The Joys of Springtime

My husband and son walked out the door without me to go to the bus stop this morning. I was pouring a cup of coffee. As I caught up with my husband, he started saying, "OH! Look out!" and "You squished another one!" I looked down to see the sidewalk riddled with earthworms desperately dragging themselves across the dry concrete in search of a patch of moisture or dirt.

My husband called the Boy over, who was standing a few feet away with some older boys. The Boy, in turn, yelled to his friends, "HEY LOOK! WORMS!" I had expected all the other boys to kind of shrug and continue their conversation- they're all usually too old and too cool to pay the Boy much attention. To my surprise they all yelled, "WORMS??", ran over to where he was, and started picking/squishing up worms. Each one of them had a fistful when the bus came around the corner. As they walked to the bus, each boy dropped his worms, except for one. He unzipped the outer pocket of his backpack and surreptitiously slid the worms in, zipped it up- all the while making sure his mother wasn't watching from her car- and headed to the bus.

*SHUDDER*

And giggle. His mom is pretty strict with him, at least at the bus stop. It's kind of refreshing to see him do something boys do, without being told to stop, stay clean and get off the grass. My husband and I were laughing about it, and as we passed another parent sitting in her car at the curb, she put her window down and, also laughing, asked if we'd seen the little boy put the worms in his backpack. We sure did. And I'm fairly certain his mother would've had a conniption RIGHT THERE if she'd seen it.

Ah, the joys of springtime.