Spring is quickly turning into summer in these parts.  With it comes green lawns and dandelions.  Lots and lots of dandelions.

Our street is a quiet place (save for the guy across the street who brings all sorts of excitement, i.e. blaring hip hop, barking dogs, hysterical girlfriends, etc. etc. . . . ).  The street is also well tended and manicured.  Well, mostly, anyway.  We kind of  bring the whole atmosphere down with our laxidasical attitude to lawn care and maintenance.  It doesn’t make us popular. 

The dandelions – and our children’s zealous dispersal of their seeds – don’t help.

In order to bring some pride back to our lawn and to get in good with the neighbors, we called a lawn service out to spray and assess the situation.  They came last week and applied whatever it is they apply and left a sign stuck in the yard to prove they had been here.

The kids were immediately curious about the mysterious marker and what it meant.  Jac explained about the spray and told them it was poison and to stay off the grass (per the company’s orders). What he didn’t explain was that it was okay after 4 hours and that they could once again frolic on the lawn after lunch.

I don’t think it would have mattered even if he had included that info.  Max took the poison idea very seriously.

That evening, we readied to walk to the drug store.  Philip had gone ouside and Max stood inside at the screen door.  This is what I heard:

“PHILIP!  Get off the grass!!”  Max anxiously yelled to his brother.  “No!  Don’t do that, Philip!  It’s poison!  Great.  Now no one can lick your hair.”

Lick your hair??  The kid was dead serious.  I burst into laughter.

A few minutes later, still at the screen door and mostly to himself he said, “Lick his hair?  I don’t know why I said that.  Who would lick his hair?  Maybe Zeus [that’s the barking dog across the street] would lick his hair and then he’d get poisoned and would go away.”

Maybe.  Then all would be quiet on the street once again. 

You’ll be happy to know that no one licked Philip’s hair and the dandelions are slowly dying.  All is well.