The weather forecasts have been wrong all month...at least, as reported on my iPod. It has been an exercise in flexibility. This weekend I'm glad the dire predictions didn't come true. It was mostly sunny, and dry enough to do some serious outdoor work that's been accumulating. It's the end of May already and I just today got the opportunity to put the garden in (at least, the important stuff).Today we slept in, making us late to church again (but not as late as we have been!) Afterwards we went to Shopko and finally got Elias a couple more pairs of shoes that actually fit. He's Size 11 already (well, actually his left foot is a 10.5). He darted away when I was considering shoes and in 2 minutes excitedly brought back a Thomas the Train 24-piece puzzle. It must be Thomas radar. Well, he was being very patient and I'm a sucker for random gifts, so I said we could get it, provided he kept being good. He showed off his prize to several fellow shoppers on the way out. I bought a lot of plants: flowers for the front and some "missing" pepper and tomato varieties for the garden. As a bonus, a woman gave us her 20% off coupon, which ended up saving me >$25! I passed it off to someone else upon leaving.
We stopped by McDonald's on the way back and had a "picnic" on the front lawn. Elias declared it naptime and cooperatively went to bed...and then continually got up, read books, kicked, and talked to himself to keep himself awake. Grrr. I played hall monitor until most the kitchen was clean, then gave up and went outside to start on the garden. By 2:45 or so I went in to get him, and discovered he'd been covertly playing in the basement. Busted! But he'd had a "quiet time" so I declared naptime over.
Last night I'd gotten my tiny rotortiller running and started in on breaking ground, and today I finished off the parts I needed. It was a lot of work. Elias cried most the time I was tilling, being overtired and scared of the loud noise, and I think because I said it was "very dangerous" and had him watch from the deck. He watches out for me! The soil is nice this year, with a lot of grass and chicken litter compost I added months back, and it was a pleasure to work in it without gloves. This year I planted the sandy end of the garden with potatoes for the first time: something Elias has been begging to do since around January. Not sure where he came up with the idea, but it's a good one. I also put in my standard zucchini, pole beans, 6 kinds of tomatoes (lots of canning this year!), 4 kinds of peppers, and carrots. The basil and eggplant didn't quite get in today, and there's still the possibility of another kind of squash and something else that piques my interest. It feels so good to get that done.
I couldn't get Elias to participate beyond the potatoes. He played most of the time with his newly-favorite toy, a firetruck my folks got him a long time ago. He's been taking it everywhere with him, declaring that he's going to be either a fireman or (more often) a firetruck when he grows up. His play mostly consists of what a friend generously calls "gravity verification experiments": driving it off the edge of anything he can find. Yes, it's destroying the truck, but he certainly gets a lot of joy from it. Such a boy! He'd mix it up a little with little excursions to climb anything he can find, explore the dense trees along the back, and chase the chickens.
After at least an hour of crashing his truck around different backyard features he convinced me to play frisbee with him. I grabbed my camera and we did that, and catch, and just some plain old frolicking until I was totally worn out. I was rescued by a few raindrops and dinnertime. He's now at such a fun age.
I also had great fun taking LOTS of pictures, then reviewing them tonight to admire some and toss out most of them. I used my 85mm most of the time and just continued to get used to my camera. I'd share more it they didn't take so long to upload!
Some creative efforts:
Some playtime pictures. He picked up frisbee throwing in just a few tries and is really good at it.
...and here's some of just plain cuteness!
