Little Mud Pies (or "What Could Happen When You Paint a Chair Red")

If you have kidlets of your own, you may mind this entry entertaining. If you don't yet have any, consider this a "cautionary tale". I try not to write about my little ones on this remodeling blog, but I'll make an exception today...

We had a long but wonderful weekend. We were away at a two day Bible educational assembly. It was very refreshing and though there was a lot of sitting and listening involved, my little ones were all very well behaved. Monday was a very special evening as well because it was the night of our annual memorial of Jesus' death. The kidlets were good, then, too:)

By Tuesday, I was really tired and decided to use the day to mostly rest. I did get out and pull the weeds out of the landscaping beds hubs built for me a few weeks ago. Soon we're going to be filling them with more dirt and some flowers. While I was outside, I was mentally planning what flowers would go where and thinking about what a lovely job hubs did in building the beds. And then I thought about the fact that the little ones had been so good all weekend and how they would love the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary and fun. After school, I asked them..."Wouldn't it be fun for you guys to make mud pies with the old dirt in the flower beds?"

Ooooh, they were so excited! I told them they could use their plastic play dishes for their "pies" and decorate them with pebbles and wild flowers. They were thrilled! The old dirt in the beds was dry so I told them they could use the hose to moisten it a bit because, afterall, who likes a dry pie? While they "baked", I was headed to the backyard to paint one of our old ladderback chairs red - an easy project that I've been meaning to get to for a year now. (We're getting ready to have a big yard sale to get rid of things we don't use, so this chair was one of those use it or lose it items.) "Please rinse your feet and hands with the hose before you go into the house." Those were my only instructions.

It didn't take long to paint the chair...maybe about 20 minutes. As I headed to the other side of the house, imagine my horror surprise when I realized that I didn't have cute little pebble and floral decorated mud pies waiting for me, but a giant, messy MUD POND instead! I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor, lol. The kidlets were wading in the landscaping bed and the water was well above their ankles.Mud was *everywhere*...the house, the sidewalk, the window, the sunroom floor. They had apparently been splashing and bellyflopping in their newly created pond, too, from the looks of their clothing.

I admit, I was really irritated. But at the same time, the whole situation was hilarious (unbeknownst to them) and I just had to take photos to remember the day they made "mud pies". Even though I scolded them and they apologized, they told me they had so much fun wading in that flowerbed with the mud squishing between their toes.

And just so none of us will ever forget, I'm going to have this photo printed and framed...I've entitled it Little Mud Pies.


By the way, the pond waters finally receded this morning, thank goodness.