and a couple of movies of the kite-flying: movie 1 … movie 2
this was the first time i had met most of the kids that were out at this end of the neighborhood. there were a couple of 11-year-old girls who were SOOOO nice to the younger kids… climbing trees to retrieve stuck kites, and one even ran home to grab an extra kite string after her younger sister hopelessly tangled EvilGremlin’s string when he gave her a turn with his. if you remember anything about your middle-school years, you may remember being a complete asshole. i’m always surprised when a middle-schooler is not just not a turd, but actually a really incredibly conscientious and kind human being. like the time EG was 3, and i took him to a park, and he wanted to run off and play tag with a rowdy group of middle school boys, and i freaked and started to drag him away… but the boys were like, no, he can play! and they spent the next hour playing with him, picking him up to help him climb over things that were too tall for him… it’s the kind of thing that restores your faith in humanity.
there was some planting. and some un-planting. and some tulip-tasting. and dirt-tasting. and rock-tasting. because they can’t ALL taste like shit, right? PRM bought 3 small shovels and put the boys to “work.” (i think he did actually get some identifiable help out of them, too, though DramaQueen was more interested in digging a nest for the ducks that have been hanging out in our yard than in doing anything actually assigned to him.) he’s got a second raised bed built, and it’s now full of tomato plants. sweet! i *think* the last frost of the season was a week ago. TexasRoadKill lost his tomato plants to it. and if there’s a may frost, well, dammit, i might actually have to quit making fun of him for putting his shit out too early.
two movies of some crawling… i didn’t do the best job of capturing what i think is the funniest locomotion ever – even funnier than the frog-hop crawl – which is running on all fours. not hands and knees. hands and feet; ass up. there’s a little bit of it here, though. movie 3 … movie 4
and our backyard has started to bloom, so we have three separate vases of flowers on the table right now, which is kind of awesome!
okay, we actually only own 2 vases. so the small yellow tulips are in a hookah bowl. whatever!
so all that plus some grilling and picking pretty much sums up our sunday. we got all the kids bathed and in bed by 830… remembered to bring the guitars and fiddles and banjos back inside when it got dark… SpazMonkey only needed like 6 bandaids to get through the day… i think that qualifies the day as “a success.”
*as in:
You think you’ll be happy if granted one more wish
But the truth is you’ll never need more than this.
they’re song lyrics, damn you. keep up, now.
great song. great album. my current favorite album, actually. vanessa carlton is a genius. also? she sings in my vocal range, so i can sing along really, really loud to her albums without my voice doing a 13-year-old boy impersonation. track 4 will make you cry. and track 9. and track 10. the title track, though – track 7 – will probably do nothing for you, since it was specifically written to be my theme song.
