Innovative!

Today I have been spreading pine straw in our (newly sodded!) front yard. This morning, Mac kept trailing me saying, "Mac help too? Mac help too?"

I stopped and looked at him, thinking how can he help? What can I do to keep him occupied?

"Mac, this is a job that you really need gloves for. See how Mama is wearing gloves?"

He considered this. "Mac wear gloves too?"

Ugh. Who knows where his gloves are? And anyway, the only gloves he has are fleece winter gloves--pine straw will poke right through and jab him. But, in order to get him occupied, I responded, "Okay. Go inside and look in you top dresser drawer where your underpants are. See if there are any gloves in there."

I was pretty sure there were not, but I hoped he'd go inside and be distracted by a toy or something, and be out of my hair for a few minutes.

Five minutes later, I hear his voice from inside, through his open bedroom window.

"I found them! Mama! I got the gloves!!! I'm coming to help!"

Hmm.

A few minutes later, Mac comes bounding outside, ready for action. He has a pair of socks on his hands and is so proud. Innovative! Not only was I impressed that he thought to put socks on his hands, I was equally impressed that he managed to get them on--since he has trouble getting them on his feet.

Anyway, of course, he "helped" for about 45 seconds until he realized it was hard work and not really much fun after all. I was relieved, because his "help" was basically picking pine straw up from a place I'd already spread and putting it someplace else, leaving big random holes throughout.

Not long after he came out with the socks, I decided to water my window boxes before spreading pine straw around the bushes underneath them. I filled the watering can, and went to turn off the spigot. I didn't realize that it was loose...so suddenly the watering can was overflowing...I pulled it out of the way...without realizing the force of the water coming out. Poor Mac was standing about 3 feet away and got blasted with a direct shot of cold water coming hard out of the spigot. I was franticly trying to get it off and he didn't have the instinct to get out of the way. I felt terrible! Not only was the poor kid soaked from head to toe, he was probably hurting from the force of it, and definitely terrified. This whole episode probably lasted about 5 seconds before I was able to get it turned off, but it was 5 seconds too long! Poor Mac! I felt so bad, and apologized a thousand times.

Anyway, I finished the rest of the yard work while they were napping. A much hotter time of day but so much easier to get work done!