Ending and Beginning

This post talks about the difference between what I’m doing and what I should be doing. If I want to be honest, I can’t blog about only the successes and happiness in our lives.

Today is Saturday, so that means that DW is at work until this afternoon and I have both boys at home. And that means that this is my chance to have an influence on them, to be their father, to make them into good humans.

It also means that this is my time to get some stuff done around the house, especially, this time of year, yard and garden work.

So, we hang around in the house for a while this morning, playing and reading while waiting for it to warm up outside. Around 9:30 am or so, it’s warm enough and we’re pretty much done with being inside. We go outside. I move the vegetable plants out of the greenhouse and into the sun and water them all. Meanwhile, the boys are picking dandelion flowers and putting them into a bucket for me. I didn’t ask them to do that, but that’s fine.

By the time I get through moving and watering (maybe 10 minutes tops), they’re done with being outside and ready for a break — inside. There’s a ton of work to do out there, but I can’t leave them inside by themselves (because they’ll probably end up fighting) and I can’t talk them into staying outside with me. So we all go inside.

Frustrating. Am I asking too much of them? Will this work when they get older (they’re 4 and 6)? Should I just insist that they stay outside? How much should you pay attention to the stated wishes of 4- and 6-year-olds?

This entry was posted on 2 May 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.