Who Decided Outside is a Fun Place to Go?

Ever since the episode two weeks ago, I’m a little leery to take the kids outside, especially without another set of eyes. As it is, my eyes are constantly roving across the lawn, looking for tall mushrooms, short mushrooms, fat ones and little ones, ones that grow under rocks. Little Sister is always on the go, go, go, so it can be a bit of a challenge to keep Big Brother out of trouble. The poor boy wanders around from toy to toy; the only thing that keeps his interest almost indefinitely is his Matchbox cars, and he doesn’t take them outside.

So, there’s good old Mom, being led around the yard by the baby who is learning to walk. If Mommy lets go of one of the baby’s hands to scratch her face or push the glasses back up onto her nose, the baby’s beautiful face contorts into a scream and she throws herself down into the dirt and despairs of ever being able to learn how to walk on her own. What is a child to do with a mother who has to take a break just to scratch herself? Up and down they go; back and forth, and around the yard.

Meanwhile the toddler has gotten tired of putting sand from the box onto the top of his head and has moved on to the garbage cans. After prying off the lid and looking into each one he settles for splashing around in the water that collected on the top of the can after the last rain storm; while doing this he notices a piece of his fingernail that he missed on his last gnawing and decides to take a break from the garbage and put his hands in his mouth.

What was that noise? Probably just Mom telling me to get my fingers out of my mouth… something about them being dirty… whatever.

Oh, look! A piece of old wood from the gate that Daddy is fixing with some sharp rusty nails sticking out of it. That’s new and exciting!

There’s Mom again… I hear her talking but I’ll just pretend I don’t understand what she’s saying.

I’m bored. It seems to get Mom’s attention when the baby picks stuff up off of the ground and puts it in her mouth…I wonder what grass tastes like?

Now, mind you, the child won’t drink juice. He won’t eat anything I cook for dinner unless it’s spaghetti. But he’ll put grass in his mouth? Grass? I mean, really, there is only so much a mother can take. On this particular day the outside fun lasted for about forty-five minutes. Then Mom was done. No more foraging. No more garbage picking. No more hissy fits. We’re going inside where it’s safe. Or safer. I’m learning that kids can get into trouble no matter where they are; lock them up in a padded room and they will find the stub of a crayon under the padding in the back left corner that was left there by the last looney, and after a period of indecision they will decide either to eat it or use it to color all over the walls.