What better way to celebrate the warm weather than picking up a yard full of recyclables! This year the melting snow revealed a back yard mess of "white-trash" proportions. Why had our yard become a dumping ground for glass, paper, and #1 and #2 plastics? The answer, as you might by now have guessed, involves a game invented by one very busy, precocious, 3 ft, blond. It seems that throughout the winter Evan had been hurling the family's recyclables off the deck one by one, week by week. Thereby leaving our our yard to resemble the town dump. Perhaps it was his way of exacting revenge on us for bundling him up and depositing him outside in the cold of winter, or maybe it was just fun. Either way, I convinced him to help me clean up the yard by lying to him about how much fun it was to pick up dirty, wet recyclables. Lucky for me, he bought it. And as we worked he declared: " Thanks for helpin' Mommy" which is actually his way of thanking himself - (not Mommy)- but it also means that he was enjoying himself and was proud of his efforts. Unfortunately the call of the swing set was stronger than the call of the recyclables. So, the wet paper products became my job - but that was probably just as well.
