April Showers Bring...Worms

Every night when I get home from work, I usually have about an hour of uninterrupted mama and Mac together-time before Ryan gets home.  Well, "uninterrupted" is probably not the best word for it, as it's always interrupted by stupid adult things like changing out of my work clothes, starting dinner, answering the phone, letting the dogs out and going to the bathroom -- any one of which will send my little toddler into a flying fit of fury and tears because he wants mama to go "OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!"  Patience is not his strong suit...like I said, he's so my child. 

The other night when I got home it was cold and had just finished raining.  I definitely would have preferred to put on some sweats and play trains in the warm basement (or take a nap), but Mac insisted on going outside to play.  He's just like his dad in that sense...happiest when he's out and about and free to explore. 

Most days I leave my phone in the house and camera in the bag and just spend one-on-one time with my dude.  He's talking up a storm these days and I love to just give him my undivided attention and listen to what he has to say.  He makes the most amazing connections and is so observant.  We say hi to every birdie we see, pick up any trash, rearrange rocks, make piles of sticks, chase squirrels, pick flowers, wave to airplanes and talk to our shadows.

But this day, I decided to bring my camera along to catch Mac in action, doing...well, whatever it is that he does.  He's not really into the camera these days and basically refuses to look at me or smile at all when I'm holding it up, so I have a lot of photos of the back of his head and his profile.  Out of nearly 200 photos I took, I have exactly 2 where he's looking at me.  TWO.  And he's such a busy child that he doesn't stand still for very long, so I have to be quick. He moves from one activity to the next in a blink of an eye.  Although, his love for the lawnmower is still pretty strong.  He's now mowed through all four seasons, in sun, rain and snow. 

I was hoping to get a couple really cute puddle jumping photos so I'd have them for the April page of the calendar I make every year.  Unfortunately, the puddles by our house were pretty lackluster (I guess that means we have good drainage?), so there wasn't a lot of splashing.

But he still had a lot of fun stomping around and getting his boots wet.  I love these little yellow rain boots.  He loves them too, because he can put them on by himself, so he insists on wearing them often (around the house, to the store, for walks).  The only problem is that I bought them a size too big, so they tend to come off at random times while we're playing, only for me to discover him halfway down the street in wet socks and boots two blocks behind us.  But he's growing so fast I doubt we'll have this problem for very long.

Lately his absolute favorite thing to do is go outside and dig for worms.  Yep, worms.  Slimy, dirty, disgusting worms.  I wish I could blame his love of worms on my husband or my father, but it was actually me that taught him how to dig for worms and find them.

I bought him this little red shovel from Home Depot (which he calls the "heaby shobel"), despite the nasty comment and judgmental looks from the checkout lady, who had the nerve to tell me she'd never buy a 2 year old a shovel.  To which I replied that I bet he's really glad that I'm his mom and not her.  Ugh, people. 

Of course, worm digging is at it's absolute best when right after a rain when it's slightly muddy.  I know this from years of experience digging up worms with my dad to use to go fishing.  I guess it's the country girl in me, but I have no fear of the creepy and slimy and can bait my own hook like a pro.  Since he's two going on twenty, I figured it was high time Mac learned the ins and outs of worm handling.

Occasionally we'd get distracted by a car driving by or a plane flying overhead and he'd have to stop and wave.

And then we'd have to talk about what color the car was, who was diving it, where we thought the plane was going and incredibly important things like that.

Then we could get back to worm hunting.

Luckily it's pretty easy to find worms.  Even an almost-two year old can do it.  You don't have to dig very deep and they're not real fast about escaping.  After showing Mac how it was done and letting him touch one or two, the student became the master.  He's now a worm hunting machine.  (I will refrain from posting a bunch of photos of our worms...you're welcome.)

I think we've worm hunted every single day for the last two weeks and have found no less than 6,000 worms.  We're considering starting our very own neighborhood worm farm for some extra income.  Because college ain't paying for itself.