Working outdoors perked up her mood

January is almost over. Paperwhite daffodils are blooming merrily in their containers and filling the house with the sweet smell of spring. The sky is starting to show a little bit of color after weeks of being flat white.

I spent a good bit of Saturday outside pretending to clean up the detritus from last year. As usual, plastic cups reappeared as soon as I turned my back on a newly cleared lawn.

I attacked the towering pokeweed behind the garage. I gathered cockleburs into a garbage bag in a vain attempt to keep them from reseeding so prolifically. I inspected all the flowerbeds and recovered the assorted bulbs the evil squirrels had exposed. They are no longer limiting themselves to digging up tulips. Hyacinths, scilla and stars of Bethlehem have all been dug up. It isn’t frost heave because it hasn’t been that cold this year. I keep hoping the hawk that patrols the yard will scare the squirrels into more civilized behavior but so far it isn’t working.

I should take the opportunity to trim the trees. This is a good time to trim them as it is easy to see what cuts are needed and the trees won’t be as stressed as they would be at other times of year. It won’t happen because trimming trees is one of my least favorite things to do.

The wind has already trimmed a few trees for me. The broken branches on one of the maples finally made it to the ground along with oodles of smaller twigs. I used one of them to chase a black squirrel out of the iris bed. The neighbors probably thought I had lost my mind.

All in all Saturday was a great day for piddling around outside. I didn’t accomplish much but I did get some badly needed sunshine on my skin. It perked me up like nothing else could have.

I was still in a good mood later that evening when my daughter called. It seems that Nicholas, the kindergartner, had turned into a teenager, complete with rolling eyes and a know-it-all attitude. They had gotten into a major disagreement on how to spell, “get.”

“Mo-om! It’s guh-it. Git. G-i-t.”

“No. It’s g-e-t. And it’s properly pronounced get.”

Eye rolling and other body language indicating Mom is an idiot.

“I graduated college. I know how to spell a kindergarten word. It’s g-E-t.”

Once they agreed to disagree on “get,” they went on to “icing.” “I-see-i-n-g.” “See” was one of his sight words and he wouldn’t accept the letter, “C” as being part of the word.

More disagreement, finally leading to Dad taking over. Ah, the joys of phonics. Wait until they get to words like, “tomb and comb,” or finding out that “read” is both past and present tense and pronounced differently depending on the context.

This was a prelude to telling me that the school was considering putting Nicholas into the gifted and talented classes. There is more testing involved in the process, and Beth isn’t sure it is a good choice for this headstrong little boy. I was surprised that they began labeling children so early.

All in all, Saturday was a good day. The temperatures are predicted to drop a little later this week, but not so much as to keep us trapped indoors. I urge you to enjoy the warmer weather and be grateful you don’t have to argue with a small child on how to spell a three-letter word.