Shoveling the Yard

The weather has been beautiful this week! Despite the fact that no one goes anywhere here, it seems difficult to get outside because there is so, so much work to be done inside. The bigger kidlets have been glued to their screens feverishly working on school the past few weeks. The Banana is additionally working on her History Day project, which also has to be completed virtually this year. My study buddy and I had a long list of school projects to complete this week in between my regular lessons. On Wednesday, I looked out at the bright sunshine and said, “Enough! You are having a mandatory 45 minute recess outside!”

He was out the door pretty quickly. A few minutes later I heard a thumping on the side of the house. He was standing in the driveway throwing a tennis ball above the sliding glass door to the mudroom. The ball ricocheted off the brick wall and then he would zip around trying to catch it in his baseball mitt. Thankfully it was not a baseball that was bouncing off the house, but even a tennis ball, when thrown at the speed his little pitching arm can muster up, could potentially do quite a bit of damage if he miscalculated and hit the glass door instead of the brick. The door is a special, custom built door to fit the former garage door frame, so I really wanted to avert a catastrophe. I adamantly told him to stop.

He gave me a sour face and told me I was overreacting, but I was firm. No balls bouncing off the house.

Then I continued to finish up a couple of household tasks. There was no bumping on the exterior of the house. All was well. Soon I looked out of the window and saw him out in the front yard with a shovel, making a large pile of snow. Oh wonderful, I thought. He’s building a snow fort or a snow sculpture. What a perfect thing for a ten-year-old to do on a day like today! I grabbed the camera to document the process. By the time I got outside, he was shoveling a path on the other side of the front yard.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m just shoveling a path for my pitchers mound. Over there I’m building a snow wall for a target, and here I’m going to build the mound to connect to the wall. Then I can stand in the mound and pitch at the snow wall, since you won’t let me throw balls at the house.”

Silly me. Of course he wouldn’t be building a snow fort.