The Neighbor's Yard or Bust

This past Friday afternoon, I was inside folding laundry. The slider door was open to the backyard and the girls were running in and out of the house playing. We have a fairly small backyard that wraps around the side and back of our home so I'm easily able to listen to them play in the backyard while getting work done inside. I was watching a show while I folded clean laundry and was trying to enjoy the quiet time to myself while it lasted...when I realized the quiet I was enjoying had probably lasted a little too long. The girls were up to something. I walked outside, first checking the gate to make sure I didn't have any escapees. Then I walked the grassy path that follows our yard to the back of our house and had to smile, a little surprised, a little amused by what I saw.

June had found a fence plank that had come loose at the bottom and middle rung. She had swung it back and was holding it up for Jo, who was straddling the bottom rung, one foot in our yard, one foot in our neighbor's yard. Jo looked ready to make a break for it and start a new life in our neighbor's backyard. And June, the enabler, was coaching her through it while holding the loose plank up in the air.

Of course when I called their names, they panicked. Jo submissively stumbled back into our yard, while June stubbornly shouted protests, clearly not pleased that their escape plan had been thwarted by their mom. As I was nailing the plank back into the rungs, June was wailing. I went back inside to continue folding laundry and once again realized the girls were entirely too quiet. Wanting to make sure there were no other loose planks, I went back outside to find June acting on the same thought. She was scaling the back fence, tugging and looking for points of weakness in each plank.

These girls are 1 and 3 and I think I got a quick glimpse into what my future holds during the upcoming years...

The nutsos