HEY DADS!
Well it sure feels like spring is back! Are you doing any spring activities with your kids?
We’re turning up soil, planting seeds, and transplanting seedlings. We’re trying to anyways.
I thought it would be fun getting the kids to help transplant some seedlings that we planted earlier in April. The victims were tomatoes, peas, pumpkins, and celery.
The experts that volunteered for the task were Arrow (age 2), Emerald (age 5), and Pearl (age 5). That’s a pair of twins there by the way. I suppose twins almost always come in pairs, don’t they?
As supervisor of the operation I handed out the required tools to my labour force. The tools included a half dozen re-purposed tin cans, two small gardening shovels, a pail of potting soil, and a pail of water that, believe it or not, would need constant refilling. The labour force did not have the necessary security clearance to handle the actual seedlings. That job’s for upper management.
First job for the new recruits was to fill six tin cans with potting soil. Easy peasy. Step one. Shovel soil in can. Step two. Place can on the table. End of steps.
They were doing a fairly decent job for cans one through five. Playing with dad. Playing with dirt. Playing with water. What could be better?
But as we neared the end of phase five, that is, tin can number five, of the project, I noticed that most of the soil ended up on the ground. By the time the final can was filled, two-thirds of my labour force had walked off the job, they all had wet uniforms and the inventory report showed all garden shovels MIA.
This spells frustration for management. There were more seedlings to transplant and that’s a difficult task sans garden shovels. Walking around the job site I soon found them abandoned in the grassy wasteland a few yards from the transplanting facility, better known as an old lawn mower wagon beside the kids’ plastic table.
The job didn’t go as fast as I had hoped. It didn’t go as efficiently as I hoped. It wasn’t as clean as I had hoped.
But I got to invest some time with my smaller kids and hopefully they learned a little bit about gardening. I learned a little bit about patience. I’m still learning. I’m not sure any of us would have learned anything if we were sitting around playing PS5 all weekend.
We made a memory planting our seedlings and planting our garden. I didn’t get angry at the kids. So many wins!
Dad, do you ever get frustrated with your kids? Hang in there! You’ve got what it takes! As a father of 10 once said about parenting, “I’m not saying it’s easy…but someday it will get easier.” Time flies! Make every moment count!
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