Crumpled Home

It’s a beautiful, bright, sunny day and RJ and Mom are in the garden. Deep within a ferocious tangle of tomato vines, Mom is pulling up plants and getting the garden ready for a new season. RJ walks purposefully outside… He clearly has an agenda.

RJ: Mom, is there anything that I can do to help you? … And then maybe earn a prize? … Like a new Beast Quest book?

Mom: Ummm…Okay. You can empty out the pool so we can put it away for winter.

The pool is four metres in diameter and 80 centimetres deep… It holds a LOT of water.

RJ: And if I empty out the pool, can we go to the bookshop right away?

Mom: Okay… It might take a while though!

RJ starts industriously emptying the pool, tiny bucket by little, tiny bucket. After half-an-hour the water level has dropped a little, but not significantly. Mom feels sorry for him and steps in to help out.

Ten minutes later, she has had enough and is seriously considering suggesting that they just go to the bookshop and leave the job for Daddy.

RJ: I know it’s hard, Mom. But if we want that book, we just have to keep going.

Mom: (Feeling guilty, desperately wishing the child hadn’t just said that, wondering if it’s bad parenting to discourage such industry) Mmmmhmmm.

Time passes. More water is emptied into the garden.

RJ: We’ll just keep going, won’t we Mom?

Mom: Okay…

RJ: Because we might not like it, but it just has to get done.

Mom: (sighs)

RJ: Even if it’s really hard work. We just have to keep going.

Mom: Yeah…

RJ: Because if we don’t do it, who will? There’s just nobody but us. So we have to get it done.

Mom: (looking around for candid camera set up by Dad) Argh.

RJ: I know, Mom. But we can do it.

RJ: (pauses, thoughtfully) Maybe you should get a book too, Mom. You’re really working hard.

More time (and water) passes and eventually they emptied the entire pool.

All of it.

And they got a book.

And Mom got a coffee.

RJ: Dad, if LR comes back from camp with four legs, big marshmallow lips and a mane and a tale and hooves, do we have to keep her?

Dad: I’m not sure RJ. If she can talk, I think we have to.

RJ: She wont be able to talk, Dad. She’s a horse.

Dad: A horse could be kind of useful. Do you think she could make it up the stairs to her room?

RJ: No way!

Dad: I guess she could stay in the backyard. Mom would be pretty upset if we got rid of her.

RJ: It just wouldn’t work. She would eat all the plants and wouldn’t be able to do her jobs around the house. She’d have to go.

Dad: I guess you’re right. Oh well, I’ll miss her.

(RJ is about to head inside, after a play in the front yard)

Mum: No sticks in the house, RJ.

RJ: It’s not a stick, Mum.

Mum: Yes it is. You know the rule.

RJ: No, it’s a piece of bamboo… So, this is just a piece of grass.

(from Wikipedia)

Bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan

Bamboo listen (help·info) is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family.

We added a pond to our backyard. Everyone helped out!

You must first recruit your team and get your equipment together.

Yesterday afternoon, while building a new raised planter box for an extension to the veggie patch, RJ and LR came out to help. Putting on my “Responsible Father” hat, I decided against letting them carve up the planks of wood with the  saw. Determined to help do something, they chose to attack the rose bushes with the hedge trimmers.

This wasn’t a problem — the roses are scheduled to be deleted sometime soon when Mum reformats the gardens. To give the kids some purpose, I suggested we try to make perfume or rosewater out of the rose blooms. “Great,” they said, and asked how to make it.

I managed to describe the processes while trying to sink the posts for the garden bed without destroying the incredibly convoluted system of pipes and tubes that make up our irrigation system. LR picked rosewater and immediately ran off and got to work. RJ decided to make perfume, and then asked where he could get alcohol.

(out in our fairly small back yard, neighbours just a few metres away in all directions)

RJ: Can you get me some alcohol?

Dad: I need to finish this bit of the project, RJ. I can’t help you right now.

RJ: (getting upset) But I need it now. I need to make perfume.

Dad: I understand. You really want to get started, but I can’t help yet. You have to wait.

(this repeats a few times as RJ gets more and more upset)

RJ: (angry and screaming) I NEED ALCOHOL. YOU NEED TO GIVE ME ALCOHOL NOW!

Dad: No! No alcohol for you until later!

RJ: (at the top of his lungs) I WONT WAIT! GIVE ME SOME ALCOHOL! I NEED ALCOHOL.

(this repeats a few more times and eventually he breaks down into tears)

RJ: (sobbing, yet still somehow very loud) Please daddy, please get me some alcohol. I only need a little bit.

I’m just waiting for a knock on the door from family services… They’ll probably be taking my “Responsible Father” hat with them.

(at the Western Australian Museum)

RJ: I want one of those. It would make a good pet.

Dad: A carnotaur? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

RJ: No. A hypsilophodon. We could keep it in the back yard.

Dad: That’d be fun. It would probably eat some of the plants in mum’s veggie patch, though.

RJ: Maybe we should get two then.

The garden has been doing fantastically. Lots of veggies and fresh greens have been rocketing up out of the ground. Mum and the kids spend a bit of time out there each week to hunt caterpillars, snails and the other evil creatures that want to share our meals with us.

Mum has been finding really interesting plants to grow in there too. Last year’s big hit was the purple carrots — apparently quite popular amongst preschoolers. This year, we have beetroot (aka. beets), but something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

They're beets, Jim, but not as we know it.

Great colours, but will the kids eat them?

(Dad & LR adding location ‘Pins’ in Google Earth)

Dad: Okay, so here’s our house. I’ll add a marker here.

LR: Good. Now make it green.

Dad: Goodbye yellow marker!

LR: Great. But I think we have to go out front and check the front garden.

Dad: Huh? What for?

LR: Because there’s a giant green pin out there.
I hope we didn’t hit the swing set.