country drive

This morning I weeded one of my flower beds. Well, half of the flower bed to be exact. The flower bed was more grass than flower by now. I'm not the best gardener to begin with, and this summer with having Elliot at the beginning of July I just let it go. I haven't been in there since June and it showed. So it took forever.

Steven wants me to come and hang out with him.
He says to do two posts tomorrow.
He obviously doesn't know how this works.

After I gave up on today's portion of weeding I had lunch and then ended up on the couch. Steven was lazing around the house and moaning about his sore back, even when the kids were NOT attacking him. He's such a drama queen. Apparently the soreness has moved into his ass, so he figures he's getting better. If he was a doctor, he wouldn't be mine.

Yes Steven, it is funny. And clever.

Betcha can't tell he's reading this over my shoulder. We're sneaky like that.

We went for a Sunday drive (yes, I know it's Saturday - we like to think outside the box). We do this from time to time, and kill hours. It's funny, because the kids get all excited when they think we're going somewhere and they beg to know where we're going. We laugh and say "I don't know," or "nowhere" and they accuse us of teasing, and think we're just being obstinate. When they realize that we really are going "nowhere" they're mad and say we never get to have any fun. It just makes us laugh, and them glare from the back of the van. Then we head through the Tim's drive through on the way out of town and get them a cookie and all is forgiven. That's the great thing about kids - cookies can solve all of life problems. I wish it could always be so.

We pick a direction and head out of town. Today we left on the East side of town, swung South and then West. We drove along the river and over the diversion. I told the kids to hold really still on the rickety old bridge so it wouldn't fall down. They looked all serious for a second, and then Jordan grinned all big and said "Mommy, it's not going to fall down." Then they laughed, I grinned and insisted that we "just made it", and Steven rolls his eyes and thinks I'm scaring them. I'm not. The kids are awesome. That's the thing about your own kids - they get your sense of humor, even when others don't. Jordan always knows when I'm kidding, and Tennyson always knows that Jordan's right, and they love it. I'm accused of "teasing" all the time. I tell Steven that I'm helping instill the magic in childhood (with my bridge story). He snorts. We carry on.

I love Sunday drives. The kids fall asleep after eating their cookies and Steven and I talk about all sorts of stuff. We hit the back roads and scout out perfect spots to build a house. We talk about the kind of house we want. We talk about books we're reading, stuff we've been doing, what we'd like to do in the future. We talk about the kids, our jobs, what we want to be when we "grow up". We don't bring a cell-phone, a lap-top or magazines. We don't bring travel games for the kids, or sippy cups. We do have a roll of toilet paper, but only because it was in the van to begin with.

We got lost. We always get lost. We don't want to travel on the highway, so we stick to back roads. We always end up on a road that turns into a service road that just turns into field before we realize it's going to. Then we have to try and motor back up the hill we drove down to get into the field without falling into the ruts and bottoming out. It's way more interesting in the spring when the ruts are muddy and we wonder if we're going to make it back out the way we came in. We only had to turn around twice today.

The kids are only mildly concerned when we tell them we're lost. I say we're lost (you know, adventure), and Steven assures them that we're not lost, we just don't know where we are.

Tennyson got to pee in the ditch. This is always his absolute favorite part of Sunday drives. He grins and giggles the entire time. Then Daddy had to encourage him to collect his rocks away from the area that he peed on.

Once when we were country driving I told Tennyson that if we got lost we were going to have to live in "that bush over there." He was awfully disappointed when it didn't happen. He'd be such a good country kid. Someday.

I think that's my favorite part - talking about the "somedays."

When I look back at my kids, all sleeping all slack jawed in the van while Steven and I chatter away about anything that's interested us in the last few days, I know how lucky I am. I don't know of anyone who I'd rather be country driving with on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

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