We were out in the back yard. I was trying to garden.
I say trying because the children were trying to kill the plants that I planted.
With water. With stomping. With jumping.
Four small seedlings that were lovingly placed in soil yesterday
were pulled up and left for dead in a wilted heap.
I asked Addison, "What in the world? Did you do this?"
He looked at me and nodded with a firm,"Yeth."
For goodness sakes.
I believe a few worms also lost their lives today.
I repeatedly said,"Worms cannot survive in branches.
Get them out of the trees." And all too late, it seems.
All I'm saying is that I would like to have a few flowers in the yard.
Is that too much to ask? Apparently, it is.
As I was finishing up with the planting,
Will took the clippers and proceeded to prune the japanese maple,
a maple that had no need of pruning and I was through, people. I had enough.
"Will, you do not need to prune that."
He ran and perched like a small king on the play castle, telling me,
"You are not the boss."
"Oh, Yes. I am the boss," I insisted.
"No, you're not."
The boss sent Will to his room.
This event was preceeded by a random act of eye-rolling by Jack
as I told him to take his backpack inside the house.
"Did you just roll your eyes at me?"
Another eye roll.
"Oh no, you did not just roll your eyes at me AGAIN because
you will definitely be losing some computer time IF you are rolling your eyes!"
To which he protested, of course, he hadn't rolled his eyes.
His eyes had accidentally rolled upward into his head without his consent.
I believe I have always been the eye roller not the eye roll-ee.
The giver of the "You are are so incredibly ridiculous my eyes
are rolling straight up toward the heavens" look - not the receiver.
And than I had the inkling of a flashback....
I remember sticking out my tongue at my mom when I thought
she couldn't see me and finding out who was the boss.
I believe I also once ruined the new lawn my parents put in
by introducing a family of grubs to it. They seemed so hungry.
And I seem to remember killing a few worms in my time.
Who knew they weren't stretchy? They looked stretchy.
I loved critters when I was little.
It seems plant devastation, complete defiance and eye rolling
are in my gene pool.
And how appropos that these things are all coming back to haunt me
through my own children on Mother's Day weekend.
It seems my own sweet and oh so very patient mother's prayers are coming true.
I have a whole passel of children just like me.
2 comments:
My children used to rescue the worms by taking them out of the thick grass in the front yard and placing them on the easier-to-navigate driveway.
We ended up with lots of worm jerky that way.
Eventually, they grasped the concept that worms prefer the cover of the yard. So they would run outside after every rainstorm and throw all the worms on the driveway back into the grass.
They were The Worm Rescuers -- Where Every Fling is a Life Saved.
Isn't it amazing how our children seem to have all of the things we tortured our parents with - I lament that almost on a daily basis!
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