Ashes & the "usual"

Today I had a non-follow through sort of parenting day.  :)  Ever have one of those?  (This is the first one I've had!  Ha Ha) I decided that a quiet, entertained boy was of bigger value to me than a clean one (or one that actually stopped doing something when I told him no).  I needed to get out of the house, so I decided to take Aaron on a trip to Grum and Pa's (nicknames for grandma and grandpa--that's what happens when you let a 2 year old name you--Karma--oh and even better, Aaron pronounces it "Grump" ha ha ha ha.  Sorry mom...sort of).

After we were there for about, oh, 5 minutes,  Aaron gave me my keys and said "car", to which I said no.  It was nice outside, and we were going to stay there.  He decided to wander the yard.  Grum and Pa have a fence that is hot wired, and Aaron has been shocked by it before.  (That's what you get if you try to escape their yard!!!)  He walked up to it today, and carefully put his hand out to see if the fence was on.  The fence is a wooden fence, but has hot wire around the bottom to keep the dogs from digging out.  He hasn't made the connection that it's not the wood that's the problem!!!  (Which is just fine with me).  It was pretty funny to watch him touching the fence ever so lightly to see if it would shock him.  Yeah I know, that's sick, but still--it was funny.  Then he put his foot on the hot wire, just to see.  It was on, but didn't do anything to his shoe.  I kept waiting for a show, but apparently he learned the first time!  So he walked back over and decided to sit all 105 pounds of himself on top of me, and then sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat".  Pretty cute.  After he was done abusing my lap he decided to go sit on Grum and smack the loose skin on her arms.  :)  Isn't that sweet?  (He will usually hit my butt if I'm laying down so he can watch the fat spring back, so I was glad he was doing it to someone else!)  How's that for a visual?

Anyhow, back to my lack of following through.  Grum and Pa have a fire pit.  Aaron wanted to play in the fire pit (it did NOT have a fire in it, nor did it have smoldering embers, so chill out--I would have followed through on that one).  Like a good parent, rather than getting up and redirecting him, I just yelled across the yard for him to get out of there.  It totally worked--for a minute, until I wasn't looking....  By the time I saw him, he was all sooty, so rather than following through and cleaning him up, I just shrugged my shoulders and waved my white surrender flag.  Oh well.  What's another mess--like I said, he was entertained.  I figured I may as well get some pictures of his fun, while he was grabbing handfuls of ashes and letting them go into the wind.  :)  He came back up and said "bath time", so we washed his hands (I didn't want to give him a full on bath when I knew he would go right back out there), and he went back out and played in the ashes again. Eventually it was time to go, so we grabbed a cookie on the way out (that he had to smell first before he took a bite to make sure it wasn't poison or something)...and headed home.

Dirty, ash mess, rubbing himself against a bush!

There is no fire in there--but it was cool to blow on it and see the ashes go everywhere.

And of course he had to see how it tasted

Then you put your left foot in...

Later in the evening he decided to play in the shaving cream again (without permission), but this time only put it in his ears???  I don't know.  I was grocery shopping, and he was in the care of the "other" members of the family....so I don't know which one was responsible for it, but my good daughter cleaned him up (so it was probably her)!