The Outdoorsman

As parents, you have to set boundaries, and as Jack gets older, that boundary line has been moving fairly regularly. First it was the main floor of the house; we'd use a baby gate to block off the back steps down to the back door and the back yard. Then it was the back door itself; his favorite game was to climb up and down the back steps, over and over again. Now he's finally broken through to the yard itself, and I guess it's only a matter of time before I'm tossing him the keys and his boundary is the local mall or soda counter or wherever it is those young whipper-snappers will be hanging out 15 or so years from now.

Now that he's discovered the yard, well, Jack suddenly has very little interest in the house. Because after all, all we have in the house are toys and books and stuff, while outside - Ah! - there's lots of dirt, and rocks, and grass, and squirrels, and dog bones, and half-eaten tennis balls, and a myriad of fun things for him to play with and us to race over to separate him from. Look, it's Charlie's squeaky little soccer ball...don't put your mouth on that thing! Gah!

Naturally we want to respect our son's healthy interest in the great outdoors, so we invested in one of these combination slide-swing things for him to play on. Unfortunately, the swing doesn't quite have the range or height potential of the swings at the park, so he grew bored with that fairly quickly. He likes pushing it, which he's big enough to do (unlike at the park), so that's something.

The slide is pretty enjoyable, although it's not like he climbs up the ladder, slides down, and races around to do it again. It's more a case of me bringing him to the ladder, which he climbs up, then slides down, happily...and then crawls off in the direction of one of Charlie's bones, or tennis balls, or maybe a spot I only recently picked up Charlie's poop from. Excellent!

So the swing and slide are basically a colorful lawn ornament which he gets about 5 minutes a day worth of entertainment from, and they briefly distract him from his main purpose of mapping out the entire back yard, which he does by crawling along its boundaries, at least as much as we allow. He has a look of determination on his face while doing this, as if his sharp little mind is working away: okay....now I'm outside the walls. The next thing to do is go over the fence. I'm going to need some help with this one....If only I can get that dog to stand near the gate, I can probably get up on his back and work the latch....yes....yes, that's it exactly.

The downside to Jack always wanting to be in the yard, besides the things in the yard we'd rather he didn't touch or put in his mouth, is the simple fact that he always wants to be in the yard. Early morning, late evening, before and after meals, before and after every car trip - which, naturally, requires a walk through the back yard.

And so now we're learning one of our biggest challenges yet - saying No and trying to explain it to a little person who we can't be sure understands. "Jack, it's bedtime, you're in your pajamas, so no, you can't go crawling through the back flower bed." "Jack, it's dinnertime, so even though we have to pass through the back yard, and your dog is out here jumping around as if he just won the dog lottery, you can't play out here right now." Naturally, there is much dismay and frustration all around, mostly from him.

Tonight, it seemed like maybe Emily got through to him. She was putting him to bed, while I was readying our Mexican Jumping Dog for his evening walk, and Jack wanted to go outside with us. When taken away from the door, there was a minor meltdown, the kind he tends to have when he, you know, can't go outside.

Emily explained that no, it was late, and he could go outside tomorrow, which - since we're all home all day on Tuesday - he certainly would get to do plenty of. And it's not clear how much he understood, but the meltdown ended, and he played for a bit with one of his indoor toys. And everything seemed okay.

A few minutes later, with Charlie strapped into his leash and harness (to keep him from dislocating our shoulders when he sees geese or other dogs, although we're getting closer to keeping him calm, I promise you), we headed out into the evening. We looked up at the big picture window in front where Emily stood, holding Jack, watching us go. Jack was waving bye-bye, and smiling.

And it was probably my imagination, but I think he had a little look in his eyes that said Ha Ha Ha - just wait, Daddy....