Friday, May 02, 2008

Naughty or nice

It's not secret that Moe is my "naughty child" (not that I'd tell her that, but I'm pretty sure she can figure it out herself. (just click her name below the post to read some of her antics) . In many ways, she's outgrown the terrible twos and threes. And as she approaches her forth birthday (its still a few months away) there are occasions where I start to think "wow, she's really calmed down". Then her inner wild child reappears.

Yesterday, my mom and I were working outside trying to clear the lower lot of my property so that the girls have more room to run. And we did it (mostly). But while we were working, the girls were in and out of the house (which is usually why I can't get anything done myself). Usually it was to grab a snack, go potty, change because when they were grabbing a snack, they put on dress up clothes or pajamas on and then tried to come out an play in them. So as long as they didn't disappear for too long, I was okay with them being in. At one point, I saw the girls playing their new favorite game. The one where one of them stands on the deck and looks into the window on the door to the mudroom. The other child would be inside looking our. They'd laugh and switch. A few minutes later, I see Moe nonchalantly make her way to the swing set. Alone.

"Moe, where's Meenie" "She's stuck in the closet" "And by stuck, do you mean you locked her in there?"
"Uh-huh" Then she laughed maniacally as she ran off to swing.

As I went to rescue Meenie, I could hear, help, I can't open the door.

The little shit.


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I mentioned above that my mom came over to my house to help with yard work. It's probably the first time she's come over to my house in a long time. I really appreciate her coming over on her vacation to help. It took two days and 10 + hours to get it done. And by done, I mean it's no where near completely finished - I still need to trim/purge the forsythia, rake under the bushes near the property line and finish raking the leaves on the far side of the tree laying across my yard. We are going to lay seed on Monday when Husband is home and hopefully, with any luck, the girls will have plenty of room to run this summer.

While raking and cursing the forsythia - I can't believe people actually pay for this stuff - I thought back to some fond memories I had of the forsythia at my parents house. It was growing around a tree and the way it grew, if you went through a certain section, it was all open on the inside, Enough that it sheltered my friends and I. We had this neat little club house. I hated when my parent decided to take it out. I remember them complaining and trying to keep it contained. Now as an adult, I get it. It really is an unruly pain in the ass to keep neat. And while I'd love the girls to have similar memories, I don't think I'm gonna keep it.

I left for a few minutes mid-afternoon to pick up Einey from school and pick up some iced coffee's. When I can back, my mom was mentioning something about finding another pencil in the yard. I saw a few sitting on the tree stump. I could tell she was trying to figure out where the heck they came from. I had to laugh. Last August, we threw a back to school bash for a few friends. For it, I had a school supply scavenger hunt. I placed folders, pencils, pencil sharpeners, pencil cases, rulers erasers, boxes of crayons, post it notes, ect. all over the yard. Apparently we missed a few.

Every now and then, the girls would come to help us. They'd grab some gloves, a rake and spend about 5 seconds helping. Or they'd grab the kids wheel barrow. At one point, the two younger one's were fighting over the one wheel barrow. I tried to find something they could use to drag sticks to the newly formed compost pile. I found an old infant sled and thought it was the perfect thing to drag sticks with. Of course, they thought so too. Then one abandoned the wheel barrow and they were fighting over the sled. They worked things out and helped haul a few sticks. As my mom and I were working, we suddenly heard laughter. Lots and lots of maniacal laughter. As we looked towards the sound, we saw the kids at the top of the hill with the sled. Somehow, they managed to get it to work on the wood chip/dirt hill and were taking turns dragging each other down the hill. Apparently sleds are not just for snow. Who knew?


Anyway, here are some before and after pictures.

Before:

After:

The bags - that's Husband's job to lug up the hill. What you really can't tell is how high the piles of branches/sticks were in the first place. It was alot of work. The lot is much more level now.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I have spent weeks picking up sticks and my yard still does not look that nice. And our forecast is for rain, rain and more rain.

Anonymous said...

I used to love helping my parents with yard work growing up... I think because I could call it quits at will and go back to playing. Yard work is such a chore for me now. You and your mom did a fantastic job, though! I can't believe the "before" and "after" were taken the same day!

Jane, Pinks & Blues

Whirlwind said...

Jane -

The pictures were not taken the same day - see the lack of "green in the first"? But that's what it looked like up until this week. All the work was done over two days though.

Rachel said...

I love that she locked her in the closet and then was so proud of herself for it. That's too cute.
Great job on your hard work.