Autumn Fun

Little secret. I love raking leaves. In fact, if left to my own devices, I might even volunteer to do our entire street. Therapeutic. Crisp air. I love when my face feels chilly but the rest of me isn't. That total feeling of accomplishment because when you start, leaves are everywhere. But when you finish, the green grass is bare. I love that.

3:15pm. First one minute was fabulous. Followed by 10 minutes of, well, you guess. Maddie had two time-outs within about 3 minutes of beginning the 'playing in the leaves' adventure. Jackson didn't understand that she had dibs on her own pile so he began to play in hers. Which led her to swinging her rake at him. WHAT? How old are you? What would ever cause you to think that is appropriate? Oh mercy. I almost called it off. As in, no more leaf fun today kiddos.

But, once we got over that near miss, we had a great time. Following picture taken POST almost-near-blunt-force-trauma-to-the-head-incident. I love that Maddie is a little project gal. And I mean, she stays on task and is FOCUSED when there is a project to be done. She's a hard worker and didn't want to quit, even after an hour of working. {And other than about a ten minute stop to jump in the leaves for picture opportunities, she raked the entire time.} So that was a good reminder. Sometimes I think she's just bored. Which translates into purposeful aggravation of her younger brother, which leads into frustration of mama. So note to self: find her some projects to do. And fast.
And Jackson. Well, he just wanted to play and jump and do somersaults and dive into the leaves. He loved it. So fun to watch. A reminder of the fact that kids really don't need plastic crap from China. The great outdoors does just fine. {Although I must interject that Jackson was thoroughly frustrated because he couldn't get the leaves to stay on his little shovel while he tried to hoist them above his head to get them into the huge garbage bin. Frustrated little guy. He just wanted it to work and couldn't quite do it. So there was whine-ing mixed in with joyful jumping.}He totally cheesed it up for pictures. Very fun.

All in all, a great autumn afternoon.