Wednesday, March 3, 2010

weeds, bubbles and raisins

We had record-setting rain last month.  It dumped and dumped and I, for one, didn’t mind much.  It made for cozy days with an excuse to stay in.  During the rain that just kept going, something happened to my desert yard.  It turned green… with WEEDS!  oh, so many weeds.  I tried to ignore them, hoping that if I didn’t give them too much attention that they would just go away.  Instead they laughed at me and multiplied.  Even my HOA noticed and sent a lovely form letter kindly asking us to remove the weeds from our property.  Seeing as we are showing our house again this week, I figured we better do something about it.  Please know that this decision was not easy.  I’m pretty certain that pulling weeds was my very least favorite chore growing up.  I did everything I could to get out of it and never quite learned the lesson that if you just keep up with them, it’s not a bad job.  When I was younger, it was ALWAYS a bad job.   Ugh, the memories.  In an effort to not rub my bad weed-attitude off on my children, I made sure it was known that armed with great garden gloves and a spade, pulling weeds was a rockin’ good time!  It should be noted that I did indeed consider paying someone to come take care of them for me.  I resisted the temptation.

I had a weird dream last night and woke up a little cranky with my dream still working it’s way around in my head.  It will sound crazy, but pulling weeds just might have been the therapy I needed this morning.  It is strangely satisfying (albeit trivial) to pull a big weed up by its roots and know you got the better of him.  It’s also satisfying to look behind you as you work forward and see success in the form of no weeds.  Considering how many there were, this is a big feat.

So we worked, Coop and I, for a few hours this morning.  We took a break to ask Beckham not to dump our weed buckets.  We took a break to ask Seneca to stop drinking the water pooled on the table.  We took a break to ask Beckham to stop throwing rocks into the pool.  We took a break to tell Seneca that we don’t play behind the A/C units.  But in between all the breaks, we worked.  Together.  Him with his bucket, gloves and shovel and me with mine (my gloves were cuter). 

When the weeds were gone and the toys were cleaned up, reward was delivered.  Bubbles and raisins did the trick.  They were occupied long enough for me to get the kitchen floor swept and mopped without interruption.  It’s amazing how much joy they get from simple things.  If only they would forever be satisfied with the anticipation of blowing bubbles. 

weeds and bubbles

2 comments:

The Silly Witch said...

Pulling weeds is always fun if you are doing it with people you love! And your gloves are VERY cute.

Amber said...

I need gloves like that for pulling weeds. Mine are cloth and the darn weeds around here are so thorny.