Pig Pen and the Flying Leap

Felix Baumgartner leapt from space today. Destroy was impressed. Grandpa texted, “We’d love to have you and the boys come over to pick pumpkins.” These events are related.

Aww…we’d love to! I was impressed that they’d successfully cultivated pumpkins in their backyard. I had visions of my little muppets hugging tiny pumpkins in a sweet family Kodak moment. Then I remembered I have little boys. And for one to have a garden, there must be a plethora of dirt.

We headed over after naptime – so there was plenty of expendable energy. Yay? Search and Destroy took off at a toddling sprint to…well – search and destroy all the things.

They discovered a Little Tykes playhouse and decided to join the family of spiders currently in residence. This led to the application of a rake through the window of said playhouse.

“I SWEEP!” announced Search as he began raking dirt around.

As dirt was thrown, playhouse windows and doors were opened and closed, I looked around for Search’s brother. He was nowhere to be seen but I could hear a scraping sound coming from a distance. Destroy was marching down the path dragging a large muppet-sized shovel behind him. He toddled over to a mound of dirt and began moving it into a half buried planter.

In an attempt to contain the layers of grime, I attempted to distract the tiny peeps with pumpkins. They were not to be deterred. However, this did bring an old-school wooden play structure into the forefront of the toddling 2-year-old consciousness.

Search abandoned his precious rake (which was suspiciously now in two pieces). Destroy was halfway up the ladder. Shortly thereafter a mushroom cloud of dust encompassed the aforementioned play structure. Two muppets came shooting off the yellow plastic slide.

“AGAIN!” they screeched.

Search stuck to the trusty (albeit rickety) standard wooden ladder behind the (apparently bacon-greased) slide. Destroy climbed the regular ladder, the rope ladder, the rock wall ladder, and then attempted to scale the slide itself. After a while, the slide seemed to lose its luster. So Destroy began hurling himself down headfirst.

I could see the swirls of dirt spiraling around my little Peanuts character.

Suddenly I heard a gasp. Search had climbed up on the table-like setup beneath the slide (at some point in the structure’s history this had likely once been a cute little picnic table) and tumbled off the opposite side. He lay face down in the dirt for a moment, debating whether to burst into tears.

“Bonk!” he yelled, opting to continue playing – but definitely avoiding that table for a while.

Destroy observed this little interlude from above, on one of his ladders. Noting that his brother had shed no tears, Destroy decided he wanted in on the fun. He shot down the slide, darted around and scrambled up onto the table.

“Lookatmee!” he shouted, as he bent over into summersault position and flipped (head-first) off the table.

Grandpa once again gasped and ran toward his little darlings. I, being intimately familiar with the fearlessness of my daredevil offspring, simply waited for the latest dust cloud to settle – listening to the hysterically pleased laughter emanating from within.

“SWING!” decided the muppets. The two climbed aboard a see-saw swing and began to rock higher and higher. There were giggles and shrieks of joy.

And then a muppet was AIRBORNE.

Destroy flew off the slide and face-planted in the dirt – his arm awkwardly twisted beneath him. I rushed over to scoop him up. There were a few yells; I think he startled himself. Our initial natural reaction was concern that the little boy had just fallen off the swing.

But this being Destroy – I am not convinced this was not an intentional space leap.

The crying boy was rushed inside, where a warm compress was immediately proffered to wipe away the blood and dirt. His arm was totally fine. I know this because of the strength with which he attempted to push away me and the washcloth as he expressed his displeasure at being removed from his dirt nirvana.

Grandpa and Search arrived inside shortly thereafter. “Oh my goodness, is he okay?” Grandpa inquired worriedly.

Destroy took a moment to fully digest the situation. He eyed his grandfather and clearly noted the overwhelming concern in the air around us all.

“Coookie?” asked Destroy slyly.

We left with an orange-frosted cookie and the biggest pumpkins from the yard.

Well played, son. Well played.

6 Comments

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6 Responses to Pig Pen and the Flying Leap

  1. Poor little sweetie. My kids constantly have cuts and bruises. Your little guy looks like it really is a good one!! Ouch! Glad he is fine. Love your stories.

  2. OMG I love your stories. What a little angel. Or devil. Whatever, he’s cute. =)

  3. Joanne Hamann

    Hey – you gotta do what you gotta do for the orange frosted cookie.

  4. Oh my, I so need a glass of wine after that one. Make that two! (You seriously need to start writing a children’s picture book series! Major awesome sauce!)

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