Master Gardeners

 
First I want to show you this cute onesie that Baby Doll won from Rhonda @ wherever you go...there you are.. Doesn’t she look adorable? OK, so I’m a little biased.

Pretty sure I’ve mentioned that I’ve been watching my grandkids all summer. Near the end of July, the kids started going back to school, and now that it’s September, I only have my 4-year-old grandson, Burrito, my 3-year-old son, Curly, and almost one-year-old Baby Doll left at home. Scout is in kindergarten, so we have her for half the day except that she sleeps in until noon so it’s not like she’s really here anyway.

So with just these three little ones at home, I’m having a rather difficult time accomplishing anything during the day. My biggest babysitter for the boys is our humongous sand pile, and I send them out there often. The problem with that is that they like to turn on the water and then they get in trouble when Burrito’s dad gets here to pick them up. Now since they can’t use water as a diversion, they have found something new. Apparently, they are both planning to be Master Gardeners when they grow up, which is next week if you ask Curly.

First I discovered three random ears of corn laying on the patio table. No one seemed to know anything about them. Then, on Thursday, both boys came running in, “Grandma, Grandma,” Burrito shouted. “We found a watermelon!” Curly was close at his heels. Yup. They found a watermelon all right. They pulled it right out of the watermelon patch. It was about the size of a baseball. Patience already stretched thin by my inability to deal with my life this week, I came slightly unglued. “That watermelon is never going to grow any more,” I snapped. “You killed it.” Curly started to cry. Burrito looked at me stone-faced. “It was Curly’s idea,” he said. This made Curly cry harder. “No it wasn’t.” He looked like his heart was ready to break as I continued to rake them over the coals about playing in the garden.

Last week they stomped on all the cherry tomatoes and when I cussed them about it, Burrito’s response was, “But I don’t like cherry tomatoes.” I immediately sentenced them to unloading the dishwashers as a punishment job. They complained, but eventually they made their way to the kitchen and started tossing Tupperware bowls into the cupboard. I put Baby Doll in the high chair and opened a jar of baby food. Maybe I could keep them on task if I were sitting right there. I spooned the pulverized lasagna into her open mouth. I must have been really tired because I was totally oblivious until Burrito approached the table. In his hand he was carrying Princess’s bottle of body mist. The strong scent lingered. “I sprayed the soap on all the dishes,” he proclaimed. “That is not soap!” I screeched. I snatched the bottle from his hand, stomped across the room and checked the dishwasher. Yup, sure enough. He had sprayed all the clean dishes with the body mist. At least they smelled good…I hung my head in defeat. Then I proceeded to restart the dishwasher. I guess there is more than one way of getting out of doing a job. I sent them back to the sand pile.