Happy Dirt

All four kids are quietly watching Tangled.  Thank you Disney ™ for your awesome ability to capture children’s attention.  It’s the most TV they’ve watched all week.  I’m cooking dinner and I can’t help but wonder what the pioneers did on rainy days.  You know, those people who lived before Blu Ray and TV and Smartphones.  The ones who let their kids out to play in that stuff called “mud”.  Yeah, yeah, I’m not that bad.  My kids play outside a lot.  A lot. 

So, it was rather funny when we had run up to the grocery store last night.  We needed to go, despite it being 7:30.  The three older kids had been playing outside all day.  In the dirt.  So up to the store we went.  Bug needed formula.  Someone going by us made the usual “hands full” and then said something about how dirty they all were.  Yeah, they were.  We went to the store before bath time.  And the store gives free cookies.  Chocolate with chocolate chips and M&Ms is almost always the choice with my kids.  So my dirty children now looked like they had been sucking dirt popsicles.  So I laughed at the lady and said “Yeah, this is what kids who can’t watch TV all day look like.”  She of course said “Good for you, mama” and went about her shopping.  And it’s true for the most part.

We have a summer schedule here.  An every-minute-is-planned type of schedule.  A keep kids from asking when is snack schedule.  A no arguing about chores schedule.  A keep mom sane schedule.  It gives them one hour of TV a day, and an hour and a half of video game or movie time in the evening.  Otherwise they are outside.  It’s what summer was when I was a kid.  It’s what summer should be.  Dirt, popsicles, swimming, lightening bugs, and the smell of jasmine on the air.  Laughter becomes the soundtrack for our house in summer.  And it’s dirty.  Good happy dirty.