The happiness of Kyle

Kyle and I spent the day together. His two older brothers left this morning at 7am for a bicycle campout along the coast. I went back to bed after having overseen their departure and Kyle woke me up later around 9am, by sticking his head into our bedroom to see if I was already awake. Noticing that one of my eyes was peeking back at him, he immediately jumped into bed with me. My husband was already up and out the door, leaving a nice cozy snuggling spot wide open for Kyle.

There are a couple of things you should know about Kyle, if you haven't already surmised them. 1. He never stops talking. 2. He is full of questions. 3. He loves to do projects.

Nestled in bed together we decided to spend the day planting flowers. My heart does little summersaults when Kyle looks up at me and says "I love spending together time with you, mom." It was a glorious, sunshiny day and we planted big yellow and red flowers in the giant pots that sit on the patio; the pots, that we picked out at the "New Italian Ceramic Company" in Oakland, three weeks after moving back to California. Kyle and I worked cheerfully together and filled the garden and patio with bright splashes of color. When, we ran out of flowers to plant we decided to make another trip to the local garden store. On the way I fielded questions like, "how are mirrors made?", "how do they grow more green seedless grapes if there are no seeds in them to plant?", and "are there germs in space?"

At the plant store, Kyle skipped away to find the carp pond and then flitted off in search of the resident cat that naps amongst the geraniums. He cheerfully called out for me to not forget to buy a big box of snail bait so that our beautiful flowers would live through the night. We do have quite a few snails to contend with and we needed to mount an attack to keep them under control. On one occasion last summer, I put my foot into my rubber gardening clogs only to feel the unpleasant "squish" of a snail that had snuck into the toe of my shoe. Not the greatest of sensations and one I would prefer not to repeat.

Back home I was industriously hacking away at the clay on our back hill, intent on replanting the purple Verbina, which sadly, last year, had become snail fodder. Kyle became quiet impatient with me. He wanted, in the worst way, to join in the digging too. But, it was tough going, even for me, and I wanted to quickly get the brunt of the work over with. He proceeded to break into tears and cry and carry on, saying I was the worst mom ever, and that I should be more sensative to his feelings. By this time, I too was tired and impatient and tried to placate him, but, to no avail. The crying got louder and his fussing kept escalating, so much so, that I'm sure the entire neighborhood was getting a very loud earful. Finally, I sat back and racked my brains for a plan. Kyle just wanted to dig holes and plant flowers. He didn't care if it was difficult or if there was a certain design he needed to follow. All he wanted was to get in there and dig! So, I searched our meager supply of gardening implements, found another trowel and luckily, a couple of packets of flower seeds that had been sitting forgotten, at the very back of a catch-all kitchen drawer. I pointed out a patch of ground and told him to dig and plant to his hearts content. Meanwhile, I finished planting the Verbina; aching muscles attest to the fact that it was indeed hard labor. Kyle had found happines again and even apologized for having caused such a scene. "It's just that I wanted to help mom, and you weren't letting me." It doesn't take much to make Kyle happy, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that eventually those seeds Kyle planted somewhere in the garden, actually do sprout. Because, the happiness of Kyle, is a beautiful thing.