Stuck in Frump, Striving for Fab

Last Friday, Jericho had his first track meet of the season.

I quickly found out why it's called a track meet.

Just try keeping 'track' of all of one son's events around the track while your husband is working the meet calling out all the events via a megaphone...all while keeping 'track' of a rambunctious 4 year old who wants to do everything his big brother is doing, and you'll understand exactly what I mean.

For instance, one of Jericho's events is the 200 meter dash. They all line up at their respective starting points, and take off on the shot. (Jericho is to the left of the little boy on the sidelines).



Judah was fascinated with the gun that the Athletic Director used. "Is it real? Does it shoot bow-wets? Can I shoot it?" Lord, have mercy!

When he disappeared in the milling crowd moments later, I thought it was to go find the man with the gun. Instead, I found him out trying to get out on the track to run with all the big guys. If big brother could do it, then he could too (or so he thought).

I finally dragged him out of the way and managed to get a photo of another race. (Jericho in the center).



Later, Judah found his friend E, whose big brother seems to participate in all the same sports as Jericho. Together, these boys are quite a handful.

I spent my time running interference for both Judah and E, trying to keep them off the track and out of the way of the long-jumpers. E's mom was a tad preoccupied with her other son (who is about 18 months old), and who at the time of the following incident busy teething on the edge of a garbage can which happened to be his perfect mouth height. Blech.

So, it came time for Jericho to do the high jump again. I'd been trying to get a picture of him leaping over the bar...but Judah someone kept getting in the way of my picture-taking.

Finally, Judah and E were quietly playing with toys at my feet and my camera was poised and ready to go.

Jericho went loping around in a semicircle and flung himself up and over the bar...



and landed, a perfectly executed jump.

They raised the bar and he went again.



It was a beautiful thing.

And then, to my horror, on the 'overflow' pad beside the giant landing pad, I saw this



Judah apparently thought the landing pads resembled a giant bed, and thought that jumping on it would be great fun.

Embarrassed, I chased him off of it and we were just heading over to watch the 4-by-100 relay when he and E took off like a shot.

Seeing how much fun Judah'd had jumping, E had joined him and the two raced headlong back to the mat.



Before I could get them both off the thing they'd managed to each get in a couple of good belly slides.

When I finally rounded them up and told them not to do that again, I heard E say, "But...we love doing the penguin slide." Apparently that is the name for track events in their little world, lol.

Anyway, once again I missed Jericho's Kodak moment, but was pleased to learn that his team took 1st overall in that event.

To keep the little boys from causing the high-jumpers to have to stop circle back and re-run for their jumps, I dropped E off with his family and took Judah across the track where one of my friends from Bible study was sitting with her family. Her daughter was racing for another school.





I realized something for the first time: Had my friend had a son instead of a daughter, I might not have been quite so gracious about cheering on one of my boy's competitors, lol.

While we chatted, Judah played pretty well by himself, having found a motorcycle toy and rider in my purse. There may have also been a bribe of gum involved.

He even met a boy there, and though I don't recall them ever exhanging names, they were soon fast friends.

You just have to laugh when you hear little boys of this age play together. There is always this sense of urgency. "Hurry...da zombies are gonna get us!" with lots of running around and imaginative play. This little boy seemed to go along with whatever Judah thought up. "Don't step on da wrocks...only da grwass, or dey'll getcha." They pretended pretty well together for quite a while.

When they tired of that, they began hopping around like jackrabbits or kangaroos or something.

E found us again, and before long they were all turning somersaults.





But alas, the boys families soon moved on to their respective siblings next events, and having gotten distracted, I once again had to chase Judah off the track in just the nick of time.

Judah hadn't had a nap and was getting pretty cram-all-I-can-in-before-I-crash-from-exhaustion squirrelly, and it was about all I could do to keep up with him through the remainder of Jericho's events.

Jericho went back to the high jump once again because each time they raised the bar he kept clearing it.

His last growth spurt has made him all knees and elbows, but that's worked in his favor. He had the perfect lope necessary to clear 4 feet, 4 inches. He sailed right over the bar.

While waiting in line for them to raise the bar again, some athletes from other schools were asking him, "Dude what grade are you in? You're GOOD." Turns out they were all bigger 8th graders. He was the lone 7th grader making it to that level.

He attempted 4 feet 6 inches, but bumped the bar. Bummer.

Anyway, he was delighted to take 1st in the high jump overall for JV, and learned after placing in every event that this might mean he's been bumped up to Varsity for that event.

THATTA BOY, JERICHO!!

**Ahem**. Sorry for the outburst.

Anyway, in spite of all the keepin' track this mama had to do, it was a fun afternoon.

I was out working in the back yard when Judah says to me, "Well, mom, I'm off to pway goff baw."



He'd unearthed a toy golf set in the garage and put it in his jeep.

I had no idea that 4 year old even knew what golf was, lol.

:: :: :: ::

Due to recent rains, we learned why our garden didn't produce much last year.

Well, aside from the squirrels and hail, that is.

Apparently in our windy, arid climate here in the desert, gardens need to be gully-washer drenched from time to time, and not merely watered morning and night.

