We weeded the garden and raked the leaves for the second night in a row. How excited I was to get an encore from M&M!

I attempt to weed with them but every time I go to plant myself amongst the ivy or ragweed one of the kids yells “Mom, come look at how good I am doing!” I go to one of them and praise their work and the other shouts “Mom, come look at my work!”

They both did awesome jobs pulling up patches of weeds lining the border of the garden out back. Mario likes the tall weeds by the vegetable garden and Ri likes the short, stout weeds by the back fence.

I have read all sorts of articles on gardening but have never really gotten the kids out in our back yard as much as I wanted. They helped plant the vegetable garden in early summer and they help place rocks around the gardens but don’t really dig in the dirt and weed or tend to the flowers. Why?

Probably has to do with their parents not doing too much! Neither Jon nor I have the “green thumb” of the family. We get things done to keep the yard and garden looking decent but our first priority on weekends has not been spending hours in the yard.

But I have to admit that it has been enjoyable and relaxing the last two nights to stay home and work together as a family on beautifying the yard. Maria is more and more into science so I could use this time in the dirt and flowers to learn about science. Mario has always loved to help outdoors and discover pill bugs and butterflies. I have been transformed. By no means a full-fledged gardener nut but at least more appreciative of the art and tranquility of the process.

We had to end the night with a leaf pile for the kids to jump in to celebrate our hard work and to commemorate the beginning of the end of Summer. It wasn’t gargantuan in size but still provided lots of laughter and smiles like any leaf pile should.