Spring, damp and green

It continues to rain, but not in a scary way -- just not so great for baseball. Kid A's team has played one game (out of six possible) in the last three weeks. We're supposed to have a practice today, so the kids don't forget how to play, but the clouds are pretty threatening (National Weather Service says 40% chance of thunderstorms after noon).

Yesterday, Rocket Boy had it all planned. He would pick up the freshly-sharpened mower blade from the hardware store on his way to meet with someone at 3:30, get home around 5 pm, and then mow the front lawn, which was about two feet high and very embarrassing. He ended up getting home at 5:30, put the blade in the mower -- but then it had to sit for a while and get oil on it or something. So he made dinner (spaetzle with mushroom gravy, his specialty). Around 7 pm he was finally ready to mow the lawn, when of course it started to rain.

I tried not to be irritated with him -- after all, he did make dinner -- but honestly, why not pick up the blade in the morning and mow around 2 pm? But it's not worth it to get in that kind of fight. Despite being a Boulder native, Rocket Boy stubbornly persists in not believing that it's going to rain in the late afternoon/early evening, which is when it always rains.

Anyway, I was pretty good and did not make a big fuss, and after about 10 minutes, it stopped raining. So Rocket Boy went out and mowed after all, because the grass was wet, but not SUPER wet, and when will it ever be dry? He said it was very hard to mow, but he was successful. I think the lawn looks great, though all those dandelions will be popping their heads back up by this afternoon.

I am enjoying the intense growth that all the rain is causing. The honey locust is a striking yellow green:

and the backyard spirea is sprawling all over everything. Here it is with Pie Bear:

The backyard is a total disaster, but we won't think about that right now. Rocket Boy has an excuse for not mowing it: might mow over Snakey, whom we have not seen for a while, but is very possibly still there.

We need to get our garden planted (in Clifford's yard, which gets a lot more sun than our yard), but it's been hard to work outside. Maybe this weekend, though it's supposed to rain.

For Mother's Day, Rocket Boy bought me a little rosebush.

Truth be told, it was really for him -- he's wanted one for a long time. But I am fine with having Mother's Day be the excuse, because of course I like roses too. We just have to think of a place to put it. Roses like sun, don't they? We don't have many sunny spots, with all our trees.

My choice of a Mother's Day gift was a picture frame in which you can put photos of your kids throughout their school years. About, hmm, nearly 20 years ago (?!!!!), I went with my friends Janice & Shawn and their new baby Gwen (now a UofM student herself) to visit Shawn's family in Muskegon, and Shawn's mother had a frame like this for each of her five kids -- all grown by then, so the frames were full. It was the sort of thing my parents would never have done, probably would have thought it was tacky or lower-class, but I loved it.

So anyway, this was my Mother's Day request last year, but Rocket Boy looked at one place, found nothing, and told me to buy it online. Feeling unappreciated, I did nothing. This year, starting over, trying to act like a grown-up, I looked online and found a nice one at Michael's -- RB called Michael's and they had it in stock, so we went and bought it.

You are supposed to have a separate frame for each child, but RB pointed out that the frames would have an awful lot of empty spaces for a LONG time. I decided that I could use this one frame to put photos of kindergarten through 5th grade, i.e., their entire elementary school experience, Kid A in the top row, and Kid B in the bottom row. Then, if I'm still into it, I can get another similar frame to cover middle school and high school -- or maybe this will be enough, because by then they'll be grouchy teenagers and won't want their pictures taken, etc., etc. I'm very happy with this idea. I have to find their kindergarten and 1st grade photos (in a pile somewhere in the house) and get started. Right now I just have one preschool photo of Kid B (in the red overalls above) and a joint baby picture from their very first daycare, when they were maybe 6-8 months old (all those other photos came with the frame).

So, it's now 10 am and I should stop playing around with my blog and get busy. My to-do list is approximately one thousand miles long. It's Friday... only two more weeks until the kids get out of school. That should scare me into productive activity.