The garden beds pictured in the above photograph were, in fact, soaked during the same rainstorm that flooded our master bedroom closet...both by the rains from above, and the river running downhill beside our house and pooling alongside the garden beds, saturating it from beneath.

Judah came inside recently to report that we were "grwoween suh-um" in the garden.

I followed him out back, and lo and behold, we had a few 'volunteers' from last year's pitiful attempt at gardening.

Like this lovely lettuce.



And even corn!



Corn growing in March!

Apparently a couple kernels of corn did, in fact, escape the marauding neighborhood rodents.

For a couple of days prior to this discovery, Judah had also been observing that we had "suh-um up in da tree".

He spends a lot of time in our backyard and I assumed he'd seen a birds nest, but when Judah pointed up to the lone Joshua tree in our backyard and asked, "What IS dat?" I realized the tree had put out a big bloom.

And what a bloom it is!

I kid you not, this bloom is easily the size of a football.



But what I thrilled to see more than that was our lovely Red Baron peach tree in full bloom.

It was a profusion of pink peach-petal prettiness! The photos simply don't do justice to the hot-pink color of the blooms.



We're actually considering putting in an entire row of them out back just so we can gaze upon their loveliness after the long, dreary winter has passed.

Oh, the deliciousness that is spring. Birds twittering in all the trees, blooming things everywhere...even our neighborhood horses are heralding the season which smells of the promise of warmth and sunshine...by rolling around on their backs on the ground and running about and kicking up their heels (or back hooves, as the case may be).

And now, though it's Spring Break for our family, we're off to get a handle on the weeds that have suddenly sprung forth in our yard.

So just when we thought it was safe to take our rambunctious 4.5 year old child out into public without wreaking havoc, we found out we were wrong.

Our Pastor and his wife had us over for lunch on Sunday afternoon. Their table is one of those high tables that has beautiful matching stools, but because there weren't enough seats, an office-style chair was brought in and had to be 'pumped' up to the appropriate height.

Aside from his consistent scattering of their basket full of doggie toys, and his fascination with their La-Z-Boy chairs in the living room (picture a curious young boy cranking the lever on the side to watch the chair open and fold over and over until his negligent very-tired-from-a-youth-group-event-the-night-before parents finally noticed and told him not to touch those chairs again.) Not only were we concerned about damage to the furniture, we were worried about their little dog getting caught inside.

Things went remarkably well until after Judah finished his food. While we adults were still seated at the table talking after the meal, I noticed that Judah was exploring every square inch of their living room, and at one point even came behind us at the table. Part of the reason for this was that he kept tormenting chasing their little toy poodle, and at one point, he even ended up beneath that tall table looking for the dog. No doubt the poor dog was just trying to find one safe place to hide away from the reach of that kid.

Suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, our Pastor, who was seated in the office chair, suddenly drops about six inches, very nearly hitting his chin on the table.

"JUDAH!" he said, shocked but already laughing.

Yes, our Judah had spotted a lever on his chair, and because all the chairs in this house seemed to have them he just had to see what this particular one did.

Man, we're never going to get invited anywhere!

Photo from last year's battle with the Squirrels

He sits on the blocks
and mocks me
Waits for the corn
to scorn me
See's he's in my crosshairs
knows that I just don't dare
and so he sits there king supreme
my garden he is threatening
I know I don't have the guts to
set out traps with nuts to...
and so now I'm looking at fencing
as our main line of defense.
Jeff on the other hand is not so gracious
those pesky ground squirrels have already cost us
Flee, ground squirrels, flee.
Go far from here
never to return!

The past few days have been unseasonably cold.

Kind of strange considering that just a week ago, birds were tearing apart the empty coconut liners in my hanging baskets for nesting purposes.



To cope, I've been cooped up inside doing a little of this





and some Goodwill hunting.



All of these things will be repurposed or made over except the tin in bottom of this photo. It was my $5 find. Filled with vintage buttons.



We've also attended a couple of birthday parties. Judah had never played pin the crown on the princess before.



I've also been getting a couple of things ready for the fair.



Even having grown up in Western Washington where it rains and rains and rains all winter long, I find that since I've grown accustomed to the more arid climate of the Southwestern U.S., I have a hard time readjusting when the winters here get gray and gloomy.

Blah. Blah, blah, blah.

In spite of everything keeping us busy these days, this afternoon I heard wonderful, hope-filled words when Judah popped his head in the back door shouting breathlessly, "Mama! Come quick! Da trees have white roses on dem!"

I ran for my trusty camera and followed him out back where we found that our almond trees were indeed in bloom.





He was so proud of his discovery. "Mama...take a 'pitcher' of me by 'em."



The plum tree was also blooming, and Judah remarked, "Dey wook wike pah-corn!"



I guess they do look a little like popcorn, old maids and all, lol.

Ahhh...signs of Spring in the air! It all kind of makes me want to run across lush green hills, arms outstretched, singing, "The hills are alive....with the sound of music..."

But...I'll refrain.

Although I might do a happy dance. And maybe click my heels together just for fun.

WooHOO! Spring is on the way!