What happened when I tried to include my family in gardening
 (Read 20+ times)
By Jared Garrett
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Taking a big bite of the bowl of hot oatmeal I held in my hand, I stepped out onto the back patio that we had poured before the season turned cold. The heat of the bowl in my hand and the food sliding into my stomach provided a pleasant contrast to the chill of the early Spring morning.
"Today's the day," I said.
Nobody answered.
I turned to see where my kids had gone; they had been right behind me when I opened the door. They were in the kitchen, huddled around their mom. "Dad! It's cold!" my seven-year-old called out.
"Refreshing, isn't it?"
"No! It's just cold!" my five-year-old boy replied.
"So should I leave the door open or what?"
"Close the door!" This time my wife joined in.
I took another bite of the oatmeal, thoughts of toughening up my family surfacing in my brain.
"Honey, will you please close the door?"
Looking up, I got a good look at my wife. She raised her eyebrows at me; clearly she knew what I was thinking.
"Alright, fine." I went indoors and we all finished our breakfast.
But today was still the day. The weekend had arrived and the weather forecast said this Saturday would be sunny and warm. I told my kids that they had to come out as soon as the thermometer said the temperature was fifty degrees. Then I headed out to clear out the old garden plot that had not been used by the previous residents of our home.
Dark green tendrils of ivy stretched the entire width of the ten-foot wide plot and spurge and other nasty broadleaf weeds had taken up residence in the mostly grass-less plot. Within minutes I could see my breath, foggy and pale, exiting my lungs as I worked up a sweat.
An hour later I checked the thermometer. Fifty two degrees and my boys were not out yet. I had four kids: two older boys, one three-year-old girl named Lily, and the recently toddling baby was Nathaniel.
"Thomas! Hintze!" I shouted through the open back door. "Let's go! Grab your jackets and come give me a hand." I was going to teach my lads the value of hard work today. The time had come for these boys to get toughened up.
A few shouts and some whiney searching for shoes later, the boys were out and trudging through the moist grass that was beginning to show signs of life. "Why do we have to do this?" Hintze, the five-year-old, asked.
"We have to do a garden because it's good work and we want good, fresh organic vegetables."
"No, Hintze meant why do WE have to do this?" Thomas clarified.
"Because you can. I need your help." We arrived at the garden plot. "Okay. I cut the ivy and now I need you two to clear it up and put it in a pile in front of the compost area." I pointed to the designated spot.
"ALL of it?" Hintze must have woken up on the lazy side of his bed.
I gritted my teeth. "Yes."
"But it's huge!" This from Thomas, the older one. Somehow these two boys, separated in age by two years, were always in synch. One always seemed to know what the other was thinking.
I had measured the plot. It was ten feet by twenty, only two-hundred square feet. "This is nothing. Just get to it and you'll be done in no time."
"Are we done after this?" Thomas asked, donning the gloves I had just given him.
"Probably not."
Two simultaneous huffs and angry shoulder slumps later they got to work.
I turned to find my hoe; it was time to dig out the deeply rooted dandelions and other weeds. "Nathaniel! No!" My toddler, wearing only a clean diaper was scratching in the mud of the plot. "Dude," I picked him up and was rewarded with an affectionate neck slap with muddy hands and footprints on my shirt. "You need clothes."
Setting him inside the back door and notifying his mother of his state of affairs, I turned at a shout from Thomas. "He took my ivy!"
In synch but happy to argue, I thought as I moved to mediate the argument. "Plenty of ivy, Thomas."
"But he did that on purpose!"
Looking at his brother, I could see by Hintze's little smile that he had, in fact, done it on purpose. "Arg. Guys. Just work. Get the ivy out so I can till the plot, okay."
I shook my head and turned to the shed to get my hoe. There was Nathaniel again, still clad in only a diaper, but this time he had found a green trowel somewhere and he was working hard at digging a hole to China. He had gotten to bedrock, or maybe that was just one of the many rocks in the Utah ground, when I got to him.
"Dude. Clothes." My neck and shirt muddier, I set him back inside and waited until my wife had taken charge of the little rascal. "Okay. Hoe." I moved toward the shed again.
"Don't do that!" I turned in time to see Thomas swipe at Hintze with a long ivy whip.
"T! Don't do that!" I echoed.
Thomas looked at me and said those lovely words, "He started it!"
"I'm ending it!" I said calmly. Okay, maybe not calmly. Actually, the correct adverb would be two: loudly and angrily. I was beginning to wonder if including these guys in my project was worth it. "Just do the ivy!"
This time I got my hoe and had actually dealt with two weeds before being interrupted again.
"We're done!" Thomas said, joy clear in his voice.
I looked around. "Done? Are you kidding me? Look at all the ivy over there.. and there!" I fixed the two boys with my best stern look. Someday I'll remember that my looks are completely ineffective on my kids.
Five minutes later they actually were done with the ivy and I had nudged Nathaniel out of the way of my hoe twice. At least now the little guy was wearing clothes and shoes. Now I set my older boys to gathering up the weeds I was pulling. It seemed like the warmer temperature was helping them get more into the groove, because there was less complaining this time.
"Nathaniel! No!" My enterprising toddler had now discovered the compost heap and was finding all kinds of choice, slimy things to enjoy. My wife, Annemarie, had just made it outside with our little girl, so she extracted the happy boy from his paradise and took him to get cleaned off.
"Daddy, I want to help!" Lily said, her big green eyes wide.
"Okay," I thought a moment, "can you get the grass out of the plot?"
"I need gloves, like Thomas and Hintze."
Sometimes I wished my daughter wasn't so precocious. "Uh, I don't think I have any."
"But I need them!" Clearly she didn't want to mess up her baby-soft hands. Clearly life would be forever dubbed unfair if she didn't get gloves like her older brothers.
"Um. Well, I really don't have any that will fit you."
By now the boys had stopped picking up weeds, since they had cleared all that I had dug up, and they were finding rocks to throw at the stump of an old tree that was in the corner of the yard. "Boys!" I called patiently. Yeah right. "Get the claw tools out of the shed and pull more weeds. Now."
"I need gloves," Lily said, confident that her eyes and sweet face would help me find her a pair to use.
"Why doesn't she use some of the plastic ones," Annemarie said, emerging with the now-slimeless baby.
My wife is smart.
A few minutes later Lily was being a big help as she got in my way and the older boys' way in turn.
Two hours passed and, with plenty of weeds left in the garden, we were done. Sure, the project wasn't done, but I was done, and I can tell you that those kids were finished!
Nathaniel had two baths during this time period. Lily amused herself by snatching the claw tools Thomas and Hintze were using every time they set them down. Then she would run, screaming in terror as they chased her and yelled at the top of their lungs. This was her idea of fun.
As I hung up my tools and then tossed my work gloves into the shed, Thomas and Hintze came up to me. They threw their gloves on top of mine.
"That was fun, Dad," Thomas said. He bumped me with his shoulder.
"Yeah, we got a lot done, didn't we?" Hintze agreed.
"Oh yeah. Good times." My head ached from the constant screaming and yelling. My voice was hoarse from the calm, patient shouting I had done to try to keep my kids in line. My back ached from having to remove Nathaniel from mud and slime.
But hey, maybe they did have fun. The next year the older boys raised the biggest tomato plant in the garden, all by themselves, so maybe they had picked up something after all.
You know what I picked up? A fence to put around my compost pile.
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Author Bio Box: Jared Garrett
 http://www.helium.com/user/show/45690
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