Playing with Dirt

Scene: Quiet afternoon nap time. The younger two children are sleeping. Mommy is tapping away on the computer. The bored preschooler is bored.

E: Mo-om! I want to go outsi-yed. Can you open the door? (I'd deadbolted it at the top from the mornings antics.)

Me: Sure. As long as you keep your clothes on and don't pour dirt in your hair.


Is that too much to ask??


Background: The kids have been "making compost" lately which involves shoveling dirt into containers and collecting leaves and finding rocks and putting it all somewhere. Perhaps in the compost bin, perhaps not. That parts a little fuzzy. Not sure where the rocks came in because that's not in the "recipe". But I have a bowl of scraps on the counter to dump a little later today so I may be in for a surprise.

As much as I'd like to claim complete responsibility for teaching my kids about compost (they fight over who gets to dump the bowl in), our favorite PBS cartoon show, Curious George, has reinforced the concept. There were 4 new episodes the beginning of the month and we all got excited about that. Yes, Matt and I sat down and watched them start to finish with the kids. Apple presses, penguins, seeds, carrots, compost, levers... all sorts of science-y stuff. We have 54 episodes of Curious George on our DVR. Ridiculous indeed. :)

My kids usual backyard entertainment involves water. They call it "swimming" but it's really playing with water and dirt/sand in containers and often wearing a swimsuit. As the summer has dragged on (so much for my one weekend of fall weather) the ratio of water has shrunk and the dirt has increased. After a bad day last week that involved mud patties being thrown at the house and sandcastles on the deck I hosed everything down and locked the hoses away in the garage. Enough was enough. So now their outside play has evolved to playing with dirt. So much for the climbing trees or kicking a soccer ball around....