The Grass is Always Muddier In Your Own Backyard

It occurred to me yesterday, as I was stripping the mud-covered jeans, jacket, and saturated boots off my flailing three year old, that perhaps owning a back yard isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Some say the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Comedienne Erma Bombeck noted that it's always greener over the septic tank.

Yet no one warned me that the grass is always muddiest in your own backyard. One of the biggest selling features of our place was the yard - green grass, lots of space for Noah to run around in, and NO swimming pool to give me heart palpitations from worrying myself sick.

We knew the yard needed a bit of levelling and aerating, and put it on our seemingly endless list of "things to do" to fix up our home and make it shine.

Yesterday "fix backyard" went from number 15 or 20 on the list to number 1.

There's a puddle.
WAAAAY in the back.
It's basically a pool of muddy waters.
It's avoidable.
It's not particularly noticeable til you are way out in the yard.

And it took about four seconds for Noah to find it, and take a running leap into the mud.

He has excellent form for a three year old. Olympic diving potential, I might even wager. He landed squarely in the puddle, and emerged, jeans soaking, hair covered in muck, grinning from ear to ear.

I'm not sure whether to sign him up for swimming lessons or simply close off the backyard until the drainage is complete.

Then I had a flashback to the day we met Noah's big brother. We went to the beach because both boys love water. And his big brother took a flying leap towards the ocean and landed - like a true Olympian - in a muddy tide pool.

Huh. Perhaps the need to launch oneself into muddy waters is genetic. Or perhaps it's something all little boys inevitably attempt.

I hope you liked your mud bath, Noah. Just remember, you might have a bunny for a wife, but that doesn't make you a barnyard animal. So could you PLEASE stay out of the puddles?