Whose hose is it, anyway? A cure for backyard blues

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

After a stressful day of work, sometimes I want to go home and do something really meaningful and make great memories with my family. But instead, on Monday, I went outside by myself to water the lawn with a garden hose because that’s all the brain power I had left.

Fortunately, as I was unwinding the hose, my son Luke found me.

At 6 years old, Luke is looking for an adventure everywhere. And if he doesn’t find one, he brings one.

“Dad, do you know what a sousaphone is?”

“Not sure,” I said, screwing on the spray nozzle. “A phone used by Dr. Seuss?”

“Dad!” Luke said in his half laugh, half scold.

“OK,” I said, “what is a sousaphone?”

“Well,” he said, thrilled to share his knowledge, which he later told me he learned from his music teacher at school that day. “This guy, John Sousa, played a tuba. And he wanted to play it in the marching band, so he uncurled the tuba in a specific way, and he made a sousaphone instead.”

I looked at Luke for more explanation, but there was no moral to the story, just a fact that amazed him. And he was satisfied with amazement.

He pulled up a chair next to me, and we watched the water spray on the grass for a while. I had planted seed in a pesky thin patch several days earlier in the backyard, so this was actually a do-or-die moment for that seed.

In the spray, a rainbow appeared. Then a red cardinal landed in a tree branch.

“Can I try?” Luke asked, holding his hand out for the hose.

This circumstance began to remind me of Tom Sawyer, who tricked his friends into painting the white picket fence for him. I just didn’t know if I was Tom Sawyer, or Luke was.

I gave him the hose, and he immediately started playing with the settings on the nozzle sprayer: shower, full, center. The task at hand was no longer being completed.

“Stick with ‘mist,’ please,” I said. “We’re trying to get the ground wet so the seed will grow.”

Soon, his feet were getting sprayed, then his hands. Finally, I had to take the hose back, and he was gone, running away, happily dissolving into a new adventure back inside the house.

I was left outside, spraying the grass, or lack thereof. None of my problems at work had been resolved, of course, by this little episode.

But in unexplainable ways, I felt restored, once again, by the miracle of a child’s attention.

What mundane household chores do you do with your children or grand children? Email [email protected].