Yard work with a 4 year old.

So, this year we have a bunker crop of black walnuts. They are falling into the yard and will probably kill all of the grass and my flowers, too, if I don't take the time to toss them elsewhere. Every day when I get home I toss walnuts. Leif likes to help me. It is usually fun, but every once in a while he misfires and pelts me in the back of the head and then suddenly it's just an irritation so I quit. I'm beginning to wonder if he does that on purpose.

Today when I was grabbing a walnut from the small gathering of cone flowers, I could no longer ignore the overabundance of weeds. Yes, I tend to slack on weeding once mid-July hits. It's just inevitable that my interest dwindles or delusions of having a perfect flower garden fade by then. Guaranteed. What the deer haven't eaten, the moles haven't uprooted, or the squirrels haven't replanted is usually just, well, weeds. So the weeds grow without competition from much of anything, most certainly not from me. But now I'm pulling weeds in October out of embarrassment of the State of my Yard.

Leif comes over and says, MOM, can I help you with that? Why are you pulling out all of the plants? I say, These aren't good plants, honey, they are weeds. I need to pull them out. (I have a huge pile of grasses and burr-producing things behind me by this time.)

Leif: Where will you put them?
Me: Down over the cliff edge, into the trees. (more like a small drop-off, but Leif calls it a cliff.)
Leif: COOOOL, can I help with that?
Me: Sure!
Leif: Mom, you sure have a lot of wheat.
Me: They aren't wheat, Leif, they are weeds.
Leif: Wheats.
Me: It isn't wheat, they are weeds. with a D. Not Wheat with a T, (make T sound), but weed with a D (make D sound.)

Leif grabs more weeds and tosses them over the cliff and comes back.

Leif: Mom, you sure have a lot of weed, don't you?


>.<


Mom: Yes, honey, we have a lot of wheat.


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He'll tell his teacher about the weed, I'm sure of it. I can hardly wait for social services to contact me.