system be.  But then of course, the ugly microbiology background rears its head and I find myself what would happen if he ate anthrax.  I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the mean time, I will just continue to wipe it off the outside of his mouth and scoop what I can that makes it up his nose cavities.  And then just marvel at how cleaned out his system must be.

I tried to find something funny on Pinterest to show here since I couldn't get a good pic of Truitt, but alas, could not find any kids-eating-dirt humor, much to my surprise.  I did however find the following, and since I have a minor in chemistry (and nerdology) I thought I would share this instead.  Also, dirt comes into play so it sort of fits.