May 19

My wonderful Father-in-Law came over today and helped me finish the garden. He framed it in for me and then we went and bought more vegetables. While the kids were sleeping we planted everything. Tyler "helped" Papa all morning. There is nothing that makes my son happier than working outside with the "men". The garden is 10' x 20' and we planted a lot - beans, herbs, watermelon, cantalope, acorn squash, summer squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and sunflowers and I am going to even try a pumpkin. After Papa left Tyler, Mia and I spread out a blanket in the backyard (now that we have grass we can actually do this) and had a snack of yogurt and graham crackers. And then I don't what happened, one second we were sitting there looking for animal shapes in the clouds and the next second my son looks like someone who just came from Woodstock. He found some mud by the garden and decided to partake in a mud-bath. After hosing him down several times, I still had to bathe him twice before I could get the caked mud of his hair. But just seeing how much fun he had and the pure joy that overtook his whole body like an excited puppy makes it ok. These days go by too quickly. So I do an extra load of laundry in exchange for a lifelong memory - every thing has its price...