My backyard belongs on the cover of a magazine and not Unkempt Homes and Gardens. That was last year. This year it belongs on a fancy gardening magazine. Kempt Homes and Gardens, maybe. It’s a beautiful backyard.
My wife's interior decorating disease is thankfully not limited by the word interior and we spent all summer last year beautifying the backyard. Our summer was like one of those inner city projects where the community bands together to reclaim a disgusting vacant lot, except that lot is behind your house.
Now our backyard is nice and livable. It's landscaped and exterior-ly decorated. There are hostas, cedars, perennials, clematii clematisisss and other flowers. It’s a beautiful backyard. Except here’s the thing, it’s not really a toddler-friendly backyard. It’s more Martha Stewart than Romper Room.
There’s no grass. No jungle gym. No sandbox. No tire swing.
We never thought about a toddler trampling our flowers when we landscaped. She wasn’t part of the backyard plan. But now it’s her backyard. The perennials are her playground. The trellis is her tire swing. The garden is her sandbox.
She loves being in the backyard. Even if she pronounces the word like she’s half-pirate. “Back-yarrrr!”
When we’re inside she stands at the backdoor and exclaims “backyard” or “outside” until we go outside. We hear her backyard battlecry daily. She wants to go outside in the morning, after daycare, before bed, when it’s raining, during naps, all weekend.
The backyard is a contained little area for her to explore. She does her little prison walk around its proximity. This could also be her testing the chain link fence for weaknesses like the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, as she plans an escape with our pug dog.
Due to our daughter’s relentless requests, we’re always out in the backyard these days. It’s so nice to sit out there as a family. My wife gardens/enjoys a cocktail, I barbecue, and my daughter throws rocks onto the neighbour’s lawn.
The backyard provides so many ways for our toddler to use up her never-ending toddler energy. She walks over our plants. She digs for worms with tiny plastic shovels. She picks flowers. She ignores all the dog poop. She doesn’t eat the dirt like she did last year. She helps water the plants with a tiny toddler watering can.
It’s an idyllic pastoral scene behind our house, birds chirping, toddler playing, parents relaxing. Until we have to go inside. Then the tantrums start. Explaining that we can visit our beautiful backyard again tomorrow never works — my wife always gets upset when we have to go inside.
Sometimes my daughter gets upset too.
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