Mud Fight

Since our Daughter, Husband, Son and Golden Doodle moved into their own home a couple of months ago, things have been pretty quiet around here as we became empty nesters again. We couldn't stand success so we agreed to watch grandson Sam in the morning before school. There was no where for Randy the Golden Doodle to go so we watch him during the day [Doggy Day Care]. Since we were watching Sam and Randy we might as well watch Tim before school [Dad is a friend of ours from church]. Tim goes to school at 7:20 because he has breakfast at school every day. Sam goes at 7:45 because he has breakfast at our house and the two schools are in different parts of town. We both work for the cemetery, the office door and maintenance shop are about 50 feet from our back door so it is fairly easy to handle. They both get picked up at 3:00 which isn't bad except you have to go 30 minutes early or you can't get a parking spot. The boys are at our house until 4:00 to 5:00 when our daughter gets done teaching at her school and comes and picks up both boys and the dog. It is like heaven when everyone leaves every night. Are we not wonderful people?

We have huge snowdrifts in our parking lot from snow removal operations so both boys come home, shed their coats and with no gloves or hats go attack the snowdrifts. Usually coming in wet and cold around 4 for hot chocolate. Wednesday night they came in covered with mud instead of snow. Seems as if things are warming up a bit and they made some mud. Had them strip and put their clothes in bags. On the far side of our yard was where the boys were playing trying to keep out of the way. Thursday I ventured over to that area to check on something in a building and what do you know. The boys had managed to cover one of our pickups completely with mud on one side and had flung mud all over the side of the building. On the way to school with Sam I informed him that he could look forward to cleaning up the mud I had just discovered. He blamed it all on Tim but he said I couldn't make him clean it up because it was Art???? On the way back from school I told Tim about discovering the mud and he blamed it all on Sam. When I had both of them in the pickup they each ratted the other one out and said things like "Ya, well you covered the pickup with mud Tim"! Ya but you threw mud at the building with the shovel Sam" "Ya but you started it" yadda, yadda, yadda. I was very fair about it and told them they would each clean 1/2 of the mud off. Tim dutifully cleaned up his half and my grandson gave me an attitude which ended up with him still cleaning his 1/2 and then venting his anger on a snowdrift while his buddy went in and watched TV. When Sam's mom came and removed them I was very happy. The only unhappy thing was she forgot the dog, who had been outside all day, so I had to load him up in my pickup, mud and all and take him to her house lest she call up and say "I am really busy tonight, could you keep the dog for the night?" "NO!!!!" "we're empty nesters!!!"