Days pregnant: 59 U.S., 45 Europe
We co-own a duplex with friends. It’s their job to tend to the front yard, and it’s my wife and my job to keep up the backyard. Moving from the Northwest a few years back, the concept of having to water a backyard is foreign to me. And, I’ve never owned a yard for which I had to be responsible.
Well, over the past year and a half since buying our duplex, I watched my backyard slowly deteriorate. Having to water 3 times a week turns out to be harder than I anticipated. As I joked to my wife when we first found out we were pregnant, “I can’t imagine having to take car eof ANYTHING once a day.” This doesn’t bode well for the future of our child. Diapers can be changed every-other-day, right?
Hell. I can’t even get myself to floss once a day. How am I supposed to take care of another life? My wife won’t even let me get a dog, because she knows me. I’ll play with it for the first 3 days, and then will forget to feed it. And, she’s right.
Where was I? Oh, yes. So, yeah. My backyard has slowly slipped over time. And I still attempt to water it (up to) 3 times a week. But despite my efforts, I just can’t seem to get things to bloom and grow. Well, this weekend I took a stand.
From here on out: I will become the master of my backyard. We went to home depot, and with the help of my mother-in-law, who has had a green thumb before Berlin was split in two, we bought some azaleas, a white rose bush, and … something else. I forget. Look. I’m not here to memorize plants. I’m here to make them grow.
I also bought myself some loppers and went to town on my neighbor’s tree branches that have been hanging over our backyard. Now it’s nice and bright and airy.
Then I took up the major task of digging out all of the ferns from my backyard. I despise ferns like I despise Populist Republicans. (Maybe even worse.) There were roots everywhere. I had to dig up a row of ferns about 12 feet long. That’s a LOT of ferns. And I dug ‘em all up. Whew.
That was the first time I ever voluntarily gardened. (Oh, by the way, men don’t “garden.” We “do yardwork.”) And the funny thing is, now that I’ve worked harder on the backyard than I ever have… suddenly I’ve become more protective of it, and find myself checking on it daily. It’s a strange phenomenon that when I inherit something, I don’t take the same care of it as when I built it myself (my backyard), or spend my hard-earned money on it (my bathroom). So, I guess there’s hope that I will take good care of the baby that I make.
Posted by Manchild 